Sigh. Yeah.


So...originally I had planned on writing about Su and Dan's momentous Saturday wedding affair, but I am far too emotionally spent for that today, and I'll have to save that for a day comprised of far more psychic fortitude or something.

But I'll type up some poems to share:

for jed, turning 31

on the wind you snatch whispers
of what may have passed you by;
collected: pockets and fistfuls of crisp leaves -
of proof you could have blown away.


days you stand, in doubt of
the fact that you are standing;
you stand as rocks stand -


step by step you leave yourself,
waiting for something which is not rain.

a drop from the beautiful shoulder
of an indifferent evening.

certain only
that today nothing will be decided.


the gaze is everything in this blind room.


past what you hear in a shell, the roar,
there is almost no sound...only the redundant stir.

the beach is still; the sea
cleansed of its superfluous life.


there are some things you
cannot do with hands.

what light burned the stoic in your skin?

always the mountains are moved in your soul:
you: the calm, the glassy surface;
unseen movements in the deep.


the darkness lifts, imagine, in your lifetime.

eternity in every room, encircled by a name.




for you

teach me the song
that chokes my throat.

i try to become you
because you are going to die
and all my life here
would cease to be mine.

night's ring placed
solemnly on my finger.

we have, like everyone
the miracle of every day
dripping from the roofs.

things glisten over the treetops.
there you are: where the sun
fits like a halo
complimenting your image.

i think the future is another thing:
a verb tense in motion,
a searching movement toward light.

i'm on this line.
in this deep trajectory of agony and battle.

with my hands
i open, close, leave,
obeying the heart that orders.

when you have nothing,
give me a corner of your mouth.

i can see joy overtaking the fear
in my eyes which
amazement opened in one
great, bright leap: this cry, laughter

that i love and ponder.

we caught a glimpse of the dreams
that vanish with every dawn,
the gold-crowned dreams that set
their glittering gifts
beside the newborn child.

a weight of thoughtstones.

the uneven balance
of dreamountains. we still
live in another world,
perhaps the interval.

calm blooms spectacular into the night air
through disjointed stones and the
riddled heart

at the instant you appear

like a sea of blood from a splinter.



the tiger

I.

oh help me
untangle.

if i turn it low enough
i could be left distracted.
and not quite waiting
forever.

the weight of thought
holds my hands
away from the dial.

i want the white-noise
tortured between stations
and not your constant replay.

i can't keep singing everybody's song.

it's breaking everybody's heart.

or just mine - as big
as everybody.

as big as the silences
where you don't think of her.

II.

your face in windows
outside forever.

nobody dreamed you'd save the world.

just me.
and i feel you clawing
out of my wounded place

and i am not ready
for this careful apathy
to shatter.

the march is over.

the great destroyer - she
passes through you like a knife.

oh, take me with you.
sometimes your voice is not

enough.

III.

soften your lips
to the rise of your stomach.

her long, filthy fingers
keep jamming words down my throat.

nothing to steal, we've got
nothing to love, because

oh, we're so innocent
on the edge of...

the ocean repeating -
receding into the sun

at last bleeding into
the edges.




to live is to illuminate

let go of August's lowest murmur.
it is in the dark foliage of sleep.

at the window i might catch
the still dying of the light.

a life of burning hands is never easy -
the taste of blood
does not lead to a crown of flame.

it is the composition of my suffering
that tidal breezes always bring
over black sheets of water.

to live is to illuminate
the blindness of the wall.

the soul's work is unlearning,
quenched, or crumbling to dark.

a little boy climbs the stairs
as autumn hangs by a thread.

i'm not bitter, i tell him - never
in my shadow did
luminous things die,
so young and obscured.