1. STARS ALMOST DROWN

Stars Almost Drown

Trailing triangles,
The lion crawls
Lonely, her throne empty,
Yellow, abandoned,
The bruised widow moon,
Arm covering her face.
Below, the horizon glow,
A sunrise unfulfilled.

Nodding, we race
In long arcs homeward,
Lost in this familiar famine,
Stone cistern of a sky.

Fly over the unseen stream
Under the spinning bear;
Overtaking, being overtaken,
So easily we avoid claws and doubts.

Home, home,
Hammered horizon-thin,
Where stars drown unheard,
And widows croak on deathbeds fearing lions.


2. ONCE SUMMER

Polishing where your voice cracks in me
Death and laughter in your terracotta room
The wrinkle approaching
Your stomach bleached
In accordance with your scarcity


3. RELEASE

If I had a story,
A vow or a prayer,
A brilliant conclusion, a tonic,
Removed the world from our shoulders,
We could walk on then regardless of others,
Like the Seine snaking through Paris arrondisements.
Remove the world from our shoulders.


4. THEN AND AGAIN

We met in the southern harbor,
Your cerulean gaze absorbing my creosote heart,
Your fingers like spine bones on a clothesline.

Come give me my soul again:
See, where it flies!

Children play in front of a fountain...
Stories I told you of bees disappearing.
I am equally afraid.
My gutter heart fell then and again.

Come give me my soul again:
See, where it flies!


5. WITHER


When you lose your gaze in nimbus musing,
When tears spill and rain blur
Into one smeared stain,
When highway sighs,
The chime in ears pressed to ground,
The sound between them,
Merge into static white:
Wait for lightening sky;
Watch cirrus claw the sun to noon;
Touch tongue to wound, fingers to flame;
Name your fears: They wither.


6. ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY

Augur intently under air molasses-thick.
Divine runes traced along your scarred hands,
Emblems of yesterdays.
Cast glances, bones, spheres,
Or other likely stories.
Little sums co-operate in a final cause
Did you guess?
Necromancy or some gut feeling?


7. EPIPHANY

To neither God nor Nature
Nor mediocrity
Do I owe a death
Nor pleasurable difficulty
No spirit, no psyche
No machine, no gene
Nor exhilarating moments
Nor the coldest utopia

Beware, be wary
I just imagine I'm asleep
No reason to speak
Become flesh quietly
Motionless
Time to forget


8. THE PROVENANCE OF CLOUDS

A sometimes wisdom
A lonely vision
A love of life
A lone revision

This disguise is for the season
I need only a reason
The edge of a precipice
A simple matter, reckless
Willing more than needing
Drinking more than bleeding
A compact letter
Unfold it if you will

The word stuck in time
The whole a crime
A token of victory
Orthodox insincerity
We throw a rain of pearls
Hard tried by destiny
This particle of faith
Don't look too closely