Braids

Along the river bank,
gardens,
uncontrollable green vegetation,
beside concrete graveyards,
broken military installations abandoned,
overtaken with weedy tresses,
mangy junkyard dogs nip at bike wheels,
tongues slack from mouth,
show broken teeth--
if you gun it
they'll chase
so we roll to a stop
already they turn their heads
faced around the curve
for next scooter
--road skirts the water, closer,
no camera on red lights,
no stop signs,
five minutes from city center
the long hot country awaits,
brown dirt hills,
speckled with grass,
hazed by smog,
leaning bamboo,
scattered stone.

Song Book

I
shrouded stranger,
were you cold and hunched over in the night?

do you drink your coffee, moonlit,
from tin canned heat?

too many questions.

I know.

II
see,
this story without answers?

my dreams and
lined up with reality,

like a filter
sediment sifted down,

levels formed.

paintings in the desert.

sunlit.

III
same structure
like snaking codes
haunts me,

to the eye,
it lies,

I search for its heart.

there's no reason
why.

IV
old
clean
bones
man

skeleton
man

buried
like
me

Lanterns

the last grey sky
hid within it
Chinese lanterns
burning in the rain
cast up from
villages hidden
among green wet mountains,

barely visible between
phone line power line
thick clouds steaming heat
power line phone line
flickering figures
with what words to say,
I could not know,

gone among now
the mining towns, golden waterfalls
sheets of sky, gone wishes
molten air, thousand miles
receding--

an empty mirror;
the afternoon.

Home

winter
my broken knee

it's too cold to read outside
and
my cat glances up at me

we both sweat in the apartment's heat

sigh gladly
when I open the window

ignore the rain drops
splash on the sill

William Tell

my shaved legs,
goosebumped from the cold,
become lost to me each day,
like my atrophied body,
hunched with worry for my world,
ages beyond my desire;

won't they leave my sagging form
alone?
Won't they?

gaunt and ghastly
misshapen,
I've eaten my own flesh,

can't they see I wish to die
peacefully?

what more is there left to be done?

a failed attempt to remain removed,

but,

I've no bones.

Babe in the night

the straight blue line in the night, I remember,
the fall, stiff metal, sagging skin, weakened bones,
a voice in the cold shadows come through the chill,
a body a heap of faded memory, a fogged addled mind,
the first glimpse into dying, the lamb leaps to escape.

Gnostic Reading

You are reading this with totemic vision.
       
your eyes are like headlight winking stars
          in the void night over I-70 Kansas plains.

your finger on the mount
          are like god's timeless hand tirelessly being all time,
          being anything, being same, meant as everything or;

your smirk is of my creation
          out of nothing, becoming nothing, going back
          into nothing, after all being of nothing at the start

you are reading this as a last dying light, going out.

Pendulum

          the hands in the church are hanging,
swung down the bell tower fast,
clanging like ancient horrors
in the swift moving current,
the white holy cloaks carried along,
swaying,

          hail, now the last possible moment
terror comes before the feast, there the
tormented souls have come to lie, where
nothing grows but the vibration echo,
the holy voices yell,

          wavering, the scent of incense burns
my eyes, your eyes, all.

Foyer

in there there was this
old grainy 1960 home movie footage,
little girls in white dresses
faces gently muddled into obscurity
twisting on white soled ankles
in what might have been the afternoon sun,
looking up at them and around,
not sure why we were there--
I was two years maybe three years old
when the lines at the margins began to run.

Security Footage

in my stomach
what now has been my world
two weeks now removed;

I am in an effort,
I am to decode myself,

I will rid myself of all shame.

today I left the house without my hat
I was sweating

did you know I am going bald?

where were all the eyes watching?

there were none that noticed any difference
I was passed back and forth
my cat doesn't know what to think of me.

I have become an imposition on myself

many times I have thought these things
these unreal unreality things

is it possible I am an invention?

if so,
how long until I die?

if so,
is this my answer to life. no,
this is my response.

where have the things I have thought gone?

they have gone
where I have no things
and things is a word I use to mean
nothing and nothing is
just a thing a word in a line
I have placed where others
are left and others will follow.

my right leg hasn't touched a floor in 2 weeks

sound is like this shower

make believe rain

I haven't had in days

when I imagine gray skies

in the afternoon

alternating to blue skies

when I wake

and drop these pills,

the ice therapy lasts 20 minutes,

I can't count past 10 without drifting

and it feels like some

other clear daydream day

before I wake, maybe it's

the length of a television 

program broken 

by commercial advertisements,

these are the most important questions at this time;

and with that it isn't clear if I'm

some sorry cripple scribbling 

on the back of his hand
counting off
one
two

Maintenance

I have covered this ground with tired legs

not much has changed, nor has it remained the same

there were strings I mended, re-tied along the way

many were frail and so left ignored to atrophy

there were barriers constructed

mercurial bridges, flat tires, orange arrows

and the road,

two white lines, one yellow

only ran one way

Oxy

frame by frame

your life escapes me

little white pill

many mashed words in a
mixer like mom's 1950
powder blue or green
whatever my mind
sticks to whatever
memory pops out

whatever color smells right

like flour
wisps in sunlit circles
and by the time I write this
I am 30 years old
confined to my bed

in pain

high

higher still

too weak to resist the next four hours

Lauryl

*Originally appeared in the Light Ekphrastic*

"Death is acommin in

                                    and mocks my loss of Liberty"

63. The Tree

Cast a shadow over villages

made into the face of the moon,

a tree impervious to seasons, to death,

a pile of limbs, no dent,

in its cradle of branches,

a man, sap marks his blade,

blood, sweat, aching steel,

folded and sharpened by fire,

absurd Wu Gang chopping,

chopping still;

immortality,

an impossible task.

39. Daphne

my fingernails

                        now leaves before the night

for winter

shall

never

wilt

tho earth may dry and crack

my roots

stick

firm

sink deep

                        shall never die

52. Lust/Chastity

a chase

a tragedy

the word once spoken is law

an oath

an apology

46. Genes

Bay Laurel:

of the order Laurales

of the family Lauraceae

of the Genes Laurus

of the species L. nobilis

5. Chastity/Lust

an anachronism

an image

works written for the page

a relic

a wreath

18. Apollo

By her limbs

                        I have wronged

yet I will not learn

but yearn

through an arrow

and in so doing

mourn

tho the earth may pass before my age

I shall

not want

                        shall not be sated

36. The Moon

Madcap, the 64 signs

hear tell of the rabbit,

lives on the moon,

there, he pounds the medicine

of the earth,

in the lunar light,

for the coming age,

the luster, holy water

reflected in

Buddha’s pail;

a body never burns.

Prep

metal hooks on set tracks
cross hatched beige dividers

wipe your body clean
and air dry

these socks prevent blood clots

they're white
and the room is cold

it's time to go

my ass is out and the gown in gray

purple marker masks my knee

the IV is in
blood has dripped

it'll be an hour that becomes six months

once I sit down
I am no longer mine
I am the white walls
the anesthetic
the knife

induced sleep