Heavy

 the last episode of a particular chapter 

                               translated

I buried it

in the remains of the backyard

under the violet sky

as the moon looked down

disparagingly 

                       I tried not to picture its eyes

glowing against my back

I tore my hands at the digging

I cut the ground with my tears

I placed a stone upon its head

as the moon fell behind the collapsed roof

as the rising clouds peered up

I took out my hands

I drew a corpse 

into their rusted breath

uncertainly

 I wonder when times moves across the trees

dragging the clouds I wonder what will become 

of the hours it takes to erase the grass I wonder

what will be built upon those memories we have

almost forgotten I wonder how the glass will break

down and becoming sand I wonder what will the plants

be like that take my place

time to write a poem about covid and false memories of the past

 you could swim at the far end of the tent.     at 4am the temperature was steadily

falling toward the floor.    it would be hours until the sun rose about the spires 

that stood in for the trees of our past.     there were no sounds that could be made

into car engines.     you said it yourself      we are truly alone.

 

     there was nothing beyond the lake but the wreck of the next several years.

they reminded me of the isolation I had grown to know in the past.     where we

were going would we would need to swim.    downriver. we only had left one 

change of clothes.

 

the seasons worked in reverse until they were children again.     when the world 

would be faded at the edges with the liminal fragrances of the cathode tubes.

something haunting and safe.    to scare their shadows into abeyance again.

 

     to find what was lost they plunged their faces in.     they bit and tore at the veins

 

we drank until there was nothing

 

you wept for any thing else left.

on purpose

I am upstairs

looking like the leaves

falling from those trees

I can see outside the window

the motion of branches 

blowing in the wind

draws my attention

to puddles of red and yellow

in the street

 

a ups driver navigates 

a gray circle of concrete

the dead end turn

the bleak future straight ahead

he doesn't touch a single leaf

everywhere

Hidden away in the bathroom

the tiles are left wordless

Cold and lifeless too

Evey poem is a failed self-portrait

I am here too

making it up as I go along

Kept from the stars by windowpane

Kept from reality by the door

mime

It is in france

the mimes have all gone post modern

You pass them on street corners 

defaced by alleyways

unable to grasp their age

without makeup the face has melted off 

they stand there without lifting their cane

they don't give a shit about your change

House

 the shadow that the floorboard casts

across my feet.

yesterday's coffee stirs

in the breeze sneaking under

cracks in window

leave broken faces staring into the sun

cold

my hands have no age

i dont recognize them

no wrinkle forms a memory

no scars are a thought

my dreams have transpired

they have become more reality than not

a neighbors lawnmower purrs

the grass is already asleep.

A Collection of Dream V

 blocking the exits

a man dismantles a typewriter     door frame

I walked down using the back

of chairs

                 it was to escape an theatre with 

no screen     I should have asked him to move

but I didn't want to bother     ruin his

concentration

my hat is on my hip when I mean to make

sure I didn't leave it in my seat

the film flips at its end black white then black and white

two huge metal doors creak and

the theatre exits and an escalator like metro

removes     takes me outside into a city 

unlike but it feels like generally

DC

A Collection of Dream IV

 leaving.     i'm here for some reason 

stopped being a student

but i'm in hs again. in the building.

someone i know is hanging by the visitors entrance

the other side of the ropes

i lie and tell them my wife is working late

but that's        a lie. i don't have a clue where they are.

around the corner. i am entering my old neighborhood

childhood. in a field there's a holed out barn     burnt up

the building held some importance long ago

to memory or youth possibly.     i cannot hold back.

crying. 

beyond the barn the structure shifting to this kind

of soft smooth neoclassical structure  a kind of 

bottle   behind it rising above the sky 

there's a larger horrible copy 

engulfing the earth my eyes     my mind

A Collection of Dream III

I am at a thrift store.  My brother slipping 

something in pocket.

we're outside looking in cars. I am not aware.

We may have been seen.

Inside the car my father looks out. His eyes are bulgy under lids.    they are gone.

He says they are getting better.    better.

but his eye lids are stuck together. He forces them open as proof.

the thin skin tearing at his lashes.

A Collection of Dream II

 I thought I was 

                      trapped in a dollhouse

but the trees

they recognized me

A Collection of Dream I

There's a blind cat with a clown mask walking on hind legs

a dog attacked on thanksgiving leaving diarrhea in it's wake

the movie on tv is a romcom  but like super heroes married gore

the main character like a boy but after every world altering event

he likes another boy more

winter

 i take the shrinking hours

i watch them drop below

the horizon

                    that is really just a wooden fence

i forget where they have been

promising the lie that ill remember them

always

a return to unease

the last time

backlight red

drifting into blue

through the window

watching eyes go blank

become reflections in the snow

night like before

seems to shiver like 

midnight

the sun barely down

there's no switch to

release 

the last time

to make sense of 

where the cloud goes

when it's gone

Prediction

marked automatically;

    life passing within four walls

a leaky faucet of time

the overgrowth of yard

before the window

effortless and green

a million sown fields of pokeweed

glowing pink for a moment

in the stillborn sunrise

it's partly cloudy today

I am superimposed over this reality

there is rain in every imaginary forecast

time is a summer storm

before the window pane

the blackberries of july will become the winter's snow 

before I am gone