end 'o march

while in egypt

a thousand years ago i
told you all my purpose
here - before i'd done
more than dream of you,
before i sensed anything
but the possibility for connection and that
strange new flutter in
my nether regions - i was
not yet come out of Egypt and
i told you and now . . .



bug

it's a rough kind of bug
that's for sure, sending
me dizzy to the couch
nausea remedies work at least
but the dizziness doesn't abate.
time goes strange, it could be
a fever but i grab a rung and
drag myself on up the ladder
thinking slowed to a crawl
no hope of rest tomorrow
i take it tonight aiming to
be at the very least coherent.



tie a net

i don't know that either
really understands the other -
mouths moving, faces intent,
walked away with no sense of
gestalt

none of it hung together.
the net hung, draped,
spread, and his partner
pointed out holes
faster than he tied them
shut.



still over yonder

i took the cup 'cuz
they said it were the Cure
and i drunk down
ever' drop.
Lord ha'mercy how
it did burn!
then the Doc and them,
they all went on out
to the woods, out
to the still
over yonder



moonclock

seeing and knowing the cycle
doesn't stop the filter falling
i find myself brittle and bitter
nearly draconian in thinking
and unable to back down off it.
the automatic response is ungenerous
no benefit of a doubt
my internal moonclock turns
the world to glass at the full
and language is only of red
and breakage and empty.



wade

it's nothing, just limbo, and
you've waited it out before
- waded out before, through
piles of bones, past
the slag heap and pits.
all is grayblack coaldust
though i'd never call myself
a miner, my mouth stuffed
with the silken dust of
ancient matter, muffled
in the fine powderblack
rain, nighttime talc to
soothe my rolling boiled
mind.



he got his stripes.

this week saw him
receive new scars
in our name.
better late, then,
i suppose. one
death was not
prevented but this
might protect from
repetition. and so
i am servile, smiling,
banishing comparison,
keeping the bitter
mostly out of mind
and unvoiced, to
display gratitude that
words cannot.



early spring

winter finally ending,
the melts expose
what we've lost.
time takes a heavier
toll than i imagined.
so what is now gone?
i've lost my blindness,
the selective vision that
kept the sticks and leaves
floating in the current
rather than bind them
selves, the de-tangling
conditioner, the
belief in the sanctity
of creation.



wake me up

down in the lower levels
of the dream and i
hear the ringtone i
assigned to you. it
is a great noisy wind
to blow away the tatters.
i get to it in time,
somehow, and find my
mouth believes we're
still asleep. you speak
as if i was still drinking
coffee, you are offended
that consciousness fills my
hourglass so slowly.
offense turns to anger when
i point out the flaws in
your line of reasoning.
later, i call you, and
hear again your expectation
and you're making yourself
a mental martyr.



flip the switch

all of a sudden it
switches to ON and
i remember what
it is that brought
me here, so far
beyond where we
thought to go. it's
the way our energies
rub when our bodies
aren't, it's the quick
dangerous light of a
grin, it's because
you get the joke of it
like nobody else can
and you speak it
when i can't.



bloody nose

my fingers found the
end of a nose in a cave,
and wiping it, came
away bloody. not
the fresh bright new
but the brown
and sluggish old half
clotted mess that says
at least something
is functioning the way
it should.



apology

i know there's wide
gaps in my knowledge
and i trace the edges
but can't fill it in.

i know there's a place
for every item we own
and i move in the general direction
but miss by a mile.

i know he needs to hear
the words i need to speak
and i gather lovewords
but can't string them.



wizard of os

near os ther is
a dripping ruby city.
nearly six weeks past
there was a massacre
and i was forcibly exiled.
yesterday the sun cast
redbrown reflections
winking up out of the valley.
today i crested the hill
to see it glittering wetly
below me.