deep down in the meat and
marrow, you permeate
the soup stock of myself
down to where the flavor founders
you lead by deft example while
I earn my nevers moon by moon.
your salt and spice
the altar of the palate
the prayer at the feet of the day
lighting up another breath
between the words the smoke
a hint and a hope
dashed...
Read More
a hatful of smoke
a bindle full of bones
a hanger dangling flesh
and death there around
the eyes, this glimpse
at the last page
awaiting punctuation
Cleave close to the carbon, the coming salvos are meant to do more than shake rattle and roll. Attend to the poem of self, keep the roots on and in the loop, the clay ever lit with spit and spirit. The magic may flow, the magic may fizzle, you change it up and stay the same. That’s all you from the blue blazes to the...
Read More
So the coiling smoke feathers past my face, head and shoulders hung over the lit ember, weary down to the word. Bones soaked in the oaths of blood and the black grasp of gravity ache unto ignition, ache unto the crush of days feels like destiny, slab after slab of certainty on you from the sky on down. Dizzy from the breath pressed, prayers gone...
Read More
The days exceed,
the days digress,
I am a hole worn through
the world, the turned screw,
the pounded post—
mommy and daddy and the Holy Ghost
as the miracles and infinities
add up the faith and fascination as
I pace out my forlorn portions,
dead reckoned devotions
known by rote and bone.
Prayers pressed against
expired flesh, the kiss
goodbye like coins for
the...
Read More
Here at the long blue end of the afternoon, with the heat bearing its heel down hard, each breath heavy in ache alone , the ghost turns around and around in its tracks all wail and bruise and wound striped bones. Head hung low, elbows fixed upon the knees as the smoke rises, ordinary and inevitable, redeemed through ritual alone. The words follow where the...
Read More
It is the cadence of the common
chorus, the bet within
the spread before us, the courses
we are blessed to receive
the transmission of the feast
beast to belly to the earth of our
burdens laid down. It has been gone
so long that most of our bodies have
replaced down to the atom
these entangled selves
an exchange of kisses
uninhibited by time...
Read More
I am the sound of the engine running, I am the ringing of the room from the lights left on. The hollow hush of the rush of empty through the air, the way the silence is sounded out in the static stippling my skin. This is the body, this is the embodiment, the careless retread pressing through the passage. The inhabitant and the husk left...
Read More
Even the old ways abide
the creed of thermodynamics—
gods and devils forever
scraping the sides, dish and spoon
all the ready runaways,
busting down the doors
bursting through the gates.
So these prayers are set
against the endless stars and
long shot heavens, steam and spark,
breath and spine and expectorate
adding up to atmosphere
counting in thousands from the flash,
mumbled words and...
Read More
This is that moment of warm bright sunlight smack in the kisser, where the heat and glow adorn your flesh with such attendant mention that you feel the shadow pressed from the dead center of your chest, the plaintive tear where the darkness separates your shoulders the way wings would if you gave them any thought. As if the sun sent bullets through this daily...
Read More