A Poem Which I Have Been Meaning to Write

On a Clear October Night in Charleston, SC

Tonight I walked out of my house,

sunken to 4AM insomnia,

and looked up. Tonight

I saw Orion’s Belt for the first time in three months.

Having no way else to go,

I followed the line it traced, leading me south.

Colonial Lake rose before me,

a perfect dichotomy of light,

white concrete straining to hold in black water.

As I stood, listening to some man croon

and his guitars play,

and his violin tear through my head,

the lake water swelled, huge black bulk

tearing its way free, crashing up to the stars, held captive skyscraper-high

by my gaze and the frenzied melody.

The water rose tidal wave behind me,

walking down the middle of still Charleston streets,

wondering idly what it would be to die from

exhaustion. The Battery is mine, and my

continent-surge of black surf.

The huge harvest moon blasts through me,

tunnels through me,

ignores me, lonely with my eon-wave casting

its shadow. I wonder, idly, what it would be like

to die from exhaustion.

I wonder, idly, what it would be like to die, lonely, from exhaustion.

The ageless moebius-wave presses at my back and it is all I can

do not to scream.

The moon screams.

The wall of black water screams.

I am left on the edge of Charleston,

walking with the stray cats, the violin-sharp

wind in my spine.

Derived from Three Hours of Poetic-Daydream

A Poem is a Lost Glimpse

The fan, our

Rin Gong, whirs endlessly.

I am hidden from eyes here,

outside of the quickly forming chain-webs of

two-way quiet.

Who is painting whom?

-- WE FALL SILENT IN OUR LEAP –

Our sentences come to bear on what we can see as truth. We

plug in words to the places they need to fit

and invent the ones where they

don’t – language to fix

our block-square circle-hole dichotomy.

When truth is too hard to face

we turn to etching out the details –

work in everything that seems to be omnipotent

until you can have the courage to face that

resistance.

-- And it’s interesting that I wrote resistance there,

because I was considering

another word, one which peers in at a world I defy. -

-- WHO NEEDS TO DRAW A FACE WHEN EVERY STRAND OF HAIR IS GLORIOUS –

The only whisper from charcoal is break, break, lose.

There is no medium that can pull us from despair on its

own. Tired and quiet,

we are all muted.

I am not saying “I” right now because “I” don’t exist here,

where there is no one to watch to fix my face forever.

-- SO MUCH LIGHT AND NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO USE IT –

There is mechanical clarity in every erased stretch of face.

Who knows how to do this, really? I keep

writing these questions because it is a resistance for me - even now in this

sentence - to admit that I don’t really know what I’m doing.

-- OBLIVION IS WHAT IS HIDDEN IN THESE FLECKS OF GREY –

You, you’ve made some other girl. You

haven’t painted her. You’ve created some other,

pretty girl, but you haven’t painted her. Perhaps,

though, you’ve painted the way she sees herself.

There is some truth there, not the truth of base vision, you’ve blown right

past that. Instead you have thrown some truth of – damn me if I say it –

spirit.

And when you showed her, she grinned.

-- WHO KNOWS HOW TO DO THIS, REALLY? –

Here is truth in the muted touch of perfect detail.

-- WHO KNOWS HOW TO DO THIS, REALLY? –

Why am I terrified?

-- WHEN YOU SHOWED HER, SHE GRINNED –

Awake. Stay awake. Pay attention to the depth and snap. Pull

cracks from your earth-skin, wrap pens in glue and spit,

place them inside of you.

Sleet Fields

Sleet Fields

It’s been two years since we’ve stayed

the night in DC.

Tonight, just like that last one,

we can’t sleep. Cold is waiting

outside, waiting for us to turn around and look at it.

She wore my sweater that night,

in that awake-dark, in the cold.

Hid her face, buried mine

in her red hair. The bed held us

and we held each other, earnest.

Keeping our personal sleet-fields away,

taking warmth briefly.

Convinced we would survive through

until our heart-heat, our train-love

flew again, spiraling

through dusty-solid morning.

The Second in a Series

Prophetess (II)

Crouching together on the sill

of this window I’ve thrown open,

the last April sunset shows the inherent

shadows of the prophetess’s face.

I wonder why she matters to me.

I wonder if she matters to me,

And I wonder what is in her final eyes

on this city sunset-line.

Both of us, old, cracked souls.

My cracks run grey and hers red.

This is the struggle of the fly who thinks he is a prince.

This is him (me) (not me) (always me) realizing her

web fills his world

and the sunlit ground

is nowhere that matters.

An Interlude Who is a Girl

An Interlude Who is a Girl

The Christmas-tree-carpet taste of bad gin fills your mouth. You’ve

woken up in a lost bed. Enjoy the uncertainty. Brown

skin breathes in front of you and it takes a moment to realize

this is not yours.

This is something of a new experience.

Pull a hand up from under thin college-dorm blankets and slide this stranger

to you. You know her name but she is still a stranger; this

doesn’t matter so try not to think of it for a while.

You are both half-naked, wearing jeans. Appreciate

the symmetry of this as you run tongue into neck hollows,

waiting for the gasp and shudder that tells you she is awake

because you once read a story about a man who made love

to his dead wife and thought she was just asleep and you want

to make sure.

Well Folks, This One's Dark (and Not About Who You Think It's About)

The Director

Young lover, convinced he knew everything,

was an instant addict.

Struggled with what he had, strained to skim away his body,

his love, and render his fat into putty,

delivered to the Director’s capable useless hands.

Let her do with him as she would,

giving until debt would swallow

them both. This he looked forward to.

This he thought was love – imbalance.

Idiot, blind boy, tried so hard to be

the perfect thing he wanted her to see,

to make a real appear in her eyes.

And found his real

when what he feared came true.

The house he had built was matchsticks, kindling strong

and backstage, when

all the props were placed and the actors came together

for the climax and the blocking was just so

and the lights went out he scraped

the last match and burnt it to the ground,

for fear it would fall.

He burned it. And he burned the ashes.

And again.

Burned the ground the house stood on, burned and

burned until he was the only thing left,

then burned the smoke.

A Poem About Resistances

Wasp shadows dance in my smoke.

Flitting wings break grey blue streams in lined shadow

over Sunday night Charleston.

The hazed out slats of the porch rail are

a fence, for me and the statue darkness. Both of us

kept in, kept out.

Here is hesitation in the sharp draw of a cigar.

This is caution, dumb and worried,

silent among the wasps.