Turt

There is a way to be curt with a field. The runnels of self-pity, the sludge of preponderance. I don’t use words aright, alway. I am dumb as a post. I mean dead as  a post.  A goat cast asunder a ship. The sounds come out wooden. This must be the sea left over. I went where the sea met the mud, the slag of the alluvial guts of some dragon-sing, the earth’s spit and image. So I am curt with the field, a-winter the shelved bark I gnaw like a scarab come home. And that is me protesting love. I mean into you a field of sound. Green as.

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The Sun Says

The sun says
I get high
and suddenly I am a poet.
There is thinking.
There is the algal mind
of Monet’s paintings.
The moon says
I get high
as an avocation
and can stop
anytime I want. Its nose
grows long as its centuries.

Tic for Tac

Isn’t it funny how the same X’s and O’s
we use for hugs and kisses
we also use in a strategic game of war
with a wholly finite outcome?
There’s eventually a loser or a draw.
Then they just become exes and ohs.

 

 

If You Die Outside the Box

When you die
you are not dust
you are humus
you are humors
of the earth
You are still
quite wet
still a busybody
getting into everything
still say
Use me
or let me
use you

 

Dear Nathanael

You have broken my heart. You were not at the agreed upon place where we were to meet. Am I using too many words in a sentence? I know that is a symptom of a larger problem. “Where we were to meet.” I am eating craisins from a small foil package to assuage my nervousness. Admittedly, this is not an attractive sight. But I cannot see myself externally, except in sentences. There is nothing here. A frozen lake….or pond. Whatever. And a telephone pole. Are you going to murder me? Should I run before you get here? Or will you never get here? I saw headlights but it was a mirage.

Dear Nathanael,

You have broken my liver.

The Bed

I saw you die into my life
like a bird sucked into a wind tunnel

you try not to laugh
when it is a cartoon death

maybe they all are
ours too

So you would rise every day
as if from a grave with candles around your body

a map of the otherworld
that is all your body was anymore

our bedroom I called Haiti
I would blow out the candles, muss your hair

But one day I covered the bed in bread
slices of white bread

they touched shoulder to shoulder
and we lay down on them

and came into each other’s arms
I needed you to feel it

the springiness of bread

what it is to be alive

Sometimes

Sometimes I fall asleep
with my keys in my hand.

I’m that close
to the door.