riposte
Category: Writing and Poetry

***

the end of snow (ii)

***

we believe in the coming

of the white fly-

in the demotic ear

of angels-

that we will enter

the lottery

of rape, else rock-

and clutch

at the neck

of god. 

or swat. 

6:44 PM - 0 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

the old and the immediate
Category: Writing and Poetry

***

nigh

***

boy, muttering

to the mouth

on his knee.

his bike, exhausted.

the girl

from science class

he loves.

her mother

the model

he's loved.

their first child

a mute

neither

speaks to

might someday ask

could it be

our breath

still stirs

the thin doll

we practice on.

9:51 PM - 4 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

sate & shrug
Category: Writing and Poetry

***

to the readers of fiction

***

you can

with a hacksaw

save most

of your leg

and its double.

***

writers of fiction

***

was a man

bit a dog

and lost a tooth.

was another man

bit a dog.

same dog. 

wasn't a day

went by

the two

didn't wake

to the howling

other.

9:14 PM - 3 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

out
Category: Writing and Poetry

***

egg moon

***

a nice touch

that spoon

on the table

of patience.

night soup, dark bird.

bread knife

abandoned

to its drowsy

gash.

be this

one day

the house of sleep. 

the next, of eats.

what theft

I have

left

takes my mother.

9:47 PM - 1 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

refrain
Category: Writing and Poetry

***

limn

***

the ancient anxiety of dogs.

has winter

no levy

it cannot call.

bread;

the saying of bread.          

bald man

in a hair salon

religion.

but also, bravery.

our present loss, lost

to the foreclosure

of immediacy.

litany's take,

a rake.

treads your boy

to banquet-

passes my own

pulling a mouth

from a wire fence

and waves.

was not believed

a child

this faith.

the strength of my father

to damn his due.

the strength of yours, too.

be still.  and full.

has place

no debtor

in lull.

7:39 PM - 2 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

worth
Category: Writing and Poetry

***

the etiquette of disappearance     for Bela Tarr  

***

     it's a long take.  it's dusk.  as dusk as the sigh of a bus.  the poor are leaving.  spends a shadow the coin its head is under.  caws a shadow no wail but its length.  so, singer, sing.  ribbon the nude.  artist, toll the clothed.  sleep, right leg.  sleep, left.  the heroic twin of the trapezist is dying.  apocalypse, a mere horse thief.  the woman faith stands between two bathrooms, achieves a scarecrow witness:

a patient border middling the screen of a drive-thru.  town of men, sojourned, to the town of more.  a girl in a pick-up with her leg out the window.  as a tie that's been lit, that border.    

7:55 PM - 4 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

cirque
Category: Writing and Poetry

***

cirque

***

made not

into a fisher

of men

my father

pushed off

in the little boat

of his wound-

so filled

the weeping bowl

of my mouth.

8:35 PM - 6 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

the restless treason of dreamers
Category: Writing and Poetry

***

maudlin     for James Wright

***

a late swimmer, touching

one side, then the other. 

night window, this wine. 

a walker, beggared

to the wend of a wheel

loosed from the lean of its car.  

a bad man jawing

a gradient slur

of hand puppets

on another's dark drive.

a second swimmer

I hadn't seen, touching

the first.  same stone

on the pool's bottom-

unmoved, unmoved

by the yaw of the moon.  

1:17 PM - 4 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

wake
Category: Writing and Poetry

***

stir

***

my mother carries her mother to bed.

there's the desk I sit at

and the desk I don't.

tiny lamps, winking out.

her father once called it the town of sleep.

where he went

with his gun

I could walk there.

7:48 PM - 4 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

archives
Category: Writing and Poetry

color of psalm
Category: Writing and Poetry

(edit.  you may have been, partially, already here.)   

***

local verse

***

wing, small as a bitten ear.

tongue of a dinner bell.

firefly, unheralded

in the flask of gabriel.

soon

is a congress.  of pale wagons.  house to house.  dragged by devils.

now, mosquito on the breast of a robin.

many loves

men say

had the man

in the moon.

say unmissed men

in taverns.

so worried, that woman.

that gate hungry

woman

waving off wolf

with her used book of warnings.

1:07 PM - 2 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

killer of men
Category: Writing and Poetry

***

bid

***

three pillows

to get the blanket

of my body

right.

two antlers

from the moan

of a buck

to cut

the same buck's

belly.

one piece of chalk

from my mother's

schoolhouse.

come,

I've pictures

under my bed

of you as a boy.

8:43 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

minor country
Category: Writing and Poetry

***

the off-screen       after Days of Heaven

***

angels

lesser

than father

have beaten

before

this bounty

of heed

and horse

at the grocery

where coin

if cut

on the rail

will buy

for its bread

also pail

and train

without station

to stop

may grind

the root

of its halt

past the open

burning

of crop

whence cleared

I'm reading

a book

saw your dog

says a friend

and I look

with my eye

so rained

it is dry