An explanation of sorts by way of poetical blather…
lips look hunger in the eye
while I sit waiting, creaking
in the corner picking at
peeling deck paint and ten penny nails
scratching calluses, looking
for excuses between the lines
her face is tired, but we don’t
know it yet; we search for
cicada shells, inhabiting
the magic year
waiting outside for the air to clear,
waiting for miracles and shitting dogs
***
Amber
A small winged nymph
of ancient forests
found trapped in resin;
a fishbowl fairy
they called it the Krakow Miracle
(and began worshiping the sun)
***
Take Two
you projected your idea into the saguaro
jungle; put your drink down and
saw the scalp(el)
in the french door house
it was a case of
drunken identity
***
Faith’s Odyssey
She walked across the desert
and slept with philosopher men
high on weed and ideology
saying the real thing’s somewhere
between Transcendence and Santa Fe.
What are your themes?
The messages that by osmosis
migrate to less concentrated dreams.
How do you express them?
Do you scratch them in the dust?
Do you sell them with the Genuine
American Indian Art?
Bra burning baby lost her way
among the sagebrush and the
clinics; the philosophers have
fled the sunburned city.
***
Feral
We went feral, in that house
Forgetting to speak in words,
Not fighting even, just grunting
And clinging to each other for
Lack of anyone else
I kept burning my hands
On the stove, on boiling tea
And it didn’t even hurt anymore
The cold came in and we didn’t
Notice it, didn’t care if we did
The old man shuffled in
His wheelchair, scrape, slide,
Scrape. Hacked up great gobs of
Phlegm, began to smell like piss.
He obsessively took out paperwork,
Photographs of dead relatives, old bills
Tossed what he didn’t want in the hall
For me to throw away, or not.
He would never die, would survive on
The bitter pills he couldn’t help but chew.
The cat meowed for food,
Didn’t tolerate neglect. The dog
Did. Eyed his bowl with indifference,
Didn’t care whether it was empty or not,
Slunk off to a corner to sleep.
We deafened to the constant
Drip, drip, drip of leaky
Basement pipes. Didn’t notice the
Mold anymore, the spores lodged in
Our sinuses and settled in our lungs.
It became impossible to escape,
No longer even aware of ourselves as
Separate from it.
The walls closed in, ate us up.
