Filmstrip cut into separate frames, multiplied, no one

A dessert of frozen goods
makes me want to fly
and ‘earth is the color
of the tortured sky,’
you said
an oak desk sits in an empty hallway
slightly askew
cries empty words
describes in veiled carvings
a heart shaped love for two
initials added together
written below
forever
and a slow parade moves outside
as no one walks by
noticing synthetic containers
blue, green, gold
hovering, chemical happiness
Cindy smiles, Sara gasps, Johnny turns
paints a pale mask
below the streets
a spoiled water flows,
goes, makes music
and no one notices the rodent
on hind legs,
motioning in the air
little signed gestures,
‘i want to see the show,
why can’t i go there?’
as the festival erupts upstairs
the dinner table rotates into view
and daddy’s face
blurs, bleeds into a plate of sausage and sauerkraut,
'our mother’s humble offering
will not go to waste,
not in this place'
and I will take mine
underneath my chair,
feeling the cool worms
travel through my hair
praying the activity above will
gray
spin down
lie
on the ground
beside me
utter,
‘this vision is all yours, little one.’

Somewhere nearby a guitar rips through the night,
wails, whines, implodes,
watches me from a distance
suggests I’m not making sense
then embraces me, breathes, 'you are home.'

A calm one

Brittle words, or words that easily vibrate when the lips come together
hold some importance, I’m sure,
but only momentarily,
for the genius that fails to surface often
fades

but there's a coffin to break the silence
and an emotion to give it license
as a lover loosens hold on
at once the possibility of
change

mark this down
this time, just mark this one down

a calm one never spoke until spoken to
and fresh earth has a way of opening
blind hands

a crime.

Some no more fallen

at first and all at once
i am fallen i am floored
a twisting mutating thing before you
i gather pieces of broken
i swallow moments of shallow
i call out to handfuls of empty
i brace myself for the freezing night to come
i shiver the shudders closed
i hate myself to better health
i hold the wealth of the poor in my breath
i scrape the stains of the north
i bleed the balloons that burn in a boy’s mind
i hold the fence so that she will come
i cry out not her name
i am pain
i am slain
i am small
i am smaller
i am smallest
i am going to find the silence
and tell her i love her
when no one else can hear her
i will be her saviour
i will pause
turn
watch the empire explode in the distance
fill the sky with indifference
blow her out of existence
then give birth to a new day
a new way
at first and all at once
i am fallen no more
i am

Birdland

Not as substantial as I could have been,
I had become a trace element in a linguistic storm,
donning a crooked smile that could no longer conceal
the process of my wasting away-

So, swords for hands,
I cut a piece of time from out of the dying night,
and letting it fall, I watched it drift into the distance,
realizing that in its place, some kind of opening had remained-

Stepping through,
I slipped down and away;
though in falling I felt no fear,
for the earth, well,
she seemed to disappear-

and I now, a part of the sky eternal,
found I could fly,
and I, so blissfully alone,
at once embraced
my passion for nothing-

and thus with wings unleashed,
I moved effortlessly through this new dawn,
carried on waves of pure sound,
towards no particular destination;
a phoenix, had I become.

Twinning

A crash,
a collision -
a momentary
recognition

For a second I thought your deep brown eyes were my own.

And so through them

I saw numbers collide,
as towers of reason crumbled,
having been swallowed up by their own shadows,
which spread endlessly across the blackest tundra,
expanded outwards
to meet the sky –
and finally, I saw I
rising up above a certain destruction,
shaking off the detritus
of a place that should have never been –
I had all at once come home; found my twin,
and apparently, it was time to go.

An apology,
a walking away –
an attempt at union,
so slipped away.