1 New Poem

Light Spectrum

I was talking in mystic chord
memory, in chime and pulling through
the light of all things

Across, across the battered bookkeeping
dollar sense of where we left to
stream beyond, looking up to stark

Shimmering blackness, whole points
of galactic time swallowed in
blinking pace before us.

When you take the raw end of things,
clasping and human against the bloody
edge of time, it gleams weary

Of all worked through sentiments,
the reduction to a firm figure
that brokers no wonder, no fancy flight,

It’s not me you toss to wolves,
to sharpened teeth, matted fur;

Only the sense-memory
of being there before.

1 New Poem

What You Keep

I rolled out the sigil for you:
not breaking against waves of
grain amber, swinging vines of
palm, standing in the middle of
seconds ticking, turning cold
from blank standing of lights
after dusk.

You swam to shore, dripping:
I had been breathing (heavy, deep,
swirling), gathering words for
matchsticks to keep warm against
the flashing white righteousness,
the ink jet print of runaway
typing.

The pulley systems, dumbwaiters that
take us across the life stage,
curtains closing behind with velvet
precision are not the things
for me;

I just kept them in reserve,
just in case of failure.