A Tale of Clocktowers
It was striking,
match and bell the same:
light stood fallow,
frost on misted shore,
That sunshine broken
in memory, cast iron
caging left wrought
marks against skin.
That time traced along
line (lonesome figure,
town square middle)
was so glass bottle
Cast away from now,
that glory clockface I
spend digital hours typing,
running against together
Tie, waiting for mercy
yet to come.
Wheel Spokes
Crunch-clatter of paving stone
leading me back again,
back to bicycle lane and
back to well-worn excuse,
That I could not find
fog light of shining memory
to take a better path than
one inscribed in blood numbers.
I took to sins of flesh
and fabric like they were
restive faces in crowded life,
then thrown like glitter
Against blaster canvas
I left in wake, solid
steel, regretted waste,
breaking voice that cut.
Doorways
Rushing abandon,
the banality of lightness,
coffee commercial banter
chattering through clasped
teeth, avoidance of bones
and birthing ghosts.
Carried same pocket brass,
took the long way around
concrete bends, used screen
door slam to soundtrack
light frost touches on lip,
settled way down in patched leather.
Rust hinge shut,
that old thing is no longer
so brutal, so bloody beating
a heart to have and hold
but one strong thing shining:
light bleaching morning curtain.
Watching Many Sunsets
No river was less running,
than sky-body left to
shine, miracle grey in mist,
looking out above the house to
stepladder escapes and whirring
box fans.
No less were we standing
making fingers slide, to believe
in something greater than flesh touch
the starring-back sense I got
from being still when things
looked paint-prepped.
No storm came from swirling
horizon, no clash breaking open
slippery skies, falling frozen
over the rocky silt, where
green pushed through, pushed on
in its way.
No night came on so quickly
as the ones which flickered
through the summer heat and
mourned our passing selves,
not in sadness, but in truth
that found
Us watching together.
Slow Waltz
The star chart blinked like
beacons splashing across
strewn-water horizon, outside
and crossing chevron nights
through wanderlusting glass.
With one stitch and
becoming again a cross of
arms, the rhythm-scrape of
foot soles on plank and
cut turf; we turn up
In odd places, winding down
a meadow staircase and
freeze a glacier stare
in time between us
and echo, echo lost
Follies in stepping too soon.
Two Trees
We perched together,
dug in roots that
reached but did not intertwine
for so long to each other
That the first hint felt like
failing, felt like too many
trials rushing in,
But they were groundwater
quenching parch thirst, clearing
the throat for what came:
Brilliant laps of sunshine
that didn’t waste themselves turning
our leave a brilliant flash shade
Of green-blue crashing off the
sky we looked to and dreamed
of how to float if only there
Weren’t these tangles that kept us
tethered to ground.
But, then, sometimes,
We felt it was good to be
just where we were
with nothing else
But the memory that we
were once so solitary
so unringed by oaken time.
And now had a perfect spot
to shade each other.
Harder Ground
The nightshade grew out,
through cracks in stone,
blank spaces in heat.
Consumed the topsoil of
bitter minerals, of frozen
time-ticks on deadpan tones.
When they throw confetti
form us in finery, they
don’t move shame-faced
In floating work signs,
the efforts that took me
so long, too long in tearing.
It is not the star chamber
silence, that stretched out to
infinity’s edge in old halls,
But battered seething that
confuses a heart and
soul sadness, striking
time bone against dusk.
