Stillness Moving
Moon breath crept across
lawns in early space;
singing places stop-started
their warbling shake,
dove through a
wounded step lifetime.
Under far western skies,
you swept me up in finery,
promised the world not as
printed page tone, but in
full-flowering colour; belief
in nothing so much as together.
Placebo for the arsenic gold:
words shifting more fleeting,
stretched thin to bone, cold
in light of crooked day,
with boxes and book carriages
to fill space.
Not Being Here
On a Thursday, I was lost in
bar chord bash, rushing through
clock spit with you;
I had a lost head them, a
pendulum bolt from fast to
slow, running down hours.
In the ticking, I heard causes
once sacred, hearts aflame
I could not hope to cross
Again through this quilt stitched
of broken glass, memorial wheels,
in the same fashion as before
When worse my speech, but
better the laughter.
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.
