(136) what do you really want?

I left myself open for that

of course

I couldn’t say what I was afraid of

if I even knew myself

(I never knew myself)

and a clandestine errand

seems to be the definition

of the forward projection

of my life

a kid stealing candy

from the corner store

snatching the moments

when nobody’s looking

pushing together pieces

that will never fit

(135) why?

there is something ancient about this questioning
this aching empty fear
of the darkness
the essential throbbing
what are we but the beating
the blood
the quivering?

134

I am restless beyond measure
I fidget perpetually
picking at scabs I refuse to let heal
I can no longer hide the fact that I have nothing
want nothing (or everything or something I don’t yet understand)
I measure time by the growth of my hair
brown roots under red paint

133

I return to the cage

to describe the ragged time

the rejected better doubt

at least a little clearer 

than the screaming numbers

the road ahead and behind

and beside

the deadly wonder

the damage I rendered

you only fall apart when you let yourself

132

I can't think

the words don't come

as they used to

unbidden

clawing their way out

before they burnt me up

131

I can't conduct myself 

in meter or rhyme

I sprawl 

crooked across the page

fingers brushing fragments 

of words

knees scraping through lines 

my unruly curls 

scrawling truths I glean

from passing glances

and that song 

you always sing

loops  haphazardly

tattooed upon my flesh

(130)

she thought

she knew the sky

until she began

questing

the rough edges

undisturbed

in the darkness

grasping at

the savage stars

desperate

to understand

the dousing peace

in the in-between

the brutal

tender caress

of her lover's hands

the weight of the shadows

(129)

we two devoured eternity
(ferocious with naked trust)

(128)

turn closed eyes
toward the distant future
blind to the starlight
of a shamless heart
never meant to be
whethered by the questions
of the elliptical past

(127)

2
instinctively we yearn for the exquisite blueshift
the enticing gravity of the soul
an opportunity to burn within the enveloping starlight
of some seemingly distant otherself
demonstrating not a fear of the frigid obscure
but a haunting compulsion to reach out and warm it

(126)

my words do not flow with the ease with which I wish they would. i  am lost in my own mind. i can't make out what is truth enough to tell and what is the fantasy of one politely named a dreamer. it cannot come as a surprise to you that i am lost. we're all lost. we're all confused and insecure and waiting. yet this knowledge does nothing to calm the the anxiety that clouds my existence. i'm cold to the core with a need i cannot describe. it aches like the shrapnel they left behind. the advancing infection.

(125)

somewhere is waiting

some where I'm not required to ponder the spirituality of collapsing stars
some when I can forget our precious depth of vulnerability
some how perhaps silently breaking the universe through love

somehow our obscurity will save us from this cosmic perspective
                                                                          this distant image
                                                                          this some
                                                                                           where
                                                                                           when
                                                                                              how

(124)

who are we
emperors of collapsing stars
blithely imagining a universe that is not indifferent to our existence
here is an opportunity for observation without delusion
a demonstration of the infinite astronomy of the mind
we are a billion billion butterflies
exquisitely vulnerable in our knowledge of the cosmos
and the enveloping fear that it might not know us back

(123)

we're all a cosmic hiccup
a frame in the stop motion starlight
and all the kinky quirks and tears and scars and passion
can't negate the fact that we once weren't
and once won't be

but the welling blank brink
threatens an absence we can't afford
belies the simple truth etched in the universe

that we

    are
    were
    am
    was
    is
   
can be
will be

(122)

when all is said and done
and I am stripped
and all that remains is the breathing
the simple, calm heartbeat of it all
there is a smallness to me that encompasses everything

the in and out
the blood coursing
elemental
ephemeral
eternal