Category: writing

  • wounds

    quit telling me of wounds, but
    show me the blood and pus
    pouring out of each puckered ulcer
    peppered across your war-ravaged flesh

    for it is then
    we can speak of poetry

  • hollow of tree

    i was hollow of tree
    all chicken wire & song
    come that october country
    of hoarfrost & dream

    rime burnt leaves stained
    gold to vermilion & bole
    crumble wake perfumed
    i waited there alone for
    that coming of you

    rook & madder
    flint & score
    crow & calling
    bone & fall

    i was hollow of tree
    all chicken wire & song
    waiting mists alone for
    that coming of you

  • throwing hands

    why write poetry at all
    when there is the wind
    that carries 'hallo hallo'
    of the crow, high up in
    the cottonwood tree, to me?

    i throw both hands away
    and reply with the same

  • toad shit

    cleaning toad shit
    off the front stoop
    under the threat
    of rain;
    a reflection of my
    over-polished mirror

  • drag thorn

    drag thorn,
    too weary now
    to pray

    night drips
    cinnabar
    to stopdead

  • rain under glass

    sometimes we are all storm
    with clouds iron heavy the sky and
    weighty chains to rattle drag
    a train flowing heart at behind

    dress sensible, station shoes, silk:
    a dream found you waiting
    but we found you gone ahead
    on and to without

    with rain under glass —
    left a crumbled platform
    stormcloud in wanting

  • waters unswept by wind

    i fell drunk from the wagon
    in thrall of a stained glass you
    piercing flint storms calling
    winter back into view

    you should know, the fall
    left me thorned flesh
    for years now, i have been
    prying septic wood at teeth

    of all the beautiful goodbyes,
    yours left waters unswept
             by wind

  • break the wheel

    asking earth to embrace
    bone, blood and
    drink flesh to drunk

    give eyes blind to stone 
    to a cairn of song
    give all to ash and acorn

    break the wheel and
    scatter it all

  • funeral tears

    self-loathing refreshed again
    a useless fraud and loser
    reminded of his place

    there will be no tears
    except maybe those of joy
    when the funerals begin

  • Dawnstar

    He goes to Dawnstar’s back room to listen to the speakers. Got a lifetime full access to all the courses from back when they still sold such things. Tomorrow night, they have a guest speaking on certain secrets who might be able to help illuminate passages in a certain book he keeps on his person for the past month.

    Consider me squared up on the debt to your grandmother. Forget who I am. I never want to hear from you again.

    Dawnstar.

    She checked the timestamp. The email was sent yesterday. Tonight, then. An accounting.

    “Coffee?”

    She did not look up from her laptop, but continued staring at the screen, an absent-minded wave of her hand — long, lean fingers made longer by fingernails at the fringe of staying a sensible length and painted matte black — a universal gesture in cafes around the world that said, “Fill her up.”

    She considered typing a response that would remind the recipient that they did not get to dictate the terms of the balance of their debt, but decided against it. It would just land on empty ears in the dustbin with other spam.

    She made a mental note to remedy that with an in-person visit after her business had concluded.

    Last week, she would have taken in the scenery as her server refreshed the coffee in her cup, watched the hip-wiggle as the young woman walked away. She had done it enough over the past few weeks since arriving in the city, taking up residence in the overpriced rental rising above the already-broad Mississippi.

    She was worth it. And that delightful rear end was given the backseat in her mind as she pondered how to catch the fraud who had absconded with her family’s secrets and probably was responsible for the murder of her grandmother. He had an alibi, of course — they always did. But that did not mean he was not responsible.

    The stains left behind, the lingering smell of brimstone detectable to her nose — it was all she needed to know to put Marcus Kane, or whatever his name was, at the scene.

    And he had finally made a mistake. Eagerness to unlock those secrets from the written word were a regular part of the downfall of people like Kane. They were intemperate by nature, something she had counted on since she came back to reclaim what was her birthright.

    She sipped at her coffee, black as sin.

    He would regret his life’s choices by the end of the weekend. He just did not know it yet.

    But now she had the information she needed to begin.