Category: writing

  • gasps

    deadwood slips to view
    grown of long hand fingers
    to cling at granite grey
    under endless feathered blue

    it is bones these ways
    there, under the burn 

    just a kiss away
    twine knotted taut
    gives over to memories
    gone to flint faded wine
    under gasps of sand

  • unthinking

    I am not thinking what you think that I am thinking and that is a fact. I bundle my thinks up nice and tight, in thick, oiled leather and lacing and push them bone deep inside. No one has asked because there are none who might care, not really, about what goes on tucked up in there.

    The truth is scrimshawed along my bones, inked in ashes and kohl, under atrophied muscles wrought tangled by scars. I sing to stones and prophets, fill the undersides of my nails with soil, paint stains on my forehead, circles on brow.

    “What are you thinking?” they ask.

    See, finally someone sees truth as I howl in the nights, at bogarts with thorns and ghasts that prick with memories. I rend my chest with fingers and unfulfilled promises made when someone still has something to gain. But—

    I am not thinking what you think I am thinking.

    And that is a fact.

  • waiting at

    careful as silk
    drift rise on breeze
    carry our befores
    gifted back to me
    this happy death
    waiting a' sea

  • of unbelonging

    i am of unbelonging
    —it is known.

    a grotesquerie on display
    twist-tangled my limbs
    a-jumbled this brain which
    says the wrong things
    most times and again

    a shambling horror
    at the threshold outside
    creeping and crawling
    begging to be let inside

    throw the bolt and
    lock the latches
    set steel to stone
    to sharpen your axes

    dim the shadows
    when given to dawn
    safe one more night
    from an unbelonging
    of which i am known

  • Reunion

    Participating in Jolene’s (Chico’s Mom) prompts where the only real rule is that you can’t kill off the main character. Oh, and use the four prompts provided:

    1. not so Good Samaritan
    2. vampire
    3. reunited
    4. pills

    Here is my humble offering below.

    Vladimir opened the heavy wooden door on the third knock, as though he’d been expecting this all along. Which, of course, he had been — for eleven years.

    “Aldric.” With warmth, arms outstretched. That slight lisp that came with elongated canines. “Come in, come in. You’ll catch your death.”

    (more…)

  • All that remain

    There are times that there is only empty. You could not understand.

    Everything ash. Everything dust. You could not understand.

    I am weary of silence, but there is no mouth with which to speak to the missing ears which could never hear. You could not understand.

    Rivers run my blood in tears from void for eyes, screaming blind. You could not understand.

    This is a limbo, something you could never understand.

    Piercing pinions stretched for all the night. You could not understand.

    That I miss your lips and their wine… You could not understand.

    Ribbons are all that remain.

  • ashen

    we wore our hearts
       in sticker on
          polyester sleeve
    while whale bone
       held us to north
          and nightfall

             — waiting
    for ghost-trees
       to give over and
          bring blood home
    cellophane crackling
       under our feet of
          cruel winters

    ashen, for that is
       how we lost our
          home

  • steel skies stolen

    there are days
    i wish it would just
    rain & rain & rain
    wash everything away
    down the drains &
    carry us to a place
    where we could
    finally meet again
    you could say, “hey” &
    i could say, “hi” &
    though we’ve never met
    we could be friends
    or maybe lovers
    like we were before
    we fell out of dream

    our steel skies stolen,
    some days
    i wish it would just
    rain.

  • of berry and elder

    of berry red and elder
    i press my blood there
    a thumbprint between
    eye and dusk shadow
    beauty as naked is

    forgive this romance—

    your night drawn in
    fingerbones alone
    i kiss you when you
    dare to look away;
    beat your heart closer.

    i know i know
    these are weary ways
    to cast in cold
    the frost alone

    come now,
    lead us walk
    rose stones to
    water waiting...

  • over graves tonight

    with deadwood limbs 
    and ash grey heart
    we sing scrimshaw
    over graves tonight
    daring winter winds
    of ripping breath away

    a rime of braided rope
    ever taut and untamed
    salt my lips in evensong
    and stolen night away