memory ghosts, my bride
at sentinel bone pale cliffs
standing over seasides
a knot twin tangled
to night crossed of moon
and apples adrift of air
long gone yet linger
perfumed raven of hair
shipping to shadow of morn
catching a song of you
cresting over wings in bloom...
i'm not sure if
we managed to kiss
everywhere jopy tagged
his byline downtown but
we sure as hell tried
even there in the unsubway
with northern lights burning
out our heads with
drunken hands just trying
to hold on to the night
we are all piano fingers
now, tickling ivory hours
slipping to oblivion
down that back hall
dust mote whispers ears
in the golden autumn sun
twining fingers under shadow
down that back hall
the notes faded ivory
lace dusted yellowed
photo moments slip away
down that back hall
reaching for
something profound
in red dog dreams,
coming up with
handfuls of dust
wondering if
pale hands will
finally carry me gentle
under the wave &
north away home
these semicolon days
with that breathy pause
before twilight turns to night
the winter queen waiting
with a yawn and stretch
dreaming of scarlet and black
both wrists bared and
knees to the earth
a surrender to stone
and hearth
chill breeze flowing
through open windows
and everyone sleeping
in this sleeping house
my own mind slumbers
too
and i wonder if it
will ever wake
There are more times of late when I feel more simulacrum than person. This is one of those times, where I am quite content in not moving forward if only this moment could linger. Stop the simulation, let me sleepy-slumber with late summer (or early autumn, I suppose) on the morn, windows open, bare legs cold, the faint bird chirps without rhythm or meaning, the highway drone from a few miles away. Coffee mug in hand, ignoring the turmoil in the news. Watching cats watch whatever and not feeling too much pain in the joints until I move.
I could be that simulacrum, my brain says — for a while longer. Record and set to repeat. I’m tired of most everything else. Add a section when I lay atop my bedding and sleepwalk in half-remembered dreams, maybe program a section where I catch chill and nest underneath too. What about a companion? While a nice thought, I’m not sure such scenes allow for companionship. The slumbering simulacrum seems a solitary affair, doesn’t it? Or maybe… but no. We’ll leave that for the dreaming this simulacrum might have.
If it were possible to have this half-dream state of existing, I might even stop writing. It would be my gift to the world.
Hush now. I feel another dream.
neverything coming waves
washing over my black sands
in the untethered paleness
of notnight aglow afar
and i undertow flow
back to the nine
back to chilled dreaming
as if unknown to wake
these fractured moons
stolen away with threadbare
etched in whalebone hue
time to turn off the radio
listen to the forest hum
time to watch waves come anew
oh, these lonely
moon broke nights
between a hard place and you
tangletown dreaming
arterial roots weaving
entwined, your eyes
chipped onyx flecked
and flint in the corners
windows wide and riding
the tall beasts fell
to that old beat howl
all mouths gaping at
how beautiful you are
No. How could you possibly
understand? You would need
the books and coin-covered
eyes to see. Crossing that river
that seems a stream and, if you
do, you could never look back.
you look skies, but
some say prayers
over a sea of sand
in cities of dust
come the ash driven
like the snow
while i say mine
hollow me wraithly
flitting through moon
crisp tasting & elder
untouching the floor
moving within within
moving within
but… unseen
for all the howl
cold hearth & ashen
still glide the home
given to memento
given to the gloam