For the last few years
I've lived by the water
and when I come home
from work I grab a bottle
to pour something from
and shut my eyes
to sip it or something
like that I look like
I'm dozing off but not
really because I'm a star
you think is a moon
that is moving like
the water I live on
sitting up in my bed
ashamed of the books
left in outlines and
shadows in the shade
where I draw a breath
all thirsty for the unread.

Last night I rode
that dark train
through the hollows
of my childhood
on the black wings
of a swallow fleeting
beneath the eaves
of long ago evenings
where bone moths
were breathing
their last breaths
while dead children
slept well up the hill.

Come on girl
it's time to fly

Don't let this gray sky
hold us down

The water may swirl
but we won't drown

Ain't nothing but the wind
and the rain keeping us in

Let's get on out of here
and get some air

Driving sideways
through this storm

Running its fingers
through our hair

Like a swarm
of honeybees came

Singing Love is like a hurricane
and Here comes those tears again

Writing words
upon my window pane

Come on girl,
it's just the wind and the rain.

I want her to rise up again
like when she lifted her blue
skirt looking at how brown
I am taking off my shirt
and there are somethings
you learn if you were born
on a farm where I watched
her shadow in the middle
of the night overlooking mine
in the dark where we hid
from the light listening
to the wind, that sad poet
of the unknown pulling back
the dead eyes of those singing
sweet songs in the long night.

On the outer
carapace of it,
     all seems ok
I am held
together by
single dry thre
                        a ds
like wire
and strips of
sinews
they keep me
tightly-wrapped,
a package of
molten powders
secret dynamite
waiting to
    e x p l o d e  in
exotic ticks
      of clockwork
but one scratch
beneath the surface
reveals my
inner truth:
How I wish,
by those
whorled and spiraled
powers above,
for the gently fluted
forces of my being
to be parted
like sacred seawater
with my psyche
   f l o a t i n g
just beyond
the zing of
       my brain,
no rational
           understanding
required
yes. I long
to be ever-slowly
           unraveled,
layer by layer
cell by cell
until all that is left
are the platelets
pulsating between
this heart
           and yours
each beat
betraying an
acute intensity
of how
I felt it,
      this tender
electricity
that crackled
        through and
                 between
            our bones
          from the
        very
      beginning
of
    our quiet blaze
our pinnacle
our quirky
metallic
     textures
our breath
mingling over
airwaves
         in heated
                 fluidity
   hotly drenched
in the iridescent
  dust of our
     star-marked
                     time

.

The first time I kissed you

was the most amazing moment
in my entire life

and I would have held it
just a little while longer

if only I had known

it would

also be the last time

I’m standing on one leg in my slammin’ salmon pink room, with my curvy waterbed, staring at the silly, swaying Appalachia hillbilly trees
That laugh with a country accent that slows down and up and down and
I’ve never been more scared of that picture by Van Gogh
The skeleton man with a cigarette in his mouth
Like a thinner Freud! (Like a doctor)!
My frenzied scribbling is like an ****** to a forty-something housewife that enjoys
Late nights drinking wine and Vicodin cocktails to give her some
Semblance of normalcy (Necks suckling over me like rainbow breakdance)
Their voices are back again…
They’re crowding all around me…
These walls These walls
Speak to me
These walls These walls

I like the pink walls because they talk to me in my mom’s voice
And
when they get too loud,
God sits quietly in my coffee cup and whispers to the nurses
Brightly, angrily! He tells that silly Lilly to
Make him take his medicine
And like an obedient child,
Or a bride to be…
I do
Now when I stare out my window, the trees no longer laugh
Skull with Cigarette becomes a soft reminder of home
Which reminds me to pick up the cordless landline and call my mother
To tell her that everything is quiet now and that
My soft, white bed is made and my room is clean now for her to come visit tomorrow
So I lay my head down and fall asleep
Cradled by walls of silence