Guest
we are guests;
spectators to the
divine shriving
that now bears down
A paean
To the
quetzal of the unwelcome,
banner of the elect
and of the flaming
heart that now
goes cold.
Cored and tunneled
warm hands
within the reliquary;
soft smooth bone
against sweating flesh
I intruded
ripping what was loved
from its loaded pedestal
crushed
under 5000 stamping feet
oils and salves
ran into the great drains
groves curled into
ashen claws and spirals
of smoke
as I came upon
what solace
the people had won.
roiling demons and
ripened manifestations
that give way to shapes
once described, cease resistance
dripping through hands
separating
skin from tendon
and sect from sepulcher
there are words here too-
words that draped
over a lone chair like empty t shirts
too many empty-handed moments
too many nightly collections
of interred saints
in alcoves
of white marble.
for amanda
first swimming, burning
i plied the depths
giving myself to
rougher spirits
of a rougher nature.
i held still
a shielded sun
making chains of
gauze, tack
and remnant pains.
I know now why it
was we met
across that room,
too tired and
too let down
to brace ourselves,
to come later
into our own,
to carve
deep grooves
into the surface
of a new life.
each cold day
that ever came
with the fear
and the anger,
their number,
full told
is how many ways
i wish your name into
the missing pages
of memories past.
ii.
I crawled up
through the sallow clay
of mallet-patted hills
to reach this place,
its memory stretched
like reels spliced
into themselves
in a nauseous figure 8.
i.
he stretched his skin and bones
out like a shop display
in the picture window of that
one story ranch home out in the country.
whenever he came for dinner
it was really more
like having a doll in the room.
the long slow:
trying spring days
sat in a courtyard,
plying the ends
of green sunbeams
checking out
of life’s long hall.
Some day I want
to leave this
dangerous lane;
leaving my most
deadly thoughts behind
in a fresh fresh corpse.
I remember
the day they found
that sour old fuck
one day after
i’d visited him for the
last time.
i dropped my boots
at the top
of the stairs
when i stomped up
hitting that wall
of soundlessness
as a man
ran down the sides
of a sink
into the drain.