Between State

rate this impulse: fill the page
errands like this reveal
streams of forbidden will
wiser even than 25 years of humiliation
not so smart now are we
repeating

wrapped around the reflection
the blue curl of 6
pillow of nostalgia
no angry fragments of tomorrow
just hours of artificial rescue

ribbed garden, dangling return
evading, escaping the familiar moments
turning as a sudden monster.

silhouette of a friend
waves from the station.
that was long ago, and
someone else's friend.
all that remains
is his piano.

whirling, the torturous voice
gratefully far away,
the darkness trembles
with waiting light.

9/10/09

Things are
as they
sound
how hard
or soft, close
or far
wood
or metal
scream, sigh
breath

07-09

There are no trophies in my trophy room.
There are no prizes in the drawer, certificates
on the wall. All the gold stars
are lost in the sky. There's only

the setting sun burnishing the bay
and the cold shadows coming
to meet it.

12/07

Grasping the railings of the song.
You don't call it that--have you
been standing there long? I
rubbed misgivings from the air,
stroking the fervid counterpane,
foraging thought, thumb in hand.
The spilling wound and the starved
alarm preceded me
in the contemplation
of the stale flake of day.

The sea speaks only to itself
in grave hollows of absorbing
and rejoinder, a conversation
heedless of the sparkle, the crazed
eons, the dead. Pale whispers
from the bite of night, huge slaps
of air, from clattered cold to
sudden hot, the force of what is
and what is not.

You're laughing at me, cradling
your insane candle,
as if prominence excuses
such fractionate contempt
for what dives beyond us
to the depths you can't
ignore forever.

2009

The Slip

The intent of your poem is oppressive.
It urges flowering
in a psychotic framework.
The moon symbol clashes with the accordion
in the third line. Isn't the punch in the second stanza
a little too
on the nose?

You have no idea how many
poems about ectomorphs
crawl across my desk like panicking
corn flakes. Due to time constraints
we skip ahead in your life
to the inevitable failure.
Let us cavort
and entwine you at 90%
off the cover price.
Call this sour lemonade
but if Clint Eastwood gets
interested, we'll talk.

The window I used to have
is fogged with ignorant breath.
The day is muffled, the
night quivers and darts.
I haven't eaten since the last
time. Still, I'm taller than
you again.

3/2009

These Severed Words

These severed words
snapped by distinction

leak into whispers
of plaintive mist

revolving like a kettle
on the rim of emotion

where dreams bear grudges
and winds sweep clean

the vision of the deep
enclosure

the foreign blaze

2/09

Swirl

There she is in the darkness, slim legs
against the sea. I can't believe it
as I move quickly towards her,
a cold jolt reminds me it is impossible.
If this moment ever existed, it is past.
What was missed, is missed.
It's all mist now, swirling through dreams.
The day's measure of breath,
the forehead of the world feverish with time,
the diffident wait for the last chuckling
off of this mortal failure.
It's rain on the roof
splashing the morning.

3/09