Ancient Hunger

Something deep, and still, and dark, and cool;
A rock pool - opaque -
Cloaked and ringed by the outstretched boughs of a shadowy wood,
Laced by verdant green,
Smelling of wet, and age,

Trees huddled round like crones before an altar 

For unknown gods;

Here this primal well -
You find all the night's fiery glory whole upon its surface,
Glassy, ancient, voracious;
The obelisk of memory.
Nighttime critters fall a'hush as you near.
Be wary of your step;
Only the bones of those before you know how deep its hunger runs.

Unfinished Sympathy

In the sand he squares out symbols of his love from the vague memories of youth and thinks, "These are the first sparkings of the soul." What score marks that? What equation poses it? How is it proved? He attempts Einstein first, switches to Bach, then Schrodinger, then Mozart. The dread repetitions of Glass might make mention. In this way the beach becomes a manuscript of garbled memories, like a parchment overwritten by many minds across centuries. The sun sets, pink washes down the shoreline as the ocean stills in gentle sighs to a glass-green translucence through which a shifting bottom may be spied, but not touched, where great silhouetted sea creatures levitate within waves undulating in rhythm with the oscillating murmuration of restful giants asleep upon the ocean floor, their slumber stirring the world from afar. His footsteps become part of the score, and he dances on his loose equations adding crotchet and quavers with flicks and scuffs. Soft beneath the pads of feet washed clean in the briny, warm still even as the sky now becomes all different streaks of liminal adieu; indigo, crimson, violet, and azure, and a haze of salt veiling off the long curve of coastline that arches like a half-smile upon the musings of his mind in memory, a symphony of science, a tabling of emotion, the synching of heart in beat with the endless spinning of stars pivoted around a heart frozen in love.

Untitular

Does it all sink back to earth again,
These thrumming, violent tendons of truth
That pick and weave their routes through us?

If only languid language might make a place for me in her heart;
I could dust, make dinner, maintain house.
I am not so bad at it.

But yet the thing eludes.
Is the thing a thing at all?

On days buoyant I might bob just so
And keep a level head remembering
The world is always three parts -

Above, below,
And here.

Hailstone Mind

At night there comes the hooded thing

The thing of dark - of winter bright 

Alone I sit and wonder at it as I have so often prior  

This thing of brooding malcontent, this thing of cold desire 

This thing of broken lust I trust it not? I trust it dire    

These scars are all I have of you so let me love them true  

In wanton heat now glowing I find my time unflowing and the 

Rhyme now grinding down like black space falling inward like
Your atmosphere you stuck me like a pig a piece of cloth a rusting
Cog and now we fly to meet who made this grin like you believe in him and hope  

Little Whispers In The Sky

I sat on the front steps smoking and looking at the black night in the trees, in the forest; a few scattered stars up above, little puncture wounds in the nothing, little reminders of mortality, little whispers that seem to say, "There is no real death."  I wonder sometimes if we build our cities simply to block them out, to turn away from their silent friendship and forget the implications of their existence, building up our own versions of events, electric inauthentic, blasting back into space, rubbing out the atmosphere, making blank the canvas, putting fingers in our ears, pretending not to recognize an old friend at a party. 

Now the train slips up the coastline track, the glorious green of this temperate tropic - trees that grovel, trees that slither, all fresh, all hungry. But I can still hear the chorus in the forest, like something from a hidden memory, incense burning in the magic; the hut standing tall and proud like a gypsy soothsayer expecting you; wooden steps that croaked and a balcony made for soft conversations, little gatherings; and the frogs barking, the owls holding court, the nighttime creatures playing at their wares. We sat among them, cocooned in their warm cacophony, and the smell of wood smoke. I felt safe inside your jumper, and knew you wouldn't mind the stale cigarette smoke I was leaving in the cotton, like a message, little traces of myself, secret whispers, like the stars, to remind you, "There is no real death."

In the Ether Between

Splendid nothing echoing down the endless entropy
Static stars cast like failed gambles
Shadows sleeping like drunks on the sidewalk
Heat that pools in the afternoon -
Too heavy to hold itself aloft -
Treacle thick, golden,
Baking weight;
The city that hangs like a forlorn teen
Food nights and beery afternoons;
And every so often a rape or murder to remind us.
Pretend unknowns -
Souls that have forgotten
Trapped as they are in the
Flesh in the
Clothes in the
Names in the
Memories
Howling out for
Clearer definition.
The forever to remember us as
Broken pixels -
Tap the screen to get them unstuck.
The materialists got the upper hand and
We swoon like a love-struck mark
Sighing at the con-man's every well-delivered word.

Undo

Undo the constraints of skin,
Let the universe expire
And my heart beat bloody in
Your palms,
So then we might know
Once and for all
If it is real.
Or,
If this evening should dip
Into yet another grin of
Silence,
And the skin grow over the teeth,
And the tongue dry up,
And the blood bloom deep in the throat
Of all our nodding
So that the machinations can continue,
And the constraints can hold:

Then let your eyes be like ellipses
That lead to a better version
Of us.