Acetylene torch, a settling touch

Acetylene torch, a settling touch

transformations gross and subtle

soldiering signs, grass before the scythe,

three horn blasts and the Others come,

to this, to the clock, hands undone.

Darling drinkers, lift them high,

forswear thoughts of what draws nigh.

Ere self is erasure of I,

what hands do pray, what eyes upon the sun

pick out rays, the signs are plain,

seen by Sara Tall and Emily D.

Singers call across the empty sea,

of past lives, out past Mars,

a little further than eternity.

What liquid makes this sip true,

what hour does smile, rare and few.

Liken to rocks, lichen on the north,

while we cast and reel, press and seal.

Notes far flung, and confessions tucked away,

bottles without stoppers merely fill

and fail to contain.

Lick this black spittle from my pen.

I’ve ended, and so begin.

React, And Choose Anew

I’ll be damned if chaos doesn’t seem to reign.

Occasionally, life reminds us the basis of violence,

pure disruption of the plan, the style, the formula.

The best laid gardens of mice and men...

I’ll be damned if it ain’t a season of murder,

whether it be my fruited plants aborted via pale design,

or a careless robin in the morning road 

thumping his last thought against the undercarriage,

or a whole town in Syria swamped in fear and blood and semi auto reports.

People are breaking the seals of angels.

What to do.

Push forward and reference history’s perspective.

Know where and when you are

and rely upon the whispers of the dead,

for they speak only of why.

And we can but reply.

Statements in science and soldiery succor,

given doubts and dreams, we slumber

only to flash into the waking action.

Prostrate then Plan. Darn and Sew.

The layers of Life fractal away into the distance,

in patterns understood and beguiling.

What can we do but react,

and choose anew.

Seeing The Singing

Seeing the singing

Singly something slides
Some tumbler clicking inside
Fingers twitching, feeling the picking

Designs surface for air
Old vomit burst forth from the blowhole
Figures and diagrams fade from
Old red to new blue

Syringes tapped and flicked
Sprig, squirt, the fingers cradle
as the thumb braces in the plunger’s ring

Let there ever be moments astride
before and after
the demarcation of dream and realization
“we used to speak of it, and now rely on it”

Adjustable adjusting,
such grace.

There won’t be fine flowers in her hair
But her dark eyes will be mine
To be carried in my pocket
Like a gory locket
So that I may stare and stare
evermore in the infinite beautiful black of the
raven’s wing

My sweet Poeish girl.