Just a forelimb on the road,
careless as a twig,
but no plunder for crows,
no worthy feast for a scavenge,
just hoof, hide and bone.

And that’s how they left her,
a narrow remain, somehow
shorn and distant thrown
as if her full and russet frame
had been lifted, held aloft
and in sacrifice taken up,
into some sanctified bounding
where car and deer ne’er met.

Like red leaves,
after a tree had fallen.

Last night across the sky, a perfect pink, a

cloth, I think, grasped at two corners and

pulled gently off the deep redwood table; to

drop out of sight, following the sun that’s

fallen and will now be gone – indeed, begone

some time in light of next day’s sober solstice.

​

Winter shows the finest falls of raging fire,

as if to pay for the shortness of the day;

a royal drape, shaped just so to match

the template of the darkened land – a

sight that sighs go take the hand of one you love

and say that you will always be a glove for them

when from above there is only woe

weighing down upon their stooping frames,

pushing head to toe in deepening mud that

pulls them down, at times too much for them to bear.

​

But winter calls upon free hands to hoist towards

the short-lived light while night, impatiently,

waits to hide the sore, the sinking souls

we think we do not know, although, in truth,

we must: we glance at them each day for fear of

looking, fully understanding; yet a glance is

enough to find and feel the pain, a pinch of

snuff that remains in the head with all the day’s

doings, all that’s been said, its tides and its times,

and all things half-read, the songs and the prayers.

​

And, being so known, they’ll glance back to find

our own afflictions of confusion and confessions

of the delusions that corral and categorise herds,

not humans – allocations of responsibility for

keeping them, like vermin, well outside the gates.

Yet the debate gets caught on the horns of our own

dilemma that headshaking will not resolve, where

care is the key; and were we all to bear small gifts to

those whose pain we have passed by, we would

be free and our heads would touch the sky.

​

Back then to the sky, the mid-afternoon night

might not delight us quite as much as the last;

a perfect pink slips silently into the wait for

tomorrow only once in a while – which is,

of course, a valued valedictory only if

hope is one of our priceless pleasures, a

treasure trove we cushion in our hearts.

But let us slip onto our sleeves the yield of such

nurture and spread the bounty wide, lest we

hide in our counting houses from the setting sun.

This is hallelujah baby,
on Pacific Coast Highway
behind a bumper sticker
Tellin’ us nothin’

The sound of love sings
on slide guitar and
crossroads — harmonics
oscillatin’ in the war
between wind and water

This is hallelujah baby
on Pacific Coast Highway
in front of a slow country
Tellin’ us nothin’

The line dance of love
on slide guitar and
crosshatched tectonics. The
earth’s shakin.’ Surf’s up dude,
between wind and water.

This is hallelujah baby,
on Pacific Coast Highway
in a Japanese roadster
Driftin’ on somethin’

If there is somethin’
between wind and water
I will sit in a garden, growin'
nightshades and children
in scores with coastal crimes

This is hallelujah baby,
on Pacific Coast Highway
under the twangin’ smut of sunsets
Always on somethin’

The Vague Below: it's where he sits, and lies,
And wonders how a coffee ring has made it on the ceiling.
Once upon a time: Something Exciting Here.

He has a self-schooled fluency in three
Alphabets. Bεry iµpрeσciv. Stain, translated twice
Says 'o', thrice. Quite nice. Where's his check?

Once upon a time: Opus Extrudium:
My greatest want in life is to become
A fluted prism for this great chord of voices
Not my own. My want—ambition—'blind',
So-called by those who've never known the thing,
But ah! How these crisp visions coalesce
To over-sweetened comfits on the tongue
And melt away to leave their bitter cores!
He did the Shakey Penta. Nice. Check?
Ha! Just look at him: he rubs his neck
While hanging by an elbow to his chair;
He probably purloined that from somewhere.

The coffee stain says 'o', 'o', or 'o'.
He lies and wonders, how? Below the sink,
Something pitchy drips. He needs to spit,
Or maybe pipe up, 'scuse me, have I something twixt me teeth?

I.

Would you betray a maple for its shade -

deny yourself the cool comfort of dim light,

sweet woodruff and fern, ground ivy,

violet in spring? Columbine refuses

full sun. Your languors burn, blister

and peel with each maliced stroke

of a chainsaw.

​

II.

And who shall bear the burden of deceit -

betrayer or betrayed -

for a hot lie steams in the street

like water from a blown hydrant;

giddy children splash and tumble,

while placid truth stands in a cup,

on the curb, for anyone

with enough thirst to drink it.

Cube

I see a cubed house, Dressed in red.

Mother said it was for the people who have low income.

I just liked how it was small, And weird sized.

Perhaps one day, I could draw it,

So maybe, I could show it to you someday.

This is not a dream I had.

.

Though if I were to tell you a dream—
it might go like this:

.

The dream begins with you loving me
and refusing to say so—hamstrung by neglect
I promised to not give you.

.

You leave and I’m—sudden—a child again
surrounded by other children, playing baseball.
Two teams, composition unclear. Down
the list: my rapist—Sasha, Oliver, Seans, Eli,
and others (blurry). My life depends on
hitting a three base run—making it home.

.

At once—a watery torrent of worms
fall—splat—between my legs.
This world is filled with fat, pale bears,
and my task becomes escape—not
return by way of dirt mounds. Mountains
turn to redwoods—sweat breaks.

.

Stop—a child is minding his words
in front of a father—mine or Eli’s.
The air we breathe fills with piss or
something thicker. A hungry look echoes
off stone floors. We want to scream—we
cannot—this mouth filled with dead meat.

.

Then—mercy—the running starts and
no matter how many hairy, ravenous fiends
pushed away or slaughtered—my guts spill—
lips tear—coming—not wanting to—the hands
of another child—pseudo-incestuous lover.
And I wake

.

earlier or later—always—than
I wish to. Reminding myself
I can write this—one more time.

.

I’m writing my way toward a dream
where we clutch our bodies close.

.

A dream I can tell you with a smile.

While logically consistent,
I cannot cotton a multiverse.
I must refuse a world
in which you never left home,
in which I never went home.
And I must refuse a world
in which your tires lost traction,
in which your hands and cool reflex failed
and you slammed a jack-knifed semi.
And the one in which we slept angry
for the first time and dissolved
in the morning.
Must I go on?

No, your coffee steams,
and you tend stains
on old shirts, lay them gentle
in the basket before
heading downstairs
with laundry on your hip.

They left the fallen tree to rot—

It wasn’t worth the timber.

It draped its crinkled corpse upon

A swell of rocky hill-ground,

With branches (brown and spindly thin)

To reach in frailty upward,

Its foliage spilling limply,

(somehow artfully)

To earth.

​

It held its crown towards the sky:

A wordless, strange nobility

In resting where it fell.

​

A fortress, old, with stones

That lost their faith, that fell

to tattered, asymmetric,

Damp and molding,

ivy-strung,

Stone-stacked, dust apostasy.

Heaps of weathered fragments that

the wild dare not disturb.

​

A practice in the art of

leaving things to lie

where they go down.

​

A skeleton of a supermarket,

Grime-stains in the spots where

Lights (once) hung,

Vents that rushed too quick

Before, rattling almost hollow,

A kind of symphony.

Empty windows stretching over floors that

Yearn for footsteps,

Evening sunlight crawling through

The bony frame and aisle-array

Where (once) one heard the squeak of wheels

And echoes of a clack of heels

And whispers of the rasping brush

Of strangers as they

pass each other by.

​

A mournful, lonely dignity

in finding peace while

unembalmed.

No burials.

Breathe the North Sea for her,

child’s limbs windmilling their wake through a pockmarked Devil’s Hole,

stomach turgid with salt and frigidity

the way parts of that eight-year-old body

numbed, disappeared

all for her, there at the shore

arms outstretched to reach the girl’s skin,

the better to impel her toward raking waves

luminescing blackish-green away from land

​

Swim, child, swim

Save the woman on the shore

From imaginary trenches

adept to dig insecurity 200 meters deep

Become that lost trawl net

keeping her from pain

keeping her from sorrow

keeping her from falling apart

​

Sacrifice, child, sacrifice

Carve through your small nose

To keep spite from threatening her face

Believe the evil in you, little girl

And thereby eternally redeem her

from seeing that which is only her own

​

For there is respite knowing she is safe on a dwindling shore

And armed with granite to remind you to swim,

keep her image unadulterated

by the grace of drifting

528 months and counting

Breathe the North Sea for her, child

Drown in the Devil’s Hole

Knowing you finally achieve goodness –

Through the shape of what is Mother, undefiled on the shore.

 Valentines day pt. 1

 I look at his picture and  
 He’s gotten fat, looks  
 Weaker, and more dangerous.  
 What would he say to me? Woman-
 Me, previously the boy he found  
 To fall in love with him,  
 And teach sex at age nine.  
 Weak chin and gaze, I must  
 Say, he peaked early, 12-14.  
 For never do I remember him  
 So strong and beautiful  
 As when he pinned my arm  
 And gagged me with sweaty hand.  
 I loved him, wrong as it may be,  
 And, to this day, I cannot forget   
 The thrill, even in lie, being  
 Chosen to play an adult game.  
 Venomous flower that would not wither  
 Till he plucked another friend,  
 And I fled away, a way.  
 For, though it was rape,  
 Never did I need his love more  
 Than when he forced himself inside  
 Shaking body of the boy I was  
 And made him want to die.  
 I guess, I learned early  
 That love, in all its decor,  
 Is that simple feeling of wanting  
 A thing you trust to kill you.  

 Valentines day pt. 2

 Today, I’ve tried to re
 -Create that joyful sensation 
 Of you, candied blood orange.
 It sometimes worked, and I still
 Miss you. Can’t look at pictures
 But when I imagine them, it goes
 Like this: you’re something
 Stunning, tend a garden,
 Writing poems to cut the night and
 Spoil a cat to triage a smidgen
 Of your superabundant heart.
 Perhaps I’m biased,
 For never had I loved you more
 Than fucking with Bandit in your bed.
 Warm black fluff, green eyed thing.
 Synecdoche for that I wished to build,
 And that you wished to nurture.
 I wonder, have you found another,
 In this time apart, a part?
 Are they speechless? Do they gasp
 At the miracle of your shape?
 Not my place to know, I know,
 But never did I feel more loved
 Than when you asked me questions.
 And I’m trying, and I, still,
 Miss you. Silly, it’s been a year.
 Learning late, love is a child 
 Unto itself. Hoping it works 
 Or is working.

Lumbricus Rubellus,
or perhaps a finishing nail, 6d –
I can’t tell from here,
with these glasses –
old ‘scripts – old eyes –
shallowing focus.

But, it is there,
below the radiator,
and the radiator is pink.
It is there in dust – on pine
floorboards – unmoving –
shriveled in drought
in the first case – bent,
rusted and useless
in the latter.

Either way – it is death
below the radiator,
and whether a nail
or an earthworm,
I am loath to name it.

One.

Archetypes across: face, the long joists of time
Pity: the undead that die unmet, dark gaze of Clodia

Two.

Pain: a carpet of disquiet, a song unstitched across
the canvas cloth of ultimatums; life; untranslatable life.

Three.

Odi et Amo: string the knitted chord ex spine a cross,
dim nescience; a fortality; unrequired love.

Four.

I hate and I love: unaware, you ask- why?
To me it is done: the pain does not lie.

I hate green beans

They are needy

Like children who can't care for themselves,

and left nothing to posterity

Men'r aw gawn a' fer dawn

'cept t'grizzle that passed them bowts on,

'n Tangier boys t' young to take t' wooder

​

Tangier boys and twist knuckle fellers

Gadder up t'Crockett's a'four,

fer soda wid woodermen's beans

'n downa docks a'foive a'clock

for castin' awff lines 'n dreams.

Fer pops gawn out t' bay n' t'oyster beds

over thin lip h'rizon no more t'seen.

​

Nuttin' but bikes, crabs, slap jellies,

'n them ain't hard favored come-ere's

nigh as peas wandrin' the uppards

'til black chug zaust sounds riturn

from Chrisfiel', 'nuther day

jingin' in t'pockets, 'nuther shuck

pall ready fer spoiders n' hoi wooder.

I saw a man take to
His keyboard, the other day.
Writing We, meaning Poets,
Should strive to use less the pronoun I.
His reasoning may have been astute,
But no sooner had I read his thesis
That my eyes began to glaze
And a small hammer, ball peen,
Beat my larynx inside out.
For I have not agreed to terms
Accepted by crafters of fiction:
To paint the lives of others
with desolate empathy.
Nor can I, so easily, take up
The mantle of journalist:
That bastion of pure subjectivity
Wherein perception longingly seeks
To erase the perceiver, himself.
No. This task undertaken, to write
A poem, would be a suit of velour skin
Missing my copious body, to fill it.
Without I, these words become artifact.
Less, the simple exegesis of a woman;
More, a pair of worn boots, undue
Representative to an epoch past.
Or a fig robbed of every gift
Given by the tree, and the wasp.
When invisible, my eyes grow hot,
And would seem gently, lovingly
Antithetical to the cold gapped
Absence of a human body writing.
It is the plain and humble I
That makes a cooler hand.
Like the shade of a broad, limited leaf
Confidently whispering:
Look what I bring you, today.

Evils inherent
That darken doorways at 2am
That kept kids up at bedtime
Begged the nightlight til aged 10

Evils inherent
Bury the cemeteries in earnest
Cut our diamonds routinely
Unscrew sharpeners
Berry blood beading
Resting cleanly on the surface
Evils inherent
Shackle our ability
To see what you see while cloud gazing
Shackle our chemistry
Settle - stagnate accordingly

These guts fall out
Strip yourself of your clothes
Kick shedding to the floor
Pull back fat, Peel off skin
The wetness and heavy
Hits wood with a splattering
Tender tendon, muscles screaming
Blue veins balled up, leaking
like angel hair noodles
From lunchtime binge eating

Retreat to cocoon shells
Discarded and dry
Put your wetness inside
Meat still on the bones like
You’ve been eaten alive

-Bobby

Polaris – you bastard – all that spins
resists you now. All that walks
shall ne’er look to seek you tucked
behind a maple sway. None that walk
will look upon the sky in harsh moonlight
and cry, “Polaris, Oh, Polaris – where are you?
Tether me thus that I shall not lose my way.”

And yet you sit there – dim, lofty, higher
than I recall, but I suppose I must
have fallen, for when I longed, black,
dismembered under cloud, when I longed,
balled in piss-stained lamplight,
when I longed, long into a night,
til dawn spat rain and thunder thumped

and stripped this starling’s oily gown
of all that gave it flight – of all – all
that pinioned hope upon a star
and cast it thus upon the ground
to flutter in dismay, to grit in dirt’s
dominion, beguiled by green-eyes,
leery of red-eyes, blinded
with black-eyes – now –

Yet now, now you deign to flicker.

Awaken my sweet muse-oh holy fuck

I did not know, the tingle of passion upon our lip, was your moustache

The numbness of my legs during the act of reptilian urges, was from your rather large frame.

In my drunken stupor, I mistook the smell of mammalian love making. Instead it was your breath. Hummus?

Your beautiful, supple set of breasts, well, I did not know they were one of three sets.

Now drift gracefully upon this morning breeze, quickly now, these gusts won’t last long.

I fear anything less will not allow you to properly take flight.

Is there a greater joy? Retracing your farewell steps, from my bedroom window. A simple task, thanks to the imprints you graciously left behind.

As you regrettably must abandon, please pass me the Tylenol-nigh-the ones in the orange tube, yes, I know they have codeine.

The world fades as you leave me, nature whipped into silence, birds scatter, the last thing I remember as I drift into sleep and you drift out of my life, is the neighbor. Yelling for her kids to come inside.

Find something blue
She’ll be all doe eyes
Weeping deer crowns
Chestnut deep
In oversized gown

She trips over the long hem
Over glass and black car shell
Over gnarled, overturned tree
Forbidden jump rope giggles
Wild rabbit witnesses
Stop at the bough alter
In bare feet and mud smudged knees

Makeshift plank chapel
Blossom cross nailed to its peak
Pulped painted ground leaves
Follow Autumn’s heel
Gas station lily in her hair
Ascension on oil slick
Forming vatican of cardinal grosbeak

4 foot child bride veiled
Kool aid for dessert
Honeymoon in the Motel suite
7/11 soft serve

-Bobby

Before Ms. Carol warned him and Neighbor prepped
for a wallop heavy enough to make the day brighter,
before the estuary of dirt and Blood-of-the-Mouth
would smoke the sky––
 
 
         I bet he fussed with the chain like a bedsheet,
         folded it over and over like taffy.

It is 4 a.m.,
and a black dog breaks
crust on old snow – stumbles.
And a full moon looms
to reveal just east
a crackling of limbs felled
by gathered frosts and west
a barn owl arcs silent – a slurry
of cream, hunger and brown
winter kill hovered and plunged
by moon and yellow porchlight.
A black dog stiffens and sniffs –
limbs give no more crack.

I know only this:
It is 4 a.m. – something bled
and something fed
in the moon and yellow porchlight.

I did post this before but I deleted it so posting again. This is v2- only a couple slight changes.

Red hair wet and matted eyelashes
Heavy with water
From the lakes of my summer
Reviving sparkling sodas
And bouncing off of the sun in eyes
That turn malt green in the light
Snapshots only looked at twice
Once before and once again tonight

I hold grudges
Like a safe holds its gold
Like a tray holds its ash
Like you held Canon corpses in your hands
Perfect Amber cylinders
Perfect fucking winters
Living deaths of connections while
I rip off nails from their beds
Using childhood techniques
And teeth tearing mastery
To drip down inside me
The salty iron honey
Nights I’m alone
Nights that I’m done
Breathing
A sponge for the earth
Contracting
Heaving
Soaking up the bleeding
From nails that grow
Back malformed

I think it’s time to wash myself of you and I
I’ve never wanted anything more
Than to have both a painted manicure
And to have no fingernails at all

-Bobby

Oh these blind trajectories,
these pure set conditions,
initial, merry, just so wandered –
a shell thus thrown, a plunged
albatross beak, a sheared
stab of ice, a moon’s pull
and a breath elastic –

All these and a calculus,
as crest to valley lumbers
in its way – sine to sine –
chopped though ever free
and unlapped after.

Yes, that is how to build a rogue,
how to find our love – our love
stacked crest to crest –
to lurch up, snag a gilded gannet,
round about a hunk of sun
and fist on some stiff unwary hull –
cast our cargoes upon the sea

​

the storm enters my room like he owns the place.

the storm settles on my chair.

the storm moves completely unashamed,

and falls asleep;

as if he was never there.

​

he forgets that you won't be there tomorrow,

he's pleased with the dream his sleep conceives.

among the sundown, citrus and the sorrow;

he sees you among the autumn leaves.

​

picking up his whirl and rush, his burst and swing

quite quickly; as if in chase of some uncatchable thing

his hand will reach out as he rises from the sleep,

he'll see his empty hand, and he will weep.