Realquiet

  To you: whose brow is made of metal Whose curvilinear form and Whose warm weight and  Whose full-throated  Self is so self possessed: Sorry So Sloppy ————— Dozens of them set out  on the slope o f the hospital grounds   Searching in teams  You, Christ on a cross I hold your hand, unsure OK yeah yes easy-peasy —————- Friendless in the air conditioned dark Kicking at a moonless sky Possessed of an idea That a call or a coo  Will bring us to you But we never do arrive And so you writhe upward Toward the static And quivering constellations  And it never ends —————- In years past I was of the night  Less lately But still, time to time Look up at the moon  And sway sickly as the knees tickle And wake with a prayer  For clean weather

 The blue-black lip of sky It could go on like this forever Slapping the sides of a tub out of frustration or excitement or experimentation or boredom We must endure the knowledge Of 100 Bleak yesterdays  It could go on like this forever the articulation of my spine the knobs and ridges An embedded shard of Siberian Pine We must endure the knowledge of the infinite brownout The yellowed deposits of aged teeth Sagging left and right Heads tilted, eyes cornered ___________ These feet are the feet I had a few years ago Anyway These lungs are smaller than you may think Wide-spread hand across Your breastbone goes half the distance Up and Down More than half the way across And there's a weightlessness To all of this I wake up sobbing every few minutes And then fall back into fitful sleep The pillow cast wet My skin warm And glowing beneath the sheets __________ The whole thing fell apart The moment we broke up our home And divided our belongings to their original owners and went ou...

1. The nerve clumped in my elbow Purple, Red, A bone marrow tickle A dead, cold hand What types of birds am I reminded of? What colors? How to describe the flesh? The drab ruins, the purple ruins The dog whose eye was removed Always now giving the impression Of a wince or a wink ______ Stolen liquor from my brother and his wife Perched hot beneath the dark blue tree A glance, a wave, a slight dent in my smile 2. Her heart was cracked and withered too as we dipped our toes into the psychic waters of propinquity My heat tolerance in Mid-April 3. What was your average heart rate when you woke up? When you were the same as I,                                  lounging nude in the winter dark Underfoot was snow mixed haphazardly with grass A walk full of muddy smudges The snowman we made, a miniature Kicked clean gone out of frustration Later you remark that suicide makes sense not in some sad, unspeakable wa...

I stared at it stupidly Mouth agape   The thanksgiving sandwich Being made  ———— My compatriot Small, abuzz instantly Squints for the morning moon Lumbering through the kitchen The day is swallowed whole ———— A fat finger Traces in brown, I think white, Sand  Some figures  For you to  Consider, learn And leer The ocean shrugs It’s shoulders On our toes Time and again Not scared not afraid Just yet, if ever ———- Watered the garden  Before the thunderstorm Pray for me The injection site remained  Cold to the touch  For many hours after  I can’t remember when I first  Told you I loved you It was early on I’m sure ———- Haunted this one night  The dog barking sideways And Shadows flattened and tripling themselves along the wall (They were where they should not be) I bagged up crackers and pretzels Trundled my way up the stairs And locked myself in the purple room (But they’re all purple rooms up here I thought) And as my stomach filled T...

I had been meaning to mention this I wanted to say it aloud, I think To take the microphone (Presumably there would be one) And say it with an earnestness That would make the world blush: To those not here, it was a dream So, people have gone and My once-vulpine heart  Has diminished of late

Delete Everything How to undo interpersonal entanglements The arcane art of Being benign How to give no impression at all Is it be possible to be too soft, too tall There is a sinking sensation I see what you mean I say seeing The dog flat and dead in a late-morning sunbeam These post-partum teeth are moveable, poseable Unstuck in my head Give it a knock, here or there receiving nothing but the thick and hollow thud of a watermelon in return We burned our shoes and underwear and were hushed by the sound of magazines and shotguns in the dead of night Still, No luck falling asleep Until something up above breaks and you just keep rubbing feet faithfully on fire