the ransom note
in suicide’s
dream journal
the ghost of the brainwashed rocking chair
fingers
teeth
who’s keeping
score
no one told me
you were sick
but you
some mirror
waiting
for my skin
to crawl-
some noise
being made
some holy
noise-
some terrified toy
with its toy
lover
in sound’s
blindfold
in a photograph
taken
by television
the boy
was hidden
from children
whose madness
gathered
eggs
for the animal
in tail’s
dream
[orphan’s vigil]
i.
strength
not the strength
a statue keeps.
ii.
mother’s hunger
the hunger
of marionettes.
iii.
the beggar
father hides
and the beggar
he hides
behind.
iv.
brother
don’t sleep.
the paper dolls
have been cutting
your hair.
~
[the meek, the meek]
i.
in him like the sewing needle of god’s mother; is lightning.
in you a koan.
ii.
now that she wants the surgery removed
they tell her
the womb
is a hook
that looks like a womb.
iii.
everywhere work.
stalks
pitch
the golden blood
of brooms.
iv.
mother in her rocker
her eyes
tire swings
her tongue
a cat’s tail.
v.
fourteen
my sister
martyrs herself
under the monkey
mad
in the stoplight.
vi.
in a church
hangs a coat
with a man
in it.
vii.
does not break loose
like they say
all hell.
~
[claw & cigarette]
eating is done fast and alone. teeth
chatter
in the corner.
a rabbit
muscles
in the mouth.
sleepwalking
is like something
brother
won
at the fair.
we nudge him. put the bread
back
of the mouth. think injured
deer, slanted
mailbox.
~
[courier]
a man
under a man
on a tightrope.
a local teacher
making scissors
of her hands. yesterday
at the market
one recognized
another
and spoke
all night
through a mask.
~
[equipoise]
we’ve a silent knocker.
a place for god and for god’s
girlfriends.
my asking
is a horse
bellied
by a whale
by which I mean
to talk
of that day
on the shore-
the white herd, the limbs
made wild
by wave-
~
[day of hands]
leave me
like you leave
pianos.
point
where a crow
should be.
be it
an hourglass
hell
and we
on its floor.
be there
withdrawing
one bird
into the clock
when it claws
noon.
~
[consonance]
false gods
are the sons
of belief
~
[bounty]
where I gutted a man
who could not hush
his hunger
see a snake
scratch its belly
with sand
~
[the spared]
a dusty toad gives my father fits. my sisters run through cobwebs. I pluck ticks from our dog and put them to my ear. I think of my blood
in dog years.
~
[hips]
to be moved again by the stillness of things
I muscle into
a still
thing.
what great arrest
to be under
in this room
survived
by a wounded
curfew.
~
[careerists]
dunce cap, crow mirror.
the learning
curvature
of god. she
her anhedonia.
soul
with its push
broom. the tired blackbirds.
~
[library time]
the boy has two weeks
to care for the book
he reads from.
the day before his mother dies
outnumbers
the day after.
~
[girl on skates with bucket]
all of nine, girl on skates
with bucket
avoided parks, happiness, and socks
eraser pink
some earlier 2015:
~
[input]
I am the photo my visions take.
high
on memorization
the mother
has to believe
in god
for god
to have
a safe
word.
the boy is dirt and noise. is hindsight’s
gospel.
loneliness, meet maker.
~
[island]
my son
has enough
light
for god’s
cheek. in pain
I am over
the moon.
~
[bliss is your mother’s terrain]
I don’t have the temper my memory has.
skin cell, star.
a mouthful of the flood’s
haunted
soil. an entry
made by a god
at seven
days
sober.
overseas, another ant
in the darkness…
~
[themes for exile]
its father tells god how it was briefly haunted by two ghosts that began to see each other. it doesn’t mention by name the who’s who of having babies. by the scar of milk in its belly, god accepts on cruelty the continued presence of the left handed coalition of something in the water. a good mother burns what’s been devoured.
~
[fieldwork]
the evacuated court of my son’s illness.
the blind man’s
missing
eyelid.
the grief, the broth, the reacquired thrift.
the dispersed body. the hotbeds
of skeletal
trauma.
the dance music as mother’s
chthonian
darling.
the sorrow method. the rhythm.
~
[divide]
tired of mom touching its food, the baby comes early. we call this moment the buzzard’s injured adoration of a surplus crow.
–
last supper, I see only men.
~
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[themes for transition]
I used my nearest
sister
to strike
my brother
who’d wasted
the last tooth
of his horse
meant
for a slingshot
on a meal
for a scarecrow
–
the power
to mother
went out
–
father
compared
puppets
–
our heaven of socks and string
~
[themes for arrowhead]
if the damn thing is a boy, let it have a knot in its stomach. if it’s not one twin, it’s another. if a girl, find a woman who’s been to nothing and back.
bring me a fat tick from the dog of baptism. owl from the hair of god.
~
[the father]
I am walking up a hill the dark is trying to move. my mother has a way with words. my mother has a baby. reading is a kind of crying. the baby is crying because the baby has lost track of something that possesses nearness. there are two babies. one is always blind and one is blind when it eats. never lose a tooth you can swallow.
sister in the shower sings of taking a thunderstorm
/ smoking
was my way
is
of becoming
a woman / we know
a carpenter bee
as the simplest
foot
of an injured
possum
I jumped from a tree seven times
trying to break
my arm.
which arm
by morning
remembered.
/ a virgin
doesn’t really see
his last
scarecrow.
/ if you open a pack of diapers
and some
are black / I have
four kids.
I dream
every night
one
goes missing
which means
by morning
the three
from the dream…
I am not the first to know how the world will end.
image
my second language, my lost
ghost / be alone
be like
a motorcycle…
your mother
she took an apple
from the wax
pig
museum / with what,
no,
where
do you poke
starvation
kingsoftrain 