terra

terra, you were tearing pictures out

and throwing them to the sea

but come

on, raise your voice to me

and carry yourself

because i cant do much for you, i'll tell you all you mean:

you're beautiful and we are only human

and i am the product of somebody else's grace

and i am an object, a caricature of my father's face

and i'll be honest--i've never felt at home

for fathers or forests torn down in my wake

and halcyon,

i've been drifting you along until i find someone new

i'm still afraid

that knowing is not safety

i mean what i say; I'll grow up and move away

a social debt,

time well spent

a sun to light my nights

a coma-death

demurred when

i slept through the night

i'm still afraid

that knowing is not safety

you're beautiful, but

youth is not a panacea for failure

a garden unplanted

Leave your roots to dry.

Find a place to lie down.

When the green turns to brown,

will you still be around?

Because I spent years under the ground,

no soil to call my own.

I'm a garden unplanted with seeds to sow

and gravity can never keep me from your arms while I'm still young.

Now, every moment that I spend in-between enjoying myself and second-guessing everything

is lost and squandered on time that was never mine, then chalked up to a promise I made to another one time.

unbound

I dreamt a mountain of ice,
and water cascading down my fingers.
I dreamt a pillar of flame:
it purged our names and left us orphaned,
made us orphans.
And we were unfettered and unbound,
then passed off as elated--calm again, but frustrated.

So, hate the children you raised and make the home that you'll stay in.

"I owe to all to you,"
my head just can't stop thinking.

For architects i haven't met yet,
you engineers who imbrue the burden of truth:

I owe it all to you.

no harmony (iii)

I was a home boarded up, light begging for admittance.
Uriel, you're giving me nothing to work with:
knowledge, art, grace--all eclipsed by your view of the maker's face.

I hid under covers for weeks, years,
built tiers upon tiers of complacency
to mile-mark heaven.

i searched the books of men,
finding nothing to sink my teeth into
but vanilla words and vanilla pages.
i followed the songs of sirens,
only to be dealt the realization
that i sing off-key:
no harmony to keep my voice from resonating eternally.
i bestowed the rite of silence hoping for enlightenment to find me,
yet still i shout myself hoarse.

but passion is an untuned piano: its black sharps mellowed and yellowed with time.
still i lied flat on my back and prayed for rain.
i heard static rapping on the window, "come, grow deaf with me."

but there was no body under the blanket line:
just a husk ripped in half, torn thorax and tendrils withering endlessly.

there was no movement
there was little movement from hands, eyes
fingers turning pages making up for lost time.

somewhere along the line, i stood up and unearthed my roots
groundwater spilling everywhere, i walked down the hallway
where i heard timpani drums.
beating me from the doldrums
dull drums from the other side of the wall
a voice from the firmament:

"I don't mean to put you on the spot, but i dont mean to bother and i probably should've knocked. i've noticed your robing misanthropic, groaning and grumbling about little to nothing.
yet you left a light on
something radiant, something promethean.
And since you've acquired fire, you've desired nothing virile, nothing to entertain."

but Uriel was never there to shine.

so i sang songs,
lyrics weakening gravity then pulling me toward the center and spinning forever to meagerly endeavor that heaven is attached to string, heaven is attached to string.

since when am i a tailor
i can sew nothing.

morning fire

the morning's fire is sated by your voracious light

the sun called you a liar, but you took it in stride

and now you're sleeping still and i'm worried sick

you told me not to worry, to forget your bullshit

i'm in your waiting room

waiting for your time to come

i drew the shades at noon and prayed you were wrong

i'd sing every midwest song to keep you here

"gloria" to often ring in your ears

no brave morning leaves you unafraid

good housekeeping

marilynne,

if you are the written word, which word is your own:

"human," "connection," "piety"?

why leave me

to defend your word against the word of a thousand others

who believe that you, despite all your worth,

are frail, insignificant, and kneeling in your own cathedral

i'm not knocking on the door;

i need no shelter.

i'm pounding on stained glass,

discordant in my fervor to ask

to sanction my sanctuary

in a book on a page in the name of

some downtrodden mid-west man.

funny how alive you are(,) then.

you're not what you write,

but will you save my fucking soul?

i've heard you speak into microphones,

hush your voice to seem pensive,

speak to the camera for the camera.

spend fourteen years cleaning your own messes

break spines with your literary concrescence

even still, you've taught me that the human is the condition

but if i am the human corporeal, tell me where when how

do we go wrong am i wrong

to believe that

i don't have the words you do, i don't have the soul you do, i don't have the worth you do--i don't have words.

home/boarded up (ii)

"Raise

the curtain on this city,"

she cried,

belittled by my pathetic insight.

What have I gave that was ever my own?

What have I known to ever work?

"Because labor,"

she raised the question to follow mine,

"is just a promise i made to another one time?"

I'm still awake

I still know everything:

how you were so young,

how you were a soldier to needles and colds and overcoats.

Whatever emblem you've grown up to,

tear it from the wall.

And leave no semblance of me in your memory at all.

You're not the world you've laid out for me.

You're not the girl you've laden with our history.

Burned every letter; fed them to the fire.

You were a home boarded up.

You were a home boarded up.

You were a home boarded up.

You were home.