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.

little luminosities

“. . . .Gleaming islands, and indeed whole continents, [that] can still add themselves to our modern consciousness—a phenomenon that has become itself the daily experience of the psychotherapist. Therefore we would do well to think of ego consciousness as surrounded by a multitude of little luminousities.” — Carl Jung

nothing left to fix you,

no leak to be plugged.

we sold our cures to the sky

for fear of what is above

but there's nothing left to fix you.

"...your initials on the bottom."

stay in the clouds.

the ether is your ether.

either

or

bury yourself from nine to five.

find the right cure or rely on

antidotes that lie in the alchemic stagnation of water at your bedside:

mud and water,

fluoride and chlorine.

"take two in the morning..."

For your little luminosities, carl—they only seem to illuminate like the streetlamps in this abyssal town;

what little they cast their light over need not be revealed for fear of casting out.

symbols—satyrs, saints, patrons—wane

salvation lies

in strings that connect us all, pull us to the sun

I've seen your islands go up in smoke,

(smoldering Galápagos),

yet i know there's still hope in your words.

if you are a split cistern, sister,

caulk your cracks

if your bottle is broken, brother,

collect the glass

i know you'd say that, carl, over a beer or a glass of wine.

you and

i know not what shines beyond this and that horizon,

across oceans of red-orange sparks,

but whatever lyricism we contain

falls victim to banality—mundane

in its fleeting rapture:

a lyric is a lyric,

a color is a color.

for this i am no builder, no architect;

i harbor no art.

the sum of my parts.

quell

close the door, let's make it last

we've had enough time to waste

you're calling my name down the hall

like you did when i was a baby

if we fall in love too fast,

we're sleeping just to wake

we are just fallen sons

who shame our fathers names

and judge love in quantities. but

enough to quell your taste,

to feel your rage

and though my hatred is still sated by

satyrs, saints, patrons, and passing life

an indignation that i must face alone to fight

a fever condemned to all of me

our bodies will tremble like paper planes

in the wind, frail

when we raise glasses

to toast the sky.

judging love in quantities, but just

enough to quell your taste,

to soothe your rage

and though my hatred is still fated by

fathers, farces, crosses, and liar's vows

i face this fate, i'm fated alone to fight

a benediction to my own right

alfred, what would you have said that day?

enough to keep me sane,

but i'm still worrying.

all these theories have come too late.

have i come too late?

and now were too late.

count your mistakes,

count your blessings.

for we have courage,

for we have color.

count your mistakes;

we're not running.

i'll always struggle to keep up.

anemoi

"progress is forfeit,"

or so you would sing.

relying on the wind to bring

all these things to air.

my own home is worthless,

a falter to beset.

but i was dumb and restless, yes:

a pious false prophet.

but now i awake and shake

in sheets i'll coat with sweat;

in every dream i recreate

the life that i have left.

all i offer to your sons and daughters:

"reach for nothing;

take what you create."

all i offer is laid out on the altar

carry us

terra, you were tearing up pictures and casting them to the wind.

as the waves wrote their scripture on the land,

and

the flames burned all their plans

to dance

along the shore.

we happened upon happenstance.

with you screaming at the sea,

i couldn't hear a thing.

but come raise your voice to me;

scream like you know my middle name--

my ears are an offering.

aria, are you just tired now?

speaking about how loud

your song would sound if the air would allow.

if the weather permits, you can always change it

for a change of pace.

some distance away,

you proved i've needed

some distance away.

carry on.

long before

what we called home was waiting

for you long before you came.

and, sister, on your way out,

can you repeat what i said?

have we grown up through this,

have we grown out from light?

do we change all we are to hide from mistakes?

like when your mother said,

"honey, i'm leaving.

decisions things take time,

decisions things linger on."

so i'll carve my way out

am i too late,

but not too late

to wonder what became of hope?

(this full circle

will always contrive our lives)

am i too late,

but not too late

to wonder what became of grace?

i don't owe you,

not one cent.

fuck your right;

it's all over now.

(now you're just sleeping on your own.

and where do we go from here, where do we stay?

in others' arms, what will we create?)

does time just stand still for us now?

do i change my direction?

do i wait?

homes (i)

claire will stumble down the stairs

and carry herself like molly bloom,

a clumsy waltz through every room.

i know so little.

i know so little.

i still miss your mother;

i swear she's almost here.

stumble through the door at four in the morning

like you knew she did the same

but you know so little.

oh, you know so little.

and she was sick,

when you were tried and tired,

vivid and alive,

with life.

we knew so little

we knew so little.

so i'll shave my face

and i'll stand up straight

like somebody else's posture

could keep me that way

so i'll shave my face

and i'll wash my hands

pretend that your grace

is half of what i am

so i'll shave my face

and i'll cut my hair

to sever resemblance,

to remember this severance

in my own way

but these dead cells are just that.

i am no maker,

i am no architect

of my own design,

but i made you a promise once:

that i wouldn't write like all those savants

who claim identity to a country they barely knew

heard stories from the other room

you were a home boarded up,

you are home.

and i knew so little

paper cups

i couldn't tell the difference between

the late-teen, off-key singing in the back

or the radio.

then you,

laying like a tired queen on her throne

your feet pressing up the window

and your chin on your knee

thinking what situations we find ourselves in

you were laughing to yourself

you're still the only one who knows

the state that i was in

or the state that we were driving in.

pouring out of the car.

stumbling up your stairs.

waking up around four

to the sound of your father beating on the door:

"girl, that boy had better be gone soon."

oh, how disappointed he'd have been

my reputation as that boy will always precede me

in my conversations with him.

well, if thats what love really is

four drunk-as-fuck, tired kids

waxing our politics to the sound

of rain playing couplets

on the door awning

that won't come more than more than once

so don't wear your weary eyes out

like dixie cups attached to string,

from one best friends house to the other

we sing,

"will you come this time tomorrow?"

calm again

make your choice now,

are you still trying to figure out

your way out of this nowhere town

to stand on high or sink below

the benevolence of your childhood home

i know it's harder than it seems.

cause it's either ether or it's earth,

the restless intent to reverse,

to writhe in the lows and throes

of all you gave away.

i know it's harder than it seems.

what we worked for,

all of this:

the end result is comfortless;

calm again, but listless.

i know it's harder than it seems.

recall this memory you pushed back:

a young girl lying on her back.

is she cold, alone, or bitter still?

has she taken all she has to?

is she biting her tongue or biting a pill?

i know it's harder than it seems.

i still pass for the honest,

never the same.

you've rearranged the furniture,

but you still keep those same shades up,

never closed,

always open,

'cause you know that

all the light, all the love

that could filter in from above

will never keep you from what

you've always wanted.

(when you were young,

dumb,

and innocent.)

never forget what you've learned,

those theories of some men

that

you've burned and

tossed out,

fucked-up,

run out,

now you're on your way.

but it's never too late to explain,

so you kept silent while those liars

passed you by.

i don't know where you'll live then die in.

windwaker

vagabonds wait for time to fade,

then blame it on the western world:

"i know this is so much to ask,

it's just that these things happen too fast."

i'm sure your father knows this,

as he fathers

his apotheosis of,

"where do we find our own?

all i've ever known was home.

and when the wind just picks up,

i'm left in your wake."

"now, son, you've crossed the sea,

sailed beyond our history

and my stoic eyes."

for what do i owe the sun

for my son or my brother?

my sister or my mother,

who i left behind.

sail away from you;

sail away from view.

(so clean your hands of me

or decide my worth

but cut the tendon first

to prove what i will always mean to you

though i know not the name

that you chose for me

i'd like to think it was vast and radiant,

like all the waves

in your hair that i only saw

in old pictures

i never found

in attics lost to dust and fate

did he carve my face

in all his righteous deeds and worries

did he lie awake

and did he fake sleep

like a child or like a warrior?)

black omen

you built citadels in skies

to fake your own rise.

you tore fire from horizons

to steal your own red.

you cast your vigilance,

the worms claim

their dead.

standing on high with fate--

have we illuminated grace?

the blackest omen yet.

i saw it coming in your signal fires,

as the rich grew richer

and the poor expired.

there's a purity in form,

and so i questioned

the dichotomy in our

own essence.

but if i ever saw it,

if i ever knew its name,

then i know it's coming--

three hands on a single face.

and we were kings upon that,

we were kings on that day.

we were brothers in arms

from the print of your mandate.

in all, we fall

faltered and in course

altered.

opportunist,

this is your mess.

come danze di liberta.

lionheart

burn your tomes, boy, you've got it made.

you've got your arm stretched to yesterday.

keeping secrets wont seal your knowledge away,

so arcane.

but you keep it so clandestine

when i'm standing on the mezzanine

and you're hurling your soliloquies at me--

i'm not listening.

i know i've no part in your work of art.

all this pretension will pass you away

to lesser age.

now is your time to gather retribution,

standing like a harlequin:

"do your worst, darling."

playing atlas for transience,

a transient, in transit,

a love-fettered romantic.

old stories are written before they're made.

wait for a memory.

a moment of clarity,

parried disparity:

make your choice now.

anthemic

i've marked the map so you could find your back.

i've crossed "t's" and dotted "i's" just to stay tact.

tactfully assert their roles;

carefully narrate their goals.

where they go we will not follow.

there is no indiction of your worth, so

iconoclast, you speak out of turn.

outclassed, in turn,

we'll watch you burn

these manifestos out of reach

and communiques the public breached.

(private lives are others' now.)

your monikers will run their ground:

corpses rot,

and buildings drown

as the blood floods the gutters of our beloved cities

"cut the head before it speaks.

we are lying to the weak.

we are lions among sheep;

slaughter unfaltered."

pariah,

one year goes by

as your desire

only feeds mine.

sergio leone

patron, i know you've had this all planned out--

we are peons on oblivion's dime.

in sight, in mind, never run too far to find

what is

beyond your path;

beyond my sky.

so you chalked it up to truth,

but i knew

that there was more work to do

beyond

the plaza signs

plasma signs that burned bright

in effigy of the memory

of all the worn-out ways they raised me on

"pursue your happiness--you'll be content"--

all i ever wanted was happenstance;

all that happened was your fate.

and so we fall behind

what is beyond your skyline

rhetoric to praise progress

only befalls those who want it.

you swear to the sun you'll believe what you're told you foolish child now youre only half away from your bed you cannot create this and you've gotten by just to stop me from thinking that it's colder now than i ever wanted and i'm feeling the carbon torn down i know my limits i know my crown costs a dragged lake i'll fall asleep and i'll awake two days later with the old amends that i could never escape like "its time to get up" if being chosen for words means i know my limits and where i can take them but i i'm a garden of archery and apples discard what i pay for discard my limits i paid for what i can breathe out we'll guard our backs if we trust too much i know my limits i know where i can reach yet i'm at my own arm's length i know my limits i know how to reach them but i fall beyond arm's length