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.