horizon

   

she is sitting at the kitchen table
thinking about the pain in her back
from sitting this way so long

her fingernails are running through the ruts
on the top of the table

running back and forth from where the ruts start
to where the ruts end and back again

you are watching her fingers move across the table
trying to read her mind

you are looking at each other

but focusing on a point on the horizon
directly behind the other's eyes

and neither of you notices

because both of you are doing it

after awhile the place you are
looking for is there

the horizon pounded flat
from one end to the other

and the eyes you were both looking through
are like headlights of a car

coming over the curved plane of the land

you feel the lights come on like the sun
at the top of your head

making their way down over your face
as they rise over the hills

and when they get to your eyes
you feel this grinding inside you

like turning over after sleeping too long
and parts are slowly beginning to move

something clicks on behind your eyes
and you are moving over land

so smooth it doesn't need a road

you go over hills and lose sight
of the headlights for awhile

but you always find them again
a little brighter now

a little closer.

Child's Play

   

Tonight the

marble dust

from sleepwalks

sifts between

your toes as

you step off

your peda

stal again

One night you

will go too

far and col

lapse into

eat's eyes and

aggies and

shooters and

the children

will scoop you

into their pock

its

The next night

I will be

a cloud of

screeching pig

eons con

fused by the

barren stand

and a cir

kill in the

dirt.

and there's this lunatic

in the park

who's screaming

at the pigeons
because they won't
land on him

he's screaming
at them that
he is a statue

that they have to
land on him

and shit on him

because he is
a statue

and because they
are pigeons

what are you doing

  

a decision is necessarily a
destruction of alternatives i don't say
anything i'm listening but i'm trying
to be here trying so hard to feel like
the rest of them my eyes closed
drinking in the darkness like
medicine i can make anything into a
ladder i cannot climb not its your
turn off on what really is its
different you say i don't respond
because it is i am different i am
making a decision the difference is
the woman next door she is the
decision she doesn't know any of
this i don't know who it is walking
by i shouldn't know i am staring at
the ground where has the sky gone
to now you don't say anything she
is a constellation all the stars in her
have burned out but she won't
know for years you are running
somewhere maybe never you don't
move i'm sorry i thought you were
someone i knew sitting in someone's
kitchen melting ice in my hand you
draw faces on the table the ice is
melting your fingers pull the water
around her eyes drag her hair from
a puddle is that her i ask you are
alone your fingers in her hair she is
evaporating i want to apologize but
she is gone you refill the ice tray
leave it by the sink i need to leave
to go see her i say we have more
ice they say but my fingers are
numb i have melted the woman next
door the table is gone the tray is
back in the freezer as i leave
someone saying next time there will
be more they say next time

in a moment

 - for Kristin McNutt

you forget who you are

and go back inside your home

among the countless other nobodies

you have been

on every other day of your life

and you want to remember who you were again

but you think there isn't enough room

for all of them to fit inside

so you build an addition to your home

and stand inside it

when you remember

when you look in the room around you

you don't find the dense pack of

nobodies-turned-somebodies

you had expected

all that entered the room in that moment

was a tiny crowd of people

who huddle together for protection

on the tip of your pen.  

what death must be like

imagine a place
where shadows
are the only dirt
where the sheets
on the empty beds
have wrinkles

as sharp as glass
and there is a man
in the lobby

flipping thru

a magazine

lake michigan

  

I am standing at the shore of the lake

next to a woman i know i've only met once before

and all I remember is that she had ribbons in her hair
to keep it from blowing across her face

I try to say something to her about how

I wish all these dead fish wouldn't stare at me
like they are staring

but I don't say anything

I just stand there looking at the dead fish
lined up in rows

their rotten bodies all pointing at the shore

I reach towards the woman

to pull the ribbons from her hair

and she moves her head away just as I touch them

She moves away

pulling the ribbons from her hair as she leaves
and then I'm standing at the shore

holding the ribbons in my hands

I throw them into the lake

watching as they twist and sink as the water sinks in

and they wrap themselves around the rows of fish corpses
lined up looking at the shore through their milky eyes

I feel a squirming like worms inside my throat
crawling towards my mouth

I reach in and pull out a ribbon

and throw it on the ground at the shore
as another moves up

and takes its place on my tongue

The woman stands at the shore
away from me down the beach
her hair blowing across her face

and this hand keeps reaching back into my mouth

... The Way i See it

"poetry doesn't belong in Love"

i cannot reply

in an emotion

that is like any other

so don't tell me your tears

are better than mine

just because you carry them in a balloon

in your pocket

and they drip when you

pull out your car keys

Maybe i've never finished weeping

but my tears fall down my back

and you just call it sweat

Maybe my fingers leave trails

of goosebumps when i pass

them down your back

but i can't even tell

when you rip off my head

and scream down my throat

asking if anybody's home

down there

"I'm in Love"

is the excuse for your insanity

and i'm not sure if all this goddamn

cussing is convincing enough

or if i have to

cry crystal tears

and wear a black flowered dress

in a field of shit

Leaking

so you can gather and sculpt my sorrow

into a window

and install me across

the street from a vacant lot

where neighborhood kids

throw rocks in the air

and try to run away

without stoning themselves

You

hoping

maybe someday they'll hit me

Blast a stone thru my gut

and you'll need another blanket

when you're reclining on the sofa

next to my splinters

you live in a house

broken of windows

thinking you're so in tune

because you can't escape the weather

and you feel the frost alongside

the rug on November mornings

take a Jell-o mold off the kitchen cupboard

and hold it close for as long as

you want to experience my heart.

it's something more violent than that

   

it is not just a constant near miss it is not
gliding over the surface skimming along above
the water it is the jealousy between the
wingless and the wings it is the laughter that
flows between the feathers it is the screaming
always the screaming you can't get away from
it the screaming that starts the moment you as
a small child look up at the sky and ask why
do your feet hurt why is the ground not that
shade of blue why doesn't anything grow on the
clouds it is you dreaming of flying dreaming
of falling waking up screaming waking up
laughing and never knowing the difference

pockets are warmer caves

- for alison

i am looking

for this thing

i think

iwant to

share with you
and i'm not sure
that i can find it

i am reaching
my hands

into my pockets
and all i can
pullout

are these bits
of dust

when the holes
in my clothes
are all empty

i can see

it is that emptiness
i am burrowing into
hoping that i can
find a piece

to show you.

a sort of creation theory

   

He kept coming back
because he didn't know
how to leave, like he
was one of those people
who keeps coming back
like him and he never
came back as anyone
but himself showing up
on the doorstep like he
did time after time
because he had nothing
else to do because there
he was again because
he couldn't stop until
somebody made him. 

a slowly leaking balloon

- for myself

because

i wondered
how selfish
i could be 

carrion

   

i shudder

as the vulture inside
unable to beat its wings

presses its heart against my ribs
and rattles them with a pulse

like the beat that trucks lend windows
when they rumble by at night

when i sleep

my hands are crossed over its heartbeat
so morning finds them

numb from all the shaking

and i can't tell what they hold

among their fingers

i pound them on my chest
and when they open again
streams of black feathers
drift from my mouth. 

who wants to know

   

if i slipped

this note i have written

under my door

one of my neighbors

would find it

and read it

they would' walk down

the hallway

to their apartment

reading it aloud

and my other neighbors

sitting in their apartments

would hear this person

walking down the hall

reading these questions

from the paper

asking where are you

where have you gone

saying i can still smell you

but even that

is fading away

why can't i leave

where have you gone

and the people in their apartments

listening wouldn't know

that it was all coming

from a note

from their neighbor

they would listen to this person

walking down the hall

asking someone else's questions

and they would answer them

silently to themselves

thinking of who is out there

that is asking them those questions

going back over

who they have ever left behind

without being able to explain

why they were leaving

they would sit there

in their apartments

wondering who could find them.

why i left you in the aisle

   

the lace in your dress
brushed against my hand
and it felt like

millions of tiny knots

Peepholes

We've got money she said

tugging at infant keychains

as she choked the fading brass.

Quicksilver-streaked stains

shot across the rollerskate

and bruise scuffed linoleum.

We've got a happy home she blurted

keychains dropping to the floor

as yale, master, and latch bolted

fisheyed into shag tv oceans.

I've got work to do she apologized

knife blades screaming over car doors

as faceless urchins slid into the sidewalk.

Worn sandpaper protests bounced

off sewer lids and potholes

returning hollow to

the silent slam of eyelids.  

The Beak of the Heron

A man buys a head of lettuce, thinking he will have a salad with
his dinner. The man forgets to make the salad, and eats dinner
with the head of lettuce sitting on the table, next to his plate.
Also on the table, next to his plate, is a small pair of scissors.
The man sometimes uses the scissors to cut the string from
around his morning paper. The scissors are silver and in the
shape of a heron.

The man picks up the heron-shaped scissors and wraps the legs
of the heron around his thumb and index finger. The legs of the
heron move apart and the beak of the heron opens. The legs of
the heron move together and the beak of the heron closes. The
man pushes the beak of the heron into the head of lettuce on
the table, next to his plate. The legs of the heron stick up out
of the head of lettuce.

The man looks at the head of lettuce on the table, next to his
plate, with the scissors, which look like a heron stuck in it. The
man realizes it is a piece of art.

The man calls himself an artist.

The artist feels a wind, hot and heavy, on the back of his neck.
The wind blows the artist's house from around him. The artist's
house is blown into his backyard, and comes to rest in his
vegetable garden.

The artist looks up and sees the sky has turned dark green.
''That shade of green..." the artist thinks, but he is cut off
abruptly by a sharp pain in the back of his head. The artist
stops worrying about shades of green.

The artist wonders what a man would do in his situation.

The artist wonders if artists are allowed to scream.

The artist tries to understand why his hands are wilting.

the undertaker's children

   

The undertaker's children
open two padded silk doors

and pull their pale bodies out of bed
They use the shovel from the hall closet

to break the six-inch skin of ice in the tub

before they can take a bath

They oil their bodies with formaldehyde
and dress each other

in the dark.

myku

my heart is like

a sewer grate

i love it

when it rains.

thank you

   

it is this man
it is the hole
in his head

it is the scream
coming from inside
that hole

it is the woman
screaming that scream
it is the man

beating her
rhythmically

so that the screams
will sound like
poetry.

Notes From a Stephen Crane Appendix

65

Versions 1,2,7,17,27,29,30,32.

Text [title] 'SCAPED] 27.

6 .... They] 29 .

... CRIED, "COME] 1,2,7,17 .... cried.
"Come] 27,29,30,32 .... back, Little
Thoughts!"] 27.

diving into a septic tank

   

i have a finger

that lives

pushed down in my throat

but i don't let it roam too far

because I'm afraid that if

i vomit on your sheets

you won't be able to understand

the beauty of what

i've eaten

acid rain

   

when you told me that

in your dream last nite

i had torn into the blue sky

between your legs

i opened my mouth to scream

but stars fell thru my lips

singing and burning

a change of socks

   

everything i find

is taken by my hands first

and before i can pull it close

it is torn like the sleet

that lands on a rooftop

and as it melts away

it runs down the shingles

like a stream of clear salamanders

carrying gravel into

the gutter

and pulls bits of leaves

from the last batch of a dying tree

each inscribed with my initials

just as i had left them on the trunk

into the downspout

drooling on the lawn to leave

a soft spot

where it all waits to drain into the earth

and anyone who steps on it

laughs when they hear the water

slide into their shoes