Glory

My Parisian dream of a woman,

Roses spill from your white coffin.  

Mort ne arrêtera jamais mon amour. 

Slash and Burn, For justin quinn

Before you left I could have sworn

You snapped your calloused fingers

And burst to flame and ember

That rose through the thick air together

To bring on darkness once the ash turned cold.   

Instead of falling into rabbit holes

With no thought of consequence,

I should have painted my apartments

Where I’d have lived alone the same shade of yellow

And spent years watching sunflowers gaze eastward

And apple trees grow heavy in October’s chill

Outside my long French windows. 

But had I wasted all that time in caution,

I would have never seen you coming forth

In your state of disarray

To hand me a half smoked cigarette

And kiss my lips to stain them dark

And murmur your breathy promises

Into the hollow of my collarbone.  

A Last Apology

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The moss that grows in the wake of this unwelcome night

Could never blur the memories we have, or the pictures we took.  

Blame cold, blame wonder, blame cautious footsteps in frozen air—

But in the still frost of dark, we all know the war’s at fault. 

The war stood tall to block the sun, commanding in its thorns,   

And broke our bones to shards.  We could not have stopped it. 

And in the years coming, we hope you will forgive us, or forget us,

If forgetting helps the night recede from your stained mind. 

We did not mean for this to happen here.  

All the lies we told took control,  

And the stark white of our clean night was inked with misery. 

We have as much to do to heal, to breathe again. 

Our polluted air is filled to the brim with shards of bone and the salt of tears, as is yours. 

But one day this night will pull its fingers from your matted hair. 

We are sorry they were ever there.    

Marigolds (2012)

All we were, all we could have achieved

In that August Night,

Swaying in the blackness,

Was dead matter, awash

And aglow in the flickering candles

That surrounded us,

Yellow light reaching like the holy star. 

I imagine you as who you were

Then, forever,

Your mud streaked face

And bare feet that sunk into the wet grasses. 

I remember loving you

As we looked over the Housatonic,

The waxing moon turning its still waters

Silver.  I will think of you then

Eternally, for I cannot bear

The old needles breaking your pale skin,

The black thread that wound through you,

Or the cramping as you killed all it was inside you

That I had fallen in love with

In those days.

All my life I saw you as a god,

Your blonde hair rising above you

In the hurricane gusts,

Your laughing at the cosby show

On daytime rerun TV,

And now you’re In Orlando,

Seeing the dragon coaster

From your bedroom window,

And all I know of you is what someone else conveys. 

In the night I think of our evil summer,

Of jose cuerva and white pills,

Lying on your bed in our underwear

Smoking electronic cigarettes,

Wasting whatever love neither of us could afford to give. 

maybe I was drunk

I want
fever dreams
and lucid stars
and green grass stains
on my linen knees.
forgo violence,
lust,
wild silence
breaks open
over our aching heads.
blood streaks
over my body
and on the white cotton
and my pj tees,
knuckles scarred
bloodless
raw
red throat
swollen soul
bee stings
she brings her fingers
to my lips
and pulls apart my heart.

manic (august 2012)

there their star fray of black

and burdened white

red slashes

one

by one

and i am

i am

eloise

plaza baby

with turtle

and nanny

latchkey

nuclear

too warm

for this

i crave

crave

crave

that one last

spider kiss

creeping

up my arms

to my hot

hot neck

Your fingers play roughly with my fringes,
You breathe white wine air
Into life, you pull at my sides,
I unravel into a tumble of string,
Falling gently through your sweet non-life.

In Memoriam, for Bill Mahoney

Where is the soul in rose-gold
In Watch hill, in Bridgewater? 

In you, you are held above

Us all, your daughter mourns,

I loved her

Miss Josephine of Jordan

Swinging with me

In the sunlight,

You calling for us

From the yellow house. 

You cannot die again

Remember that

And that love is the flame

That should burn

Within your sweet life,

Your four poster.

All that you were,

Your millions

And your brilliance

Cannot perish.

Never were you meant to be

A pair of ragged claws;

You do not grow old,

You do not live

With trousers rolled

Or pass along,

Transparent. 

Bill, we remember you

With the dead calm

Of loving someone for now gone.