Monthly Archives: April 2016

The Longest Hour

Burning months like matchsticks,
Because time is so predictable
As it erupts, and blazes,
And diminishes, and ends
In smoke and ash.

And all my love remains
Never smothered by the smoke
Of burnt seconds sacrificed
While my beloved breathe clean air
In distant spaces

And I light another day
Like she lights cigarettes,
Because time burns
A million different ways
But smolders the same

And I miss the dives,
The homogenous buzz
Of beer, and regret,
As hives of desperation
Produce anonymity

And what nectar could be sweeter,
Or safer,
Or a longer burn?


On Being Unlovable

I was never
Your moon and stars
You spoke plainly in the woo,
I never meant that to you,
And you were always ready
To let me go

I was never
Ready to leave
Until our last rotation
When years of instigation
Leading to rejection
Suddenly made sense

I was never
Enough
For you to pursue
You kept me subdued
Because it was easy
And fun

I was never
The problem
I was once pretty enough
To scrape together some love
If love had been the goal
Or possibility

I was never
Seen by you,
And now, so close to goodbye,
You suddenly begin to try
To put away the tools of your trade:
Isolation and indifference

I was never
Your moon and stars,
Merely the one you’d chosen
To keep forever waiting frozen
With all your other possessions
For the warmth of your touches

Meted out like alms to the poor.


Waking

And it’s always been hidden,
Or lost, or broke,
But when we spoke tenderly
It was enough.
Hiding in the dark
From monsters,
But the dark hides truths too,
And a blind embrace
Was our medicine
How we drank it down
And a blind embrace
Staves away dark nights,
But the sun wakes
Eventually
And what will this day bring?
Now that we’ve seen the things we hid
The things we despise
Hidden by night in each other’s eyes
Will the sun ever set again?
We’ve seen daybreak
Illuminate and separate us,
And that light sits between us,
And a blind embrace
Is impossible to seeing eyes.
Will the dark ever find its way home,
To soften what we know of each other,
Or could this daywalking
Be enough in time –

Will the sun find a way
To warm our embrace,
The way we did at dusk?


Barefooted and Bought

Days of red roses
All traded in
For what I believed to be
Rich soil beneath:
A place to grow
A fertile space for roots.

Every grain of dirt
Is an island
Fords are overwhelmed
By floods
And what use are roots
Without blooms?

I sold myself
For a song
For a steal
And all that makes me valuable now
Is the cross-ransom I still know
My sweet Jesus paid.


Fallen from Haven

So foolish-
All these years hoping,
Putting faith in
Coping mechanisms
Like organic metaphors
And you
My safest place,
My deepest trust,
Based on dreams I had alone.

Halfway round the world
Just to see
But I saw-
It’s all the same.
We are what we are,
And will never be
What we are not.
Safety is an illusion,

And also honorable men.


Closed

I’m broke down
Maybe for good this time
And it’s all on me.
There was a day
I could see my case
Filed against everybody
But those courts settled,
That dust fell,
And it’s all on me.

Sin is an ugly word,
An uglier deed,
And mine multiplies
In horror, I try, but
I can’t weed out my poison
Only I can see clearly now
I know now
We’re all like this.
We’re all an ugly horror.

We hold our hands
In each other’s filth
We try to believe
It’s all okay
Understandable,
Explainable,
Forgivable.
I know now:
It isn’t.

Not on its own,
For what it is.