ravaged and hung sideways: I feel the spleen. drenched in over coats over stepping bounds like mad fathers who persist to abduct their children while screaming epithets. we drink and stumble and laugh a laughter from deep in our bellies because the day has its shortcomings and we could not abandon it. he says to me, the violence never ends, only our bodies ability to withstand it.
Monthly Archives: May 2008
spring time
from barren limbs nubile buds streching into something beautiful. she inists on watering the weeds and with careful chubby feet tips the spout sideways. my love reminds me to be good to her. time heals nothing; all it does is encourage forgetting. and my son witless and joyful, gnaws on anything he can get his infant hands on.
dream love
in the dark guttural sounds choking spit into mouths pried wide open. she lays across me like a snake slithering across preying hands that tug and pull and grip into twilight. you dream of petals. you dream of sighs and beckoning. spent i lay flat on my back and admire her against a blue haze that wipes the room out completely. she asks, did you dream, did we dream this? i replied reaching her to keep me still, you are the dream.
weehawken jig
and we bear down waiting for it, crush of concrete against the forehead. endlessly i drove through the city at sunset, jammed and stalled in canyons and mobs. i loved it, i miss it, coursing through its veins, an infection shot through one arm and slung across its neck. we dreamed of lavish greenery and snow banks toppled over by children. the cold was bitter and whet our appetites, a slick gnawing of knuckles. and at daybreak, careening back home, i was in love with it all, i loved it like madness.
told before breaking
you break
without breaking, without being
broken, you dream
of breaking fists through glass
shards until they become grains of sand
stuck beneath your fingernails, broken
of this breaking, lips for promises
like a lover’s tale told
to you before weeping
fragmented
you think of this, of scratching the walls, peeling the paint, chewing on dust. it leaves your mouth. more of it, gnawed limbs of trees, a petal caught between the teeth, bark stuck in the throat. slow it down, falling, slumber of the exhausted. had you heard of this before? twilight, morning, harsh sun. and end to all things, an end to despair, an end to dreaming.
father failing
while blowing on dandelions my daughter wishes for a great dad. spending the whole day with me leaves my son smileless and untrusting. i sit outside catching cigarettes the way fish rip into a line: manically and without regard for myself. i have failed, i am failing.
the music of calamity
the music of calamity, long droning tones with sharp pitches like the squeal of my son or the shriek of laughter from my daughter. she settles me into place, holds me to her chest, whispers, you’ll get through this, you’ll get through anything. precious soul. how have I not broken you by now?