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.
Category Archives: words
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?
hum
here me, hear this. a swallowing, a hum. short of reaching, something like this, sweat off the skin. electric hair, withered on ends. ankles buckling, where were we? start again. over. once over. wet dirt on the heels of. wrists cracked sideways. i never would have believed it. puts you right back where i started. begin again. from the top, where the skin grows thin. never was. as if still dreaming. mildew between the folds, getting torn by the second.
wonderful day
the most wonderful day wife daughter son laughter and ease away from keyboard and poker away from the night for once a peace of mind a harmony a leaving an arrival an end a beginning a rest without fists arms wrapped around them them arms wrapped around me
dense fog
rabid dogs prowl through fog. we dreamt this in caves of ice while the goosebumps danced across our nipples. what a fine thing he was, a mallet without pretension, all blunt force and shatter. she pined away in the corners of bars, spiraling outward all that further away. and through the wind and rain, a steady breathing unlike any other, a pace none of us could match or withstand.
easter declaration
on the way back from a day long series of pit stops and family visits, our daughter from the back seat sighed and declared, “it’s to hard to be a person.”
easter adrift
the malaise sets in over faith and in consequence. how to break her? anger at a pitch over nothing at all. but there is something more with this, our lack of moral compass. do we need a practice to point us in the right direction? i think so, i’ve forgotten what faith feels like. first christmas, now easter. round and round it goes, adrift.
porcelain promise
thin ice, a hangman’s tale. she wove tales out of happenstance and skewed memory, where we were all victors and she the spoil. marred like broken bark, the fleshiness underneath. a finger without a nail, no gloss, nothing to for the nerves. i once told myself, drunken and worn in front of a mirror, you will die like this, you will die broken. look at me when i am talking to you, and i slump over the sink, knees slammed hard into tile for cool comfort.
itch
leave it at that, the grinding of teeth. cajoled and threatened, lice along the skin. an oily thickness, evermore, never said. leave it. alone and beckoning, shrill ring in the night. a certain kind of madness, parched lips. she once told me. he once promised. rewrite, remake, return. he once told me. she kept all her promises. i beat myself into street lamps and not one wish for incredible violence comes true. empty penance. leave it at that.
leave it at that
in the trenches, the knuckle-shift, the weight-bearing, the having-it-all: I came out of all of it unscathed, disgusting, a blather of a person. revealed as I always was, sham, shame. strive for redemption, the empty belly, the pining for hunger, crouched over. wait for it, the sudden pummel, the avalanche karma, the break down, the breakthrough, the leaving of all this pain behind. never arrive, only waiting. leave it at that.