woodandhoney

There could be such strength.
(oh, I want to celebrate you! How can you not see that?)
How astounding that you exist apart from me
like the fire of a whale, like unbroken horses

But instead we shiver like baby sea turtles
Squirming in delicate grays and small bodies
Anguishing the fact we are not lost in another
Rejecting all the ways we have found ourselves
in the endless cycle of all the things that have ever been

Instead we carry shovels of random violence
to inflict on ourselves, we covet those gaping holes
(always crying out, Fill them! Fill them!)
Waves of anger when everything cringes away

There could be such greatness
But we refuse; we are made stubborn with need
Always insisting we cling like barnacles on shells

Of all the terrible things I have ever dreamt-
waterfalls and spilled blood,
women trapped in giant gilded cages,
the glinting of a knife as I struggle against plastic,
of drowning in concrete-
And still, none of it compares to your soft violence
How I would have ran from that nightmare
if I knew you called it love

You’re not of me
You’re not the one with me
But still your words-
I want to see you, please believe that
-they fill everything,
All the small spaces, the crook of my elbow, behind my knees, each finger pad
I must be a fool.
We won’t share the same space, again
No wine filled night, not even tea
But still, perhaps you’d like to see me as much as you say
Perhaps you think of me as much as you suggest
I said I would forget that brief time–
Kisses like blood oranges,
Bruised and sleepless–
But they cling like ants over flowers
You told me you should never worry about caring too much
I carry those words like a secret.
And it’s a story we can’t tell,
You’re everything I try not to be, as exposed as a tooth ache,
Impossible and unreliable.
But, perhaps if we remember occasionally,
It’ll be more than enough
Because I keep your poems that I won’t read safely tucked away in space
Just like everything we never were

Who sees the wretched filthy hands sneaking into your cerebrum?

Those long thin fingers attached to those icy old hands,

Smudging all happy thoughts with their dirty digits,

Leaving little mounds of dirt to slow down the connection of syntaxes,

Making a slow and messy hulk of anything else that might have resided there before,

Making your upstairs bedroom as dirty as the basement, uninhabitable for Keats and Mozart, Steinbeck and Van Gough—

“I’m very sorry, but today is just no good Mr. Keats.  Will you take a rain check?”  Always a gentleman, he agrees, leaving you to sort out your dirty laundry in private.—

The chances of finishing that piece of art, that masterpiece, that testament to the grandeur of life, have sprouted wings and flown out the window with a delicacy lacking in your current condition

There is not much to do so best not to try, go crawl under the covers and let that soft golden voice, the one you have pondered that might belong to what you call your soul, take over and do what needs to be done to restore and repair

We meet for lunch at a little Japanese place

both of us knowing nothing has changed.

We eat quietly, your anger sulfurs our iced tea and

you don’t see my love sinking into the soup.