some strange unbidden lullaby

this really isn't anything, it's not planned or good, but i wanted to write it and i don't want it to be useless. such as it is i present to you

I could cradle you
as the sea cradles all bleached bones in time

with all the tenderness
of skin picked raw from fingernail's edge

with all the ferocity
of a phone hurled loathesome at your bedroom wall

with all the sleepy solitude
of some vague luminescent creature

passing time uncounted
amongst those bleached bones sunk
far below the reach
of love-grasping hands
where the hidden currents
roll around my heart

morning sleep

the heat of us
spoke to the windows of the room
left them sweating,
blushing fogged, obscuring the view
of the morning outside
misted cold to contrast
the heavy sleep of skin
on warm skin,
sweet fingertips holding hipbones close

Nurse Tzimisce

Oh, be quiet, will you? this noise is so draining
You'd think they'd just shut up after a while!
What did you expect? I'm only in training

And in your place, dear, I'd not be complaining.
 Don't give me that look! What cost is a smile?
Please try to be quiet, this noise is so draining.

I'm doing my best, I promise, I'm craning
My neck to get in there! My word, now - that's vile
I didn't expect that, I'm only in training -

The blood keeps on coming,  it might well be raining
Two kidneys, a liver, my throat tastes of bile -
The quiet is better, I find the noise draining.

 He's dead? Oh. Poor love - but let's not be blaming
The messenger, dearest - after all, proof by trial!
The quiet is lovely, the noise was so draining,
I expect that quite soon I shall finish my training.

sometimes curiosity takes a hold -
could I widen each pore into a smile
rasping gently like pearls on a tooth
against my heart bumping, gentle,
taking good care of each little mark
christening each moment with a thread
heading down, down, with such malicious intent?

Portents

the clock within wound tight tight tigher even than the intestines wound tight around the branches that grew starkcoldnaked from that unhallowed ground into my hands ground down grinding always and I can feel within me that red red light shining striking ten, now one, down into my blood

a second heartbeat lungs filling toes arching eyes closed closer even than he

sharpen prepared I will wait and I will wait and the fire within my breast will spread and leap and fill the world with ashes

when I think about us love I still see a beach white and crisp and I hear the cries of gulls and I hold your hand and we walk down beside the waves and you don't disappear and there is no red light shining in over our heads and I can hear your pulse and you sip whiskey straight, maybe with ice, maybe just mixed with the salt of seawater and I dip my fingers in and trace your lips; they say seawater and blood have the same salinity but that's a lie else I would find some way to pour the ocean into your mouth and be done with it

if I keep up like this
and the distinctions I have put in place
 - inside here and you outside
 - sorting two from one and building walls
fall:
glories be to the cottonwool blur around my mind

finally vision
light truth infatuation

finally

mitosis

- i want my heartbeat
to be your voice
- and every word you speak
to signal cells to move
- and my traitor organs
           - liver lungs heart hands -
           - they fail me time and again -
to respond to each vibration
from your throat
- so even to live
i have to praise you
in the growth and decay
of each part of me
- and you become my song

- without you my pulse
beats meaningless time

Possum

Been thinking about possums a lot lately and this is not even a good poem but I like passing them when it's late and dark and they glare at me.

I'm stumbling along and I can hear them
bubbles spilling from your throat
angry chitter,
branch shakes sudden and a silhouette springs
claw-hands held defensive,

I can almost see the resentful crinkle of your nose
frustrated at being disturbed.
I smile and keep walking.
You're small, but ferocious in your conviction:
It's not my place to intrude.

Angie

I can't believe this happened. I'm not allowed to create stories for every single bloody character I ever pick up for one bloody scene. Here we have Angie and Alfie, and I'm going to blame Jason for how well last night went. 

                                              she's still beautiful. for now.
and she still comes in to drink, she's there every night
            - or most every night
                            (sometimes she can't make it, sometimes
                                              she stays in bed)

       and he's beautiful, still, always

they spoke about it
once, twice, every dawn
             he'd come home
             he'd hold her screaming, it wasn't fair
a decision made every second for the rest of your life
             he'd ask her to stay
    
                          not a choice she could make

the moon turns around and it's another struggle
          
             he can't understand it,
   suicide by degrees:
             he gives her a rope and
                                             she is letting it slip from her fingers
                                             bit by bit

            a home, a child, a life: she wants to find a grey hair in her reflection
  and all he wants is to spend the rest of the world together
     
but no matter.
          the night is young, and she's still beautiful.
keep pouring, Jim.

you know when we speak I feel mary hovering right in the corner of my eye out of my line of vision
she showers me with the flower petals she's collected from the words that pour tangible from her mouth

you know when I pour you tea sitting quiet in the kitchen with the wysteria vine thrumming with bees
she stares at me from the cup stained brown in the leaves that collect sodden and bitter spelling out secrets

you know when I pick out eyelashes you've left gently on the pillow maddening and delicious
she touches my spine with white crescentmoon nails and teases pale hairs on my neck to stand

mary watches me and cries when I glare back
she'll live behind my curtains until I burn the damn things black

Jason

Don't lose yourself.

Through you I speak with wild gods

And run baying at the legs of the stag.

I don't know quite how to reconcile it: your path, born in death and destruction and pain
and your mind, utterly clear, calm as the ocean, but for the cries of seagulls

twelve

hush, hush
little bird, hush
give me your rings, here.
place them down.
you can't keep them, not now.

see this sky

your bare feet in the earth

      I'll swallow you whole
              to flutter in my throat
              you'll scratch me bloody
              my liver is poison, galling

I snapped a twig in leaving
the youngest daughter,
she took fright

                                 the eldest I married
                                 golden leaves crowned her
                                 silver branches at her breast
                                 the diamond studded shoes
                                 soles worn through

and when I gave her your rings
   I could feel your feathers
   and my heart thu-thudded
                    against ribcage barred willful
  
her sons
engorged by the ground

you grow still, at last.

dusk is drawn, and you grow still.

anger

don't try to take anything too literal from this one, it's just vague ideas from my head, a narrative, but it's all fictional. romanticize me if you must but I'm not she. Oh, but the lipstick is real.

Cheap pearls drag from your neck
you wore your mother's perfume
borrowed her stockings, when varnish failed against the ladders
bandaids on your heels
the shoes are too high, you'll carry them home,
falling from fingers loose with wine
                                       with cigarettes
                                          was that your first kiss?

The lipstick in the drawer was dry,
a relic from the eighties. Or some year gone.
Anger, you thought you had it,
            you didn't think at all.
The peppermint taste on your tongue won't hide it.
You've chipped your tooth in red: it shows.

I want to speak to you through the years,
into the photograph, smoky eyes smudged adolescent
drill it into your stupid fucking head
They don't love you, they never will, they never will, they never will

- is it a prayer now, a serenade to you, a jaded birdsong melody?
- or is it just my bitterness shining through?
- I'm sorry.

It was your first kiss, after all.


                                                                                          

Song for Asche

Asche, darling,
While it is true
          that I have every intention of losing myself utterly in you,
In the black-veined halo of your  reason,
Have patience, my love.

I'm learning. I'm working on it.

You chill me, darling,
You freeze me to my core,
Because I know your mind
- hidden behind cloud-grey eyes -
           as surely as you know mine.

I have floated in the calm skies that lie there.
Behind the shock of madness.
Beyond your dream of death.

And when you stand
Triumphant as a god, your father's dignity, your ancestor's power,
In the mist of the dawn,

         (vision blurred to white)
         (the clouds are as ashes)
         (they fear you, my dearest)

I will be the one to rise from the bloody noon.

and just like the serpent, I would swallow myself
bent double,
blaze of purity

to feel your skin
soft
against my hips.

I'll count the prayers again
passing beads through my fingers
clacking like teeth in my palms,
and I promised myself - promised
that I wouldn't shovel soil over my head

Blisters and bones cracking under weight

if I close my eyes
nerves cauterized
this earth
feels a bit
like you.

We never got the damn scales out of the teapot.
I never could understand it.

Turn to water even at a touch
I want none of this weakness

Scissors

A while ago (I forget how long, now, maybe a year, maybe more) I had a dream that distressed and fascinated me greatly. I took a pair of scissors to the flesh of my stomach and sliced away two long angled strips of my fat/flesh: one straight down the right side of my abdomen, breast to hip, another horizontally across the base of my stomach. I could feel the pain of the first one even as I did the second, and it left two gaping cuts, red - but not bleeding - edged with the yellow of fat. It hurt, even in my head. I bent double in surprise and shame at my actions and held the skin together frantically with my hands, but I felt a little satisfied. Where I bent, the wounds gaped and buckled.

I felt a bit like that yesterday: the dream was in my head for a lot of the day.