Her Eyes
There is a green pasture in Italy
littered with Vestal columns
-broken and profane
they point back to a community
that no longer remains.

That greenness surrounds obsidian
with its verdant Sylvan bloom
with more authority than kings or even Gods.
The center of this garden recalls a deeper doom:
A rock from which flight is impossible
The child of Tarpeia’s womb.

And when she blinks poetry is silenced.

Her Skin
There is Dresden porcelain in her skin
forged from Augustus’ private stock
of the cleanest white and softest soft.
Her heart beats shyly within -
I trace the master sculpture with an eye
if not a hand. A brief passing by
to sooth the conquering demand.

When we touch, she averts her eyes.

Her Lips
She never blows bubbles but
She chews cinnamon gum
So her words come with the distinct taste
of sacrifice from Volcanal.
It is a brief reminder that she is ancient
and naked somewhere under there.
Sometimes she sings to the delight of the world
and her heart pours from her mouth
with the molten golden words.

She doesn’t smoke because it gives you wrinkles.

Her Hands
Her hands have the curious habit
of touching everything -
They are constant vigilant explorers
searching for any light
to break the thick dense fog
of unimaginative reality
that clouds her sight.
They are so cold even in summer
that I can only imagine they search
for some towering lighthouse
to steal some warmth.
Ten tiny promethean digits
that can tickle ivory or children.

She plays with her gold ring when she’s nervous.

Her
And could you imagine that
Heraclitean furnace at her core.
The way she worries that it
burns out of control.
She is anxious often but never sad
like energy itself
and to look at her you would never
understand how she couldn’t adore
the way she laughs uncontrollably,
sighs absent-mindedly or
snores only when she sleeps alone
and presses her pillow so tightly to her face.

She prefers the company of humans.

Typical. The rolling green hills that folded into each other. The arcing pine trees. The clear blue sky with small cotton clouds in it were all typical. The clear reflective water was typical, the bumpless road was typical, and the idiot driver blathering about the beauty of it was typical. The rather regular and utterly predictable man thought himself rather sophisticated as he pontificated upon the infinite beauty of nature. Clay, on the other hand, had long risen above such pointless adoration and was desperately trying to change the topic.

“I hear the Maker’s Mark distillery is around these parts.” Clay inserted this as the driver had digressed from the wonderful beauty of the natural surroundings to what seemed to be the history of Kentucky erupting from such beauty.

“Yessir. Finest whiskey the world wide. Nothing compared to the natural spring water though.”

“Or a woman’s kiss…”

“Well that neither I suppose.” The drive got that look in his eye that Clay knew and loathed. The look reflected in those blank siphon eyes were always followed by something like the words that then came from the driver’s mouth. “What brings you to a place like this?”

“Business.”

“I don’t reckon too many businesses are like yours then.”

“That is certain.”

“You write, don’t you?”

“Occasionally. Are you a fan?”

“Oh no. I keep to reading the bible and perhaps the life of the saints.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“Excuse me?”

“See. You said ‘I see’.”

“Oh yes. I mean I understand.”

“Oh. Well I just reckoned that you were here for the seminar on God’s place in literature that is taking place down here in Gethsemani.”

“A seminar?”

“Oh yes. Authors from all over are coming to discuss the topic. They say Fr. Raphael is the best at drawing out the soul and then puttin’ it on paper.”

“I find ink works better than soul.”

“You’re the author not me.”

“But where would I be without a driver?”

“Nowheres… that’s where.”

“Exactly, now if you wouldn’t mind the process of getting to know someone is rather intense and I have writing to do before we reach Gethsemani.”

“I bet this beautiful nature will sure help.”

“I tend to keep my eye on the paper.”

“Yeah but it must be nice to draw inspiration from all this.”

“All what? Some ancient trees that strive only for height? Grass that exists only to be cut? Water trapped in a cycle of purification? This is all purposeless, meaningless stuff that you only admire out of ignorance. Its just big and complicated. There is nothing beautiful about it.”

“I reckon you’re right. But I hafta disagree with you.”

“If I am right, how can you disagree?”

“Thats easy. I just don’t agree.”

Clay’s mind tried to wrapped around the driver. It always offended him that others could be so simple. All this man wanted out of life was to drive and see nature. He aspired to no greatness, aimed at no virtue, and just sat and admired nature all day long. Though he didn’t harm a soul, his way of life still irked Clay for some unknown and secret reason… a secret even to himself.

We
Talk over dinner
over and over
like the river
or an ocean sound.
shhhhhh.

We
Missed out,
Nobody is around
under, under
the skin

We begin
to speak in spaces
sounding places
silent faces
beside and besides
ourselves.

Silence
is a collection
stolen. We find ways
to steal each other’s time
in the speaking space
within me, within
you.

Eating
only to be empty.
Something is lost
between us. Between us
Age clings like frost.
On and on
goes infinity.

Time
the agent of change
puts me above you
and now the spaces
without you
can’t speak.
They can’t speak
without you.

I
sit refusing
sand particles become me
they sit refusing
shape.

Ages ago
water broke us down
from the whole
words, waters,
baptism

the once united
now claim their
nothing individual
dry, dry, dried by the sun
They are one.

I
sit wet
from rain
we are now mud
together

what is left of the rock
is the key
and I am the lock
shhhh says the
falling rain

just be.

Shattered porcelain
like unburied artifacts
look like clouds on a hardwood sky.
She broke it, she is broken.
Standing by the dishwasher
her fingers between teeth
to prevent tears.

The curls of her black hair
bounce in the rhythm of her tapping foot.
A treatise could be written about her stance,
a theory constructed out of her clothes,
she feels the tension she has on her self.
Somewhere beneath strained breathing
she is porcelain ready to break.

The setting sun behind her
represents change, renewal, and hope.
Flooding through the kitchen window
it casts her into a shadow on the floor.
It isn’t until I draw close that I feel her heat,
see the blood on her olive skin,
until I discover the cause.

My fingers on her chin give a new trajectory -
her eyes no longer on the floor.
She laughs while waving a dish towel in surrender.
That little porcelain plate was more than it appeared to me.
It was children yet unborn, it was bills yet unpaid,
it was first love, it was heart break,
it was the collected poems of our life together,
it was life unburied.

She made short pauses in speech,
of the short this was the shortest
because she was in great haste to stop.

Her eyes widened to catch words from the air
felt fragmentations were in reach -
that is what called her to stop, and wait.

Shrapnel remaining from some big bang
tiny seconds ticked and removed from clocks
separation around her, and therein a history.

This moment, still defined as an instant
had refocused those sky light eyes
into beacons at sea, or trees in a garden.

More like trees in a garden actually,
tall twins reaching above the rest and whose
fruit would fall like blessings and curses on the land.

While one eye saw life and goodness all around
the other cupped its tender wisdom and through it
saw the naked truth – barren reality devoid of fragmented seconds.

The shortest silence was a complicated one.
Perhaps why she filled it so fast, with last second pleasantries.
But she and I both knew of time’s brief embrace with her.

Clarity aggressively inserted itself into her perceptions
revealing the destructive nature of creation – the circle
around her pupil – the circle around her eye.

But such circles were horrifying, and assaulted her sense of romance
it was the dance of endless endings. Her shoulders dipped from the weight
- her eyes squinted against the harsh light of beacons too bright.

Her hands tensed and gathered the white fabric of her clothes.
The climax of the instant was at hand and within the folds of delicate silk
a tremendous strain – a tempering – a steel heart.

She blinked and straightened her clothes thinking I hadn’t noticed a thing.
She pushed away a strand of hair from those glorious but tortured eyes.
“You looked lost for a second.” I said.
“I was just thinking of you.” She replied.

We never intend our voice to be a mirror
after a year. Writing is a release -
that means don’t come back.
To cry the tear of a reader
to pose a question – to describe a lack.
The cocoon sealed green opens
and the history of those people
is a stream reflecting light.
Water isn’t without connotation
words are not without denotation -
and thus an elderly man can come across
the stream he crossed in youth
sockless and happy -
and feel nothing but sorrow at
the sameness of it all.
In time he will build a bridge
to never look upon the waters again.
The bridge will bear his name
the name on the lips of those who pass
with their children in hand.
Small girls laugh at the wind carrying seeds
as mothers sneeze loudly.
The young boys pull with all their might
against the weight of their fathers
toward the edge of the path.
For one second they want to see the river
as it passes through the trees,
under the bridge,
and on into the horizon.

Black and white cons. Tattered jeans. The t-shirt with a band’s name. A hoodie. A cloudless yet thundering sky above. A soulless yet sacred pavement below. Amidst an elegantly constructed rubble there is an art. Sharp angular buildings carve a new sky – one determined by arithmetical precision of point A to point B – a skyline where once there was an arc and a horizon. Eyes catch a self walking beside them in the mirrored side of a headless building.

The shifting doppelganger pulls his hoodie ever over his face. It hides a pumping pocket music box the artificial heart tucked neatly into secret space. Its droning muse redefines things around by altering moods and emotions. It at least distracts one’s self from grunting street folk, yelling children, angry men, and domestic assault. Hurried people bump the ghost in street clothes as they splash by in lingering puddles – the aftermath of a deluge worthy of Noah’s arc.

Pascal outlined how distraction only served to make us forget about death. The music pumped on. Death is not nearly as scary as purposeless living some would say. To fear death would be to fear what you do not know otherwise called a phobia. So distractions might as it turns offer salvation from the natural elements that otherwise bind us in a prison of flesh. Life, after all its pretensions are stripped, would be an error without music.

A hand reached out to grab a hold of its corresponding doppelganger only to find smooth glass. Its firm skin coldly resisted touch. How sound could easily cut the infinitely regress into fragments. Destruction, it turns out, is linked to creativity. Destruction’s angel of justice, Entropy, only exists as an accident of presupposed organization. An organization that means nothing without an organizer. The difference between life and death, science teaches, is a few misplaced neurons, a couple of atoms, and timing. What brought life to that unrelated mess of parts is still unknown – but it wasn’t music.

Ours are the only lights in downtown Worcester
Electricity is a fragile touch at 40 miles an hour.
These are the nights of youth for young inventers
With drinks and smiles, like us, and the three ladies at the bar.
Simplicity is the power to resist holding tongues,
to ignore ethical necessity, to allow change to rout
the phalanx of lightless office buildings. We’re the ones
made of stories, eyes of hallow grounds, we’re figuring out
distance means being flightless in our feelings and honesty
means being selective with our sounds

Our night was filled with worlds of swirling smoke,
poetry if not honesty, and memories that fade like city lights.
Ash falls on our outfits, burning from our cigars as we spoke
about health nuts who would never live thru these Worcester nights
with any sanity or soul. We talk about where we’d rather be;
Israel, Germany, Florence (with a lady sleeping next to me) -
But mostly we talk about going back in time and just doing this more often.
Outside, a different building, a different person, a different whole watches
through eyes without curtains too dark to see.They count off
ten orange cones marking a different route home. In their subconscious
they’ll recall 3 men exiting a bar who entered as boys at a birthday party.
Their shared victory would be timeless as they drove back in the dark.

Inspiration is back
to steal and reveal
I hope my hands don’t fail my eyes
or the heart they inform
because the brain they conceal
Doesn’t trust our conclusions.
It can’t know what they know.

First Impressions are back.
familiar things are new
as if more real than real
words made material
A girl’s hair, the wind, a moving car,
A symbol, a sign, a detour
they’re being metaphorical.

Imagination is back
like lemonade on a summer day
quenching but conditional
sweet before sour.
Its always eventually sour
like a last kiss
(that’s the one they never talk about).

Impersonations are back
trade one face for another
because nothing is really new.
Besides which it’s easy,
and unavoidable.
Was I supposed to believe
I’m the only one she talks to?

Temptation is back
to call me a king or prophet
to offer me alchemy for ink
gold for words
greatness for loneliness
exile to paradise.
The devil has inspiration too.

Inspiration is back
the called lover in chains
welcomes the captivity
for a change of pace
there is a tenderness in her embrace
despite its inescapability.
Love devouring. Love devoured.