i am a cat surrounded by gotten tongues,
struggling to herd myself.
every wanderer greets me disoriented, the lot of us,
pillared by the impulse to look back,
borrowing against time's already threadbare rope.
i reach the end of mine.
so i set out, sore eyed, scorching each bridge i cross.
a little bird tells me to see a man about a dog having his day;
i find him barking a chased goose up the wrong tree.
i disentangle a horse from a cart to get a good look in its mouth.
is it a gift? or just the straight truth - a reminder to be grateful
that this horse isn't beaten dead like the last one?
i burn all the oil trying to build a two-ended candle;
dig up the hatchet when i notice the chickens' numbers have dwindled.
my empire is small enough that i watch every sun set,
biting the bullet out of pity for the barreled crab.
high water hasn't come, this much i know for certain.
can't be as sure about hell.
i try to be deliberate in my deliberations -
to talk about timing at times quite unlike these.
they tell me
a watched pot never boils but boy
it'd sure be nice to feel your cup runneth over;
that Rome wasn't built in a day but my,
it'd sure be nice to build something
wouldn't it
-
even more ado.
-
haikyou vi.
longing, you re-read these;
strained, uncontrolled, ’til something
that isn’t feels real.
-
on the precipice of doom.
in my mind we sit on the stoop
always quiet and comfortable and together
peer across the precipice between our worlds - his i’ll join eventually
and mine which he could no longer stand.
we sit inside the weight of all that i cannot know
in all that he's missed since
and we wonder of one another's dooms.
i try to find a verb for his - wanted? felt? did?
he finds he is not envious of the complexities of mine.
in my world i move to sit on the roof, circle "the precipice of doom" on a sheet of paper
i think of the way the cortisol flood must feel so similar between someone focusing the scope of their gun and someone waiting for the perfect moment to grab a person before they jump -
the way a trigger and a shirt tail can somehow feel the same in the body.
are we already there, on the precipice of doom?
if not individually certainly collectively,
what's another inch.
a frog allows itself to be boiled, slowly.
there are no poems
only things that are real that find a way to remind us of ourselves.
i think about how jumping and shooting another person are in fact two different ways of killing yourself.
how pulling someone back saves you both.
we are already there.
another inch is everything.
-
turnpike.
just beyond the runaway truck ramp
ROUTE 80, NEXT LEFT illuminates beneath my headlights,
a shoestring road
stretching taught between the tin cans of our hometowns.
all i can see
is the brightly lit booth in the distance,
signs detailing price-per-mile,
toll tag readers flashing against the moonlight,
everything trying to warn me:
honey,
driving down this road is gunna cost you.
-
portrait of the artist’s wife in a salon pavle paja jovanović 1919
-
at her.
poison comes from an old french word meaning magic potion
venom comes from an old french word meaning
poison
such is the fantastically etymillogical treasure map tucked under my arm;
where moments ago i was a poet, seeking precision,
now i am headlamped, machete thrashing, tracing some legend's circular roots.
Diana Jones and the Synonymous Sisters.
i find them
peering silent through the mist of history
the misery
and mystery.
aphrodite stands with her hand on the shoulder of her twin,
venus,
this goddess of love,
name soured, spat,
gone from injecting veins with the addled haze of lust
to now
the adder; a dark curse, a death knell.
in a way i'd always known i'd find some 'her' here;
XX marks the spot.
feminine wiles
to guile
to guilt.
in The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions
a page clarifies
poison is when you bite it
venom is when it bites you
and oh how i cycle
through all the things men never needed be afraid of
they simply needed to let be.
-
love:
v. laying cornerstones with express intent; an anchoring, a leap, a prostration, an overture; the lifetime build of an infinitigon
musée 