To Answer The Question Imposed By You, Sleeping Now

To answer the question
Imposed by you, sleeping now:

There is a great, great valley in my mind,
Funneling a wired stream of memories,
Promises and destinations.
And slow through the coming days they
Will unfold, bursting open and then:
Long drives through concrete valleys
And alleys rotten with ash that kills.
Will you show me to your driveway
When the time is right to abolish
Your sad hill of papers and destroy
The habits we’ve whipped to keep.
And the valley fills to the dusty cap,
With all this florid air and waterfalls
Of wine, ‘till I resurface tomorrow,
Where maybe, possibly, a lunar hope,
I will be rooted to the sands of the surface
By the cave of your hand which I only scrape
Because we are consistently without candle.

I pray our fingers fold to a floodgate,
To let all this in; to keep all else out.

Boys Gone Too Long

Boys gone too long without their swan

End up jumping over tall, steel gates.

Which really should be no cause for alarm,

The flood of the muddy river is too shy

To lap the running mouths of our shoes.

No darkness but the hue of the golden sand,

Dirty and trashy like a fairy. Suddenly

I can see the landing: the off-limits balcony

Where we watch the ripples for a soft swan.

Barges drag beneath bridges, trumpeting.

Sand chokes beneath rising water rising,

Water like white fire, that you can neither taste

Nor see, only feel it wrung out once everything's

Landed. One story resuscitates my pride,

Withering like the wing of a looping bat.

Next time I'll be sure to bring a lighthouse.

Keep one in my pocket, a totem of reason.

After all, this is the most dangerous season,

Where boys with hours and a carton of flowers

Run through water at the mention of your name.

You My Anchor In A Violent Bay

You my anchor in a violent bay, sink so sweetly

Into the sea-beds, which are by now browning,

On the sun-swept hill of my evening birthday.

My neck like chalk snapping at the twist

Of a morning wind, so quickly kissed.

Wracked as water, cast off by my fire-dry hand

Weaving satin fingers again, and again.

You my fancy parasol, embroidered with milk lace,

Lay down your lovely traps. Your cheekbones, the mast

Steering the winds that softly rubbed me today,

The day I am no bother. But still

You paint our liquid gates with sweet eyes.

Such a slow gift, a stem in the sea, laying

Down in a dim bed near the close of the year.

You the thickest root, dancing and bone-light as the stars,

Toe-pointed, stomach-stretched women made of light,

Skating through the sad film of the raging bay.

Your grape-green leaves on the twigs of days

Spark sharp, new colors in the moth cave.

For this palette, this young rock, your bubble kiss,

I give you waves, which rock again, and again.

I Was A Cell Once, And Young

Too pretty to be a boy, the doctor said,

Then passed the little ball of meat down the table,

Past candlelight, the delivery room must have been dimly lit

For them to have thought me beautiful.

Now I am a skyscraper of cells,

Everything in its right and natural place,

My fingers long, my hair full of oils,

No matter what I do I will be a statistic.

I have no problems with being a statistic.

I know I am just a ventricle in a leaf of a tree

In a wood that used to be surrounded by more woods

Before they built more railroad tracks and churches.

Every day I grow newer, I feel no different

Today than I did when I was foaming in the pit of my stomach,

When tears ran freely in the face of failure.

Now I own failure, it's my faithful girlfriend, have you met her?

Stop me, I'm a tycoon, every day I own something new.

Today it's my life, but tomorrow it could be another's.

I am a terrible gardener, I let things sit in the sun

And forget to drink water three times a day.

The doctor says I'll get pancreatic cancer and shrivel up.

I tell him I'll outlive his life, his son's life and his practice

Because when the doctor dies his hands go with him.

My work is not finished, I am still lying my hands down,

Bony headstones above muddy graves. I never saw it rain

But I remember it like I remember being born.

They tell me that they knew right away I was no boy.

They tell me to be a man and I admit I am confused.

They say you'll be fine, you'll make us proud, son, grandson,

Someday you'll be even bigger than your words.

Then why do I feel smaller than dirt.

In Between

Winter smiles at last.

Summer holds its scorching breath.

We all know the rest.

I Could Not Lie At All

At the midnight hour of my fall
My father saw me and wept
He gave me life and an age-old glass
And a promise he knew I’d forget.

The room turned wide and green
My burdens laughed and left
I crashed into a spineless sea
My fears were cold and bereft.

A single door pushed forth to unleash
A vibrant wave of song
The music burned above the din
The night grew young and long.

I kissed the hill of a shadow’s cheek
I knew no guilt or calm
The golden lights flashed a moment’s truth
I felt the floor with my palms.

I took a mirror to my rotting teeth
A hungry child on a swing
And when the walls offered no return
The swing lurched forth into spring.

The moon swayed me like a tide
I took a breath at your shore
And felt the bones of a blazing hand
One I could never ignore.

The force of love rocked me clean
Two children shook and shoved
You must accept my apology
If I failed to make you feel loved.

The eyes of lamps blinked and waned
The carpet knew no crimes
I drank communion from a bowl
Just to hold you one more time.

I took my voice and cast it off
Into the grave of sounds
The tomb screamed back just like the wind
But there was no one around.

I fell into a shallow well
My dreams were bright as ice
I woke to find you sweet as sleep
And even truer than life.

No One Should Have To Go

You say you wanted me over.
For some dinner, you say.
Yet your wrist is braced
As you take a bite of tortellini.
I swore, I had salad in my teeth,
A great brute in the crow’s nest
Of my collective vanity.
You saw through me, like a crystal lamp,
Lampooning my doubts.
I saw far, far into you,
Like a constant sea-sick kaleidoscope.

“Do I have something in my teeth?” you ask.
“No,” I insist, and ask the same.
“Yes,” you say, along with other things.
“Do you really have to go?”
“Yes,” I sigh, “Yes, it is so.”

The kaleidoscope ends after all.
I should have known, no matter—
I take you to your hotel home.
“When will I see you again?”
Clogging traffic sounds.
I went back to my hotel
To cramp my hand.

Mouse Man

My mother is having another baby.
My father is busy writing his novel.
He wrote one before, when I was a boy:
One about tiny mice in tiny clocks,
Running businesses, living like princes.

That’s where he’s at,
Out in the country,
Looking for Inspiration,
Which he lost somehow.
Easily as a ring of keys.

Meanwhile,
I am my father’s tiny mouse,
Living inside his tiny clock,
Watching the stubby hour hand,
Willing it to glide in reverse,
To meet the minute hand once again,
And beat it at its own game.

Keeping Score

Too blank for being in the moment.

Let's keep a score: The world, none,

You, an hour's worth of smiles and good feeling.

I want: Someone's boot to brush up against,

The Advil I must've left in my robe. Bed.

I think I have become a thinly-veiled monster—

Also annoying, completely unable to give a shit

About the lies, at the end of their wires.

The drop-off looms. Something blooms:

If only it were your heart, your sweetest gloom.

This Is Too Much New

I know now that not everything is in you.
I have to halt, dig in my heels,
Knowing Time is no excuse—
There are still wires to cross
And organs to unlock.
The heart, perverted spleen,
And other curves of the life body.
Still I’m spiraling directly into you.
The action came first: all my words
Limped behind like a hooked fish.
I’ve coughed them up, they’re yours.
We don’t get along, me and the body.
I am its anesthesia; its will is my crutch.
All this Time, all of these raptured Wild Nights!
Too much, too much, and in time, not enough.