Monday 29 February 2016

Survival


“Just before your friend Andy came up here,” Alturis said, peeling an apple with meticulous attention, “he shot and killed someone.  Did he tell you that?”
            Meg shook her head.
            “Well he did,” Alturis answered.  His tone was no longer light.  “Even more unfortunate,” he went on, “that person happened to be my brother.”
            Meg just looked at him.
            “Apparently your Andy had never killed someone before.  It disturbed him.  So he took a leave of absence and came here.  Which is where we found him.  And you,” Alturis added graciously, as if it were impolite to not mention her place in his diabolical scheme.  “Bad information led me to—what was their name?—the Gergens or the Bourbons or whoever.  It’s hard to find good help nowadays.”
            “I wouldn’t know.  I’m not in the market for henchmen.”
            “And a good thing for you, too.”
            “But that doesn’t explain what you want with me.”
            “Doesn’t it?” he asked, smiling again.


Saturday 27 February 2016

Magic's end


      
Forgive me this arrogance 
this undeniable conceit
Too foolish to understand
what surrender would mean

Friday 26 February 2016

Fire storm


This sea                                 filled with raging suspicions

polluted by the debris         of 1000 amazing inventions

not one in which I could believe

were you caught
in the fire storm of a million
conversations
or lost
in a dying admission

because just one thing I can show
and that is I am here                          
without you                         
alone
               
perhaps                 

just as it should be

here in our graveyard of
convictions
one last night
of fading ambition

your promise on the end of my fingertips
and it falls
it falls

daylight a shade too deep

I want to know
one day I must know

was it ever thus?
the clouds mirrored in our eyes
the end of apology
the apocalypse of
us


Thursday 25 February 2016

The light above


             Cathy sent me a one line email.  It read, Michael’s drinking again.
            I laid my head down on my arms and started to cry such violent, bone-shattering sobs, that Louise ran into the room.  “What’s wrong?” she asked me.  My head still down, I jabbed at my screen.  After a moment I heard her say, “Shit.”
            “This is my fault...”
            “Of course it’s not your fault.  He’s an alcoholic—that’s what alcoholics do.  They drink.”
            “He’d been sober for 14 years!”
            “Well, you didn’t buy him the booze, did you?  He could have gone to an AA meeting if he was that desperate,” Louise returned.  “It sucks, and I really like him and wish him well, but he’s being a moron.  I mean, it’s not like this will get you back, or change what’s happened.”
            “What he’s been through would be too much for almost anyone,” I protested.  “He felt so guilty about all of it.”
            “Then he needs to find himself a good therapist and snap out of it.  Mom always let Dad get away with his drinking, blaming it on one thing or another, and look what happened.  He never had to change because no one ever held him accountable.”
            When I just shook my head, Louise’s expression softened.  “He’s a smart guy,” she told me.  “He’ll figure it out.  I don’t believe for a minute he’ll still be drinking by this time next year, so stop worrying, okay?  This isn’t your fight anymore.”

When he dropped me I fell 
and it was close, the ground              so close that I could smell the
grass as his fingers loosed
their hold
somehow I forgot to wave goodbye
forgot that without him
 
I could not fly


Wednesday 24 February 2016

Before the frost


There is a girl who almost remembers things.  She remembers things the way someone who is about to remember a name suddenly forgets it again.  Like sea waves in early spring that almost roll onto your toes but stop just a few inches shy and then return to the sea, as you both long for the feel of the water covering your skin and yet exhale relief because the water is so very cold.


The awareness of you        the moon creeping into your eyes
when I come home will I still feel this alone                  will you build me a ladder out of
the sky

Tuesday 23 February 2016

In this world

Did you
                hold on                  to me
or did I reveal
my banshee soul                  to you
so much make believe
I trusted you         to know
to understand why
one must never
weep

silence a mocking foe
shrouded               in hope
I was waiting where did you go        
you cannot say and I         I just do not know
from way over there
you do not echo anywhere
I am so
lost
the deadliest place is no place new at all

this makes me sad               nothing I haven’t been before
this makes me wonder                        nothing I haven’t feared before
this makes me afraid to sleep with the door
closed

to remember is to fall
memory the betrayal of
what decorates the hall
a collection of explosions
kept
in an open jar

because you let go
you let go

this makes me remember                   everything you forced me to know was true
this makes me walk away                                 from everything that reminds me of you

you could not       hold on
and I     
now I am gone…


Monday 22 February 2016

Displaced

Kitty’s eyes fluttered open.
“Kitty,” the King said softly.
She turned toward his voice.  Looking confused, she asked him, “Where am I?”
“In the castle,” the King answered.  He glanced over at the doctor.  “Do you not remember coming here with us?”
“I…I thought that was a dream.  Am I still dreaming?”
“No, I am afraid not.  Your brother Jack brought you through the window in the desert.  You have been very ill since.”
Now appearing more scared than confused, Kitty pushed herself up a little.  “But I can’t be here.  You said that if I ever came here again I’d die.”
“Thankfully we were wrong," the King said.  “You just barely survived.  You have been ill a long time.”
“How long?”
“Many days.  We are not sure how long you were with the Prophecy before that.”
“The Prophecy!  Why was I with them?”
           “Jack brought you to them,” the King answered.  When Kitty frowned, the King squeezed her hand.  “We need not speak of that now,” he said.  “What is important is that you are going to recover, but that you will need a great deal of rest.”
Kitty could believe it, because she felt terrible.  She held her free hand against her forehead; it was pounding something awful.  Worn out just with the effort of sitting up, she sank back into the pillow and closed her eyes, breathing in the smell of the open fire—the aroma of the wood aroused her memory.  She had forgotten how good that scent was…
Kitty bolted back into a semi-seated position.  “Wait a minute--I will be able to go home, won’t I?”
When the King did not immediately respond, Kitty looked at over the doctor; the doctor, however, only lowered her eyes.  Kitty turned back to the King.  “Please," she begged him, "tell me I can go home again!”
The King let out a deep sigh.  “I am sorry," he said, "but you cannot.  The cells that allowed you to travel between worlds have been depleted.  We now know with certainty that if you step through another window, you will die.”
For a moment Kitty said nothing.  And then she started crying how she never had before.

Photo by C. Hornby

Saturday 20 February 2016

Last weekend


And in your heart and in your heart
listen...
I keep everything in 
the greying sky 
to be warm is a lie I lost
the reason to tell.

Friday 19 February 2016

A lack of clarity


1994

Erica calls me a couple of days after Thanksgiving.  We talk for a while about work and debts and boyfriends.  I thought I knew everything but now I realize I know almost as close to nothing as you can get without having fallen here on accident from another planet.




Thursday 18 February 2016

Addiction

I left you                                                                    
                        I did
that was me who limped behind
who whimpered and begged as
fear threatened me blind

            but I left you
                        yes, I did

Your voice now I must ignore
oh, and it sears and it soars, and it
roars with the ferocity of a
jungle cat

            because I left you back there
            with the imploring stare
            on your face

                        yes, I did

Old truths fill the
black hole where
I buried the leaking need
for you
I know all about incurable wounds

            So much and for so many weepy and
            lonely afternoons
            I meant to leave you
            for so much, my friend
                        and I did

It cost me the ravage of an atomic rage
poisoned the air with its smoke-orange memories
maybe it will melt my blistering heart
maybe it will leave me to freeze in the
drift of its nuclear winter
when the death that crouches in wait for me
crouches close for you, too

            forgive me for pulling this scratchy scarf
            over my eyes  
            forgive me, love, because I was made to leave you

                        and I did

Wednesday 17 February 2016

Once upon a time


I buried the doll behind a tree.  Just as I was arranging some sticks and dead branches to camouflage the grave, a small, fluffy champagne-colored thing appeared from behind a bush.  It had large, dark eyes, and a face so flat it almost curved inward.  Barely clearing the ground, the moving fluffball either had no legs, or legs camouflaged by mass amounts of fluff.  Its head seemed too large for its body and in general the creature was so odd that for a moment I thought it must be some kind of alien from outer space.  Only once it barked in a friendly sort of way did I realize it was a dog.  “Hello,” I said, a bit uncertainly. 
The dog bared crooked teeth at me in a comical attempt at a smile.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
The dog just snuffled.
When I then sniffled, drying the last of my tears with my sweater sleeve, the dog shuffled over and gently head-butted my ankle.  I leaned over to pet it, which the dog seemed to like very much.  Suddenly grateful, I kissed its head.  It smelled like vanilla cake.



just wait
just wait
it forms
it shapes
what I cannot 
change
it shrieks its
own language
it howls
it blows
oh but I know
I know how not
to listen

Tuesday 16 February 2016

The open door

By myself in the tiny guest room, I felt transported in time.  There I stood in the hallway, a little girl again, peeking through the open door as my mother sat on the edge of her bed, the shades pulled down and her body hunched over, crying for the drunken husband who had hit her once again.  Watching this scene time and again had taught me one thing: make sure to close the door all of the way.  Only then did I sit on the edge of the bed, and cry for the husband who had forced me to leave him.




we have survived the most
fantastic of things
only to renounce our immortality
I can still hear you whispering
please wait for me

Monday 15 February 2016

Surrender

Yes, the water is cold

January sea freeze makes even the sand shudder
no warm-weather month in sight
                my molecules for so long racing
                colliding
                begging
                for the slowing
the midnight water is cold for me
this is the time

                In the summer as the ice cream bell was
                                ringing
                watched them running
                knew they would be
    all right

Some fisherman embracing this
icy body
he will find me
by my blue silence he will know
                lost interest in breathing
                this air so full of riddles and
    rhymes

When fear of damnation gave way to fear of life
                always the smoke from my fingertips
                as the flames gutted me inside
cleansed my faith in waiting
hope extinguished with
the coming tide

Because the water is cold here
and hesitation’s wounds were bone dry
                turn my head to the black sky fading
                to the moon deserting what must die
even God in his kingdom
must forgive those who
gasp for breath as
they cry
because the water is cold enough
this once
and I must
                swallow it
                swallow it
fill the thirsting void
tonight

No more debating
when there is nothing for saying

                                I will be all right

Sunday 14 February 2016

Lost


Kitty resumed creeping along behind the young man, yearning for the desert heat she’d been cursing that very morning—a lifetime ago, it seemed.  A jagged rock cut into her palm, causing her to wince. “For a king you have pretty crap guards,” Kitty muttered to herself, but he obviously heard because he retorted, “They are excellent guards. This is simply an extraordinary situation we were not prepared for.  I should have listened to their advice and remain in the castle.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because the matter was of such critical importance I felt a need to be involved.”
Kitty mulled over several unkind responses to this but kept them to herself.  They just continued to crawl along in silence, until a thin branch whacked her in the face.  She swore softly to herself.  If only she could use her flashlight!  “Do you even know where we are?” she asked, after the King hesitated next to a narrow stream.
“I have an idea.  Shhh!” he suddenly hissed, and Kitty froze in place. Her breathing sounded thunderous in her ears, as she became suddenly aware of all the tiny noises around them.  Most seemed like the type one would expect to hear in a forest at night—even in a forest from another world—until she thought she heard the snapping of a twig nearby.  
The King had heard it, too, because he laid a light hand on her arm.  Without his saying so, Kitty knew he was telling her to run should they be ambushed.  But annoying or not, he was her guide. She had no intentions of leaving him here to duke it out alone, so that she could just get lost in this bitter cold forest full of prickly bushes and sharp rocks by herself.  Besides, Kitty refused to abandon him to his fate.  Whether he were a king or a university student, he deserved better than that.  Where he went, she would follow, no matter how annoying she found the whole situation.

Saturday 13 February 2016

Scorched earth


you want to cry
but you have been dry for 
so long 
that despair has cut a 
dirt rock river
through the canyons of 
your lungs

Friday 12 February 2016

The Dance

This is my heart in denial                                                       
the scratching of the diamond
against the vinyl
I was young once it seems
and I spun your etched
reflection inside
of me

But reality is the toe breaker
is the dance
is the false teeth sitting
innocent in the glass

Since we tripped across
the recorded line
warped by finality one last time
let’s tango out the side door
let’s slam against the back of
agony once more
because reality doesn’t give a damn if
it makes you cry
we knocked the glass over and so
we must say goodbye

Yet if I could remember how
to listen once more
I would play your parting
heartache and store it in
the vaults of my head
oh you know I would and
the silence in your captured smile
would light up my synaptic
network for years and
for miles
if only I could sing the
words again

Yes this is my heart in denial
the scratching of the diamond
against the vinyl
I was young once it seems
I am old with your
memory carved into me

            Because it is hard to forget when there
            is broken glass on the ground
            hard to ignore the thunder
            in the emptiness of sound


Revealed

You think you know.  You can never know.  You will never know anything other than a name that means nothing to you.  You are trapped in the network.  The hallway has no exit.  The bicycle has no wheels.  If you step outside of the red lines there is nothing to stand on.  You will fall.  You will fall, and you will not even remember how to scream, but it won’t matter.  Because no one would hear you even if you did.  You are a story I sold for a million howls of laughter.  For a million screams of pleasure.  You are nothing.  You were just one more born to serve a purpose, and now you are used up.  No wonder you question living.  You know there is no purpose left for you.  I tore you into tiny pieces and gave bits to any who asked.  I did this because you are useless.  No one cared then, and no one cares now.  You are a piece of lint to be flicked away, blown into nowhere.

Nice try, but it's over.  Over.

Thursday 11 February 2016

The wall

Driftwood keeps knocking in my head
death toll for who I was
traitor with nowhere to hide
ceramic vase broken
where I stored something
and it is something
something loud, violent, and very much alive
tapped until the crack first appeared
encouraged, tapped a little more
and a little more and a little more
and smelled daylight
sent the crushing blow
Whoever thought a neglected child
could hit so hard.

This is not the person I wanted to be
this is not where I wanted to live
these are not the memories I wanted
to decorate my hallway with.

The unexpected

             “Oh my god,” a voice said behind me.  “You have a German shepherd!”
            I turned around.  A head belonging to a youngish woman I had never met was beaming at me from the other side of the fence.  She had her brown hair pulled back into a pony tail, and sported baby doll bangs, the kind you might see on a toddler girl.  “I love German shepherds!” she told me.  She reached over the fence and snapped her fingers.  “Here, puppy, puppy,” she cooed.  “Come give me a kiss!”
“No, don’t,” I barked, but before I could finish my dire warning Max bounded over and obligingly began licking her hand as if it were made of ice cream.  “Okaaaay,” I said, bemused, but the woman laughed delightedly.  “He knows I admire him,” she said.  “He can tell I’m genuine.”
            “Great.  But you are...?”
            “Oh, sorry!  I’m Angie, Suzy’s cousin.  You’re Matt, right?”
            “Right.”
            “I’m sorry for bothering you—Suzy said I should stay out of your way.  But I heard your dog and just had to see for myself.”
            “Stay out of my way,” I repeated.  “Why?  Do I bite?”
            “No!  She just said you work from home and you don’t like to be interrupted, that’s all.  But I keep interrupting you, don’t I?  Sorry!  I’m going now!”Angie, Suzy’s cousin, told me, and just as randomly as she appeared, she disappeared back behind the fence.  Max whimpered .  “Some guard dog you are,” I said to him.  “She could have been a stalker for all you know.”


Wednesday 10 February 2016

The final solution

The defense has become the obstacle
I cannot give it up
it is giving me up
it is waving goodbye
it has become boring
please please please
I look out of the bus window and I see
houses and a golf course
not ready
keeps rattling at the gate
let me kiss you goodbye

just wait
just wait
just not ready yet

The defense has become the obstacle
there is no turning back.

Through the glass darkly


I've been thinking about you today - 
I've been wondering about you today.
You were like a sewing needle in the jugular
but I missed you today.

Tuesday 9 February 2016

I Fly in the Clouds


This one last time                    come along with me                you run so slow I lost you centuries ago                     now is not where you said you would be               leaving me alone and out of breath                    this breakdown in the making                        where are you love      where are you sleeping            I am awake I am all aware      that I am here and you are there                         you do not belong to me         you do not belong to me

Whose truth will be accepted             as war rages against my memories                  I cannot say for certain what I expected          or even what I thought I believed      but I am jumping off the cliff into this pillow of air              while you are a voice warning me from the canyon floor                   because this is where you disappear               and where I wish for something more

for you to send a message please        to shoot me so far and so wide           how do I survive now love     how do I feel alive          when you call to me from an exploding star               when you sing to me from the briny deep                  how am I supposed to hold onto you      when I have nothing here I am allowed to keep                    

Because he was a vision in snow       
the carrier of my fears             he infected you with my reality          he melted you with my tears               he held out his hand as I looked for you             he was the last of my projections            this hologram I could not see through     the carrier of your rejection    

So I left you near the valley stream                I left you on the greenest hill              I left you in the hardest rain               I left you standing warm and still                   I left you there in front of me             thinking I had been too kind                 the guardian of all my dreams                        a slow motion horror to unwind         now this torn frame is the only clue     of what I can never again find                     what does forgiveness have to do with me    when I am the one you left behind                      

You were a picture in a book                    nestled between a cranny and a nook             where I could close my eyes and see       but the library locked its doors        and I am prostrate on the floor                       you do not belong to me               you do not belong to me


Monday 8 February 2016

Waiting

             “I get jealous just thinking of all the fun you’ll have while I’m stuck in this dreary old house.”   His mother bit the top of the pen and squinted at Camp Geronimo’s paperwork.  “Oh, to be 11 years old again!"
            Jonah’s fingers curled around the seat cushion.  Already he could feel that funny tight feeling in his chest, and it was only March.  “I don’t want to go," he told her.
            “Of course you do.  Do you want me to sign you up for woodworking again, dear?  That bowl you made last year was wonderful.  I get compliments on it every time I bring it to one of my bridge meetings”
            “I didn’t make it.  Jack made it for shop class.”
            “It works so well for salads,” she answered, and checked the box next to crafts.



If you could grieve
if you could let the 
trickle turn into
a roar
then could you 
tell me what this 
loss was for

Sunday 7 February 2016

Above the waterline


April 2014

She is obviously crazy.  No proof.  Not even a tiny bit.  Just a fear of dolls and baths that won’t go away.  But that’s probably just part of the crazy.  Lots of people are afraid of clowns.  The dead panic inside is probably a recognition that here sits the laziest person in the universe.  Lazy lazy lazy.  Crazy crazy crazy   They rhyme!  What fun.

There is nothing.  Just endless football stats and baseball schedules.  Nothing to go by in any of the endlessly dull letters that could induce a coma.  The girl must not have liked him much.  She always left the baseball schedules and football articles inside of the letters.  I wonder why.  I guess she didn’t care who the Twins played.  I feel bored just thinking about it.

She is screaming to be heard.  She is screaming...what?  That no one cares about the Twins.  All of those letters.  Thousands and thousands of words saying nothing at all.  We know how to do that, too.  All of the millions and millions of words we utter, each one leading into the same gray room, the words all piling up until like a slag heap they kill everyone in a mining disaster. 

It’s a family talent.  The vacuum’s logorrhoea.  Gifted and talented, woo hoo hoo.  No one will ever be as clever as us.


you keep me wandering between 
the promise and
the threat
so I stay where 
I am 
with all of the questions
I never thought
to ask

Saturday 6 February 2016

The hardest word

It means nothing to be sorry,
not when tomorrow will cry for the
yesterdays I betrayed,

Still I try for the
atmosphere breaking
the sun the moon the
wind for this rending I caused.
For what is a little uglier now
a little more fragile
so much more wronged.

Touch me with your forgiveness,
go ahead, shame me some more.
Because never you worry --
disappointment is catching
catching and never letting me go.