The view from above

Yes 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

Letting go

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

The coming frost

She waits for dreams but they are so often the same.  She waits for someone to tell her something.  She is so used to accepting.  Accepting and accepting and accepting.  Some say this is a virtue, but acceptance can be the first stage of surrender.  She no longer fights, because she accepts.  She gives up.

Reflections

Listen to me.

We are the paint peel chipping,
dangling over the prickly
bushes,
waiting with an eye
toward falling.
I wonder who I will be
when I am cut and
bleeding -
I wonder who I will be
when I have
given up.

It is like the blanking of
a color screen,
the bleaching of dark
green carpeting.
Hold my hand for just
a little while.
We are moving
and fading
on and on.

And you have become all
of what is to go.
Once you were the buttercup
dripping,
dislocating the litter
lodged inside of
me,
when now I have
nothing inside
to lose.

Yes, I wanted to hold your hand,
for just a little while.
But we are a love song
moving and
fading
on and on...

What cannot be mended

“Just before your friend Andy came back here,” Alturis said, peeling an apple with meticulous attention, “he shot and killed someone.  Did he tell you that?”

            “No," Meg answered through gritted teeth, "he didn't."

            “Well he did.  Even more unfortunate, that person happened to be my brother.”

            Meg just looked at him.

           Alturis paused to cut the apple into slices.  Once he finished this, he went on, “Apparently your Andy had never killed someone before.  It disturbed him.  So he took a leave of absence and retreated to his family home.  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," Meg returned, trying to block out the memory of the Bergen's dead bodies lying in their living room.  "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?” Alturis asked--and smiling, he popped an apple slice into his mouth.

Conversation with George, Pt. 2

I could ask what you were made to do,

I reply.

But I don’t think I want to know.

That’s not a secret, he says.  I was

made to think.

And I do think.  I tell you things,

sometimes, when you’re half-asleep,

or not afraid or interested or

desperate.

I wish you were more interested.

I would tell you more.

I know enough, I answer.

But you don’t, he insists.

You really don’t.  I could tell you

about the oceans and why the

rivers flow and what makes

you not want to wake up.

I could tell you so much.

The boys come, scale the walls.

They whisper things to me,

so that I know why.

Sometimes I escape,

but this is my home.

And the dolls with knives

chase me.  Dolls as

big as you are.

I don’t like them very much.

No, I say, they don’t sound

very nice.

They aren’t, he answers.

They shout things at me from

the other side of the

walls.

“You, boy,” they say,

“you shut up, or we’ll cut

you!”

You wouldn't think a doll

with blonde hair and

pig tails could be so

vicious.

Alive

In this lexicon of sorrow

I am too tired to speak for myself

if you saw miracles spring from darkness

I saw only memory

swathed in charcoal dusty

dream