Collision

I will fall from the sky

into this memory 
horizon

but it was never you

only hair and 

bones

Closed In

For a while I tried to make my new “seaside” apartment feel like home.  It wasn’t such a bad place: from the bedroom window you could see the ocean, if you pressed the side of your face against the wall and really strained.  But when that got old, and I lost interest in unpacking, I started using unopened boxes as convenient stands for things like junk mail and canvases.  As much as I wanted to care, I couldn’t.  Somehow in my desire for flight I’d forgotten that my belongings would only remind me of the life that had blown up with the barn.  When I tried to deflect this by buying a watercolor from a local shop I wound up just putting that on top of a stack of boxes, too.

The only one who seemed happy with our new life was Daisy.  Lazy though she might have been, she relished the chance to stretch her legs during our evening walks on the beach.  “Dogs like you just aren’t meant for places like L.A.,” I told her, when she ambled up to me with a piece of driftwood in her mouth.  “I’m sorry I put you through that.  It won’t happen again.”

Because even if I were lonely and frightened and not nearly as pleased with the move as I’d hoped, there was no going back.  I would rather stay with this slow death instead, waiting for everything and nothing at the same time.  Despair stretched before me, as vast as the Pacific Ocean.

And then Christine called.

Ghosts

I heard him out there

the buzz

Don’t try to understand, he said

It was my nature to try

or my position

the master and the slave

a cause that could not be

abandoned

if only to turn black grey

white an impossible

dream

The Queen of Nothing

I slipped inside of the

oily puddle today.

Even though I knew it

was there.

The twig you threw was good

enough to save

itself, barely.

Still, it was the strangest thing.

While I was waiting,

suddenly I had this tree.

Not much moves me,

but I had to move for the roots.

They were so big.

It burned inside, I know it.

The petrol had to burn the

branches inside,

had to leave scars that

never turn white.

The explosion would have

horrified you,

had you waited to see.

Oil does that—

it explodes.

And then there is nothing left.

Not even a twig.

Breathe the Free Air

I want to wake up
I want to wake up
I want to wake up

The little dog has fleas

I feel nothing
I will cut it out
this thing in my chest
All of the empty hallways
mile after mile 
antiseptic  
he doesn’t care if 
I know
he doesn’t care if 
anyone knows  

And the Rain Came Down, Redux

Whisper it to me while no one is listening

tell me I am a fool

tell me I am not

tell me something that makes sense

and then prove it

Lost

All of those letters

tortured into thousands and

thousands of

words 

each one leading into the 

same grey room

the towering slag heap

only the slightest quiver

down comes the river

nothing to hold onto

it will kill us all