December 31, 2023

on my door

variation of gold

the early sun has brushed

in islands movable

with sheen of summer sailed

whose warmth prefigured is so unlike

any sumptuous illusion mingled with me:

would that I were as luminous in detention

or as copious and supple in retreat of mood!

then might I stir (fleet) at your careless invite

that to my unprophetic shade commends ever

the chance lying awake without strife or tenet,

parsing me some dream’s reserve to invigilate

or my share of celestial charm to rouse and seal—

all so I'd forgive you this too breezy intrusion

upon the black burning water of my cloud

December 31, 2022

listen for the rain
that says
I’m you
in another sort of time
another sort of color
in ceramic
in augury
how the sparrows are flown!
with miles to bear
and fate equal to relinquish
—seraph in the mosaic stream
what charm in fortune
to have found your shape
haloing this dark world
to this day
the only remembrance
I've cared to desire

September 30, 2021

take Oktober
your silver ship
wreathed in fire
of silence, of love
love: phrase in the cauldron
a sky ablush
a crawling towards
a minute to deplete
do not watch me
needlessly helplessly
vanish in your starry lens  
  posted once bare to you
I know best of all
how easy it is to sever
and slide offworld

September 29, 2021

in the potent range
bleak awhile       here gleams
no monument of you       here rains
water like muscle       here beckons
your resolve
like sand in a tilted hand
be glad of it
who else would you be
so many hours deep
hovered here
making mud

July 7, 2021

Do you want to leave this island
The ocean does not care
My brochure says our tracks
Will ribbon up to the sun
What a relief to have this seat
And the door at the end of the carriage to run to
When things get warm enough to know
The path of fire in the windowpane
A touch, a sign to fling past
All the bluish stars barely pulling
—But we will speed up soon
And hardly register those distant lights bending their careful courses
To catch a glimpse of us

February 3, 2021

   warps the rain

slips in glow

plum of skin

on discovered bone

my almost flesh

breaks

grim or sweet

to the air before

the breath after

this tame morn

I cannot rinse 

the what if

pit of it

December 21, 2020

in stillness again
gladly
the oblivion of blood that must be earned
I will not forget your rubric

February 13, 2019

if your hand were placed among other hands
in my particular table of night
in a place of few stars
to draw my eyes down to open cliffs
or the falling tempest of already you
in whose veins I would always rush
back to the heart of the tottered sea
where your soft body may still carve
the strides and wells
that become its contours inclined to me—
I would say:
may it never sweep the absence of desire
nor the perished dust of my breaking days
but perform its annotation or requirement still
to the futile immolation of lamp and moon
  let’s evermore pretend this is the beginning
new worlds don’t excite me nearly as much

December 31, 2018

hyperion titan, whose glory feeds
resurrection of all the world:
wake me like that pious bird
with your outstretched arm
inviting permutation and activity
and beckon once more my resolve
past impressions of every promise
daily burned and daily buried,
that i might do more than linger
beyond the capitulation of doubt
and at the end of many days
under a piece of sky barely lit
dream to compare
your treasure and mine

November 21, 2017

The wind that wraps itself
Into the limb of night
Has brought this leaf
Straying to my window,
As if intending some watery trade
To me as I once vainly to your lips,
Those that I remember—
Fragrant artificer of clouds
By whose power might’ve been converted
How many storms’ swift scimitar
To rustles and mere murmurs of sleep.
But your barren inclination with my disaster matched
Made of inarticulate and too subtle force nothing.
Yet not nothing has my thought condensed
In the misty chamber of alleviated time
To signification beyond all trails’ decay
Behind morbid, torrential weather...
How distant you are to this leaf
Which I know in wending dream will ease away,
And from my mind’s false assignment depart—
Tomorrow, unseen, pressed out in the shade,
Richer to have given, not lost, its colors.

August 5, 2017

to pikes! o MEGALODON
my lines blood-raked
minutes gone
in vagrant waters clipped
slight halberds
take an ear, a lip
leave mine
  the summoned breezes
your shimmer
like a dear, fervent star
(the right star)
that once glided o'er
the honeyed, whispering sea
in me
vivid, unseen—
but now you are here
& I love your teeth upon the foam

July 8, 2017

its drops become my finger
its seal presses upon my hair
saying: break—

beneath this convergence of light
I must open and scatter
like a dream taught to the water
by the closed, unmoving air
of summer

December 23, 2016

no more the dry metallic sun
or the red haze burnt
nor skin heavy as earth
when the wild skirmishing dust
whose cry is familiar to me
finds rest on my tongue
I will sink into this spire of wind
and this dune, the powder of my blood,
till there's nothing left to wither
but the silent uncoding dark
whose face
  is familiar to me

December 2, 2016

a violent elision—
this change of color
this second bloom
the whiteness racing
against pure blue
—you might too
with mute vigor
chase morphoses
in the silver-marrowed air
or! waking
gather to yourself
in its bright extension
the time-lapse of another
parting

September 10, 2016

leftward, towards light
the only true ruin
⌵
spear in the daybreak sun
make me hands
like kinetic incense
on the mothed wind
be a relic of me
high-dispersed((  see
your memory's action
disedge and reply
elsewhere in
the grass
             and
peaks
far

September 3, 2016

bit of molding on the low wall
good place to thump your brains… out
/a prudent time for deceleration
if I could slow any further

June 8, 2016

gothic blur
revisit me
salt-dazzled
frail
unshoulder my listing
to lines of ease, never—

June! how these days of nothing    compile
(like meekly accentuated breaths)

June 7, 2016

I am as disembodied
   as this bled-out
   too-distant morning:
subtle flesh
thinly speak
close over
when I most miss
when I’m vaguely aware
the phone is ringing
fresh skin—
my best relapse
invokes dreams
?whichway which beyond

April 21, 2016

do small things
if I seem
just in time
not to see
myself in a different window
frame-rusted, chewed
voice: a whisper
sibyl    in the broken snow
scraping with her fingernails
a knot in a strand of hair
  brushed over
    grew
    lamplight in my hand

April 20, 2016

where I should begin anew
by your perfect thought
love!
my stranger
  off-pink
your maw
  open to search
save me
the trouble of departing
the study of names..
  replacement