these shoulders always sore even
in that honey’d light lingering
after most of the big men had
wandered off then the long years of
the same over and again and
remember I saw him from a
long way off with a thing by his
side writhing and weighty little
did I realize the contents
could be the last thing I would ever
though I was ready for these
massive thighs to marbleize to
rest to finally put aside
holding it all so perfectly
I could have
carried it if
I was still an ant
once whispered
the city dispersed
into luminous filaments
a week away somewhere
then
the miracle of the sponge
(First published in World Haiku 2026.)
and then there’s my way 1000 little
bottles about a shot and a half each
—an attempt to inflict my demon with
a mild case of haemolacria (dear
reader forgive me, it means crying
blood) and what was it about knowledge not
being the same as intelligence was
that Wally Stevens or Harry Clitus?
But nothing brings them together like
the wrong guy getting punched but come over
we’ll have a drink then on to the next
inventive absurdity often
through a screen past a perfect mess with dogs
rummaging wait was that Jerry Lewis
in a place mossed over Lilith
Sternin-Crane in a blue teddy
a moment of stillness almonds
the sound of gulls again gone from
my mind the spell broken next door
still watching that show about angry
people I guess the pen rolls I
put it back it rolls away mountains sharp
slippery as serious faces lean
over balconies and argue
about justice drains overflow
we won’t know until the apostrophe
little waves of a gently rough
sea her hands finally on me
It’s too much too little too hard too
soon too crunchy too slimy so again
when can I stop wasting this food if I
thought I could tell you her hair was like no
her smile no the sun gleaming off her dark
and that smile about some silly maybe
part of a part of her could continue
to somehow stay and I’ve forgotten the
perfect second half of the image that
once slotted in would cut this string which
releases this ball, whose action will
precipitate a dozen quick small
reversals plunges and such that you could
hardly have predicted where it would land
of the genus Zenaida (named
after the naturalist’s wife)
macroura (from the Greek for
large and tailed) a member of the
dove family, Columbidae, the
singular member of the order
Columbiformes, which we can trace to
before the meteorite. Mourning dove,
chueybird, turtledove, or rain dove, once
Carolina pigeon slash turtledove.
About a dozen of you little plump
grey-brown folk squatting in the limbs above
old snow the light hadn’t started yet to
dull the little blue that circles your eyes
Instead of a Final Line, a Title
of course I mean no disrespect, sir most
honored if, in my reverie, some mirth
of mine takes the liberty to call you
Wally. I claim but a similar sort
of trajectory. You see, I sprouted
not far from your birthplace, on a cracked bed
of anthracite, and drifted to the land
where you’d seed yourself. But not as far as
you, sir, no, not nearly as far or grand
sir, not nearly half as half as grand and
as I recall you started your great work
somewhat late in the day, as well, no
of course, I also have an appointment
before all the begetting unending
nothing not even dark then through a
gap the fast light she can’t hold back
and soon everything that ever, but
no there never was some big brooding lord
of death quaking across the land
looking for ladies to lift. She
wanted company and the boy seemed
eager enough for her delicacies
and so stayed a spell while Earth was
breaking with cries over her love
lost while the fruits drop dry and brown
so what could our sweet dark sister
do but share a small part of the year
almost everything I ate today was
cold avocado on toast leftover
pasta salad the air so thick you think
there’s something wrong with your lungs the
pooch wanted to go towards the beach
but sidetracked by chipmunks talked to Bill for
a while drank duck shit oolong looked for an
adapter to transfer photos for too
long in spots where something like that could hide
three times and found it in the usual
bag where I started and felt dumb but
happy to stop looking read some
of Olena Kalaytiak Davis
in honor of the upcoming trip
Maybe I don’t have enough to fill these
days, I mean pages, I mean, I do that
bit a bit too much but continue to
hope my pen can cobble some minor
magic as this glamour lately is
sea ice in February as I fail
to get the cheese out cleaning another
dungeon as the prophecies foretold
and then a tune but so softly I
must pay close attention or they
are lost as the kingdom slowly
dissolves in thin smoke debt and need
but the dog seems to like it she
gets to go where she wants and when
It wasn’t great strapped squirming in the dim
room one eye iced and punctured drained by a
third lasered from inside while I tried to
stifle my many moans and failed and told
the next day it didn’t work. So more prods.
More piercings. The remaining jelly
sucked out. But the drugs were quite good and
could have made much more much more pleasant
and once through rain finally home for
a selfie I try to mold a
miniature Mr. Joyce, with
an eye shield taped to this wan cheek
before the chemicals snuck off to leave
me stuck on this cheap chair with months of night
I’d forgotten how much I felt
for him pushed from bad to bad snagged
by drama he can’t comprehend
attacks he won’t defend against
running to the old house the first
time he escapes, the garland for
his dusty fur from the gentle
girl of sorrows also to be
crushed beneath the wheels of children
tossed away and won’t live with the
wound and a clear night a forced march
and fireworks and more and finally all
alone, sniff the open air, bright
sun, new friends, and no more burdens
The great detective takes up too much space
unlike unlucky Henry’s lucky sin
-gle foot but these things won’t give up
the chase so let’s get on with the
investigation. Let me say
I never wanted to come over and
join the group. I said I’m perfectly fine
over here and said it again
and began to construct a series of
sagas to enshrine the first faults
and that may be fine old stuff, but
does not an alibi make so
again into the cupboard to
see how well this fine steel can bleed
Though the days of its power were brief and
the needful noise that kept the continents
distracted did not pause but grew and crept
into the vintage pens and bowls, the
monkey-picked tea, and while we found
that flavor had abandoned most
local precincts, and yes, there were
those expeditions that were quickly though
poorly equipped and we’re still waiting on
the report with what is reported as
hope though through the long years we have
practiced most of the permitted
poses quite diligently, and mean
no offense with these little shows
With a sad smirk I count these thin
threads and scattered leaves. Can a
pale thing still be stitched. The fan says
tick tick at its apogee and
the mass wearies. I try and I tell
but there’s just a little breeze so
easily turned off I don’t want
to confuse or obscure, much, but
each character wants their own half-baked say
oh it's OK we know what we are
so why not own the joke and pity
the poor scholar with her rough lamp of
vegetable grease as she sorts lies from
poetry, black beans from bits of clay,
how much is willing clay how much
is smoke that will fade away and
I see her laugh and stroke the dog
and wish I had an eighth of that
and that I could see more clearly
but I don’t feel lonely at the
mall and love the wildflowers but
don’t know much about them and love
my wife but don’t know much about
her either I’m not even sure
where she lives these days and I guess
I must have had some at some point
but searching there’s just this television
and cardboard cutouts in the windows
Upon revival the room should
have traces of the scents and sounds
detailed on the intake forms. There
are only so many times we
wake to this world and the first step will set
the pace of our recovery.
The chemicals used for the long
nap should quickly wear off and your
vision should gradually de-mystify
then there are those few vital things that
have shifted or been seconded to
departments other than what you
may or may not remember and
far too much that has stayed the same
vaguely at two the old argument
corners me when I’m most unconstructed.
The gist is blame myself and save the world
or the other way around, but
I'm not sure of the next step and
can’t easily stop the limping
way I’ve been with crooked circles
beat to either more or less and
ever hoping for a chance to walk a
thin wire high in clean air—but this
private war—is there a place past
fidgeting through the fog of flies
and the oily birds that feast on them
and make a chore of every banquet
The thing is to sculpt warm solitude from
isolation and help it gleam. Don’t reach
out for the wrong things too often though you
will certainly itch and curse and doubt and
doubtless quit a few times a day and why
not—cf Nietzsche on suicide*—
remember that nothing can stop
all our secret legislators,
the sly taste makers and king breakers
who surely one day will squint forth
from their caverns to share the most
incorruptible—oh yes, yes
I also felt that went too far, but
buckle up, we’re leaning into the fall.
*[BGE, 4.157]
which was mostly able to limp
past the so-called wild-west phase but
never could embrace what one would
term civilization before
receding from the record, though
I am but a gala priest junior class
entrusted with certain songs who
with the ensi of this small state
have tried to add aspects of fig
and poppy to the flowering
of new tongues in the time of our
collapse as the wind chooses which
syllables will supply the feast and what
may one day pass to other voices
and maybe it was all in my head which
may be a seventeenth-dimensional
projection or inscrutable code for
pixels and such, or so they say, either
way for a while I didn’t have much
fun at all then got a taste and
got real sore waking up like that
and who knows what other stumbles
Sometimes a light nothing fills me
and I want to burn the forest
but my sweet nib smooth paper it’s
something for the mumbling ghosts to
gnaw on while I cross-hatch for an
hour gumming those juicy mistakes
those over-loved darlings I failed
to kill before too late. Too bad
I’m sentimental and lonely
and find my vices won’t keep me warm
anymore, but sometimes laughing, as
ink creeps out so confident from
a rust red pen that’s sharp as an old love,
turned, and will return the favor if
I stumble in the middle of these feet
but mostly it seems to demand
storms and mountains crumbling and
it’s hard to make due with so few
and abandon them hopeless of revision
for sixty trillion springs or more
why would I be punctured by that smug smirk
if some place wasn’t already filled with
puss and no it doesn’t want to be
or be poked and it’s because of how
I always wore it now it leaves
a mess wherever I go and
yes you guessed it the right answer is
nowhere which is fine but I don’t want
to end up a hermit though like most
I’ve been ogling the local caves
but no I ran away years ago
and never stopped despite what you might
see this could be pixels hologram
or something worse we’ve yet to glean
how much are any of us here
really here no I don’t want to
complain much less advise with all
the heat water and chemicals
seeping out only to be replaced for
what seven years at best and each
smudged in its own special way
and the usual team less and less
able to do the job until we’re all
out on the street packaged in little
bags to be dumped in a special spot
where we loved to play and why not
we must found a shining brand for our
flank or wear the mark of some stranger
as I was destroying the pickup
of the punk who offended me
there was a surge of strange energy
and I started to grow and soon found
I could crush cars in a couple
of swats and then the big box stores
were in peril and whole cities
grew craters and ranges were crumbled
to adorn the lonely plains. It was
exhausting but necessary work
and when I was grand enough to grasp
the blue green grape between my digits
one more overly adoring pinch and
it’s lost in this black sparkling soup
the weight of those great decisions and
the trick of how to know how to thrive
—maybe add a photo to the post—
bubbling black bile and moldering plans
of, yes, I suppose I’ve lost you now
so let’s check in on the detective
and those spotty hands maundering
among our dark drawers and under things
—thump—a quick novel sensation—a dense
syrup in the major muscles—
half a conversation running along
without us then gone, back to slow
daylight grumbling nasty thoughts what can I
exploit from that dismal green land
I was a bad king. I wrote some bad
apologies. Too many games, not
enough work. My people drained wasted
but it began to shift when, from the
vast grassland she led him, or was it
that winter I spent as an ass because
of the mishap with the lady
from Salem—blessed be her name
Maybe change of form is not enough
It’s hard to say right now what the project
is and what is not the project
but I hope that at some time in some time
I will have been sufficient monarch of
this wildflower-resplendent surplus
though in this case the ratio was
flipped, two parts animal and one part
divine so the light was filtered through
moist hairy clay though there were those times
before it got much worse
the henbit ground ivy toadflax
and other remembered saturations
scarlet pimpernel deptford pink scat
-tered at every turn thyme leaf speedwell
bird’s eye speedwell the constant buzzing
in my ear and nights of less and
much less what could our hero do
with fangs and fury just like the creature
though now that you say it like that
When I'm feeling lyrical enough when
the lawnmowers have sloughed off when I can
loaf through what remains of my Latin the
sine qua non of my vade mecum, sed,
noli me tangere, for a wheezer I am
while more dead tongues loll and tell of
loss and I never did find a
comfortable spot there and heard Hamlet
was really Grendel which was a
mistranslation of Enkidu
but I turned away. I heard an old voice
that never was and never will leave me
alone. What can a mug like me do with
new eternal forms gushing everywhere
but bear with me for a few more moments
and I’ll hand out the gift vouchers as
Mr. uh Shakespeare I think said but
the blue green green blue colony on
the bright carapace of this orange
a thin layer of dust visible
from roughly 2 to 4:30 and we
arrive a little later than
fashionably and at this hour
I have some small hope that, but yes,
we must soon part and wend our own as we
may with no need to decorate this night
with Venus Mars and the moon as
though the curtain had just parted and
on the clay we noted more than half of
the grain had spoiled, and the copper
was of quite poor quality but
we were then too many miles from
the great cities and their gods so
we crossed three more mountains dug six
more wells made our offerings with
fresh water and old song and waited so
tired but so hopeful it might work
this time then rain the earth slides and
the flies and filth the sores boils and
strange diseases but we walked and
found a green land one cool spring and
never heard the horses approach
as I play in the guise of the
old trick cup that stays dry and
overflows at the same time and
is soon set on a high shelf once
the nostalgia has outgassed but
no maybe that’s too far so what
else an unmolested wooden block
a townhouse for parasite birds
but no this palimpsest is badly smudged
and besotted with globs where light
is most needed and it takes time
to unwind even a few sounds
to spool into a small sequence
then we need to buy all that salt
Early this morning there was a
dream of our little girl dog so
recently gone and I was about to
cover her with a blanket as she snoozed on
the bed then saw it was really
me in a tiny dog costume so I
walked on after the briefest cuddle and
in the morning proper started
to wash last night’s leftovers and
with one sponge swipe the wineglass is
reduced by a third with no blood—
Thank you great goddess of the wide
earth thank you goddess of recycling thank
you goddess who loves laughter thank you
I was on edge I’ll say because
of too much sun why not and it
didn’t matter where we stopped for the night
I just didn’t want to go back
and trap myself. Again. You have to move
carefully when you find you’re a
head in a jar. But I’m so tired. My
words wade the short cold waves and end
where they began in a still mumbling mouth
forever filled with acrid liquids
wolfed by the woof and warp of unwashed
waters all the days of this half life
for half a dozen or so bubbles that
break with awful scents and few clear notes
before the stone had splintered the
skull, I knew I’d gone too far. I
adore these tiny flowers, but
no one owns them, and then the great
detective, all those fine speeches,
reversals, triple meanings. No
wonder most only stand and wait
by the fire gulping down amber
Then in a moment it’s resolved
and all that tension as the speech
slowly built its trap and found its
treasure as it ever did and
then tea and cakes and time and in
some time, time, flowers, a stone, and
and some days, Pentheus, like the
rest of us, is torn to souvenirs
by his mother and her maenads
as just a few words will poison
park and pond so you forgo the
many strings that tie you to the
rest and restless and still tug in
the struggle against the sun, and
no I can’t really see either but
a few more steps and we’ll rest for today
you see sometimes we have to go
on like this and suffer another prelude
one day molten gold or the certainty
of a chrysalis under a leaf
but something already gone glitters
so this soft pen now tries to lift
from the dream of a fish who is
determined to explore the dry
and those waves now gentle reach and
just here set a small movement in
motion that may more or less
resolve into something like melody
though even today as the winds
wild what survives seems sufficient
miracle to keep these sails tight
for a moment while I try to
gather a few parcels of silence
they say it’s worth more than gold
I’ve been banging my sore fingers
on this keyboard more than forty
years now and can still hardly carry a
tomb or remember many standards
and was never good with theory or
practice and one sour slip can send me
spiraling away from melody
for millennia and maybe
history or the twisted strands
that compile me or is this just mask and
pantomime I bleed to move on
now and clear friends of the past know
I will smile at the songs we shared and
no there never was an accordion
as Paul Anka licked those white cubes
from between her dainty toes, I
knew it was too late for me so I flew
into the nearest more or less wood to
let my momentum slow to sap and
all those fictional women of
my graphic novel past were just
as complicated as needed
and as whatever else and, less
but I hear like is drawn to like
or the other way around I
know I should just go out and play
apart from now there is no other day
but this urge to heap mountain on mountain
who wins the skirmish when no one dies
clever old fool you managed to chain one
of the oldest deathless ones whose job was
death which screwed up the works since he
couldn’t work so how can we eat when
a week later the chicken’s head
still begs for grain it cannot store or how
do we please these greatest and most
fickle gods when a hundred perfect
oxen with golden horns embossed with blood
cannot take their rest and the sheep slipping
on its intestines tomorrow shakes its
head and bleats at you again and through the
night so you see the boulder was justice
but I will carry it out as agreed.
Though I fear this may be the last
time as my contract has not been renewed
so instead I will take myself off
to a greener shore and tie my hand to
remembering no of course my
dear you’re perfectly safe and I know this
is not what we were hoping for or
talking about I never sit by a
fire in the dark how does it come to you
nothing else felt so light and exact I
was afraid of using it up, but no
ten thousand things drowned and swept away
each root I grabbed slipped through the mud
it’s hard to know which to trust which
to tune out but maybe jot it
down maybe we have but one skull
in which to rule them all like it
or lump it they said back then and
some day with sufficient shine could
end up in some dead-end line
bludgeoned into space for padding
instead of dealing with the tricky, yes
I was about to intone, there have been
few days other than hard and
yet wildflowers everywhere
if you stop and stoop and zoom and yes I’m
serious and yes we could use much more
trying to remember the names
of all those Greeks and no denying it
through inaction and stubborn nature we
have chosen this and also true
we never quite got this world & its works
& grew to love the shores in simple ways
& apart from above can’t see why
so go over it from the start there’s him
with the boulder him with the bird
none of it seems to turn out that great
so here we will will wildflowers
and a breeze so they might not leave. But no.
You’re right. No one blames no one and
no one poked out my eye no one
for a time I hunted a tune and walked
the parched steppe far from the clusters of white
towers and I know there are fine folk there
I won’t mumble the educational
-industrial complex. Some of
its products do not fail to amuse and
inspire. But my stock of sharpened reeds, soot
knucklebones, and, please, let me start again.
There is fear of water, whirlpool,
and her of the cave on the way to the
singers who will soon break you down to the
up and rebuild you in the style of a
prevailing house as part of its wall and
another wall and waves always higher
Summarize this you bastard spawn of a
soggy ventriloquist dummy now in
the golden phase of the latest storm from
the usual types. I hope it’s
long before you truly get this
world, Mr. Betamax. I’m so
tired of these geese and the hot
shiny eggs shoved down already
swollen throats for a few dabs of
attention from the attentionless. Of
course, I’m so far removed from it all up here on
the summit in the clear sky with my single cup
of limpid dew to carry through the evening as
I wait for her word from the bountiful deep dark
what sound would surface near the sound
near the end of winter’s statement
the iced-over suns unmoved gulls
chase gulls for morsels of mussel
what sigh from that sharp air what would
we hear if I said no thanks to that junk
on the horizon if I could tell what
I hid so well do I wait for the cold
green mornings to split into petals the
color of what’s buried taking thoughts
I would have wasted but what would it sound
like opening my mouth the way I
want do I keep carving notes on sheets
of ice as herons hide their necks
never learned the art of reaching out
but read a book or two and tried
to love a little world with what it could
and then could not not to be unclear
of course it’s just this hearse running
it’s ragged curse over the bones
and their children back in the mines
thanks to you know who who would
not move an inch for you though you
suck his filthy brim and beg for snacks
until the air runs out and new games start
so we must learn the fresh languages
fast or we won’t last a minute like that
time I could look nowhere else but down
Forget what you know sit softly let
it lull you with the sound of hundreds
of pens simultaneously
writing up all those mistakes think of clouds
over that chasm you love Forget
it start again don’t think of that
tickle in your throat keep sharpening
your teeth we’ll see if we can’t find
a few layers of breathable
fabric as you start off Forget
the ad that’s still following you stinging
wind a heavy boot brittle grasses
brightly crunch give the pills a chance
while you stumble on ice in darkness
sorry that was just me, you see
it’s hard to control the exhalations
but once dry I’ll try to spill a
story that seems to go somewhere
while tunneling beneath the foundations
I don’t want to blame this ancient
circuitry or curriculum
but the mean of the few years I’ve
managed can feel a bit mean
and, I mean, I don’t want this mean
to be my main anymore but
I must make marks and some mean
folks may escape though meaning well and take
their crack at rosy meaning until morning
other animals 