Tag: bones

• 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

  November 4, 2025

  air, art, bones, book, children, filthy brim, games, hearse, languages, mines, snacks

  ---

• Ten more pounds as you breath this air in
  while small flying things establish more
  colonies on a significant
  portion of your disregarded
  land mass while an occasional storm

  brings no relief to little Tom
  in his prospect of geraniums
  thumbing in peace far from the noise of bones
  being broken for the amusements of children

  days grow too dark under the broiler
  strange birds visit for a moment and
  fly back as one of my fathers

  said those wandering clouds at least
  are worth a couple careful words

  August 29, 2025

  birds, bones, broiler, children, clouds, fathers, geranium, pounds, prospect, storm, words

  ---

• One section of Fragment, an upcoming work.

  for you they reluctantly offer a handful of change and assume your bones are their bones but that time is running out or so we have foretold in our heated meetings behind the Dairy Queen scooping frozen sweetness from a disposable cup while we smirk and cheer ourselves on in plans that don’t have a Y’s chance in an X’s Z to come to anything but sometimes the planning is enough sometimes that’s where you find out who your true co-conspirators are and who the moles might be of course we’ve never actually skinned one as our newsletter heavily implies

  October 27, 2023

  bones, conspirator, dairy queen, fragment, mole, newsletter, plan, time

  ---

• the apartments of birds
  and squirrels laid bare like bones
  this frost

  (First published in Bones.)

  October 13, 2023

  apartments, birds, bones, frost, squirrels

  ---

• breeze after 99 cuts so tart cherries may once more bloom in your mouth

  (First published in Bones.)

  September 29, 2023

  bloom, bones, breeze, cherries, cuts, mouth

  ---

• too
  fine
  to
  nestle
  in
  this
  dream
  your
  small
  hours
  snowfall
  voice

  (First published in Bones.)

  September 1, 2023

  bones, dream, small hours, snowfall, voice

  ---

• bite of the apple. And we never spoke again. Though, in the film

  (First published in Bones.)

  August 25, 2023

  apple, bones, film

  ---

• black
  leaves shake
  a black mood
  back
  to Venus

  (First published in Bones.)

  August 4, 2023

  bones, leaves, mood, venus

  ---

• sentences, unlike elephant steps, holding up my pants,

  (First published in Bones.)

  July 7, 2023

  bones, elephant steps, pants, sentences

  ---

• her laugh tickles the sweaty moon in an inappropriate locale

  (First published in Bones.)

  June 23, 2023

  bones, laugh, sweaty moon

  ---

• Sonnet

  having made peace with the rocks that
  I call shoes, grown accustomed to
  the furry creatures living in
  my sinuses and the shows they
  watch into the deep oven night

  I watch one fork of lightning free
  the tree that dropped only small sour
  fruit, and return to arranging
  oyster shells to resemble a
  wave and ask is this the dream it’s

  so quiet here it’s hard to hear
  the song of my empty stomach
  or the rattle of the bones of
  the dead like pills stuck in my throat

  June 16, 2023

  bones, creatures, dream, fruit, lightning, night, oyster shells, pills, rocks, shoes, sinuses, stomach, throat, tree

  ---

• up and down hills like rustic bread we keep the elixir safe

  (First published in Bones.)

  January 1, 2023

  bones, bread, elixir, hills

  ---

• sometimes there’s nothing human you can do

  the white sky mo(u)rning a single bird across
  the courtyard bricks for a new pyramid

  so where can you go how can you

  think after they refuse to be
  born it

  won’t help
  steer this weary ox from

  the prized flowers won’t re
  construct the squirrel’s bones

  December 29, 2022

  bird, bones, courtyard, morning, mourning, ox, pyramid, sky, squirrel

  ---

• of course this you is a piece of black paper

  (First published in Bones.)

  December 26, 2022

  bones, paper, you

  ---

• I can make myself anything but this octopus escape

  (First published in Bones.)

  December 18, 2022

  bones, escape, myself, octopus

  ---

• the best kind of avalanche. Who needs this red thread?

  (First published in Bones.)

  November 14, 2022

  avalanche, bones, red, thread

  ---

• with her glorious hips the sweaty moon breaks every plate

  (First published in Bones.)

  November 8, 2022

  bones, hips, moon, plate

  ---

• the ink smudge a tousled mountain range where I will live

  (First published in Bones.)

  November 6, 2022

  bones, ink, mountain, smudge

  ---

• the acrid music of the false concierge at dawn

  (First published in Bones.)

  November 2, 2022

  bones, dawn, false concierge, music

  ---

• distilled from the red stain he shook from bright spider silk

  (First published in Bones.)

  September 14, 2022

  bones, spider silk, stain

  ---

• what wild bird hides in the autumn valley of your thumbprint

   
   
   

  (First published in Bones.)

  July 12, 2022

  bird, bones, thumbprint, valley

  ---

•  if I’m lucky one day these teeth will shatter Venus

   
   

  (First published in Bones.)

  June 28, 2022

  bones, teeth, venus

  ---

• I sing my love without any sun
  but sudden snow in berry time

   

  (First published in Bones.)

  June 17, 2022

  bones, snow, sun

  ---

• which we write on rice to fill as many mouths with rhyme

  (First published in Bones.)

  June 14, 2022

  bones, mouths, rhyme, rice

  ---

• at the end of a silent illness the breeze from a broken pencil
   
   
  (First published in Bones.)

  June 8, 2022

  bones, breeze, illness, pencil

  ---

• spore of a wild sponge in my stomach unending Wednesdays

   
   

  (First published in Bones.)

  June 1, 2022

  bones, sponge, spore, wednesdays

  ---

• who longs to fly
  into the waxy intestines
  of obsolete phones

   
   

  (First published in Bones.)

  May 26, 2022

  bones, intestines, phones

  ---

• like lightning I can’t remember anything else about him

  (First published in Bones.)

  May 24, 2022

  bones, lightning, remember

  ---

• I think of all the groundhogs I haven’t
  known on this windy day in almost May
  scurrying away with powerful claws and

  the face of my dog bred to chase
  their kind staring in amazement a
  never-sated hunger in those bones

  April 30, 2022

  bones, chase, claws, dog, groundhog

  ---

• never with anything to show for the veins of leaves lost feathers of the long day and those thin bones from which perhaps flutes but now I have broken my own rule and as you see the birds die

  April 7, 2022

  birds, bones, feathers, flutes, leaves, veins

  ---

• Bones is back

  If you love tiny gems of super-condensed poetry, check out Bones, which is back from hiatus and better than ever! They just published #23, with a few from yours truly…

  http://www.bonesjournal.com/

  March 30, 2022

  bones, Haiku

  ---

• bones of a frog somehow Cleopatra survives

  November 13, 2020

  bones, Cleopatra, frog

  ---

• white blossom ache in the long bones of the moon

  December 15, 2017

  blossom, bones, moon, white

  ---

• high risk of fire in my bones the dance of pine cones

  February 25, 2014

  bones, fire, pine cones, risk

  ---

• so many colorful feathers cling to the crushed bones

  June 18, 2012

  bones, feathers

  ---

• deep in the bones of my toes the wedding songs of toads

  June 1, 2012

  bones, songs, toads, toes, wedding

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