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
Tag: flowers
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I am miserable / too full
of the wrong / energy / why did
n’t I / start this differently
but instead say the sea / say the
stars somehow / in those distant dawnsbefore days / what do you want / from
me the mountain / rising up / sure
and slow but / these flowers / have not
yet shared / / a single secret / throughstamen or petal / and does this
dream / always have / to have a / car
chase with an / explosion / but thepull of some / feeling I don’t / want
but will / now set in / moist concrete
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when have I ever but when have I
not but yes I’m also already bored withthis balloon that can’t hold air trees chopped
away for clammy conveniencehave I walked this far for a dead end
sometimes nothing stirs inside but a
wish for blindness or the old well and
endless falling but then what will comenext to hands that can hold nothing and
the nothing that can’t be held but stopwith that cloud of smoke somewhere around
here where there should be no green I meanit’s hard to talk about flowers just
now is that enough do you need more
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the dreams of sea urchins and all the flowers we could be when
(First published in Heliosparrow.)
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Or a Musical
like a bird flying
past the window you
notice in the corner
of your no let’sassume it was a bird and
the little early
spring flowers by
bending
down tolook blue
white purple you want toreach for it
but don’t
want to scare
away that thoughtrunning down the corridor
rattling
every knob
like one of the
doomed youroot for
in a horror movie
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Excerpts from My Autobiography
xxxxx
once the image has life an emptiness says
it will always be so I stare into the distance
blind to trees and flowers
begging to be born but the refrigerator hey
are we doing stream of consciousness
cool and the snow gets sharp in these
huge piles in the back of the lot
days later my handwriting
starts to rot never to recoverxxxx
suicide off the table you start working again
with a miniature saucepan and the clock trying
to rid the mind of all the rules you’ve
made &
feel your hand tight around the thick
rope now only good for that
silly exercise you lovexxxx
away from the neighbor’s dog
across stinging fields we grow
smaller so slowly we don’t
notice until grasshopper parts become
our yard sticks and blades
of grass jostle and topple us in this
dream-familiar landscape we
learn secrets of slow growth, the rootlike
lineages of wormkind and a love
of the sweetness that writhes up from
dark earth and we long to pass
it on to our children who have
grown monstrous in the orange light
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in the forest where they planned that nasty surprise tiny flowers try to take over the world fish look surprised and sure he was never one to
and what could we do but invite him if we were going to the summer house as you waited with the light straight down from the clouds in planks and the ducks looking like they’ve lived through worse though
the party that night with everyone still feeling a bit raw from the afternoon staring into their drinks waiting for someone to mention going to bed so we could say oh yes what a good idea me too
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some cloudy mornings it’s the feel of the favorite pen in your hand you charge off not caring about a cracked phone screen the band-aid covering bone the stomp of the neighbor through the ceiling hope and calm caught in little chunks we string together to make a necklace though perhaps even that was a way to dig down to the level of the excavation you needed to see with its as yet untranslated script and inscrutable editorial cartoons which they say
the flowers this year will be late and unequivocal
other animals 