Psychology

Midnight Exigent

Now on the keys of this machine
you rest your hand,
the blinking space of the first code-line
mocking your furrowed brow.
Children run past, brushing your knee.

Laughter.

The scent of rain and smoke invades,
and is lost.

A flash of hair wreathed in sunset,
a pickup truck,
a dog licks your palm.

You are in love.
You are alone.
You are watching your mother open her presents.
You are leaving on the 9:40 flight.

(Was it on a beach? Or a dirt road?
The waves… were they water? Or wheat?
Was it my father’s voice, or my daughter’s hand?
I can’t seem to– wait! Her kiss! Was it?
What did I want to… be? Who?)

You are leaving on the 9:40 flight,
under the weight of such a wild and particular gift
from the universe.

And a clock is such a heavy thing
compared to lovers
in a dance entwined…
or to the boy.

Was there a boy? You’re almost sure of it-
in a bike helmet and a bedsheet cape,
thrusting a wooden sword,
crying in defiance welcome
against the spilled-out midnight sky,

Now drain your whiskey,
and admire the slow burn in your belly
as you say “Yep, coulda been…”,
only to hear the other old men fire back
“Aw,  bullshit!”;
because you know,
somewhere,
they’re pulling at the same strings–

as beside the same still waters,
thy cup runneth over.

Orison 5:22 AM

Christ, these bags are heavy…
what exactly did you get?

Come look, I got
10 things they don’t want you to know,
and my god could beat up your god,
and 50% off,
and at least I’m not a deviant,
and she’d never think you’re
a good dancer,
and you really aren’t married yet?,
and they hate our way of life,
and that’s not what I meant,
that’s not what I meant;

static,
and these dreams go on
when I close my eyes,
static,
and rock my world little country girl,
static,
and let’s stay together,
static,
and they stab it with their steely knives,
static,
and lovin’ is what I got,
static,
and fire is the devil’s only friend;

1,000 days, 1,000 drops
of my saltwater ocean
hitting the ground,
and you’re not good enough.
Did you know that?
I’m and You’re not good enough.

I used to keep my drawings
under the bed. I never showed
anyone
the
burning running biting broken sheetrock lover’s footprints falling breath of evening illuminates the smell of bread in the oven colliding with rainwater tracked in from the science museum where the Most High God smacked my ears and eyes and lungs with the burden of dying stars and gave the final joke as a Christmas present tied up with a perfect bow.

My cells want to fall asleep.

This still makes no goddamn sense,
even though your head fits
perfectly
in the crook of my neck
and everything else matches
like Lego pieces
and dust settles
on my grandfather’s desk
(a middle finger LOL to entropy
in this universe of endless light).

Absolution

everyone in this
defiled city
participates
in the dance of death

Not a blood sacrifice
on the altar of conquest;
not a dutiful chore
checked off with the groceries
and the collection plate,
and the towel-folding;
nor a stipulation,
nor a bargaining chip.

No.
Not a tool.

The vessel of our worship,
the unseen conversation
of tactile grace in the dance electric-

God damn you
and the way your back arches
when you pin up your hair;
I cannot get your stain
out of my soul.

I would trace my fingertips over your scars like a murderer’s over rosary beads.

You know better-
lightning can strike the same place twice;
shall I show you?

When
I have to come up for air,
or my hand is saying “come here”;
when
your forehead is touching the ground,
or you are knelt with hands folded-

Is that not all a kind of prayer?
Will we make one another beg
for forgiveness?
What is there to forgive? Shadows?

Shadows have no pulse.

So,
tell me…
how long has it been
since your last confession?

Tabernacle

Hush, now;

the sun is spilling over these unending pastures,

and she is standing at the end of the field,

watching

the coupling and the uncoupling,

the warp and the weave,

the sky and the soil;

and, holding a handful of dirt,

sees light race to the edge of the prairie

where it drops off into space.

There is a voice, here,

a scrap of sermon remembered:

“…let us reap this rampant harvest from the firmament.”

She stands, letting the stalks brush her hand-

some are bent,

some are broken,

some are painted with a swath of morning,

and some are spattered with a thin trail of blood,

as tails of air uncoil in the wheatgrass

over miles of root woven to the earth,

pulling at the groundwater;

something moves, a pulse

insistent as the creak of a wooden pew,

in this place

unleavened as the bread

cooled upon the dinner table.

Hush, now;

she stands at the end of the field

as the wind stirs behind her,

and, for a moment,

picks fragments of ash

from a naked foundation.

Bazaar

It’s nice to meet you, as well.

These things laid before you
on the blanket,
recently lifted
from my repository
are indeed for sale,
and I’m glad they’ve caught your eye.

Some are questions;
some, answers;
though they do not always match.

I offer collections of mysteria,
and gatherings of the plain.

I offer of the disconcerting,
and the unique.

So, then-
what will you give me

for the lock of whitened hair,
the stretch of cracked earth split by fenceline,
the barn owl’s call in the evening,
this cup of tears,
that lingering late-summer kiss?

What will you give me
for my dog, fading in my arms,
my sister, leaping from the ocean,
my mother’s laugh-lines,
my father’s tire tracks,
my grandfather’s letters?

What will you trade me
for staring into the void of the midnight sky?

And what will you trade me
for judgment,
or forgiveness?

What will you give me?

Peacefield

What of these words

printed in a darkened room,

what of the light coming in under the door,

what of the field beyond,

and you; what of you?

See the moon, who looks down upon us;

she watches her children

without remorse or direction.

We are seedlings under the summer willow-

me, thrown with the rocks

as the horse paws the earth

of the field that lies fallow around us;

and you, rooted in the rich ground,

bending in the wind, arms raised

in appeal to heaven each night.

Tracker

The snow drifts across
my father’s footprints
as my breath crystallizes in the night;

and my beard, whitened
prematurely
by condensation-

I have come to a clearing,
beyond the forest’s egress;
a place of rest in summer,
a cross-thatched game trail in winter.

The silence of this season lays heavy
and quiet, quiet
as the aurora dances
on the spine of the world.

Can you tell me
what will be taken from this?

The sound, the lack of sound,
the rage, the lack of rage,
the stripping of the ego?

We see each other then, the wolf and I,
our gaze locked outside of time-
with no violation or calamity,

the freezing of each our own breath
the only movement here
until we emerge, and move apart.

Whatever was shown
in the snow before has passed,
leaving only his tracks
and my own.

Do you see the mountain to the west?

Perhaps he will come down,
or I will go up…
and one of us will unthaw,
come spring.