if you don't shoot it

my first love
killed a bird under his boot
and it took me two years to understand
that broken wings meant broken lives
that a broken skull wasn't too far behind
the night of the dead bird i ran home and cried

my second love
said, "saru mo ki kara ochiru"
spoke to me in japanese
words that meant, "even monkeys fall from trees"
then pushed me off and watched for me to fly
a little bird, with a brittle wing – he watched for me to fly

my third love
full of whiskey and rage
told me of his psychoses
long before they came to play
all of the weight of the disaster of our love
mounting until i could push him off with a grieving shove

my fourth love
found me on the ground
on a cool fall evening, and picked me up
and walked with me, and never suspected a thing
until he looked under my coat and found a broken wing
so can i blame him?

the cyclist

things spinning round
and this time
he's spinning, too.
his calves will grow
stronger; the rain will stand
still. the hill will go
down, the waves will break.
this time
he's spinning, too.
a sinusoidal elipsis, a
soul-wrenching friend
a gasp for normalcy
or an uncertain end.

wake

eyes attuned to the familiar tune:
a floating world, caught between
the lightness of being unkept and the
gravity of being unseen.
between blinks, the world keeps along
the pushy yellow light of the kitchen
invading a grey awakening
in a foreign room. i am here to avoid
pictures, notes, frames i have yet to touch
(unwilling to, unwilling to make this an ending)

four pillars

i live in a plain white world
serene and so, so clean
skinny boys tote power tools around
drilling artwork onto walls, drilling walls into
smithereens with no repercussions.
a wall is a wall; it is common in these parts.

i miss the dusty faces
the hot and humid places without
whirring blades for comfort
or indoors and outdoors as so distinct.
i miss the world in which my footsteps do not echo;
there is nothing to send them back to me
beyond the distant assumption
of a world held together by sheer will.

stoic

he slept
alone

wondering
if wondering
was wonderful
enough.

but the books say–
the bible said–
my teacher–
my mom–
you–

how will you survive
if you do not
do?

sad elite

trying to meditate is painful in the same way

as staring at two, not-quite-parallel lines–

it does not stop; it becomes sharp; it becomes separate

from the active "i"

when i am at night i cannot meditate

cannot sit still nor move without

crag-like mouths and kind eyes sneering at me.

i fail myself in the attempt to speak;

like meditating, it must be done without hesitation

caring too much is unacceptable.

i am silenced, waiting for your words.

there you are, knowing, and functioning, and smiling.

i am not like you these nights. 

i hope you will forgive me.

room for mush

come closer. there are things to tell
in hushed voiced, slippery rooms with silhouettes
hanging down the halls, snakes in the walls;
slither with me towards an unending
and perhaps small glimpse of contentment
not poetic, not nice. just, "i am."
us tool-bearing folk keep our words to ourselves
our handiness at the ready, worldmaking time
is any time; sit on my lap
and wait; i've built a clock to chime
on the thirty-fifth and a half second
a portent of something, to be sure. we can
measure in half seconds
but we cannot plan for days like this.