17 Muddy Steps Home

The lines on the

rock soothe like rain drops

on a tin roof.

Every New Poem is a Poem Someone Else has Written

Where my lines all go, the voice cannot take.
My breath has been taken

When I blink, the silences are filled
with periods, commas, semi-colons and . . .

This is incomplete.

I should play hopscotch with the dictionary,
One for sorrow,
Two for mirth
Three for a funeral,
Four for birth
Five for heaven
Six for hell
Seven for the devil, his own self

I feel the ink underneath the finger’s tip.

The resin that separated each ridge from paper.

I scream falling to the marble.
echoes among the stacks and shelves.

I could be home.

Yair, Scottish Borders

On Wednesday I will publish a poem based off the writing prompt of a random Wikipedia article

–

Yair, Scottish Borders

Today I might know
what I am talking about.

I find myself
considering the math
of the mouth of a river.

Of ancient kings
in modern leisure:

A row boat in the
middle of a lake;

of robes covered
in green jigs and blue spinners.

Where the vestments are a vest
with pockets full of crowns.

Untitled

The rain falls off the roof

The umbrella comes alive

A slipping arrhythmia

The Gods of Abstraction I

If William Blake could
take a moment between the
image of voices in his head,

From waking dreams
walking out from wooden
press, where ink stains
make their bed,

We could hear what clings
to the space made
by Mr Fredrick’s hand.

Mysteryons: Tao

The numbers have gotten
out of hand.

Fingers beyond the count,
fingers that don’t exist
beyond the count,
skin that
falls.

Off the label.
Picking and peeling.

My face has fallen off the label.

We cannot save the numbers beyond the nail.

MOS: Erriapus

When we know little more than a name
wasting away in red
a free moment that glasses over the moon in repose.

I am silent in the bog.
Watching. There is a hope
of limousines and remorse.

Broken rings break constantly.

We come home from the past
seeking abuse of the horn
I am whipped again.

The leather is the bringer.

Frayed among the lashes.

I await,
having nothing to say.

MOS: Bebhionn

“That’s not fair,” she said.
An afternoon sidewalk.
A cafe where
the pigeons come and bus the tables.

Whiskey was spent afterwards
trying to wash away
the syntax of things.

The words become a river
where whispers will only say.

MOS: Albiorix

This is missing.
It’s all bullshit and shells.
Empty chairs or pages or
the taste of warm Dr Pepper has outgrown us.

Glass alters the shadow,
it now shimmers on the table top,
the pre-distressed concrete floor,
with all the hints of a broken life.

But they said you were missing.
Hidden under a presidential beard:
guns and top hats,
swimming pools and cocktail dresses.

The simple hedge of mourning.
a glimpse of the blasé.

MOS: Paaliaq

My fiction is newer than your fiction.

I dream of rustled spines and yellowing pages.
The fit of letters into each box
the fit of a book upon a shelf.

We speak in favors,
the race to fill each space
with words is ungodly.

This is the dream that fell asleep
because we could not wait.