The oaks have
dropped more acorns
this year than anyone
can remember. It’s
like walking on ball
bearings, except
sometimes they pop:
a cap comes off
& one blank face
gains a split. It
must be lonely
having the only
mouth. Do you take
a breath? Do you
invent eating?
Do you look for
this winter is a church
alone
undressed all day
making a life of music
cold body of night
cold hopes of a frost
the winter in my eyes
my mind gone to paper
carrying books
from beginning to end
in the ruin of my self
when I come to touch
the world put into writing
and to be there
all is quiet
other stories give out
or run to extremes
hope will be
our last struggle
like a day-long dinner
were we a meal
home is a bed
after we shed
By the open window
clogged sinuses
eyes rimmed in red
after wind pollination
the female flower develops into
a prickly ovoid burr
one arrowhead-shaped seed.
fool that I was
I thought the word heart means
a raw answer to my mind
a cook’s shop
an infinite field
like a kind of void
with only a pair
of black horses
candlelight on frost
this winter seeing
the old melancholy vision
that foresaw no time left
in the cupboard
for tomorrow
and one hard hope
passing by on foot
see how much turning
all things do
whether door or water
stories or ages
for the world is laboring
to eclipse us
the dove and wren
pleased with our chimney
The skiff rides inside a wave
of sand. The grave-robbers
peel back the sod on the old dune
& take everything but
the bronze hammer of Thor,
an odd coin or two
& several crosses — hammers
on their way to being men.
They re-bury the skeletons
from seven graves in
this one small craft:
three males & four females,
all dead before the age of 30
from disease or famine
& now jumbled together
like beads from a broken cord.
to go beyond my going
to look upon a thing
and have it hit back
I am ink but not a pen
I come from a book
a little hell
to walk up and down the hill
a dull place
and not see
the red fox
where light and water met
incognito