the body of a man

Tonight my shoulders are strong,

my skin is olive smooth.

I tidy up, I make tea.

The house is quiet, white.

My skin is wasted on the night.

My thoughts, tonight, are wasted, too,

on days cast longways backward

drawn up from the timeline as flames.

My memory’s on fire,

those days ignited by the body of a man.

The body’s an empty silhouette

coming up the walkway to my door-

over and over,

repeat, replay-

puzzlewise his pieces take form

as my wasted skin makes contact-

then and now

so the fires leave me

leave me cold-

makes contact

with this:

a shoulder, bits of mouth, an eye too close and out of focus.

His parts rattle in the body frame

up different stairs to a green space

where previous thoughts of mine I poured

beneath my sound- jade,

so that when I go back, the jade place is

a still pool.

My mouth lay open to those waters

then and now

my face is captured in them, blank

headed does a body go,

now and then,

deliquescent into nights.

Times Two

times ten

one two three four

five

One Two THRee FOUR FIVE SIX

SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN!!!

times ten

the teeth

touch down

times two

ONE.

TWO.

times two

does mire

coil round

times one-

one-

times one

times two

is two

times two

one, left

two, right

times two

felled footsteps

flee or form

times ten

one two THREE four five

one two THREE four five

times ten

times one

is not eleven

Bodies

Your neck is a neck.

Your arms are arms.

Your body is only a body.

My body has secret meanings

     which you're supposed to guess at, I suppose,

curves haunting curves it is.

My neck is Temptation.

My arms is Trap.

My body is a treasure map.

Dumb digits fumble

over an architecture of archetypes,

misunderstanding the mystery.

Yet,

     in ignorance,

treated as a body, it

into I live,

and inhabit

the kingdom of felt.

impressionist sketches

[1] 


lives in 
I see her felt
in that


gone when he's gone


skin his
too is


gone when he's gone


fills night
fills it
out 




[2]


wanted only that. 
waited, wondering
all the 
while


wishes
scattered in
words


words
words


wandering into
wildernesses


perfectly domestic


waved
and
welcomed

long

sweet slow

liquids lazy

pour

hydroptic haze

bathed

in cream liqueur

candied lust

spills

lithe and lush

steeped

in syrups

lascivious

A Very Short Story

"hey"

Dark, and distant sounds of tortured traffic.

"hey!"

Closer.

Quarter-note steps, andante (con moto), a determined don't-fuck-with-me casual, now with foreign eighth notes percolating throughout.

"Hey!"

Turn,

"Oh"

"Hey! What all ya got there? You headed home? Here, let me give you a hand with some of that."

Groceries. And card shop novelties- gifts. He takes the groceries.

"Oh, okay, um" chin dips into pinks and bobs up "thanks"

Consort of quick clicks and plush, long pads. It was only just another block. Over curbs, in and out of ocher pools, traverse the alley, unnecessary shallow stairs. The door.

"Okay, well, hey, have a good night," his hand creates a cylindrical place in the cold, spread through like and weak ice and a figure become.

Gone.

Chill wind clinks against, it shatters, scattered among the asphalt, grit, and gravel, dark, and distant sounds of tortured traffic.