Posts tagged: words that i wrote
a whole another thought for
missing over before what hush you
muttered then again what is
not that this is, once again
hurt what your what was,
what was name calling, less of feeling
in again our first once once
kissed and folded early as
warm laundry fucked over
sure were, lost again
found yourself mouth
of fingers wrapped
like teeth, slept again
over night, morning
calls, sucked-fucker
colored by TV
flashing light carry
over air, thin wave
shoulder-runner
kept your thigh on
crawled in over
here again, were
what you wouldn’t wear, wore
over naked bathtubs, fell under
over her, snapped a neck
lace and fine knees,
waited kiss, want
our weekend on our
backs, when again
…
we were gentle trying on our bodies,
and you had a taste like silver, like you
traded skin with the moon. and still
you were softer and more tender,
with your kisses on my open palm.
I could have fed you off of this,
I could have fed you to the lions,
and found you in their fur
could have set aside you
pulled the spoon from out behind
your teeth, where your muscles move
to to make their song under-and-overture.
and all kind, and all grace, and all nurtured
waves of warmth your body had memorized
take turns lulling me back into you, guiding
my out-streched hand to your every new familiar.
…
will you think me pitiful
to dress me down to a name,
a skin, nails and what little hair
rolling on the roofs of cars
underneath you or a sky
or a heaven hanged hushed
thinking once again of
a January girl, where you
were hot-headed and wanting
back when my arms and hands
not a scratch on it as if virgin
birthed, as if warmed once over again
as if it never hurt, how it always hurt,
calling out to you, be here but be gone,
then take me as I am, and what i wasn’t
…
every time I write you I mention,
goddamn, your body and my body
stuck together like folding papers.
you know it wasn’t the only thing. it was
always this memory, and I’m begging
to live inside you, as close as I can get.
there are days, most of them,
like today, where I can’t call you lover, where
you won’t say I love you, days that
I was afraid I always had coming.
…
i’ve been hard on this drive, keep seeing
pictures, hangers-on of phantom limbs,
i’ve been guilty of this, this lover’s sight-
blank like a pervert’s every-other-night.
lurid, wasps on orchids. we were all thinking it
so I’m asking what will that accomplish?
nothing and nothing-buts, but that’s the point
of asses to ankles, and imprints of elbows
you were the cast and characters, drawn like
rainfall in a bucket, and clenched fists on miles
of treated rope. Untied over bruises, welts, and knots
played too close to the chest, insisting still.
I have wandered in on eight knuckles, two knees,
then grown swollen, steeped, and wrapped unworn,
asking, then begging, you to be familiar just for tonight.
…
you were off-limits:
got enlightened, or didn’t
and it felt the same
she’s stitched with husbands
that tell you why bother
how she whispers in your
ear from her safe bouquets
I’m following hemlines, that’s
a week on my knees, broken
hymns in the late-nights
early-mornings
we make love with no tells
but I’m something of a desirer.
despised her and tattle-told
of a fantasy, don’t you know
how you’ve been weighing
on me like a spiritual mass
and an unheard voice, then
an undrawn shirt and
what inevitably followed
and I should have said,
“no, wait.” but didn’t
and why is that.
…
thigh tucked under knee
and burst full-tongued peeling
up-and-over opened petals,
we shouldn’t be as naked
as the snow: so, white and
bearing down, but keep the
door open, won’t you
wind up on your back,
and I’ve lost my legs
and did it hurt, I hope it
hurt, with
arm caught over-hand
and thrust all-wronged deepening
through your willing skin,
…
i’m seeing this again,
isn’t that your old man’s routine.
the son is the new father is the new god
with rings on the eves. so many questions of,
“how did you know,” or, “or did you know.”
what is it, of flowers
and of babes and bushels and churches
and there ain’t a dress white enough,
and a ceremony of
Yes. Yes.
underneath the grass has grown
sticking to the soles of your feet
and nothing has changed.
…
who’s names were
arch-backed heroine of melancholic,
a skilled sweat heart attack
echoing words on words
reared back on sunken hearts, she
worked a wound, and socks are falling off
and so is this second skin. Using
my body as a bludgeon,
i want you over-warmed
and worn-through.
i want: your all encompassing
felt a little off, but got it on and,
fit a little tight, but loosened up again,
want a pusher-backer, gives into
a skin scratcher, strangled by the ankles up,
backed-down, hard to know it
when you’re knee-throated
gasping her names over names.
…
it’s the summer not quite fall
and i’ve had a heaving body aching
restless about knees and elbows
choking on holy hollers, greedy fingers,
sins of lovers, and the love of sinners.
i’m friend of friends, not the best of man,
still no-takers, all we are are finder keepers.
lost venturers, but nothing gainers.
you couldn’t fit in with the body of another,
and the other, well. I wouldn’t tell you how
it’s been in the many years of my wakened
wonder of things I “hadn’t thought about.”
…
Oh stop. You’re saying every pretty thing. It’s been meaningless, but it’s been a blast. And I’m glad to have had you, but I’ve got to watch you go. But stop, don’t stop. Oh this ending won’t end, so find your way back to where we got this going. And leave me something when you’ve gone again. Not words, you overuse them. Saying things like, “it’s been too long,” when you’ve made it so. Save your soft words, just remember this time: be kind.
i haven’t lived a day without the anxious jitters that fuck off in my stomach and close my throat in on itself. if I was speaking from on high I’d forget the good news from choking on a holy ghost. if I was running late, at least i’d have gotten up. if one thing, then not the other. as it’s been said before, poetry is the language closest to the Goddamned, in so many ways. in so many ways, it’s been the same- waiting for the dry heaves and a sinner’s savior. i’d take any difference, trade for a silver tongue with a devil’s favor.
I wasn’t all-together there. I was all in-pieces, off somewhere, it was sometime some years ago. Was it I who was asking, “who am I?” It was a good thing there never came an answer. I can’t be speaking clearly. I’ve been listening on-then-off. I haven’t been. But heard it’s nice. Why haven’t I? I have. In another life, in another moment I’ve turned to this, always staring out this body through the I of the beholder.
She asked, but she didn’t really, so I answered, but I didn’t really. And we agreed to never speak of it again.
I was buried beneath the hooves of a merit stallion, born beneath a battered metal cage, and covered with a bed sheet that shivered with every exhalation. Every exclamation was a phrase borrowed from someone else’s near-death experience. And it was nothing like them. I clung to the innards as the car tumbled over its end. Thought of no one. Only thought it could have been worse.
