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personal writing

Poems

THINGS I KNOW TO REPEAT i will bite my tongue off, again / i will allow in all who want to worship / i will use a carrot when the stick is needed / i will be accused of fatalism / i will experience dissolution / i will ring hollow, like a bell

REVERSE HYPNOGOGIA Skin and bones of the night/ still grow around me. / from dreams I'm left the vague sense / that I have just / sucked salt fron your upper lip / in the lingering strangeness of summer, / the type of heat / where I can smell my own skin. / Isn't a memory a separate sense? / in the past, in my sleep, I see / a blood red moon looming. / warmly, it embraces me / and whispers to me that it dreamt / that it knows / my guilt

QUIET PART i think it could be the case that I am the only on left here, / which is fitting. / i know the natural law / that if i was born any other animal, i would have been left to die in the woods. / or / i would have drug my body along / and i would never know a single comfort. / but i think we all know which is preferable.

Through time, If there is one lesson / that is: Picking flowers will stimulate new growth./ like The birth of spring which Sought to purge, to cleanse, to/ Kill me so nothing can enter./ This internal metamorphosis/ Is a loss of control and it is/ An ancient ritual to ignore pain./ There I lay at the mouth of the rising sun,/ Disappearing before a deep well./ It is where I dream of this madness/ Where My psyche glistens and vibrates/ Although the years of violation cause/ A searing effect, ripping it to shreds/ As I rest./ I want to be seen upon the high altar/ Of solitude/ I want to give any body/ A burial./ I know It is natural to fear/ Or surrender the tears too. There,/ Spiraling in the mysteries of the river,/ I am the ghostly pale limbs that had been submerged./ So see, I can't deny that is a stain where I'm broken./ In truth The dead material will never grow/ From the cut

Thoroughly study my abstract arrangements of/ diseased, broken, or dead intangible elements of the spirit./ It is Winter, stratified and irregular./ Even in its darkest shadows, an absence of black,/ the absence of him. I shiver,/ Looking for salt/ in God, in this spiral of exposed rock/ where many killings occurred,/ Replicated an infinite number of times - loved and lost.

Another grim possibility;/ you hear the emergence of the mask that he’ll wear./ Dogs sprint for nearshore waters,/ Hungry for anything, pushing air from lungs./ To the brink of death if necessary.

Always dreamed of your home, lilac hued./ And to me it means something else./ Heart pounding, an open fire in the shifting light./ A Touch of smoke would unfurl the bitterness that strips bare,/ growing your own sunken eyes.

Dampen your joy./ Within seconds, fresh cream curdled./ Yourself, your mind, getting caught in the blades./ And what about you? You want./ There’s just the sky, the world, a spoonful of honey./ Warm fruit, with cherries a deeper red,/ like temples of salvage./ How can you stop?/ Build a bigger fire,/ this is no time to be too small.

It is almost black, in twilight,/ its arching branches: the vanishing forest./ He starts to sing,/ his voice is beautiful and rose pink in my mouth./ Just a bit further is the descent to the underworld,/ falling into the center,/ into a litany of love./ I saw the aberrations. Symphonies and nocturnes,/ bittersweet beauty, and running beasts./ I ached./ I tried playing God, finally!/ He whispered: this thing is alive, its wings jewel-like./ It rises and contracts, unripened./ Every day,/ Until it doesn’t.

"who is the dreamer" he had dreamt new growth, one of the oldest rituals./ it is bound up with the/ Breadth of his touch, carved into gray-blue river stone./ He still grasps for the birth/ of a more lucid, remarkable truth./ The day's first light is enriched by red / is new-tonal-overexposed./ He had sworn, had tried to/ Mother the dead, taking care of what was once alive./ Since falling we were both nested among the many peaks and shadows./ There was nothing, /no prayers no disciples to the naked eye./ The hands strain and slow time, keep the sun and the moon/ to bitter, to biting, consumption./ True shephards tend their fossil,/ pouring into it the blood and teeth of seasonal rebirth

PORTRAIT. I feel your body in all other bodies/ In the softness of a body curling/ Into me in the dark and also in/ The gentle tug of sunlit river./ All bodies of water pull at me/ As you did, they claw/ With wetness, much like your tears/ Dragged me far, far away./ And here also is/ The spit and milk from your body/ It's everywhere and it's/ The feeling of peace and of destruction -/ You were all of life, in essence, in fluidity./ No matter where else you wander/ Your body is here and I/ Don't hope to escape it although/ I no longer dream of seeing you again

SMALL LION MOON. I need unequivocally / to understand why the chimney swift fly silent as a pack / form ripples against the sky / stoic yet inflamed. / To know why my home came apart / at the seams like muscle / cut from bone. / The dog asleep, whines, / pulls the sound / straight from my chest. / I hope soon I will be awake / and I will not suffer

"Tertium non datur." It's cold but/ It has been colder./ I've been made sick all winter By the swaying of trees, by/ Their grotesque bone-rattle/ And their plunging roots./ Against my will I am/ Innervated, given A chthonic quality./ I lay in a hole of unmeasured depth,/ Left to look up at twisted forms and/ Forced to spin and to spin/ along with them./ All I can say is what I learned./ That some dogs flee from the hare./ That the gentlest of pines have teeth/ eating up into the ignited sky./ That all divine things have vile bodies / that I may be the worst of them.

"Soteriology." I am a horse,/ I am sold./ What is left to bind the bones of my body together,/ if not spite?/ Scars on my flank/ Are not supposed To hurt,/They say./ They say sorry With every part/ But their mouth./ The blood I smell/ It is mine I think./ Everything that is,/ That happened,/ Was just a/ Little too late.

"EXCESS" Somehow without noticing/ My eyes moved To the sides of my head/ As if I've become prey,/ A sheep in man's clothing./ Nobody meant for it but/ I have been abraded, pitted, etched and grooved./ I haven't been myself for years, I say./ You did this in my name, you say./ And do I regret making you?/ Is that why the flood came?/ I felt my own disappointment welling up,/ spilling over at the moment of broken tension/ cleansing us both. (WIP!!!)

I imagine you taste drunken/ Like an overripe berry/ A sweet rot that numbs my tongue./ I see you as a brainless thing, want to/ Make you utter every synonym/ Of "please" Of "stop."/ I wish you were laid out/ For me, always/ Bare and sinless/ And shaking like the meadow does/ In a breeze

ARIL. i can nearly remember / with the tip of my tongue / a specific word for the flesh of your body. / i pick at words, searching. / they are fruit which / stain my fingers, much / like you do with your lips / pulled apart. / i am a knife / when i slip inside you. / you are kept, tethered / to silver words / while i cleave and reveal / your stone. / when the red flows down to my wrist you will die. / and i will / bring you back again and/ again like / waves on the shore

ROT PROCESS. I am born like any other man / with teeth beneath my teeth. / Somewhere in a hill town / east of the sun and west of the moon. / Unlike other men I have a sickness / that will not kill me / and a stranger's tongue in my mouth. / every morning i claw at / the clay-bound dirt / i seek a basal cavity, / a caustic nerve lost in the dark. / i dig simply because sometimes, as luck would not have it, / there is degradation without death

crassondon- These dogs share a mouth sometimes,/ My hunger and yours./ Our pressed together lips/ Seeking to devour the ocean swell/ As it comes rushing / Down our throats./ Love should be feral, bared like/ Teeth which clamp around your neck/ And sink through your layers./ Bone deep, then dirt and stone,/ To your foundation /Carved with snaking, labyrinthine paths./ I am already there./ I run through the wind-whipped snow/ Into dark water, then,/ Drenched in your wet,/ I shake my fur on a pebbled shore./ You are the slicked rocks,/ A salt crust.

Harbinger. My heart is quietly failing me-/ I know by the swift gallop in my ears and/ The teeth grinding beside me in dreams./ Before I was myself, I was bits and pieces of everyone/ So now their words can reincarnate/ As the yolk of my pleasure/ and of my grief./ I am bright eyed with false humility but/ somehow you think I am this sweet, gracious thing. / We lived then in an old house/ Where walls cracked like bones, where/ My shadow held it's tongue./All told it took a mere four years. / may it please you to know / You are why I wear a broken watch and/ Why I cannot look at the sea./ You came darker, longer,/ You left no unbloodied tools./ Now I think, this is the right way to be sad. ((baby's first breakup poem. which i had started writing years beforehand...gotta be prepared i guess)))

AT NIGHT. when you've gone / you always do / i wonder / are the shadows heavy on your shoulders / and can i remove them? / can i undress you with more sweetness / than i suspect you can tolerate? / i think you will startle and buck under-hand / buck up / against my hips. / do you know that my dark moon is heavier than your shadows? / and i can hurt you. / worse than death/ worse than your loneliness / the worst. / which is perhaps what you want, regardless / think hard on it. / all thats we have is a raw feeling / a pursuit of ancient forms, drenched in starlight. / remarkable how each word i twist into specific longing: / ruin, like the way i want to leave you spineless / and drench like the gifts you yield. / i am so sorry for every gross thought. / for everything i shared but shouldn't have. / still i hope you'll feel my claws abd teeth / sharp against your throat and belly / sweetly, at night. ((this poem makes me want to swan dive off a cliff but it was one of the first ones I ever wrote and really focused on- and it felt like birthing something - kinda ugly and screaming but it's like a first born and i gotta love it just a little? what a hot mess good lord))

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