skipping civil ceremony

new words
on old wood
found their way

from a medium and his silent wife.
what does spouse mean
in their clean house...
it's suspect that she forgets to dust the books
with the quotes
about perfection.

someone should have read to you
those
lectures from hell
about invisible things.
and whispering thread, and the voices
we heed for the better of all.

now i know that you hid
behind the man...
in the birthing brine,
when you claimed to shiver
in reverence of twilight
but i think i might be on to something...
the night means little,
even less than friendship or benevolence
to the simple.

there are things worse
than what you have heard
and assumed and rallied scripture against.

life is larger than you may believe...
and this earth we stand on?
it is round.
and that night you look up into,
with hollow eyes and requiem tongues,
people have visited!
and found it delightful
and an inspiration to do better.

seats in the air

repose and furious barking fountain
when can i control
what i've said

this is the wooden floor
of a house
bleak corridors painted
to match my indifference.

i hope to keep it quiet here,
think of padding the walls

foundation of light
world that i touched
parched patterns,
the fraying of daydreams
spinning empires shuffle
and a world full of collapsing
lungs...

all at once.

puffing out our chests again,
pulling power back in.
airing out indifference,
tried testaments of sand and salt, suppers and kisses.
more originals
and the heartache of resounding realization... revealed reflection
another night in my skin armor.
trust of days
trust of sun
trust i'll awaken again
beneath this world
seeing into the next one.

bells that creep and shook my hand

don't let it stay
oh taller trees
and the way things disappear
waves
when we were leaving
we didn't let it stay
in our beating bellies
oh regret and codewords
for disappointment
and loneliness

I've gone phonetic

parched partition
graceful vision and the beyond
arch of sunlight
mysteries in windshields
clouds and swarms

in the quiet
with the ghosts
and blankets
when you whispered about
the things that made you

before we'd died
when everything was new

i'd taken a photograph
arch of sunlight
stretched the colors i'd collected
and someone called it ruin
and someone saw the words
i'd meant to write
stole them
made them his own
and later i'd find them
turn him to stone.

unexploded ordnance

testing the waters
testing the waters
john waters
sylvia newton john
my uncle john
watercloset
man with a horse