... (xxx).

with the terror that falls down

upon you

in glistering sheets

like the Word from Heaven

the bushes burn every evening

before night comes

--they speak the fiery proscriptions

of the dying sun

the exegesis and apologia

of shadow caught in their branches

sliding from your shoulders

your feet mark the flood-line

--the light on your face warns

that you may be drowning

--but I felt the first of the rains

prickle my forearms

I smell the mountains in the air

--give me a God like a mountain

and I will worship it with my lungs

weather

if it had rained

I would've stopped by your house

on the way home

and dragged you out into the street

--you should take off those wet things, shouldn't you?

but the rain never came

and the dry lightning forked the sky

and I hurried home

alone--just this side of terror

for the chances that never came

and the plans that never came together

for the words unsaid, the worlds unmade

flashed bright, once, then gone forever

for all the things that never happened

--I find it's best to blame the weather.

not a good poem.

you're too good for poems--you know

you'll never know how many words I've wasted

trying to capture this thing

gleam, glint, shadow, echo, etc.

so I will say it simply:

that I love you as form of self-preservation

when I was more than foolish

I flung myself into your depths

and you have yet to return it

I will always be seeking you

for that reason--

around corners and at line-breaks

in crowds, fields, squares, halls, etc.

I will make you the measure of all things

for no other reason, than I will wish to find myself

if only in pieces--long after you've consigned me

to scrap,

monstrous thief--to take not my heart but my eyes

terrifyingly mediocre--like a claims adjuster

you don't know the measure of what you hold

between your fingers

who you'll kill when you turn your head

echo (ii)

the echoes are my name

you make me remember the many shades of black

the lights gleaming like lesser diamonds

glowing below the eaves

spilling over the steps

haze and glint and shadow

under the moon, half-full with promise

rolling slow down from

your dark and shadowed ranges

you--yourself--draw my eyes

to the crest of the ridge

you return me--weary traveler

who learned nothing, going

but how to return home

rolling down slowly

from the depths

you don't know--but

I have traced myself

in the glyph of your shadow

and I have traced

the shadows across your face

with the corner of my eye

and I have embraced you

with the back of my neck

wrapped you in the shirt

falling across my shoulders

into your black and shadowed ranges

I have called the name of my soul

I have you carried you in the slow swing

of my steps--never be further

than armslength, never out of earshot

the echoes are my name

... (xxvix).

just a sip

--and I'd slip away

to savor a drunken moment

a taste, the barest whisper

--and I'd reel

with an all-too-steady

sense of grace

as if I carried the firelit

faces of my ancestors--in my blood

woven in bone, every moment made

with a firepit, begging flame

a hole for spirits--like an alcoholic

I have been made,

to fall at the first swallow

(by myself, for you)

to revel steady in the

company of thirst

in August

I should’ve lain down
in the fields, in August
pulled into the turn-off
and left the car, idle
in the bare dirt,
I should’ve stepped into
the weeds
and followed the faint
trail, through the
wildflowers,
crossed the grass
to the dark hedge of trees
at the edge of the field
I should’ve fallen down
under the heat and the haze
I should’ve let the sweet scent
of dusk lull me down
back to the dirt, let the shadow
of the grass fall across my face
and sunk with it, down
into blue,

on the other side of morning
somewhere in Kansas
with the I-70 thundering
toward the hills, into Missouri

I should’ve woken
with dirt in my eyes
and burrowed my shoulders into the earth
to avoid the sun blowing across the plains
and listened to the receding echo
of something throwing itself, head-long
through the night

God bless

God bless
the devil-in-the-design
              through all the lonely ages
the liars
              deceivers, misleaders--prideful and spiteful
boastful--the blind
              God bless
the stumblers--the bumblers--the fumblers
the shamblers--the ramblers
              shuddering, milling in the night
              approaching, encroaching--with groping hands
where that old star hangs low and bright
              groping and grasping--they gasp as they're passing
              crowding the roads down into
Old David's City--such pieces, the sons of man
of the work--who will speak but not understand
              when the angels sing--to crack the night
God bless the fearful--and aid their flight
              streaming past houses--quick in the alleys
to the rooms they've reserved--some broke for the valleys
                  and left the torches and the walls, altogether.
              it starts there. with the sheep grazing idle in the heather
and echoes, out--all along the gutters
              into the corners--near and far
praise the shadow with running footsteps
God bless the darkness--mind the star.