Skin stained in blackberry juice,
His neck clotted in the rubbings of berry flesh
Thorns running across his body,
Tangling around his ankles
This collapsed cage of barbed wire,
Leaves,
Berries,
His eyes wide like blossoms.
Like a stranger, I stared
Until the blood rushed to my face, and I knew.
A wooly arm grabbed my stomach
Dirty fingers crawled inside my mouth
To clutch the scream.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
My Brother Died
My brother died in armor,
A cold blade in his side.
His eyes believed the sky to be a painting,
White and black.
My brother died in snow covered cavalry,
A steel ball in his chest.
His arms were bent like crooked arrows,
Still warm, but broken.
My brother died in starving agony,
Only bones and lonely silence.
His heart was just a whisper,
Lifted lightly from his ribcage.
My brother died in torn hospital sheets,
His skin was a breathing organ,
Alive and twitching,
His hands, a map of medicated oceans,
All moving beneath his skin.
All desperate to escape their prisons;
All wanting to be free;
All clinging to the idea that life is something you can hold onto with your fingers;
All worshiping the holy name of my life, my strength, my will;
All ministering to religions that birth chaos in creation;
All withering in the constant hum of wasted youth and apathy;
All wandering through empty halls, crying out for lost memories;
All lusting after brighter days with people who do not know your heart or soul;
All glittering with the marked passion of someone who has lost everything;
All bursting forth with Please! Please! Please! for time to bend to your desire;
All forcing down the bitter taste of never, never knowing--
And all measurable vicissitudes of life were thrown into
The churning sea of his weak heartbeat,
Draining his spirit from his body.
My brother died.
And he said, “Finally.”
A cold blade in his side.
His eyes believed the sky to be a painting,
White and black.
My brother died in snow covered cavalry,
A steel ball in his chest.
His arms were bent like crooked arrows,
Still warm, but broken.
My brother died in starving agony,
Only bones and lonely silence.
His heart was just a whisper,
Lifted lightly from his ribcage.
My brother died in torn hospital sheets,
His skin was a breathing organ,
Alive and twitching,
His hands, a map of medicated oceans,
All moving beneath his skin.
All desperate to escape their prisons;
All wanting to be free;
All clinging to the idea that life is something you can hold onto with your fingers;
All worshiping the holy name of my life, my strength, my will;
All ministering to religions that birth chaos in creation;
All withering in the constant hum of wasted youth and apathy;
All wandering through empty halls, crying out for lost memories;
All lusting after brighter days with people who do not know your heart or soul;
All glittering with the marked passion of someone who has lost everything;
All bursting forth with Please! Please! Please! for time to bend to your desire;
All forcing down the bitter taste of never, never knowing--
And all measurable vicissitudes of life were thrown into
The churning sea of his weak heartbeat,
Draining his spirit from his body.
My brother died.
And he said, “Finally.”
breathe
What a deep-wet-underground smothered in quietly-soaked-footfalls
with the bright big sky strangled in steel arms
and that face beaming happy and dark right below the brush
right below the dusky dusk
right inside the lift and drag of
breath
cold sharp bitter sweet habit
inhaling
expanding
kneeling
lungs
dear sky, what secrets are you hiding today?
What mask veiled in the shadow of silent dripping days
can mar the face of Sky?
I am(one breath) closer
I am(two breaths) leaving
I am(three breaths) flying
chilled with beads of broken glass
that live and die in flight
that are fallible and fall
that split their own words and
drift away on seas of wind,
the tangible sky
If dance became the name of nature
her job would be the same
and she would swallow human thought
in steel fingers of earth and sky
that spread like fires in the spirit
that break the rules of cordiality
that loosen knots in human hearts
that simply
breathe
with the bright big sky strangled in steel arms
and that face beaming happy and dark right below the brush
right below the dusky dusk
right inside the lift and drag of
breath
cold sharp bitter sweet habit
inhaling
expanding
kneeling
lungs
dear sky, what secrets are you hiding today?
What mask veiled in the shadow of silent dripping days
can mar the face of Sky?
I am(one breath) closer
I am(two breaths) leaving
I am(three breaths) flying
chilled with beads of broken glass
that live and die in flight
that are fallible and fall
that split their own words and
drift away on seas of wind,
the tangible sky
If dance became the name of nature
her job would be the same
and she would swallow human thought
in steel fingers of earth and sky
that spread like fires in the spirit
that break the rules of cordiality
that loosen knots in human hearts
that simply
breathe
Uprooted
Clinging to the crisp earth like a small changeling tangled in vines and roots, you struggle to breathe as warm dirt is ripped from your very lungs, leaving you unsettled, disgruntled, gasping for a life-source. A sharp talon digs into the small of your back, dragging your alarmed body deeper into the bright, white sky. You hang there, between the earth and open air, and pray for release. Your body is dropped like a fragment of rock, limp and lying on the solid ground. Uprooted, you scramble back beneath the haven of the large oak, the sweet soil curling around you like amniotic fluid. You rest. You breathe, taking in the aroma of undisturbed, damp earth, clothing yourself in nature. Your neighbors, the spiders with their spindly legs skitter frantically into your hair, taking shelter there, whispering their fears into your skin. The hum of dayglow washes over you, rolling through the dirt clods and shaking the foundation of the great white oak. And then silence swallows you between the roots, enveloping, blanketing you in the realization of the natural world.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Uriah
Uriah: light of the world, a golden friend on his chest, stitched into his being like a memory. Books in hand, pencil shavings all down his front, a smile on his velveteen lips, his chipped tooth gleaming in the sun. He sighs the summer out. His days are numbered in setting suns, in beaches he will never see, in stark, austere walls and brick buildings.
Uriah: a shell of 13 years, eyes smudged in charcoal, warm honey irises vibrating through his skull. A gaunt face, a lonely ghost, a shadow of who he once was. Shoved into a shoebox, pressed into a wall, hidden in the open air. He sucks up frost through his punctured left lung. His days are colored red and white, blood and snow, fire and ash.
Uriah: desiccated, barren landscape, tongue twisted out of his mouth, lolling as if out of boredom. Spindly fingers resting on his chest, over his heart, around his love, curled and clutched about a dream. Dirt under his fingernails, tangled in his hair, beneath his eyelids. His arms are angular, crooked, bowed and thin like a pile of sticks, a pen on a desk, a rifle leaning against a door.
Uriah: my brother, a blessing, a glow, a light.
A Light.
The Lord is my Light.
Uriah: a shell of 13 years, eyes smudged in charcoal, warm honey irises vibrating through his skull. A gaunt face, a lonely ghost, a shadow of who he once was. Shoved into a shoebox, pressed into a wall, hidden in the open air. He sucks up frost through his punctured left lung. His days are colored red and white, blood and snow, fire and ash.
Uriah: desiccated, barren landscape, tongue twisted out of his mouth, lolling as if out of boredom. Spindly fingers resting on his chest, over his heart, around his love, curled and clutched about a dream. Dirt under his fingernails, tangled in his hair, beneath his eyelids. His arms are angular, crooked, bowed and thin like a pile of sticks, a pen on a desk, a rifle leaning against a door.
Uriah: my brother, a blessing, a glow, a light.
A Light.
The Lord is my Light.
Fleeting
When you were three and you sat in your mother’s lap during the dry season,
And the sun was soft as corn silk, soaking through your eyelids and making everything red,
And your mother’s rough, large hands curved the blade of a paring knife around green apples,
As she sat in the kitchen preparing the pie for when your father came home from work,
You marveled at the glistening sweat on her forehead, how every bead of perspiration caught the light in just the right way.
When you were nine and you rode your bike through the neighborhood wearing your cape,
And your mother called to you from the front porch, yelling at Superman to come inside,
And you could smell the electricity in the air and how damp the world was becoming,
As droplets pounded your back and slid down your neck into your shirt,
You spread your arms wide and let the wind ripple across your skin as a loud crow slipped through your lips.
When you were sixteen and made the monumental mistake of kissing some girl you didn’t like,
And her hair was rank with the overwhelming scent of strawberries, mingling with the smell of your mother’s laundry detergent,
And your lips, chapped and cracked, moved with hers and you could taste her sticky lip gloss,
As your hand cupped the back of her neck and you let your thumb trace the length of her jaw,
You wondered how your heart could possibly beat so loud and so fast, and you were sure that she would hear it, too.
When you were twenty-five and your hand—clamped between bone and muscle and skin in your wife’s iron grasp—fell limp, blood vessels bursting,
And she screamed and pushed and screamed and breathed, doing nothing for your nerves,
And you heard the sudden gasp and the fractional second of silence before joy drizzled into your every pore,
As you held your tiny, purple baby girl in your arms and she squirmed and wailed with life,
You had to take a moment to catch your breath and question how anyone could love something so much without exploding.
When you were forty-nine and you eyed the young man standing next to your daughter suspiciously,
And you zeroed in on her hand resting comfortably in his, so casually, as if the ring on her finger were a freckle she’d had all her life,
And your wife placed her hand lightly on your knee as if it might keep you in your seat,
As you held your breath and steadied yourself for the blow you were sure was coming,
You tried to listen to what they were saying, but in your head all you could see was a much smaller version of the young woman in front of you, with her hair tangled like a rat’s nest and tears shimmering on her cheeks in the moonlight as she crawled into bed with you.
When you were sixty-seven and you balanced a precarious little boy on your knee,
And the sun was streaming in through the curtains, shedding gold light on the bright eyed child tugging at your beard,
And you could barely hear the sound of your family singing to you, though you could still smell the waxy sweetness of candles melting on a cake,
As the little one helped you blow out the flames and make a wish and smoke slithered into the air,
You smiled at the overpowering sense of joy that filled the room, how every face seemed brighter.
When you were ninety-one and you lay next to your wife in bed,
And the window was open, letting in the summer breeze along with the sound of crickets and the woodsy scent of night,
And you watched her eyes moving beneath their lids like a quiet mouse scurrying beneath a sheet,
As she breathed and mumbled in her sleep and you thought she might be saying some variation of your name,
You looked at the ceiling, felt the warmth of her wrinkled palm in your hand, followed the raised ridges of her veins with your fingers,
Breathed in every memory you possibly could,
Allowed peace to finally sink in,
And closed your eyes for the last time.
And the sun was soft as corn silk, soaking through your eyelids and making everything red,
And your mother’s rough, large hands curved the blade of a paring knife around green apples,
As she sat in the kitchen preparing the pie for when your father came home from work,
You marveled at the glistening sweat on her forehead, how every bead of perspiration caught the light in just the right way.
When you were nine and you rode your bike through the neighborhood wearing your cape,
And your mother called to you from the front porch, yelling at Superman to come inside,
And you could smell the electricity in the air and how damp the world was becoming,
As droplets pounded your back and slid down your neck into your shirt,
You spread your arms wide and let the wind ripple across your skin as a loud crow slipped through your lips.
When you were sixteen and made the monumental mistake of kissing some girl you didn’t like,
And her hair was rank with the overwhelming scent of strawberries, mingling with the smell of your mother’s laundry detergent,
And your lips, chapped and cracked, moved with hers and you could taste her sticky lip gloss,
As your hand cupped the back of her neck and you let your thumb trace the length of her jaw,
You wondered how your heart could possibly beat so loud and so fast, and you were sure that she would hear it, too.
When you were twenty-five and your hand—clamped between bone and muscle and skin in your wife’s iron grasp—fell limp, blood vessels bursting,
And she screamed and pushed and screamed and breathed, doing nothing for your nerves,
And you heard the sudden gasp and the fractional second of silence before joy drizzled into your every pore,
As you held your tiny, purple baby girl in your arms and she squirmed and wailed with life,
You had to take a moment to catch your breath and question how anyone could love something so much without exploding.
When you were forty-nine and you eyed the young man standing next to your daughter suspiciously,
And you zeroed in on her hand resting comfortably in his, so casually, as if the ring on her finger were a freckle she’d had all her life,
And your wife placed her hand lightly on your knee as if it might keep you in your seat,
As you held your breath and steadied yourself for the blow you were sure was coming,
You tried to listen to what they were saying, but in your head all you could see was a much smaller version of the young woman in front of you, with her hair tangled like a rat’s nest and tears shimmering on her cheeks in the moonlight as she crawled into bed with you.
When you were sixty-seven and you balanced a precarious little boy on your knee,
And the sun was streaming in through the curtains, shedding gold light on the bright eyed child tugging at your beard,
And you could barely hear the sound of your family singing to you, though you could still smell the waxy sweetness of candles melting on a cake,
As the little one helped you blow out the flames and make a wish and smoke slithered into the air,
You smiled at the overpowering sense of joy that filled the room, how every face seemed brighter.
When you were ninety-one and you lay next to your wife in bed,
And the window was open, letting in the summer breeze along with the sound of crickets and the woodsy scent of night,
And you watched her eyes moving beneath their lids like a quiet mouse scurrying beneath a sheet,
As she breathed and mumbled in her sleep and you thought she might be saying some variation of your name,
You looked at the ceiling, felt the warmth of her wrinkled palm in your hand, followed the raised ridges of her veins with your fingers,
Breathed in every memory you possibly could,
Allowed peace to finally sink in,
And closed your eyes for the last time.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Crape Melody
A celebration of the Holiest Host
You were born on the shores of the Ivory Coast.
Your brother twisted his leg in the waves
And you dove from the cliffs to the water to save him.
Beneath the winding underwater glory
Was a heartbeat that whispered your name like a story.
Your mother called to you, tongue curled back
Her windpipe was broken,
And shattered,
And cracked.
And the sea whip that lifted its head to your scent,
It claimed you as hero, but that label was bent.
You made promises out of the back of your head
And you willed time to revive something long-dead.
The hours came and went and your voice harped the sea,
Like the foam in your throat, a crape melody,
Soft crinoline wings and sweet salt on his breath.
You tried to breathe back, but there was nothing left.
You think now of how his body felt so small,
How memories can break in the weight of a fall.
And the fall seemed to cascade down from the skies.
It felt like forever, but too fast for goodbyes.
You were born on the shores of the Ivory Coast.
Your brother twisted his leg in the waves
And you dove from the cliffs to the water to save him.
Beneath the winding underwater glory
Was a heartbeat that whispered your name like a story.
Your mother called to you, tongue curled back
Her windpipe was broken,
And shattered,
And cracked.
And the sea whip that lifted its head to your scent,
It claimed you as hero, but that label was bent.
You made promises out of the back of your head
And you willed time to revive something long-dead.
The hours came and went and your voice harped the sea,
Like the foam in your throat, a crape melody,
Soft crinoline wings and sweet salt on his breath.
You tried to breathe back, but there was nothing left.
You think now of how his body felt so small,
How memories can break in the weight of a fall.
And the fall seemed to cascade down from the skies.
It felt like forever, but too fast for goodbyes.
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