Unholy Imaginings

ardor means
learning the story
of his scars

caress each in turn

practice until
the marks fuse, grafting
with your own

don’t ask if it hurts

to unlearn
the feeling of his
hand in mine

Silent, slender, side-eying –
Eerily aware that something isn’t really
Right here. With him. With you.
Young but not unfeeling. No, just the opposite.
Oh, the whole town knows. Something zoetic
Zips from mouth to mouth about HER.
Have you heard? Mamma has been outed as an
Adulterer. 

walker mountain tunnel blues

mist rises
between ridges

twines through
gaping throats

vaporous, offwhite
enameled, gnashing

clamping twin
asphalt tongues

Author’s Note:  I have respawned and died a thousand lives since I wrote this song for my Dear Muse and Friend.  It is a wellspring of words, a touchstone to travel through time – always a place for editing, reframing, and sparking new stories.  I am grateful.

Much love to you, as always.

restless ploughboy blues

bright light,
i miss you so much
that i feel like dying

every time
i hear
your name

so i speak it often,
slap-happy noon high
or creaking in darkness.

one time,
the wonder of living
was lost

to me

you returned it
asking only for mad poems
to solve hedgehog dilemmas.

blue nights,
lost in nightmares.
fighting the urge to call

broken

by the wish
to hear from your voice
that you remember

this path where
our lives once twined
and that we are real.

still life,
staring in mirrors
the safety we seek

lies

in loving ourselves
and being too kind
do not to pry as to why

it is easier
with you near
brother.

what we are not
can never be
again.

(the heights
adrift
summer ’19)

bando calls one night
he sounds uncertain

says he can’t find me
in the map of his mind
can’t picture rooms i sleep in

can’t trace the roads
or render the structures
connecting us together

i must re-learn
to pin myself down

i close my eyes
picturing the time
he taught me to read a map

lorain county hangs
above dad’s workbench
my small hands seeking home

(delaware
avenue
summer ’92)

Example 3.  Something about the orange peel scented sunlight ties me back into a single point of consciousness.  This first vivid remembrance of citrus-based time travel is in Florida.

Casique

frigid seawater
clings to my abdomen
buoys my small hands
rigid in anticipation

my stomach churns
orange juice, toast,

acrid adrenaline

stripping off fear
like a wetsuit

her gray bottlenose
touches my fingertips
smooth as a hardboiled egg
better than i dreamt it

Example 2.  Field notes of citrus-based modes of travel through the space-time-continnuum.

California

Time carves mountains into Yosemite.
Higher than the gracious California sky.

Reclining in clefts above the valley floor,
I eat oranges to restore my energy.

Cool juice runs down the insides of my wrists.
Seeping sweet through blue veins, climbing towards sunlight.

The ability to time-travel or teleport through the use of fruit is possible.  Let’s start with the most recent case.

Fresno Blues

blackout curtains
partially obscure
the hot april sun

a cold breeze
tart through a
third story
window

enhances the taste
of a fresh-peeled orange

i lean my head back
against the window screen

cleveland
spring has
a few
snows more

but fresno’s
growing
season
barely ends

you can park your car
and run through the groves

back towards the soft certain
warmth of ohio june

when people call themselves thorough

they say the same thing

i always make sure

to cross my eyes and ice my teas

Jelly the Alleycat must’ve killed that old gray Junco.

No blood (but that’s her style), just feathers from the initial surprise.

I let myself be baffled until L. found the skeleton behind the garage.

dirge for a fallen junco

sparrows and finches
search the grass
salvaging soft
under-feathers

sifting slate pinions
for snowy down
which laid aground
through a mild winter

the feathers
disappear
morphing one-by-one
into wild violets