Untitled

Claw fingers
into angel wings

fly away
seeking

My belly aches
writhes
coiled demon agitation

Grim tidings
write themselves
across flesh
runic script
scrawled omens.


The story unfolds
in torn days
to healing night

My light is strong
as it dies

Still Dying

A flock of consternation

we descend upon Shell
all flying feathers
and white splotches of guano

Turn the house upside down
spin it around
rearranged
and deranged.

Rick waves a paint brush
a maestro directing us
with extravagant swirls

The color changes
over the course of the day
from soft pinks Shell
selected years ago
to white upon white

She sits outside
the walking frame
parked neatly next to her

reading calmly.

In between taping up
and cutting in
I dodge outside for a moment

smile tentatively

Its coming along well
I offer
scraping paint spots
off my knuckles


Shell's eyes are vast echoing
auditoriums of empty
the sound of my voice
bouncing around and refusing to fade
no soft surfaces to deaden the echo's

Colors are changing
but
I'm still dying

For 6 year old Cizanye of Burundi

What is death?

It is the endless waters

the great lakes
sweeping in all directions

The long grass
warm against my legs

The red dust beneath
my feet

The hushed clatter
of a knife
bumping against a rifle butt

The sound of men


What color is death?


White

As the bone
of a cow rib
poking from the ground

As the luminous glow

of my mothers pagnes

As the bed of rice
beneath the kidney beans


As my skin
which brings

men in the night

Snippets

Selected snippets of poems
that never became
for one reason
or another

1.

This is not a poem,

for there is no poetry

in burgeoning absentia

2.

We descended, through strata,

layers of earth,
each step
taking us closer
and farther away
than ever we had dreamed.

3.

I don't know what I preferred

the days when you
could see the sun
right through me

or the way
your eyes
slide off my skin
unable to find purchase
on the surface.

4.

There is a child crying outside
the wail
rises
knocking finches
from the dying branches of the
old elm in our yard.

5.

Confrontation
makes us feel
makes our blood move

6.

Fill my eyes
with razors
how vision
clears
through a haze
of blood

7.

Expectation sweat

smells sweet

8.

There was no flourish
when you went

just the change
from presence to absence

a shift in the air

a removal of near

And when you came
there was jasmine
and spices
there was exotic music

hovering

9.

You always said

there was something pure about hate

The way it would arc

and spark between us

a tesla coil writhing

in blue witch-fire agitations

10.

You have wound
a reminder of loss
around my finger

Input

An old friend on a bad line from Wodonga
is asking me if the Recession
is hurting yet
but I cannot answer
because news.com
has a photo of a pool of blood
where a suicide bomber had
been standing
when she went seeking Allah.


We will be ok
I offer down the crackling thread between us
although I don't actually know that for sure
but I figure
no one wants to hear your heading for trouble
wolves baring teeth
and scratching at the door


I'm comparing economic down-turns with
13 year old girls
strapping C4
to their thin bellies


All the peeps are complaining
about how graphic the photo is
typing their righteous indignation
to news.com in vocal print

But it is just blood

no flesh
no bone
or bits of black habit
or whatever the fuck it is
Muslim girls wear from head to toe

A splash of crimson

you could be mistaken
for thinking someone dropped a can
of red paint on the concrete
and it burst apart
spraying out in all directions

Do you find God
do you think?

when you disassemble so completely

when your body is given to the air and the earth

solidity

exchanged for fluidity

She became elemental
I would imagine
for just a moment
submitting to belief and physics
with equal grace

her wholeness
replaced with altered existence

I wonder
if I would become air and water
and find God waiting to wrap
his arms around me
if I killed as many innocents
as I could mingle with
in a market square
shouldering myself into the thickest crowd

showering them in death
and metamorphoses


Who sends 13 year old girls
into battle armed only with
faith and flesh?

The phone dies out
my old friend
lost somewhere on
the highway


leaving me with
a splash of red
and dead air.