places: nothing is good enough/practice room

"the hysteria inherent
in pushing away all the gold that has made you
the yellowed lion in your chest roaring its hunger
and the seabirds that were your eyes
blinded by their own sight, flown,
pecking, now, at the shore of the world
for its scraps, tethered
by only the slightest chain
of obligation
to their seeing

your guilt-stained mouth
and its reddened teeth
pulsing crimson beneath with truth
and speaking lies--
blood is its own punishment.
like water to water, 
love runs back to love.

there is no replacement
for the gold that has made you golden.
there is only the beauty of living and dying
somewhere within the vague province
of your own sight.

it doesn't matter
if there is no safety in your voice--
go back, go back
and sing again."

four or five generations in a dream / everlong again

1.

she had a mountain for a lover
hundred thousand tons of rock, dirt,
the tangled roots of trees swept back like black hair
as he fucked her, as he watched her
in a white dress,
his peak troubled with its
roiling cloud.

desire for him held her straight, still
as a girl in a portrait.
when she looked at her picture
she saw his snake run about her wrists
through her legs to her thighs
its head filling her mouth as if it were her tongue
and her eyes sunk back
into black shadow.

so she married a man who drank but did not hit.
and she waited and waited
to feel safe ever again.


2.

he was his mother's favorite, the idol of her side,
the smooth fuzz on his head and his giant eyes,
the smooth limbs, everything about him
her perfection, a baby adonis

and he protected her.
and he protected her from dreams
from dragons like avenging angels
messengers from the abyss
she shared with no one else

she touched no one else like she touched him
her hands curved like the shells
she gathered for him at the sea,
as gentle in color
as subtle in scent

at some point he knew that it was
wrong--or it was at least
different--it marked him for something.
sometimes he felt marked for something better than others,
he was so loved,
such a master of men,
and sometimes

he felt marked like a monster


3.

he'd thought
when she was born--

the conviction had come over him
that she would share the secret

it's lonely
to have the secret

like a drop of water falling over and over
onto a rock in a dark place.

because he loved her--
he would love her
he would show her the meaning

of being loved

but she turned away from him
with distrustful eyes

as if to nullify the whole
of the love he'd recieved

he showed her love
he showered her with love
he had waited for her too
she had not been just anyone
he would not bear the secret alone anymore
he put her straight
and the snake wove its way between her thighs
around her wrists
into her every crevice
breaking her open like a root
would break open stone
until she admitted it
she admitted that she loved him


but it was all wrong.


he thought he'd seen in her
a re-creation of
the fine bone
the smile and the gentle cool hand
the intelligence that stretched like madness

but those things were dead

they had been dead for many years.

then there was a breaking like stone inside him
and the water spilled upon the broken rock.



and the girl
he'd chosen
had visions
of a mountain
come inside her.

places: i'm with me in rockland

1.
bird FINGER
he's the man, the man with the flight-filled hands
his might-filled hands
such a furled FINGER
waiting to
unfold itself into you
so don't fuckin' move.

2.
i didn't used to see the way i see now--basic actions of physiognomy have changed in me.  i see depths to the things around me; i see colors, clearer and more of them.

i think changes such as this, and those like this (the way i touch, for example, the degree to which i can feel my own touch and the touch of others), are part of why i'm tired all the time.  and a small part of why i want so few people to come closer (how do you tell a passing acquaintance what miracles have occurred in your life? or to what depths you've been forced, for that matter?  and for that matter, how do you tell a friend?  literally, how do you say the words?).  the fact that i'm not so much a personality, as a force, filled with dizzyingly sharp edges--the fact that my capacity to hurt is so vast, and that nobody seems to see it...

god, save me from myself and save others from me.  send down your dark angels to make the edges curl and dance if it's your will--i know you will save me, no matter the valley i walk through.  i think i know you will save me.

3.
it's not a question of not loving birdfinger.
i will always love birdfinger because
one sends one's love
into the deepest chasms of one's experience,
the chasms where the shadows flicker--

one sends it there
a blind spelunker
looking for its own sources of light.

quotations: someday i'll be rich enough i'll fund a state penitentiary and name it after you

you turned me into a prison

your eyes always on me, hands always near
turned the experience of my flesh into nothing
but a series of vulnerabilities

each cell contained
a wildly screaming thing
mouth so open
to be thrust into
hands and eyes, ass and thighs
yours, all yours
yours yours
you lock the doors


turn out the light on me
not my fault
not my fault
that things are so hard for me
not my fault that i'm scared
of the quietest smile
the softest hand--
no matter in what guise, they are
reminiscent of my secret.  not my fault
these failures at life--the fear
of the white walls, of a certain room,
of omniscient eyes--

they'll know, they'll know,
they'll know you told.
they'll have you up against the car
or in the back room
turn you into prison

not my fault i can't resist
not my fault i can't look back when you look at me
not my fault eyes on me feel like knives against skin
not my fault i can't uphold this series of obligations
not my fault you touched me
not my fault you held me
not my fault you fucked me
not my fault you turned me into your monument

because if it is my fault i am so fucked
there is no rose of such virtue
as is the rose that bare jesu
alleluia
for in that rose contained was
heaven and earth in little space
res miranda