sand

Rid yourself of all shattered glass
all the fucking bones
remove all the mirrors
excoriate all wood from the wastes.
Let the desert in
let winds eat everything away
even sound.
Let there be only sky
light
and crystalline sand.
Allow one single insect
a beetle clicking its wings
dying from want of water.
Let the poem contain only the word was
which indicates the past tense of to be
no more struggles with hope in the future tense.
Fill your mouth full of sand
spit it out
open your lips and breathe until they become
flakes of translucent skin.
Is it God that is nascent in desert?
What is this patten of shadowworn by a wandering Sun?
Nothing but light crossing an infinity
grain after grain
shifted by wind
into transecting crescents
rippling on and on.
All words are spelled there
and buried—
footprints eroded.
A young antelope
separated from its mother
finds her tracks and follows
but in the wrong direction.
The world itself is not cruel
hasn't God painted this desert?
The whole universe can be mapped
into a single grain of sand.
This is only circumstance.
We sift without knowing.
Not one is righteous.
Even the Moon
riddled with junk
is no longer holy.

passage

I was not given to the keeping of time
minutes   hours        days
continually spilling out of my pockets

I break a branch
and years bleed away

frozen lake
grey beneath a grey sky

water once flowed--
a visage

of a grandfather clock
deep in the cold

time

time beaten into a broken watch
rattling among branches that would not bud
a time of blood
tasting of burnt dirt
that kept spilling
out of my pockets
out of my hands
and into that part
of the past we both have discarded
time which no longer turned
which could not be seen
which shot like a wobbling stick
into the heart of a dog
that kept running
long after it was dead

dead like a bone
hollow and gray
carved into flute
carved into holes
through which no water flowed
holes that held air
holes holding breath
letting it go
but not without sound
offering only a path through the sands
a hollow    that shards used to bound
a hollow   which hands used to cup
a hollow  nobody whispers
half-tasting of fractured sky

if not for dust

if not for dust
settling on everything
how could I understand
this passage of days

scattered amongst time
that no longer keeps anything--
a few kind words

someone who lingers--
just to ask
to lay a hand without asking

even my phone is a minute behind
doesn't anyone see--
these minor anachronisms

a day ago
a week
this very same spot

just last year
pressing our legs into each other
as if in oath

the girl behind the bar
never sees a thing
I take back our glasses

she fills yours with water
I drink from it
as if you were still here

now   where there is no dust--
no measure of either
days passed nor days yet to come

remember the game

we used to play in June
while the maples were greening
and the sweet-cherries ripe

how one by one
I’d take those shiny dark—
the inside of your thigh—

each ripened fruit
worked cool in between

my fingers flat
easing the warmth of your—

when Christ was crucified
each red tributary
told of how they—

over your white—
against your—
until you’d squeeze them together

how juice of sweet-cherries seeped
from the press of your legs
soaked into dusk

how Mary did bathe
His tattered flesh
water and blood

beneath greening maples
I would suckle this juice
from the shade of your—

Magdalena as hollow as the tomb
tell me where they have taken him
and I will bring him back
there will come a day
maranatha!
when the dead shall rise into the sky

why can’t you remember
the game we used to play
when the maples were greening
and the sweet-cherries ripe

maranatha!
there will come a day

rake

how many seasons of grass
wound in spokes
and rusted rims

hollow hubs
where once-black grease
clung thick with odor

silent row of iron tines
rarely now do children come
to sit upon the high-raised seat

a long un-coupled hitch
settled into earth
gear and lever seized into a curiosity

poplars have taken back the fields—
when you slit the bark with fingernail
you loose a scent like fresh-cut hay

you were never meant for plenty

but to walk among the windswept pines
to pause before the swelling of wave after wave
sea washing over each solemn stone
to lose yourself in hair you shall never caress

each petal of crocus
surrenders its purple
each rose-colored tulip—
lost before summer

you come home to the shore
a familiar odor of death in the breeze
you come home but never arrive
you are always departing—