When was it you realized
you could spend your life
reorganizing
your closet?
Fixed in time
borderline
cognizant
that you lost it.
I feed my blood
to hungry ticks.
I dream in shades
of turmeric.
I get my head above
patterns we're wading in.
I taste the taste
of acraein.
You may love a stone for its pattern. Pyrophyllite, doesn’t matter You didn’t know I could be so hollow. Slight and flighty like a swallow.
And when I change shape it’s just the dripping of the water. And your couch calm fingers illuminating getting older.
While you loved every stone in sight I obsessed over the light strewn across the bed you made. Knowing now not every sunbeam needs a serenade.
At seventeen did you have that moment When you knew everything you wanted? Because I’m watching and at thirty four you stumble in through every door.
Do you miss the fireworks, choosing gloves over pyrotechnics? Warm and wrapped your emerald fingers forgetting all their calisthenics.
Sometimes at night I think about the road I’m on,
It feels so old from time to time. It’s mine to take,
and so I ride.
I like to keep it wild my mind a roller coast-
er kind. It’s not for everyone I find.
And so I write.
The years do pass, new wrinkles here and I’ll go white.
A day does not go past where I find I
am older. Nice.
And do you think about the day when you can see
your parents play? See shining round the grate as if
you never left?
Because you know I do. And think about mine too.
About the day that they will see no role; but me
for me for me.
Your song lives in my skin.
Its peaks and pits
laying atop
my warm resin.
Your soul will fill my form.
A coat and clothes
for those mechanicals.
A place for me to live.
What will I be,
when I’m fifty two
times ninety three?
Have I found my gravity?
What will I do,
when I’m ninety three
times fifty two?
Have I nailed my follow through?
I laid my head
on the water in my bed.
Recall what you said
Shapes on my mast’s head
Could you know mine?
Do you know mine?
Two balls on thread
Do you know mine?
Do you know mine?
Becalmed for days
My ribs want for your ways
No more delays
There’s bite on my breakaway
Be my ensign
Be my ensign
Cat’s paws ablaze
Draw my great spine
on your waterline
Just replace all my ballast stones
I’ll find my way back home
Hold the light and lose
coma cold focus.
A grove of smooth ladders
devoured crocus food.
A flower discovered in moods
pressed flatter. Your standard
sweet vs sour.
Cooing tunes can’t pluck
the flicker from dappled thickets.
Pliers could?
Some sort of cold scalpel?
Removal proves to show
a softer hue.
Hold the blood and the bloom.
Bottled vials we can use.
Orcas: Until Then
The notes we leave
to remind ourselves
and others
we tried.
What else can we do?
I don’t know a hero.
I know those who
took what they were given
and made something.
And I know those who
took what they were given
and took their leave.
Some souls don’t weave.
—
The notes we leave
to remind ourselves
of others.
We tried.
What a simple clue.
Of our friends and foes
I don’t know who
Is still alive and thriving,
and made something.
And I don’t know who
wouldn’t take what they were given
and make a home.
To stitch and sew.
Tears of Unicorn – Fujita Masayoshi
Dimes
fall from the sky,
like eyes.
Like little souls,
pools from scored pies.
(or pines – we can’t decide)
Why
can we not fight?
What ties
our curled hands
to tools despised.
We’re all alone inside.
Life
in double time.
Ctrl I
I don’t deserve.
I am afraid.
There is nothing left to learn.
Bon Iver – Beach Baby
The wait of it all, filling
books with those I won’t kill,
books my darlings fill.
Scraps will fall, telling
how I keep my memories;
ones I’ll forget eventually
’cause sequences, strings and strands.
Cross my I’s and dot my and’s,
’cause I don’t know the state I’m in,
nor the vessel Magdalene,
or why old apologies
were so self serving.
–
Ways they taper, silent
does an end appear.
Does it dull the fear?
Is there a place to hide it?
Well I hide mine here,
scrawled within some post or mirror,
’cause I’ve never known the pain,
the cringe, the blow across the face
of losing such a piece of me.
But that’s how it has to be.
The sorrow on that last reprise,
to read my words through fresh new eyes.
Seasinks
acraein 