My Sort of War

The wars they wage on,
the battle cry an asthmatic
squeak
as the calloused generals
squat low, then bend over
in drumming sub-breath.

The battle scars, they stretch
into feathers, their skin a-thin
down melting wax
into fat blood wicks, which
then harden into sunseting scraps.

Moon-beaks peck at shafted streaks,
fancy their yellow shadow
of peacock-eyed plumes,
underbellies thought soft and safe
from the pin -dark- drop spindles,
a blister of stains and spears.

Clotted spills pool
in the crouched joints,
bright black shells strain a
barreled gunpowder march, halted
beyond barricades of barbed wire
and smooth electric scrawls.


All the world tires and still
that impossible white fog,
the head
is no man's land.

Blasphemy

Atoms dance edgewise, cloud
constellations on a sky
called the universe.

Jealous are these gods,
my purity in them true
beneath only time.

Every movement spirits
in the darkness only theirs;
waves without a shore.

My martyrs' bloodline
lives to tell dry revelations
tied to ready pyres.

We grew up cloistered-
gravity the communion,
mass the monastery.

Immortals waited
for their scriptures to be read,
but whose will to please?

To Live

I open a clenched palm, see no solace
to come and shovel blind,
warm sleep
into rotted pearly grates,
always chip-dreaming
to be just dirt once more.

What terror it is to live,
to slap words backhanded
choking into windpipes
fat rusted over, sores hollowed
in silver watermark shells
shining with white moon veins.

The mercurial poison flakes
well of age
with every heart-beaten step,
pricking ends of this sorry speech
that makes this young life bitter
and this old stillness tired.

Hair (Revision)

I shall drag dead claws
through your scratchy Clean, choke
the carded sounds
you spin at me, scatter
the sore herd bleat begging
to chase my shelter
to the thick forge, bitter
of the ink blown wind shedding
a sooty furnace of strokes.

Strand, I will roar down the hillocks
no splitting/waive over
the stomachs of pages you read
send them scowling, still- half
purchased half eaten gloss-chewed
promises I wouldn't keep
(for sale, with a little knifing).

Grow and grow it will, I will,
and live and scream mercenary knots
from locked fat bottoms rich, sworn
against the threat to
profit you pretty
with every second you sell.