No hiss
There hung a single icicle
puncturing the pregnant moon, sinking
I came to pray to the night,
give my winter confession,
whisper visible breath
in hopes the silence would steal it
and I knew it would
because the moon, she made it far enough
to escape the chill that would expose
her leaking air;
the sound already stolen away
The round world will never know tonight, we deflated, you and I.
Cryogenic Martyr
Winter is a denial;
playground earth is shut down and inaccessible.
I hide inside the walls and deeper, yet;
shut down and inaccessible.
No reaping chill will find me.
Merely 2 months ago,
I bent my body beneath the limbo bar
And now,
there is no space left
only arrested, stiff defeat
There is a sole rescuer
to swaddle me in Gortex and down
and eskimo kiss my popsicle nose
who reveals swingsets, trails
and margarita cold sunsets
I am the cryogenic martyr,
the suspended neanderthal of an ice age
waiting to hear chisel or drip
My own thoughts reverberating
in a molecularly small space
Such aches from stifled nights and days!
I say if such an attack
causes us to dart from shelter to shelter
that I will not be a hero today
but I will be your recon mission
I am a paler blue than you are used to
I am a paler blue than you are used to
I am milk from the breast
The blind man’s eye
The morning sky
I am a paler pink and it’s not like you think
I am the dead man’s skin
The winter cheek
Wheezing life, oblique
I am twisted spine wrapped in barbed wire and twine
The clink on dinner glass
The old barn in the wind
Weakened, thin
I’m a softer gray than I was yesterday
I am the abandoned school’s window
The late autumn fog
The belly-up pollywog
Trapped beneath ice
I am a horrid last gasp
The precipice teetering boulder
The secret the dying man told her
I am all that fizzles
The last millimeter of wick
I am the faint sound of haunting
That is actually nothing blowing in the wind
I am the last straw the cow devours
In a land of famine
Digested four times before
The final feast is never more
I am the fraying shroud
on the cold slab
the scratching dry quill
the unfinished words of the will
I am the ruins
behind the undergrowth
I am the ship on the ocean floor
a splinter on death’s door
I am a palor of green
A mold on the cheese
I am the child that floats
the hanged man’s throat
I am a gutter of leaves
after four months of rain
I am slime
I block the drain
I am ash on a bonnet
the clay on work boots
I am the broken ax
the recipient of forty whacks
I am all that decays
I am all that stops shining
I am all of the hues
of adieu
Sparkling Season
Christmastime is so full of sparkles, glitter, twinkling… Why?
All these pretty things that catch our eye;
dangling orbs and flickering lights,
and moonlit snow we ne’er get to see,
it is all part of the holiday revelry.
Shiny papered boxes, big bowed, stacked to build eagerness,
trees adorned with flashy dress,
sparks that fly under a mistletoe’s kiss;
we gather to sing shimmering songs of soul-tingling faithfulness.
All around, sensations blink us into joy;
glistening sugar cookies and battery powered toys.
We give much less than we can all take in,
in this dazzling, hurried, incandescent season.
Boarding up my windows
To prepare myself for winter
I am boarding up my windows,
filling my pantry,
compacting my bones
so moisture cannot
penetrate the joints.
The world will forget me more
but I am resolved to
avert the chill
with hunkered down loneliness,
oceans of tea,
fleece swathed solidarity.
Removed from frigidity
I am stone
alone
with my CB radio and scanner
leaning close
listening for chatter
flares and afghans at hand
in case the roof caves
If you find me in the thaw
Put a can opener to my lips
To hear the hiss and murmur
Of secrets lonely women hold
In their ever sliding glacial hearts
There are storms no one can endure
And measures that are never enough
To save a home without love.
Fair-weather Friend
My joy is gone
with the sun
but was that me at all?
My woeful winter
could be my center
My fair-weather friend,
leads me on.
All the fancies and the foils
those sweltering nights encourage
leave me when frost bites hard.
The lump that’s left
is the real me, I guess
That boisterous party girl
is a facade
built by summer’s
glimmer-prismic holographs.
She cares not
about the worries
in my frigid core,
that fair-weather friend,
damned doppelganger.
Reports say she’s South,
basking in radiance
while I am here
crawling through fog
and puddles
of quiet sorrow.
I know she returns
because I give her substance,
soul;
and I tolerate her
so I can be included
in the follies of
unfledged communes.
So pathetic and dismal am I
that half of me leaves
for half of the year.
Drawn in
It’s best you breathe the night air slow;
your lungs will crystallize
if you pant
Rest the tip of your tongue
before it solidifies
into a leaping porpoise statue
Give the night its time
and the muses their silence
they scribe in frost
and show us the way
back to the hearth.
Seasonally Affected
The doors are closing.
A slit of light remains;
mere moments until
it rains.
Then,
I will hear the loud clap
of locks
me, shocked in stocks
imprisoned
picking at my own skin
for ink
hatching marks
scratching in the dark
mumbling refrains.
Blood fills the tank
Flood in the dank
chambers
drowning in my own
gurgled breath.
Only the rope
with the noose
holds the truth
if I want to escape
me.
The first robins’ egg
will dry it up,
no giving up
when the sun
shines once more.
The door will swing wide,
I’ll step outside,
squinting, weak
and likely unfit for release.
Unaffected Fool
The feminine winter
it’s skin, tissue paper
legs unshaven
The masculine winter,
with his even stride
believes he can reconstitute her
Let the ol’ Bastard be lost
The tracks in the snow
are so obviously
those of a old man drunk on scotch
I can see the trail,
a staggered meter
of one-two, one nununun-two,
his decrepit left hip
hoisting the burden
onto the right
and a rift between he
and an old friend
sent him into the sleet and wind
Now we’re tracking him.
Mellowfluous
On days like these
ink creeps down the confessing page
rain slides down the windows
and blood weeps slow through my polar veins
the coffee perks and drips in sync
and someday soon
all these liquids will efface
amalgamize in a swirl in the palm of my hand
and I will smear them down my sullen face
Lovers in a Hot Pocket
It is not fear, my dear, that keeps me here
It is a juvenile resistence to peel back the sheets and face the slap of cold morning air
I cling to our heaven with my head on your chest, and my shoulder snug and nestled under your arm.
Our feet, the friction, like a cricket’s song
and your tenderest kisses placed on forehead’s hairline
Our limbs, toasty pretzel-entwined
our fondling hands speak language signs
And then, how awful we recognize time
The shifting blind striped light
The rooster’s pestering crow
nags that we must go
That frozen lump in my breast
Winter is the time
of year
My cold, still heart stops
I am an expressionless
face of chalk
growing too sad and tired to talk
becoming a cancer
that adheres
to the innards of the house
seeking regular chemo treatments
of tea
and then undoing my progress reading mournful poetry
Many things left
undone
unfelt cheer is my fault,
deteriorating relationships
and gardens
until the Spring brings my pardon
A dash of pepper
Black flying birds like a dash of pepper in the twilight sky
Scatter down through the naked branches that winter disrobed
Ice glazed puddles, breath you can see…
The beauty and solitude shivers through me.
