metonymy4u

                             the invisible having traded, suffering for a prize,
                             years ago the author finally discovered what he loved.

                                                       that her heart beat
                                                       for a moment on his sleeve
                                                       is the only thing he won’t forsake.

and she the poetry student begged her sometime prince
if sentries wrote their own orders.
if they’re allowed.

how did he do that
what
make it go away
does it matter
to me it does
its just an experience can’t you be entertained
oh i have an inquisitive mind
i just want to be alone can’t you accept that
no more than you can accept my curiosity
that again
yes he made more than just his girl disappear
well i think you’re too sensitive
about this of all things
about this
it was a kiss
yes a kiss
more than a kiss to me
well who made you ruler of the universe
we all have our perspective
and yours is always right is that it
no i didn’t think so
sure you did look, there
she is oh i see her
at the back shes smiling
singing
singing again
she looks so happy finally
she does indeed
i wonder how she found this passion from nowhere
from you silly you taught her to listen
and you taught her kindness
yes i did
no kindness no music
you know you are wiser than i ever gave you credit for
you know i still love your hands
yes i know
good

                                    thread

we met one night
under circumstances
(for her) ordinary.
she had been through this
many times. many
times to the hospital
since childhood.
when the needle entered her
skin for the 3rd time, i
already knew i’d missed.
she suggested someone else try.
i think the way i agreed
cemented our relationship
of the following 3 years.
when she died she asked
two things of me. to take
for her a photograph of the coast.
to meet her outside.
for months nothing
was all i could hear.

                        compass

                                                            because yet
                                                            though we never made love i continued
                                                            taking photographs

                                                            Although nihilism has always been
                                                            answerable to the inquiries of many
                                                            authors, its power was not fully feared
                                                            prior to Kierkegaard.

Husserl that joker, he wrote of an infinitely
expanding science that could enfetter an ideal
distinction between self and non self, as
both dialectic and death, it was supposed to
be the only way we could reflect on own actions,
our only entrance to history.

Sybilist contrarian!

Incarcerated by narcissism I breathed my last,
and decayed with the half-life of blood which is said
to be fifty days more or less. Less if you have sickle
cell syndrome which causes for some periodic
intractable pain episodes and pneumonia fierce enough
to strangle a bird in flight. I said no art and let’s be gone,
vault the scree of another aimless mind, run so fast
not even the cowing trains I used to love on a Spanish night
could fill bones that delicate and facile.

                        apostasy, the finish line

cast off you fish and go home.
i’m a renunciate nun out on leave

and crazy as a door in spring over
sweet rain on the mission dell,

tracks where love ran away
with stories no one tells.

the end was yours, lord. game all done.
you teased, you taunted, your angels

served you well—

half paid by rage.
sorted,

by the storm.

                                                            partition

            the first speakers of italo-romance dialects
            to arrive on another land mass probably
            impressed the locals with their
            extravagant gestures and intonations.

                        their armies quickly vanquished, it’s
                        a wonder any remnants of their culture
                        survived at all.

disgust is a four letter word

when you meant three,
a false start friend,

a broken branch,
an aborted embryo a dead

leaf of a misplaced tree.
disgust is when you try with all your might,

and someone spits,
and turns away,

and manages with one single breath
to be all you

won’t ever be.