For Sale: Cheap

Inside the box

Trinkets and bobs once necessary

Now wholly unnecessary

Moved from place to unnecessary nook

Set aside to casual remembrance

Consider

All the sublunary sphere is nothing

If not of use

Trinkets to forget and objects

To be forgotten

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Yesterday’s Host

Three years later I heard the song
Sent to you over thousands
Of miles
In hopes to cool your ringing ears
From the metrical pop, buzz,
And whistle.

A melodic reminder of God beside when
You only recalled the man offering
Chai yesterday
And the warm, spiced bread that
Filled your empty stomachs
On patrol.

You said the lyrics stuck in your head
While a finger sat poised on the
Holy carbine
As shadows came down from the hill
And you returned fire toward
Yesterday’s host.

 

 

 

 

Tossing the Flesh

I scraped you out of my heart
tossing the flesh
you built inside me
to the coyotes
who devoured your
good intentions
and deep meaningful
sentences
with satisfied yelps
sometimes I feel their teeth
in my chest
and long for where
that part of you
rested
quiet
like
carrion

No. 19

Speak memory—

Of long-gone journeys
And their scent accord.
Let me breathe in the past
And inhale the fragrant moments
Remembered only by sweater
Scents and wet earth.

Remembrance escapes all
Except the perfumed days
When my senses were sharp
With top notes, the animalic desires
Of youth, wine, and roses.

The middle years wrapped
My hours baby soft and warm
With the striking incense of
Humanity’s beauty and the foul
Necessary of motherhood

The base notes of time
Given are the pungent
Aroma of decline and bouquets
I can’t recall. Like the decaying
Aoud, what is left behind is yours.

My only claim
The rich and time-worn
Redolence of a spent bottle.

Handful of Cockle Shells

Scrolling sand and tracing circles,
We’re writing novels with one finger until
The ocean sweeps in and spirits away our
Thoughts to read later.

We say cheers and clink together
A handful of cockle shells,
Longing to open one and pull out a fortune.

I said luck is a ghost crab.

You shrug an “Oh well.”
“Never mind that, we’ll wait for high tide.”
Instead we wait for the surge
Near a diamond shoal.

Blessing the dusky blue clouds, you
Tell me they match my eyes.
In weakness I smile and whisper,
“You mean stormy.”

You said love is a jetty.

I want to let the sea wash over me, but you
Point to the shore and we laugh at candy-
Colored coquinas, wiggling into the sand like
Shy children under salt water blankets.

You ask me to dance in the hurricane,
I ask “Can I stand on your feet?”
We spin like the air
While you hold me safe in the eye.

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The Fire

it happens

gradually
then suddenly

rising with
an up and out
spilling from
the brazier’s mouth
life is ablaze

but living coals
weary of future past
flatten to shadows
of smoky ash
swallowing its sorrow

Cope’s Gray

before the nights grow
thick with heat
and damp
tear out the song of frogs
from my ears
their colloquy dropping
pots
pans
lids
that clang and shatter
the silence of
years passed without
words
and drown out the
memory of our
conversations rich with
humidity

Untitled Dream

the marble relief of a man and horse in flight
could be written into a grand epic

an old villager heard my thoughts and said
it’s best to rethink it

some forgotten battle alone and outnumbered
running in retreat

the steed decided to turn galloping to the fight
running over the heads of their enemy

their heroic escape cut short with an
accidental leap into a boiling vat

the town’s embarrassment the old man said
the only document a proverb

something about never allowing your horse
an opportunity to make decisions

or to never name your son Kenneth
he forgot which

Dwelling

How quickly the empty house began to decay
Without a soul to breathe within

Standing water around its foundation revealed
Decades of lonely tears

Crippled walls crash in and that timeworn
Way groans out in agony

The burrow vanquished, in its place
Will rise a new home

Oh, but the razing is neither death nor destruction
To a hollow, broken facade

The suffering is metamorphosis, beloved
You are being reborn

Gold

I was listening to
the song
stirring coffee with
a spoon in spoon
thought of my dream
nestled from
the night before
it was gold
and I found it
or stole it
amazed
how it glittered in
my thieving eyes
but wasn’t I caught
with it all in
my hands stained
gold and shaking
someone had to lose
and so it goes
stirring my coffee
I thought of you and
thought of
you robbed
of rose gold hair
and how she must’ve
smiled
and glittered in
your eyes
a song played
once again
over an empty cup
still stirring