Postcard 116

The touch I can rely on sputters out.
Mind the gap.
Mother fire fills my lungs.
Father wind bleeds my pens.
The touch must grow sophisticate.

But hold fast hands like touch
on touch is all there is, and step out.
Step out and step and step and step again.
Again -- our love unstoppable as bulging earth.
And sophisticate -- every step is held mysterious.
There is gravity in our need.

Mind the bunching up.
Keep step with the little ones.
Keep up with the olders.
Fire on our necks.
Wind at our backs.

The words we can rely on sputter out.
We must grow words sophisticate.
But hold tongues like every word is mystery.
And grasp out and step, and speak out and step again.
The old must fail the new and the new must fail again.

Every sanctuary sputters out
and love must grow sophisticate
and step out and step again.
Everyone among us wants to be father heard.
Everyone among us wants to be mother held.

And everyone is grasping somehow
for unstoppable sophisticate.
Step out step out and step
-- and hold fast between --
and step and step and
ever simple step out and step.

Postcard 115

and now your salt is in my blood
your breath my breath
your breath my breath
we cannot be wise and whole
we cannot be both wise and whole
we must practice discernment
I throw myself to you
like a body down
upon wet rocks - impact
and shatter, cliffwise
and now I am ground
into your bones
your breath my breath
your breath my breath
we move. I thrust beneath
your skin - between
we cannot both be whole
your breath my breath
your pain my breath
oh my brother oh my sister
and now your breath is in my head
your breath my breath
your will...
we must practice discernment
I drag across you like gravel -
a million small cuts
and now my salt is in your blood
can we not both be wise?
your breath my breath
your breath my breath
and now I stomp myself into
the bottoms of your feet -
heavy marching miles
grit in teeth - we move
your breath my breath
your blood my blood
oh my brother oh my sister
we cannot be both wise and whole
your breath my breath
your breath my breath
and now I impale myself
upon your discernment

Postcard 114

She holds me down and I am held. Yes she is real and true against the point to point of casual lies. Down here, deceit flows untroubled in wide avenues and smooth streets. Every word crosses our mouths is fraudulent seep. But she, high booted, silent upon my back, keeps me beneath. And in waters swirling muddy and deep, I cannot see, and what real is there gaping at me? Around they stand, pitiful. Their own selves in hand, eyes cold-filmed and phantom flamed: flimflam eyes, looking at and through, not in. Looking for the tell of fame, nothing but a throughway from reality. She holds me down and I am held down. I have no eyes can see her well defined lines, her beguile and steal. I can feel the fullness that is silent and real. Her well defined lines, her soft curve and sharp lies belie the wholeness, the fullness of truths unseen. She contains galaxies. On my back through shining boots she holds me down. A galaxy! and I am held.

Postcard 113

I 

 I will be a line item entry

will be one page alone

:::

Alone on page one I will enter items one by one

A smudge more than a smudge

I will be filed under drawer

behind a clerk

 behind a sign

behind a door

'File Clerk'

 cannot find me

I will slide back under drawer

I will be forgotten line of poetry

A poem on doors and drawers and desks and bureaus

:::

I will be a line item entry in the abandoned

Bureau of Poetry desk drawer

I will be the last written word in the building

A lost line of poetry on freemason something something

in a pile of plaster rubble

A smudge of lovely desuetude filed away in

Bureau of Poetry Drawer marked cross reference

:::

neglect: see disrepair, decay, dilapidate, deteriorate, disuse, disdain, disregard, desert

I will be a line item entry on one page alone in derelict light

I will be filed under broken glass disintegrate: damned doomed disused

I will slide back a long line

back a long line

:::

 again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again again

Postcard 112

Whiskey. I no longer take that
smokey annihilate. But you, we are
darkness familiars, entangled and enrapt.
We are always grieving -- every minute.

When I look along this bar at my commiserates,
I see our soft warm giving up. We are,
at any rate, babies born unequal to the task.
At least these drunks admit that.

Convivial honesty is that midnight fissure. Don't
tell me that's not real joy. These cracked smiles,
legs crooked under tables, creased eye laughter.
Don't tell me that's not now.

We are more than memory of
the crooked split of night away
from all those nows. The clarity of day
is a seeping deceit, a rosy fingered grifter.

I am ready. I no longer need whiskey,
I am ready for a sober wake. Prop me up
amidst you. What do we grieve? The ever
present smokey annihilate of now

Of this I will soon forget. Of the
dribbling down my chin. I am
an honest man unequal to the task
dribbling down my chin.

You and me, unremembered, we are
darkness familiars, legs entangled
arms enrapt, joyful and
forever grieving.