Postcard 187

The full world has been conquered

When he hears the sound
a horrible sound
the scream of a horse
you see his eyes
He hears it and knows

with that shot
his horse had died
a percussion rending time
And his eyes, they change
in that moment
He dies with his horse

Like a child he named
'self' 'horse' 'bullet' 'time'
Fence and saddle become
the only named things
between him and horse
As a dying man, a man
dying with a horse
all that slips away:
Man - away on padded feet
Horse - away as sand
Time and Bullet - fold up like water
Brittle self relaxes
passes as breath

Oh serpent underfoot
this is what you meant:
an unconquered world
Two fanged explosion
What now separates
asp from bullet?
man from horse?
woman from rib?
Likely stories, serpent
replies, fencemending

The full world must be unconquered
and I wonder, will I ever
join a horizon line upon a horse?
Will my equine breath
mingle with steaming tulle?
When will my horse age be and
when will death do its undividing?

Postcard 186

Bodies come and go, break and grow
Let cripple be a word that only serves for souls

I finally have man's own dog and understand
each sweet impulse unchecked by thought

I'd had a whale's age -- submerged. And they still
surface in dreams sometimes like mother's breath

These dog's days are the good god's glass
on my own inadequacy. My larger self --

always theoretical -- is light as hollow boned bird
is round as cat catch bird as catch can

A self rolling spine insensate. As in hand in air,
as in jaws. All all Holy Holy

Kick a dog for guilt, though. A lame
and grounded bird is fierce, then cold

A wounded cat -- tiger noble, tiger gold
Kick your dog to know your crippled soul

These coming dog years, perhaps
a decade, perhaps a score,


they will be my measure. I shall find
what my worth is as I become old

Postcard 185

It was one of those days crested in tears, swelling and trembling as a rough gray ocean seems,
in its fullness, to be higher than the battered sand. Higher than my own eyes.
I know this cannot be true. I'd be submerged, but I feel the trembling possibility
with each tremendous wave, clapping upon itself, sliding up the shore with a hiss.
Between the gray sky and gray sea, the sand glows gold.

It was a day like that with trembling sorrow more delicious than despair.
Colors jump sharp and the wind dances across skin in small salty steps.
A day when bad news would not surprise. Not bad news of commerce or politic, but
news of loss. A death day crisp and bitter as a wild apple.

My son calls  -- angry and confused. This is the heartbreak I conceived in him and foresaw
as clear and bright as battered sand. He's been up for days -- madness? spirit walk? amphetamine?
He has fragments and much disconnect to say, in essence: What have you done to me?
How have you made me so? My tears crest and provide that wide angle lens
through time and its tides. Yes, so clear to me, this has happened before.

I see my decades of man's work. I want to wield the golden bough to tell him
Kill your idols, kill you kings. I want to hand him the sharpest blade -- sharp as light --
and my own bent neck, thankful, it is a tear crested day. That tool is double sharp
and we are fleshy beings served by myth but not myth ourselves. I am sorry I say to him.
I know I often failed. I am sorry, but please know how much I did try.