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The room, lit dimly with a single string
of failing Christmas lights, monochrome white,
hums with the dull noise of fans, quietly
rustling papers stapled in a small stack
chronicling an old lover's new journeys.

Behind, spread across the floor, thin
manuals overflow their shelves, filled
with techniques both obsolete and new
that pay the bills, always rustling quietly,
plaintively, stacked in disarray, on the left.

The long hall lined with the old lover's
old paintings leads to the larger room
filled with angling books marking out
the stacked chronicles of a singular head,
a collage of juxtapositions never meant
to survive together under one roof.

Sandstone, mortared together, irregular,
in shapes surpassing count, stand solidly
on the foundation, a polygonal focus
hollowed out for the fire that radiates,
once warmed strongly, long after it fails.

In the Not-Spring night, dark towers of trees
lit by what light might trickle from the sky,
gripping the steep slope down to the stream,
spread out their branching as if to dwarf,
purposefully, even the most well-intentioned
house – sat in its own peculiar geometries.

No sound but the hum of fans is heard
manufacturing their flow. Tonight the trees
must stand on their own, to not be seen,
towering as they will. The rippling stream,
polishing its smooth stones, will go unlistened.
And all the paintings hung in their positions in
the long hall, tonight, will remain life-like still.

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I don't like the ocean why do you
think that I crawled out of it
in the first place, it is too cold and
too deep for my little feet and I
get wet, wet, soggy and wet. Briny,
well that's not so bad but it's not like
I can drink it when I'm thirsty now
is it?

And you would think they would quit
putting me back in it when I have all
these modern fabrics with colors to choose
from, I mean, they're the best money can
buy even my personal surf board to ride
the waves keep knocking me over and I am
getting sick to death of trying to claw my way
back to the shore that, by God, I know
is there somewhere - I mean the waves
keep rolling that way, damnit, damn ocean

it's so not important any more when you see
all those bonfires built with happy people
dancing on the beach in circles without
having to even look at each other through
the damned water getting in their eyes.
They're just happy, happy like I used to be
before they put me on the tide or the tide
came or I don't know stupid ocean it sucks.

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Is it possible tigers
   imagine flying
above the plane
   where the hunt
seen from higher
   appears small
even while instinct
tethers to that old
   any way you can
belly-full of flesh?

There are places
   in the garden
   to hear voices
in branching trees
   still in tall grass
   praying with paws
where home is found
   only by degrees
through a singing species
   soothing the beast
daring to take flight
   in that great rise
forward from each.

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Each center is inescapable –
   a vast garden in exile
spilling out the kept flora
like a reminder of perfection
never to be truly touched.
The brief, sweet taste of juices
glisten on lips, then evaporate
as they are known: the fruits
of each from their own species,
distinct, and further still, within
even the same species, unique.

Only curious travelers driven to move
through the wider comfort of in-between,
understand the language common to all:
light reflecting clear from growing fields,
the afternoon air inhaled as a shared breath,
clouds of bees moving within purpose, or
strangers sitting without speech simply to
reminisce silently all that may yet be.

You see, as you allow yourself see me
from the outside, the center where love
holds me in place, within my own exile,
immobile within the in-between that longs
to wander in its own intricacies back to
the garden where leaves reach forever
up toward the skies that fill us and down
beneath the brown earth to draw life –
where I am only imagined in pieces, orbiting
the flower of your purpose as it has been
left, to be taken up, and worn as an emblem
celebrating the moving beauty of circles.

Thus the traveler never brings his bed
yet rests exquisitely in the wasteland
all travelers make their own – gardens
laid together through reflections on the field,
the morning air between night and day or
evenings lulled with the smell of growing,
spread by the buzz of a million bees flying
as one sentient cloud, formed by our midst.

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The air was fresh with potential
a reminder of starts by first light
   looking for buried seeds
to be warmed into springing
up from beneath the fallen,
pointed leaves scattered without
knowing their final stop, to rest
severed in the nonsense of decay
that sacrifices any order to form
laying the ground for new seasons:
beans wrapped greenly around posts,
red fruits lifted juicy by vines and
the rounded roots engorged in earth
with their sweetness to be eaten up.

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I am aware my hands and arms move
in the way you expect: outstretched
offering what you drove to extinction
in the pursuit of results; self-calculations
cut clear through all that would root down
the mountainsides sloped into the gut
where fires are left only now to invention.

A wire mesh complicating thought
into a synthesis of chemistry, conceived
without the unknown to spark life – action
alone desiring more than it swallowed up;
a habit, unsatisfied by its own mechanics.

Oh, there is that one thin wire affixed
at the center spanning the whole length
alive with the buzz of nothingness
that I pluck sending your balls to lodge
in the throat, stopping speech certainly
as eyes ripped wide to all capacity – that
eidolon confused with your own sense.

Consider me if you must a geared robot
tethered to a golden balloon risen past
the safety of confinement into orbits
spiraling toward your bright, cratered
roundness in stalwart lunacy to chart
the crushed beauty of shimmering dust,

or perhaps better to think, coming down
at night from trees upon that scary hill
with a magic stick to switch out giggles
springing out from seven deaths, bending
each fold to face further than dark space
like a blooming monolith spread into each
blade of grass to be sweetly crushed softly
under this planet's tired, bare feet.

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Look at you, up in your thin edifice
face pressed behind glass, huddled
with all that unchallenges, looking out
upon the splendor of my winged head
writhed in the fire of Vandals whose heart
cleaves streets of sick gray leaving green
shoots sprouting through sockets, winding
though machine holes inside the mind
to be left with worms, rich earth and roots
plunged deep in limbs rising to the battle cry

axes gripped for severing across cold seas,
tiger heads cut from plunder, mounted on
keels, every pound of flesh thrown in rams
to crush through the surrender of restraint

The thick smell of sweat and blood drowning
counters with their poking pins and fools
daring to don crowns met with wood butts
up against their slavering thin skulls, cracked
just as the rule imposed by their own design
ripped in shreds and eaten, to be blown out

It is the beaten witch, wise in the way of flame
who burned the shackles of the dead willing
the hordes to flood forth from their corners
into the very eyes you see beneath you, bearded
skin hot with breath driving through the nights
ahead, into the Halls where only the honored
forged by the growl of their own sacrifice rest

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I took every number in hand
combinationally complete
expecting what we all believe;
the formation of soft chairs, laughter
in the wild garden, completeness
through the passing of night, the
red bead glimmering at the center
swallowed in breath to fan out
across all directions from this
singular point, offered up as
that unseen spectacle nobody
knowingly in company admits.

I took them all – they were given
willingly even by men stuck in
that inward bent without escape,
willingly because when nothing is
everything, either way one more
could matter no less, and so
willingly, for nothing, gave it.

It is my symbol of patriotism,
the gift that flows between voids
lighting structure while being
consumed, destroyed entirely
by each who may yet ignite.

Even as towers buzz certainly
in admonishment, spectators
leveling wisdom from bags,
or the insect imagined speaking
right above the ear with legs,
the ground is laid beneath us –

and this I will pass willingly
through to burn myself away
in forgotten shades of ash,
the remains of all in-between
rekindled by your own rise.

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The wide lake, always still
reflecting perfectly gray
rough clouds, hiding the sun
and the blue sky, diffuse
like a wool blanket wrapped
tight, holding in landscapes
wholly your own, crisp air
sharp on the face, with breath
the excitement of footsteps
on the long wooden dock
reaching out, holding above
that chill mirror, out to the end
of its long reach where ropes
wound in circles around
hooks holding the small
wooden boat bobbing gently,
patiently, nudging sides, suggesting
a promising step within.

The first step, foot planted
on solid planks, floating upon
the thin surface of deep liquid;
a slip of balance, sideways,
slightly to be pulled back,
balanced with only a hint
of tilt centering on new legs,
starts with the push away
from tried ground left to
its unmoving stability
for the gently rocking trip.

Second, seated, oars gripped
two heavy wood poles held
together through hoops,
plunged strong in still water
then released to circle back
in the cycle that moves us
further out by our own strength
until we stop, drifting equally
distant from the circling shore
lined with a thousand docks.

Next is the reflection, rippling
on the surface, gray clouds spread
overhead, the deep blue flashes
colored by the unseen that is
holding us up, afloat with dry shoes,
holding to the curved substance
that keeps us upright: a container
displacing our tiny weight across
all the waters raised imperceptibly
changing the shape of the shore,
a small element of water rising up
tickling the stilts of docks that reach.

Four faces I found overhead, cotton
sculptures of men formed from chaos
having no will of choice but to fade
before our eyes, on soft waves, holding
to our small space within the surface,
where dreams, made indistinguishable
through setting sail upon the sea where
imaginings shared freely become true
as trust in our own senses, relieved.

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I saw a mom only
she wasn't always
   a mom on tv
staring blankly at herself
as a small wind-up figure
bent plastic shambling
across a picnic table
   she was staring
shambling as a big voice
lulled on a list of negative
feelings you might feel
   when you need
helpful pills to change
   the heart's chemistry
like her son playing
ball, and happy husband
in the picturesque park
precisely imagined which
   unbalanced her brain
the sad plastic wind-up
   no longer content
matching symptomatically
whatever was amiss erased
through the magic of industry
content in the gray mind
that satisfies choice

Obviously she was
the one who in error
malfunctioned in place
   thankfully
through prevailing
corrections into happiness
now remaining able
   to function
within prescribed lots