23 for 23 hours more

The rails frozen in lapsed time

Invite my feet to kick at the chipped steel

My cold eyes drift down the depth

And my breath curls among possibility

Each new day I succumb to what I became

Empty

out of my death cavity
will rise a new visage
this sea of stars
cast this out
faggot
tell me more of your shroud
tell me of the time
and the minutes hour
the cascading faults that
spring eternal
from the misty eyes of foreplay
credit with my fist the new
the ancient shall be forgot

Strained Youth

I’ve turned the seasons around
in the palms of my expertise
the kale refused to become anything less
but we searched the infernal depth
and brought the answer back to a question
they will call us children
and I will mirror a laugh
a laugh miraged in the faith of history
show me again, O great teacher
bring me to where the droplet will rise
deliver me

The Greatest Mountain

my fist hurts today, the rain lingers and spits like a battered lover
if I were a child I would pick at the scabs and watch the blood pattern
back over hairs too fine for significance and trickling spats of warmth
but I am not a child, nor am I old
I am what they would call a naive youth
neither here nor there, not really coming from anyplace
and headed somewhere that is even less tangible than possibility
my fist hurts today, and the greatest mountain sighs

Cane

I could leave this broken down old man
leave him to rot in his own waste
leave his wrinkles, his bones
leave the memories carried from the feet to the hairline
and all the myths between
leave the watery chambers of his eyes
leave the silence stirred in with the morning coffee
leave the pages fogging his childhood
I could leave this
and that is what frightens me