SYLVIA

a life
turns dark

Sylvia knew this
saw this

the woods
turning dark

her
woods
turning dark

the gas
on

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MACHINE

the machine
presses and
folds
presses and folds

but I am forever
in my inner cave
too troubled and
too far away
to hear

here I speak with, listen to
a German voice
who insists everything
must recur, will return

that the spirit (or soul)
can stretch out
across the darkness
feel the power

await the hour
whose time need
be that of the
aforementioned machine

pressing and folding
sheets, pocket chiefs, space
itself, things
for blanketing
(the list
almost infinite)

AT LAST, NIGHT

one night
the lights went out
everywhere
and people were
astounded to
see the
stars

the least well-read
screamed in delight or terror
and those who
knew books cried
“this is
what Professor Hawking
has been
talking about!”

THE LIGHT

who cares
about the beauty
of a star going supernova
destroying untold civilizations
half of known space?

I think about the Franciscan priest
at Auschwitz, deciding to
volunteer himself for
terrible death
to save another

that place of grey death upon death
might have a candle’s light

MALINGERER

I craved the light

but the light
shunned me

and so
I turn
malingerer

singer
of darkness

at least
on the side
that will
win
(you
secretly believe)

WHEN THE TIDE COMES IN

I thought I would lie down
and die a little

you offered me dark flowers
but I did not realize how dark

a deep ocean
at the bottom of which
only sand

but shallower you go
sharper the rock
until you hit flint
which can
take off your skin

cut you as keenly as
the tooth of any shark

skin and tooth
and eye
of shark

same thing

I thought I would lie
down and
die a little

let
the sea take me
do
what it will
when the tide comes in.

BALLOON

BALLOON

“they all
float down here”
Stephen King, IT

evil swarms
comes in a wave high
as K2
the ground cracks open
the lens
is canted

but evil
being child of shadow
rejection, nightmare
can be
popped

like a balloon
a
smirking, lurking,
stretching, expounding, expanding,
fully
fleshing out

truly
terrifying balloon

NOT A SNAKES AND LADDERS UNIVERSE

death
wormholes

this is not, however much
appearances to the contrary,
a snake
and ladders universe

even when
we are making love
(the phrase used before and after,
more graphic Anglo Saxon
reserved for during)

we know
even with conception
this road leads nowhere

there are no portals,
points of exit,

for all talk against
the darkness
when it comes to our humanity
trail to see, refuse
to see any light

ENDGAME

the darkness
a kind of quicksand

I try to fight
but my light
is compromised

it flickers for a moment
as if remembering some
great hope, powerful idea

but absence wins, it has
too much pull
this negativity

and I sink
deeper and
deeper and

lose everything

BIRTHDAY POEM 3

powers are waning

but my brain still runs away with itself
thick with lurid Caligula fantasies
and I ask myself: what’s the location
of the grounded politics here?

oh this incessant sexual battle between angel and devil
why do they not just throw each other down from their
respective high horses, learn
to grovel a bit, fuck, cohabit?

what a great literary scene it would be of
these two in ( or on) a bed
getting down and dirty
taking time to negotiate
what is celestial,
poetic

in terms of bargain being
renewed: the one that started
this all, determined frame
of reference
how it would all fall, come down to our level
the great triadic enigma
of good, evil, and
simple lust for life, as pure energy of being