The Longest Breath

The earth and moon while spinning
struck together, in so
doing
sparked the heavens and lit
the sun.

In darkness one is
waiting.
Suspended, the sounds of a city
thrown backwards and heard
through an ocean.

Hammer meets nail meets wood.
There is no such thing
as the right color
if there is no
wrong color.

Now I know
even the shepherds
were Magi

I will sing the songs I know
and when I have sung them all
I will make new songs.

Her eyes cast the glow
of a workaday miracle
as my hand fills with camber

we are awed by what
we are not doing

Every bird flying
looking down
knows the feeling.

Chantey

the thoughts that restrain us
encircle and chain us
to anchors we haven’t
a hope’s shade to nudge

what can i offer
an empty-eyed scoffer
too weak to hold
anything but a grudge

when faith finds a fool
every kindness is cruel
i taste my own blood
on the seam of her lips

one holy breath
held in one living death
one broken oar
cast from all the tall ships

a coarse little prayer
limps through the still air
in darkness that knows
neither moon nor a star

an echo returns
a whisper that burns
a promise of something
that’s massive and far

with each passing day
i drift further away
from what is remembered
by only my bones

yet i’ll scull to know it
until I’m below it,
dressed for a wedding
in a garden of stones

Reckoning

dead fly on the
windowsill

one day
I will too
be still,
on my back and hard
and cold
into some hollow grave
be rolled.

brushed over, left,
and soon forgot;

dead fly and I,
we share
a lot.

dead worm dried on warm
cement,

do you know where your life
went?

glad to writhe a
sheen of dew -

some morning, worm,
i’ll be like you.

A Long Ride in a Yellow Vega

Yes she is my never mind
my come here you
left behind

girlie girl
with iron eyes
Zippo sparks
her lullabies
she’ll go though a fifth a day
just to do it, anyway

none of this is too important
none of this will matter much

tells me I’m an idiot
hates it when our fingers touch

leaves me every other week
comes back later on to crash
when she gets a taste for tongue
when she needs a little cash

she’s my always somewhere else
she’s my how’d I
wake up here

dreamt I was her Johnny Depp
riding amber waves of beer

isn’t worth the writing down
no one’d read it, anyway
history lets
the masses pass

She’s my looks
the other
way.