lent: the season for giving up.

A stone can be just
how smooth and black--
you would not believe.
I could give you one
to run my ankles
raw and red.
It is cold enough
and shallow, yet.

Growing
until I stopped
where I grew,
behind this house:
the creek
I wanted to own.
In its silt
I'd have buried myself
and you too--
after i'd cut out
your sour tongue,
taught you how smooth
a stone can be.

Did it hurt?

Nothing feels in our world:
Not the sparrow we gassed in the kitchen
that April when it frosted late. It wouldn't live.
I knew that, you convinced me anyway and
who wouldn't trust your strong voice, your large
hands, as you say, "It won't feel anything."
And what of that bird that we buried in Spring?
Who gets to claim its death--
the one who turned the oven on
or the one who left the room? .
Our lives are exercises in silence:
only perpetual pulsing knees make noise
up and down like a piston engine under the chairs.
What now? Who gets the surgeon sucked entrails
the ghost of could be, black as bile
silent as tongueless dogs.
Are they fed to those starving for anything?
Are they taxidermied, held in a museum
fiji mermaids:a nickel, an eyeful?
Are they captive in jars, swimming in
beautiful shades of amber, fostered
until, fully grown, they pull themselves out,
walk down the streets where we live
meet the eyes of who gave all they could:
Do I know you from somewhere?
When I put my hand on the stove
The skin bubbled in target formation.
It didn't hurt. No. Not that much.

Sexual. It's not

So, rewriting the poems backwards seems like some sort of half-brained scheme you'd come with on an acid trip, but I'll have to agree with Loren: it does create this sense of excitement and ultimately is a great trick to reorder your thinking. Who thinks backwards? And in this case, it does create a new urgency and somehow still retains almost the exact same meaning.


wanderings:
these mind stoppings.
there's no sister, sister,
they say sobbing
hot, mouth, stalking

talk to,
easy to?
youre so
youre so.
seems that,
that it,
it's just.
they say:sexual.
It's not.

It's not sexual

It's not
sexual
they say.
It's just
that it
seems that
you're so
you're so
easy to
talk to?

black eyes
fish lips
sick of
dumb chicks.

Hot mouths
talking,
they say
sobbing
sister
sister
there's no
stopping
these mind
wanderings.

SPAM MAIL (The Son of Minos and Itone, Daughter of Lyctius)

ed. note: This was the text at the bottom of an email trying to sell me penis enlargement pills. I just added the line breaks. I am still worried as to how they learned I love Ancient Greeks and that I need a penis enlargement


He created his sister,
Nebele,
but he was jealous of her accomplishments
and said she was but a woman and therefore his property.

It is believed that she appears to a chosen follower
as a young maiden dressed in white,
telling him or her a prophecy that must be kept secret.

Nebele created all things except human beings.

(His weapon is a club he makes
by breaking off the limbs of trees,
which subsequently die.)

Bush leads in the polls.

The son of Minos and Itone, daughter of Lyctius.

It is believed
that she appears
to a chosen follower
as a young maiden
dressed in white,
telling him or her a prophecy
that must be kept
secret.

He and his brother kill their victims
pinning them down on their backs and
drilling into their bodies.

(He pretends to assist a mother with her baby and
then quickly runs off with the child
when the mother is not looking. )

John Kerry soundly beat the president in the debates sweepstakes,
watch Bush fall back on charm and personality.