Concrete and Mist
I write ceaselessly about nothing and nobody sitting alone in downtown rooms I am the wizard of dust invoking the hours of a gemlike void an old alchemist at work in the permanent blankness of another strange dawn * in the sudden cold grip of a phrase I see old trees from childhood light dying forever over the houses a woman tossing her hair wrenching language out into silk and ghostcats and luminous clouds conjuring the eternal ache of the future that throbs in the poems' unreachable core * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ morning leaves its trash of flashbacks and dead poems where the town rises at my feet in wave after wave of the river's afterlight a hard wind slaps and slaps nostalgia crumbles like concrete under the weight of mist * the failures of alchemy poetry relationships all pile up at the end of nights in scrapheaps of black snow flickering lamps sputtering gas jets I cling to everything I don't have the phantoms of a changeless flux haunted by the obvious under the morgantown moon * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I deflect word after word back to the moon of memory's half closed eyes a black cry of silence beneath the faceless pages * where nights drain away down alleys under bridges into the relentless ache of dawn * and fingers of the minutes trace the phosphor of gutters the glory of clouds around this terrain of frozen creeks hollows a few pines, the breathless hills' Clue flames and the naked thighs of snow at the roots of that cry * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ this antilight of moments across the moon, the stream the limbs of sycamores this circle of Sundays around us already half vanished standing on windowsills, on riverbanks waiting * down alleys of wind toward the blue silence to sleep beneath these snows barely here as if breath and hair only remained * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ the river stares and stares at the moongrey streets a million old tears rip the mist apart my brain flares and quickly dies again in ashes and filth I black out the sky and jump into the white void of poetry that skins me alive like dreams failures the lips of women * I'm a mad old ghost drooling a skeleton of poetry dancing amidst the echoes of the long gone days that turned so quickly into sinkholes of oblivion * in my gibbering dotage I pine away at the sight of white boots dissolving into the dusk and perish in the afterglow of perfumes as I talk out loud to the walls and cough up bloody ink onto the moon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ the rush of twilights down blind paths to the gravity of images grinds away at the cold edge of late life where layers of silence settle endlessly like syllables of snow on bamboo over the dark sea of ro6ftops * water laps incoherently icicles glitter like loveletters or suicide notes dreaming of unending eros and silence my scrawls are all huge and drunken written in body parts caught in headlights the gleaming chrome of Saturday nights long buried under the tonnage of sunday clouds * between snow and snow I give my soul back to the black words of life I leave nothing for anyone between wind and wind silver voices call me to the river's night ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ powerlines whip the black buildings insanity hums along the falling sills the streets are a grid of pits where parking lots drift under the starling-choked chimneys * pears cinnamon lipstick, coffee-soaked croissants the bite of whiskey on rainy nights all come back in rush after rush of the unreal * pissing on the pages listening to the sizzle of lyric fires going out staring into windows of oblivion I dream on stupidly of greater and greater glories * a drop of dreamlight hits the brutal concrete a lifetime's imagery in a breath of neon. between the lines notes of fog shadows of lamp posts between the trees a glimpse of torn stocking the dark silence where poems end * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ behind moons smoke and glass river upon river of light drunk on hair and poetry bitterness and bliss under the falling ice of pages * a lifetime gutted the world's unyielding hole ever receding broken lines in the long afterburn of birth permanent blackness of morning noon and night * words alone in space like lost astronauts voices of crows from autumns ago in reveries of alcohol and paragraphs pastel and crystal of memory and perfume coffee and silence of endless wet Sundays ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ this astringency incoherencies of the barely possible sentences like snowmelt underground unspooling tendrils of eternity dissolving into evening's lost trees days like shadows on the moon hard and white thrashing with language and the river and the far hills cold and fey * images of december stare at the river's old steel dissolving into dead end alleys thick with life's stench and trash in the dark glitter of days the wind screams into my skull I look down into the gutter that is High Street words wait there to be written in steam and lipstick across the last pages of mist and lamplight ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ black stockings of the clouds across the moon old age comes hobbling down these unspeakably fuckt streets the town is covered in ghost hair I am drunk on rain and rooftops and the smell of old screen doors waiting for death to sit on my face * moments of apocalypse reveal nothing but themselves moon and wind and the far stars another earth beneath me violets and stones frost and the promise of sleet falling on the deadest of leaves ^ skies marchblue unfolding from this solitude of cut crystal the sapphire moment of snow lost in the avalanche of sparrow notes between parentheses some deep reckoning where afternoon fell from the bridge the future brief and blank