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




Return to TOP