number seventeen (to come)

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                                                                                   The ringer of bells,

                 the happy boy,                                                                                                                              

                                                    the lover of love itself.

                                                       I was flummoxed always,

                                                                       baffled always,

                                                            that a soul so enormous,

                                                                        a will to love so huge,

                                                             could fit inside

                                                                  your little ounces of

                                                     feathers, flesh and bone.

number fifteen

                                                     number sixteen

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Number 13

I love you as big as the sky:                                                

                                                         number fourteen

 

                                                                              Bring light here,
                                                                              bring here the flame.

                                                                              Those words from my hand,
                                                                              once upon a time,
                                                                              when you were young.
                                                                              Bring light here,
                                                                              said my hand,
                                                                              while the darkness all around us
                                                                              tumored larger every passing year.
                                                                              Bring here the flame,
                                                                              I said,
                                                                              while you grew up
                                                                              and I grew more afraid.

                                                                              The more the tumor grew
                                                                              on people’s ignorance and bile,
                                                                              the more I lit the flames,
                                                                              clung tighter and tenacious
                                                                              to our love;
                                                                              the more I dragged out
                                                                              all the light I knew.

 

                                                                             And still
                                                                             the tumor swallowed us.

 

 

number eleven

(number twelve is still imprisoned in a barn. hope to retrieve it in summer)

                             Number Nine

Number seven

Number Three 

My mutant soul

 

 

wears thorns that only you

enfolded.

My impassioned soul

sprouts fires that warmed only you.

They’ve taken from me all balance                     

(this isn’t cruel?),                                                                                  

all blanketing

(this isn’t wrong?),

all meaning in the marking

of the hours;

left me shivering naked

in a timeless place.

Left me staring

raging

 

 

 

into empty space.

 

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The collection Naked in Cold Space, written in summer 2008. These poems have never been re-worked, but rather I’ve chosen to leave them exactly as I first wrote them in a small notebook, in various cafes and restaurants, in the first several months after my life as I knew it was destroyed.

Number One

Number Two                        

                       You’re gone.

                       My ugly soul is

                       naked                                                           

                       like my name.

 

                      You’re gone.

                      But we live in a rageless age,

                      and if I rage for us,

                      I will be ignored.

                      We live in a passionless time,

                      so that if I moan in the night

                      for you,

                      I will be prescribed.

                     All the clothes of love are gone,

                     and I live in a freezing

                     starless space.