vaguely edited SOC

your dreams
and I am stagnant with mud walls the smallest pool of water waiting the noon sun to be sucked to the sky and exist anew in a community of cloud vapor white fluffy boring except in angles and prism reflection -- a symbol of calm and relaxation. dull. sucked to the sky to become dull. where is my holy ascent? my machinal doves my crucifixtion my clarity my believers? why does the machine gun's rattle sound like the harsh terrored flapping of dove's wings? why do I dream the daughter of the man who no long inhabits my bed and

your dreams
I never meant to call you fool but where is my desert bollywood romance and you want me to be your naive admirer whom you drown in drugs and break her heart and don't you know that clouds cannot be drowned? and don't you know that I've lost my train of thought again and why can't I stay on track I hate this stupid book I bought in vanity and as such nothing good has come from it. Look at me I can't even write a stream of consciousness without pausing to think how absurd and I hate how down on myself I get when you aren't here I am sorry I need you to believe in me so badly, no I am not sorry

your dreams
you said my body was big enough
strong enough to shield
the world from the shattering pieces of my broken heart
but
shrapnel still makes holes in the barricades

and the barricade still bleeds and
eventually someone has to come out and rebuild or
come out and bury the dead.
the dead don't bury themselves
and yet--andyet--
I become the barefoot mother in the dirty, glass-strewn street
the mother who having no children, tends to all of them.
who carries dead bodies to the foot of the temple steps one by one

and yet and yet becomes the priestess who blesses and
prays for their white prism souls
becomes the janitor who interns their husks in the pauper's pyre
becomes the daughter who stands chained by her will to the city,
to stand against injustice and shelter the mothers
from the air strikes a broken heart in vanity makes

Your dreams
but I am stagnant cesspools of blocked ways and clogged drains.
I am exercising my right to fail and be miserable and i have been doing it far too long; I have become sick.

You dream
but I am unchaining myself from the gates;
the mothers can fend for themselves;
the temples can crumble with the priestesses inside;
the janitors can burn in their own furnaces--

you dream

but I will be sucked the sky, be a thundercloud
I will rain down my soul to flood the world with My dreams
and your dreams
will envy my broken heart

For Nora VI

Nora,
today I am not myself.
Today I am contemplating
the sale of my guitar
to line my pockets with silver
to make a film star's getaway
into Canada.
Nora,
today I am eschewing the physical Stranger
for the virtual.
Even my handwriting isn't mine.
I keep losing my train of thought like
she's not and
I'm not
quite where we meant to be.
Like lead in my blood, Nora,
just sitting at the bottom of my veins
slowly stopping a trickle
until I've simply gone blue.

And I keep losing my train
of thought like
she's not and I'm not
even gone yet.

Like she's someone I should still
be blanking for.
Nora
I think I'm realizing
that I am much happier
when I am alone.
But I keep losing my memories
like I am a drifter
and I don't feel like myself today
but I don't remember me anymore
because

I'm not like
she is
or she's not like
I am
and rising from it
hurts,
Nora.
I can't write myself out of me.

I am not myself today.
I keep losing my train of thought.

death tanka

time follows.
my father dies;
I, the stone-eyed daughter,
found grieving
behind closed doors

Let's Go Back to Church

the sky opened
forgiveness poured down
soft, wet, and virginal
no fire, no breath
our souls rose translucent
caught in webs of neon and city smog
"rise
we rise
we rise together"
the chant of mankind
"ascend and believe"
I closed my ears and denied them

"doubting thomas
will you doubt in eternity
when the sea swallows the land
when the flaming desert consumes
and the rain pours pours down?"

I opened my eyes to glance darting
at their thin lanky frames
streetlight angels preaching the rapture
upon our beds.
I opened my eyes and lifted my heart
for I thought
of this cold grey
beneath the Sound and
Chicago overtaken by the Michigan and
sand sand sand
blown into every crevice.
I saw the fish and the scorpion,
the crab and the fox
and my laughter, nature's bell on the wind,
my answer to their second coming.

I would find greater comfort for my land-weary toes at
the bottom of the ocean
flesh to nourish further,
and my soul free to swim
amongst the reef.
Greater comfort there than ever
a harp or angels risen in song.

I bade them go without me.

They balked as if incomplete,
stuttered and watched in fierce protest
as I dropped from the dock
and melted
into the first wave that kissed me.