Elle Se Déverse

Sometimes I hear a thing,
throw myself in a hole,
clap hands over ears
and sing

loud enough

to fill the Dom where I first fell in love.

And when that isn't enough,
I lie to beautiful women.

I tell them three years
when the timeline was eighteen months

because

I am so sure
I am so goddamn sure
I can change it.

I would be lying again
if I said I didn't miss you

and still be lying if I said
it wasn't easier.

I would be lying if I said
he isn't better to you, for you,
than I ever would have been.

He won't judge you,
or begrudge you,
I would have because

I am still wondering
how you can look at anyone but me.

I am so glad you will never kiss me like that again.
The last kiss should always be the moon
pulling the tide from the earth.

But I would be lying still if I said
I won't be the midnight secret you share with your daughter
when she is questioning her blossoming sexuality,

or the tear on your cheek
when you finally let fall for another woman

or secreted away in long-ago letters
where your favorite letter is "L"
and you can smell me in the Moroccan wind.

So live and love, and go knowing
I only ever lied about one thing,
because I couldn't bear it to be true.

Maybe when I reach heaven
I won't write your name
in clouds across the sky
but when I reach the ground
I'll immortalize your visage
in something as tangible as love.

Plant Poem; Elliott Bangs

Once my love was kudzu
Somebody dropped a seed
and ran;
It was a weird miracle
and then just a problem

My love has been the blackberry.
It seemed to you to grow up overnight,
but only because a year passed
between your glances. By then
it had swarmed the whole neglected yard -
It wrote scars on your arms to remind you that
it was all sweet enough
till you fell into it

My love was the dandelions
obsessively sowed by the wishing of kids
amounting only to some splotches
of Roundup;

It was the volunteer tree
of unknown species, that grew
way, way too tall, until one day
it exploded in the power lines,
the end.

1111

It's New Years now
the year has turn
and the snow has leaked into my boots.

We're spinning in the slowest circle
on the fastest orbit known,
mewing a melody
that threatens to take us to the sky.

o red winter star
shine on with me
light up all I see

Show me a life full with
incorrect timing and muddled data
-this is all I know of love-
but your voice, clear as ocean water
and mine, soft as a war machine

The Funeral, Part II

We lie unguarded
awake and torn apart
back to back
under unrelenting starshine
all to do is close our eyes.

I am not an imaginate,
though I may be a figment;
when I was young I thought
I might grow up to be a fire truck
now I am young,
I want to be a real boy
so I raise a wooden gesture
and soldier on.

Forearm to table
forehead to forearm
you exhausted me with possibilities -
you dreamed while I slept.

Rolling over in sunlight -
I seem to remember August, green,
but awake it is January, gray gray gray.
Sleep! Sleep no more!
Honor Darling shall sleep no more.

The Funeral, Part 1

Milesly Rose

is dead.

Long live Milesly Rose.

What is This Place?

shut the door,
don't say a word
set your signal fires
before the dawn rises
come back here
and put me in the dark

I'm losing my faith
you're using your fist
your fist loves my face
I'm in love with its kiss

put your hands up
crack apart your chest
tear out my very heart
replace the very best of me

fragment

tell me all your loves, love
and I'll drown them in the black, black sea