Hardened Season

my tomato plants are dead
each leaf a black reminder of cold ground
the vines have slackened their hold on the world
the fruit is rotten

winter is creeping into the air
the rain pouring in sheets
the crows sit on the wires across the alley
ruffle their feathers sending droplets to the street below

they call out to the gray clouds
now so close you could reach out and touch them
their raspy voices echo across the world
with glinting prizes in their beaks they fly furiously on

my cat at the window flicks his tail
making small clicking noises of annoyance at their tantalizing presence
he turns his golden eyes to me
and purrs his animal love to the wildness he remembers

I wrap my arms around myself
rest my forehead against the cool glass
watch the day darken
and wish passion was for something better than this

Block

these blank pages are confounding me;
they are surrounding me, hounding me.

staring at me in blankness,
mocking me with emptiness,
I search for words to mark up their clean whiteness;

blacken out the page with tightly packed letters,
scribbling ideas as fast as I can,

but this expanse of ruled lines stares back at me;
laughs out loud
at my attempts for literary revelation,
and compounds the ink in my hand.

I lay down my pen,
and wander off to find something to eat.

insects on a windshield

i see no city

nothing stretches before me
only the reflections of yellow highway lines
in headlights
rushing past my image in the dull glass

and the dimness of dashboard lights
cast upon the eeriness of your face
(like a green halo)
reminds me of

the shimmering distance
that connects between our silences
and the pulsing glow on the horizon
cannot shorten the breath
in between these spaces

and even if i could still love you
the destination would never equal
the sum of where we came from

a disturbed resurrection

she believed in Elvis
much more than she believed in god

even as the snake-charming priest
convinced her that virginity was a sin
in the back of a black van
with one broken headlight
on a summers night so hot
that even the walls had begun to sweat

the two big bays
(Mr. Henderson's prize mares)
stood in slow witness at the edge of the field
she could hear their soft throated calls
whispering to each other
as the priest attempted to split her open

as if feeling her insides was a punishment
for the fall from Paradise
and the sins of Eve

when it was all over
when she had stood up and smoothed her dress to her knees
and started her awkward march back home
under an indifferent moon

she let her thoughts turn South and drift
to the holy burning seat of Graceland

the lie in blue eyes

i remember your cruelty
washed in ignorance
i remember being neither dead
nor dieing
but folding under the weight
of your blue eyes

your sweet blue eyed treachery

here i made my home

and returned to it again and again
only to find the doors locked
and the windows dark
smudged deep with your fingerprints

if i can remember your cruelty
if i can remember your ignorance

o' god why am i here again?

Gone

i knew
my childhood
had ended

when i
no longer
believed
that anyone
would die
for my love

sexual predators

dieing cities suffering the last of pale moonlight

decaying

in the tangle of limbs
the gentle lattice work of window frames

cast on upturn faces
flushed

with temptation to flicker fingers
over the gentle humming
of predator songs

where shadows embed
themselves in words

and unused emotions
stand in witness
to the last violence
committed on these endless shores