the goblin

long breaths between words

tracing floor tiles with my gaze

did you know if you close one eye 

look through your fist at a corner

you can trick your mind into seeing

the ceiling coming towards you?

 

accusation, blame, How Could Yous--

yes, i say, i see how this caused harm--

sorry, that is to say, how I caused harm--

 

well, it seemed pretty normal to me

at the time; only in my head, obviously.

i cannot raise my voice in self-defense

without adding insolence to my sins:

 

 i plead guilty, and find the punishment

 is to plead guilty, forever.

 

you know what else is on that list?

disobedience, the sabbath, murder, gluttony.

we pick and choose the ones to name.

let's all recite it back now, liturgically: what a shit i am

in my head

behind my back

to my face

whatever. say it with feeling, please, everyone.

 

once upon a time i thought i'd suffocate, so

i talked myself through the claustrophobia:

see, there's air here, i'll be fine,

i cannot move, but i can wait.

calm, go back to sleep, and

when i wake, it will be ok--

 

i look up, looking sad, because i am

contrite, because she needs me to be: 

clear my face of wincing,

of any grimace that might beg

for mercy, which would commit the crime

of withstanding her righteous blows.

 

it's hard to feel pity for someone

who's doing such a good job of it themselves--

but who cares? i do feel sympathy for her

expressed against myself, the antagonist.

 

how dare i steal from you

myself! how dare i act like an owner.

maybe you'd want it someday, and 

anyway--it's yours! look how i caused

tremendous harm; how i wounded you

by taking myself for myself

after saying you could have me.

  

a long time ago, i remember wanting her

despite myself, before she started hurting me.

now i force an image of my want for her

despite myself, to keep her from hurting--them.

 

she thought i loved her--but now,

tragically she feels dumb for having stayed:

it seems i have nothing, or not enough

to offer her, after all. how bad for her!

 

everyone, or nearly so, in prison

thinks they are innocent, wrongly held:

the true victims. so i do not protest

my innocence, which i know to be false--

 

now i confess my confession's shortcomings.

see how defensive he is, she says, how sullen

and unrepentant! --i am standing here

doing nothing, which too is a crime.

 

a morbid curiosity:

how hard can she strike me?

she's hitting pretty hard, but 

i brace for what she's holding back.

i lift my eyes; but the mountains hold no love

for me. the sea, even the sky, glower too.

 

the world is dark and new. i am a goblin 

who yesterday was a prince, still living

in the palace of a kingdom that loathes me.

my spirit tells me i am still a human, but the mirror

now only grunts and slobbers like a thing accused.

 

Epilogue

 

well. hate on, you mongrels, you shriveled husks

who've never loved. i'll stay and eat this fetid meal

second after second, year on year; bide my time

until my wretched goblin-spawn can flee

your cloying, pawing grasp and find 

whatever lies beyond your bitter gates.

cast your mud,

land your harshest blows, 

spill my blood:

i know who i must be. 

 

all your angel-voiced hates 

are senseless, desperate, clanging gongs to me. 

oh, rattle on, weak souls. i will regrow 

these pounds of flesh you claim. 

i will find the light beyond you.

i will find the light beyond you:

i will sleep and when i wake then 

i will find the light beyond you!

2020

faces

 these lying faces

 all mask no soul:

 

 this one face-on is a skull,

 from the side, a weeping child

 blue eyes looking full of tears

 even when they aren't.

 

 my soul begs: no more, no more,

 take me away from this--

 

 how can i say this?

 you are a ripe fruit

 juice running down my chin

 these others, a bite of air.

july 2023

marriage therapy

she wept for two days

and in the margin it was lightly theorized

he may have trauma, too—but can he

please dissociate, help her inner child

from the third person: he must have been

so awful to you, he says about himself; he is 

so sad for you, he says from a wince, waiting for

himself or her to wound him with fresh blame; 

now will he please shut the fuck up and pretend

they are both hoping for a better decade.

a whole decade! another She told him

it would probably go on like this for five years

because of stubbornness; because of Church;

but She couldn’t wait for him. ok;-- he'd said. 

the calendar slips past our hearts, leaving scars

on everyone, it seems. he hands across the box of tissues

hoping she sees compassion on his blank face. 

june 2023

Doctrine

 Mortify the flesh

forever: so

I will die with these desires

frustrated, unsatisfied

or else condemned—

there is no path with joy.

Was I born to offend God?

Is life only penance?

Seems wrong;

but, broken that I am,

maybe I wouldn’t know.

Let the spirit lead you;

in salvation, be free of guilt;

et cetera; ok. —But

that doesn’t explain for me

these valleys of my soul

these continents in my heart

created only to see

if I can destroy this part of myself

again and again

forever.

may 2023

unkind

 It was unintentionally unkind 

 of that girl I dated

 for a year—years ago, how many? eighteen?—

 to cleverly point out the water towers:

 round, industrial things, steel scaffolding

 with short cone tops, capping

 every tall building in New York.

 Two marriages and five kids, between us

 and still the water towers remind me

 of a perfect spring week with her

 making art, making love, in her posh flat.

 I’m older now, less attractive, beaten down,

 “moth-worn,” Orwell would describe,

 and we haven’t spoken in years.

 How tragic that the happy past

 seems so much further up and closer in

 to the Heaven we imagined than today.

april 2023

last echo

 there's nothing left.

 i wake at 3:36 with you

 in my dreams, ever so briefly;

 i hear of you from voices

 that pretend to be gods.

 i look for news about you,

 consider reaching out:

 is she ok, why did i--?

 but even in the dream you were silent.

 so in cowardice, or out of care for you

 (why is it so hard to tell)

 i pray for you, old lover,

 and never say a word.

feb 2023

Locks

 I had this thought

 ten years ago, now

 and I still have it

 from time to time:

 here, I’ll share it with you:

 we are all locks,

 unlocked by words,

 and you never know what they might unlock.

 

 We go about the day,

 washing dishes, tapping buttons,

 driving here and there,

 & never consider every second

 we balance on a knife edge

 between ourselves and something

 else—perhaps mild, perhaps severe.

 Here are the words, anyway, and

 Click!

 “Are you the next of kin,”

 “We regret to inform you,”

 “Congratulations!”

 “I’m sorry”—“but”

 “I’ve been trying to reach you”

 “We need to talk”

 Click!

 We come unlocked.

 It could happen anytime.

 We could do it to ourselves.

 The words could reflect the real

 or the imagined, without difference.

 Here is the combination:

 Click!

 You are laughing

 you are weeping, you are

 despondent, or overjoyed

 or pensive, melancholy, ecstatic—

 it took seconds.

 And so, you’re welcome:

 this friend now lives with you, too.

 I have unlocked the idea

 and let it roam about you.

 It will come up to you some night

 unbidden, recall to you itself—

 Click!

july 2021

field notes

 Lunch went down too fast, 

 and I burped. She thought

 I’d growled—started barking

 ferociously. I’ve had several

 human relationships like that.

 

 Flowers are basically vaginas

 so I like to think maybe porn

 if we were sufficiently removed

 could be considered a bouquet.

 On their anniversary, the aliens

 buy each other a Playboy.

august 2020

the picture

 once i was a picture

 of impenetrability

 ;

 only a picture

 paper-thin, actually 

 fragile as your breath

 &

 mounted on a frame

 drawn so tight i was

 pierced by light.

november 2019

bloodtrace

 I would trace your blood

up from your feet, following

the lifeline of your veins 

my fingertips on your skin

so light, they are only vibrations,

they are the thought of touch

without being so, directly—

up the curve of your body, following

the purple river to its source

and there my hands as spirit dive

to caress your hidden heart within,

hold it gently, calming back

the wild hairs upon your soul

offering only my slow & silent peace—

up the pulse of your neck

mapping the course of this river

running up along your throat

sending icicles and a gasp

back down your spine, then gently:

with the breathlessness of ghosts:

to slip behind your eyes—

up from the shadows of your mind,

carrying with us only this moment

holding on to our impenetrable joy

which pumps through us like blood:

and this I trace, tense as a surgeon,

delicately intense, hands upon you—

in a vivid memory. But I don’t,

I can’t even face why, but now

don’t dare, don’t touch, I don’t

even begin to reach for you.

Then, you shift your weight, and

under the conference table

I cannot see your foot;

the committee talks about a case,

I laugh lightly at something you say,

and pretend I am not—this.

november 2019

run maggot

run

maggot run

fingerprints in the silver cross

throw it down, throw it

gutter-puddle down; run

maggot run

spittle-slivers, dog-slobber drawn back

across your chin: run

dark, wild, horseman frantic.

light seeks you out,

smells your faith like hunger--

run, run!

silent, grasping now

a house-corner, hidden from the light flood

in the streets.

behind you! from spire windows:

rough-sewn embroidered robes,

night wind flowing through the upheld sleeve;

run, maggot run!

and your charge

left by the rails,

shambled hair and

staggered in a world of chemicals,

in fragile rain

stumbles, stumbles, one step--

run, maggot!

metal, law, divine

engines wait for no flesh.

run maggot

run!

june 2011

root cellar

Sometimes I stumble and find myself
lurking near some root of regret:

memory of a time when all I had to do 

was apologize, swallow pride, walk up stairs

to dinner, to renewed laughter, to life.

I never made this choice, I whisper

in a panic--first in alarm and desperation

at what hellscape I have unfurled but

then in fear and recognition of the thing 

from which I have been hiding all along.

There never was a time in which I said,

"No longer that, now this!" and felt joy:

neither at the start, nor at the end of--

I only know I longed for what it could be

and later dreaded climbing up those stairs.

What's in the cellar can't be killed:

not so much because of what it is but I

cannot even face it; I have never faced it;

I am too much a coward to even observe

the great harm my cowardice has caused.

For example, here is a girl who will live

her whole life never remembering what it was

to have Mom and Dad downstairs together,

maybe listening to the radio, maybe laughing,

maybe praying together, maybe having wine.

And let us peruse some aisles here of grief:

the secret silent tears young boys have spilled,

nights of agony for some middle-aged woman

who lost her husband to an unobserved thought,

starting over, folding ends upon each other.

Add to the basket this leafing plant of shame,

of dashed expectations and hopes for all who knew

the promise of those earlier years. Emotions peak

and ebb, and sour, and become a blank stare: exactly

how it is I languidly arrived in this dark place.

I'll do it all again. Lazily I raise hopes all around

and lazily I dash them down: on accident, I think,

but never say, as if it mattered. The pain I caused,

I numbly hope will free some souls from this dumb loop.

The root twists into my dry soil and I look away.

Sitting silent, sitting still, eyes unseeing glaze across

a crashing wave of time: I do not move. I do not move,

and even this is causing harm. Glancing up, I glimpse

a child's face; my own young dirty fingers digging dirt--

recalling my small fist's delight in snapping shallow roots--

1/21/2026

IF THEN ELSEWHERE

IF (he had needs OR a need for needs OR NOT needs

FOR (

someone else's property

a critique of another human

condemned Pittsburgh row houses

vacant lots with concrete pads, overgrown with sour-smelling weeds

sneering so hard it makes the makeup wrinkle

)) --note: i the selfish asshole proclaim

THEN (howl grind fifteen years of emptiness plus 

WHILE (how many longer?)

they are capitalizing on a scream of loneliness

we're all in the same boat but are we

there's a company at fault somewhere or should be

)

ELSE (mashing a cigarette into his pain) 

WHERE (a human in a money suit

tear your eyeball out and give it to me

goop hand into brain scoop scoop

rip it all out until what's left

doesn't lust, doesn't want, doesn't

give or care to be given a fuck)

END (this)

11/30/2024

Gallery of the Grotesque

black feathered wings stretch out, and out; in rigor mortis, held by hanging wires above


workbenches topping thin-wire cages--no occupants but bones: artifacts


whisper "how long ago?" to still snarling forms of passionate threat, mid-strike, mounted


upon the desks: once-bright knives and weird contrapts, chemicals in disarray, charring runs


where sinister or mournful acts once took the stage-- clatter shatters thick silence


it is only papers underfoot; only the complaint of ancient floors;


a fury of upturned books and broken glass on stairs that wind toward some looming fenestration overhead, overcast with gloom


from glass marbles in a lizard's head to the coarse fur of some clawed paw


wainscot below deep inset panels; dusty light from mouth-blown panes in painted iron muntins


smelling air with after-odors of the chemical decay and stares that silent scream


why is there no door?

11/5/2024