The spine bone and the yucca dry
in the sun a shadow cuts
of an eagle circling overhead
whose shriek the canyon echoes.
New grass blunts the stab,
but the gravel slope holds shallow roots
and the desert waits, the winter stream
must drain into the sand.
So light drips down the canyon wall
the raptor's blue eye circumscribes,
shining green of river, red of clay
and brown scrub trembling in fear.
The eagle tucks its wings, and dives.

Cracked and dry

boot pounded dirt packed

down, gladly crushed

Red stone trail

I thank for holding me up,

taking root

not only mine, but goldenrod

that each May sprouts

up new to thrash

its fists in the wind,

like an infant.

 

I meet them then and know them

only as shoots,

always surprised to breathe.

I walk with them

and in the winter

walk where they were,

in tribute.

 

At the top of Spyglass ridge

I sit for hours looking through

the rosewood bushes,

along electric tower

lines falling into and over

the rim of the canyon,

out of sight.

 

Shards
under heads of barley
climb up over the summer
to hide the upturned
dirt in a forest
of stalks, to reap
at the harvest to leave
a clean plot.

Roach legs writhe on matchbox walls

stained yellow smoke except white under frames

where our pictures used to hang.

Piss is peeling away the paint

Mold spews from the ducts

Old soot still crusts the window

they can't wipe off.

 

Phantom faces

lapsed on the rent

float through the halls

when they are asleep,

half remembering footsteps

reenacting paths that no longer lead

to the same bathrooms

or the same beds.

When the lights flick on they suck back up,

into the vents.

 

 

Gasp at the first

escape from the cage

blue in the lips born

rises a small

light left in the sky

sparks in lungs somehow

In stone asleep

in a dream face down,

mess of limbs locking

cold in the air,

all fumes outside

giants watch

red light smokestack

burns day and night,

on and off,

I never knew why.

 

Out the window I dropped to the street

traced all my steps, each footstep receding

deeper into blue haze.

Does it hover
on stilts in the channel on black
that glows dim ten miles
away at the end
of towering light projected
on churning black
that weighs me to the bluff
against the wind?

I think I see fog
curl above, giving way
to forever dark and
forever dim stars forever
away.

Thirteen thousand up in a steel shell
white-knuckle gripped with wind
The door blade swung,
sucked me toward it,
made me kneel.

 

I hung off the threshold of nothing
gazed through wide-eyed,

almost wider than the world

colored with the white-capped waves
and striated with clay peaks
the tombs of many venerable and nameless
dead, on the margins,
and beyond, blank endlessness
sliding off the edge.

They shoved me out. I caterwauled
and came to face the blaze above.
It tugged me up, expecting
none of flesh in its domain,
but I, still stuck in time,
was dead weight. So it cast me out
down into burnt land below
who rose, and faulted open.

I asked that she stay. I knew if she left,
she would steal something. She laughed
and said I am a creature of the moon,
and must go where he bids. I sighed.
I know I am no planet. When I rise
I hold no hope to stay suspended. I approach,
and just as quickly recede.
So I told her go. But show
the same face tonight, when you return
to me. So she stole
away through the spaces in the shutters,
the way she came.

It can't be stolen if nothing is owed
No more than a second steals when it ends
No more than the sun steals light when it sets
No more than the low tide steals from a stone,
by leaving it where it is. So why feel robbed?
That I was weightless at the apex,
then had to heavy to descend?

These people like nothing
more than an audition.
What they like is to lock
you in and watch, then

go stalk through hangings

and thoughts, only cufflinks
and handshakes
and grins.

These people prohibit
any color but grey, and any posture
but standing up straight. A solitary square
window in the cell remembers: wants again
ash, flame.

To want the past
before the bomb
before the sudden
flash of light that
sunders all and cinders
all to ash
is pain.

For eyes past milk
galaxies will never see,
having been burnt, nor
bones after cremation
from their urns intact, emerge.
No, murder brands enduring
a silhouette in mind,
the black of contempt.

Why stare into plumes billowing up
to be condemned forever?
You can have no revenge
but to forget.

Sea to sea
face to face
I traversed
descended
Mountain to flat, then depth
Gathered sunsets
and rises, red light in
the mind, just a celluloid
stain now, smoking
under the bulb.

Of when the cloak of night
flapped slower as
I sped against
the wind. Dirt crested
like surf above my head,
I at the foot, sky obscured
by something altogether blacker.
Only light was from
a thin vein of men,
spilling up against the current, each
alone in its cell,
flame-eyes scanning ahead.
The fir forest murmured words in the wind.

Colder than cold was
the road to the peak
in the circling night.
Colder than cold were the frozen
tears from the sky, and softening ice.
And slicker than slick did
they flood the road, that barely gripped
under packed snow.
And faster than fast did I have
to gun down the slope,
uncontrolled.

Muscles in her face
contract crosswise,
as if hiding anger
with fake indifference.
She is too proud. But her skin is thin,
like scum. I can see
veins bursting out.

Without bones the tendons have no anchor.
She tries to tense and they only drift,
and fray into the sand. I can see--
she wants to be a league deep
where no one can see. But whatever she covers
dredges back up. Her veil rips,
and slips into the sand.

Once, I saw a placid patch,
wading in the shallows. I bent
to skim it, and it wrapped around.
It was a piece of plastic,
as clear and flat against the sky
as the sea. Maybe she was glad
to have a graft of skin. I turned,
and threw it back in.

Shards of rock past the beach
accrete, to make a crescent shield.
No wave ever swept so high
as to submerge the arc.
In glassy pools around my feet
frenzies a pack of leopard sharks,
frothing under frost, til breach
their black fins, tooth sharp.

Slate, limestone

veins slit-silver veined
Mud, mud once skin, slid, now
mud, once mountain, now heap, now mud
Paper thin, cut, paper
flower, petal thin
Summer old,
fall fate to pile up,
bare.

Nectar drip
collect in dregs
Refrain endure
as sweet liquid forever
dry not into a stain.

So many soft colors once in
eyes entered me, just to petrify.
No more
Remain

It can't be enough anymore.
The spring is running dry
No river laps the canyon,
and the ridge is bare of oaks.
Just sulfur urine waves stain
and stink the range's skirts; now
sheets of flame fly on wings
of desert wind, to flank the peak.
Now the song of birds and crickets' chirps
are all defunct. The needle
cannot prick the vein, too thin
for want of blood.
No rivers, only riverbeds
like eyebrows on the moon
No tears left to shed
for the infirm, wasting in her room.

You flit, like an insect
to flame, cutting spirals
in orange to claim
a little heat. For what?

For all around the source I watch

spiders lurk to capture what
the candle fails to burn.
To enter flame, ignite
and turn to smoke.
For what?