fragment from a handheld device #1

there is a flavour of air, in each September,

that tips me down a rabbithole, now

more than twenty-five years long.

i greet it like the mother one must love.

 these lines directly inspired by Karuna Chandrashekar, at her blog Hysterics and Poetics

enlarged, enveloped, and allowed to breathe at Maekitso's Cafe

one does not stop loving

i'm not sure i have enough fingers.
one does not stop loving.

each of you i hold
in cupped hands, dreaming
and with each
dream
dream
dream

each pain and pinch and slap
each loss and lack
each shovelful at the foot
of the mountain

i hold you all, and my fingers
remember
remember
remember

sshhhh
i will hear no voices

but my meat remembers
meat
meat
meat

and the slap
of flesh on flesh

and the meeting of
meat
meat
meat

i say these syllables
into meaninglessness

i stare at my fingers

and i love you
all
all
all

nowhere is it said
that one must stop

and i will not.




.

september song

go to sleep.
draw the paintshades
down across your rivet eyes

go to sleep.
fold your bullseye head
under your switchblade wing

go to sleep.
let sweet lips of infant pity
kiss your kerosene tears away

go to sleep.

dream of flying.




dream of flying.

untitled

in the time between sleeping and waking, they talk. she sends him many small messages. the text is white on the small black screen. she sends photographs. he is online. they are connected. they talk. their voices are warm as breath. they touch with their candle eyes. they see with their bloodshot hands.


he wonders if this time is more real than the time of being awake. it is her voice in his ear. it is the heat where their skin joins. it is each hair of her head separate and distinct, its own small scent growing into his awareness. if he doesn't try, he can slip into this time and linger there. it is a time without ticks or taps. it is a time without befores or afters. he wonders if she will let him.

he tries not to try.


when he sleeps, he dreams of them. he dreams knowing that he is dreaming. in his dreams he is awake. sometimes he dreams he watches her sleep and wonders what she dreams. in his dreams he asks her sleeping form many questions and he tells her many secrets. he smiles and reaches out a hand to touch her. in his hands she is a fish, silver and quick like light.


he remembers that in the old words, quick means alive. the quick and the dead. cut to the quick. he feels a quickening. he is breathing deep, and quick.


when he is awake he dreams of the time between sleeping and waking. he thinks of sleeping and dreaming.


he is stretched. he is transparent with the stretching. he is running. he is running and not stopping. he knows where he is running. he knows why he runs. he knows who he is... he is gulping hot desert breaths. he is astonished by the length of days.


he does not exhale.