MATCHES

Your birthday scar
Kissed my hand
You are a star
And I depend

And cut away all the lies that I made
And you will see 
That I am nothing
In which to believe

Give me a place 
Deep beneath yours
Let time erase 
All the passing rays 
Of the one warm day last fall

When I brought to you
Thunderclouds
Alcohol
Light and drums 
And I kept from you the truth

When I killed for you 
Those two white swans
And I brought them to you
And I filled my lungs
And I spoke unto 
Your deafened ears
The lies I brought

Give me a place far from yours 
Let time erase
All that you are.


EPIGRAM

We run 
We fall
Like leaves into a fire
She parts the seas briefly
Allowing me to breath

Satisfied
She returns to sowing the earth
With the seeds 
Of the seas
To drown me

In the warm and welcoming deep
In the arms of these
Mistaken wives of peace

And so it will be
Until all that remains
Is our unwanted history

And so I will remain
Until she washes away
My failures and my shame

In a hymn 
In a church
I was read
Or I heard
That we'd be 
The kings and queens
In a land High above that is bathed in love

And I'd be goddamned if I did not believe
In anything I am told to believe
As much as needed to believe
To save my awful heart

So it will remain
Until she washes away
My failures and my shame

On the rain
Will drift away

So it will remain
Until she washes away
My failure and my shame
On the rain
Would drift


ACROSS AND OVER, TOWARD GREATER BARRIERS

If everything had gone as planned
No frail absolution in your shaking hand
Give up
It's my fault
I showed up 
Ten minutes past
3 O'clock AM
and I was late again

you landed in the broken glass
of what I had said
I did not see you there
Holding back 
Late night tv 
And you laughed
You always have

There was water in my lungs
Rain collected from 
Drops that called out your name
And the tapping on your window pane
The floor creeped your name that night
And sounds that passed
Through the water in my lungs
I'd sung winter for you 
I saw Chicago in winter then
And I knew 
You said
I don't need you
But you have got me
You said
I don't need you 
but you've got me


A MARKOV PROCESS

I awake
mid day

in the stench of
self-pity and vanity

and I walk to your apartment ashamed
Of what I had done and who I became

And you're the same
In that chair at your kitchen table 
Where you stared 
Recalling what had happened there
And recoiling in my presence 
Didn't you

You were wrapped in a blanket over you
Of faith and love and youth
Weren't you

When I spoke
My words were shrouded in smoke
and they rained percussion on your tin roof
and I swore and I promised I spoke the truth 
and you believed
didn't you

I had learned to hang myself 
On every breath you drew
As you had learned to watch yourself 
when I was in the room


TWO IF BY SEA

I awake 
Face down in a lake

Where you had sailed
For what had to be ten days

Where you made your decisions
And you calculated your tiny equations

Mistakes I've made 
Are far to grave to erase
25 of your worst fears

I washed up on the beach 
rejected by the sea
and waves pour over me
may you rest eternally far from me

Mistakes I've made 
Are far to grave to erase
25 of your worst fears

and I'd given up on you
and the phobia's that you led me through
you remained as  stain upon my breast
I remembered without effort all the horrors of the west
And you are the same as you've been