As A Child, I Said Summer

As a child, I said “summer” and took it to mean that the slow, sweet passions would reveal themselves to each heart in its time.

I went looking; a rumor would lead me through sunsets, which warmed me like a promise.

A year or more would pass this way. In the night, others would walk by with burned-out stars in their pockets; I didn’t notice.

One evening, I left my youth behind, a gift for shadows.

In certain faithful records of that time, I could read the tension in myself: the dreaming and the knowing, the pain of turning away.

As a child, I said “summer”. As a man, I sing a slow, sweet song, where the words reveal themselves to each heart in its time.

Ruckkehrunruhe

We two were summer

once

***

We two were madness

dancing in the blood

***

We consumed,

assuming the nights

would feed us forever

***

Starving, I ponder the sun.

Adronitis

At dawn, I turn my face from the sun

So at night, I can dream of the light in you.

***

When will “sweetness” be more than a word

I use to guess at the light in you?

***

Even children who laugh at the quiet stars

Talk in their sleep about the light in you.

***

I envy the evening in its blushing joy,

Flushed at the thought of the light in you.

***

Happy the poet who forgets all his songs

Save the song he sings of the light in you.

Exulansis

Love is a false cartography

***

For as many times

As we’ve charted the stars

Between our names

***

I’m still lost on these roads at night

Lachesism

In a word: darkness

In a kiss, the taste of ash

***

To yearn is to deserve nothing

***

In this moment, a breaking

In your eyes, a going-away

***

“Dream” is another word

For presumption

Kuebiko

Blood-drunk, we stumble,

Singing murdersongs,

Confessions,

Walking ragged maps

Of violence

Across this city night.

***

Shall we sleep off

This madness,

This sweet, bloody stupor?

Will a clue

In our dreaming

Show us the light?

Night Music

Where I am from, it is custom

To bury the dead with a star in their mouth

So their songs can’t be told apart

From those of the nightingale.

***

Nights past

We slept

In a net of music

***

Years later, I learned

They simply wished to know

If the sweetness of their words

Had made a difference.

Four Attempts At Anecdoche

There are little fires

Burning brightly all around:

The night is still so cold

***

I bring forth the sun!

It is just another coin

In someone’s pocket.

***

I think we all dream

The songs we sing to the waves

Will lull the sea to sleep.

***

Each soul, a rare bird,

Sings a song to break your heart

Or get lost in the sky.

Vermodalen

They thought they saw

The secret fire

***

But it was really just a Tuesday

***

And for all who have looked

God in the eye

***

You can buy it on a postcard

***

I felt like taking

The bluewashed sky

***

And use it to paint my soul

***

I mentioned this in passing

You scoffed

***

“You poets, how original!”

Chrysalism

Let me dream

While ponderous things

Are decided

***

Let me be

A child ignorant

Of fate

***

Let me live

While the world

Holds its breath

***

Let me write

A history

Of rain