Untitled Poem

Words curdle
like milk.

*

Photographer unknown

Undone

For he undoes me, you see?
My dress, my flesh,
it's come undone.


Song by Nina Simone
Poem by me

*

Poem

I did not ask for this -
the endless night
left at my doorstep.

*

Poem

Untitled

I lost you
in the dull hum of twilight,
searched
cutting my hands
on the rocks.

The blood
left behind
was licked by the wolves,
their feral hearts
clamoring
in the dark.


Photographer olya-o

Poem written 2015.

More of my work can be found here.

*

For You

Poem written 1/2015
*

Poem

Untitled

Child, 
what do you know
of despair?
For I have worn it
like flowers
tressed
in my hair.

*

Photographer Chan Ming
Poem written 1/2015

An Awful Thing

Untitled

There is always
an awful thing
waiting for you 
in the dark,
the trick
is to be
the more terrifying
of the two.

*
Artist Denis Forkas
Poem written 1/2015

(Another) Old Poem

Arrival

In the square of moonlight
the trapdoor 
opened. Nails
now rusted
no longer held sway.

Outside, the wind
held its breath
as what slithered up from below
readied itself for seduction.

We listened in the straining dark,
listened to the world
list, groan, and bend,
then slowly split itself wide
to what came.

We knew the night
was undressing,
knew that, afterwards,
our bodies would never 
be the same,
knew that tomorrow the sun
would shine
a different light.

*
Photographer unknown
Poem written approx. 2005

Poem

Untitled

My skin
a palimpsest
of every word
you've ever uttered.

*

Painting detail from 2002
Poem written 12/2014

Poem

Aftermath

This is not where you expected.

You landed here in a fit of rage-
driving while the moon ticked across the sky,
while the dew collected on the blades in the field.
Whatever he'd said, you cut it at the throat,
then cut apart 
what was left of your heart.
A house can only hold so much blood.

Now morning has burned away and revealed
a deserted landscape.
Those that once lived here,
gone in some unseen event.
Only a few graves
and the occasional lost dog remain.

Your hollowed chest should feel hurt for it.
Only a dead woman would feel nothing.
But all day long the dead go about their way.

*
Photographer Feeling The Green
Poem written 2014

Little Poem

Untitled

He broke me 
the way some men 
break horses - 
with pain 
and persistence.

*
Photographer unknown
Poem written 2014

Latest Poem

Drought

For the last year
I've eaten nothing
but cinders for breakfast.
Burnt words piled on plates,
not a lick of rain
to sooth my cracked tongue.

Outside,
creatures go on bleating 
and bleating
while the sun above
never ceases its staring.
It can't stop seeing
what it's seen.

My hands, a tattoo of ash,
fold and rise
as if to beg,
but my brittle heart 
has hardened
and I cut
the nearest throat,
desperate
for the quenching,
not caring 
that it's blood,
not caring
whose it is.

*

Poem written 11/2014
Photographer unknown

Poem

Untitled

She didn't last the night.
The blanket that held her
was standard hospital issue,
white, worn and frayed.
The orderly
took it down to the basement
where tomorrow it will be washed,
folded and stacked with the others—
these quiet ferrymen,
who circle in on themselves,
hold and wait with
infinitesimal patience
under the hum of lights
that never go dark,
never stop illuminating
what no one
wants to see.

*
Poem written 2014

Old Poem

Catastrophe

The words they'll use to describe
what happened.

Believing to have articulated
what a tragedy that befell,
what horror was visited upon.

See how it deafened the morning?
Grass stopped growing,
weeping children
fell silent.

The words they'll use to describe
what happened
will leave us

with our hands 
cupped and waiting,
cupped and waiting,
in the 3 a.m. dark.

*

Photographer unknown
Poem written 2011

Latest Poem

Untitled

I hold the nugget of your heart
in my mouth,
my jaw aches
with care.
But across the room from me you sit
daring me
to bite
to bite.

*
Photographer Nicholas Hughes

Every House

Every house 
a stockpile
of dreams
and nightmares.

*

Latest Poem

Untitled

What I saw
shook me through,
filled my mouth
with ash.

Now I raise my hands
to pull down the stars
and drown them.

*

Photographer unknown
Poem written 6/2014.

In the Rows

*

Poem

Untitled

The bent figure on the horizon

sat many moons.

Above, the stars’ orbit—

a record of his dreams.

I’ve etched it

on the palms of my hands,

hold them tight

against the night.

Behind me

little death-moths

swirl about your hair

slow, but sure.

*

Photographer Acacia Johnson

Poem completed 4/2014

Poem

The Houses Aren't There Anymore

The houses aren't there anymore.
Just some rubble
and seeds that won't take.

The only movement
is plastic that ripples
in the wind.
Upturned bones
of broken frames
white in the moon's light.

I drive by some nights
when I can't sleep,
spy through windows
no longer there.
Faces look back at me.

Each time I hope
they'll wave me in,
night doors
swinging open.

But the faces remain still,
their plate expressions
staring the simple truth—
it's not the lack,
but what comes after.

*
Photographer Pawel Uniatowicz
Poem completed 3/2014