Grim Lips

When nephews spit and pitch boom sounds from their dark (yet sacred) caves, friend, this is a calm you will never find again. This radio knows your heart so well that it sings your static through its teeth. Its the only friend you’ve ever had. Burning pitch, booming sounds from your graves, each, the old ones and the new. When you lie to even the sky, and then get off on la la las (as I do, its so hard not to), this old lie it does creep, it clicks and beeps, this ratio knows your heart, sinks your fabric to its knees.

Your heart, it’s bigger than this room, your eyes are wider than the sound when your freckles go boom, when today’s sun switches to moon and throws its old gloom onto the carpets you had in college, the rooms where you made your first stains, the brandished photographs of exploding palms, the voices that sang you that best and only calm. But the dreams won’t come, and then there’s your boyfriend’s eyes. ..He has seen children in this land.....
They place their hands in warm pockets because snow finds them when they’re falling. In their pocket they may find that broken crayon, that splinter of wood, that cause they thought good. So worth it. They brandish their photographs of their fathers, those fools, palms together with clothed eyes. Over with boulders, they’ll seek grass as their closure come spring. The world will wear a sinister gown, and it’s your prom and then it’s your wedding day.

It kills you graveyard dead.

......
I have seen children in your head.

They are on ocean beaches, distant and dear. They poke their toes toward the center of the earth, as if to place their roots, as if to say, "I am here and I take root! Let me be!" But they are just children and those are just beaches, children are not trees. This is a truth if I’ve ever known one. I was on a train once and this woman approached me with glistening eyes. She told me that there were cracks in our stockade, she spoke of elks. I pulled her teeth with a feral rabbit’s beak. The smoke that billowed out from her fingers as she caressed my perfect body that night, against her gums, while the perfect sun orbited the perfect galaxy, the milky one, the bold, and what she said I’ll never forget. "No creature can learn that which his heart has no shape to hold.".... ..As if to break me.....
That first night I could be found down by the refinery playing guitar with Travis, the smell of sugar beets, counting the stars, or the planes, or the satellites, depending on your belief or your view. It was what the poor once called the perfect night. I was there, holding onto my heart, as it skipped (as it had lots to do), singing my static through its teeth and gave birth back my spring. It’s the only friend I’ve ever had.

A bouquet of only one rose, I’ll take it. My hair will turn grey, steel, I’ll live to see it. Your hands will weld our heads together, look at what you did! You picked up the pieces, you easily fixed them, and now, like buds on dead branches, though I may not grow into what I should have grown, I will bloom before I fall. And I thank each of you for that. That I had a chance to bloom at all, in this pasture, before next winter calls.......

Our Dusks And Our Dawns

There are truths and there are Truths. My world seems like a vice-like thing, so good at keeping me in tight situations, with no air in my lungs, nowhere to go, no time to think, barely room to react, really, really, to this Truth. I own no Gold objects, nothing that can be melted down when the market crashes, all I have are old photographs and tattoos, over-weight cats and bad breath. These things will not get me far in the world to come. I saw myself through my nephew's eyes, and what I saw were truths, my age, the cities that I have lived in, the style of clothes that to him are so un-cool ("You really like to wear tight pants, don't you Uncle Steven.....")

My heaven will have Haagen Daz trees in full bloom. My heaven will host vast celebrations spanning centuries and cultures not known. My heaven, holding me, has no morning, has no night, but limitless dusks and dawns, the light is always gold, always gold, and covers me from my east to my west. There are no rear-view mirrors, no reasons to look behind, and no half-forgotten dreams, like pebbles in shoes as you walk the dusk/dawn streets. No ghost-like memories, no haunted broken promises to hide beneath your sleeve. And when you do turn your back, it's always somehow forward, always dusk, always dawn.

This heaven has no eulogy. There are no keys because there are no locks and no crushed hearts beneath thrift store lapels. Bluebottles, jays and sparrows take their rest in your hair and it never matters whether you've combed it or woken in a mess of tangles and curls. Every night is St. Valentine's Day and midsummer's eve, and everybody remembers to write. And if you somehow find yourself in a position to fight, to make fists and use them, remember this.....are you the sky or are you the bird?

There are children out in the yard singing and it sounds German and it sounds like smiling. It sounds amazing. It sounds like Saturday morning cartoons, when your heart could pound because your favorite robot was in danger....or when you realize even your favorite super hero has his faults, actual faults and even he knows fear, even he looks for his limitless dusks and dawns, that place where the light is always gold, always gold, and covers him from his east to his west. I am talking to myself again.

Take me home, where you are, where I have a house near naked rivers and vast green forests. The smell of food cooking from upstairs, your voice laughing to some friend on the phone....where the stars are sneaking through the blue sky like they just can't wait for night. Our neighbor is whistling as she tends her garden, the clock on the wall shakes out time.....and suddenly I no longer feel like a shipwreck but an island. And I am its King and you are my Queen. The sky is red and the day is on fire and the willow trees brush against a wagon of rain while the children leave to go dancing, leave to live their lives. And then its winter, and then its spring and then its the Fourth of July and the sky is on fire again and then its Halloween and ghosts steal our candy and paper our trees and then everything is turning blue. And then, suddenly, thick blankets and hot coffee in the morning. Snow, sleet and ice and I swear to god by Christmas time there will be someone else to hold you.

When I say goodbye, I'll say goodbye to that darkened knoll under the walnut tree and the sound of morning. I'll say goodbye, finally, to that last dusk and that last dawn....and I'll wish someone would put me on a train to someplace far away. I'll never kiss those lips again or break your heart and when I say goodbye, I'll say goodbye to you, my Truths and to you, my truths and to you, your arms.....

Fever Dreams and Fever Dreams

The worst fever dreams of my life. Tossing and turning in my bedroom, on the couch, out in the ditch, on the roofs of houses, on the freeways stretching from here to where you are. The blankets that covered me were one second your hair and the next the ocean waves and then they were a field of clouds. I could smell you the whole time. Every moment there had been crashed over me. Appletini, The Lord Fox, vorhies, broken glasses in the Ukrainian Village, a certain nap on a certain rainy day in St. Louis, fireworks from church yards, the countless dinners that were so delicious they could kill you if you weren't paying attention, and through it all your hair…. I had a dream, and I'll tell you about it. It was the world as it could be and I woke up feeling so energized aside from feeling so sick. I wanted to go running, but I couldn't find my shoes and the sky was throwing down ice. And it was then that I realized the world was still grey and fever dreams are not fact as much as I wished they could be. I just wanted to hear your voice.

I have a vision in my mind of those train tracks where you would picnic, and I see us there, often, though I've never been. It's just another of those amazing moments that never was but could so easily be, if we decided to make it so. You're wearing a dress that is justifying my entire life to me and making the whole world around us jealous, and my heart is so full of desire and love for you, I'm amazed that I am even sitting there. It's autumn and the setting sunlight is falling like waves through your hair and I could just die right there. The food is delicious, the wine is making our heads dance and it's not cold yet. There is a slight breeze softly making your curls stir. I realize it's only Friday and that we have the whole weekend ahead of us. So beautiful. I cannot begin to explain it to you. No one has any idea.

And again I look up from whatever it is I am doing, petting Sam or reading a book, and I realize I'm here, you're there, and there is no sunlight at all, there is no wine, no food, no gorgeous hair or dress, just this terrible fever and the dreams it brings me. Snow is falling outside under a thick iron grey sky and the time between now and when I get to see you again feels like forever. All my memories of you are small tortures, as beautiful as they are. It's all I can do to not get in my car and come find you and somehow let you see what I have seen. If nothing else to just touch your hair once more.