Five Poems from Winter
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fall into the arms of the softest lover not any lover will do stretch one night to many I don't know I live in the details her metal in my mouth hand to the wheel while the ship drifts patient in shade, patience in queues some bristling core threatens implosion
today like a fleet of foals colliding softly on ice I venture out bickering with my eldest self bloated by implacable joy nostalgia a treacled smell wind brushing gently, my body burnished; wrest this restless spark from my quivering hands I’d like to see you try
3.
these phantoms! fleshless apparitions that wither and accost these phantoms, frantic, freedom since lost, these random strangers rangers poets—opacity by sobriquet, vulgar, abhorrent—pray tell it tell it now truly—awfully potent to show that you knew me, rid me of torment before lace-cut ribbons dance with the walls—this quotient divided leaves walls unadorned—it seems they’ve elided now meaning is stored via fragments, pageants, smoke rings abound—my phantom parade of love so sings Sam Cooke, mournful and uncrumpled
creaks moans horns whistles rushes slashes rumbles fizzes sound city infrastructure mimic mortal rhythms silver whittled willows slither slivers litter rhythms blankness not permitted
and meanwhile one fears madness like the threat of a blizzard and meanwhile notice how thoughtlessly it braids together (reckless sensualist such as you are) pleasure’s cascade—warmth of coffee presaging nicotine ice and meanwhile my jaw unhinges vertiginous and floral otherwise, exultant that you live in music, passé, déclassé, desultory my skull trepanned before you knew my name sumptuous calamity gentle fissure the gate held open— welcome, snakes, be home amidst the grass
