THE NIGHTMARE TOUCHED ITS FOREHEAD TO MY LIPS

The stars must be doped out the way they flicker
& refuse to answer my calls.

I prefer waking
but frail hours, cold sleep. Enough time

then never enough.

Overdose –

I’d like to put the night in a cage
& let it breed like two finches.

All the eggs that won’t hatch but mothered.

THE VAULT

the flock moves through the sky like ruin & I am only the man I am today

come winter

the branches will again net the 4:00pm twilight & the absence of birds

I am all of this season within season

on my third beer

unhinged dream as my sinew

ready to lay down until the snow leans the branches to net me in quiet

fawn emerges after the after

its muzzle buried in snow

it is now the after

the grey sky so close & impossible

to exhume

THE VAULT

the phone falls through my hands & I am left with salt water

whalebone in history

wolf in the stars

then all the skeletal keys not yet written & all at once

blood-let in the chamber of night

methodically cleaning my apartment

doing lines alone

I have tamped down the earth & prayed for the vault to open

neglect

all my psychological shit untouched

when I imagine myself

I am always leaving

I couldn’t draw my own face if god asked