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Ghosts

- For music

There are ghosts
Inside a guitar.
Ghosts of music,
Each a ringlet of
Sound sewn into
The rosewood neck;
Beauty in a
Hollow cherry carapace.
Embedded in the back is
The spinal herringbone
Divining rod that
Guides these
Synesthetic spirits to
To the neck, to touch
The player's fingertips,
To suffuse with his
Heart, to become a
Song.

But these are rare
Beasts, and they are not
Coaxed out so easily.
For with these golden creatures,
To coax is to stumble,
To chance upon a scale or
A bit of their black flesh buried in the endless
Cacophonous dregs. And when it is
Pulled from the earth,
It may first appear in horrible
Deformity, all muddied,
Eyeless, and drool-soaked,
But with intense incubation
And meticulous preening their
Golden feathers can begin to unfurl.

And when fully grown,
These grand shadows of sound
Birth themselves through the whole
Of the instrument, and out into
The air where they exist forever. And while
Their essence can be conjured timelessly
By the player's hands,
That actual aural ghost is gone,
Silently winding its way towards the
Vanishing point of memory.

Organ-Flower

Bosom-born, my skin peels back
As the sapling cracks through my sternum.
My heart-vine quivers in
The evening air. The moon has fallen
Away. It did not see my blood slither,
Or my bone crawl from that rough plant.
My wasted form lies half buried in the soil,
Shoulders pinned to one another,
Chest arced high (for maximum exposure);
My mouth whispers
The earthen tongue of roots.

Along the stem blinks a spiral of woven eyes,
Each resting in the valley that two others'
Edges carve. Dilated, they slide in their sockets,
Consuming the night, this fresh dusk. And crowning
This horrid stalk is my heart itself. The chambers,
Furling and unfurling, emit a guttural croak
Like some dark hound gasping for lethargy. Its flesh
Pulses red and violet and blue in the twilight,
Reaching skyward, guttering out to the absent moon,

"Mother, I am free! Mother, I am free!"

And with that,
The eyes close, and it falls
Flaccid upon my chest,
As some sleeping babe upon its mother.

And though I nursed and tended that organ-flower,
It will never flourish beyond my chest, for
The world denies my heart
Its own life. It cannot go free. So, it slinks back
Into my chest, muttering sullenly to
Mother.

Beneath

beneath his hands
the flesh of gentle
eroticism. his woman
a vaporous specter,
a cold spot in his bed.

beneath her hands
are the blankets
that kept her warm,
that keep her away.
her silken tomb
denies her release.

beneath his hands
is the dirt, ground
up. he cringes before
her, golddrunk. he
crawls away, sober.

beneath their hands
are the faces of children,
children who must learn
to listen for quiet days,
for words whispered from
outside the window.

Hollow Crowns

an observatory song.

there's a rose upon his green stranglevines
i've watched them grow i've watched them climb
far above his home, now too small
to support roots that are bound to fall

when my ghost now recedes from your sight
you can see that I'm not a pool of light
you know I'll be there for the short and the long
for all the things that you know are wrong

winter's ice now sticks to our frozen hands
as we march knee deep into the quicksand
I tried to carry upon my wings
your soul, my love, hollow crowns of nothing

Black Dog/Red Bird/Mountain's Blood

A love song.

my love is a black dog
sitting at your door
my love is a black dog
howling out for more
howling out for more

Let me taste your bones
Bleached and bare
bleached and bare
Let me taste your bones
Bleached and bare
Bleached and bare

my pain is a red bird
sleeping in my head
my pain is a red bird
never hatching from the egg
never hatching from the egg

let me dry your wings
let you go
let you go
let me dry your wings
let you go
let you go

that girl's a mountain's blood
earthen and serene
that girl's a mountain's blood
she's my molten dream
she's my molten dream

let me swallow you up
In my sea
in my sea
let me swallow you up
in my sea
in my sea

and there you will be
floating inside of me
mountain's blood no more
a heart beating at the core
we could have that and more
girl, if you just open up the door
and let that black dog come in from the cold

Black Song

This is a song/poem I wrote called "black song."

amongst newspaper clippings of giants that crush
all the paths for our children all lost in the rush
for glory & sex & magic & fame
but all the stars are dead in their mansions

and I know dear sir that your price is steep
but my blood's a-boilin' & my eyes do weep
for the stuff you're selling unjust & outright
but please oh please can I have some

and did you see him the man from the west
with his blue steel pistols, with the hair on his chest
and in the whip of thunder, a hellhound calls out
glory praise be my lord is risen

so dear boy don't pick the dirt from yer mouth
don't speak outta turn, you're headin' down south
so just pile that slop up's high it'll go
boy, this ain't just a grave that you're digging

the sun is rising
the sun is rising

and applaud my death with hubris and spite
and never mention my hummingbird life
just coil me up, put me back on the shelf
and consume all the good left within me

our ovations rise with your downfall
inhaling the dusk, that soothing pall
of greasy black smoke so thick in your lungs
just for the gilded facade of freedom

launch me to the moon in my exquisite corpse
and scream like the raven, scream till you're hoarse
and i'm howling back, meaner than before
for my god does not want to know me

do you see my knife as it comes down with a shake
to sever all the limbs we're too hesitant to break
oh c'mon now baby it's just a little blood
to bind us here in synchronicity

call out for mercy
call out for mercy

you know i love it here I don't think I could ever go
away from this land of drunken carnival shows
planted here, right here in the big top showcase
the oracle of delphi is naked

bone cages rattle inside your battered tomb
as birds of solid chrome born from your womb
are plucked and gutted and put on the spit
as i lay cold upon the lakebed

and here I am among serpents and swine
just wastin my life, just biding my time
for that one tiny insignificant chance
to clear my soul of any feeling

and so now that I'm clean I can lay here with you
and wrap myself in ether and black voodoo
and fall blooddrunk deep into your arms
as your dress falls down toward the ceiling

my wounds are healing
my wounds are healing

oh I see the fawn with her brown hair let down
traipsing through the forest with the wind in her gown
i call out a name I heard somewhere before
Ophelia Ma-Beth Johannson

now drop your chains and slack my noose a while
and consume the desert's flesh, all darkened with bile
babe it's better than nothin', so don't you complain
just listen for the falcons' call in tandem

but how i wish to have you, so soft and bereft
with whitewash orchids draped upon your breasts,
and a curve edge dagger held tight 'tween your teeth
so that every word you spoke could kill me

and now as I watch you sleeping so sound
upon a bed of shadows I mistook for the ground
you will stir only slightly, and open your eyes
and whisper in a voice soft and lonely

tell me are we free
tell me are we free

now in the sunlight I can see from your back
grow two mottled wings feathered evanescent black
that shudder and shake and seethe in the cold
my babe you're such a thing of beauty

so now we ride on the wind's ebbing curl
I sleep in the talons of my calico girl
she sings ballroom romp and old cabaret
to tempt my every taste and fancy

the milk of human kindness now mixes in
with the rich red liquor of deviance and sin
and oh how we drink it down cup after cup
cause your soul is always cheaper than whiskey

and now we've landed, press my ear to the ground
but gone far away is that dear heart sound
of the sweet sweet earth run so afoul
as her black hands wrap about me

i feel them run through me
i feel them run through me

Gefesselt (Bound)

This is a song/poem I wrote in German, I will post the translation underneath the lyrics.

als ihre schwarze fluegel aus breitete
es war meine seele die sie einhuellte
es gibt viele loecher in den gesichtern
dass der wind durch blaest, nichts nichts ist geschehen

der boshafte ist los am Rand der Weld
hier liege ich stumm in einem dunklen Feld
er kommt nah, die Wolken werden grau
ich bin am Strand, alles alles ist nun blau

himmel
die sonne scheint
gefesselt
nun bin ich frei
kalt
blaest der wind
fast
bin ich blind
du
bist dahin

die fenster fluestern von verlegenheit und kraft
Siehst du die Kette sie binden mich da in Haft
Knochen und Geier kreisen oben wie 'ne Kron'
Sie sueffeln das Blut aus meinen meinen Haenden schon

Eure Luft pochte rot als sie glaenzte in meinen Lungen
Deine Arme sind verletzt ueberall geworden
wegen des fakts niemand sagte, was sagen sollte
Du wirst an meinen Woertern haengen, die sind kalte

himmel
die sonne scheint
gefesselt
nun bin ich frei
kalt
blaest der wind
fast
bin ich blind
du
bist dahin

alles klar?
nicht war?
alles klar?
noch nicht war?
alles ist nun klar
nichts ist wahr

English Translation

as her black wings stretched out
it was my soul that she engulfed
there are many hole in the faces
that the wind blows through, nothing nothing has happened

the evil one is loose at the edge of the world
i'm lying here dumb in a dark field
he comes close, the clouds turn grey
i am on the shore, everything everything is blue now

heaven
the sun is shining
bound
now I'm free
cold
blows the wind
I am almost blind
you are lost

the windows whisper of embarrassment and power
do you see the chains? they hold me here in detention
bones and vultures circle overhead like a crown
they're already sipping the blood from my hands

your air pulsed red as it glittered in my lungs
your arms have become completely bruised
because noone said, what should've been said
you will hang from my words, they are cold

heaven
the sun is shining
bound
now I'm free
cold
blows the wind
I am almost blind
you are lost

everything clear?
no?
everything clear?
still no?
everything is clear now
nothing is true

Dark Clothes

Whelp of winter! Traipse through those throngs of white-tongued conifers! They are bending down to challenge your every step. Birch totem-wraiths hiss in harmony with the wind, and with hoary bellows burn your cheeks red. You have no patience for numb legs and blackened fingertips. But they have imposed themselves upon your temple. The monks of your viscera have donned their dark clothes. The internal burial has commenced. The cadence of your jaw echoes between the bodies of your wooden detractors. Molars and canines sewn into a skinless smile stretched from lobe to lobe, sinister and fresh. Waning whelp of winter! Your form has cracked and fallen under the ice, now lost among the snow dunes. It can follow your entrails. They are trickling out, black and hypnotic. It can follow you now. The bleached sun is mute behind slinking grey papyrus, having bestowed the power to blind upon the snow. It can follow you. It is close, so close the chanting of the monks is deafening. The whistles of their throats rattle up into it's skull, whipping it's brain to pulp. They have donned the white clothes, frosted and cold. Be still! And lie tumescent beneath the dunes, as the trees sigh in their permanence.

Oakley Pirkle Road

There was a slant to the roof
In my room at Oakley Pirkle
Road. Outside the window
Was the maple tree and the road.

Oh it was a place of refuge. I
Had chicken-pox there, and
Stealthily evaded my mother,
Crouching in my sores and ointment.

My room had a little brother,
One I never had. A symbiote
Attached by way of a dwarven
Door, caddycorner from the window.

There were toys inside the little brother,
And another small window. Once,
I stood naked before it, waiting for
Some passerby to see me. They never did.

There was a slant to the roof
In my room at Oakley Pirkle
Road. Outside the window
Was the maple tree and the road.

Crow's Eyes

They can't be seen,
Those little invisible faces
Staring sadly out
Into yours. But every apple
Core, toothbrush, and
Glass of milk is
Staring back, waiting
For that moment
When you
Detach yourself
From it.
Like an exhausted love,
It waits for you
To toss it
Into the bin, so
It can be with its brothers again.
They can all stare together now,
Stare at you.
Each beady black eye
Like a crow's, unblinking
And poisoned.

Reheated French Fries

I put them in my mouth without hesitation.
I put each of them, one by one, into my mouth,

And chew

Each shriveled appendage all yellow-brown,
Greasy, and unsatisfying.
They're just as I expected, and though
I hoped for some sort of surprise
In their hot sickly black pepper smell,
Nothing came. But there they go,
Mindlessly, one by one,
(and sometimes in pairs) into my mouth.
Each little reheated potato tentacle wrapping
About my heart
Coating it, crushing it, entwining it
With memories of the way they used to taste.

Brothers

Oh cruel lunar dagger, break the sky
And let loose each bright burnt dot,
Each precious star from our vast
Blanket of blackness. How they fall
Like cores from boils free to your feet,
As you laugh and crush them underfoot.

They're all gone now, are you happy?

Dear brother, I know you are selfish,
And I know you are beautiful, and
I admire your face in every one
Of its pockmarked expositions,
But you must understand that you
Are not the master of anything, your
Everything is not of your design. No,
You will always be my lackluster doppelganger,
For I am the one who can blind all
Those little people whose love you crave. And
Even in their blindness they can still feel me. So
Just remember, dear brother, when I rise,
All of your work will have been in vain.

.

be.cause. we. can.not. sep.a.rate.
our.selves. from. lan.guage. we.
try. to. make. up. new. and.
al.ter.na.tive. ways.
to. make. po.etry. more. and.
more. diff.i.cult to. read.
but. why. not.?
.
it. makes. the. trial.
worth. the try.ing.

Box

She took the evening back home
Upon an ancient rusting train.
I was watching her from
Across the aisle, but she
Never noticed.
Her red eyes were
Locked on the blurred amalgam
Of stone and fire
Outside the car. Quivering,
She held a tiny blue box
In her slender white hands.
It was a small weathered thing stained
A now hushed sickly cerulean, and
Though she did not cling to it,
She kept her fingers
Tight about that box. Then with
A sigh, she closed her eyes,
Turned her face and
Slept...

Our stop had come,
The whistle hissed, and we
Stepped off the platform into that
Thick familiar air. I turned
In that red darkness and smelled fire,
And saw the swollen eyes of the hearths,
Pulsing in time all across the horizon,
Glowing regiments of
Pitchmills, seething
In their heats, howling
Low and feral.
I turned back, and found the
Train gone, and
In the flicker of a street lamp
I saw her, quivering still.
Head down,
She extended it to me. And
We stood like that, with the
Ash-wind sticking to our bodies,
With the blue box between us.

Rebirth

"And he's singing a little in there, I haven't quite let him die,
and we sleep like that together with our secret pact.
And it's nice enough to make a man weep, but I don't weep.
Do you?" - "Bluebird" - Charles Bukowski

Once, when I was amongst the inspirational,
I came upon a dove in the rain outside their tent,
His feathers overflowing with juxtaposed brightness. I
Was entranced the moment he appeared, for
He was not frightened by the myriad of passerby.
No, he was not afraid for he had lived within me
Up until that moment, when he finally broke
Free from my skull. His purity had kept me with you,
Kept me innocent, but now he was just a bird and
I was just a man and you, just a woman.
And though I was sad to turn away from,
I did, and went back into the tent
And shook the rain from my shoulders.

Bat

Five years and
One early morning ago
I awoke in distress
As a scratching plagued
The inside of my wall.
To me it seemed
That a mouse or more
Had made its home there.

My parents must know! I thought
As I crept to their room.
Dad was the only one to get up
And bravely investigate my mystery.

We lumbered back to my room
And flicked on the lights...

IT'S A BAT!!!

A shrieking comet of brown fur
R o c k e t e d
Counterclockwise above us, angry
At the addition of light to his "cave"

Now we were wide awake!
No time to think...
Grab a broom, grab a stick
Grab anything! Just don't
Let it upstairs!

I found the proper armaments
And stood in the stairway
Like a pajama clad centurion, or
The star hitter of broom-ball,
Ready for the bat to come my way,
But it was Dad who got him,
Oh he swung with exactitude,
With such unintentional grace and caught
The bat midair and
Hurled him into my bookshelves.

Delicately, Dad blinded the creature with a blanket,
Wrapped him snugly within and took him to the garage.

The sun was rising as we set him loose, and
We watched him fly away,
A little black star crawling across the morning sky.

And to this day, the mystery of his entry still remains unsolved.
The garage door had been left open, but the door
To the house was not ajar. Perhaps its childish to think,
But maybe he let himself in...

Ghost In The Mall Scene

I see a spirit rising over fake luminescent evergreens.
Through rags of rough silver hair, he hangs from the ceiling;
His undead magic destroyed by a mortal leash.
He seems so docile, so out of place,
Hanging and priced and plastic,
Like a bastion of Halloween towering over a plot of early Christmas trees,
Harvested far too soon, and set out before the wares of his holiday.

I wonder what this ghost of consumerism
Must think as his unholy day is
Smothered by the holiest. I listen close, his mouth is agape,
As if in the midst of a scream, or a cry, or a whip of disgusted sound,
But nothing comes. He wants to reply, but his voice is
Lost in the silent rustle of a windless plastic forest,
And the footsteps of sale hungry housewives.
Beasts in their own right.

Jaw

I listen to it and shudder
In tenebrous gooseflesh
As his jaw grinds itself
Apart. Oh how his molars
Screech in that sadistic ceremony!
He doesn't feel it dreaming,
But those poor torn tusks will
Tell of torture at daybreak.

Coin Toss

So to you I'll toss a coin.
A coin for you and me.
It's only a simple litte flip,
A call of heads or tails.
Believe me we'll like
The outcome!
Just call it, I'll tell you
What you'll et when it lands.

...(cling)...

HEADS!

Your prize...?

Me, and all my
Charming
Imperfections.

There's enough of those to keep me
Anchored
To the bottom here. I'm not going
Anywhere,

Trust me.

Ah! It seems your boots are
Just as heavy.

Don't fret,
We'll be alright,
Just tighten your bootstraps,

We'll be fine,
Down here,
Together...

In our blinding coin-toss love.