Hands, fantastic
element I adore;
touch, medicine
against my eternal
submergence;

skin upon skin, preservation
I cannot offer to myself,
though salvation lies beyond
that moment of submission
to perfection; 

eyes, beloved
altars; sound
of conjoined breathing
rising and slowing,
a chant in the cathedral.

I long for such divinity
as if I would be lost forever
without it. I lose myself
for it, find myself beyond it:
here I am. Thus, I am.

Where is the center?

There were solid dreams there once.
It held stone and tree;
sheltered fox, eagle, and all the hope
of the ocean.
It was the paradox of sky above us
whose origin is in our depths.

We sold it cheap for false peace.
Handed it off for promises of distant wealth. 

In its place, a deep hole light can’t crack. 
A cavern that once held a molten core
now glimmers with rime ice.

When the wind whistles
across the mouth of that pit?
What a thin dirge.
We pass through, singing along.

When we catch each others’ eyes,
it’s all we can do to stifle our screams.

A corrosion of our shared faith
in how sunrise should feel
to a night chilled face.

A wasting disease
of our individual hopes: failing, wilting,
drained of heat and blood.

An injury to the bones.
An insult to the stones
below our feet. A consummation

of historical tangles
of wrong paths and missteps
and mythic levels of stubborn denial

leashed to pure and wholesome
Evil. It puts words
into our mouths no one

fully understands,
but we speak them
anyway. In this ending,

all words trend toward
inscrutability. Confused,
sunrise stumbles on without us.

When you get to
the end of your rope,
tie a knot and hold on. 

By which is meant,
you’ve got to let it go
if you are going to tie it.

Which means of course
you’ve got to let go
and let God.

Which means
you have to have faith that the same God
who created and established gravity 

will suspend it just for you 
this one time just so you can tie that knot
and hold on.

Trying to enjoy the odd last light
of the odd last days of our empire.

Trying to see past the dark beyond
into the expected tomorrow morning

exactly as I’ve waited for it my entire life.
Dreading my entire life. Praying against it

for my whole life, though it kept on coming up
and pouring through. I did what I was told

and tried to love it, to find the beauty in it.
Here I am today where the light is shade-odd

and I’m trying to love it
and the beauty as I’m told to

and all I can think of is 
light ending to bring me the night

and let it be that I need not
wait again to leave that dark

for a beauty
I can’t find at all anymore.

After all
had ended,
the only thing 
he lacked was
hearing

“you done good”

from the one person
he’d never heard it from;

when it was clear
that it would remain
forever unvoiced,
the air filled with ash

and ever after
he would choke
on any accolade
received.

It won’t happen, my fantasy
of finding my way from here
to a perfect off-grid palace
in a town of peace and care
for all who come there.

It won’t happen, my hope
of song as everyday speech,
music as deeper connection
of all who join in song, mutual
current running among all.

It won’t happen, my dream
of somehow all of us
pulling out of this tailspin
and soaring, swooping over
open land with joy and freedom.

Whatever happens now
instead of all this, I must trust
that a person exists who holds onto
what I cannot. Someone with stronger
dreams, less ready to fail.

Could you tell the difference between
a suicide note and a poem 
in enough time to intervene?

Should you even intervene
with a poet on the verge?
Should you stop assuming metaphor,

instead presume the imminence
of poison or pistol? When a poet
offers pain or joy,

who knows
what’s being served?
Is it live or is it

memory, descriptive
or prescriptive, hot or cold,
raw or cooked or even

not a poem at all — 
not that it matters once
you’ve gotten your fill.

Have you gotten
your fill? The poet
is not supposed to care

as long as they’re empty
when they’re done.
As long as they have been

of some use. Or so
they’ve been told, over and over:
the unacknowledged legislators,

the news others die for, etc., 
etc. To be of some use,
even as they are consumed,

is all they should expect.
You read it, you dig it, you mine it;
they write it, it buries them, they die.

All I’ve been given
and insist that I’ve lost
is somewhere,
not in my pocket or closet
but I have it all, I’m sure.

It’s a process of 
elimination — none of it 
is anywhere I’d expect it to be,
nowhere obvious or easy to access,
so it must be in the dirty recesses

of a chamber or box
I don’t like to acknowledge.
Even the shiny things,
things I should be proud to have
and display, are down there,

inside that, hidden 
from me and all others;
whatever I am is in there
for good or bad, and here I am
unwilling to dig and dirty my nails

for everyone to see 
how much work it is 
to tell all my truth.
I protect us all by failing
myself, or so I like to claim.