Sculpture - illusion, cast in stone

Time is always misremembered
shallow beliefs are shaking leaves
shade sorted for destruction
left is right remembered
in the mirror of time

All we have left is time -
the same as mashed corn kernels
on a well eaten ear of corn -
everything seems to be finishing
the last moment, the last
goo of something once ordered

The last of this moment
is the first of the past
still so close it even seems like now

Then the decomposition starts
the good begins to glow
in the growing dim
and the unpleasant tarnishes
to a pile of rust without
any hint of what once was
the terrible morphs garish
eventually becoming
late night, sweat soaked
horror movies
for our morbid fascination

Love is always badly imagined and
the past always suffers sculpting in storage

Doing a March

I’m in your step
I can’t help it
anymore than
you’d want to be
out of mine
I breathe your sweat
perfume

For Natalia’s Trip

Dark brown soil you smell
tangible as a childhood
dress, the swing has changed
but that doesn't matter
old and new is all there
the life you know
from remembered to forgetful -
everything gathers together
like raspberries in an old bowl
at the dacha.

Epidemic emotions

It’s like a secret language, my heart
the day that dawns with hunger
the night that beats dark drums until pale morning

in the evening I watch the room as poisonous thoughts fill it
I dive deep to swim under the thick corruption
she begins to die from what she says

I hate her for poisoning the dinner
the children are choking and the old friends
it excites her, she is proud
this murder is hers, she is
strong in her fear, strong in her secret evil
she smiles as if she was doing everybody a favor
she smiles as everybody gurgles

desperate for air, I try to surface miles away

Show me what hot means

Your beauty strikes the sky like a match
and lights up the day. I was shivering but
didn’t know how cold it was until you warmed me.
Surely somewhere there is a salvation but the
only hope I know is when your fire consumes me
and I am lifted from the ground like a burning bit of paper,
flipping over and over, scorched, consumed
and happy to flare in bliss.
From the sky, I realize I have never seen the earth before.
Cold ash is all that waits in that dead place.

Yard Party

If just for one moment I knew you’d be watching,
I’d twirl again the spinning boy
To gather the thread from sparkling eyes
To weave the clothes that we could wear
In God’s own shiny afternoon.