i. Long-Distance

And so we stayed true
to that hormone laced
heart crossed
airport lounge
promise.
Cigarette nervous
yet stifled,
we parted
and vowed to love
the impossible
long-distance.

ii. Landlocked

Whispered words
hummed softly
these lurid tunes
cast vibrato
along the vast slouching wires
of our opposing
xenophobic
church pyre landscapes,
elongated pauses
manifest as false adoration,
loose, lonely,
despite the distance, our words
landlocked.

iii. Chemically enhanced to age

And we loved afar,
not by sky fetched satellites
or whimsical billboard technologies
nor a digital duality soon to cease
stripped of its glue backing,
but with perfumed letters,
languid messages
pressed fresh with star tittles,
and marked with the flourish
a fading and always false
memory,
trite tomes written
upon art-house parchments
chemically enhanced to age.

iv. Copenhagen

Until
the stoney steps of beating blood
retreated, ebbed
from the Danish clouds
across two summers (or more),
in an apexed,
chesttight moment 
I knew you were gone,
lost even before the airport clutch
before our last touch
before we even met,

I knew you had become
foreign
to me.

i. Ice

In the first evening glow
of twilight
the hard crush of our tired boots
against the roads black-ice
gives off tiny echoes, reverbing as
we move with reverence
in slow steps
towards
the distant hunting cabin,
the chimney smoke
beckons us,
its low white wisps
call us home.


ii.  Evening

Dragging the limp
bloodless deer
towards the smokehouse
the dogs are scouting ahead
their pink tongues panting misty breaths
into the fading light
and above us
a spray of Winters
first milky stars light us,
guide us,
the smell of venison
hits our throats,
wets our mouths.



iii. Moon

A deep-still night of cool air
we sit staring and smoking
by the cabins glowing hearth
dark hot tea is blown cool
and sugared with old metal spoons
as the scent of cooked meat
cling to our worn shirts,
all dry and beat, half-bearded and
ready for sleep,
the moon arrives
late and full
throwing a dull grey light
through the cabins icy windows.

Room 17

Lying bent on his back,
blue, bruised.
Tethered loosely to life; red-rash arm,
thinks of his mom – sometimes.
Tethered hard to the bed, rubber cord,
arms like maps, veins thick as rivers,
3 years since rain, the drought has cracked the ceiling.

Room 62a

Ticker tape at 45 degrees,
a blue/white prize winning sashay
for the door frame,
Crime Scene – Crime Scene – Crime Scene
encompassed the chalk body,
that sleeps flat and silent by the entrance, the doorbell
is broken - gunshot holes in the wall like spat tea leaves.

Room 26

Her daughter, Eleven now – can't see her homework,
earring's like her two blown lightglobes,
she shares the space, shitty, hazy single room, split beds,
nylon orange quilts. Identical.  Mom's heart surges after nightshifts,
hand shakes that she is safe, extra gold lock on the door
at dawn, tired - exhausted,   
Rusted apples in the kitchen.

Room 9

He once owned a house, Everglades, Fairview.
A wife with blonde hair, children, two.
Here and now, only aces and jacks, and the air lacks
the capacity he holds to breathe it,
tonight, one last roll, the right numbers
will fix it all. The linoleum on the bathroom floor
is curling again. Snake-eyes. Everything dog-eared tired.

Room 60

Four silent bags of kitchen wares,
gripped in clear plastic, a grey satin suit,
hangs, its tag says silk, all lies.
Ready for the town wives, kisses
on Sutherland St. (always remain discreet,)
brown stains in the sink, sharper than
chinese knives. A new town tomorrow. New streets.

Reception

Startled lights, city nights, smoking all the time now
the sirens become like
another unheard noise but he can't remember when,
this assimilation happened. Dreams of survival,
he lives that dream, Jesus watches from the wall,
every day, 100 solitaires at night, tonight is dawn soon enough,
ten thousand suns already seen, already lost to the dark, again.