it grows inside like a barnacle
clinging to the side of your ship
in lustrous green, the lusty mint
of age. after death, this is a thick
mistake, a bedroom in which to pull
the curtains, writhe instead of sleep.
know your sin and call it by name.
invite him over in the night, kiss
his neck as if it were a planet
out of orbit. it is a star that blisters
your lips, cries when punctured
with a pin.
this mirror is salt to your
blisters
a woman questioning
why do you still remain
in the world?
to cough blossoms
into light, to see red
and know that it means
everything
but love. to dodge
a bullet to live
that much longer.
they say he was
a man held in the highest
honor by the people and the clergy magnificent
liberal, eloquent, just, a lover of God and
man, devoted to the poor, good and sweet
to all, so mortified
that he never broke his fast
while the sun was in the heavens.
the dawn runs its tongue
along the back of my neck,
melts it like sugar, licks the sweat
off of my body as if it were
blooming.
tell the story to the corn wound
tight like a dainty waist. it listens.
grain mother,
help those whose mouths are full of
foam, as if the ocean is leaping up
and out.
this is the end of winter. burn those
who curl their chapped lips
around the dawn.
give us oil from stone.
we are pilgrims,
fires full of stars.
clean cut. the eyes
roll. what I think about
when I think about
beheading.
do the veins, shell
shocked, hold the blood
for a moment? stutter
and then flow? does
the spine reach out,
cry out? the tongue
must bite itself,
filling the mouth
with a lush velvet.
keep the fire at arm’s length.
this ear is a snail that keeps
spiraling. too deep. too much
pressure.
martyrdom is a window back
to the living. where skin burns
like ants under a magnifying glass.
expect blisters. a lake forms
in your palm, a red balloon
inflates just above the small
of your back.
so much blood can
put out a fire.
your body was a murder
of crows in the forest. a way
for me to see the end, to look out
over the ledge and find nowhere to go
but up.
a good man’s love. eyes with no
light lie still in their sockets
as if they were stones worn smooth
by the water that never stops
rushing.
this sadness swells like a grape. loss is
a sunrise. God is someone to fall on.
your hound returns to me, tail wagging
at the door. his claws scrape my world
raw.
if we’d all just rock the cradle of our sex
softly, without worrying whether the floorboards
creak beneath, these mornings wouldn’t be so
rough.
before the sheets. before the entanglements of leg
and lip, those toes that curl when kissed. restore it all.
get back to the smooth wail of the body
emerging.
this next time is the first time. pure as the moons
hidden in your teeth. the milk of your eyes. touch me
as if I don’t know what it means. as if you’re the only one
I’ve ever loved.
________________________
Peter Damian, an eleventh-century monastic leader and Church reformer, has received a modest place in the historiography of early medieval philosophy because of his little tract De divina omnipotentia. In this work, Damian treats two questions related to the limits of divine power: can God restore virginity to a woman who has lost it, and, can God change the past?
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
see the depths roar out,
set this world ablaze.
not in dreams, or stories,
but pictures that breathe,
wheeze their way
into the night.
open a tomb and find it
empty, the walls
as if a fire licked
the stone black with its
rough cat tongue.
stand in front of a crowd
and announce
you know who’s in hell.
you see them as soon
as you lie down to sleep,
their skeletal fingers
toy with the slope of
your neck, the curls
just along the hairline.
calamities to enter
into themselves
on whom the terrors
of the divine judgment
make very little impression
transient glances
do not lead to
a change of heart
sickness daily
produces
live on in former
lukewarmness
and disorders
upon the appearance
of an unusual meteor
a rumor that the city
would be destroyed by fire
from heaven
the inhabitants
were seized
with a panic fear
all began to do penance
and fled
with the emperor
at their head
to a great distance
from the city
____________________
*this poem is written using found text while researching Barbatus
I heard a promise
from a blue light
to peel these fingers
away from my throat
to let the wind
into my lungs
like unbuttoning
a blouse
to reach
underneath.
I have never felt
such heat.
1
when something is too deep,
there is terror that leaps
up the throat
like a yellow song
your name echoes back
when you yell down the stairs
that descend to purgatory
2
escape from home
through passageways
like veins under this city
throbbing with the weight
of holding this all together
keeping the church steeples
from leaning ever so slightly
3
this double helix
plunges down to the core
to ensure
a remarkable blue
press your lips to their deep blue
wounds. suck out the sweet
honey of something sick
hot and thick under the skin.
remember the soft sound
it makes as it breaks through.
fall into a swoon. watch
the swell of growing bellies
like full moons rising. this
world is an accidental birth.
what have we named it?
& where did it get those
green eyes?
carving his name into your chest
is not so much an act of violence,
but a hey, look here! I’ve got ribs
and inside those ribs lies a heart
that’s devoted to you. this is a cry
from your blood to work its way out.
to run red. to be formed into letters
that spell out his name.
afterwards, a stillness.
a paralysis where the mind
wanders fasters than your legs
could ever hope to move. run
towards the light, towards his
figure, floating just above
the earth, just out of my sight.
hair raising and honey smooth,
your voice is a shiver. a rebellion
against this cold. my ears freeze
in the wind. everything hums,
vibrates under my fingertips,
and reminds me of you. listen
to this song. since I can’t hear
out of my right ear, something’s
missing. it could be you, or
the horn section. oh, valentine.
I wish I knew how to talk about
what I want. you’ve got me in
between the devil and the deep
blue sea.
to wake up in a sea of red,
those clean sheets stained
to cry out in the night
over stigmata
it is impossible to hold
anyone’s hand, to run
your palms down
someone else’s back
to find the perfect warmth
of another, to not leave a
trail in the snow, like a heart
trying to find its way back home
carrying a leper through a river
ferryman, hart, holding an oar
man listening to a talking stag
oar, stag, with Jesus & Saint Martha
as patrons of travelers
sword & gloves
well-dressed man holding
a hawk on his finger
young hunter with a stag
young man killing his parents in bed
young man wearing a fur-lined cloak
young man who is nothing
but a legend
On a clear night,
it could thunderstorm.
On a clear night,
I saw Mary in my cup
of tea, floating like a lily.
Golden roses leapt out of her eyes.
Light without electricity.
This is an apparition.
This is not my own face,
rippling in the water.
You’ve got me singing the blues
of your elegant draping, the ringlets
of your hair. Is this what it means
to be a vision?
Something to be seen when
we least expect it? Startled.
I’ve spilled this tea all over the newspaper.
As it tipped, I could have sworn I heard
something crying.
