lockedintheattic

I own six heavy seconds nested in the pearly, bluish dunes somewhere in a ripple, surely. --- I am the owl that was on sycamore perch, staring through the wood at strangers blooming in the dark their false skins rusted stuck; I've dreamt them northern onions- how I'd peel back each layer and cry at all the evil they became. --- The seldom in our hearts is often overwhelming, encouraging our envy- allowing us our joy somewhere in a ripple. Surely this is not the way we're meant to live.

I have become --undone--- a reflec- tion of your face tinted in plum. A fist like a bruise (Southern Comfort) amber in the glass you laughed at my frat- ernity   class. and all our dreams are gone of living on the moon It was over too soon but we danced a moment or two in the rain. Now I speak for you a memory from the past or have you become me. It is all a lie based upon a vague fac- simility  of (truth)

it’s been quite quiet on Eilean Mòr/ but I paid my tribute to amphibious armies/ buried the critter with roadkill requiem/ watched through the eye of a needle/ how the bomb-cratered garden glows after dusk/ how Magda Goebbels mix tears with cyanide/ in joy in glory/ slowly walks the night/ and I speak no words in this debate/ I've been quite quiet since this charade/ quite quiet after the grey parade/ but screaming through this daydream masquerade!

There were ninety-nine drums in the line, speaking loudly about thin white blankets, bedsores, red Jell-O, disease About the sky cracking and falling to earth in sharp pieces About the old nodding out more frequently now, their bodies shutting down for the last time, faint groans and sighs The buttons have been pushed in sequence, no return now Crossword puzzle books and Uno cards abandoned, TV unwatched, drums drop out one by one until at last only silence Not even shouting down the halls, but whispers I remember the trees were just beginning to turn when you left And how a hard driving rain swept across the grounds The sky cried all night

Winter has frozen her work now, secret names shimmering, safe, anguished. Lulled, we enter it like a rocking cradle, the white, vaulted room where frost settles into glass,  where we shrink with the noise of death drawing itself across the snow. Our hands are older than our eyes, some say. Some say our memories are forgiven, that we’ve come to a place famed for the absurd, but this is the part where we light the village farolitos, like children accustomed to time travel and invisibility, striking our matches in the dark.