how full i am
of spitkicked
good riddance
upon this eve
of a long year's
never ending

forever
readjusting
shrouds

lessons in riding
dreams white-knuckled
to even a bitter fruition

built from bullets of
best intentions &
flaunted dismantling

these sterile systems
so tight-spaced in off-white walled
days of tiny deaths

"Light breaks where no sun shines; / Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart / Push in their tides."

- Dylan Thomas

go home

to

oblivion

baseline apathy
o days of hope
& poor direction

our destined spheres
loose hums
of low vibration

this reach for rough
edges at a day's end

insomnia's
endless shuffle
& skip through all
the wrong songs

snowswathed & winter
cradles me in mountain's crook
gelid glade languor

these other sides
of our days our
internal schedules
of self-contained
rote sincerity

ritual responses
we unexpress
& mentally masticate

o bitter truths
kept & fermented
hope to turn sweet
but eventually bite

'til we swill in cyclic
nearly empty snifters
of outside selves

fog-full aspen groves
appear dead anticipate
shrouds of snow
their pillowhite promises

& my attention
scatters so many
marbles in crevassed
attic floorboards

these tongue-twisted
ears & all your best

between moments

we in those wee spaces
& long silent lines

talons rake
tousled reminders
& lives relived
through bedhead
bleak hours of
blank walls

oh but for all
this pretense of aimless ache
in birdhollow bones

slowsunk as days
trade titanium
for marrow & more
of me is made
than man will they

put a thousand ball
bearings where my
bronchii used to be

in ten years when
bionics build me
an empire of every
tin man's envy
& the servo says yes

short edge of time when
sweet deepens begins to burn
turn in on itself

this echo amplifies

solace ectomized
from night's acute hours &
silence my scalpel

oh whipped wind linger
at these bed corners both my
windows left open

ineffable at best

office politics
so i am hackles raised &
all bite back today

an appealing cool
twists sweet & fermenting air
crisp impermanence

oh let me haunt these
ripe havens of half-leaved trees
a few weeks longer

grey short-hour days
push me up mountainsides &
pull me back to roots

full sick of shallow
steps so my stuck craw
searches challenge

for some wade
through thick mud
thigh-deep problems

desperate bootpulls
of a focused real & just
most necessary work

drowned in
depths of
daily drudgery

forty-five degrees
through blinds blissful cold but then
housemate cranks furnace

i want bared-teeth wind
to be buried in blankets
one bare foot stuck out

farewell to crickets
east wind chases them off through
all these aspen leaves

one of those can't sleep
so maybe i'll just go for
a drive kind of nights

or, y'know, just dick
around in notebooks & post
these improv haiku

lost in a lamentation
of foliage i'm over-
looked & observe men
play chess under willows

or do all timers pause
all players take notice

play don't stop say i
a bit too breathless

woman yes i watch so
proceed with queen you rook
to bishop beyond willows
& i've drawn countenance

this deepened
gnaw for
plain roots

after everyone’s
transient tendrils
tie me down

constrict & all
my sunlight's
eaten in leaves
of green lust

after i'm left choked
out overgrown &
shadow withering

so let me look & leave
you all unsettled i

tuck your "intimidating"
into my skirt pocket a
new favorite modifier lets
gladly swap epithets

for now i am otherworldly
& vaguely threatening

you're too
intimidating
to be cute

he says

your face
never hides
that it knows
too much

& i hate to
be so seen
through

but'll
stick around
anyway

that corner
of your mouth
says i seem to
amuse you

alien thing

a life avoided

hold being
like breath &
navigate a rush

from holes to hours
to headspaces to
these tiny hermitages

i carve & create for
deliberate solitude

thirty odd years
& still incapable
of feel it all
less

no liberation

existence's
persistent pummeling
of all my senses

oh these
everyday
oblivions
of being

don't we
all need
a little
illusion
to live

he cried the way
he used to laugh

a life in facets
of being truest
to my emotions

gps of instinct

cycles of solitude
& a whimsical
capriciousness

company kept with
myself in lieu of
meagre constructs

why is it
such a
herculean
effort for
others to

let you feel
through
your feelings

instead of
endless
attempts
at redirect

what growth
or progress
ever happens
when we're
comfortable

i find
though
he says

morality
gets boring
quickly & to be

boring is the
ultimate
sin

flitters between
exploding silence

a casual line
dropped
to perhaps
plumb fathoms
of demeanor

struck instead
resounding
chords with
that deep
inside myself

though tucked
in pockets
i knew at once
he talked
with his hands

nightwrestle
chimaeras
& only these
feathers
for proof

aflame wandering
coastlines of trepidation

i am ash
upon reentry

today dark wind-
blown & alive

particulates
of quiet
expectation

crumpled
page erase
& try again

don't talk about it
they say it'll
go away

but that
does things

makes vines

creep secrets
over all your
inner walls

no lie is true
enough when
your liar lies
to you

thunder & all my
windows open
worth a wet sill

detail & stopping
orbit beyond us earth stills
we are the spinning

ride that validation
of a deep exhale

he looks at me
like i'm late
but
he's not all
that mad about it

in fact
he needs me
in the kitchen

wants to show
me the pantry
& i slow go
glimpse

warhol shadows
in stacks at his
shoulder

oh campbell's
oh chicken
noodle
soup

erratic divisions
we talk in
kandinsky lines

knifered accents
tonguetip proof

of paths my thought
is jumping

only now
can you ride
truth nonplussed

as if it bit you
as if you plead
your ravages

or had you really
caught ripples afloat

plotted folds while
a red slice
of silence cuts

you're losses

a crouch compass
spun in on itself

a dashed dream
a not-image
of an age ago's
imagining

stuck indecision
& tiptoe nosetip
skirted edges

what selfish things
i must keep to myself

the leaves are falling,
falling as if from far off

how many miles is
a few months ago?
necessity looks
back often on

an autumn i
used to be

no longer chloro-
phylled i'd watch her
blow away in
reams of brown oak

& red maple
paper

all i want at work
whilst chained to this desk is a
nap & a wander

autumn races up
fire-ravaged mountains to
linger red & gold

closeness
so carefully
devoured

these breaths drawn
deep against the back
of seconds

drawn
perceptions
these
paper wounds

fingertip delicate lights
inside our hands braid
his strands between
memory & moment

always haunting
libraries when it's
too dark to read

some
thing
to be said

for a
wended
way

back to
your own
bed

he waits below
torpedos loaded
& if it sweetly
goes to plan we can
sink with abandon

it's all just
perspective

you're there
i am here
subsequently

apologetically

love lies

after all parallel
to that which
perpetually
needs

take me
away from
this house
let it be
we that go
by 'til all
ours of night

but really all she is
is fall night burns
inside everyone leaves
it carries her turned
colors haunting heavy
down in the garden

but they always want
to talk & i so fond
of being anonymous

this small game where
i find so much more to
tell when no one speaks

oh i hear
your dragons
& how you've
been longing
to breathe me
since you first
noticed i was
on fire

no

the answer is
& all that
flattery
won't change it

put away
those paws
or i'll show you

all my most
retractable
points

tired of
these
remains
i know
too well
to keep

i forget
what i want
to mean

hammocked
in ignorance
you'll wake up

wet in cobwebs

realize it's your
blood between
these sheets

hermes took
a 12 gauge
in the winged
shoe & no one

is left to carry
my petition to
olympus

ye gods

to the zeus
i used
to know
who'd turn

into a cow &
pick up chicks

it's easier to
turn the volume up

something about
moments
something about
letting what doesn't
matter slip away
i slip away

or perhaps
she only loved
how he distorted
truths of what
she wasn't

sterilized
by this hard work
of losing

all these headlines that
never match your story

loose she
fades to
shadow

outside dark's
cold teeth can't
purchase prove
her slipaway

poison paints
veins no anti-
venom for a
blue webbing

overdid under
-doing never told
him what way
light trembled
so in his eyes

rabbit
-bred
bad
word
habits

autumn & october still
hang too tight to what's
left of these trees

tremble to think they
may follow september
up her wildfire pyre

endless acres sacrificed
for a stay of summer

moved me recently

wish you well by emma Louise

make me uncomfortable by seavera

adore by amy shark

love is blind by dustin tebbutt

1+1 by ryan downey feat. zoë randall

journey's don't stop believing covered by the jezabels

little pieces
on loose paper
i work through
poem proofs
i could've
blown away

in each inkrun i
am suddenly
unable to share

withdrawn
down deep
roots sapped
& shaken stood
in wind while
wild pieces
of me let go
like leaves
untethered &
retreating

fatigued focus
on a few functions
this farce of faking fine

everything in
reverberation
escalate echoes
between days
& dark walls
postpeak troughs
these prices
we pay to write
reconciliation
of all our selves

minded efforts to
bridge these gasps

flint words &
emotion steels
too distant to
spark what feels
a perhaps poem

how i ponder
his shadows

how he shallows
my sleep though
these lines could
only end empty

how he swallows

& i fell beneath
a blood bed into
these riptides

drown day's
glow confidence

how he takes sky
& looks down
higher than my call
higher than the roar

which kills it

linger in these
shivers of chilled
morning fingers
which paw through
my thin sheets

from bed to breakfast
quick bit of buttered toast &
jam to start the day

a few crisp-edged clouds
loll cool slip over jagged
peaks into valleys

this whetstone
solitude sharps
imaginate blades
'til i can continue
to carve selves from
white page wombs

my window inhales
tousled treetops all
windtangled with a
somewhere juniper's
stowaway smoulder

i exhale slow-turn
tentative bathroom
dances mirror squish
stretch evaluations a
steam cloud coated
beast with star eyes

elegant where it's
only ever unbearable
pluck good words from
blind men with these
birdflight wanderings
of my woman palms

condensate until
drop by drop those
dew poems slip
sleepy from almost
autumn's ceiling

& i'll never
know how he
puts up with me
blathering
about poetry

this day of
dallied
drudgeries

dusk draws close the
door of deep hours
the black barricade

hung on hush hinges
which opens only in
those lonely moments

at either end of each
day the door runed
with ancient symbols

of solitude barring
way to wee spaces
for breath & being

to write
a stunning
fingertip
wordslide

to want
beauty but
be too busy
telling truth

to read
others 'til
a poet ego
rushes out
& slips
thru cracks

to pool
from pens
my little
words like i
got no style
got no soul

to keep
on digging
expression
-less hole

sunk somewhere
in this bermuda
triangle of time
'tween 2 & 5 pm

recents on regular repeat

running by ryan downey

mistake by middle kids

listening in by dr. dog

stuck in orbit by what so not feat. buoy

through the night by vancouver sleep clinic

everybody wants to be famous by superorganism

banking on
possibilities
of profound
forgetfulness

i move to gather in
to my empty ribcage
these minute stone

words which clatter
new ground from his
boulders of thought

oh these deep un-
attainable fleck
hazel half-closed

eyes & today my
body hung in birch
groves like a bell

tolled roads full
of distance & tear
after tear traced

into rivers towing
battered sighs to a
blood-harbour sea

a sub mariner
bed dive & this
periscope of
weekend hours

he comes to me
when armor's down
& walls are weak

when emptiness
eats so why wouldn't
i reach for him? but

awake life happens
in armor surrounded
by daily distractions

'til night & day
are two ends that
will never meet

poles i cannot
possibly reconcile

our scars are
too temporary

we're always
one slip away

from back
to bleeding

utterly uncontrollable
heart-content vicegrip
attempts full futile
attempted nonetheless

came to
burn me
but i was
already
aflame

woke up before my
alarm from a dream

where i was beating
a gigantic shark to
death in an underwater

library with a copy
of great expectations

so what the dickens
does that mean?

a void dance of
a v o i d a n c e

all these acts
of avoidance
which'll catch
up & kill me
eventually

night air still smokechoked
& our mountains are merely
a suggestion of dark shapes
in smog these indeterminate
contours quicksand silhouettes

let me stay
awhile

'til i feel
like i can feel
again

'til i can
slip out
of these

covers

& pull back
on a me who

doesn't
need you

a good day
for disappearing
in the trees

we could've
done so much
more damage

me with this
chip on my
shoulder &

him with his
axe to grind

collateral damage
a hidden surcharge
of self-preservation

awake before it
i watch daylight
invade my shrunk
& maudlin bedroom
a hundred cyan
slices through thick
slats of blinds

i'm cliffhung
at the edge
of his hollow
in this bed

sincerity drowns his
brownblack eyes &
suddenly unmasked

a loathing & regret
barrels through that
sincerity ready to

railroad me under a
train's weight of my
own tracktied guilt

wrench free wrench
away hit my shoulder
hard against a wall

behind me hit hard
his chest hard push
away with fists hot

familiar tears boil
over lashes over blind
eyes this scene swims

i'm done pinning
that arm behind
your back you

default push every
one away with
i'm done being

amputee being left
with one-arm attempts
at care expression

you crippled me
his voice splits
before we began

words hiss
through grit
teeth match
frenetic pace
of dark eye
scrambles
for my own
to attend

saturday surrendered
to this black hole bed

slow spread
limbs search
chilled bed
sheet stretches

lazy curves
of morning lounge
repositions

bring me better
reasons for this
breathlessness

ashthick heavy air
heatborn holds heat
closer holds heat
against burnt earth
burns earth again
traps waves reflects
burning earth burns
sky summer sun
scorches earth ash

up a nextdoor mountain
top i & my binoculars
through a sootglow
smokescreen gape
as tongues of flame
race through aspens &
convert each douglas fir
into an obelisk explosion

midnight air choked
with crickets & thousands
of acres up in smoke

a reclamation
of detachment

rituals of pre &
post to disentangle
these too dangerous
poetic inclinations

unfolded & i
give myself back

to an acrid wildfire
wind which clawed
its way into this
room while i slept

exhausting
efforts at
indifference

bleak nights of
burrowed
sleeplessness

he casts lines
of smoke in
sleepy interlude

his midnight trawl
through these
calm silences of
post pitch & yaw

in dragged lures
he crosses a
length of vessel
& she leans
toward him

with the hint
of fresh wind
forecast from
her leeward roll

spit fire
scream

carve bleak
detachment
around both
eyelids

but

blunt each
point of tooth
& talon

layer a lie
over curled lips

lose all color
& walk into
work another

empty shell

this scorch pinned
limb breath thief
sweat beaded skin
of a summer night

awake
against
my will

let me relish this
now cool & comfortable
bed a moment more

i am unready
to face the reality
of another day

& to be honest
i'm so much more productive
in bed anyway

how long can
i evade these
morning arms

some days are
for a wish we
weren't islands

some days we
empty our loves
our life's contents
into emptier seas

& this line
is a letter
& this verse
is a bottle

& if i cast until
they float packed
tight i just might
walk on water

asleep so long
under afternoon
sun & i wake to
this evidence of
his attentions

red licks upon
long limbs back
& shoulder blades
half blush heat
roses repose on
cheekbones & chin

so every move this
next day or few
will radiate residual
slow burn sunbeams

muted rumbles
of leftover sky
night lullaby

roll half-awake after
thundered cloudburst
moments ago &
kick sheets to floor
tug window open for
rush reach breaths
over bare skin stretches
of warm wet petrichor

a double or nothing
die young challenge
kind of a day not for
a lost love but for a
lost will or maybe a
lost longing for love
which may be worse

tired of
waking

too many ins
or outs of faith
& doubt days

when i almost
believe like i
believed when
i was a child

& earth had
an order to it
& the nature
of things made

sense because
everything could
be explained
by god or the
lack of god

& now this dance
of faith & doubt
is so much more

than a straight line
so much harder
than that past
ease of one foot
in front of the other

who can know
this thought
without a sound
of words

which ring with
something other
than echoes
in my own head

spaces & letters
clatter around pages
& perhaps there's
more wisdom

in this maintenance
than my wanting
gives whatever
credit for

another empty
crawl of staring
fingertip hours

body a ball in bed
corner arms clung
around ribs as if i

could actually hold
myself together
alarm clicks & chimes

i let it as i scan a wall
face for some reason
to start my day

but where is the cure
for dickhead reflexes
of disunderstanding

trite attempts
to temper a
felt reaction
distraction
& covers me
with his body
to bury the
dissonance

bullshit condescension
in lieu of understanding

i disclosed a page
or three of poetry
& he said it was

nice

& i never want
to see him again
but can't get him
out of this bed

slow stretch
sabotaged
& i remember
my space
invader

nothing on this
tip of my tongue
but tastebuds &
words in poor taste

whether or not
to smooth these
ruffled feathers

oh these messes
of my own making

damn & blast
bearded boys
who masquerade
as better men

i need better people
or better places to hide

trip over favorite
temptations

a vice i say
no to all day
& let in at
night anyway

dark familiar

& familiarity
& habit

are also a kind
of comfort

glean crumb bits
worth biting off
last scraps of
leftover advice

a hole as a crutch
a hole as a means
of separation or
distinction

a hole as some
antagonistic
collector of
artistic integrity

you exist with
a hole easy enough

but what of when
you let a hole
fill with gravity
& unopposed
drain you in slow
spiral increments

back arch stretches on
a rack of consciousness

hip tingle
teeth
at my ear

that sound when
comfort changes
into constriction

what to do when
your distraction's
out cold & all your
doubts close in

this gaping maw

of my bed & i

so eagerly devoured

my bed's pillownest

hides a black hole which holds me

in place each morning

i read somewhere that

pillow count correlates with

depression levels

so... i have sixteen

pillows on my bed but i

promise you i'm fine

what if we call

today saturday

eve & start the

weekend early

i got up, showered

went to get dressed but have laid

back down on my bed

it's just so hard to

accept the fact of mornings

even in their midst

set an alarm for

5 min from now then i

have to get dressed

today can happen

i just don't want to resign

myself to that fact

these morning haiku

are the only things i feel

like waking up for

this simple
pleasure of
slacking off

summer small nights
will still be bit by bit
for a little while longer
not black but a
choked gray night
smokespread still
lit with stars & wildfire

rays bounce & shimmer
back to us with such
smothering heatwaves

he wavers between
me & a wide window
i strike an incorrigible
tongue seek mischief
toss good intentions
into the arms of fresh
& inevitable morning

shrunk pupils in hazel
irises yawn wide &
embrace electric spark
brushfires he spreads up
the mountainsides of me

fingertip test those taut
ropes bundled beneath
the tan sweatscented
skin of his broad back

too tired from our
earlier tugs of war
he sprawls a laid
claim on these bed
& body territories

so i roll & scribble
silent in a rogue
streetlamp beam
through blind slats
my moment's mood

'til i can no longer
shrug off a lone
limb's snake over
my perched shoulder

it slips & sidewinds
catching me in his coils
with soft hiss laughter

but what if all my
darlings
are already dead

fishing & i caught
nothing except a
desperately needed
natural green shade
of riverside solitude

amused &
musing to a
little music

of life's little lies
which taste truer
than some truths

sometimes who
we pull close to
us will only ever
emphasize our
emptinesses

i realize i
will never
be more
to him than
what we
already are
& i do not
know if
that is pain
or relief

it was never
an actual
thing see

it was only
an act instead
of a thing

he dozes here
beside me but
oceans gather
between shores
& i comb slow
shook fingertips
through strands
of burnt umber
hair untangling

here's a hint, honey
it's actually all walls

that sound when
comfort changes
into constriction

coward & i crawl
back into all my
wounded places

let me be your
phantom limb
i beg from this
foot of my bed
facing a window
that may as well
be a wall wide
open but blinded
& blue curtained

grunt acknow-
ledgement & shells
of words scatter
spilt across my floor
headlights through
other slats hit high
arc over ceiling & my
self & him probably

high voices outside
this bedside wall
so our silence
deep & darkens
leaves reverberating
in my room sweet
sounds of strangers'
reluctant goodbyes
words & wet mouths

i slow stretch
careful across
his long sprawl
legs slide shut
the window pain

soft guilt
titillation
in a touch
feeling
unfamiliar
after all
this time

wide awake
& playing
pillow while
i earbud shuffle
skip songs
that don't fit
try not to
fidget under
a hot head
& heavy leg

a life attempt
to put all of me
into a little poetry

twilight air
vibrates under
pressure piled
thunderlofts
& sky high
mountainsides
with a shimmer
anticipation
of ripening rain

midnight meets
a dark anxious
downpour &
my life half un-
ravels into those

cracks of lightning
crashes of thunder

& a whole room
with its evening
associations in
millisecond eyeful

low rumbles of
chest-caught
thunder gather
behind me

precipitating

every nerve & inner
monologue's scrawled
with static today

i am singed & electric
ionizing tension as
air around me crackles

from a whiplash of
pressure fronts colliding
all sorts of cyclone whether

it's not that you
want to go back

it's that you
want to go back
as who you are
now & not
who you were

because this
you might do it
differently or
appreciate more
or assert or assent
when you should've

it's that you
want to go back
armed with memory

is this really sweat or
am i actually melting
dry heat & i will be
dust by morning

words you listen to

misunderstood
whole worlds arrive
appear & disappear

cups of mud contents
eventually run clear

war's available if you
want it in lieu of solution
assembly of peaces

how to decode a
distance around you
blind men in rooms
full of mirrors

i untangle
& weave

simultaneous

meditations
on myself

tiny tapestries
to tell of me

little records of
raw emotion

summer
is too good
at smothering
all but one urge
at a time

a surprise tanka
on my mail table today
scattered flowers &
a far friend's familiar pen
disrupted morning routine

sometimes we're
more tired of
effort than failure

exhaust attempts

to explain these
jumps between
associations

back to running
lapse

i followed

& you didn't

even hold
the door

trying too
late to put
all that

distance

back
between us

a fall back
into things which
will hold me

or am i just these
pieces i give away

a life of how
to sit silently

as a mind's
overwhelmed

by high-pitch
hysteria

circumnavigate
like i'll avoid
those calloused
hands

reach & i'd love to
grab but he only
ever whirlpools me

a blank page
to turn or
scribble on
& i'm never
sure which

he waits &
i am here
back-to-back
with this door

why is writing
as a form of
avoidance

always my
most productive

my life in measures
before or after
this coda of him

set at a common
table with my fate

i'll admit to
occasions
of a little

aggression

to scare him
back into
unsurety

a point driven
a pique

of my own
curiosity

a piece of poem
for every time

he's picked up
his goddamn phone

my hackles raise
he thinks me
such a certainty

this delicate
dance of
untangling

swill decisions
slow distracts
ice slides & clinks
in empty glass

a sleight of hand &
hint at smoulder
i'd brush that scruff
i'd bite that shoulder

cheeky clip of blues
traveler crosses my mind
'cause this hook brings
him back every time

covered ear shells
internal ocean

i sway on waves
of blue blood

nautilus curl
submersion
coils of energy
for surge breaks

shattered
on a shore
assured

by an island &
survivor voices

or that slap
of saltwater
on these quays

summer's naked
sprawls across a hot bed
every last cover kicked
feverish to the floor

morning & not even
all my resistant
snooze taps

can keep its alarm
from browbeating me
into submission

every day i add to
my attempted coups
against consciousness

daily a bloody ectomy
of self from this bed

tweets about never
wanting to get up
'til i have to get up
& other microcosms

desperately
disinterested
in this day

every a.m.
a hostage
negotiation
with pillows

sorry i'm late
boss i had to write
about how much i didn't
want to wake up this morning

i scavenge memory
for how to forget
where it is buried
in this mute blood

slow bob of adam's
apple along a tan neck
& his pint empties into
an experienced channel

my unexpected fingertips
accompany flinch reflex
in that broad pectoral
like a tail flick on some
wet stallion's satin flank

& if i lose it in these
all our other moments
could his glint grin
keep caged reverb-
erations of low laughs
or salt sparkles
on blurred rims forever

could i never stagger
out of all my available
skin into a moonless
morning's tenacious dark

or not need a web
of neurons translated
& suddenly sarcophagi

an imitation of sky
films water which
dreams it's other

& i wander my
individual landscape
head to heel to head
in cartographs of self

trek steep trails
through old forests
of monsters aside
forgotten shores

shook hands on taut
lines as blood sails
blindfolded these seas
you set in motion

not sand but ashes
smoothed by mirror-
holding water after
sunset fire to sky

tell my legs
how to leave
a time which
may not move
backward

& they'll walk
stiff as soldiers
at a thousand
yards of post-
attack hysteria

if i unplant
these feet &
escape myself
will my bones
become charcoal
& unbearable ash

wandering
windstorms
for those hollows
of his face

when i look
back my 20s
are an endless

series of serious
discussions

with a father
or mother or both
baffled & begging
me to tell what

i wanted to
do with my life

because it was
normal to presume
desires & wants

even if mine
didn't actually exist

& as these
chats recurred
i was banned
from "i don't know"
as an answer

until all of us
were sick
of each other
in silence

since there was
no elephant
in those rooms

because
there was
only a void

perhaps
shaped as
an elephant
so it could be

just as easy
to ignore

what feverish
wounds wait
at this slippery
crossroad

how would
our scorched
hands hold
the days we
have lost

will we
write of rocks
raked by talons
until they cease
to be rocks

when earth
has hit sky
& returns
to be earth

at the feet
of shadows
that will never
again move
from their walls

my stomach
inverts in
yellow wheels
of revulsion

& i can already
see a puckered
hesitant mouth
in a white head

tremorous full
of excuses

time
needs
space

i've held this
last hour

watched day
curve into
oblivion

& blanket clouds
over evening

'til each thing
begins again
to ache to
disappear

in a distance
between he & me

which refuses
to contract or expand

his hands
occupy
& unhinge me

until i am
a door

to another
dark room
he can't quite
recall

& if he
dreams
of orchards

i'll be a tree
turned wild

in these
empty arms
of spring

but up
all night
i count his

chest in rises
& falls like

a total or
a new day
might equal

an answer

set sighs afloat
on each sleepy

exhale
don't tell

i could be
sea wind
unleashed
across his
horizons

or already
have been
& keep

spreading
too thin

my eyes hold
your hand

& hide it in
everything going
on everything

always goes on

your fingers
line my eyelid

search seconds
for other words

tremble & retreat
across an ocean
of unintent

familiar images
shuffle impatient

on a white
screen

carouseled
in endless

click rotate
click

a reassurance
of love

helps
like water's
existence

helps
parched roots
which can't

reach it

few weeks ago
a coyote

tried to drag
someone
from a playground

why does
cool stuff
always happen

to other kids?

tired of your
force majeure

of how my body
will tilt & yield
to a gravitational field

aim at isolation
without
a fixed condition

i could use
a little less

third law opposition

retreat
from a haze
from life's reach

up & out

what breaths
below?

sightlines
trace pocked
horizons

for enough
articulate pain
to put in

these poems

i wake as
a pillow

midbook

but stay
behind
eyelids

& feel him
absentmin-
dedly

tangle my
fingers in
his beard

bite down on
steel fingers
fishhooked
in my cheek

sweat scales
on a writhing
white underbelly

caught fast &
a taut line pulls
me through wave
after wave after

wave after
relentless
crashing wave

get ready
for work like

which
new hot
summer
shade
goes best
with my

endless
internal
scream

my existence
is theoretical

your relevant
hypotheses

can only be
tried between
6 pm & 9 am

in a bedroom
that is & is not

i am unable
so neatly wet it
with my tongue

how a sun sets
upon her sea

& we are
incandescent
nothings

we flame out
along crested waves'
thread-gilt
borders

until twilight tide-
turns & steers us
at darkness

at rocks in a
desolate deep

endless
amble

to echo
off each

other

we write

disappearing

letters to

distinguish

ourselves

fleeting

but fixed

like this

summer

& when they

all leave

i'll wait

for myself

but i won't

appear

i chose to be
shipwrecked
on this raft

of a ribcage
tossed with
his ebb & flow

a sea rhythm
of pitched breath
deep below

boneweary

from these
endless
attempts
to outrun

our expanding
circumference

of grief

when our weak
brains give out on us

ships of endurance
encased in ice

or beached whales
better than shallow
water needing
death in sunlight

foreign beasts so
soon carried in
pieces back to sea

what new feral
cries will ride
these clouds

above black
stones too blunt
but left close
at hand

will our structures
so planted
shrink or else

implode

slow-churned by eons
of invisible abyss

bones bleached
in blind silence

i've lost
three people
in six days

& all i can feel
is a void
rushing back
at me

after all
this effort
i made

to get away

pieces of april

tied to you

these tiny
lines
are my

untethering


i only want
every
silent song

you don't sing

wild-eyed
when it's dark

dark words
rumble
at my ear


until there
is just this
vast rush

& a tingle
on my hip's
teetered edge


how to

let you go
& stay gone

instead
of your bounced
back hide

an existence
in my horizons

as shadow
facades
& mirages


tired
of what's
not true


he tiptoes
this wave-
length, traces

a slow drawn
fingertip along
my mind's-eye
lashes

& looks
for a tear
in his name


i want
what words
you just
deleted

despair
a last surety
empty breath-
less clinging


tempest-tossed
in unchained
changes

convinced
he enjoys

his ephemeral
presence

haunting me
in periphery


heartground

begins to
crack & tremble

where he
laid long
buried

& mostly
left alone


twilight time to

sit still
distill

in this ink

on these pages


passing fair
at derivation

his stares
drill into
a cold shoulder

she wants
his standing
ovation

she just
wants a him
who will
hold her


stick
fingers slip
deep into

this shaky cage
of my ribs

'til i play him
a slow fistful
of cardiovascular
conun-

drumming

& he
kneads to find
a whole
he left

behind



with petals please
your trees, bud

no longer
barebranched
& empty reaches

spring greens things
little wings

a window unhinges
a small voice

sings


why do i
only recognize
i'm not alive

in my
"best life"

when my
alarm rips
each day
open

& every pore
screams in

refusal?


a morning
feral animal
maybe but
not a person


by eleven i'll
domesticate
into a routine
forgetfulness
& succumb


anyway
i'm up & off
to a new day's

series

of little deaths

another
workday

present

but not
here


late but
not
late enough


ate a
burger
with a
knife

& fork
& side

of how
in hell
did i

get here


a day
to try again

winter seemed
to agree
with me

snuck snow
& a subtracted score
of degrees
through trees

bountifully
blooming

i trudged
in green slush
to a drowsy door

past piles
of twisted tulips



a woman
of many
words

most
of which
are never

heard



i keep a
little sorry

tucked

behind
my tongue

for feeling
not quite
right to you

for songs
you want

unsung



a short reach
slapped away

guess i
friended wrong

again today



when rest

wraps memory
tight enough
to constrict me

inhale efforts
with no room

in my chest


ghosts of him

burn behind
eyes escape in
swim & tears

arms ache down

to fingertips
to unwrap

remember

unravel
undo


specters
fringe this
consciousness


can't sleep with
that inkrun itch
in these fingers


nots i can't
put into words
because i never

laid them out
anywhere but

my head &
my hesitation




wild waste
of words
works a wound way
within whitenoise

whispering
without want
wonder

or worth


bored
with all my
unreward-
ed efforts
y'see




need
to leave
little notes
of never again


been a silent
sullen
audience

as he physically
disappears

to be all
she wants him
to be

when will his
doing
be death enough

for them to part?



i prefer an
inconsideration

tell me
what you feel
instead of
what you think

send it off
on wings
a note to open

uncurl
an anecdote to ease
each time i try

to smile
in a mirror



how to
draw you
through

colors
of window-
pains




caught fire
from constant
friction

from moving
in all my
same spaces


what if
every war
was already
won?

would
we watch
from this
far 'til

the last
of our
malice
was gone?


too busy
killing ideas

before they turn
into things we

can no longer
control


stop
believing
it's a favour

to stay
to not

tell them
how you
truly feel



no one
even knows
i'm here


blind
& clung

to how he
reached at me

in the dark


forgave him
for being himself not
for what he did



made of empty
like a sponge


buried beneath
soundwaves & sleep

drowned by these
drums in the deep



against an
accompanied
lack of his

deep reach
breaths beside
me i mouth

long notes
of loss from
loose lips in
wet dark


i'll slip out
of these covers
& pull back on
a me who
doesn't need you




maybe
this will not
be read

maybe
we only have
finite words

maybe
i'd still choose
ink scrawls

on shrinking space
on last pages

maybe
it was never
a choice


in parenthesis

i exist
betwixt

vagary & vaguery



those times
i was certain
of my answer

i now wish
i hadn't spoke

these words
have ways
to say
nothing i know




silence
talks
to me



he left me standing
guard over nothing


stone sorrows
meant for steps
& not for walls



shake my head
disgraced
his heavy hands
still go to waste


tell me again that myth
of a conscious life


forever whirlpooled
by other people's eddies


a more
fertile
boredom


carcass-dragged
from my pillownest
& just gonna wing
it today anyway




heard you like

bad girls
& i
am bad

at everything




a book full
of the image
of empty pages



now music
& someone
else's words
for a while



ashamed
of my surprise
at your son

at an image
of your greed
of a greed

we're all
imagined from

you are actually
a feud forgotten
a being lost

in my being

each evening
i'll take a turn
with the sun

exhausted
by carelessness
am i only

tenebrous trash
grappling
night's infinities

& pinned
by transparent
silence



when
possibility
was

hope

& not
regret



images
untainted
by under-
standing



to stay wild
in the mind
of everyone
i leave behind




make
impossible
want you back




because
i couldn't
give you

everything

& stay
myself




you be
a train

& i'll be

tied to
these

tracks



empty
to that point

where you
start
making room

for monsters




he said
it doesn't last

forever

just like
everything
else



warmth
in wind

finally across
this face
& tangling my
hair all wild

time to look
a bolder
daylight

in the eye


i watch a moon cast
thin lightlines thru dark's eddies
to feet sunk in bed



anxious
insomnia
over all
my former
selves



wouldn’t know
what to do
with that tiger

if i caught it

besides let it
eat me because
i'm always letting
tigers eat me

because i come
too often

to a crave
of any sensation
so i settle

for a visceral mess
for teeth & claws
mangling me

into blood red gullets




keep a corner piece
of poetry
in the back of your
fridge for me



perhaps
perfect
is a little
pink floyd
curled in this
pillownest
covered by
breaths
of spring
rain



his teeth
at my ear
sound like
morning
sun




if i die
my day job
did it



an early spring river's
pretty jumpinable

but to drown
would be too slow

a death for this
day i'm having




sunk in bed
in a navy
bedroom

leave me
shipwrecked

beneath this sea
of seconds
my day was



once
we were
ships

full of fish
we'd return
to the sea

always
waiting

each in our
own place
eyes open

& blind

my flesh
remembers you

remembers blue
bright monsters

limbs reach
beneath
sunlit surfaces

& water
in old wounds
turns to salt

we uncharted
an island

& inside it
oceans
died

grey
clouds
runaway

& forget in
horizons

forever


superfluous
efforts at
identity

can i draw
a man shaped
like a man?

test his oars
eager upon
a sea with
no shores

to pass through
you take
& leave

with other names



divergent
roads appear
& disappear

so we write

to keep them
carefully
together

to hide
what might

move us



half-bared fangs
reverberate
chest deep
laughter from
darkness

rage reaches
wiry fingers
toward calm

to share sleep
& these sheets

with a shattered
signal in
tremulous strokes



i watch cold
black water

trudge
up my walk
the size
of a man

here to drown
the moon in me
that keeps him

tied & tidepulling

some good stuff so far

a wash

wind & waves today
ate away
with eager sand
teeth these

sad juts of
sharp edges

from the shells
of my everyday
selves

a baptism
of beach

black cobbles
count each
gull shriek

each prayer
loosed from
its mooring &
washed

wavering through
grey mists &
opalescent air

find me fresh
intent in long
saline washes

of agate coast
& its waves ripped

from an ocean
too cold
too wild
to cower in

seawater

see water
redraw lines
i was sure
there was

shore

sea brine
breaths shiver
down my throat

taunt a
mountain-muted
tongue tucked
too long in

dry valleys

should've
left myself
by the sea

shipwrecked
without
any qualms

landlocked

caught & roll
in too many wrong

riptides

gotta get
a breath
of beach &
a breadth
of better lungs

this heart-
beat's
breakers

in driftwood
bones

& saltwater
swims
through
these veins

stuff your
pockets
with poems

& let's swim
until the
shoreline

disappears

50 Top-Played Tunes of 2017

So, in descending order, here are the 50 tracks I listened to the most last year.

Jungle by Tash Sultana
Does This Last by Boo Seeka
Not Above Love by AlunaGeorge
Thick as Thieves by The Temper Trap
Never Start by Middle Kids
Cool Out by Matthew E. White, Natalie Press
Humans by Boo Seeka
Make Them Wheels Roll by SAFIA
Back for Me by Electric Guest
Wild Horses by Bishop Briggs
Free by Broods
On + Off by Maggie Rogers
Selfish by The Kite String Tangle
Strange or Be Forgotten by Temples
Alchemy by Willaris. K
Do You Ever Glow? by Green Buzzard
That Message by Holy Holy
Through the Fog by MUTO
Turn Up Your Light by Boo Seeka
Unbound by Asgeir
All Disco by Elbow
Die Young by Sylvan Esso
All Lit Up by Communist Daughter
Rooting For You by London Grammar
Twist Your Arm by Ten Fe
Atlas In Your Eye by Dustin Tebbutt
Beacon Hill by The Rural Alberta Advantage
Big Picture by London Grammar
Blue Monday (cover) by HEALTH
Calling Out by Boo Seeka
Fake Magic by Peking Duk, AlunaGeorge
Love is Mystical by Cold War Kids
No Reason by Bonobo, Nick Murphy
Feel the Way I Do by The Jungle Giants
Not A Fighter by Airling
Wasted on Fidelity by Cameron Avery
Whiteout Conditions by The New Pornographers
Be About You by Winston Surfshirt
But I'll Try by Ainslie Wills
Double Dutch by Superfood
Fading by Vallis Alps
Feel It by Georgia
Hold Back by Communist Daughter
Midnight Hour by Teischa
The Highs by Panama
Something For Your M.I.N.D. by Superorganism
83 Days by Wafia
Bitter End by Gordi
Crushing Hard by Urthboy
Does Your City Sleep Like Mine by Jim Lawrie