Broken Bodies Part

It was the night

he bit into his fist, again,

not knowing it.

Gravity turns such things to stone:

Rather than blood on the knuckle

A fissure formed—(a line

drawn perpendicular

to others more familiar, almost,

welcomed

by the slow softening

mineral part)

where harsher sounds are

formed by touch and tongue.

Now we understand the relationship/between

(Tiny-cavernous)

pores connected by jagged cracks—

like a crumbling constellation—

explaining

why we call them

heavenly bodies: At dawn he opens his mouth

to finally exhale the story

and stars

fall

:

;

,

tumbling

out/in

broken pieces.

The Body

The body hangs like

A stranger haunch and hook version of soul state

There is a man who knows

the veins and arteries,

-even capillaries

designed to carry the carbon and color of punctuated probabilities

red lines connecting,,,

exposed cartilage to iridescent tendon

but now

drawing pathways down.

All this dancing --

in a white room:

The steel against liquid iron in strings

of steam drawn heavenward

Mixing with the cumulus exhale from lungs still living.

We know the butcher is capable of clutching the blade meant for marrow and sinew

He also concerns himself with the bitterness of

(the sound of)

blood that belongs below the body.

He knows

to leave the marbling of compassion so it will be consumed

with blood drawn

nearly raw and tender,

or the dense creamy attempts held sacredly within the splinter-prone skeleton,

is to know where the once supple joined

will gladly give way,

and the characteristics of this body:

The difference between

places where pain resides and

the pieces of my heart.

untitled

September grass

Splitting in a tepid wind

Swimming in red sun

Lowing like a prayer beneath ashen sky

Humble eyes

Your tears in the early light

Like the sweet offerings

Of your moonlit solitude

If the warmth of the day

Carries them away,

Suspends them in the air above you

We will breathe them in.

When 

it is quiet between the blades

I whisper through the cracks and lines

In my skin

The wrinkles beside my eyes

The hole in my heart

Where I know the oxygen turns

to fire.

I blow consonant breath toward the spark there

And the embers nearly ash.

I tell them about my shame

Until they burst

into flames

Because my fear of the dark has enough wind.

Finding false fault

in my fine broken branches with blossoms still fastened,

drawing lines across the glower,

begging me in blues and green

floating behind bones and breast,

sewn with sinews like hopes patch

worked by habit:

Frayed and stray threads holding steady.

woman, why,,,

Woman, why,

are you crying

because sea rise

wraps silken floods around

sparse dry land

and we watch her gently

rush in and break the heart land--

strain the threads of barbed wire we imposed and carve her own

path-patchwork

in bends and wiles.

The ocean warming yet yearns

to cool the stony clods of smoke

buouyed  by betrayal

--That would fall into her arms--

because deep isn’t troubled

By our blatant disregard for

her way of life and

is always

reclaiming what belongs

to her

each time

she ebbs and flows.

She fidgets, fumbles and pulls at sand in hands

made of melted ice?

For the trapped animal

on the small land of being woman

beginning

to question

her cage of barren branches:

over against the white sky

they are never

/more than/

cracks in the heavens.

because her face upward greets the rain

coming off the brittle fingertips

--Two drips at once--

Until she has reason

To believe it is not (just ice)

--her tears falling fast enough--

to cause the ocean to swell.

For Advent 2018

Posadas Poem

She hears the flute of favor rising from graves and grace,

Abraham’s blood dances in her arteries,

Moses’ voice rises from her throat,

Leaning down to the bristle of mane on her cheek,

Whispering simple words of gratitude into the largesse of a trusted ear,

Caresses the velvet cheek and watches the dust, pollen spray in a beam of light.

She sings a quiet song of slavery days to stay awake

And he hears the flute of foreign family

Trill and sweet against the piquant mandate.

Written and enforceable,

They approach the receding horizon of time and place

to be counted among the ancestors.

He lifts the shame lightly

And beautiful round hope rests

Against the spine of a stubborn animal.

This child within a child carried aplod,

Embraced by the warm womb,

Atop the humble percussion of gravel beneath hooves and

The rhythm of the journey calms the blessed trinity

As they move toward the fulfillment

Of the generations’ desire for redemption.

He places one hand on the robes around her shoulder,

Another hand on a leather strap,

As they amble carefully

between high walls and hard places,

Meeting the countenance of knotted wood,

With calloused knuckles.

He is familiar with the shapes and grain that usually cede

But on this night he cannot shape them or

open their saply spaces to his knowing touch

And he resorts to shouting familiar names into lighted windows

that refuse to recognize his voice and suddenly go dark

Because of the burden on the burro behind him.

In search of comfort in a cave,

They find the colt tied and the fatted calf

Of a story yet untold

And rest with relief:::

There must be a God,,, gladly, watching, God

Guiding the shepherd’s heart

Gazing through the sparkle of stars lighting the bramble landscape of fear,

Observing with protective eye

the lineage of lost sheep, now found,

bravely wandering, wanting to emerge

from within a woman in a rush of windsong and wisdom.