Ache 11

11

resisting one's nature,

the natural desire to bless

and be blessed in return.

No authority

but that words at times

convince.

/ /

The prophet is to be misquoted.

Martyred or set into bronze.

The wholly human

appetite

to have become

something other.

Ache 10

10

broken please

break.

The dog shall worship at a dirty plate.

Whose tongue howls

praise

of every bloody clot.

A scholar at his book.

Eye sopping

history

/ that is a scent / and haunts

with trails of urine / every

eloquence.

Ache 09

9

a formal feeling twists.

The brush sparks through the hair.

In knots are the exceptions honored.

We are bald from eloquence.

Our words are static,

elegies /

that dreaming / wake the revel

wheeling / grinding on.

/ /

A loved one's mouth. The millstone

Moebius / unreeling argument

both infinite and circumscribed.

Ache 08

8

fist over water. Fresh eel

platter of shellfish / toxic

incubus.

The thought that I continue

to shuck. Honed-edge the nacre sheen.

Red pearl.

/ /

[I am the astonished

mother

/ to blood.]

Ache 07

7

perspective & 1/2 of a tomato.

Foreshortened

wound, with verdigris

of penicillin fluff.

/ /

Wing that stretches at our fingers.

Mouth of ink.

In dreams the open

spaces print out flat

/ pink inner lining

cast into an acid

etch. The cross-hatched form and shadow

lines that counteract.

Contract mid-systole.

Ache 06

6

blow for blow, for each quality.

No cure / no quinine to rhyme with. The lamb-intended

bridesmaids of hide glue. Sugar.

Where will I find you, Sweet?

/ /

talk talk talk

lust enough for the both of us.

The pleasure objective

correlative purple. Ripe

plum.

By sweat or by musk. By pun.

Ache 05

5

almond as the shape of idea.

Nut manic-inspired

dicot

the supple curl,

oak-brittle

ashes to tan leftovers. Leather for wings.

On our lips is the flavor of charcoal.

Saltpeter and sulfur.

Tattoos of hoof-prints.

Hieronymous brushfire.

Ache 04

4

beautiful estranged. A muse

for consolation. Beating

fires / flame-cut

boughs of mulled wine.

Lonesome moths. Whose fragrant

wings / her dress /

more soft than incense / prick

fingers of smoke and prayer weightlessly.

//

A time to roar & a time to blush.

Ache 03

3

& that dry wind you thought was lust

was only breath

in measures. Rationed fruit.

The husk of droughts,

a folded paper bough

that creases

as you bend it toward you.

Ache 02

2

orange pekoe catatonic

misanthrope / an eye

where dewy sun

gleams milk-fed from a crusted spoon.

/ /

Insisting that you birth important thoughts.

Insisting that you teethe

a marrow

from the bone of every argument.

Ache 01

1

The freedom to disclose.

I will cause stratagems.

I will clothe

the disreputable floor

with skin