now new-come to the end of the world,
fling away the seconds as soon as they’re counted.
we stay here, laughing.

each winter whispers
that each spring is uncertain;
but the end of autumn is sure.

as a gift, take this fractious heart
when you expect it to rebel,
prepare it to break.

I have gone ahead of you
and set the forest afire;
you complain of the light.

you have said: fear keeps me
from the hungers of others.
yes- and, being no food, you are carrion.

the heart is counting out the winds;
windows shake against the strength
but the house remains firm, regardless.

I came across you, lost, claiming
you had already found self and all;
you drank grey water for good wine.

allow yourself to leave the warm home,
though the winter snow has already tread
the garden underfoot.

the same black road waits, no crossroads;
you’ve known where to go, which
river lies beside you.

I will send a moon through clouds
and weary stars, cold in heaven.
listen for me in the breath of space.

and black earth bent over in hills
fixed in common grief,
the weight of enduring too long.

go on, trackless, through no more doors;
you are going past your choice,
heir of your folly.

cease to struggle. in this now, drown without breathing.
let it frighten you awake
from the nightmare that housed you.

it is neither as good or as bad as you wanted
only this: that it was, like a husk that grows wings.
leave it for someone else’s meal.

this and no other night is ready; we must go.
leave your senses by the fire,
walk on into darkness.

pierced with swords growing backwards

and a boat, at the very end,

lying down, I knew I would not wake again any same way
with knowledge bruising my limbs, bloody and bare on the earth.
I stood to tell the tale; I rose running down the track
carrying the weight of a lost fable on my poor shoulders.

I have held a promise, and the name is let me in;
I built the house; you have made it a box for lying-in
and your heart is frantic, and disturbs your silences.

there is a scratching at the door – will you not hear it?
perhaps all has gone away. surely that is the pale dawn in a corner
and not old bones, howling away down the road.

I will praise the winter sky sometime longer
before I come in. leave the door shut,
leave the window. don’t watch me weeping
out here, offending the stars,
breaking silence with my noisy unrest.

just leave me until spring
when the lashing rain drives me inside
I’ll find a fire to warm me then. go on.
leave the door unlocked, or at least leave the key.

now we’ve arrived, and your road-song’s gone quiet;
where is the river’s chuckle after it flows into the ground?
where are your door-openings? your broken paths?

all the ways lead here, though you tried to turn the road
trick the guiding stars, keep the black dog at bay.
love keeps me from your side tonight; we’ll carry on soon.

unsibling -
I devoured the others and gave them birth again
for them I was a dark warm ocean,
for myself, suffering.

and now, in the black spring
I persist; I rise
on my own merit
I return to the world, unasked.

now it is a sullen burning thing
and you are turning towards the door,
looking for better fuel
and leaving the ashes for me to sweep.

just remember you’ll walk here again
and the dust that chokes you then
will be the sometime hearth.

of all pieces of divinity left over, forgotten,
unused, reused, gathering dust and words,
of moss-eaten stony limbs sprawling where they fell
under the sun, which hated you,
and in the earth, indifferent.

so you rise, alive as the first breath
and my slow blood is poured into a new tide
a little faster, to outrun you,
to ready my heart for your greeting.

carved in glass, pluck the spirits from the air.
shape the silence around their speech.

pale bone makes an end of the answer:
do not close your eyes. abandon sight.

the dust sifts down through the passing crowd
and the skin grows tight, and would no longer sing.