Fragmented No. 12

On a paper’s plain white
word tracks lead me to the end
of a sentence

–– many stray dogs exhausted by
the word Heat.

Up north, dead fires, charred forests,
light’s weak body, as if separated
from the pack

–– a hundred species of wildflowers,
ashes dragged by the wind

There’s a clogged sky, like a drain
that won’t flow
layers of red, as if burning blood

–– in my heart’s upper chambers,
wailing memories:

our tense relationship, awkward
silence of sleeping with you,
we drifted, like a passing wreckage

–– nothing more to say except
your body’s gorgeous coast

Morning’s came, two gray faces,
more erosion, the cliff’s fallen edge,
a fast decline

––tracking our voyage over this paper’s

plain white, my heart, full of sand

Fragmented No. 7

With you, I remember, without
wasting thoughts: and for us, at
the root of strain, a staggering
distress: gesticulations, like frag
–ments of perjured love: noth
–ing would come as answers.
What have we done? A thous
–and formless feelings. Lost in
detachment: And you, us, on
the side of spasms: twisting,  
coiling, in my hard insulation
like some iron winter, burning
shivers. Pushed under ice. Ch
–illed to the bone. Harmony, cr

–acked at the center. 

fragmented no. 8


1.
… from now on, a reshuffling of diction,
word-acrobatics, perspectives gleaming
with thought: somebody built an orange tree
against the other things around it, to devour
boiled eggs in the porcelain hand of a plate,
the convulsions of the world can only go
a short length, it’s a matter of …

… regression, like tumbling downstream
over the backs of boulders …   

2.
… near the end of his journey the man’s voice,
as dull as ashes, a cracked seed ready to burst,
declining through the dark, a short distance
to a wintry end: traveling alone to the bottom,
sound of his dusty age drawing in the earth
lying at the edge of bones: today, the light,
tomorrow the ledge: think lightning fast …

… his affliction is not pain but death: cold
at his feet, like frail children ...

3.
… even in the icy spring of March, your eyes
were the stars melting lingering snow: we lay
buried in the warm blood of naked bodies, like
refugees in a new land, and the wind that did
not reach us, and the ice that could not find us:
outside, the silent streets could hear thunder
beneath our blanket …

… ask me where she is, the one who ignored

my heart, who was gone by summer ...

fragmented no. 11


…  afternoon’s tangled legs,
spines, arms, like tides pushing
into each other

… on a sea of linen, sailing


                      •


… the intensity of your body’s
passion, in my eyes, face,
hands, mouth …


… trembling ivy, warm vine


                      •


… there was nectar the color
of crystal, perfume of lovers
pervading the surface

… scent, bouquet, blossom


                      •


… you hung on to me, like
I was a savior, as if I could turn
dark into light

… I never wanted you to surrender

Fragmented No. 6


There’s the cycle of another universe
a juxtaposition of everything pulling,
then again, it adds up to another to
–morrow: six planets in one sighting.
The contents of a black sky, like a
hasty rapture, like two-million years
of hope. Everything I’ve longed for,
mute, like a coma. Hope is spherical,
round and round and … all movem
–ents are dreams. Life is self-obses
–sion. Nightmares, hemorrhages of
fear. Bliss: your skin, electric when
taking you: blessed ocean, holy milk.
The closer you rise: aroma of sea, un
–dulating. Only your wholesomeness,
never a compromise. The anticipation,
more than the moment: don’t push away,
tomorrow may forget your sacred offering.   

DAH