Hang Fire
I hang fire in pretty shoes,
across the wide wen
from the citadel on the hill,
to face the woolley figure
in the small frame of the sill.
How the statue of my body plants
at the rim of this frontier-
Feeble like a toy soldier,
For this sordid kingdom near.
Well he is always planted at that window,
In his painted blithe grin-
Staunch like a ruler,
As if this land is his.
The quiet warfare of his gaze,
Like warm rum down my throat,
Nurses me with shots
of stolen glances from across.
At times I catch a splinter,
Piercing his fatty sheath.
If only I had arms to tug,
He’d split, and spill out onto me.
Yet I wake with a
burning morning belly,
and curse another
spellbound sleep.
I must disarm him with bare hands, yes-
So I dress, in a lionheart’s robe
And tread the jagged sea-
Towards the tower,
For the eyes of my enemy.
Though when I reach his window,
I hang fire, once more.
Sober in an empty room-
For just as I had always known,
The figure was a trick of light,
And falls opaque against the stone.
Ours
The price of our bond is
to stare with wide eyes at the burning tree
as it disintegrates above, inexorably.
To bleed below,
until the rubble moves like sea.
To break bread with the threat of eruption,
who lives and breathes —
the faceless eighth member.
Eruption sounds, we know —
ring, goes the inferno,
delivering us from the hands of our prime movers.
Who came first —
the ghastly beast who eats among us,
or the feral father?
Perhaps the anonymous suspect was employed —
an agent provocateur of sorts,
by our beloved,
or a second spouse to the new bohemian —
commissioned to revive an old fantasy,
or to feed the barbaric hunger of a man gone gray.
A betrothal ceremony commences;
the bachelor fastens to the belt of the devil,
and dovetails into stupor.
Into our tent they stumble —
a provisional nursing station for maimed progeny.
The bride delivers gashes to my flesh.
Sons of exile demand
they lay down their weapons —
though the line between arms has fused.
“Where does the hand end and the sword begin?” they shriek.
The wedded dyad weeps at the words,
for steel protrudes
where once there were white wrists of dough.
The shadow escorts my beloved from me —
taut throat from a precarious air,
a measly shield of molecules.
My love turns, in exit —
silent, still —
sends the coveted gaze, we know:
a shout in our language —
Return home for the barter.
I secure fresh stitches over my wounds,
and dress in atomic quilts of cloth —
my prudent, charitable disguise.
Clothes that pledge Tireless Mercy,
when I am mute,
to say:
“Your majesty, I will never fatigue
from forgiving —
take this mercy at your feet!”
I visit the throne for my daily bread,
to sip what is offered
from the contaminated fountain of a royal gaze.
The taste of part-time endorsement is bitter,
but I know no other source.
In trade, I remain a parcel for facile merits —
an exonerating servant
for the sins of steel men.
Might I strip from this blood-soaked costume,
or untether my simper,
the fountain would surely dry.
When you begin to thirst, I suggest:
Hang head low, bend to kneel
at the foot of the altar.
Be not dismayed, as pant legs moisten with blood-
your veins will tighten, to barricade the flood.
Tie your lips upward. Nod.
Repeat the solemn vow, we know:
Omit all crimes against us
(as swiftly as they come)
Keep the father at his seat.
When I was a tiny bird,
kept in an unsullied nest,
my protectors made shelter from heralding winds —
but their mouths watered.
One morning, I woke in a pile of splinters
and chirped:
“Who dismantled our home in the trees?”
When I brought the elements to the bench,
they shook their heads in pity:
“Don’t you know?”
“Not us”—
No, it was morning dances made unholy,
and afternoons, delighting in a vile temper.
For the winds brought irreverence to our door.
Oh, Mother, Father beckoned him in.
So their touch, too, became peril.
Calluses form where there once were lesions.
Alas, I am fragile still —
Eruption sounds, we know.
Ring, goes the inferno.
I am the leader of the injured party,
for I fell first into a pitted earth.
So will I rise from the belly of rubble?
“By swimming!” I say.
Though if I weren’t on display, as your pioneer by day —
perhaps I would cede allegiance to the tree,
let rubble be rubble,
take flight — and be free.
Picture Show
In quiet homage to Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Map”
The previous owner of this splitting ceiling
Was a smoke-stitched poet
Who wrote in paint-
now the walls are peeling.
The early, roseate light
melts chips of plaster
onto my forehead, as he
exhales the night.
Freckled in the stucco is My Stoic,
my slant-ruined master, I tell him
I want to be eaten up by this moth-bitten fantasy,
I do! So let me map these remains
of our star-spangled roof:
I can’t tell you what the picture is
Just cuts, from where I stand
The luster of brush strokes
reflects off a mural grand.
Exquisite yellow valleys
of paint lift from the walls
then sink down into rivers
of soapy summer shawls.
And trees maybe too,
of bottle green and marzipan
I’d like to go out walking
In this painting of a land.
Make my home atop that one small hill
Spend my days combing gardens
with the maker, if he will
Write me in, into the map he’s built.
Blue Man Bar
Three springs ago
I wept to the Lord inside a church:
Deliver the lover
for whom I search.
A gray fortune teller rung me in,
with wide hips
and a steep rate.
I went to her shack
to ask of my fate.
A macédoine of ancient symbols spoke
from the spread —
an atomic cardstock charade.
“The mate of your soul, an old bloke,
will come to you in May,” she said.
She warned,
“Pay heed to early signs of spring,
for there are many whom you’ll seek.”
In those prophetic days
I ran into the blue bar on Beeker.
A tower of a man stood ahead,
furry-headed, cocked,
drying a tumbler.
He smiled in pity at my scurry
and roared, “Hurry.”
I’m pretty sure
I saw a steeple extend
from his swollen head.
Hayze Law 