Tame Flame

Master fears his hot-headed lackey;
confines it to metal, ceramic, stone.
Watching, waiting, he fears in degrees:
first, second, and finally most feared: third; it exposes bone.

Metrics, however, abound: flash-points and no-smoking signs belie the perverse intimacy
of the user and the used,
owner and the unownable.
Both dance the dance of fiendish intricacy.

Taught to act on aftermath, fallout,
I wonder where prevention is discussed.

A Bill for Love's Lading

I bought your love with a fairy-tale
a functional fiction, fallacious and fantastic.
I weighted each word on a scale
geared for feathers
constructed in bronze.
Burned it with brevity,
impregnated each pause.

I took from you the truth,
and placed it in my mouth,
stabbed it with an incisor,
dared your tongue to take it out.

counting/coveting

Since I have learned to count
I have learned to covet
the coveting and the counting
come together in the numbers
in my wallet
in my waking
in my bed,
in my taking.

I make a mathematic connection
of your birthdate and mine
a crude gematria of our names

October. November. December.

The fall,
the utter fucking waste.

A field lying fallow
a cigarette in the marrow
broken, burnished faith.

Each day, each hour,
a little more sober,
counting inches to suicide
coveting every pause.

Written on a placemat at the Sunshine Cafe, Untitled

Crunching vegetative, cooked and not submissive
green pepper, red, onions almost sweet, oh and oven-seared.
The whole of it: sausage, olives, pepperoni,
the oils of the jalepenos, infiltrating
ubiquitous marinara, made incognito by mozzerella,
delicious, soaking in the pieces.

My favorite part,
at the far edge of each section:
the buffer of bare dough.
For that and that only she shows
-her perfect teeth.

Silence, Sabbath

There are two sorts of silence:
the silence of contentedness
and the silence of discontent.

My silence knows no sabbath.

Venom, Violin

In glass and over ice,
or rolled in papers,
-filters spiced.
Confusion and euphoria,
I am married to these venoms.

Low to high the quartet's keening cry,
(horses' hair, mane? tail?)
Bow drawn, music into murdered sky
How beautiful the lights!
I am married to these nights.

The violin is a delicate instrument.
The hand that moves is finer still,
and still beneath the heart is finest, broken and recalcitrant
harmony, confusion, euphoria,
I am married to this music.

Nomenclature mildly revised

He was familiar with the nomenclature of murder:
Slide, hammer, caliber;
slugs fully jacketed:
lead, silver, nickel.

Generals stood, a line,
an exegesis of brass listening
to the minister speak:
an exegesis of breasts, not
unlike the coroner's account:
a revelation of broken hearts,
the gifts of blossoming, hollowed,
hallowed tips.

She was familiar with the nomenclature of memory:
Smile, hands, caliber;
oaths fully attended:
matrimony, love.

Suitors stood, a line,
an exegesis of lust ignoring
the woman's weeping:
an exegesis of the breast, not
unlike the nocturnal visions:
a revelation of broken hearts,
the gifts of blossoming, hollowed out, and yet
hallowed love.