can't

chassis, wick, and faulted, drag
suffer, strive to feed same failing form
and Jones compete. ache to build
as ample show as they, though
never here to see, so much
to do away, to make, create
and earn, in cavy dash, a
living wage, 'though worth
an hour weighed meant life
each moment whisked aside
to forge same features on.

sans elliott

who defined us? who
first tried us? who
defriended, soft, defied us?
when it ended, who supplied us
with a moment, with a song? who
enlarged our scope and spied us
recognized the love inside us, brought
our tension out and plied us with a
deeper, kinder bond? and when it
felt like we had lost us who stayed here
and who forgot us? who made eons fly
and echoes boom, brought out our
elephant in rooms of doubt from corner
bunnies dusted and who felt and shared
and loved us when we
thought we were alone?
o did any see who held us?
who cried over us and led us
over mountains in our minds and
brought us home to find our rest? did
karma, kismet meet and plot to place an
ally in our way or ways, a soldier's arm, a
hermit's bow, a waif to ply a bitter wave? did they
by once-lost lovers leave behind a stepping stone from
grief that might, if leapt upon, propel us on? did they
indeed align these mirror images of
freckles in our eyes? did i?

Thresh

Step on tread on beat beneath me sod and

Tramp down brickle, thorn, and vine, tamp

Into place trails, wending, wide, drag

Double-bitted bite around, swing 

Fell bent and broken branches, kindle

Pile to burn inside, to grill and laugh

This party planned so long advance to

Leer and sway in liquor's haze a

Long awaited song refrain hum now

As one foot follows, drips perspire

Expire in exhalation, drought on lips chapped

Lick to tame and shoulder on, lift

Arbor's arms asunder, toss on pile to 

Moulder, gain endorphin there inside

As I demolish what grew on

Alive

Graven

Promise, fraud of whitest perjur, 

Flower willingly deceived,

Jack's sudden lack of effort:

Then, orphaned listless, sing

To fly, and cry, to try...

Let go? 

Can one scar discard, or

Chasm,

Molten meld, to mend?

Will, would, wanted

If abandon to 

Abyss of time or

Was?

Unsay all spoken? Oh!

Possible, elapsed echoes scan

To press Undo? 

Un-forsake and 

Re-awake? Rebuild cold wall of safety?

Repair Scrat's etching, fault erase, 

Bring home such truth:

Unexplained and uncontained,

Re-do? Re-live excrutiating

Reinvention? Adaptation into

Chrysalis and wing?

Far be it fancy thus

To crawl, instead forge into

Distance, 

Dance!

Lover's Lot, this Knot

Flood of ocher,
Night enliven,
Flush awash, and
Render bantam skeptic flight
Of ever, solely Mine
Sanctioned moments at a time
In Focus, keen contrast,
But saline rinse to
Follow, kenned, soon, so
Mesmerize, meander thus
Entwined, for
Bait of Hera's blessing I am
Bound to covet,
Lost home, amnion,
Succor, hearth, and balm beseech.