house of fires

01. traced caustic. traced frail. and withheld in dissolved refrain these sometime wishes caught fast in a flame let loose of the prayer and hollowed their theme to follow up this hopeful spire and utter fiercely

{to their dreams}

I once held these in cares these once were my replies

and fell out this purpose for the lack of regard I stained graciously the mast feigned hopelessly the bow

}and grasped{

...leafless...

02. when thought in despair created and famously spent this coloured stone weighed neatly in the prime cellos and crowed fairly by sallow shores for these following chimes lulled deftly to sleep the chewing crowd [when will stubborn retorts offer whimpered replies] became the source of the play the object of the game

this tapped that on its broken design

and

pressed so firmly

it pressed the mired crawling reprise

03. forbidding the trampled disguise and casting a line to the pooling sky for the solid echo of relief that fosters empty homes beneath its craning wing and sings full melodies of wanton minds:

 ~laugh deep you metal fawns and come bitter from your folds~

"that we might settle calmly amongst your supple cares and burn secretly the edges of this desire," smother and stoke and tender this reubuke.

04. rake out the tested frames but here suspends the summation for only in the clearest of screens are caught the most slender rhymes bristling frankly in furrowed divides and kissing their lips [cold still] on the precious constancies raised in sordid assumption and torn from some other storm and place in the show for the similar astonishment placed side by side each more troubling than the first each more free than the next until as one final element they will be raised shining above the openly debated frozen plastic

(05.) crane [(stooping low and holding those dreams melted in her creeping claws) and funnel down towards the old oak base] where in the useless years the poet played a copper harp and told some false account of a candles journey in a torrid heart that raced and reached and ran its course from town to city [from pulse to pulse] it rattled furious and rumbled dull and spilled its light here on the floor the solid stone / the broken hearth

06.

(a) and there for hours

untold

the story met its blind old friend the hostile jar

and filled its careful womb with a wincing pure disease

and cleft open the polished sides

and spewed once again its pretty lies

on and over and into the well

and down and under the penitent town

(b) seizing in light the molten appeal hollered up to the tower and past the clocks face and over the moon and beyond the night where patience feeds the bellows.

the bellows that blow. 

the bellows that blow restlessly.

.that blow. 

.that blow air.

07. wish ever to drink great draughts of this feathered air

 

that winds through mottled hours

 

hanging heavy above our heads

we'd be grateful for even a thimble-full

we cry

 

arms outstretched feeling cool on our fingertips the icy current

 

but seeing nothing but our heads

our mouths

our lips

our bellies denied

 

and we wait without grace for the white-stone guard to loosen this lock

make light this chain

 

..how long and how fair is this sentence this gift this page..

...

echo and narcissus

Echo and Narcissus

works (re)cited

echo and narcissus:

echo and narcissus
the angel's retort
the audience's realization
the twin's reunion

the death:

and the longing
and the dirty mirror
and the broken mirror
and the glass

the abandonment:

no more roses
fall
rise

the eternal:

the eternal

the abandonment [rise]

clash flesh against flash to sound that trebly roar from the palms of our hands to the high domed sky and look to the others who share our joy our tears our confusion our heart that cranks a rapid pace and plays the bass for the choir that plays reprise and pays the coin to feed the empty hand

and:

could he truly dare to speak those words as though they commence some completed thought that here amongst our several minds there lives some sincere  divide [divine] [refined] (rewind replay the tragic the fun the happy the longing the one) single perfect model of life that wraps so happy around these words that state themselves in reference books //we're false we lie we could not care how truth defines our name\\ and yet we give we still respond we file : one by one : to have our thoughts they're borrowed they're sold they're lost amongst the varnished revolve that spins it grows it idles it throws these phrases to our jaws that click and break and love and wait and spit and drink the stew

now:

rise frail friends from your wooden chairs back the way you came from seperate parts of seperate worlds that never asked nor begged nor hoped that never breed the same replies that never care for this the greatest lie the sanest truth the roof the floor the wall the wall the wall the stage

and:

its a fair fury that held our hopes for all these years in fresh fingers in boney prose how could ever we truly give our simple souls to the crystal loom and drape the garment that ravels out upon our square set shoulder blades or bite the cloth and tear the ends and treat our pouring wounds

-and the empty stage to the empty pews-

..you left me as i left you..

here on the streets in the failing light the bodies bereft of mind make feigned attempts to resume the dance the one that filled the stage that filled the limbs of the puppet muse and dazzled the hungry eyes

make me the same i want no more to have this empty hope

~we cried~

it was me that hooked my pretty hands to the hanging silken thread

and all the same though many plees you layed towards my callous resolve you knew the script you brought it in -you wrote it one dull summer eve- did not you know that once you penned those words that clash so false too soon those words that clamour so eagre so true to romantic dreams you wrote the words and so did i the ones that follow the rhyme and tear from structure some timely demise and give to verse a well deserved . long awaited . betraying . hated . inevitable . happily stated and never denied final eternal demise.

it was expected by sheer design

you always knew and so did i

the words that wait

-before the ticket was stamped-

before even the paper stained

that ink drenched opening line

rend it from your frosty lips

please wrap your tongue around the sting

and i promise to do the same

dear

sweet

friend

utter that demanding line

though happy

though sad 

the end.

...but we have yet our names to sign... 

the abandonment [no more roses]

no more roses they said and felt significantly it must be so no more roses to sow or sell or make spells and cast reverently into the skies no more roses they said and felt utterly so that this must be the last of the straws at the bottom of the cask no more roses they asked

not even for a coat to wrap around my chilly bones and cleave fretfully behind the roads not one they asked not even a petal to make a bed not even a thorn to make a train to ride away from the snow no more roses not even a stem to set hopefully in this glass not even one nor should ever we cry or dream or hope

to rend them from the tomes that these flowers once so honestly frozen and callously held between fickle fingers shallow yet true and feel even outwards grasp blindly sincerely and clasp and dream of roses

 in fields and sheets and oceans of red and yellow and oh so many facets of those gentle haloed friends those lost those lamented those longed for oh so yearned so needed so pleaded

they there on the steps out on the bitter street never sweet not any more for no more roses cascade no more roses remain no more roses pour ambitiously out from the fettered dew drenched roads and wish on delicious lips on wetted waiting whispering lips skip out these words of plea that never would these unfortunate fools ever for even one moment have even ever believed that for even ever not even one more moment could there be not nearly even one trace one trickle one sweet scented sumptuous red alluring rose.

"??no more roses??"

they asked

and scoffed

and left

and rose.

The Death [and the glass]

when this world no longer turns but hangs dim in some other sky

when stories are mute and none promise ever to spin out from lapping tongues

these forms once draped in cotton and gold

(and rotten and mold)

now forgotten now old

(now cold, un-told, sold, the saddest most tantalizing ode)

collide.

amidst frozen stars these two again for one last time stretch out arms towards one another remembering fondly those awful crimes and stroking firm wounds matching maligned they dance that fabled dance and grasp from the universe some practiced  design and make a score a thousand times performed once more once more some sweetness burns some kind old phrase hanging delicately out on the edges of time remind these pieces these heroes these fiends that there must in some perfect mind be a perfect version of a perfect prize and then their fingers let slip their grip but not with horror nor with glee nor pride but with honesty for once this time with truth with hope with grace replace that false design with just a smile a simple sign from one edge of the empty divde to the opposite side of endless time two massive spheres of absolute each as grand as the other press together and for once after all this time say good-bye.

.gather round this priceless scene yes drink in this final turn for no reprise for this dancing pair will rend itself from the archive.

~look across the divide~