In Trance

Through round on round the days threw

Bored light. Words can’t make it new.

We’re too old, and it’s not ours.

Plain sun’s the crux of dead hours.

Twigs tossed past bare panes. We knew

Each print, each crack sun shone through,

Each pulse, each blink we burned through.

Arms crossed, eyes shut, a prayer threw

Shade on all the facts we knew.

We sat with it. Nights felt new

At first, but dusk can take hours

Of its own. Night’s stakes weren’t ours,

Its winks and slow stars weren’t ours,

Lights in the dark we lived through,

Eyes wide in bed for X hours,

While boards creaked and the wind threw

Dreams like birds on the walls. New

Day broke as a day we knew

But with more breaks than we knew,

More weight to the wait, all ours

Now, for us to bear, hard news,

Hatched for us, day to get through,

To mark time while the clouds threw

Grey blurs in grey pools for hours,

And then the light changed. The hours

Still stretched out, huge, but we knew

Now long waves washed us. We threw

Out that prayer. When was that ours?

We leaned to the light, looked through

The smudged glass, and glimpsed a new

         

Shape to the dull ache, a new

Heft, more like wealth, in the hours,

And we found we could float through

The swells, could swim. Then we knew

What to do. We claimed those days ours.

We caught all the waves time threw,

And we knew we’d been made new,

Would reel in whole hours as ours

Through those long troughs slow days threw.

Leaves

We’re the gold tongues left
In the mouths of skulls.
We speak for the dead
Who wrote some words down
To save for the end.

We were shaped and cut
By live hands for souls
Who lived in their flesh
Like blue flames in lamps
And dreamed of pure flight,

But knew, knew and loathed
What they knew, that they
Were part of their lamps,
Not trapped and not free.
They wished to ride off

On slips of gold boats
Placed in their dead mouths,
Which we were, when they
Had gone—tongue-shaped gold
Cut with words, hard flames

That still shine from dirt,
Old teeth, and crushed jaws.
We are and aren’t souls,
Gold tongues lobed like leaves
With words from lost worlds.

Your Next

What will the past look like
In a few months or hours,
In a few years or days?

The minds that ask their brains
Don’t score as well as those
That first check with the tools,

But still, if it’s not all
The same, it’s not so far
From one guess to the next.

If you find us, by day
Or night, we’re sure we’re past
Days and nights where you are.

And if you don’t find us,
If we’re lost in the dirt
Or wiped clear so we weren’t,

We’ll bet you’re still in your
Past, such as it is, as
You guess your best what’s next.

How to Know What’s Real

In your dreams,
You sleep late
In the sun.

In your life,
It’s still night
And you dream.

By the blank
Waves, vast skies
Gleamed wild white.