Melting January into the Terrible Now

January 2021- More Po pending to thaw & refreeze in February

Mixed Signals

Reference- Alone time in the rough by Matt Wiggers

Encased

Inside

the very center of a

January icicle night

with all the colors

running silent

screaming black and white

and the top of the tip

of the tongue’s pigment.

Encased

Inside

the very center of a

January icicle night

 

 

 

He ran from the room

like an errant fire engine

in his eyes was the lighthouse

on fire while a confused group

of hastily summoned volunteers

wondered what the next best course

of action might be

either make a run to connect hoses

or watch out for the jagged rocks

off the shore line shrouded in icy fog

or just shrug and leave quietly

by the clearly illuminated fire exits.

 

But instead

they sat arrested by him

in his wake

his warning

his smoke

while wondering

what could be next for all them

Encased

Inside

the very center

of a January Icicle Night.

 

From Sometime Grief-       12/11

List of the End of Janurary

   Snow coal cone lump ashtray pustule

shrinking in the corner of the parking lot.

(Ah….early spring)

 

Sound of clogged carburetor gagging on itself.

(Great…now you’ve flooded it)

 

 

Lost key trunk eye-hole with yellow handle

long nick Phillip screwdriver protruding.

(Nope that didn’t work either…keep swearing)

 

False dawn slapping wind banging away

slamming cheap tin bed frame freight train

ready to orgasm and derail.

 

Centipede shadow crawling measuring spoons

scurrying across the dingy white moon soaked linoleum floor

looking like a pool of quicksand.

 

 

Brown plastic garbage can rolling down the block

yawning in the gutter.

Air raid siren blast exploding

in a razor blade cable running through your ears

jerking your head off the sound sleep pillow.

(This was only a test)

Child’s dream speak night talk back lit in

orange dragon space heater steel teeth

hissing at the bars on the crib.

(Some childhood memories are best forgotten.)

 

Fresh creme of the New Year

curdling in the calendar’s carton.

Whose face is that on the side?

 

Another Rubber Eden  1/89

 

 

 

The Dybbuk Dreams

It was in the first few nights of the New Year

when all promise and disaster were as unopened mail

that the past had a walk in his sleep.

The Dybbuk’s hands opened old draws

shuffled through forgotten pages

Pausing to repeat a line of a letter

here and there.

Ashes were stirred and long dormant old flames set free

to flicker. Then the night faces could dance once more.

Night faces coming back to visit shining

eyes to glow back into.

Another year rolling itself out like an immense black wing .

Your sleeping form swept along in this night flight,

those waking hours, now the specter, this was the soul

strolling hand in hand with the eternal freedom of

time asleep.

She walked once more upon the mores, in a chilly thick fog.

Here where she had always known that he waited for her

In between anger and consequences,

in this dreamscape of quicksand recall where mushroomed

marsh islands of what might have been.

They both returned to this shadow realm of still photographs

hung and propped in the endless stark arms of winter.

Here where the past stood naked and true.

Both came with small hands grasping deep into the heart’s

pocket. Each visited at different points

along the dream curve, with separate dependencies and

versions of the same story.

They left messages here for each other.

The last word over and over. The promises of reconciliation

and forgiveness. The sensation they shared of never being

able to meet face to face again, outside of this place

of half light sand deep grey pools. Always to return to

the same beaten path, in the corner of the dream.

This place where the images of each other’s faces

in those frozen photos snared arrested looks

and eyes of love and delight that once were shared.

They both returned to this place, every so often

to get a face full and

look down at the other’s footprints

left in the path

from the night before.

Another Rubber Eden 1997