Heels Off

That naked heart of hers is sharp.
She's showing it to her sisterhood,
one at a time, private showings,
like a gun, a drug or a story.
The boys round the corner and she
sheathes it in her eyes. Stillness
is her signal they should keep loping,
a cold snap held like an arrow
on the string, or she simply has
neither guile nor energy for playing
some inbetween scene and that's
his fault that walks on uncued.

Her hello is a polished hollow,
like a barrel, burnt powder
from the last overblown perfunctory
greeting scrubbed with a sexy
she's scraped clean of hooks,
one thin needle of hug and leg
and pressure blowing through and
then she's through it, too, moment over,
mission accomplished, happily
a woman in a room, a proper
object of desire, seen and heard
and that is all. Soon she will
sew in her closing, the same
short sweetness at her parting.

At night I imagine her anger tames
her, rides her around her bedroom
like a show-horse while she bucks
under the covers. In the morning,
she can't remember her dreams or
why she feels better only after
waking up. That's the first thing
to hurt her, and her day begins.

No Scythe Required

That grandstanding hand,
each fingertip a beacon,
his palm gripping every eye,

that unopposable thumb
granting boon or doom,

his empire is the man
he makes each man into;

oh, beneficent sanctuary
of purpose, oh safety
of the gargantuan body

of the work his arm
raises all our arms to,

bless us this day of days,
so named for it is the same

day's worth of necessity,
the same span of tasks
his hand grants our every

hour of our burning,
so much like the light
he shows us, but hidden

in us, in fear of losing
the fuel used to earn
our right to buy more fuel;

oh, time, you are the father
who's hand never leaves us,

even after we must let go,
you drag us ever deeper
into our empty future.

One Up, One Down

The new year is like a baby
being beaten into shape.

The sun burns in her heavy
height, as blind as any light,
nuclear bubbles burst like
laughter at the gratitude
she earns from an earth
that rounds her table, not
too hot, not too cold, but
just right. The black

between dreams his length
is time itself. Sat center
in his rings, like a king
whose throne is for his court,
Saturn sells himself again
as the original purveyor of
duration, while his daughters,
the only lovers he made
for himself, know him only
as the progenitor of endings.
He has a poet who pretends
a pretty logic proves
the sire of the final must
be the father of the start,

but that is a song sung
in a cycle, not a circle
fit by the compass of the
real. Somewhere another
word crowns itself.
The calendar buys a new
dress. The cups fill up.
The books open to page one.

The old year dies like a man
who everyone wants to forget.

repeatably unbeatable

someone says
the heartless speaks little,
although i'm sure
the heartless speaks too much.

someone argues then
that by my definition silence
must be full of heart,
which is ridiculous, since
as they say, we all know
emptiness is empty.

although I'm sure
i should have said something

in answer, so the sword would say,
i didn't. i know the blank

is burgeoning with all the
beginnings that the pinprick
present is ready to let burst,
or as i often tell myself,
i should be sure that space
is as full of spirit as we
could wish, but here's why

i don't speak. correction
never yet helped an error.
better said, i know that
the heartless is loud,
but that the heart is as loud
as every mistake it makes.

that's not an argument,

it's the truth, and nobody
can talk truth without being
a tyrant. so the proud

mouths itself until it is
as quiet as the heart
it's shouting over.

the repeatably unbeatable
rises and falls
like a rhythm clobbering
time into a mind.

the speech completes,
satisfied that a self
has spoken from the
center of some unknown
but important something.