what says the telltale heart?

no promises, I promise
the telltale heart,
despising it as tattler.

treachery hides in cannisters, in all
charmed containers.

icons pop from mechanical boxes
and endings stalk beginnings
with intent to curl vicious,

dust devils prompted to hitchhike
without any chart.

midnight silver garden

Today I swallow
hailstones to reclaim
an inheritance:
safety box deposited
in a silver midnight garden

I like it when earth
collects under fingernails
and worms roll juicy
in swollen soil

arms will bathe torn
in hundreds of thorns

surreality arrives and departs,
a train halts to admire
a mighty blue heron scanning
its future on a shoreline

 

time (to) change

your women tick in,
click out—not quite adjustable;
you begin to doubt

timeworn intentions
wind in the wrong clock

no moment sweeter
than when outstretch
claims object

on that almost
reachable shelf.

 

the bone arranger

bleached pieces
of jigsaw, bones

to be interlocked.

I arranged her this way and that

wondering why
she had to die


my collection is now perfect;
nothing was precisely
my fault.

breathing debris (femme caméléon)

words fall and fail
flatten under heels of tap

a sidelong swipe notes
hands press against glass

and into the fist
soft lips may crash

skin does not break;
it slips and forgives

at times so humbled,
you could say it lives.

secrets and lies

berries stain and so do lies
flying like foreign kites
coloured enamel bright

all acts we perform
to vivisect and charm

so many broken beaks and twigs
scattered on the floor

these nests
take devotion to build
deceit to destroy

felicitations to the predators who always require

more

I loved you; I love you

nothing changes
when the heart is a pretty creature
encaged in an existential universe.

fuck physics.

I am a sweet, law-abiding serpent
willing to swim in scum or excellence;

it is all the same.
My wildfire eyes, my twitching tail
are drenched in regret.

Home is where the false head
when there is no skin left to shed.

Back on Track with Jack

this is being
as it should: a traintrack, a blackjack,
a dancer and aristocrat

on an island surrounded
by honey and absinthe.

I bloom sticky green
sick, in a long-stemmed cocoon
on the edge of a death and a dream.

derailed

my sweet fixer
stops by, his eyes
washed with Marseillais set and rise,
his smile coaxes
my lips to keep time

a fiddle, a swig, a traintrack
a bin filled
with crisp linens and a tumbleweed
_____ with a twitch.

He can talk until the moon
milks the sun, and I will listen
until kingdom come.

manga assassin

outsourced to spy
upon Theroux, Naipaul and Murakami,
I double-crossed my eyes and tango ankles:

tired of being an exception,
so much sweeter to follow than to rule,

I kowtowed to these esteemed sir-men:
the writers and the ghoul.

cast (into oblivion)

certain rides
prove so cruel, rough and fast
that passengers crouch voiceless—
at a loss for loss.

marriage in kukës

the bride lost
her veil; the seamstress
stitched a gown
of palaver, tulle and silk

in colours wildly mismatched.

groomsmen clapped and stomped,
the feast not so bad
for matrimony in a refugee camp.

I recall it all
as though it really happened.

the ballad of the triple-crossed

a ballad to be altered:

just

because my eyes have gone hard-boiled,
does not mean that I do not see

from my river-rock distance.

He holds the lighthouse keeper's daughter
hostage

her father is obsolete

he never mentioned that brunettes
are not what he requires

and she pleads
from her tumbleweed path

I am seasick, heaving overboard
a lifetime of regret and familiarity
with warlords or their occidental equivalents

Today, tonight,
I swim unshoed, confident in my outcast status.

How many men promised to be kokua?
How many men lasted?

Imagine me
in irreverence.

I raise my arms; I stretch my neck.

Show mercy to these misguided girls.
All they ask for is a cobbler and the
holes between your dreams.

Banished

broken
artifacts and tightropes,
father's legacy:

sweet aromas, pipe racks,
22 carat cufflinks, lists that tilt

to the left. Right is dangerous.

Sit me down under Tiffany lamps,
explaining the delight of the altruist.

his

thick hands, handsome fingers
firm chin, such an imposing position

for a diplomat. Enough!

Training hardens, weakens,
overtakes, underscores

too much input,
sensory overload

not lost, merely triple-crossed:

we know who we are;
I know who who you were

before you vanished

Somewhere In Absurdistan

You may journey to Absurdistan
where all icons are veiled
beyond the curtain

and meet polyglot strangers
who will bind and blindside you

no matter.

the outcome is firmly decided
once you mask your lies in silence.

an orchid for marie line

we docked in Alaska
for a sea urchin lifespan:

glorious, in excelis.

just you, me and us.

In glaciers we trust.

so many ballads have passed,
usurping the best and worst,
the true, tried and fast.

my love—

a silence settles
like a parlour trick
and I am betwixt our negligence.

how clever are the cruel

why do you mistake
cruelty for cleverness?
surely you are
better than that

questionable question mark.

Perhaps you have never been to Port Au Prince
or Sarejevo. Maybe you have never seen.

I thought, I dreamed
otherwise, but I was already
in line, bleating for the slaughterhouse.

end-track

a mother is supposed
to know, visceral privilege

my daughter, my son,
I stick nose to glass
in this exhibitionistic booth:

I love Nippon
and deep-sea lure.

The lore churns to myth
and my sentence fragments.