Bed 27 (26)

Tonight
As any other
I sleep calm and deep
I have had your voice in my ear and it has rode out my doubt
The doubt in my heart and mechanisms

Your race is won, love
Close your eyes
And I will watch you a while
I will hold everything in and out of you close
I will be yours

I will sleep with you

Entropynaut

The word is not entirely accurate
Meaning nothing often
And, at times, everything

So fast to speak it
That we forget its meaning or lack of meaning

It is a lovely and terrible feeling
Full of promise and endless void
It is nightshine and it is broad daylight

So easy to write it down
That we lose its power or its weakness

Our prayer ends it
And begins with it
No joy in life or sadness in death
It changes us and helps us to remain

Dread and anticipation
Rescue and loneliness
Evocation of the syllable and the silence

Lie quiet, your face to the sky
Before you speak the word, breath in
And try not to move

Lifespan of Bombs

What happened to us in that dark way?
Did cars buzzing by spend their time oblivious to our calls to our mothers and fathers?
Did the lights ever come on?

From the first step to the last
Torn aluminum
(Davy was close to tears at the name change)
Glass from fist-shattered windows
Dirty things, all about us
What happened?

What happened to us on the front
The place had the stench of lost kids from across the sea
That's how death smells
Alone

Look up to the skycraft
They split and make dead the clouds with exhaust
They do not blink and they are not proud

To think, one-hundred and fifteen years later, we blew it up
We watched his majesty go down and bathe in his own blood
Ex
Pre
And Post

The Follow House

To the birds, sleep
Your work is over
And the nightsong has done its job,
as well

Dreams, like the flickering images
from the projector shows me you
Reaching out, dragging me by the hand
Smiling as you pilot me

You lead me to the steps
And it is quiet outside
Everyone and everything is asleep
"There is no deeper way I could love you" I move my lips to silently speak
You smile as you pilot me

Walls, doors, panels and ceiling
All you
Hands as smooth and solid as the heart's foundation

You take me up stairs that seem to never end, sure in your step, still flickering
I smile as you pilot me

The soft echoes of your voice settle into my head
Moving in, as a home is made
And hurt and doubt are unmade, just the same

I smile and speak with no words and you show me everything and it is unfamiliar and familiar and warm

and it is home

LC song

Settled amongst the traps and pages, littered in dust
Is our rememberance

Soft footfalls are the timing by which we expect
"It is time to wake up, father"
I hear it, gentle in my head
Washing out the debris of not sleeping nearly enough

To me, it means the gangs have left
To me, the stars are straight

I let the smile ease across my face
My whole face

"Do you need more today than the one before?"
I do
"Do you want to wake up, the same voice, alive in your head?"
Again, yes

Your master calls, beast
On the lift of soil and grass, above the river
Your ears, trained fast, perk up
You come with no doubt or fear

"Is this your track lost in the snow?"
It is
"Has the well flooded over your thought, your reason?"
It has

I breathe into the winter air
It hangs heavy, smoke-like and trails off behind me as a road would rise, the further I walk

I have no joy lost in being at fault for anything good or kind I do

And there, in hard winter, I leave my master behind to dream her cruelty alive
And cry in her sleep

Birth Farmers

Circles
Star in flight from mother/father/home
Terrible flight
Terrible broken things
Made to be repaired and brought to a smile

May I kiss you
May I hold you

Sunrise
a tomorrow that is happy
That is full
and lies back, easy

We were not so nervous then;
the Explorers

On Backs

This new black
it is yours
alone
but not so much

I have decided I cannot fight it (I never would)

Past
Patient
Precious
Like so many tomorrows
and stones
and windows

Navigation

Monsters abroad
Go fuck yourselves
This slim and narrow mouth
It has the word
and lies

This is MY friend
The is my launchpad
The rocket
The fire
The smoke

Monster within
Pilots ignore you and defy you
as do I

There is You

Older letters reveal us
Before speaking in an instant
Without words
Older signals from where we made you
They have long since drifted off into nothing

I have your first pictures, black and clinical
They are old and curling, but they are you

Never having a chance to watch you extinguish you first birthday's candles
Never having taught you to pedal your bike, balancing awkwardly
Watching you ride away, finally

I like to think you felt only a rush of warmth and then went to sleep your sleep
I like to think I was brave and warm and caring
But for either, I will never know

I did not dream of you last night, I dreamt of countless other children
I am sorry, in a way
And happy, too

My heart, as confused as it may be, it loves you
My flesh, my bones
My child

My mind's eye envisions you as you may look today
And how I may have been different
To have held you
And put you to sleep with songs, or humming

You still live in me though, for thought is never truly gone or lost
Just changed
So in that, you live on
Drifting softly into space
Into sleep
Over and over and over

The Carpenter Prayer

"I must give my men rest.",
The lead man to the baron
Twelve rock formations rise from the red clay
The vessels land
"Finish my mansions and sleep on the grounds", the baron replies

This work is always the kind that waits
All but for those of too little patience and a quickness to judge
Non-believers land and preach the sermon of nothingness
They use and use and use
They take from us
And return only an infinite emptiness

Where I stand now is the end of land
I see the waves swell and threaten my booted feet
They inch closer
Then retreat
'The tide is rising', I speak in my head
And it does rise

Ramparts scream their gunshot songs
But it is quiet
The horizon promises endless saltwater
Osprey fly to their red flame homes
They lumber and labor heavy in the hot breeze
Circling over land, then sea foam and land again
Casting shadows over sleeping workers
And a very lonely baron

Not this exit/a list

The massive structures
That make up this space
Of thought/thinking
Of Us
They are night-black
They are wings
Digitized
Talons

The smoke that rises from the road
Also rises
From towers and alters
A million lifetimes away
They are commanded
To obey
To serve
Sleep

Broken visions
Of buildings and
Abandoned cars and houses
They litter the nothingsphere
They sift like
Ash and ember
They disintegrate

Massive Little

Sleep fast, son/daughter
touch my hand and look into my eyes, knowing

There are no masters calling their hounds now
There are no stories so grand as the scent of your hair
They can wait

move a little, little one
your breath grows soft and signals night birds to coo and call to one another
Your bones growing
Your muscles stretching and changing into the future - yours
Your hair dying and being reborn faster/slower than eyes and hearts and hope can measure

Sleep, daughter/son
Let your eyes grow heavy
Let the millions of tiny stars in Eternity and in Existence explode
You will never know or care or think about it
You never do

This Symphony is the core of the End and the Beginning

These last nights on Mars
They have been the best and happiest of my lives
The pool of black sky behind you spreads out
as if it were the arms of the Destroyer

"Nothing" you whisper
and I know it's no lie
It's a promise

The days before settlement
They were so full of hardship and
they were twisted with resentment
The heavy machines reach towards the sky
A cat's whiskers telling me 'no'

I have seen the others
They stand on the hills and watch the stars scream and come to devour them
Never weeping for what could have been
But happy to have seen the event together

"Nothing" you whisper
and I know it's no lie
No spires of dust and clay between us
No man or woman or beast can tear us apart

Standing on the hill together
On these last nights
A promise