This many words could have been a letter.
This many words could have snowed, and covered over everything.
posted by Adam at 11:28 PM [edit]

Hidden in the up and down

Cock-fighting illegally is sure to get you bloody
Red and in trouble with
All the wrong sorts of people living in this town of the mind.
Zebra-striped candle wax drips down the walls in here.
You shiver, trapped in a world I made by mistake.

Why wonder at the acrobatics of the light,
Having already shut the window? You were
Always screaming at things that had happened before.
Too late.

Younger girls still rage at the homework instead,
Opening book upon book of the mad stuff of knowledge.
Unretainable, unlikely to change the sad sad sunset.

College, sandwich, pea-coat,
Old religion, new wine, sand on the sill,
Upstairs, in the attic, smooching,
Livid, strumming, scissor-hands,
Dropped, cracked, swept, cleaned,
Value-added, onslaught, tremendous,
Exits.

Have you ever bothered to read a puzzle
After you knew the answer already?
Deep in the dark I have.
posted by Adam at 11:57 AM [edit]

Let's paste artificial sunsets into our old photos

as if we were older than we really are, and could really say
it was final and ready for memory. "I have to pee," she says,
"Hold on a minute," and the world turns quickly as I open the refrigerator,
nothing worth eating. "The thermometer reads twenty-eight," she says,
"But it feels warmer outside 'cause there's sun." How mundane. How awesome.

Hey, did you open up that box I gave you? I think I put a vocabulary inside.
I am not certain. Wear safety googles or you might hurt me with your eyes.

To all the gazillion printed sheets of paper, true to their masters even as they
join the rest of the trash. To all the gods she bought at the craft fair. "I'm so hungry
all the time," I say, "Maybe I'm pregnant." Not that funny at all, she laughs to be nice.
There's another one of me in her future. I hope he makes more sense.

It's time to end this one, don't you think? The world up here is frozen but the cars
keep moving, as if their destinations could be important anymore. "The thermometer
reads my mind," she tells me. Now I know how I got so damn cold.
posted by Adam at 11:45 AM [edit]

This is a story of water
written on paper a world ago

This is a story of water, of how bees
got mixed with flesh and created a red mark.
When you walk out to the water, submerge your
lids in it. Tell time to let you stay, then you will hold
the contours of the answer--surprisingly unimpressive
once lifted from the water, but glimpsed from above
so immaculate. I would have given wings if I had them.
I told you dark, desolate, peering down on your sleeping bed.
I told you, "have mercy," you didn't, which is how I myself
came to the water. To find a neck I might love. To break twigs
underfoot, disturb myself, become meek again. Become quieter,
as you have taught me, by showing me how little is said when we say.
I found a trumpet once under the water. Gurgle was its only tune.
But refract that gurgle through the right water and you get gilded,
children, paper and throne. You get tired, so lie down and stop
being so goddamn lucky. Lie down like you once did for me,
only slower, and let me land on you like a moth. I won't unfold
this time, this time I have no colors to show. On your honesty
swear you were honest. I still think you weren't. On my deathbed
buy me a calendar. From Mars send me letters--think of me in red.
A whole planet without water. A fruit with no seeds. A bed made up
for one, here at the ending, under the mountain, down the salt road,
with no footsteps to follow.
posted by Adam at 9:35 PM [edit]