be kind and i will tell you
of the breaking place
where strong legs buckle
and stitches start to burst
touch my face and i will tell you
of the breaking place
where you clutch your boulder
with shaking hands and kick
to keep from drowning
kiss my cheek and i will tell you
of the breaking place
where the whole weight
of the world is not enough
where the world itself
looks down
and away
take me home
and i will show you
we do it to ourselves.
to surge and burn into the turn
you eat the past, you drink the urn
then retch and fill the empty places
to the brim with frowning faces
there amidst the countless heads, the sad remains
of joy gone dead,
a seeking eye
on moonless nights
can just make out
the softest lights.
when she tipped back and sipped
the red wine she looked down
at the ripples in the glass fanning
back as it flowed in and down
through her throat all the warmth
spreading up into the space
behind her eyes where her brain
peeked up arcing and beyond
the sun bursting and beyond
the stars and beyond them the rim
of the darkness stretching huge
fanning rippled forever then down
down into burgundy wine down into
her stomach into molecules beyond
them the darkness stretching tiny
forever towards an infinite point
from her middle where she sat
herself like a liquid now flowing
in a flesh colored glass she closed
her eyes she closed her eyes she
closed her eyes and she drained
her glass let it linger in drops there
suspended in a time before time
started once more with a knocking
on the door of the stall come to find
her in there alone all disheveled.
The dragonfly hovered, then settled on the snowy railing. He watched it sit and stretch its wings, graceful, full of dignity. It was night and dark and soft snowflakes fell in silence. It was a perfect little thing, he thought, this dragonfly. The deck shook under steps and a shadow fell across them both.
“Fuck you, Carver.” He looked up at the face, cast in shadow by the porch light behind it.
“What?” He was very drunk.
“I said fuck you, Carver, you little bitch, why are you even here?” He couldn’t remember what he had done. His whole body felt numb and he lifted his cup to his mouth. The shadow reached out and knocked the cup from his hand. It hit his lip on the way down and spilled beer all over his shirt. He stood there, dripping and rubbing his lip.
“Well…”
“Well, get the fuck out of my house, how about that? Stop drinking my beer, stop trying to talk to my girl, just get the fuck out of here. Why are you even here?”
Oh right, the girl. He wished he weren’t so drunk. There was another shadow behind the shadow, this one smaller, with long hair. “Hey.” He lifted a hand and sort of waved.
The fist came quickly, but he was calm. He figured there were a number of ways this could go. It seemed strange that the punch hadn’t connected yet, so he ducked. It whistled over his head, but he had ducked so far down, he now found himself in a sort of awkward crouch. It was strange, he wanted to giggle.
He was at shoe level now, and there were two right in front of him. They were slipping in the light dusting of snow, sliding away from him. As he rose up from his crouch he felt a great weight press down on his back, then it was gone. He heard a shout and a crash. Rubbing an eye, he turned to look over the railing and saw a fresh black hole in the bushes below the deck. There was much shaking down there and what sounded like crying. He sort of felt like crying himself.
“Bye,” he said to the little long-haired shadow.
“Don’t talk to me,” the shadow said. “Why are you even here?”
He left. As he walked through the crowded party nobody noticed his beer-soaked shirt, in fact nobody noticed him at all. He wondered about dragonflies. Did they migrate? Hibernate? He couldn’t remember ever seeing one in the winter before. They couldn’t all just die when it got cold, could they? No, that was crazy, he thought, there must be some place they go.
grant me this for now i beg
desperate grant me nothing else
if only this a little light the faith
in this the work here let me toil
lonely lonely i don’t mind
just grant me this i beg you
grant me faith the strength to lift
and wield it like a weapon
lonely lonely i will drill
down here in the deep to raise
it shouting filthy still and shining
from my fist it will come dripping
squirming wet and running
to my workshop in the fires
lonely lonely i will craft it
fine and fragile grant me this
the faith the strength to work
the bellows blow the flames
to bend it in the fires smooth
the shape to craft it beauty inset
into beauty grant me this
if nothing else for then i will
have lived and through me it
will shine and be the reason
if i find it here and make it
to the surface all the set-backs
all the cave-ins and explosions
will be nothing grant me this
i swear if nothing else the faith
to work here in the darkness lonely
just a little light enough to make it
someday shouting filthy climbing
rising laughing up and shining
from the deep to swell the clouds
and burst across the sky.
Filmed off a dock on Cayuga Lake, then edited in my bedroom. For a while my computer was just a machine for playing this on repeat.
Joshua Clark Orkin
the little housefly tried to warn
me of the grinding gears of time
and the spider turned as well
to me and spoke of years
of wind and water wearing
down the world as the cat
behind him said in muted purrs,
“this is just the way of things”
and looked up at the window
of our bedroom where the crow
saw his own reflection and inside
we said the words and fell away
ripping shards and shreds of skin
and then the spider spun the fly
and the cat leapt clawing
and the deserts spread to eat
the falling earth as it degraded
in its ending orbit as the crow
frantic at our window banged
and banged at his reflection
and the little housefly said to me
from his last embrace, “it’s time
to go and live as you are able.”
handkerchief tied to stick 