Doll Keeper

Black eyes...
The jangle of ankle bracelets
Find your place on the wooden shelf.
Where your mother put you and fed
your pink lips nuggets...
The doll breaks, falling
past the third level and the second and the first.
The shards are of a life
Ruined by
the doll keeper.

As She Is

The ships sail their own path to the lighthouse; she is the one with the white and gray patches standing in the tall grass.
She is enough for them to keep plugging along.
Look closely at her physique, and you can see the etchings of those who have come, insistent, that she was more than what she was: a light for the lost.
Humanity's strikes against her surface are
all over this flare in the morning and night.
They don't know what she sees when the ships come:
How she fills up enough to stay as she is.

Priorities

She thought she could be carried by letters and numbers: the caricatures march: one by one, hurrah:

carrying her into the hole

where she will stay.

Unless the light is shone: in the living room where the furniture is in blacks and browns and grays: you could sink into that couch and never leave: the material devouring every bit of you.

Follow the light

from which no darkness could extinguish.

Grab those plastic grocery bags and give them

to him.

He knows what to do.

Closing In

Thunder like it's not close.
He was here in the morning with a hot touch
then that man with the shiny suit sprung up the symphony, and that was it.
Then I feel the patters on the wall inside of me; And it's closer.
It's in my house, spilling out of my forgotten closets that aren't an afterthought anymore.
The storm is inside.
Where it always was...

Enough

Skeletal hand...

Waving at me...

Already you know me: the caffeinated

and the one

who likes walks where only the trees and God sees…

Thinking of the blue jeans He chose for you: faded acid wash or really crisp like a business woman on Fridays…

What if I forget your raincoat on

days when the sky so fills?

So then I have to rest you under

the grooves of my flesh hands?

A tumble onto the concrete, but perhaps

in the cracks there are flowers there…

Smoke and Mirrors

Never knew what it would do to you:
The golden crown
and the throne.
And then you stick your fingers in the air and
like a magician,
you make that rabbit appear again.
Look closely, and you see its bleeding gums and rotting teeth.
You're careful, though, and won't let the audience see the decay.
You live for the audience-- can't disappoint the paying customers.
Their clapping hands feed the beast inside.
But it's no secret: The beast comes out sometimes, looking for easy prey.
These are the ones who have seen
the
real one.
And they are quiet, knowing quiet is better.

The Work

If only I could see the head:

Its black soft hairs: the first glimpse of life.

I push some more.

Slow delivery: Needing that deep sigh of finished.

Then rocking you under the sunset, eyelids flickering

and seeing the miracle flash in those tiny eyes: a balm for my lonely toil.