oBEy

(a working process)

A B L A D E OF B I T T E R B R E A T H

THRENODY REPRISE

moved out for no reason. didn't change any place


It's no better.
& the dreams
uprooted the ancient tree rotten
no strength required
What you must accept, fully
A man with the black wool high up the neck for protecting the throat.


(E)motional


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I had left the temple waterless and frozen fatigued and peeling.


On the edge of no return
at least that's the case
this winter solstice thousand two.
how many years later?


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It's cold outside


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Golden light shadows the face


On wall (through blinds, glass window, everywhere)


"Schwarze Milch
der Frühe"


crisis doesn't lie
lost daylight (anger doesn't see the many deaths)
uprising into her burial zone


No . . . ten footsteps . . . to the left
future nights collapse (I had created more loss)
Beautiful weightless snow falls down.


The first utterance must be "Gone".


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Second sound


A cough/choke shatters the skull pitch black
night sky no moon
cloudless.
A child at church
runs away from his guardian.
I wish I were him.


hide and seek, peek-a-boo, tag
illusion of liberation by night
The games not yet imagined.


The running away patterned
so sleep in the bedroom of your youth
the white walls, crosses and icon borders
not even a hint of the past turmoil
shut the door underneath the stairway
shut out the breathing above into no visible light
wounded escape to nowhere, dripping blood.


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Loves lost in darkness.


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It over
I mean, empty
It had to
the universe leaving
traces exist


There is nothing to request at the time of parting lighter than unknown
wrongs carrying weight.


Fall from grace
on the land of black snow
shivering death chatters to echo life
that thou must accept me, exactly.

STUPOR

All around the earth opens to endless tunnels
a man digs
collapsed on the kitchen table
a drunk, arms reddening
she's a weary historian from afar
barks commands into an empty room


the round table an altar
you leave out scraps of food
for the hungry ghosts & drink.


She is the will.


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A vase of dried flowers
point to the deep, dark paneled ceiling
a varathened shelter
the birch chairs passed on from generations
older than the historian
(measured in lunar years)
I must go to sleep leaving you unconscious.


Look up through the floor.
A white horse crashes through the ice flailing
swims underneath
blue ice, is it a death?


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Downstairs in the temple kitchen the water is turned off.
A pipe burst.
Little other than a cold storage now.
An unknown attempted a break-in, twice
gave up as the iron bars held fast.
The lonely roomer left unwelcomed over a year ago
a row of tea candles mark his departure.
The rotary dial phone became a theater prop.
No calls to record
the comings and goings.


The sleeping historian
shuts the door.
Take down the decorations.
ive them away
a pile of gold


You journey to the east
sitting among old women
watching them sleep or gossip
waiting time out
till breath to us depart
everlasting life amen.


Mounds of crushed powder
ground by teeth pressed tight
till jaws shatter.
Forgive not the pain.
Forget not the wound.
The historian declares the voices of the unspoken rise up in
the early morn.
Take to the streets -
smart mobs texturing,
urinating on the face of
authority.


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Define will: a sort of violence.


Look to the gravestone: uncut


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An inner tension and emotional restlessness
a subtle inflammation of the nervous system
could not be healed
No surgery knife
exacting precision could unlocate
complications and contempt run roughshod
the deed was done


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The historian stumbles out puking and crying
storms into the raging night & sinisterly growls
"You," stabbing the air with a pointed finger -
"You get our of here."
Then moves cautiously back to her drink
breathing deliberately


Better than honesty.

END OF VIOLENCE GLARE

Overlaid patches of the past
filtered through the white slats of a venetian blind
stop the light enter the tunnel
a young girl, Anna picks nettles in the Vienna woods
without gloves her hands soon redden and swell
hundreds of tiny bites
tatoo marks from the sting of the furies
protect yourself
Is the will just a movement repeated, an addiction?


Here, in the black box
no audience but a silent witness
an angel in white and gold
the cloud of unknowing hanging
a see through cocoon to crawl into
Dare to touch or kiss the gossamer cloth
Yeats speaks: "I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."


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I've now


named the historian Rhiannon


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In time present
the snow drifts
a truck spins out of control
crashes towards the ditch
piles of white explode
a motionless avalanche
faces of shock disappear
two children can't forget the horror
yet the thrill becomes a survival legend
it is that way with the edge of near death
or playing in the ditch.


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Tunnels. Corridors breathing with no writing on the walls
sometimes all the people pass by into unseen realms
the crowds around me blankly stare into the beyond
"How was your holiday?" the faithful ask.


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Further on the light glistens. I can't cry
a scarab - egyptian symbol for - I've forgotten
needle pricks the belly skin circling the navel and this is I...
the historian, will she like
such a deeds of the belly?


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a black caped figure
oh my god the head fell off
witches burning
the figure running down floating on the moving ice flows
a tall red haired women
dream wishing of celtic songs


it wasn[base ']t just the look of Stevie Nicks
the high cheek bones


she couldn[base ']t decide whether the old crone living in the
shapeless room
thought to embrace the child
in mystery


bestial language
infatuation


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Later the warmth of a body came to me seeking respite from the hurting eyes and the cold feet


Still later
in the sheets:


carved classical folds


Then outside the river freezes over
Galileo, the majestic science king, howls in persecuted pain
the silent scream


The phantom moons of Jupiter devise tactics to which
love and surrender revolve around nothing like the sun
or moon, or I
What did I ask and who will answer?


Don't, don't blame. But don't , don't surrender.


Is the will just a movement repeated, an addiction?


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Each moment quivers as I shake with desire and then pause.

OBSERVATIONS AT THE INSOMNIA TOWER

historian Rhiannon is so exotic looking this morning
painted eyes a dark blue shade of black
and a lot of side long forbidden glances
take her to the flats where the pubic stubble shows under the snow
abandoned rail cars burning, smoldering
smoked chinook trout or tanning hides or even chokecherry mixed with bear fat
my life has been shaped
by the petty rejections and stains of ejaculating on old carpets
adoration and false worship
observe the holy war
justice demands our rights


Y O U ' R E N O T P E R F E C T - is what the ego screams


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I look up and shape the mouth to taste the hunger
you're the face of love I like you


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Did you say you were leaving in your sleep -
can I overhear your dreams besides the pillow talk -
forgive but how could I, I know exactly how I got there
and when I die forgiving is a subtle act of unwanted mercy


Y O U ' R E N O T P E R F E C T
I want to
hope now.


I apologized for the roaring madness, genuflect
she shrugged "just look at you -"


we could meet in the tundra
where the treacherous boulders between the townsite
and the bay
gather stagnant water


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Moved along the closed territories
security guards block ways


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final.
They break the day
search the accessible leaving the hidden
revealing their corruption
so close the door and pull the drapes in this tiny cabin
the Polish couple show no fear
men over all
a laughing salute from the demi-goddess messenger.


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That foreigner, that dog
was so cruel and that never
occurred to her . . . Still


the bit lips saw stench passing the inside out


the mucous spittle streams
flushed away are stillborn
(aborted) silences


If you say you'll kill me, do
you really mean me


It has been foretold earlier.


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Lift every voice
the same refrain
no chorus of many
solo wail


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After
I have a cut on my lip
I kind of don't mind
This is the list of what we've done


destroyed the architecture of a conservative life
throw out all the mother's food putting mould in the refrigerator
ignore the sons as far worse than our own enslavement
cultural genocide pumping shit into the mind
manipulate the sickness clot love a
twist the truth chew
imagine the unreal we can because you're a historian


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you're so desperate lie . . .


I'm sort of angry


there is no hope, talking


hope is a belief


Choose


and vacate, the most apathetic is Hope


vague deluded abstraction


tongue is a name.