THREE CANDLES

A few older pieces that first appeared in THREE CANDLES...

beneath the violent weight

in the afternoon
we speak softly of the
queen of open wounds

we walk from the house
to the river
and you name the flowers
we find along the way

you look past lorca's bones
to the beauty of his soul
and ask why i can't
do the same

i have heard this before
this bitter desperation
but never beneath
the beautiful weight of a
late june sky

i have listened to you
long enough to learn to
doubt myself

long enough to believe in
the holiness of
the burning house
and there is between us
a wall that neither one
will admit

fear is the
next step after sorrow
and beyond that
there is only desert

it's here
that we will finally
look at each other and
not be blind


* * *


first snow in the season of rust


think about
these ideas that you
can never see

about the darker shades
of november twilight
and the way the ground begins
to freeze beneath the
leaves

and think about stillness

about the weight of it

about quang duc
in his shroud of fire

his body reduced to ashes
but his heart left intact

the war dragging on and
then the next one beginning
and then the next

a poet i've never met
found dead behind the wheel
of a borrowed car

everything important
left unsaid


* * *

to be given the gift of helplessness

it is a small thing
to tear
the child in two

it is the
absence of laughter
or the open hand sharply
across the
unsuspecting face

it is so easy and
the wars
are all far away

imagine a lit cigarette

a stove burner

minor atrocities that will
never make it beyond
page three
and i am tired
of drowning in anger
and i am tired of feeling
helpless

it is a strange thing
to be sitting in a room
with a woman who undresses
as she tells you how her
mother's boyfriend raped her
when she was
thirteen