the bread of forgetting

she says you're loved
but not in this house

she says all you are is
broken bones
in the age of starving dogs

takes the children and leaves
and the emptiness is
overwhelming

the floors are filthy and the
walls cracked and
i'm trying to remember if this
ever really happened

i'm trying to remember why
we ever felt our
pain was worth sharing

at some point
there is nothing more
honest than silence

the smaller kingdom of obvious lies

if and when there
is no god

is only the house of the
dying man and the
tears of his children and if the
songs cannot wash away
the pain

if the woman you lie next to
tastes like failure

when she tells you
she no longer loves you

no longer believes in
your fists

lets you kiss her scars
but only because
she's already gone

poem for the patron saint of children trapped in burning churches

you want to take the
crown and destroy it

you want to pray without the hope
of ever being answered

is this all?

what it amounts to is
something less than faith

where you are is the same
dead end street you've
wasted the last ten years of
your life stumbling down

you can either be pilate
or you can be christ

you can forget the names of
the girls who've told you
they loved you

these are the last days
and no one is sorry

no one is forgiven

we are all strangers
standing naked
in the room of mirrors

we all believe in
some form of rape

it's not an apology
that i'm trying to offer
here

The Cyclops, Blinded

And if you see Creeley, remind him
that he's dead. Tell him that none of it
mattered in the end, not the words, not
the silences, not the endless fucking
theories.

It was February, and then it was
August, and then we finally reached
November. Age of nothing, land of less,
and what should be obvious is that
Cobain's suicide meant more than the
deaths of a million geriatric presidents.

Do you remember the song you were
singing when you heard the news
about Reagan?

The name of the woman you were with?

It was almost enough just to lie on
the bed and laugh.

the bleeding horse sings

the bodies of the dead tied
to the backs of boats
and pulled ashore

the sound of flies descending

a noise like prayer

a silence like being fucked
at the edge of a desert

someone's son found
nailed to a fence

returned to god
or left for the crows

only obvious truths

the woman on the floor
who says the baby isn't hers

the baby wrapped in
bloody rags and shoved
beneath the kitchen sink

nameless and without hope
and a storm moving in
from the west

the president's daughter
naked in a windowless room

tied to a bed and laughing
while the camera rolls

our definitions of freedom
always without any
real meaning

betrayal: before and after

the day will break,
or the body, or the spirit

know this

you don’t need to be beaten
to be scarred

you don’t need to speak,
but you will

small words, and whispered,
and i will breathe them in
like prayer

listen

i was raised to believe that
truth exists in books

that witches exist only to
be burned and
what i’m trying to say here
is that i love you

what i want to remember
is this feeling

the taste of your salt
when the moment finally
arrived