the bleeding horse, avenged: January 2020

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

when i was the kingdom of christ

no great truths to be

found, which is

both the fear and the

truth itself

january trees filled

with nooses

a sleeping man in

a burning house

i keep coming back

to this, even on

the sunniest days

i still remember

seeing you for the

first time and then for

the last, but i’ve

forgotten the 20

years in between

would like to think

i was happy, at

least

Monday, January 27, 2020

gauze

says to me says jesus rides again like

we both believe there are lions in the holy land

like we both assume that all

children will grow up

september you see and the hazy light of

10:00 a.m. the screams of birds

and i have given up on prayer have stopped

memorizing the names of saints

wish only that the days were warmer

that i had answers for all of the

obvious questions gathering like dust in the

corners of my living room

and so i believe in the roots of trees in

fingers crawling through the dirt to wrap

around forgotten bones and so i come to you

with a handful of heartfelt lies

i turn away from my mother from my sister

in shame and in blindness

the doors of their houses

stand open against the cold

the mornings here are

nothing like the mornings of my childhood

being afraid of every last

fucking thing should be enough

Sunday, January 19, 2020

pockets of sleep & pools of rage and

if the poem is left unfinished

then it won’t need to have any meaning

if the mountain is sacred

a massacre is inevitable

a blanket of lies to cover it up

you map them out in your head,

one for your husband, one

for the children, and i am left here

without enough pieces to make a whole

i am afraid, always

i breathe in, then out, but

can’t get enough air

what we become in the end are our own

prisons, our own prisoners,

our own priests

days rise up like clouds above the

hills, like the

threat of brilliant blue skies

heat without warning & a blanket of haze

and i am there at the front door with

flowers and with lies and

i am godless

this story is a dead end,

just like any other

we are dogs fucking on floors

of broken glass

we are poets

waiting to be blindfolded

waiting to be marched out

onto some bloodsoaked field and

shot because the power of words,

of course, lies in the power of fear

because the weakest are always

the easiest to kill

all it takes from you

is a little goddamned effort