(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.