The Ghost in the Machine

It’s true, the light does stay on when the door
is closed. You can sit inside the fridge all day,
turn blue against the white [and low fat] milk,
until your feet fall asleep, and you breathe
the last of the breathable oxygen.
Perhaps the light stays on so you can see what
it’s like to freeze to death, to see its shadows
against the eggs and think them ghosts—
like Galahad and his gal who are galloping off
into what they think is the sunset.
You could be that white knight, you know,
the one that thinks white means holiness,
that frost that’s left from winter could be a poem.
So, bon voyage, my friend, safe trip, safe home.

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Ultimatum

How often had she breathed her last,
only to discover it was not her last breath at all?
Was it to be the penultimate one then?
Or even the antepenultimate breath?

Or worse, to find out it’s to be
the ultimate breath all right,
but in an infinite series of breaths,
for breathing never stops now, does it?

You just change places,
switch up to some higher breath,
something to sing, or maybe just to listen to,
tap your feet, give birth to—

Ah, yes, the ultimate breath
you take is in bed, isn’t it? And you’ve
been counting it all wrong—
3, 2, 1 does not end in death.

No, not at all.

Untitled

Echoed

A shout shouted,  a gunshot shot—
each echo echoes the plea
for a new silence.
A car crashes, a flight turns to violence.
A belief is lost in the night,
the night itself, a state of fright,
an act of active imagination,
a kind of poet’s poem sung to music—
music that you used to play, my dear.
Isolde, say. From one chord to the next,
the discord of love, by a man-god who
changed into all the harmonies
your child-soul could take.
A baby crying all night,
a cry just to keep alive the twilight
as twilight echoes dawn—
as twilight echoes dawn.

Shouted.

Another Apollo and Otter

Oh, John. What you said. Life changing.

This new poem respectfully dedicated to John Stevens, who gave it life.

*

Apollo and Otter gave birth to a two-headed fish
in the sea  as they emerged from the sea.
That sand is the mother, they thought—
which left four eyes to shine above the tide’s
high water mark—two mouths to feed.
A perch, Apollo called it. A sea perch.
But there are two fishes here, Otter said.
There must be two souls as well.
Look at us, said Apollo. No divisions here,
just a fable or a parable or something—
something that  ties my soul to yours.
Otter, you held my breath to help me swim.
You hold me still, for I am the mighty Apollo.
What a strange sun this water brings to shore.

Apollo and Otter

Apollo and Otter kill a two-headed fish
in the sand as they emerge from the sea.
That sand is the killer, they think—
which leaves four eyes to shine above the tide’s
high water mark—two mouths to feed.
A perch, Apollo calls it. A sea perch.
But there are two fishes dead, Otter says.
There must be two souls as well.
Look at us, says Apollo. No divisions here,
just a fable or a parable or something—
something that  ties my soul to yours.
Otter, you held my breath to help me swim.
You hold me still, for I am mighty Apollo.
What a strange sun this water brings to shore.