Sunday, May 30, 2010

dollar-bill bookmarks


I know the way the heart spells wrecked

spills itself top-heavy with care

and maroons away scrapped and stapled together

skirting the accordion music of forgiveness

tossed to the curb with no forwarding address


I know the way the heart dwells and hides

tucks itself away in cornfields of regret

near enough to what it wants

but far enough away to never have

what it wants


I know chances the heart mistakes and breaks

forfeits and chucks away

and sometimes even

holds on to

too


I know the wide sky of stormy luck

that’s chopped with clouds

unfurling like tea-stained napkins on a lapis lazuli tablecloth

and how it spurns loss and spins aching heads

I know choices crazed with whisky eyes

I know spasms of revolt clasped to long-gone moments

I know the heedless casts of hope’s threadbare lines

into the rough waters of badly timed sorrow


I know the way the heart sticks

and picks the thorns from what it wants

and plucks along with too long afternoons

through thousands of gray rainless days


I know the heart’s dry wells of misses

and its desperate greedy swallows

and its listless cuts

that splice today into tomorrow

already half lost and never found


I know the skips of nearly there

that ricochet off desertion’s blue face

only to drop and backpedal

and whisper longing through even bluer nights

impatient and fasting through faraway weather


I know the heart does what it can

while peeling away shiny layers of try

only to end up restless

vulturing its own demise

stuffed with mildewed apple cores and crumbled corks

stubbing the callused toes of useless frets

through ceiling-staring nights

through the tightening of shoelace belts

through stringless symphonies

through the strains

of

waiting waiting waiting waiting

for

never

enough

of

more


not like leaping headfirst into the lamplight

not like that

at

all


my heart’s

pinball machine is tilting towards your dreaminess

so flipper that replay to life

while you’ve still got a chance