TENDER

till feeling
till mechanisms
break down
what we got  
what we get 
till then
get through it. 
Chords charge
a hilltop where
we watch suns
rise  & then  –
& stop – till then
come get through
just come just
get it.  An erratic
ballad throws you
to the ground 
begs a question
oh would you
just kill me
soft collision bugged
out in the gears
ready to go
home movie music
in the fore  oh
that sound  is
this sound  what we
get through  what
love gets through   
where we are 
oh  we will
love  watch the rising
sun  stop   till 
all time comes
undone.  A tendering
machine – prick
your finger for
warmth for blood 
got  through now 
good  now get 
through it.
Erratic ballad
tender some wailing
keeps me in the fore
though I am  what
I am. A repetition
a laboring below
that which we
call  a name  sings
what cannot
come through
catastrophic &
broke phonetics 
phone  in sing
ad hominem 
get back  get
where  you go
come back
dirt collision
hole from which
a holy turn of a head
turning toward
stars suns. All broke
all just broken
down. Sit beside
me on this hill 
& I’ll watch us 
from my ditch
counting them
human impossibility 
burning in my eclipse 
over  a lovely little
house  up there 
beside us  –  oh
what  a lovely little 
way to live  believe 
belie  tie up
depart  dig go
alit   a  lovely
little picaresque
on a wall  in there 
oh see us  in it  oh
come on feeling
oh what  for
a tendering  what
till  feeling come
on  come on
come on you   just
get   you drive
you just keep
you  just drive me 
to the ground.

CONSECRATION

For Tío Manuel, All Soul’s Day

Concrete broke by
my bare hands
disassemble a frame
treading motion
begins again

Before a stone
I’ll sway for you
for you I find
music here
triggers
everything
a filling of lungs
a full on breath
trumpets flood
weight on weight

I keep time
a perfect ellipsis
how it is always
to be in rotation
I keep talking
myself outside
myself so start
again so say so
let’s dance so
sway & keep time
so dance so moving
so then I flicker

Into your fore
my elegant fumble
into stone
a stumbling
backward
every animal
I could not kill
what if I would
if I loved the world

What if I would
would if I loved
got back stepped
held losses before
they came & then
what if they came

What that I may
stay in center
my rotation
controlled
my motion
break stone
my motion
broken stone
broke the frame

Full on breath
by which
we assemble
transubstantiate
the time become
something outside
something more
human more
animal something
outside of person

To be the wealthiest
man on earth
is to hold time
and I am poor
precipitation
as method fails
falls to the ground

Into your fore
I fumble finding
manna in
your aggregate
hands to stone
and my feet falling
behind just say
grace   grace
grace

FOR I KNOW NOT WHAT I DO

Praise – 

Praise
the anonymity
this strangeness
anomalous
weather patterns
uneasing
a day to day
what dazzles
what deteriorates

Broken skin
oil burns
dark roads home
wavering radio
this good life
empty storefronts
the shuddering street

The tempestuous 
the shot that knocks us
to the ground tattered
flags on wired branches
papers and last names
three-part inventions
all our interpreters
all the bones
what we leave
in the boundary

Christian brothers
on the signal
our sleepwalk
together on tongues
taking in the fore
what is before us
invert atrocity
armaggedon
into self-shattering

& all the beach dogs
we remember
making the end
of the world
their home
equatorial balance
on the plane
charcoal we left
in the sand
what we made
the edge of the water
all the light
the world   burning
burning

How lonely sits
the place
once filled
with people I had loved

How the extremities
come to
when I think of it