Water, in two parts

i
We saw the battered ducklings
In the earth,
Their souls turned to meat;
I receded into day far from soil,
Mute as water.

ii
A river divided them from birth.
Divided their tongues.
Divided out their language.
Struck borders.
Kept an implausible peace.
Water made the toxin possible;
Leant its stoic doubt
The tolerance of disbelief.
Under water, the voice dried sound. The shape of water, unimaginable,
Drowned the sight from their eyes
Until they could no longer see
The sharp metallic sky
Or hear the violent song of the knife.

Cnv1

Provocative moon, caved light
Provocative sun, orderless
This scene in heft-laden paint
As an arch-nuance of a life;
Heads borrowed on portraits, sculpted
In overtoned landscapes; their oblique
Elements missing.

Hua Hin

It is not about love
When I wade into a pool
Half-dressed in long-shorts
And a white t-shirt
Like placenta on my ribs,
As if it were ocean
And could kill you.
I am unwilling to drown
In the salt water
Cured of fresh currents
Fortified beneath the
Unbreatheable air. Words,
Are enough. Love aspirated
In vowel
Clenched on consonant;
Love in low murmurs
Unkempt as unkept
Garden grass; fingers wet
On my mouth.

lanterns

living hides in the small creases
it is smaller than I can tell
without body; there’s no virus of conscience.
broad shapes too large to see fill space,
pastels, including the darker greens and blues
become nature’s diluted inks
as now, in the last hours off the penninsula
in the shadow of air darkening in sky.

a moon watches hydrangea’s purple fuse
light in a child’s hand
for the first time; it cups the nucleus of flower
in electronic fingers –
it may pluck or steal the memory –

a fish too, moves in current off the sea;
odd lotus lanterns measure the acred sky
unburdened in flight, in meagre depth
running a calculus in their arcs
through the athmosphere’s pressure –
rockets could flounder in brawling light.

as if, souls condensed in bodies rising
blowing north and east
into the light of other lanterns,
it is the same language
it is the same night worn soft ..

Park square

Trees heavy in summer bloom
As snow had fallen late spring
On cherried primrose flowers
They press silently down
Holding over like a shadow
For a while, but journey’s winter
Comes; a cold gape in the season’s growth,
Bolder than before, with clould
Low on the city’s skyline;
How all the windows darken then
In unspoken attention.