in the darkness, hell is there;
it curls itself around despair
and says "you're fine, I swear, I know,"
deep deep down in hell below.
devils kiss your lowered brow,
brush hair aside. "It's okay now,"
they whisper to you in the dark.
they hold your bones exposed and stark,
"I love you," hell says without pause,
although it cannot sheathe its claws.
and if for you no one will care,
hell will love you. hell is there.
walk through life with fingers crossed
but just inside your head.
I will do the things need done;
I've said what needed said.
once again we slip away;
once again we make no end.
foe and friend we do not alter,
do not contact, are not known
in the vastness of the beauty
that their mortal eyes call home.
we are small; we have no voices.
we, the ones you will forget,
dwell in secret, hollowed walls
in the bones of time itself
child, you are not our blood;
your eyes are not our eyes.
your mind is strange, your manner fey,
your words don't match your age.
you're right. I am more than your blood.
my eyes are my own eyes.
if I am fey, let me be fey.
my word will see me through.
from and to the other worlds we ferry tens of thousands
some lost in their tiny lives seeking something real
some who run from grand mistakes to build up once again
all leave something; some leave all; some bring just themselves.
from and to the other worlds we send the ships that sink
and some that sail unharmed to reach some strange and fitting peace.
down again and down into the dim and drownèd depths
the damnèd damsel dares descend
the dull and dusty path that's walked
by the distant dreary dead who would die upon her dread
you are lovely; you are mine;
all you see here could be thine.
these caverns stretch through all the earth
and though they lack in love and mirth
they spill over with gems and gold.
call me cruel and call me cold;
say you will not ever stay.
but you'll not feel the warmth of day—
I have claimed you for my own
to keep among the rock and bone.
you are a beauty for the ages.
call my home and domain cages;
I care not. you will live here,
whether in love or in fear,
where those who leave the living fade.
be no more a helpless maid,
o, my lady of petal and root.
take unto your tongue this fruit.
set this crown upon your head
and reign over the empty dead.
the mist it stretches sweet and long;
it fills your lungs and ears with song.
and at the very edge of sight:
something's blinking, far and bright.
I am not empty or broken
I am a song halfway sung
these are the words I have spoken
and this is the life I've begun
and this is the life I will end in
and these are the words I will sing
and this is a song above virtue or sin
and all that tomorrow can bring
exhale words and inhale knives;
that is how a poem thrives.
there's nothing so dark or so soft as a shadow
nothing so safe or so light
mine keeps me safe from all danger
and curls up around me so tight
Stay here where the world is the jaw of a snake
Here where there are no more risks you can take
Dance in the world that would swallow you whole
And stay with the beings who'd ask for your soul
I'm scared of standing in my own goddamn shadow;
I'm tired of hating my own goddamn face;
I'm bored of being unfocused, unsure;
I want to belong for all time in this place.
Here there stop the damnèd men
Once and twice and then again
Twice and once and then they leave
Do not for these cowards grieve
the cat of the house is king
and all in the house is his
he claims all that he can see
and this is the way that it is
and so are the people inside
his subjects and his to command
his meow must be heard by all beings
his plans and his fancies are grand
and graciously he lets us pet him
and do in his house what we wish
so long as we know he's in charge here
and feed him on milk and on fish
the moons turn and turn
the ocean washes in red
no one says a word
at the beginning, you ask a question.
I don't remember Babcia Ania but I remember the cards
laid in neat rows across the tablecloth.
She taught me then; she must have taught me then.
in my head, it has always, always been her game.
when you get stuck, you deal out another row.
I was in Nevada with two decks of cards and no questions.
"Will it rain tomorrow?" I ask when there's nothing to ask
and I lay the cards out on the floor.
I was at a camp among strangers, with brand new cards
I was later told I should not have bought.
"Will it rain tomorrow?" and I play again and again
and don't pay attention to the outcomes.
when you get stuck, you deal out another row.
I was with my class with those same cards
>setting them with a snap onto the table.
row after row of "will it rain tomorrow?"
I was in Poland without cards; I tether my music player to the wall
and hold a game of klondike in the palm of my hands.
and another, and another, lying on the floor as feels right.
I do not ask questions; this is not the game for questions.
I have not yet found the cards I don't yet know I need.
sometimes the card you need is trapped under another card. keep playing.
russian solitaire is four columns to napoleon's nine;
the former fits on my desk and I play it as though it were breathing.
I play it a hundred times, two hundred times, and win once.
I was in Chicago, alone, on the floor
laying out row after row after row and asking none of my questions.
there were none I could ask.
mostly the cards are against you and you lose.
but sometimes you turn the right card over
and everything falls together
and the answer to your question is "yes".
nearest to your heart nestles the knife, your soul
made solid and given sense. it flies from you,
grace and force both in full. when you fall,
you fall warrior and weapon as one.
we march as one through this all-consuming life,
brothers in continual decay.
exhausted, we falter, gaunt from hunger;
inside these walls is justice, kindness, love.
march now over the poisoned earth;
we may not be quick but ruin we'll serve
to these tyrants whose unending greed
laid vicious waste to this world.
at the center of my nightmares, beyond walls I dare not pass
stands tall an unfogged tower of the thickest, clearest glass
from inside the dead unbreathing watch for me and wait.
will I choke safe in the tower or will fire be my fate?
to be in the presence,
in the eyes of the world itself,
in your strange and exhausted entirety.
to be good.
your heart has held the good,
your eyes have been blinded by it.
your hands, your lungs, your ears, your mind—
and you were good.
and in the ashes of your world, you sit with the absence
and remember.
fall, blue and angelbright,
just one more cast from the light,
descending endless in the sight
of the dark eyes of the night.
fallen, angelbright and blue,
I was once a star like you
before I was shown what is true
and then I fell before I flew.
angelbright and falling fast,
you are not the first or last
to watch the lights a-blurring past
in the cold and darkness vast.
angelbright and blue, you'll fall
as one before they walk must crawl.
as now a person, not a doll
you'll find your feet and will stand tall.