United: Before/After

Songs of [in] Experience (4)

[4]

A want of clay. Idols in the brine. A want of sparrow in barbwire. Salted with conviction. To reach distant oceans. Go gently. Not. Glistening flower. Into the water-earth. & bathe your silhouette. Your silhouetted. Flesh is all-surrounding. All surrounding the loss of naïveté with the gain of misfortune.

Xerolage #42 Sample

Thru Camera Obscura
for A______



............you needn’t carve
...................nerves

.............into my every
...................surface

...........................to have the rivers
.................................of blood pump
......................................more fiercely


........I’ve a hole
......possibly two
......you can slip
........yourself into



..................become an aperture

..................------ expand------------

.......contract

.......wink me
...into your delicate
.......chambers

Excerpt from Gutland

.....................all lovers
...........whose mouths were
....................criminal

.................................we have kissed


.....held & gripped the body
....our juxtaposed spines set
...........side-by-side
.......along a prairie’s divide


......crude train tracks of marrow--where nails are
............driven-in, each one deeper, deeper in

.............


.....the horizon line
tapers off into a distant
...............triangle

..............take from me this one source
..of transport, this one flapping strip of sunlight
...............as it splays across my belly


.............................grows thinner as I suck in-----
......................................................hold-----

here you are
& here you will
leave through
a sliver in the door

...................... my last chance to be skeletal
......................... ---------anonymous