The hands

i am unkept and seldom black

in moments i am but blue

more bare than jesus

in garden ghetsemane

about to abandon

even god is still and i am dumbstruck

an alien unearthed and mummified

 

my hands are lined with earth stains

and human stand in judgement

their digits falling in random

and i am clutching anonymous words

 

i bend backwards like a madman

eyes rolling, tongue lolling

and i am anathema to myself

to the wind and sun i am shut

and darker than nietzsche's god

 

i fold now and am a void

but soon to one void

another and the finger of god

becomes a finger upon a man

 

Doppelganger

 

like a burden the road curved

almost solitary except for

scattered remnants that lay

lethargic against the world

i stood on restless gravel

and the slant of trees

kept me lop-sided

at one point i arrived

at a fence and the watchman

departed, i could not pass

i looked to the other side

with envy and some loss

imagining that someone

would unlock the path

subverted i pressed my chest

against the steel unwilling

to repent and return

strange that i did not know

what was on the other side

nor care, but i needed to pass

i turned and walked back a little

saw a forked tree and said a prayer

uncertain of its destination

one of me on the other side

soon

 

in the uneven happenstance

i held the child as one does

with a little temerity and much tenderness

looking down in awe at the unformed skin

his waxy contours were made for this

these ramshackle tears and torpid body

lay surrendering to these arms as if

god were i and i was not, god

i didn't mean to project to scheme

to plan and see enviable flight

the horizon tempered with wings

and flight and mystic, the unchallenged kind

his hands no stretched as in a wing span

declared his intent, his anima alert

and i held him as if he were god

hovering over the platitudes

of others, ascending to the limits

of my arms and declaring the new birth

i held him higher than i could

and crowned him, Icarus

 

Words alongside words

words alongside words

 

in substance and form

a word is never a word

but symbol and power

alongside reverse

there are shorter words

and longer syntaxes

that demand we listen

or forget, or extrapolate

from one hermeneutic to another

we linger with the form and it determines

almost nothing without the context

we linger without form and determine

context within the almost

 

a boy and a nude

are but two words

and longer only one

than the other

but nuded lad

denuded lass

remains a willing line

after another will

 

above another

i cannot regard one word above another

but can a lass

above a lad

be regard above dis

regard

and we have gist

gist the two

of us