PIANOS
A litany of violence and vendetta
Erupts from fingers. Each a
Felt covered hammer knuckled
In leather, striking strings.
Skin springing back.
Strangely rewarding,
The expression of sound.
Anguished hands part
Inarticulate valleys.
Violet palm purple.
Buried in white soil I am
Silent sunset red.
Swift plum peach blooms fall
Over our unnamed country.
OCTOBER
October holds its cold concrete arm
fractured
over slow mornings. Outside the bed box
Night leaves drop glass beads.
The rain is a loop.
The wind is plectrum.
The sky is a ceiling that can not be reached.
It is easy to locate the heart.
Seeking fingers find it
Under a curved chest
Heaving over a rough sea.
THE SPINELESS BOOK
I took on the task of understanding
the pages in my open book.
On the case cloth I marked
metaphor and allegory.
A murder erupted
from felt covered fingers.
I must have wrote it backwards
but I read it forwards.
I thought I could read between
the lines but I was a coward.
I pricked my lips and smudged
the cover its dark red title.
On the first page of the last chapter
I sewed my eyelids shut
but the leather skin sprang back
with a strange reward.
I tore out the endpapers.
I tore the flesh off the spine.