Poem

Her Oblivion

in , ,

There
see her
shallow breath

sternum contracted
she makes small movements
careful not to breath 

small smaller 

never perfect enough
tethered  to a leash

she tries to heel

having grown dog arms

she lives without love 

shadows move easily

within her like a song
see her crown of razor blades
her robe of mirrors

dry heaving on the bathroom floor
a sanctuary really
she is tracing the lines
on the tile’s grout
tiny roads to the River Styx
to Devil's Gulch and the Maurice Cemetery 

she hears things now
and pretends she's a widow
the ghost pine behind the house 

are her sisters 

beckoning her at night

he's hollering again

about how she ruins things 

she mumbles under her breath

cussing him in her languages
he calls her mad
sometimes she believes him
and keeps various powders

hidden in a compact, lines up the Xanax 

along her inseam, tucks them behind her ear

tiptoeing through the formal garden

chugging the vodka

dreaming of oblivion

she lives in the 4th sky

followed by birds
and knows how true monsters

despise what they love 

- Jolaoso Prettythunder

12AM

in , ,

screams like an animal Is animal

strange being wrapped in the fur of a lynx belly Face painted with camwood powder and charcoal

she climbs the walls while you all sleep and feeds her orchids ice cubes

this all means nothing This all means everything

she is eating raw bison and sips a demitasse of white rum Talks to her beloved through a day moon

there is no grace here

where a lover can be seen in the black arc of a swallow’s feather

3AM

you lover

i see you on the moonglade

you lover On my tongue

you are my languages

i cuss and praise you equally You dissolve as clouds at daybreak tomorrow

you arrive as rain over Nea Bay

Vigil 3

in , , ,

Don’t speak

send me the arts

music poetry photography paintings Offer me magic and the West horizon Offer me incantations and prayers that require singing Bring me 8,000 candles and wood to burn mesquite piñon palo santo red cedar Bring me ceanothus root bring me chaparral for my tools set alight the resins breuzinho white copal and ghost pine i toil day and night searching for a place where’s he’s not gone from this world i do not rest i do not sleep i do not eat Bring me psilocybin DMT and iboga Bury me far beneath the Mourning Ground Send the Pointer and Shepard away Wrap me in my colors of annihilation

the colors of hurricanes and the endless road Wrap me in brown Wrap me in burlap

i have surrendered all my names and my foot print has changed

feed me small pieces of raw liver and salt Feed me the morning star

feed me glass from the collision at the crossroads

see me in the shaking earth

see me in the descending wren

see me walk among all that composts

summon me with your endless silence

summon me with your long gaze

you too are this

you too are oblivion

you too Are me closing the roads

Vigil 2

in , ,

where

i seek a vanishing

to be pure essence Where i have no name No memories

more than exile

i seek oblivion

a nightjar lives in a starred sky

a nightjar lives in twilight

make the appropriate offerings

resin. vine. your hands. reaching. be my perfume.

i am a violet at the crest of spring Waning Turning into a traveling song Turning into paper under the sun This is delirium This is grief and longing This is a grocery list and a forced march through arduous terrain This is already tomorrow Dragging the mezcal bottle from room to room

votif rain

votif flame

votif petals on your palms

you are the rose

Vigil 1

in , , ,

this grief has me equipped for war

my eyes have no more tears yet still i cry Is this how deserts bloom?

i am plowing my little acre with a buffalo horn Season of violets and lupins salute me as i drive through the vineyards Pills tucked under each nail Hashish lined up like soldiers Tulips tired in my bedroom bend towards the sun How could i not simply dissolve and sink into the earth

It’s easy for me to stop loving you

in , , ,

it’s easy for me to stop loving you

The way the bobcat becomes rattlegrass on Inverness ridge The way a footprint is the mainsail then the lost visa You’re not new I’m datura along I-5 A ghost rattle This is how i came to Bloody Bay Tobago and to a husband who made sure the cupboard was full but dragged me by my hair from the bed to the joining room This is how women become fog and smoke and 1000 starlings leaving the city before you awaken

His Day

in , , ,

ICU

all night the bells and whistles letting us all know 

death is just around a corner

she see us in our blue and white hospital gown 

ass to the wind//fuck off world// 

and it's never beautiful

tubes probes and all manner of violation

bring me cedar and spruce maybe a can of gas

a blow torch and a bottle of gin

i’m on the ground Low lower than that Buried

beneath all the decades and regret 

i wear this battle like a shawl

i am mist and disappear then reappear

pacing the halls Walks to the car 

for my flask for Hashish for sanity 

Gods help me i can’t do this

i drift or sing through time zones 

perhaps tomorrow i will speak or  move

i have become granite submerged at flood tide

i cry and the nightjar comes

i can lay here for hours days seasons one million chapters and still not see a waning

or have an understanding of why the Angelica fades too quickly