milton

i dreamed that

you told me to stop

wiggling my tongue like a snake

in a garden.

and i dreamed that there

were five steps to heaven.

all of them were made from you.

i dreamed a streak of red flourescence

across your forehead--as if i'd marked it

there with a light-laden thumb--

i dreamed only your eyes and mouth

and then dreamed only your sides

and heart.

my limbs twisted

like sounds.

i wondered why

i was the only screaming thing

in a river of fire

that shimmered silent

as a mirror.

milton

a rhythmic knocking

at the smoke-blue tower

of this dream.

i was curled

tighter than a fist,

pressed

closer than a seed,

immured

behind walls

thicker than flexed muscle.

when i breathed

the dream breathed with me.

the hilt of the dream

against my side,

the blade of the dream

deep within.

the tower was small

and blood trailed,

easy as tears,

down its stairs

like a face.

the knocking is

like an invocation.

the knocking is

like an invocation.

milton

crush

flesh

to dark

ness.

the tower

built

of raw dark

the up-

thrusting

thing

against

its ideal

turn it

real

taste

of yellow

roses

the stalklike

mark

on creamy

forearm

i was in the darkness, though.

but it was a meat darkness.

i pushed my way out

and there was meat for days.

milton

the thing is that
when incising
the flesh turns
on the point
of the knife and

not the other way around.

it was something
to center on.

now i have nothing
but happiness,

and that, terrifyingly,
is not
a dream.

milton

it was just a dream, the tower built from the thick smoke of offerings. 
because there was nothing to offer and nothing to burn.
the cavern roof rose clean as it had ever been.

now i offer my fear to you o god.
i put it on the altar of this frame of me,
the flesh and bony bits and the neural semaphore.

the flag of flame unrolls--i will live in smoke
but no matter.
to you vanesa who asked nothing

i leave the act of burning.

milton

geryon lay on the ground.

above and beyond him, around
the tower and the column of his breath
grew roses tangled
like hair
dragged through earth.

the roses had their own pulses
against the gray and blue sky.
they marbled geryon's sight

and he thought that if
he could just dive into pain
once again
as if into clean water

wash the moment
of his being
clean
of itself

wash himself clean
of himself


but expurgation was
an impossibility
so geryon looked
to the ribboned
rose-rimmed sky
as if to a knife.


but it was not a knife
and nothing
was safe

milton

it was a warm spring day when you locked the door on the tower.  when you closed down the windows.  you put your finger up and up as if you were trying to unlatch something but instead it closed everything.

and i thought to myself, i am not that person, scratching and raging against that lock like a hoyden.  i was outside the window like peter pan, watching the action; i watched that sick little simulacrum in the room enact her beastly tiny passions. 

because you punished, she was punishable.  so she must be guilty.
something about her must be guilty.
something about her
must
be guilty.

milton

and so my blood is powered by you.
it churns against itself for you, running miles and miles
in a taut circle, a claustrophobic dream of red--
you were there, though what i felt was a dream
you were a dream, but what i felt was real.

and so turn, turn, turn, turn, turn, my everything-maker;
up and down run run run run
the stairs to the tower are taut and cold
and the sky is gray as gray velvet

and inside something is striking at the wall
love or force
force in love
up and down the blood runs like
a rodent in a mill

a river cutting across a green landscape
there is a deer stopping to drink in the purple shade
of a poplar, its lines as clean as the running water

my pulse is just your drum
lover
my pulse is just your drum

milton: nocturne

for e m...

i feel something different.
as if i were quivering
on the cusp
of a new world.

don't want to say much, though--
it's hard to say anything with any freshness anyway.
i mean, for example,
your eyes are like
flowers
your mouth like
a flower
your hair
flower-like
your face
fair as a flower.
because flowers
are the most beautiful things in the world,
i guess,

or at any rate they will withstand
comparison
to you
if only barely.

milton

the image is
that which will have to pass
for the thing itself.

because i have nothing of yours
but an old shirt,

and there never was anything
ours.

your existence
so far outside of me
you might as well
have been a star
lover

only your shadow

only your shadow
brushing the ground
i pressed my mouth into.


there is blood flooding the stairs of the tower.  the tower is myself, citadel.  the tower is a prison.  the tower is my body.  lips and eyes, hands and hair, the tower is built of longing, the tower is built of the resistance to change, the tower breathes in and out and its language breathes with it, slow strides of breath, breath to feed the fire. 

the mask is
that this makes
some sort
of difference.

milton

the stomate of the rose
nodding against the stem
like a hand
against a wrist
twitching there

when i woke from a dream
i saw so little

the birds wandered the skies
the flowers barely budded out

milton

heartbeat a face
image from out the waves,
veronica
looks at me still
i imagine,
a star
in the sky, shining
like sun on the water

a million miles away.

i don't need to remember
what i can't forget, a feeling
lodged
so deep below
the surface
it turned the whole breadth of the fountain
to gold, to one gilt object,
as water piled upon water,
sweet blood washing the vein, red
with the breath
i drank
of your face.

so far away
it was a dream:
the chalice,
the tower through which
the blood trails
like a white sleeve,
the point
that pinions
everything

worked free
the door to the tower
opening
onto something
less imaginary.

it was a train that took me away from here
and a train will bring me home.