new monster

zinc-white and subtle,

the drag of a blunt nail across a lower lip--

the purples and sables

of your dress--the sineal curve

of your hair

tossed into the wind

that touched

your face.

i stood behind you and that same

wind blew

against me.

remembered perfumes, later,

bright in mind as colors.

lips pressed into a palm like milk.

lips lapping each other.

i said your name

and reached

inside.

new monster

thick white metal

in which i coat myself

thickly: zinc a nail deep.

as if

sheltering

within poison--

my lips a snakebit red,

their juices surging

just under skin,

for you, my spice,

dried in hot memory:

equatorial baking

of your face, your voice--

i slam husks of you against a stone floor,

hoping for shock, to force a chill,

but all that breaks is

my voice--

and it speaks your name,

lips wet

with juice.

veronica. veronica. veronica. veronica. veronica.

new monster

new monster

there is no revelation

besides remembrance.

there is no tide

aside from blood

and all about

in the sick dark

there is a pull--

as if new beasts

stretched their mouths,

there is a rhythm

to this rotted-sweet

lack of light.

new monster

details, bleached and splitting, warping
as if in the sun of my thoughts--as if my mind
were a thing of light and not just pressure.
there is a time, it told me,
its words as crystalline, as incised against
each other
as cut
glass,
to drink the juice
from the vein.

but i was awake, sitting up
as if from a dream, as if from a bed
i had slept in
as if a seed in earth
and the whole time
i had been watching the light twist into shadow
as if there were anything in this world
beyond
the wild reach
of pressure.

new monster

i called for you
and you didn't come.
it bears
repeating:
i called for you
and you didn't come.

impossible for this to be
a true betrayal,
girl with your red blood mouth
and your hair as dark as a memory.

when we owed each other
nothing

beyond my obsession.
ergo there must be some point stuck

still

deeper than this
and broken off
at the hilt,

lost
to its handle.

new monster

sick and feeble and
slinking
away from all i had known

i looked back at time and
wondered

i wondered where
the beginning had
gone

and

i wondered why
everything always
was new-
begun.

my bones felt
like matchsticks
under a blazing sun.
i curled myself upon
rock

as if
i could truly
shade
the ground.

the only
left
thing
was the bone
and the blood--

the rest i
shed
like a breath

the rest i
shed
like a breath

the rest i
shed
like a breath

new monster

dive into
high gold
as if it were

water.
searching the
caverns
of my body

for you

silence

waiting

veronicate

it might be  enough,
i think,
to wait--

i learn it from
the empty parts--

from the spaces,

where the gold
settled

where the gold
flows
thickly,

thick
enough.

new monster

you left me
like something flown
the cage

my ribs like
an empty cove

i was your altar
now i am
any shelf

you were my owner
but

now that you are gone
the hand on the leash
is fear's.

my tongue out
to catch

any wayward
gust of you
left

in this
white
emptiness.

new monster

the conferrence of all blame onto myself is an act
of
rage

self-loathing does not make me weak
just
limited

horizons a bloody mess--
the world a cage--
each sunset a butchered side

yet each shining vermilion and
strips of marbled white, the eye of bone
like the sun

i may close my eyes to breathe
but i am nobody's bitch
but my own

new monster: nocturne

your mouth on  mine   like
a world   i  wanted
to hang inside   the fire
of it

and then when
it was   over
did you see   the  blind
white   seeking  on
my face?   as  if you'd
flipped  a rock
and  something
half-formed
couched
in  dirt
looked   back

disoriented and  only
half-  planned
as
breathless
wondering
icarus...


when i was alone
longing
stained me
stained me like
fresh red   stains
a   horizon

the  light  fall
of  a
feather

presage
to  the   plummet
limbs  tangling

the air   in the  mouth
tasting  of  a speeding   world
plunging
into    velvet  oblivion

new monster

time they say
is like
sand

each moment
an implied
equidistance
from the rest,
each with

its own
heart
burrowed inside

the thousand things
felt in
each
are all
available
at all
points

also those
imagined

space is lodged
inside
that heart
also

like a
pinecone
ready to
spill its
seed
at frost,
waiting to
decompress

the image is of
a dawn a lighter shade
of gray
and the earth too
a lighter gray
and
me giving thanks
for everything
for everything
i remember

the stutter collected
inside my tongue

new monster

nude and vibrant silence

silence

spread round like sour milk's hot press

(locked, all doors locked down)

silence no longer the absence but rather apotheosis of sound, silence a feeling, lappable, a discretion of tastes, a fever

silence the gathering and the prophecy

(i will do such things, such things, such open-sound things)

(i cling to
your shirt as if
to the petals
the stamen
clings
fearful of
bareness)