warmth of stain

Which sooted hand growls away the maimed compendium?
which ruckessed lark stains the door? which hide of
want warms the stain?

Which trained eye colors the roof of my hide, the
palate of unsoothables notwithstood? which turn of
want warms the stain?

Which eastern brook latches the yearn of the toothless
hark, the medieval spit of ancient dark? which rust of
want warms the stain?

Which sheathed gash beckons the song – beckons the
large of song – to tempt the fall & stay? which meet of
want warms the stain?

these actuals sit on harmony

Bound in an axis of concentric
actuals   these actuals sit on
harmony   sit on facts that insist
on a robust diminution   it eats

on the rust of epistemology   why
does history remember these bindings
so? whose humanity is precarious?
which thread of the unopened

rhythm cuts it teeth on the chord
of faith   of a discarded fate whose
term expires when harm has soldered
its care & the tree of heathens live

Some tree it is

Some tree it is that calls out the name
of blood   some link to fate as it tries
to become another   this balsam year
coos the trunk   this heart this heal
some tree it is that makes my sound
touch the green volitions which tore
pages   pages of no   pages of acceding
to power   some tree it is that mixes
blood   the name of blood   to fate

hand & eye

ج‎
this here a stream   bound to
my dragon’s

flight   this here too a stone
thrown by my

dagger’s spine   which wood
carved that

lonesome hand   what engraved
that eyesome

stare?

چ

you will build a furnace out
of burnt

hands   eyes trained on point
lessness

see straight into your moist
divinity

the crutch of having stands now
balanced

خ‎

the knot of meaning   the growth
of what feeds

the eye feeds the hand   this
not of knowns

that wraps stone wraps bone   this
naught of wire

whose where is unfound unthought
of till just now

Poet as anarch

I.
Do your words support this one tradition or
that? did the vault of your craft meek out
yet another salve or did it glare in revulsion to craft? do you
salvage or savage the cow at the altar of the unholy? does
the sacred tempt you to sacrilege or do you bow?

will you pause to recall or
move on? will the line ever reveal
what hides or will it too linger off into
distraction (o the webs to save our
words from being more than what they pretend

to be)? where is beauty in this rubble
in the aftermath of one million six hundred sixty
seven forgettings? what molds the tank of
tumors that five hundred and fifteen
vessels of impunity contend to hide?

this is all within reason   this is all within
sight   and the bugles will sing of your
aftersong   they will burn less brilliant
with each lie unless the count
is singed anew.

II.
Caring is done with mouths / fingers
ink   tub of feel   worded want   it is done without
question   it is done within each ask of want   it
is the want of curbing blood   it is how the hammer
nails your meaning into your skin into your gender into your kin

into each marker of sin   each voice that stuns your station
your reach your win   it is done with mouths / fingers
ink   “I care for our world / if I stop / caring about one
it would be only / a matter of time / before I stop
loving / the other (Pat Parker)”

III.
Something in a poem misses a beat and a river crashes
somewhere   a village whispers the vapor of retreat   a
slur gashes the rainbow as each arrow of harm
is blurred – something in a poem misses a beat and
the heart quickens to mollify the red mishappenings.