Published Nov 26, 2024, in Festival for Poetry

Norwegian Wood

Are these not just excuses to not connect. Our differences are irrelevant. To only name the flaws. - Bjork

Perhaps it was wrong
to burn him in my bucket of ashes.
Perhaps raising fire
was only code for my incompetence.
He is a fine musician, he hears notes
better than words.  I hear
the keys and chords of an unknown man
and my hunger looks for answers 
in blue notes and echoes. 
Words dry up. They always have.
But words are kindling too.
*
Sandalwood oil cools on the tabernacle of your wrist.
No sandalwood grew in Oslo.
Yet our little love nest on the fjord was full of sweet scent
and strong hot tea.  I loved choosing furniture
for you. I loved dropping mint and sugar in your tea.
I loved singing a third above your melody.
You did not notice. You kept singing your lonely song.
*
How many tables did we construct? 
How much experience can be stretched on them 
now for examination?  And how many conclusions 
wow us then are moved like chess pieces?
The usual gambit
grabs your body from my memory
and I anele it with aloe and myrrh 
as scripture demands. Ashes to ashes, you know.
So I clinch the white ash and a checkmate
from plane crashes, canals,
and ransomed songs foreshortened by history.
But the wooden hut we cobbled together
outlasts us. It outlasts even inept love.

 To published by Lotus-Eater Literary Magazine this winter, 2025.

Morning

the ragged wolves return at dawn
collecting what they’re due
you don’t remember when
they went away --
you do remember 
you made the wolves
by seeing them 
and you remember the stories you told
sheltered them from slaughter --
those parables of salt
made a world 
they savored in your skin
then at night you promised them
the wounded moon 
perhaps you promised too much
and now the night passes
and the wolves in you
get seriously pissed off

*
before their numbers 
were great 
and hungry packs
chumbled on the hem
of your rough robe
folded on the shore
there you sat on ancient rocks 
by the blackened sea --
and wanted 
a whole night’s sleep --
wanted to be warmed
by a fire of dry grass 
sparking on red coals
you tired 
of making them prey
so you struck a deal --
blessed are those who sharpen teeth 
blessed are the raw 
blessed are the outnumbered
for they will seek shelter in the broken laws
you thought they were multitudes
but it was only you
then when 
you stopped thinking
the wolves stopped
and the night returned
to night

*
whatever beatitudes 
you sold them
must have left 
outstanding debts
you remember sitting
between the wolves’ darkness and teeth --
counting your habits
as the smoke
on an alien shore
rolled across the water
into you
you planned habitual escape --
the migration of wolves
out of your eyes

*
plans are lies
and lies harden your debts
perhaps the many wolves
were also born by the war in your head –
you hoodwinked them
and then promised relief
by silence
but they got history instead
and history would piss
anyone off
your shameless mendacity 
will not hold the pack -- 
wolves pour out of the cut
in your chest
shadows scratching 
at the cockcrow’s windows 
as day insists you open
your eyes --
night’s end framed
in willows and skin
you and they did love the moon --
but dawn stops
the tracks in you, in them
the morning wolves are cranky
they are wet with your blood
and howl at the luminous emptiness
there’s not enough coffee
for the pack
but you remember the story
of loaves and fishes
and how baskets filled
as long as the hungry
surrounded them
so you pay your debts
for free
and the tribes of wolves
lick your hands clean of blood
in a windy sunny morning
by the sea
by what you refuse
by what you forget 
in your body 
still wild enough 
to make good news