leaving applegate

and we are free and
whole
not unlike soil

not unlike a hanging pear
or an eaten acorn
or the way your lips form
not to the contour of these
words


but to the countour of
some song
underneath

morphine

there is some strange attraction
between our pains,
a gravitation of fractures,
a resonance of dissonance.

your voices sing to me from
the corner of every eye-
asking for that sweet, listening devotion
which i have had such trouble mustering.
something was in the corner
of my own eye, you see.

but there is something beautiful to each
voice and the whole and i can
no longer help but listen.
it wakes me up at night (my own voice
there among many) and i feel wonder
at this hymnal aloneness.

and there is some deep attraction
between our pains-
some deep attraction that keeps us
separate
and turns our gaze into a searchlight
scanning
the dark horizon for the red cross.

when the corpsman comes, panting with
effort, and places morphine in the deep
wounds of desire-

when he comes by an effort of the eye and
the heart-
some deep magic works
and where one answered,
now
are two.

this is what i want, dear friend.
see my scars?
they match the pink curve of your own humanity.
let’s sit up all night, sipping
tea and holding hands.

why not escape the attraction of
our pains and give each other
what we all really want most.

blind

i know this feller whose
favourite pastime is
walkin through hay fields
with his eyes shut.

his wife tells me about how
one time he was moseyin
along like so and fell into the
pond out back of mr. hyde’s
place.

turns out he’s graduated to
blind-hiking in the forest hills.
i asked him how the hell
he avoids the trees and he
said, “shit, andrew, you can
see em if you look in the back
of yer mind instead of the front.”

that’s pretty cool, i thought,
even though (or perhaps
especially because) my name
ain’t andrew.

the last king

once upon a time there was a king
of the kingless country who defeated all
the host that rallied against him for
he was great in the arts of war and peace.

then, one day, an old man arrived from
a far off nation. he smelled of decay and
looked like a corpse. standing before
the king, he proposed a duel.
the king was astounded and protested,
but agreed when the old man wouldn't
back down.

for forty days they waged an unearthly
battle. no matter how viciously or
brilliantly they fought, neither could
get the better of the other.
exhausted, the king was about to give
up when a stable boy stepped into
the courtyard and embraced the old man.

immediately, the old man seemed to reverse
in age. soon the king stood face-to-face with
the spitting image of himself.

calm understanding enveloped the king.
as the two warriors engaged in fight once
more, the doppleganger thrusted at the king, but
instead of parrying, the king threw himself
into the thrust, piercing himself through.

both men vanished.

a great sycamore grew from that
spot. it grew and grew and grew
until it came to shade the
whole of the land of the kingless country.