Touch the shadow in the closet: blurt

"BUT WHAT DO YOU CALL IT?!" All

that snow sealing you in my dream. JEEZUS

the reason they don't live in it is it's
a funeral home! The recessed rooms, cups
bowl's & saucers are spray-painted to match
the deceased's coloring. And the back part's
nothing but a drafty factory for the long
gone. A vista of empty snow & ice stings
someone's stained face. It is a mirror,
the past patched there like broken glass.

Can't see beyond that, just the shadows
formally opening: I finally understand.

Here, the view opens and it is my own strength.

---

I WANT

TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE
LAKE FROM HERE. I

WANT THE DWINDLING LIGHT
REFLECTED IN THE LINES.

OF MY HAND. I WANT WHATEVER
IS RUMPLED MAGNIFIED. I

WANT WHATEVER PULSES, LONGER.
I WANT IT TO THICKEN, LINGER

RENEW. I WANT IT. I WANT IT.

---

Walt Witman on the cedar porch

brings me to tears
& then the lawn mower starts. The
back-and-forth things, "I, too, am of one phase,
and all phases", all

& nothing. A friend brought
us music from Kurt Cobain, inside
he was craggy and cried. Not

one anguish, but layer
after layer of anguish. What
to pin on this ridiculously pure

pain and its conspicious
absence now? The air
breathing on it's own,
writhing in green,
insisting on bringing
beauty into it; ultimately
Kurt Kobain did not love himself
and the rest of us
are stuck with it. "Smile, O voluptious
cool-breathed earth. Smile,
for your lover comes".

---