stolenhead

[stolenhead]

They Do Burn

sometimes everything speaks to me in voices. i hear them as words.

not birds. i hear their voices always. but the voice of a footstep, the voice of a door closing. sometimes its like

they yell so loud. birds are already speaking and sometimes its to me but the tree, the ground, the water,

their words are for me alone. when it gets so loud the only way through is to listen

[stolenhead]

I long to be the curl

Behind your ear, the

Drops of sun that

Kiss you gently awake

There is a dream etched

Into your flesh, flowers

Planted by tender fingers

Knees pressed into soil

Somewhere a forest finds us

Two soft creatures wrapped

In shadows, limbs entangled

In the silver of want

[stolenhead]

Saturday screaming

Behind the eyes, tiny fists

Pound & pound & pound

[stolenhead]

touched silent perhaps-

where you look

away

when you find those closed-eyed smiles

heart-

hidden words

a mouth, familiar, clamped against yes

there inside far

folding images

within slow shaped moments

quiet ached

palpable

touched silent perhaps?

[stolenhead]

fairytales

when I sleep

more heavy

than a dream

the clouds that float

around me

a book that comes

unbound

[stolenhead]

I've seen

razors wink

and stars pucker.

I've felt

my head encased

in a halo of feathers.

This life is

a splatter of paint

against a wall, stuck

in its crumbling,

and the color drips

both up and down

toward stone

and dawn.

Robert J. W.

[stolenhead]

There's a war

between myself

and the fallen rain.

I know

I deserve better

than that liquid pain

so I try to swim

from the mud puddles

where my grief is kept

and land on

the concrete shore

where I can breathe in

my boiling heart

and exhale caterpillars.

Robert J. W.

[stolenhead]

Gray Matters

Mind filled chaotically Abstracted for reasons With poetic fragments Drafted in quandaries Inaudibly on the edge

wpm

[stolenhead]

There's no shame in collecting

Pretty things in an ugly world

Prisoners are allowed their pictures

Hoard your joy there, tooth to cheek

Your smiles are stolen secrets

This land does not deserve

[stolenhead]

There's no shame in collecting

Pretty things in an ugly world

Prisoners are allowed their pictures

Hoard your joy there, tooth to cheek

Your smiles are stolen secrets

This land does not deserve

[stolenhead]

the skin of sleep is frail

a creature made of vague

returnings

other nevers also

hollow met names

a tongue embraces their meaning

they fill a silence with reluctancy

each shallow shaped

leaving

I un-dream you there

you must believe in my

waking

a face becomes an echo

[stolenhead]

Isaac’s climb, abraham’s sacrifice, sarah’s son

[stolenhead]

Faith as fistula

To wear an angry abscess—

Excuse it with amen

Divine disease, all your dreams

A communion left to rot

[stolenhead]

Low Pressure

Flowerbed limps, aching

towards an opening.

Sky’s face pale,

bloated with clouds.

Old joints grumble, sing

the same old comfort:

We’ll all be better

for the rain

-acklum

[stolenhead]

apophysis

Revolutions around Movement so quick even with attempts 

Drawn in breath to speak, 

then 

another moment replaces the next.

Stillness that has me continually 

returning a glittering glance

[stolenhead]

We could never identify

the pain

that took hold of us

like an inpatient hand.

We could only guess

and I imagine

we were always wrong

but

lying in your bed

and watching the cracks

in your ceiling

try to sing

made the planet

a dandelion

in a time

of water hemlocks.

Robert J. W.

[stolenhead]

fingertips on your raindropped flowers

we can pulse through the stems like neon

hanging loosely from the pawn shop entrance