reypulque

clockwork

It is bordering four in the morning, that rough and solemn country where thoughts roam rogue and the mysteries of the night are outweighed by the baggage of so many missing dreams. I dawdle at the keyboard, wanting to spill enough words to free me from any further obligations. Wanting just to get this profligate posting business done with, to check one more thing...
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on breathing

The even-handed air leaves its blessings in the blood, life burning slow and fierce. The sky settles in a holding pattern, moment by moment all the maps salted with such distant stars. Hard pavement talking to each little bone in my feet, some meeting of the minds of matter. This could be the last breath I ever spill, and that would be a...
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remedy

Looking to the sky, I can't even get an answer as to its color. My eyes skip a few bands of the visible spectrum, blending hues when they color out. The blue gone gray caught in the fire of a sinking sun, the sinking of distinction into the long sigh of so much shadow. Overcast and underwhelming, another dusk too cool for the revel...
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the reverse comb-over

After a week or so of delay and diversion, I finally got around to shaving my head. It is a task I very nearly dread, but it is a necessity if I am to maintain any pretense of grooming whatsoever. My baldness, like my lying, is of a distinctly male-pattern kind. A large purely bald spot on the back of my head...
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the seams

It is a blue of a furtive timbre, rich and slightly hesitant, abiding in the levity of the passing moment, trying to decide if you are the type to trust with secrets. It seems to be set upon by such green reaching that the bright and sunny yellows of new leaf become untethered in the giddiness of the spectrum. The long notes and...
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sigil

It goes without saying that I remember that kiss, hard and long as we pressed against that wall. It goes without saying that I remember your lips, strong and fevered as they lingered over mine. It goes without saying that not a day goes by without some trace of you-- some myth, some vision-- crowding into my dull senses. A hint of wisteria, a...
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fractions

Just before the smoke subsides, just before the light weighs in, just before the cacophony of another day winds its way through the doorjambs and window glass, there is one slip left of the world you lose. As these tattered flags of worn-through flesh ripple upon the tent stake and kindling limb of rolling bones, as eyes slip along the ceiling and the walls,...
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the introspecter

The days swarm by with little change but the temperature and the weather, fresh budding spring leavening the gray with slivers of green, hints of the greater green to come. Blue skies have broken out, with song birds in the pine trees and dogs sprawled out in the yard. Memories crowd and swirl like ashes after they abandon any last ember of light...
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The clock unwinds from so much watching, spattering time on the floor and walls. The words that are the most used up are the only ones left awake, so you try each one that will fit in your mouth. Your voice is just another thing stuck in your throat, a fish-bone or a heart. Nothing in your file, nothing on your record. Every blemish has...
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How long before these washed out sheets of color become another dusk? How long before these muddied flocks and waiting swarms give way to another night? There are still some reasons left, to long towards, to pretend. The wet pavement and the rattled road. Crushed worms, and snails all along the garden wall. Peach blossoms reaching for a sun that never stays. Watching the windows...
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It is an hour where so much distant beauty becomes obdurate, a blunt and leaden feeling for every precious shine. The heart takes its medicine in the usual fashion, all scrapes and burns and bruises. Music rides the air in from another room, and the streets seem empty even when salted with crowds. Too many pretty pictures, too many wounds to count.

I gloss over...
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This on-going exercise in clandestine exhibitionism known as the Blood/Ghost Ratio will be on hiatus for the next week or two. So will all of my tiresome repostings there of, giving us all a break. I am going to be re-evaluating the public writings I have been doing, deciding which to continue and which to fold. The Ratio will return this March, in one form...
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