reypulque

I hanged from that tree for years. Longer than the magic would allow. In the gray and in the green, my being ruffled through like a pocketed pick of cards. The redeal is still in the works. The old ways always have a say, in our breath and bones and words run astray. The meaning moves around a lot, the gods aren’t who they say...
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Oh, but it is so blue

above it all, this sky blue sky

up past these branches,

strategies to gather the sun

even though they show

these shrinking graying days

in the push and pierce

needle and bough this ancient

mechanism to translate

the sun into the reaching will of

the earth, stooped and staggered

before the heavens know

where to begin and end

fingers...
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Of course the heat held out. These were the hours of melting ice, the time of the rising tide. The words would wail and wail and the days went by unchanged. The long lonesome in smoke and spit. The turn of wings in a burning blue sky. The wait of want and the wait of truth, and the place you save that no one’s going...
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Someday it will be that branch,

the dead leaves all a flutter

brushed by the sweep of

raptor wings you think,

that branch laden still

with leaf and lichen,

the sky blue and bare and wingless

the heat still seething through

the stillness of things, dripping

with the intimacy of peace of mind.

Some day it will be that prayer

written on the atmosphere, coiling...
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All these sand swept parapets in this desert of another’s dreams. Brutal dunes and burning winds and the bright feathers of some beautiful bird. Another story of depths and breadths and the epic stretches of existence. Bright stars and cool oases, a song spun from the dross of every song spilled along a traveler’s tale. Time has a way of wearing you down. Bright lights,...
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I stand with my back to the sunset as a crow calls the dusk, the wailing labors of a train cutting through the cyclorama, the day thick with heat my heart thick with smoke. The shadows scramble as the sun goes down, all at once tree tall and crowding the architecture. I settle into my tumble of spells and appetites, burning slow in this iteration...
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It was a furnace even early

hot especially for the fall

the trees tall all around you

the lore left you by the trail.

The dreams spill like champagne

popping off and flowing over

though the clean counter and

the tea cup keep company

the words walking through

your open door. One moment

all skin and kisses, the next

all bones and breaks. At once...
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The crow slows the air as it jumps off the roof, swinging down the sky stretched out in the fists of its feathers, holding the atmosphere as it lands beside the curb. The day is hot, and thick with wings and miracles. From the rustle of doves in the pines to the tall slow spirals of wafting vultures, the flocks and feathers knock and tether...
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There aren’t so many bolts from the blue, there aren’t so many you don’t says. I’ve been talking to you without your help for so long that I forget how far apart we were, and how much further you are now. How little I knew, how much more I do not know. Words I say each day to your radiant absence don’t amount to much...
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Unless I look you dead in the eye

all my words are useless,

too used to the shifting red and blue

as passions heat and cool,

too used to the pretty birds in a row

to realize there’s a target

on every heads or tails, the pressing

sentiment or hard knocks taught

obsolescence of all my tricks and treaties.

Unless you tell me straight to...
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The last light as the sun

closes shop and makes its excuses,

the early day, the places to be,

going through it’s pockets,

checking it’s keys the way

we used to look at watches—

that spark to the start,

the when we began, the long reach

across the table tossing

all the shadows around,

the blinding bright before the curtain,

the moment where ancient forces...
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The heat only has a few ways to go,

to punish the flesh of tongue and lip,

to sulk together in the stubborn steel,

or step between matter’s stages,

ascend from the hot black coffee

into the wind whipped

nymphs of playful, dancing steam,

tickling gray beard and

rueful smile alike

ever the coquette, the delighted ingenue

spilling her traces and stirring

her hair and...
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