Thick With It

I see you with your head thrown back

neck slick with exposed pulse

mouth open

gagging

with the indigo oil

fresh from dredging

new caverns

with the drill of another

male

phallic

polite

release

Release

R E L E A S E!

muse

Ann

three letters

who can absolve me

with one vowel?

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The Office Job

It's strangling really

and outside there is air, and breeze, and water

but still a city

the majority of it cast in the gray blend-all color of cement.

I would have to go farther

far beyond the front door of this square

to feel the world as round again.

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Déjà Vu

a day as slow as this

my ear laid open like a stream

wide eyed against the repetitive quality

of this moment, so like the last

yet awe inspiringly different

if subtlety is missed

how will I know

that déjà vu is just a myth

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Be a flower on a hill
grateful to die in
someone's open palm
surrender and be strong
stronger than the will
not to

perhaps fracture
in two
the body, dormant under the finger of a caress
the mind
gone Earhart

but that says something
something harsh
something less than you wish
a black check against your white expectation


(Words in Italics belong to William Michaelian)

Silent Conspiracy

I'm not sure

I'm not at all sure we haven't a mute existence between us that is conspiratorial.

The eyes have so much to say!

The slope of your shoulder is brethren to the tremor in my knee.

Together they whisper about the nature of our lives

and bat our wishes between them in the cloistered halls of our monastery.

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2 x 4

I stand between
my beginning, my end
spectator
in a game of chicken

-----------

I've lit and scorched
my own hand, my own flame
contradicting
all but the scars

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W I N G S P A N

you're still caged
i see the bars
i feel them more

it's gonna kill me when you fly
but God help me
i want to see it
more than my own
flight
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Perfect Storm

It was the heat
an exacting temperature
a bumble bee, wind chimes
some kind of smell in the air
anticipatory, recollective and humid

I walked into the house
and was assailed by it
the perfect equation of an echoing evening...loosed.

An apparition, bewitching and amorous
wearing the full season of us,
regalia of last June,
knocked me off my feet
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Reply to Joselyn

I undertand it, feeling unloveable.

I know how they will try and talk us down from this ledge
how they will congregate on the sidewalk below
their hands over their mouths in mock surprise and fear
the well intenders
singing the praise of our worth
and tell us how fucking lovable we are.

But you and I know there are parts that...
dare I say it to you...
only God could love.
There are parts that would make the crowd disperse from the sidewalk
having just painted a big red target in their wake
parts of us so dark
not even mold would thrive.

Keeping Watch

Yes. The best of intentions are in need of redemptions. We never intend to be the error, the virus, the villan. Sometimes we are. And we forgive each other. We leave those doors open. We throw open the window and keep watch for all that returns from what we've sent.
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