Byzantine Boy

In his simplicity

without arms.

Ironwood heart

beat in his step.

There is no rise

no fall.

Man of siege

of the sweetest kind.

A leather bound suda full of life-giving words.

Let the Miserable Man Go

He dropped knives down both sides

Of his neck and then wrists.

The train finally lended him a hand,

God-damn smile and all.

Gentleman of the Rails

Old pappy tree, old willow,

it makes me feel small.

You got to get wise,

you got to get a saint,

you got to say amen.

And give me my god damned medal.

I'm devout or devoted,

I'm on my knees more days than nights,

that counts.

It all counts.

Tally my marks and open the sky.

If you are looking to be legendary,

you are anything but a legend.

Every Man Has His Limits

Every man has his Kingdom,
his River Canyon,
his Deer Valley,
his Temporal Reign.

Icons of the canonized,
painted, blessed and hung.

God damn us that mock the limits.
God bless us that mock the limitless.

Czar of the Tannery

Here. And the flags blow every which way.
Smoked buckskin burns the nose and feet.
Scrape, heat, Oak and Mangrove.

Tannin, dye, dark honey, die.

The Warring Forks of Shame

A love for the outcast
laced in the least of.

No need for wit or wire
just a shared glass of horchata.

His ease cures the shame
heals the landlocked.

The Gospel of Royale

Birthed and painted blue
talk about setting the tone for life.
Without favor, without feather.

Redeemed through sign painting
blessed at this hands.
Illed in the soul, sick in the mind.

Not just any archangel
Not what we expected
He shines through the lowly.

I think I am Rimbaud

I can give a pithy and smallish answer,
and I will.

I have a color palette like no other,
vast enough to blurry a Frenchman's mind.

The taciturn in me writes itself,
your effusiveness ills me.

My Rabbi, My Man

Great thickets of field mice,
good teachers misson us through it.

You wear that pulpit well,
my man of long beards.

What I want to say about you is short but important,
You lead me and I'll follow.

Willoughby

Wood chopping cured our broken bones,
Ox blood spilt on our feet,
Fields of briar and failure,
failure and failure.

I'd still run through it all to end up old with you.