ANKAA

The gloaming's blue seeps
into the white of the snow
& renders it blue too.

Jellied thoughts in
these skunky hours of
winter. A lance of ice
besets the verdant mind
& the verdant mind's grace.
Folly of the world maybe
calls forth an ocean blade
that swoops over warmer
climes while this chilly one
sleeps.

Why, lightbringer,
should such horrors
amass? You in your blue
sky who flaunts cold
order, the ordered dolor
of the metal mind? I listen
to winter's chimes & foam
& glower at the gloaming
as it blues the snow.

The snow's blues cloister
& the ocean's blues
cleave foreign soil. We
are not your people. We
were never your people.
The sun knows nothing,
the boat dreams of the sea
& the sea's dream screams
over the naked land. The sea's
not your papa, either. We,
orphans in the blue gloaming
& the foaming seas.

What temple? The void
& the bobbing boat
& the salty deep wells
of tears are our only charges:
shepherds whose sheep are bare.

Pass to night's province,
your boat is small,
little Phoebe, no phoenix little
sunbird, your concern's
not at all.

Sun wolf, ocean blade
a million tarry hearts
beat over these waters now
stilled, but no recompense
from that water's whims, or
the sun's folly or fury
& who will tend the ghosts
of those that water's killed?

The queen of ghosts
is a rumor, us pigeons all
concerned, conceived

immaculate.

CASTOR

There's nothing wrong with the double
amidst the rollicking bearclaws
of the hive mind. A manifesto
is a fashion statement—try to walk
when you have no legs. Certain Scandinavian
models are opiate & gigantic.
The winds of this land furrow
my brow. Oily pistons in the caboose
of mimesis. She's a watchmaker &
also an exotic dancer. My brother's
a leviathan & churl, he straddles
a dark place & a light place. "Ford
the river," the booming voice said:
the River Fjord the River Gold the river
broke & its yolk was the freezing mass
of my soul. Culture turns to sinister
mulch. The skinny legs of the preposition,
proposition, or fulsome predicament are
no match for my brother's spores or his
shining bolts. Imagine, we came from
a womb of spiders:
It's not so bad, Daddy
Longlegs, your poison teeth
cannot pierce the skin.