hallelujah translated
in rain showers
wind tattered jazz
curdled milk in the fridge
honeybees living in bird’s nest
moon again lonesome bleak
tractor bucket bellied up
12-gauge shell littered land
horizon lines outshine the flood light
art thou or aren’t thou fiddle tunes
lichen on brick facing hedge grass
fingernails blooded tooth aching
city folks wind chimes conversation translated AM radio static
just behind the timberline just behind the shadows of a shed
town is reflected jade green moss north side of a tree
a foot from planted daffodils
paths clattered by patterns, alone incomplete by slants of lights
I am left standing and shining through, an echo reversing gravity, by falling
upward & around I cry for truths or depths floating on the surface,
here are skulls, here are heads of deer cut off, I am inland where mountains shimmer
and the temperate forest rots.
a thorn bush behind hog pins high strung in starkness
the right pair of boots & the holler’s backdoor coves
my flannel shirt pockets cover the beehives
the 1965 half-dollar dad gave me, buy gas, take a mouthful of snuff
hide in the house when J comes over drunk
the scrabble in the porch light, in the perch, window stains I leave
the doors locked remember, the mountains, ridges BBQ chip bags, fishing
the off the bridge, origins just pure like lady liberty, a shoebox,
hand-me-down sweaters and cattails tall as people
the a six pack by the bookshelf, take to the cold alter, now
a in fenced-in field, with my self-portrait for backdrops, blackberries along the parkway
the rough work with words and taxidermy plastered lynx fur
or mason jars filled with kerosene, postcards in furnaces black smoke
the it’s the road, silver pine riddles along burger king boxes, maybe
a blacksnake, there, six goats and four hens that were bought cheap
the even the tiniest crumpling diabetes toes in unison
dancing, hammering seven nails in a row whisker closet to each other, vertebras knuckling,
the damn this liver, lonesome failures to lift the tractor bucket as
sacrifice, for now God is a stuck hog or a lamb or another blacksnake, feeding on the mice
the out, the barn, most of all bottom feeders, bent stakes and glass
shards flatpicking breaks, a melody, a rebirth, a cesspool, no new eyes to feel with
the rain-puddle clouded ecosystems just white chalky connections
or dust on my dashboard, readiness it takes certain ancient eyes to call things, specific before
the the corn comes, upward there will be grass where home is
infected by sky-red vapors, gravel throated enigmas, bless my heartstrings for
the feeling, lantern light wooded has become rust suspended in air
like cardboard cutouts, the once seen mountains, jaspering left and right, bone deep,
the fingernails shards of highway lines on, ordinary thought is
underground, paved rivers vibrating, I wanted to say, out the front door to leave, only
the spaces
of my hair tucked in his hat I didn’t even like
+
this all near the hill where my grandfather is buried
but I only knew his cold body lying
for him, it’s a hospital mom says, a cold
metal slab, and I thought we were in the
basement, but I don’t remember coughing
because of mold which I am allergic to or
being scared from the lack of sunlight which
used to affect me, but inside I remember
looking at my grandfather’s eyelids and
eyebrows, how pink and purple
+
but that’s just it, the deer through my scope, he and I were breathing
the same hard syllables just a doe, the last of the season
I needed to kill something I needed or I’d wait all year
and I didn’t do it and throw it on the bed of his pick-up
take it to the high school parking lot and show everyone
to see what would they think, what they’d say and goddamn
I was cold snow was creeping in my tennis shoes not camo
but bet everyone else had a deer by now