In the Dwelling of Dagon

I imagine the discord of horror-film strings,

quiet then rising as the ark begins to glow.

Darkness starts to dwindle; the radiation grows

to cast half-dead light on Dagon, that ugly thing.

The scratching sound of rats' feet fills those riddled walls,

while fleas leave the dirty fur seeking human skin.

A pestilence then festers from that site of sin;

a bubonic burst mushrooms outward from those halls.

But for now, the city sleeps, its tumors unknown,

dormant, not yet blackening the beds of lovers.

As on Passover, the unseen reaper hovers,

sneaking his seeds into the marrow of their bones.

So, my child, when you kneel before the modern ark,

the tabernacle, make sure He is respected,

for He who heals you here is He who infected

that satanic city, that dwelling in the dark.

Boylston Street, Boston

The God of the gaps stumbles down this street

battered by blasts, with cigarette butts, blood,

and sticky beer smearing his naked feet.

Time and rain have buried the pain in mud.

His only home is absence, these sidewalks

of vagrants, craters, and amputations,

with slabs now repaired, empty of the shocks

that dented the rock and maimed my nation.

Still, I cannot recognize his face here,

hidden among the hurt and huddled poor,

hard to distinguish in their dirt and tears.

So I seek him down the street, through the door

of the shrine where he sleeps beneath the sheet

of bread, the dark space where he and I meet.

Dedicated to the community of Saint Clement Eucharistic Shrine

To My Guardian Angel

Eyes baptized in tears,

she excised herself from all the years

that divide me from the final vision,

washing air empty, concealing collisions

with invisible bodies and faces.

So I drifted through seemingly vacant spaces,

swinging fists, clawing the wind,

cursing the absent breath. And I sinned,

yes I sinned, in thinking myself alone,

for all my punches pounded your bones

and pierced your spirit, my unseen friend,

black-eyed and broken-armed. And in the end,

bathed clean of my hate, I will meet you face to face,

you who absorbed my rage, and we will share in love’s embrace.

The Song of Tobias in a Quarter-Life Crisis

Armed with only a diploma, empty pockets, and a dog,

I leave college and my parents for an economic drought.

I drained my money and perception in a beer-induced fog,

without a woman or a job, without housing—just without.

Neither married nor ordained and now too old to be a child,

between animal and angel, I adventure through the wild.

I keep hoping that a healer spirit guides me through the murk

of self-pity and entitlement and middle-class malaise,

through the internet fantasias where the Facebook phantoms lurk,

through my English-major dreams and theories fading into haze.

Neither married nor ordained and now too old to be a child,

between animal and angel, I adventure through the wild.

I suffer synesthesia

in the sensory barrage

of a world with amnesia,

chasing each perfumed mirage,

each sweet girl I could seduce,

but all the girls I’ve wanted

run away, so I deduce

they’re surely demon-haunted.

Neither married nor ordained and now too old to be a child,

between animal and angel, I adventure through the wild.

The Departure of Tobias by Giovanni Antonio Guardi

Communion 2

                                  There is a sea collapsed; its splinters surround us.

                                  There is the worn trap of time, and aren’t we restless.

                                  There is the weather inside us in motion,

                                  lightning over our ocean…
                                           - “Bells Aloud” by Castanets

Seek me,

please seek me—

freeze the rain in midair,

slip between the drops, and meet me

there in motion stilled—if only for an instant.

Find me,

come find me

away from others’ eyes,

and twirl the paused droplets there—

suspended prisms spinning with their dizzy dancing light.

Still me,

softly still me

away from my own eyes—

calm my heart when the falling restarts,

and keep its beats constant in this water-world’s bombardments.

Communion

Come,

please come along,

I am racing back to sleep,

far from the ghost-drenched circles

that streetlights pour across the sidewalks.

Those orange islands will expand with the dawn’s light

until they reunite and blanket the road, the campus, and distant home.

For now, we lie touching in spots, cut from communion and distraction

by the margins of night swelling between the windows.

The spent burst of twilight retreats into streaks.

The rhythms of our breathing

slow down and

diverge

in

approach

of the border,

the boundary between

wakefulness and dreamless sleep

that hides from sight like the bridge between eyes.

Each as an eye, we cannot glimpse each other over that space,

but our distance lets us sense the depth that yawns between us and our object.

Second Rainfall

In the rich, thick light after the storm,

when the wind rocks the rain-laden leaves,

the trees release a second rainfall.

I hope his breath dislodges the drops

of water that bathed me as a babe,

washing me anew in his wind’s wake.