Push

there is a place
inside
where hinges
the space under the door
itself is shadow
a personal interest in perception
makes of the visible
intruders
faces of voices a mothprint
spark upon the shade

the dying in the doom
a slow unravel
setting the mortar between the stone
of hard-won space
assurity to be defined
a might won by conflict
all the hands of clocks
point to the tower’d
monolith of flameflesh
upsprung sword

words wring poison out of bladders
or armored defenses wrist the cuts
eternities of argument
bar all passages
the way out is through
a papered-over frame
of letters written, rewritten
for love: a hate eternally afire
and gloom lay rheumy
underpinned
for all a want gone
nobly as the flower

for this a push crawls inward-out
saddened eyes mask a fearing stammer
one foot wrong
cost the magic cast
so delicate the weight
of tear-spent words
strengthening reciprocal transmitted
boldly, but caution constant needy sounds
when all is right embrace is there ensured
though should they not
the snare’s
a rosethorn for the stumble

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

us or them

wasn’t difficult to say
it means more now to hear
once those three words first trembled

i watched
and a mouth moved to speak them
a face waited to hear them returned

this is the excitement what follows
a struggle to keep them first,
and last

everything was happening as it should
and never occurred that we
were acting out roles

,man and woman, trying
a simple knot to keep
what was invented for us to maintain

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

feat et dore

where is the eye my apple spied
the tell and air o leaf tall thrust

imagined, image a lover lair’d
sped or spared in given light

when was might a losing trust
or infinity’s all a gone or gain

fountain well pillory’d stair a crumble
o’er the edge a sinking in dust

what possibility the worm at my ear
whispering tones a faint undying

trying and trying the frameless aware
empty the quiver of arrowshot night

why a rewinding, retying of shoes
gravity’s gift a following pain

lost and again thrown to flight
remember a life un-gambled is used

who, and who lostlove the simple
have and be had a liarless flame

feather exposed to the lick of a cry
more worthy than my unbeautiful lust

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

About dust

I suppose I could transcribe
these thoughts
or watch
this shadow crawl it’s way
across the geography of my ceiling 
is it a beetle, a moth?
trundling along-with its manylegged

inspection
 
what could be so fascinating
about dust?

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

Sour

where sour-toe walks
time’s pendulum towers
you see it
at City bus sidewalks
,in transitory cues

a monster as perceptible as
anxiety
with its own dogma and
acolyte providence
was there ever a history
peopled with a disinclination to
truncate variety 

where sour-toe spits
the quantum anatomies materialize
a productivity contraption
incapable of creation

can only organize
what is and
what has always been
expires, farts
is amused

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

Jewelry in church

it is not for the glamour given
the inexpensive disguised
a convincing re-arrangement
all the material is there, mass
appropriate to density
the hook is the
reaction to the spectacle

illusion real enough to be believed
inverted labyrinth with no center
shattered at the moment of ascension
the true strength of dirt
is in micrometers
the best possessions are truth’s
we are all struggling
for a reciprocated vulnerability 
atomically indistinguishable

a reality perception bends
but can not transform

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

Tammany

Scissors is sitting under a stoop
the old men are betting
waving their gobs
the suspenders are shouting
at beerspillin’ company
a precarious fold warriors all
cold as you like
 
coppers on the take
are under the Hill
with bribe teeth
lucky to win at pipesmoke
a bullethole, and raincoats
for the whistlers that fall
the softhand is steady
awaitin’ the turn
 
in stumbles Jimmy trilby in his cups
that Irish jaw a barnin’
says, “the fix is on the scam boys”
little pictures makes his move
and them pistols did the talkin’
amid the sounds of upturned tables
and girls caught in their garters
that hotel swam an electric pop
you’d go deaf in describin’

the smoke clears as it does
and the third day came and ran
Scissors claimed a legacy
pictures died on the edge of town
and a mope becomes a man

see that boy sitting next to a feedtrack
it was prologues

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.

Rotten

when i were spherical
and feet carried me closer
to the ground
i was eaten
a mouth inside chewed a whistling
hollow and there brood-
larvae, by the many-hundreds
and pupae still
secrete themselves from my skin
to die in lightbulbs
now, my meridian suns haze
with the dust of attics

when i were cubical
and right, and wrong serviced
as black, or white
i was beaten
a clenched fist bore me down
to the valley of shadow
and there believed evils
that climb up-
on ladders through drafty hell’s
to die in battles
now, the many apples of my midnight
sing of Lilith

when i were animal
and by hunger i fed into
a bedroom’d despair
i was biter
all teeth, and eyes a lumbering
bloody caul,
futureless pursuer
mooning over collected anatomies
muscle’d with a certainty
to die of excess
here, the starving figure crumbs
of pockets emptying time

when i were physical
and bound to my arbitrary-self
kept the spinning globe
i was rotten,
soft, sensory-laden sponge
flailing absolutes and feeble curse
demanding presence
and not a-one surrendered
speech, or the consideration
to die in silence
now, my individual wormlure
teases Nothing

© Emerys Watchel, 2018 All rights reserved.