Poems about Dark and Cold

out of the arctic and
still containing the arctic
carrying a little cold around

in our heads pumpkin filling
to feed all the limbs
the cold blue language of salt
racing around in a circle
immutable like cuneiform

i carve my thoughts into rough blocks
and let them bake in the sun
but the drying and cracking
agitates me from a distance
and walking, always walking
i hear it falling apart
as I walk north toward the arctic
freezing seas and dragonsneck boatsmen

picking up seed pods and throwing
dust words into the air
i wish I could place myself in all life
but instead I place its soft limbs into my mouth
grinding and dissolving the bodies
of smaller animals to keep the sun catcher
glowing inside me, the chemical motor
goaded out of chaos from the milky seas
until all becomes glacier and blue ice language

-

Threshold of Concentration

The house is decorated in dark
solid colors. The light lies to me:
turns my whole into shivering bits.
I must be racing against myself.

The manifold surfaces of the jelly
Shine in the lamp light. I work slowly
To avoid getting the jelly on my papers.
In the process, I forget my possessions.

The sitting elephant smiles simply
from the corner. Paper clips scatter the
periphery of darkness. The copper arm
of the globe shines in the moonlight

I know what is out the window:
lonely towers dot the clearings
in the hills. They relay messages
like spaces between cells

With distance, all images are taken
up into the god of shadows, for
this reason I am afraid to go to the kitchen.
It is bright, but the hallway is full

of his dreams, the whites and browns
of the kitchen lasting, blazing out the
real darkness, like the boy I knew who
hung himself imitating Houdini.