Blood everywhere

Suddenly the beast leaps out of my man. 

I see molars, I see deep down inside 

his mouth. I see his tongue. 

His jaws hang loose. 

He curses me. 

His eyes double in size,

they have no lids.  

I don't know the wolf in the bed. 

No, I will not argue with it.

I will not engage with madness. 

My darling is buried alive inside 
this howling thing. 

My gentle music lover cannot get out, 

cannot give me his hand. 

So I will bite down on my tongue 

before it can spit, 

my teeth will drop down

to form a cage around my tongue,

I will bite down hard until

my blood is everywhere. 

What I just found out

I've known it from day one:

jazz is his guiding light and tonight,

after weeks of bang and blare

in that rehab center,

he’s home playing big band CDs. 

The trumpets, all those horns

return to him his past, spread 

it out on the table,  each tune 

a mound of delicious memory.

The skin around his eyes folds 

with pleasure, a flare in the left eye 

and then the right.

A man can think he wants to die

and no melody will change his mind

but a certain swing, a few favorite notes

can overshadow his resolve,

can make him want to stall his

demise by at least one more hour.

I just found that out.

Tiny

One day you, I--all things--must 
merge into one tiny thing 
and then .....poof ..... 
all things become no thing
but only for an instant,
only until the advent of a new
tiny thing from which a spark 
spreads color deeply, widely--a new deluge
of things--water, diamonds, acorns, 
someone's happiest moments--
and who knows what else in our eternal 
drama of passing time and death approaching.
I don't know what else to say when he tells me 
he is crushed and wants to die 
so I ramble on and on to fend off, 
to dissolve, my pity, his fear, my fear, 
by sublimating this dead end he /we face. 
It's cruel that life contains the seed 
of its own destruction
but somehow it is a thought that lulls 
us both into a contemplative stupor 
and we can finally close our eyes 
and sleep.