Facing West

The Jazz station is playing Chet Baker
something recorded near the end of his life
he sounded like chocolate
if chocolate
was ravaged by heroin
and time.

In Europe, Jazz is revered
crowds jam darkened doorways
and tiny tables lit by unscented candles
at clubs like Ronnie Scott's
or The Vortex
which could also be a metaphor for all of this.

The shoulder cracks under the weight
I stop for a moment to consider the red sky
and why they jump from buildings
Baker, McCorkle...
they wore their scars
softly, I think

like rain.

© 2011 A.g. Synclair

Auto Erotica

On those long, loping, summer afternoons
when the air has turned a thick, milky, mess

when breathing suddenly becomes a negative proposition
I stop my breathing so I can die for a few moments.

While dead
I promise not to write between our lines

I won't be dead long enough to write
just long enough to live

just long enough
for one last startling act of contrition

I can't be resurrected like some faux Jesus
but I can always rise to the occasion

then I'm reminded of France, circa 1955
and your little brown dress.

The peaceniks up north wave signs
"Make Love, Not War"

yet we all fight and die
in wars fought on mottled streets

where some fool once said
no heart beats alone.

Why do the leaves turn their backs on us
just before it rains

faster, faster
we don't know what it means to be slow

your sex wraps around me
like a swirling backbeat

rewind, play
repeat.

© 2011 A.g. Synclair

Amuse Bouche

now I can say
I've eaten raw eel

I didnt chew the quivering flesh
I swallowed, like I swallow

my own slithering words

and I laughed

when you told me stories

about little chinese men with gender issues.

Now I can float

above the red clay

I can dissect a piece of you

and hang it from a string around my neck

I can say I love you

I can chew the eel

and know how it feels

to love your pale, pretty bones.

© 2011 A.g. Synclair

Livingston, Montana 8:23 a.m.

when I went away that blue morning
you were ripe as November
and I was scarred

there was no air
but enough sunlight for a lifetime
so I wished it away

and the rain
with it's tender hands, held me
under a blood orange Montana sky

© 2011 A.g. Synclair

Proof
(Love In A Time of Voluntary Diaspora)

Gesture after gesture, we pause
gangs of human flesh, wanton, exposed
backs bent, arms outstretched,
bloody hands slit by the oiled blade
of the intangible orb.
The bushels of proof, tied in bundles,
as if knots of twigs, or bits of brush
culled from the soil of our earth
to kindle the flame of the soul.

This pulchritude
not borne of acrid prose
meant to violate the pure page
or drift rotten across our tongues
like a corpse, tossed about purple sea.
Nor does it lie dying in the widow’s web
or passed from breath to bitter breath,
in a tangle of crooked limbs
and gently breaking bone.

For the proof of our {be} ing
will bloom again in simple things
like the frying of an egg
or the twisting steam
from a pot of Russian Tea.
Proof lives just beyond our breadth
snug in the arms of the aged willow
and alive in the sunrise whisper
of the morning paper
landing on our winter porch.

© 2011 A.g. Synclair

At The Gate

endless loop

the circumnavigation of four,

            not horsemen,

but just as foreboding

                                 recurring

apocalyptic ribbon

visions rebound quickly

plunge deeper into

more

        of

              the

same

                      isolation

evolved of a curious mixture

the turning over of stones

miscalculations of

         time

upending our supposed bliss

the poetic half-life of

                                    absolute

             insurgence

© 2011 A.g. Synclair

Ascent/Descent

we scale the walls of treachery

pull the teeth from winter's yaw

with delicate fingers

deft hands

grimy, gutting glances

a bloodletting

consummated with

soiled paper sheets, you

milking shadows from the breasts of naked trees

closer to me than words on a page

these fragile things, like sleep

or paper thin prayers

illuminate you in fiery glass shards

for we are splintered

and sharp

for cutting

© 2011 A.g. Synclair