FRIEND 

better to rethink it
in these cooling hours
at dusk the membrane softens
at eye level the sun
can cut through the city’s haze
everything’s become less important
and while the emergency of youth
has loosened its clutch
so has the madness, the constant dressing down,
the wringing given
to hand over hand
like birds, like help, like ladders
we’ll never see our faces
unless we look at each other
with age we’ll see the mask though
softened by tears and crumbling 
the day too will yield, the nights
there’ll be breaks visible and
we should take them
because, advancing, deftly now
death has never slowed, never
stopped, it’s closer, death has
never stopped coming at us and now it is
almost here. 

EMBOLDENED 

the pocked paper, the joining smokes
from 2 burning sticks of amber, the windows
in January, white and brittle like bone
these memories should wind out, Reader
they should be a road, and all loves
fiercely, thighs that crack walls
these words should yell out, from my
blue perch at a red machine should
redouble you rolling over
the house of your skull
down to the fine bones that finesse your
mechanical hands
that’s what this always was and so
what it comes to always be:
prayer and emulation, volume and ratcheting
sinking to the highest peak
having them get up and march through you
smearing the walls with ash drinking
from a glass full of sand, roach legs on the floor
of this small room like exoskeleton rungs
and in the center, like idea, like obsession
and reaching 6 feet in lapping tongues of flame
is heart
fulcrum and bastion heart, leaned to and whispering
a lock, a key, a trunk of glory heart
it’s what we’ve built and are built from
prime mover and reducer, whale and arrow
barrel and girder heart
the story written walking the song sung
back into
the warbling throat.

Singer songwriter, blogger and columnist for The Coarse Grind. a monthly column on the creative life, at Into The Void. Jim Trainer publishes one collection of poetry and prose every year through Yellow Lark Press. Love&Wages is his 5th. Please visit jimtrainer.net for his collections, and for music, film and appearances.  Photo by Adam Glick Photography.