Arrow flies in one direction, strikes as it leaves the bow.

Ride the saddle of the moment while slipping off behind.

Read the future teleprompter when memory’s all you know,

but you can’t kill time.

Spurting bellows suck in, speak out, objectify the noun.

Rousing stammer urges rhythm and consummates in rhyme.

Primal whisper, climactic shout, what comes goes back around,

but you can’t kill time.

Cuff the wrists so hands can pivot, stick digits in the face.

The heart beat veils a metronome that no one cares to wind.

Fifty minute hours smoking outside commercial breaks,

But you can’t kill time.

Slash letters on latticed vellum and hash marks on the wall.

Pound the limbs to powder that the wheels grind slowly and fine.

No escapement for the monads in glass that sift and fall,

But you can’t kill time.

Sleep to awake, smell salts and faint, defibrillate arrest.

Burn the tapers, count out the pills, then marinate in wine.

Through the valley hammer the bells all armed to toll for death,

But you can’t kill time.

The sentence says to hoist the word and swing it in the air.

The carcass drips and pendulates from demon to divine.

Compose a note, cinch up the rope, and kick away the chair,

But you can’t kill time.

Untitled (Sundial Bridge, Redding, California), 2010

A silver slit, an untanned tit, a dark hole in the sky,

On shiny flats black clams shut tight when heaven’s balls align.

The bitch you wish was dead until it’s clear the blood is why,

But you can’t kill time.

Count breaths, fix eyes, flatter shadows that seep along the floor.

Persevere in saving daylight, limn the night going blind.

Winter’s cold squall, summer’s dry flame, don’t bet on many more,

But you can’t kill time.