The feeling blossoms like smoke from wood shavings.You watch it almost curiously, as if to say, "Oh, look. Something's starting."But where there's smoke...The feeling fans the flame into a red flower.A rose is harmless, after all.But when you look again,...

Flayed to the Bone

"For Alan, whose passions were the word, the image, and the song."

To the bone, flayed through fleshand torn awayfrom the tendons and ligamentsof a tortured body.Moans of regret,mourning sensitivity,singular lossbefore the dawningof renewed passion.You have felt it beforeand wish for it no more;no more with the suffering, rejected and escaping,and waiting patientlyfor your destiny, writ...