shut the door

oh home
be not
sideways snow blowing lids back
or sharpened wind dissecting lips
(it’s just the walk home dear boy)
be it
solitude
shaken walls huddling feebly together
make a box of metal make it hold fast
for tonight
i sleep
for tonight
what is wrong
stays outside
gnarled cat clawing at the open space
between front door and floor
it’s greased hiss
muddled
in tired ear
i grant you access to nothing so black as the space you which to reach
i grant you nothing
old sound
for tonight i sleep
and you can feel free
to bury me
in your misery
(where mariners tread on clenched waves
and boxers hunch in driven pain
and dandelions wilt before your very breath
take this picture i have painted lovingly
my middle finger extended pensively
what could it mean?
kick the shadow in the stomach take the hurt
run it in circles ‘til it stops
smack the hurt in the face find a place
mark an x on the ground where it drops
and draw a smile
defile dead rhetoric
spit on the grave and mimic
ways in which you were treated
days that always retreated
from the gnarled cat claw of shadow
scraping in timeless vain)

oh home
how could you have known
you have grown from metal
into man
and taken a stand
on two feet
instead of one?