Author: K. P. F. Holmes

We braced for the fall into blue majesty, dive-bombing and splinters,  but were left sunning our backs over the ozone layer. Before we felt the burn we turned to vapor. No telling leaves or auguries could save us  from piecing apart like monkey bread. Cinnamon mist and sticky fingers. There is no pain in oblivion…

The fog makes monsters of us all, and only by approach we recognize human fashions and features, a pleasant hullo (or, too close, other gestures and intentions. Those  smack home like a chocolate box full of stones.) The causeway splits salt marsh from ocean,  two worlds that share a greenish wind, and carries one from…

A hundred witnesses on the wall would at least not reach consensus.  If color and contour match, so must opinion.  I escape it, for a time.  So the pharaoh is foiled,  the flower arrested, the warhorse seized in the charge.  Their acrylic strokes are pigment and plastic, and they cannot decide my innocence— or my…

I happened to be speaking with some colleagues when certain revelations disentangled… Fuck it. You’re a flake,  a casualty and a liar. Telling them one thing, us another,  preying on our sympathies and long hours while you party and get tested for gonorrhea.  You fail our clients, screw me over, and not  even for fragility’s…

Blue detergent on a velvet dress that may or may not survive even the gentle cycle— I’m tired of babying clothes. But I have nothing else to worry about. No New Years pearls, no oven roast, no  in-laws’ pecan pie and appraisal. We’re doing it different, this year, and enjoying the children’s choir  on the…

Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso— mountains and meridians carve the dozens of degrees  of mediocrity.  Even in the mouth of the firedrake,  which fogs the night with its hunger, there’s an up and a down and a clamber of men for redemption. How hard would you scrabble to break the cloud bank? To find God or space?…

The cold nights on the town, nose running once inside, experimenting whose place will feel like home the fastest. Let’s not rake those coals. But “let’s not,” as it happens, is our summons—where we count of the crows and eat it. The slow unfurling, shaking of wings, refusal of flight as we fall. Our laughter…

I will not be humbled, unless by morning mass or Mother’s platitudes over the stove. Howl and vie, you will not have the privilege of my shame. My arms are strong. They simply choose not to carry you any longer, not to wave as you sit in the dust, and not to smooth the dirt…

Silver knight at the world’s edge, with polished boots and clean shave, and banner dyed in maidens’ tears, and scintillating intentions— no one would say I told you so, that none of it was enough against the wind that swept you over. His Majesty blessed your prerogative with wine and holy water, and painted whores,…

This poem was entitled “Team.” But I’m tired of coaching and cleaning up  after the wandering sprite who floats down the hall: live, laugh, love! and forget and fuck it up.  Two minds, and hands twiceover, could hold the world by the cardinal points  and spin it upright on its axis.  But I am Atlas,…