Hugh Behm-Steinberg



     Walking through the Snow

There is nothing farther behind. Burdens get foisted. Calendars too. One more week, then another. Another location. On all fours, counting that high. Pour cement through a window of the house, fill it up. So that the house is made fireproof though no one could anymore live inside it. Dig underneath, live there instead. You don’t have to listen. Just stand still. I was speaking. I was said. It was mindful, much the same. The fatburning lamps, light and smoke, in which I saw your figure. I dreamed I was an arsonist. I dreamed I was in prison. The yard extended for acres on end. We stayed up and talked of snow.





     Little Feathers

Flyway trees of nothing. The back of the empty lot. Something to be inside. The world will heal each crack when it rains. As the houses were visible that afternoon. Open all the things that should stay closed. Secret societies which meet in the dark. Birds that dream in the world of bugs. Little feathers which grow from the hands of corpses. We love them. We love everything. A marble some kid lost. The threads which snap and are retied. Watch the planes cross overhead though the rainclouds. When the book is closed the words shuffle around like children. A room with tiles that click. Love dug inside me but it forgot how bottomless I can be.





     Red and White

So he traveled a lot. Did art when he had to. He went back to his painting. One by one with the passage of time. So you’ll sleep better. It takes effort. Slow turning. Great strength. Dirt on my hands. An edge blocked. The tips of her fingers. Rippling in the moonlight. Ribbons of red and white on the interstate. People who are midway and between their exits. Motes of dust above the dashboard lights. What it could be about. He believes if he can understand the history of certain words. Where he first heard them. He would understand who he was. Where he was going. Change from his educated clothes into a stupid car. With no particular place to go.





     What You Can Do When You’re Dead

Last night I was dreaming. That we were walking through riots. Unscathed, hungry. We imagined children. Saw them in doorways, their mouths open. And the sleeping stars, the stories I was told. Caverns with fish, a salt machine endlessly grinding its teeth. I was dreaming I slept in hills, where no storm would find me. Nothing was mysterious, nothing was lost. I was just the conductor, I was just listening to the conversation. How to be injured, how to be healed. How to be heartless and to find love once more. What it was like, what was concealed. No one owns us the dead told me in my dream, only our likenesses. From this revenue we ride infernal machines upward, around and fast.









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