a word begging climax

Boy in the Office

2012-02-01T20:56:00.000-08:00

Dear boy in the office who never wears shoes:
You asked me if there were any pears left
even though you saw my boss give me the last one.
I don’t even really like pears.
I offered it to you, hand outstretched, fruit like a kiss waiting to be snatched
but you said no, keep it.
I said,
I have pears at home.
You said,
But these pears are so fancy! When are we ever going to pears wrapped in Christmas paper again?

I couldn’t speak to that, so you smiled.
Reached out as if to take the ripe-to-bursting fruit
and closed my fingers over it.

Boy in the office who never wears shoes,
I will bring you a pear every day for the rest of our lives
if you smile at me like that just once more,
as if I am some secret no one has unraveled,
like you are a poem
before I know what poetry is,
and the only safety in this world is found in bare feet.

I Wanted Rainbows For You

2012-01-31T20:50:00.000-08:00

You are the sum of your dream minus the reality that you've found here.

If A is the grey day to day of an eight-person household
in a home built for five,
with a shell where a mother was,
and a television never silenced -
this is your family now,
and they're as broken as the one you came from -
you remember yourself and sisterlings biting back to cause tears,
but these pieces of matched femininity,
perfect modern military brides
have married a stoicism usually reserved for generals
as they send their best and brightest to the fire.

Then B is the grit and dust of a Manhattan skyline,
a brunette you can no longer touch.
She's a page from a vision you had,
all black coats and berets,
burning cherries and tattooed angels down under the El -
You think she said, 'take the F train' -

you blinked
and found something that was supposed to be better,
so she stands a temptation in pearls.

You draw her static between your fingers,
a faint pop of neon against the distinct black and whites of the whats
This is.

A muse is to temptation
as amuse is to laughter

You think she might be sick on sweets,
she knows you're sick of the rain.

I digress.

If A is just Asquared, but minus B,
that's only Zero,
the scariest of imaginary numbers.

Imaginary numbers are messy,
they don't suit our standard equations or engineered algorithms,
they fall into string theory which has 12 dimensions
and no common thread binding them all together but your biology -
which is love -
which is an imaginary number,
Clementine.

It's messy.
You can only try to keep yourself clean.

I See You, ICU

2012-01-23T21:15:00.001-08:00

With the pans you baked my first birthday cake in
I bake cakes for your youngest daughter,
blanche and saute broccoli for fried rice
which was the first thing we ate together that I remember.

You furnished my apartment with things
I didn’t realise I needed -
extra-long towels, plush bathmats,
you recognized this love of luxury in me from such a young age
and it’s been a half-joke ever since -
your last gift to me:
black velvet persian slippers.

You furnished my apartment,
which should have been your eldest’s
posessions cared for sloppily and passed to your youngest.
I am not niece or cousin
or even daughter,
a God we used to believe in 25 years ago called us together -
you call me Goddaughter,
and you are bound by the laws of Heaven to not leave me yet.
The Lord commands you.

See, the scariest acronym in good old US of A for a spoiled twenty-something
who has both sets of grandparents,
never lost a cousin,
has attended all of two funerals in her life and she didn’t need to cry at either -
that acronym is not FBI, CIA, DEA or even DHS.
It’s ICU.

It’s me seeing you through the glass partition I haven’t even approached yet,
swollen with tubes everywhere,
wires taped to your breasts,
medicinal track marks from IVs in and out of elbows,
skin so pale it matches the roses I brought you.
The roses the nurse will take away because you can’t have flowers in the ICU.
God forbid you should be able to see anything prettier than Vanna White’s face hour after hour after aching hour of not being able to move,
with no breath other the 95% oxygen going into your nose -
you can see me. I see you see me.

ICU where the attending comes by every half hour to adjust a dial,
I see you trying to cough and the nurses holding your shoulders
as if the fluid your lungs betray you by retaining will drown you
if they aren’t careful
if there are roses left on the bureau
next to the couch where your husband barely sleeps,
and your youngest daughter is not allowed to go.
But, I am not a liability. I am over 18.
I am family: the God only the nurse believes in says so.
Still I am denied entrance like my roses,
so I say again,
the Lord is in the ICU.
And I see you.

So. Hail Mary full of Grace,
the Lord is with thee -
I can’t reconcile your last gift to me,
the shoes on my feet.
Let me be barefoot, Ave Maria, and go childlike with grass stains on my toes -
blessed art thou among women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb -
whom I will take to the dog park every weekend,
drive back and forth to track practice,
attend parent-teacher-counselor conferences for,
let terrorize my boyfriend,
teach how to make perfect fried rice and pineapple upside-down cake.

If you open your eyes,
I will give you my lungs.

Open your eyes.
I will give you my lungs.

To My Brothers

2011-12-10T17:56:00.001-08:00

(N.B.: SB 1070 in AZ was given the nod by both brothers in reference to state's rights; they are not racist, homophobic, or sexist - the politicians they support are.)

I will have to teach your son

that a starched blue uniform and polished silver badge

should never hold the power

to pull a man over

because his skin is the color of deserts.

His hands, like old leather —

creased by carrying his sons out of nightmares,

and worn, nursing his daughters through fevers, —

don’t smuggle their laboring wives into Arizona

to birth an anchor baby,

don’t make plots

against the twin towers of capitalism and commerce,

don’t hide opiates in a child’s shoes

to sell to a Columbia grad student.

I will have to teach your daughter

that a business suit, high definition make-up

and a flag pinned to a lapel

does not a patriot make.

She’ll know Daddy handed that man power,

but he holds none

over her growing body,

has no right to define

what love means to her,

can’t lock her in a cell

because she didn’t say no loud enough.

I should warn you, brothers,

I am prepared to drive your them across state lines

and sew my lips shut to keep their aborted secrets,

prepared to love them more than you,

ready to be the black sheep only mentioned at the drunken holiday tables,

because neither of you

hold a candle to your father.

He was a Times-worthy front page against the arms race,

demanded accountability from his government ten years before Obama entered Harvard Law,

ordered Congress to give our grandfather his due veteran’s rights,

and defended our mother’s right to choose at the age of 21.

He is still marching the streets in the name of peace -

our motherland is a warzone

and you are Helen Keller in an air raid,

with no sense to where the bombs are falling.

I need you to protect your children

like our father protected us,

so when they grow up

no one can arrest your dissenting daughter,

or bloody your precious son’s face for daring to sleep in Zucotti Park.

so no one can murder them

for standing outside a building,

voicing what you purposely blind yourselves to:

something is desperately wrong here.

Love As a Fat Girl; or, There's Nothing to See Here

2011-12-10T16:35:00.001-08:00

Renoir used to paint pictures of me with roses at my ladyparts,
one arm flung above a mass of autumn’s fiery curls,
the other all graceless elbows and imperfect fingertips
cradled softly, looking for another hand to hold

Mais oui, Pierre-Auguste, I wish you could see me now
one hundred and eleven years into the future,
my living room rug the same shade as the chaise we adored,
and a plethora of fetishizing sweethearts saying,
“You’re a big girl, but you’re not fat”,
“You could lose weight, but I don’t want you to”
as they slip red foil Russell Stover boxes, wrapped
in cheap static-y cellophane beneath my door and leave
wrinkled, sticky packets of peanut butter M&Ms on my desk at work -
they’re desperate to blow me up,
artificially enhance each limb with enzymes and preservatives
so they can fuck my still-breathing corpse
after slipping their powders into the pill that they slip in my drink
because
I can hear those boys at the end of the bar playing Fuck, Marry, Murder
and one of them just said
I’d make a fine Christmas ham.

I know what those slick lipped lovers want, always licking
their teeth with slug tongues
at the ample bosoms and buttocks
of the girls walking past:

they want to dig their fists into the fat at my belly and
carve out their piece of flesh to suckle deep in the night where
it is safe to love me.

But Renoir used to paint me with roses,
and I’d rather be there
because I’ve been the voluptuous skinny girl with strawberry lips -
that body was jumped in the park at twelve when it was too dark to see,
invaded at fourteen with a filthy sock crammed in the opposite hole to stop the screams,
trapped in the designated driver’s bed at eighteen with too many beers consumed,
and when the cries of “No” brought his mother running,
he yelled through the deadbolted door that
I was only having a nightmare.
It’s okay,
I’m only dreaming.

So, no, I don’t worry about thin anymore,
because my ten minute mile
can’t outrun the trauma of a twenty-eight inch waist,
can’t outpace the breath sneaking up on my neck,
or the fingers clawing at the my face,
can’t close the distance between my eyelids any faster
when my boyfriend’s sweet kisses pull a trigger in my memory
and I can only freeze or make him shame me.

But Renoir used to paint me.

Renoir used to paint me
to rise again and again in the immortal phrase
of J’taime
and color the love
so violently splashed across his canvas.

Ménage des Fleurs

2011-11-11T21:16:00.000-08:00

Liebe.

There's a word unused.

The taste of your twenty-four years resounds

in my lips and loins, both sets.

With my blackberry brambles unshaven,

worth it if you can part the thicket.

My legs unshaven, I lie between two,

draped in too large, five-year-old pink underwear,

a hole at the mons pubis,

where she has just stuck her finger

and she's touching me where you do.

she's touching me where you did.

She's touching -

suddenly, he too -

the sweet thin-lipped gryphon, so fierce and clawed,

that mane and those

teeth are at my nipples,

worrying.

(I can't help how distracted I get

when she brushes by on her double-bodied journey,

something lives in her breasts

that are the same as yours -

you're both swimmers,

it may be the muscle,

it might be the heart)

Are you old enough to forgive me?

Am I?

Is forgiveness suddenly age related

is this how it happens

does the truth of love in one direction become a granite

in place of graphite?

Because when I draw you in my mind's eye,

it isn't tender or soothing or nuturing anymore -

my red blood cells got a fine arts degree,

changed mediums while I wasn't looking,

and your visage is being chiseled

into the alabaster walls of my final resting place.

Someone kisses me so hard I taste iron.

her mouth is teasing out my secrets,

and I am making the noises you do

making the noises you did in the bathtub, on the trampoline,

in your roommates bed -

until silence rushes up my toes and the weight

of November pulls my eyes back

and I am straining into her while he holds me down,

I am whispering

swallow me

she is an ocean where you are stars

she is an ocean where you were

Birthday Poem (Twenty-Four)

2011-11-07T21:04:00.000-08:00

Clementine,
are you pacing the bridge at midnights?
Now that you're married, who do you wait for?
Does he throw rocks at the balcony of your hotel?
No - but I bet you do.

Ruby Clementine, did you kiss on the Seine?
Tell me you went back and reclaimed all your footsteps -

tell me you got arrested for swimming in the reservoir -

tell me that Claudia is still stalking the streets like an Amazon queen,

and Kastin

is slipping hash between your lips

Tell me why when I dream of you, it's wispy,

and I wake up with sand between my toes

Tell me there were bonfires in Valencia and

you went to Catalan to paint and be inspired,

tell me you've married the vagabond life

and it's the greatest love triangle you've ever known.

Violet Clementine, is the sleep bruising your lashes

at four a.m.

after bottles and bottles of two euro wine?

Tell me, darling, are you still dreaming?

Elle Se Déverse

2011-10-10T20:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I hear a thing,
throw myself in a hole,
clap hands over ears
and sing

loud enough

to fill the Dom where I first fell in love.

And when that isn't enough,
I lie to beautiful women.

I tell them three years
when the timeline was eighteen months

because

I am so sure
I am so goddamn sure
I can change it.

I would be lying again
if I said I didn't miss you

and still be lying if I said
it wasn't easier.

I would be lying if I said
he isn't better to you, for you,
than I ever would have been.

He won't judge you,
or begrudge you,
I would have because

I am still wondering
how you can look at anyone but me.

I am so glad you will never kiss me like that again.
The last kiss should always be the moon
pulling the tide from the earth.

But I would be lying still if I said
I won't be the midnight secret you share with your daughter
when she is questioning her blossoming sexuality,

or the tear on your cheek
when you finally let fall for another woman

or secreted away in long-ago letters
where your favorite letter is "L"
and you can smell me in the Moroccan wind.

So live and love, and go knowing
I only ever lied about one thing,
because I couldn't bear it to be true.

Maybe when I reach heaven
I won't write your name
in clouds across the sky
but when I reach the ground
I'll immortalize your visage
in something as tangible as love.

Plant Poem; Elliott Bangs

2011-05-08T07:30:00.001-07:00

Once my love was kudzu
Somebody dropped a seed
and ran;
It was a weird miracle
and then just a problem

My love has been the blackberry.
It seemed to you to grow up overnight,
but only because a year passed
between your glances. By then
it had swarmed the whole neglected yard -
It wrote scars on your arms to remind you that
it was all sweet enough
till you fell into it

My love was the dandelions
obsessively sowed by the wishing of kids
amounting only to some splotches
of Roundup;

It was the volunteer tree
of unknown species, that grew
way, way too tall, until one day
it exploded in the power lines,
the end.

1111

2011-01-20T15:13:00.000-08:00

It's New Years now
the year has turn
and the snow has leaked into my boots.

We're spinning in the slowest circle
on the fastest orbit known,
mewing a melody
that threatens to take us to the sky.

o red winter star
shine on with me
light up all I see

Show me a life full with
incorrect timing and muddled data
-this is all I know of love-
but your voice, clear as ocean water
and mine, soft as a war machine

The Funeral, Part II

2011-01-20T15:09:00.000-08:00

We lie unguarded
awake and torn apart
back to back
under unrelenting starshine
all to do is close our eyes.

I am not an imaginate,
though I may be a figment;
when I was young I thought
I might grow up to be a fire truck
now I am young,
I want to be a real boy
so I raise a wooden gesture
and soldier on.

Forearm to table
forehead to forearm
you exhausted me with possibilities -
you dreamed while I slept.

Rolling over in sunlight -
I seem to remember August, green,
but awake it is January, gray gray gray.
Sleep! Sleep no more!
Honor Darling shall sleep no more.

The Funeral, Part 1

2010-11-18T09:04:00.003-08:00

Milesly Rose

is dead.

Long live Milesly Rose.

What is This Place?

2010-11-12T19:36:00.002-08:00

shut the door,
don't say a word
set your signal fires
before the dawn rises
come back here
and put me in the dark

I'm losing my faith
you're using your fist
your fist loves my face
I'm in love with its kiss

put your hands up
crack apart your chest
tear out my very heart
replace the very best of me

fragment

2010-11-12T19:36:00.001-08:00

tell me all your loves, love
and I'll drown them in the black, black sea

Birthday Poem

2010-11-12T19:32:00.000-08:00

You're twenty-three
and I don't know what to write you
anymore
I stick a pen down my veins
try to draw out
a less sluggish version of myself
Try to find the love
I had defined.

I'm sticky with you, even now
your skin covers my mouth
I breathe you in
a pin drops, echoes
collapses my lungs
I freeze

at the sound of your voice
the things I want to say -
they won't come out.
Just an endless refrain
echoing in my brain, repeating

yo te amo
yo te te amo
yo te amo
yo te te amo

Dragonwing

2010-08-14T12:36:00.001-07:00

Because Jack went to Tangiers
and Allen loved Peter
and the rhythmic yawps of expulsation
exploded and
expulsed
you I me you me you went/go
to Fight.

The Future; Julio Cortazar

2010-07-13T22:29:00.001-07:00

And I know full well you won't be there.
You won't be in the street, in the hum that buzzes
from the arc lamps at night, nor in the gesture
of selecting from the menu, nor in the smile
that lightens people packed into the subway,
nor in the borrowed books, nor in the see-you-tomorrow.

You won't be in my dreams,
in my words' first destination,
nor will you be in a telephone number
or in the color of a pair of gloves or a blouse.
I'll get angry, love, without it being on account of you,
and I'll buy chocolates but not for you,
I'll stop at the corner you'll never come to,
and I'll say the words that are said
and I'll eat the things that are eaten
and I'll dream the dreams that are dreamed
and I know full well you won't be there,
nor here inside, in the prison where I still hold you,
nor there outside, in this river of streets and bridges.

You won't be there at all, you won't even be a memory,
and when I think of you I'll be thinking a thought
that's obscurely trying to recall you.

My Eyes Flew Open, But the Dark Was All To See

2010-02-07T17:15:00.000-08:00

You swept through the pantry,
upset the bottles and canisters,
the boxes and jars alike.
You threw it all on the tiled floor,
stirred it about and mashed it to a powder
so fine and sickly-looking no dog would touch it.

It's been two months, you've fed me
a strict diet of salt and iron
washed down with whiskey and midnights;
opening my mouth to fill a belly
used to sugars and processed meats.
You opened my mouth, and blinded my eyes,
purring "It's my heart, it's my heart I'm feeding you,
it's my heart you taste."

And though tastebuds detected something sick,
something dirty, a poison unnameable,
I swallowed out of hunger,
out of starvation.

For it was good at first, the proteins
and the flavor of your tears
had not quite touched my tongue.
But, oh darling, we've reached something rotten,
some blackness of decay.

I don't know what lie she fed you
that such cruelty should come to taste.
I shut my lips, you wrench them apart,
and rust covers all.
I have long known what fear is made of,
it is the first recipe a girl learns,
all oxidized blood and long lost embalmed loves
washed down with gin and sharp movements.

Shall I sputter and spit you out
or shall I keep to swallow,
digest the wretched wreck under the surface
only to vomit back a purity for you?

In a heat like this, only the winter can know.
It is February, there is nothing to eat but you and me
and only the winter can know.

You Played a Show, I Danced with Strangers

2009-12-29T10:23:00.000-08:00

The little hairs on your lips
tickle in pink purple kiss
the cold of the car is so taut and numbing
the kiss is the only decent distraction from the terrible slow prog rock on the radio

but I like the way your arms are around me in the 3 a.m. dark
I like the way your face feels underneath my thumb
rough and kind
sinking me further and further into a blue morning
of breathlessness and reckless causing tongue texture

I like your skin.
It's smooth and warm
so unlike my alabaster everything

so unlike me.

Breakfast Fantasy

2009-12-11T10:09:00.000-08:00

Good morning, America, you're killing me.
Slowly
but surely with fat baby croissants
steaming with butter
and sumptuous chocolate coffees doused in
cinnaminiman.
But this cafe and surburban housewives
they seem sweet but the topic of conversation is
Laundry and cleaning toilets with Borax for Christmas
and husbands leaving million dollar jobs
for multi-million dollar jobs in the darkest heart
of Wall Street.

I cringe with the German woman behind the counter
these women make me feel somehow constrained
as if I need to tear off my careful brass button vest and
button to the collar chirt
drop trou and run run naked in my Electric Blue lacey underthings
down these quaint suburban streets
delivering a heart attack! massive! to all the persons I can touch
to try perhaps
and free them of the fragile cages holding in all that empassioned fever
love tempered with iron
sing sing they'll sing on cobblestones and fuck on curbs
dance raspberries in the town square fountain
shouting
Who was that girl who was that amazing girl and
woo! did you see the color of that lace
what a dame
what a dame
while I slipped behind back into the cafe with the old German woman
she winks my conspiracy and makes me
another espresso
for free.

You Broke Up With New York For a Reason; This is the Future and it Sucks

2009-11-17T00:32:00.000-08:00

You belong where the crows replace the pigeons
and boys in light pants wear flannel to
cover up their scars
and stich wide mouthed seam to sew
their religion on.

Hip stitch, one, two
let me come and dance with you,
Box step, three, four,
no one's gonna love you more
than these overgrown trees dripping with moss
and tangled hedges in the twilight,
breaking onto docks
to wet your feet
and taste the salt we've come from.

And each of us, in time, will return
to this little place,
a third of our souls,
and keep, keep cracking;
I'll be the glue that holds you together,
I'll be your heart,
beat for you one and two once more,
I'll be.

For Kelly, With Beer

2009-11-17T00:19:00.000-08:00

You are my beer,
sitting pretty Ruby in my glass
and you and I
and you and I.

You call when the twilight winds down,
winds the clock down,
and on my coat;
I find you a stain I can live with,
sprawled across my sheets
and oh, oh,
how I love each piece of breath
your mouth releases.

Don't change your name tonight,
don't change your face on me.
Let those curls wrap around my digits,
let me have cinnamon moments
kept in giftwrapped cellophane.

Stay through this sunrise
and I'll keep you in espresso
if you promise to wander this peach again,
if you promise the air stays clean.

You Still My Number One

2009-11-17T00:14:00.000-08:00

This town is technicolor celluloid
knee-brown boots breaking onto docks
to catch the end of the rainbow
disappearing ts tail into the Sound.
This town is napalm,
but this time is the aftermath
of burning hearts, a bluff
and a peace misunderstood.

My head is full of wine and weary wisdom,
my throat scratched, parched
from screaming across mountain passes,
your name dangling from frostbitten fingers
icicles fallen from my knees.

And this snow is blinding in sunset
for red and purple and gold;
a summit is a summit is a tangle
of rosebushes with thorns out to here,
and a rhyming heart caught in brambles.

And we'll all fall away,
and we'll all fall away.

It's evolution and reconnaissance
a glass touch in the dark,
and your name home beside me,
warm beneath coals and tended
by something easier said than done.

Birthday Poem from 3

2009-11-17T00:09:00.000-08:00

You are my apple sweet-baked with cheddar
in the back of the Dutch oven

You are the moon when nothing else
seems relevant or warmy

You are the pulsing soul
in the midst of an irresistable whimsy

You are eight-legged rainbow bandits
on chestnut rollerskates
and I am falling to the colors falling from those eyes

In your birthday wigwam, there are
shoes on the shelf
and all the while,
you shine like new confetti

And we're clutched in the thrust
of this four triangle linoleum
tightly wound and waiting

And all over the floor,
beer stains and crazy paper sleep
under your birthday shoes
and your toes that "meep!" for
your exciting day,
the day that makes all the windows
clench their fists and say
"Goddamnit, shes pretty."

Our girl,
the prettiest under purple light,
under the grey rain
and in the red Spanish dress;
driving home,
driving home.

A Taste No More

2009-11-16T23:48:00.001-08:00

I had a dream in the back
of the car that night,
with your head pressed
softly to my breast,
had a dream where
you were something
more than fun
as your sleep wound
down and out of your mouth.

I wore a little white dress,
I had a dream
as your sleep wound down
and out of your mouth,
of daffodils and parasols,
pink in effervescence with
matching champagne and mary-janes,
and your breath a baby's upon my cheek
wound tender out of your mouth.

Of curls on ladies and hats on friends,
of cotton lace gloves, a garter.
and you so well-spent,
three words against my ears
wound caramel out of your mouth.

I had a dream,
awoke as you stirred,
owl-wide eyes anxious to return.
Gazing out the window
my feet on the dash,
I saw my dream echoed
across the Sound,
the stars and city lights indistinguishable.

And my breath leapt to meet
your breath,
steaming in the secrets
winding down and out of your mouth.

The Paper Moon

2009-11-16T23:28:00.000-08:00

If ever my vernacular should fail me,
toss me aside like yesterday's garbage, I

want you to remember that every fixed moment I gave
allotted six years of masturbation material, perhaps one
silken pair of panties pressed sweetly to your thigh.

Ordinary girls never did it for you, this was whispered
nightly, a lullaby of falseities, nice in their flattery, but
lingering a taste to remember how many extraordinary
young ladies you knew; you hunted them,

and so did I.

Perhaps this is why perfection blossomed, perhaps
ancestry had something else to do with it, or
perhaps it was only the flash of an ankle,
entrancing that dance, but please dear, don't
rip apart looking for

meaning, you simply won't find it here.
opening mouths hungry for life, yes
or a head tilted towards a favored star but
not enough to a build a heart from scratch.

Emulsion

2009-10-06T22:23:00.000-07:00

There are dreams in here
among the dust
that hiss like secrets,
quiet and ashamed,
ginger colored ashes
spread across the floor.

I remember we had
plans
for these spaces
a darkroom, a studio
and I clear electronics
from the stained ancient wood.
Airplane skeletons
and ghosts in the dark of the basement.

They said the storms would come
at night
they said the rain
would fall angelic
and grace the autumn blossoms.
And I hear the thunder rolling
long past midnight
from my wild haunted home.

Lugh

2009-09-22T22:34:00.001-07:00

Gunfire on the rooftops,
the great oak of my childhood,
well climbed and growing old,
pours acorns as if this
will be her last season for children

Autumn falls from a
Northeastern summer that barely existed,
more storms than sun this year.

Far and away,
the seconds dragging
85 degree beach days
all into October until
the rain day comes
and 8 months begins

and I wait in harvest moonlight
for you to pour yourself
molasses over me,
thick and sweet,
something more tangible
than these 3 hours
and 3000 miles,

I wait in harvest moonlight
for your boots on the leaves
your laughter and the sound
of chopping wood,

each autumnal season
from now until the end,
but you already know,
darling boy,
you already know.

S'en Aller

2009-08-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

You creep up on me,
late August,
creep into the corners
of the rooms I walk in
in cities no belonging to me.
You show up in flashes:
a young man's sweater,
a girl's eyes
in wine so sweet it is almost unbearable.
You pop my peripheral,
and I'm dreaming of this
in the house of my lover,
in a house made of you.

Three years is a dream decieved;
you're horrid and I only miss you
when you appear suddenly and go just as soon.
I don't miss you at night anymore,
and I don't wake up startled
from a 'mareish kiss.
I don't dream of Iran,
or Muslim weddings.

But you creep up on me,
in late August,
every year,
with physical reminders as if God is saying,
'don't forget this.
don't forget him.'
as if I could when your memory
is still the ink of a thousand pens
and the paint on my brush in winter.

A thousand pieces are still missing
but my heart has stopped tearing
when you pop my peripheral
in blue.

4751

2009-08-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

4.751 is a long number,
it is many days of laughter
and more days of tears.

It is an achievement,
sometimes celebrated by grandeur---but
you don't just run out and marry
your friends

It is a number stumbled on in childhood--
pre-adolescent, bag lunch
in the library or behind the school

It is a number clung to as umbrellas,
the storm of hormones and
girlfriends and
pomegranates
in regroup some years later.
It whispers, "everything will be all right."

In the night,
"everything will be all right."

I remember we said now,
we wished we could go
back and tell those girls
tell those girls
"you'll get laid"
"you'll be somebody, someday."

yeah, someday.

4,751 is a long number.
An unexpected frame of mind,
thirteen years a slice of time--
a big one.

It is an exhaustion number.
It's a bleeding number.
It's a shut-the-door-before-you-could-get-the-last-word number.
It's a selfish number, an adult number,
a no-holds-barred-fuck-you-I'm-tired number.

4.751 is four days past the storm and
five past the battle cry.

It was a silent war,
in respect to tongue-holding and
held back tears.

It's an Indian number in the land of cowboys bangbangbang.

Bang.

It's a hollow shout,
a burn out,
an end.

Domestic Violence

2009-08-03T22:17:00.000-07:00

There's a good woman hiding somewhere
deep beneath this skin
Beneath the twilight and between the sharp edges,
beyond the little prickles and between the fight
there is a good woman here.

She stands with a backbone of fretboards and her hips
are made of f-holes.
Her hair of silver strings, softly swishing a lullaby,
coaxing a song from the still summer air.

There's a good woman in here,
she's the mother of your children,
the wife cooking dinner and fetching your slippers;
There's a good woman in here,
waiting for the crescendo of rifle fire and rock salt,
pacing the steps of the guillotine for freedom.

Eternal Resident

2009-07-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

We avoid toll roads,
not just for blue collar pretension,
but for the extra time
between Newark and my house
10 minutes to 25 to I love you
and you are sober
but you kiss goodnight
with heat and hunger
with 5 years of pent up
you and I
never fulfilled
but for 10 minutes
the bathroom in neither of our houses---
as if we were 17.

but you're a homebody now,
and I will undomesticate you
in the sand of the Mediterranean
on the shores of the Nordsee,
I will breathe you life
where you have lost.
I will breathe air
where you have concrete lungs,
flow water where you have dammed,
sow seeds where you have tilled,
an empty field, sought for nothing--
I will flame--
far and away--
my signal fire infinite in a sea of vacuummous darkness
in a place where silence shatters souls and shoulders
in a home
we will build brick by brick

The Summerland Fairytale -- 060709, 10:35 p.m.

2009-07-14T08:06:00.000-07:00

Liebe, tell me a story. I cannot sleep, though my body is wretched and little me can't wait to drift away.

Tell me a story of your wild Moroccan men, with sand in their hair and eyes like the evening sun.

Tell me a story -- you're so close I can almost hear you humming in the kitchen, making breakfast with Turkish yogurt and honey, Greek coffee and popeyes the way Steve makes them because we both miss him today. The white walls are shining in mid-morning sun, it's Tuesday... today I will work at the bar, serving drinks and blowing kisses to tourists, and you will lounge in the hammock next to the beach. Your favorite boy of the hour will bring you cool beers with lemon. You can read Proust. Or maybe today, you will not read, you say and laugh s the bread crisps and yum takes over the kitchen. "Maybe today, I will a get a little dog for company."

Maybe today.

Tell me a story. You're so close I can smell you. You're so close.

050709

2009-07-14T08:03:00.000-07:00

I'll sleep in sunlight
go to bed with the moon humming
low in my ear sky
with blue scratches and wee babes waking
thier parents before the sun.
I am an in-between moment --
I am promises popping like
fireworks in fog,
holding color, dripping light
across a thousand scattered faces

Liebe, how do you fall asleep writing
with the pen in your hand

the cat's purring

I want Wednesday off. I want to go to the beach with a stack of books and sandwiches and beer.
I like all of these things.

I am cactus shade in the desert
to cool your feet;
chewed upon to quench thirst,
never mind the spines.

Death's a Friend

2009-07-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

Delirious atrocities, delicous in its intricacies
emanating from focused candle meditation an
awning under which we fall to sleep, drawn swiftly
towards the spectre of adolescent love and
hidden jewels meant to remain so

in another world, he took a shell to his eat,
softly murmuring the lack of passion for his

art of war.

Fresh among newborn hags, frizzled and haggard
romping in arbors of wine grapes and
in amongst the angels, towards an
effect unknown to cause and weeping weeping to
never land and the broken promises Peter made, as
destined he was to only leave us angry with our siblings

while simultaneously holding out for true love's kiss.
Awakened by dreams of hands legs elbows
in between soft lips and tongues so
torn affronted with decision, we flee
initiated into unhappy cults of marriage
nary lying tiger soft at pit's bottom, seeming
gregarious in nature, eve, but hiding heart's true purpose

nearly eons later, we'll emerge, suckled by
enemies of what our truth stood for, reaching
amicably for friends, groping roughly in the dark,
realising no one is left but our own emptiness
by way of who we forced ourselves to love,
young and reckless and careless with each other.

Bedtime Memories

2009-07-14T07:50:00.000-07:00

Indispensable, I wake along radio, craving

nabisco sweets and crumbs to treat my low
efforts and starry mornings, coffee cold
ever as I drive into heat and the misunderstood
deed that comes with being a woman, though

now is not a time falter in my
endless quest for a partner ready to take this
wheel when I am wet with dreams,

moreso when I am wracked with need,
emoting something softer than grace. You
map the choices, make the turns, find
overprice diners, greasy spoon chrome covered
red dives, a place for communists and
ingrates to gather and humour brilliant
effervescence among broken girl
soldiers and the pieces of our childhood

hearts forever entwined by Charming princes
eager to eat and leave a ragged
run of girl pieces where a princess used to
eat so daintily and sweet

without cause of care we run to each other
imitating the lives we thought our mothers
took bleeding from the heart of all thier
heated spats and fluorescent beyond

youth.
Own that fear, whatever it came from &
understand the puzzle wasn't meant to stay the same.

230609

2009-07-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

Silent as you speak
mute, my words cut off
a failed conversation and yet
you call me a dream,
a silent film in color
a retro pin-up girl
1970s somewhere in the woods
with my flannel
and megawatt smile

I beg you to to tell me
what the desert smells of;
no answer.
You do not think of smells in terms
of place --
let me tell you a story:

Once upon a new Year's eve
when I was young, just seventeen
my plane stopped in Arizona.

In the causeway,
twixt machine & machine
came a smell of jasmine,
gardenia, oleander, prickly pear,
sweeter than grandmother pudding,
and mixed generously with

expanse.

ten feet I almost dropped
to run into the sand
and live a wild coyote life.
Ten years a desert queen
with no rain,
but these are the choices we make.

210609

2009-07-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

The desert calls high
canyons and tree lilies
the Joshua---
King of sweet sight
and never ending star 'splay

The desert calls loud
but pines beat my heart
a drum too distinct to miss
a drum abandoned for a kiss

the men cried out and tore
flags of peace to shreds for rags
to wrap her war wounds in
and planced their hearts on plates
presented spinning
in a microcosm cosmonaut's blissful eyes
searching lurking and ever-perching
as if the wind
could take her away
as if the wind could weep
and make the decision

The desert calls high
the coyotes cry peace nevermore
tired of waiting
falling back to war
on suburban encroachment
towards their ancestral moon

and someone will pay
for all the scars on her heart
somebody will suture up
that nonsense tongue
someday
someday

Shades of Gray

2009-06-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

Someone is growing her nails
long and lily-white
putting on her father's boots
and glaring
straight past the looking glass

Someone is archaic
without form tricking
dictionary tropes alight
a lie
a keen against soft midnights
and twilight's standard kiss

Someone is a long discovered virtue
spent and discarded
hiding in shroud's moonlight
a grave dancer picking over cemeteries
for a bone

Someone is taking
the overseas call
with the grandiose overtone of a symphony
slightly out of tune

And someone is a rooftop sunrise picnic
dropping strawberries
untouched
over your head.

Someone is laughing.
Someone is laughing.

The New Revolution: Part Three

2009-06-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

I will come
with extra arms
from beyond the sea

arriving by air
arriving by beach
arriving with water balloons
and suited platoons

I will gather
along my march
soldiers for battle
those who have
a long lost child
a forgotten childhood

We will come
cross the land
and arrive brazen
cupcake smeared on our faces
laces dragging in the mud

We will come
we're going to war.

-Jessie Allison

The New Revolution: Part Two

2009-06-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

Long pale fingertips and
extra-large keys wind-up soldier toys
soldier boys and the girl in pink from down the block
soldier solder anywhere you want it
that's the way we need
you.

Lace up your everything
put away your inside voice
hide that old halloween candy
from your parents
in your pockets
Summer is here
and

we're going to war.

The New Revolution: Part One

2009-06-20T22:26:00.000-07:00

Who will be a part of my revolution?
We will strike the work-a-day-world at dawn
after cartoons of course
We will move out in teams
Four Power Wheels per convoy
With drivers rotating every fifteen minutes so it is fare
They will be no match for our arsenel of Nerf guns and water balloons
Our wooden swords will cut them to the quick
Their souls will shudder at the glint of water from the muzzle of our squirt guns
Troops on tricycles will approach from the west
Pots and pans to protect their heads
Look outs will be posted on the top of every slide and play structure
Cootie shots will be provided in the medical tent
It'll be a long war
Lasting possibly past snack time
Your brows will sweat
Hands will get dirty
Mouths will be sticky from Root Beer flavored popsicles
Not all of us will make it
I expect many of you to get Owies, Ouchies or Booboos
Knee's will be skinned or scraped
But those who fall will not be forgotten
Every pop gun that pops
Every firecracker that cracks
Every hula that hoops
Will cry out your name
TO ARMS
Man your G.I. Joe battle stations men
First an air strike from paper airplane squadrons
Followed quickly by a sea battle
with all manner of splashing and cannon balls
The action figures and micromachines should report directly to the sandbox
All Ninjas, mutant or otherwise, should report to the basement
for a slumber party and further instructions
All pirates should report to the park
Use the picnic tables as planks to walk
All Jedi's and knights should report to the woods
In order to find suitable sticks for lightsabers and swords
All kids old enough will stationed at the mall
Milling and loitering is encouraged
All safety equipment (IE shin guards, bike helmets, knee pads) can be found somewhere in the garage behind the bikes
But be warned
you will look like a dork wearing them
Make sure your glow in the dark laces are tied tight
put on your game face
WE ARE GOING TO WAR

-Eli Piatt, May 2009

Starved

2009-06-20T19:55:00.000-07:00

I thirst for the sweat
that trickles slick
down the small of your back

hunger for the meat
lying sweet
between your thighs

draw a conclusion
of transcontinental railways
affixed to your shoulder blades

and hum a song electric
slipping between sugar teeth
a candy floss seductive
in its confection kiss

Manifesto, Part the Second: In Which We Say No.

2009-06-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

If my whole life is going wrong
I'm going strong
I'm going wrong with it

there is no used to be
now there is only me
forcin' and fightin'
a break in the line
a peace over time
but I'm fine,
I'm on fire.
Oh no, it's come to blows
can't stop it, can't force it
oh no, you're---
Break.

congratulate the overtake
I'm underweight, up to fate
to reignite our overture
fuels and cellphone wars
consumer globe, give in
be the whore
you've come to know
in nightmare;
she's right there
breathing heavy on the overpass
throat full of glass
just stop for a second
and push

I was never the angry girl
coolin' down an overheated
word's world of discussion,
elation and population?
that was not me,
upset in society until today.
put your boots on
dig those roots in
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
we're going to war.

I can't breathe no more
this whole place's fucked to bore
an incision a question
of morals and ethics
how do you
live to be electric
in a place so undone
a place with no guns
you hear me, Lenore?
I have rise, I am comin
I am comin for
your Angels.

I have yet to wreck this savage beast
with these lines from underneath
for I wake in a pace
that demands a silent compensation
a new, forgiving nation
of nuclear physic and cold mnenotic
an understanding of heat
a lineback beat
by all odds and under sedation
that requires further contemplation
Break---

you want the world
I'll give you en fuego
sick of playing with lego
when's a girl of my intellect
even learn to reflect
and pass on?

I tell you never,
the day we surrender our souls to your machines
the day my wife becomes unclean
the day your future is unseen
the day invincible
becomes invisible
and think on it
because I'm not tired,
I'm wired,
I been fired from every job I ever had
my mind refuses to commit
my body remains unfit
they just look for a trick
to get rid of me
Break---

I'm riled up, boiled over
you'll see my body lyin' on clover
the day I go down
peace will never be found
my voice is a riot
the one piece you cannot quiet
on overload
O overlord
I'm fit to be tied
dancing with knives,
poking holes everywhere I go
you cannot stop this flow
it's me and her
him and them
all places you see are houses to mend

No man is a fool to give up what he cannot to keep
to gain
what he cannot lose.
Think on this.

THINK ON THIS.

Library Memories

2009-05-31T17:30:00.001-07:00

can't chase you far away
enough
in my white pick-up
you and me and I miss -----

OUR TRUCK! big green truck
and bench seats

where we made love
four or five times
in the parking lot
of the University

the height was always too much
but for you
I'd do
and did
everything.

Excerpt: In Transit

2009-05-27T14:12:00.001-07:00

The ceaseless alchemical permutation, gold into history,
rain into strawberries, strawberries into my bloodstream,
my blood into flowering dreams

the dream into absolute perception, into coruscating
visions of
THIS IS WHERE IT IS BA-BY into
infinity

-Lenore Kandel

Definitions

2009-05-25T02:35:00.000-07:00

Maiden's Peak Syndrome: The tendency for one to wait around for someone and receiving little to no results.

This is a very deadly disease. Often it's victims include many women and very romantic men. Symptoms may include panic, annoyance, loneliness,denial and in often but extreme cases, a completely wasted life. Maiden's Peak syndrome can be diagnosed for something so large as waiting for someone to return to you in a relationship or something as small as planning to hang out with someone and 80% of the time it not happening. Maiden's Peak Syndrome refers to the term, Maiden's or Widow's Peak, a very common story where a woman waits for her husband or lover on a cliff as he goes off to war. The end result: the woman waits so long she turns into to stone waiting for centuries, even millennia for her lover to come back.

-Tasha Richardson, 5/20/2009

Chin up, girl.

2009-05-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

skinny skinny berry suck
meat off my thighs
skinny skinny drink a juice
to miracle cleanse your everything
skinny skinny blonde women
act and never age
wonder wonder wonder drug
what exactly are you implying?

consider this missing link:
I find bones uncomfortable
and mothers strangle smother toddlers
and bury them in playground sand.

where are our weapons?
fatties fight back!
from lumbar supported
desk chairs
obesity rampant and
you're only fat because you're lazy
or you have a thyroid problem
you wanna be well then stay that way
no one's forcing you to change.

but have you tried
skinny skinny perfect plan?
everyone knows you can't change alone.
be young young, skinny skinny
and never give up your face
who wants
graceful laugh lines
and fat from birthing angels
anyway?
who wants
warm grandma hugs
when granny can be a supermodel?
after all,

love is only
love is only skin deep.

break-up senryu

2009-05-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

late spring sunrise --
steady oak.
were i a leaf upon her.

The Lovers Never Lied

2009-05-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

she breaks again
and everything is changing fast --
in her life, it's only ever been extremes.
something's hit, something sticks
and exposes her exposition
with convoluted sentences
and bright underwater lights.

she breaks again,
open and her yolk is spilling
all over your fresh linen hands
(air your dirty laundry in public while it's safe),
but it's too late
for all of you.

the first kiss that created the universe
was passed freely
between two laughing girls
on Capitol Avenue
sometime in two thousand and seven.

she breaks again
and leans to topple
but even across the world,
at the first cracking clap,
hands catch her peace rendered frame
and carry her slowly
to the finish line.
to the finished line.

because it's too late for all of you now.
the kiss that sparked creation
was a well-executed accident
neither gods nor monsters
could have foreseen.

...Run.
~~

It's fitting that this is post two hundred.
I miss you.
and oh, oh, oh, I'm on fire.

I love you, my hipster-headed angel.
-M.

Still Life

2009-05-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

age twenty-two
and this is what my life has come to.

Memory:
the grocery in late May,
refrigerated section,
staring at hot dog packages.
I love the ones with cheese;
Ballparks plump
oozing saturated fats
and oily goodness
burns your mouth on the first bite,
always and always,
but honey, it's so good.

The first bite always reminds me of our first kiss.

And I'm standing with tears
hot as thunder,
waterfalling down my cheeks.

Decision:
imminent
because the store is going to close
and we need hot dogs.
I heft packs in opposite hands
I love that burn
but you gave me my first taste
and I'm supposed to move,
move on now.
The stockboy is staring.

One with cheese,
one without.
Thump and thump into my basket.
We'll see if I'm ever brave enough
to grill that miracle of
injected beef pieces
and burn hot again.

wise things said #3

2009-05-20T01:12:00.000-07:00

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.
-Anais Nin

You Suck at Tennis

2009-05-15T01:23:00.001-07:00

the phone doesn't ring as often as it did.

I and I getting used to
you and you
three thousand miles
is not a damn thing anymore
and three hours--
in the space of Spain
I could find Seattle.

but my Jersey summer cigarette
lights as fireworks
against a four a.m. sky
an itch in my knees
and I like the morning moon--

you and I
sea and sky
if I could leave you,
I wouldn't anyway;
I don't know where your
eyes are
but I hope they're on me.

and if Kerouac's a never-ending essay
I am haiku on pre-war walls
a metaphor in taste
longing to give just
the smallest mark more
to leave you breathless
and helpless helpless
in the wake of stronger silences
than conversation makes.

and someone tells me
I could sleep it off
but a hundred thousand sunrise daydreams
touch further
than a hundred thousand nightmares
painting realities I can't reach.

so pin me with your nothings;
I am in your head,
ruining everything,
until the last call Northwest kiss
brushes gentle goodbyes,
and sculpts me into something firmer,
more willing to lose,
than what I've become.

I'll Keep You

2009-05-09T20:14:00.001-07:00

because anger is exhausting
but apathy too slow
and numbness leads to sadness
leads to wanting
leads to no,
I like joy best.

and here.
and here is where the walls
break
down.

put your boots on, little sister,
you've come through worse than this.
There've been larger storms,
harder forms
more rocks among the breaks.

pick your pen up, little sister,
hold on to it tight.
we're going farther,
deeper down,
away against the light.

for caves, my darling little lover,
hold more than they can share
and here.
and here is where you can stay
huddled wretched slick with tears
y a comer furia
is to soothe your angry eyes.

pick up your papers, little lover,
and scream as loud as you can
for my heart
is big enough to shield the world
from the pieces of your breaking heart.

and here
and here
and here we leave our walls
behind
and march into the sun,
hand in hand over land
over sea,

porque no hay una mesa para joy,
only one for sorrow
and we do not sup
amongst unbroken dreams
for nothing.

This is the world:
you will dazzle them
as I perform sleight of hand,
hide our hearts
and let us begin again.

Manifesto to a Movement

2009-05-03T12:48:00.000-07:00

Little poetic child slumber

What been woken

By midnights in summer?

Curling gray around somber faces

Remembering free, far-off places

Where always a fire meant one heart

Where now we all rub sticks for whatever to start

I’ve looked once around,

And lately I’ve found,

All these options are in my head

Unless you’re feeding it life

Whatever will end up dead

And I’m not talking about who in who’s bed

Cuz I could be

But it’s about who in whos heart, as it should be

Because it’s each other and ourselves that we can free

Because it’s a question to an answer we left empty

What I’m sayin is

The world is lost on me

I freed it all with poetry

But I’m not lost on the world, you see

Pure vision and action is the belief you can be

So now please,

Put your thumbs together

And write something

Make it free

Read it to me

Make my cum think!

We all need rhythms

That jar us from our numb sink

Into twice laid plans

That don’t work,

Yet we repeat

Here’s a dream of community

Poetry in our veins as immunity

So what fires we will start, we are soon to see

In a movement we can embody, but not assume to be

Open hands can hold, without robbery

Closed minds only leading to snobbery

And these aren’t rules,

But assertions if you’re gonna be free,

Ditch the lie and catch a ride into honesty

Cuz I need it blunt if you’re talking to me

No time to hide in the words you speak

It won’t all feel good indefinitely

It gives way, life and pain,

Inseparably.

And here’s the key

Moving on, with integrity

Rising and spreading

Like bedding down the friends you need

I’m so in love

And so heated

Bear in mind this needs repeated

But I won’t wait cuz it’s ripe

As these minds are meetin

Trying to mouth all these pregnant words they feedin’

Your welcome to cum,

let’s give birth this season

To a movement in our minds

And some playful teasin’

With the way we rhyme

And our minds of reason

I lack design

& my breath ain’t ceasin’

Brother, I need some time

With you

Sister, I need to find

With you

Lover, it’s all in kind

With you

Father & Mother, here’s what I find to do

Drop pre-tense

And find a life that’s true

I’m only as good as the love I use

The only thing I’m missing,

is You.

-Kendra Obom, OG Sandflea

August 2007

My Other Lover

2009-05-02T01:16:00.001-07:00

my other lover claws at my backside
demanding resuscitation and older memories
begging grief for alice danced slowly
beyond summer sweetness
one night in candles
many nights in flame

my other lover claws at my breast
demanding bitter suck of vile
mourning good winter's passing
beyond white wheats silently sipped
one afternoon in corpses
many days in graves

my other lover claws at my heart
and I lay hands to its throat
growing ever wetter in crass places
gritting my teeth and tossing off
a care or two for the piano
which has been drunk since we discovered gin

my other lover claws and shreds
my other lover angers and fumes
my other lover rages
my other lover roars back at the sea
my other lover devours grapes sour as they come
my other lover believes in the bloody taste of iron
and searches midnights for poles to suck
my other lover believes sex is for violence
and seeks to tear all me open
my other lover,
my other lover loves you better
than loves me

my other lover claws at cunts
and fucks til dry and slick with blood
licks and licks and leaves trails
of sick sweet lip marks on virgin thighs
demanding recitation of spring
deep in autumn's bowels

my other lover is destruction undone
and bloated ghosts move past unseen
my other lover rapes
burns with necessitated need
my other lover
loves you better
than loves me

And Selfishly So

2009-05-01T23:31:00.000-07:00

I'm tired so tired
of the guitar on your side of the bed
the cat's sweet purr
next to my head
I am weary of distances
far and in between
the wall to wall spaces
left in my hardest heart
and when i close my fist
as the sixty mile an hour wind
whips by me
out the car window
its your hand i'm holding
when our apocalypse descends

o sweet mercy
give me a tale i can believe in
of you and me and sweet california sun
give me your lips and a taste
of the never ending kiss
give me back
my saturday nights
give me back
the ten minute to takeoff call
whereupon you opened my door
i leapt upon that hard body
and stayed thus until we had to breathe again
give me back
my clean shower
and snowy sunrise
give me back
sister rosetta in the middle of the woods
give me back
all those beats of beasts
and the way we used to dance
give me back
all my romance
give me
give me
o lend mercy sweet shelter
a place for my heartache to die
and my lips to live ever after

The Greatest

2009-04-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

I flee yellow handed
leaving sun drenched footprints
in the riverbed built by you
for me
with great apathy in mind.

I conquer love like sorrow,
with Italian peppers and
one too many Tom Collins'.
Feet sure between envelopes
of surrender and parchments
of war, I have
stripped naked and wearing
nothing but the white flag
I run
through pools of
purple left by bodies
and
around the outside
of sinking sandpits
filled to the brim with prrudish protestations.
Spy briefly in the House of Love
on Ladies pulled rigid and painted quiet,
spy softly on men,
as they hold their heads and think
of what to say next.

Dirt-faced and river worn,
I seek solace form this and these
and I love once more
running over pumpkin patches
and brush away all the stings American Hollywood
has so graciously given,
the white flag clinging as
saran wrap to itself and to me and
---I reach the rain.
I reach my pinnacle
all stripes and lies fall way and I am,
I am the luckier,
I am the luckiest alone.

On my own

2009-04-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

she says,
"if you don't have the money, honey
the honey money
to fly back three or four times a year
you get isolated
up here---its like another world:
and I laugh because
its perfect.
I'm so in between worlds
just one would be nice.
And you can go to
San Franfuckingcisco
and its
fifty-three years of progress
fifty-three years of yuppies and capitalism
fifty-three years away from the San Franfuckingrevolution
and all I love.
I and I will go isolated islanding on the Bering sea
with the wolves
and the silence of heaven
breathe deep in a snowbank
and never come home.

afternoon showers

2009-04-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

the thunder hits so loud the glass is shaking in its panels;
rat-ratt-rattling with the shiver of my heartbeat
to go higher and higher
away

i lie.

i lie down to nap and the cat hair gets in my nose.

i wish.

i wish i was burying my nose in white sand ocean wind
and not itchy black cat fur
but the earth smell has to come in somewhere
and the sun refuses to help a sister out.

i wake.

i wake hours later, amidst the empty bag of chips
chips i don't remember eating.

i eat.

i eat to fill an organ where i think my stomach
used to be.

i breathe.

i breathe turning away from the cat and into the sweater
you left behind, the white one under the pumps
and next to the canister of condoms.

i know.

i know i should've left it alone, but it had fallen.
i was afraid the cat would pee on it.
he won't stop peeing on things.
he's such a jerk.

and in the night
there is no one to calm my shakes
and in the night
it is empty and dark
and in the night
it smells like rain i want to give to you
and in the night
i wake frightened
not remembering why
with the ghost of your hair's smell
on the pillow next to mine.

eleventh hour tanka

2009-03-22T20:08:00.003-07:00

late night
early spring
we roast marshmallows
over zippos
and pray through the burns

Vintage, baby.

2009-03-19T23:10:00.000-07:00

No Trace Left

Ever since I was young, I have shared beds on sleepovers. The feeling of companionship, the errant limb occasionally finding itself wrapped around your waist, and the warm body next to you. That's love.

Now that I'm older, my mother thinks I am doing illicit things with everybody who shares my bed. I don't know why she seems to think that. I only did illicit things with one girl. And now, there's no trace left.

One thing about sleepovers, the morning is sad. The end of the companion for a night, it's back to a cold, lonely bed. Especially after your sleepover friend leaves.

You go about your room, picking up the clothes thrown around the room, carefully placing them in a hamper by the door. Remember how she said, in a low voice, "Fair is fair." and she made you take off your shirt, too. Now, you move to the bed, removing pillows from the pillowcases, thinking of her hair. Brown hair, falling in the way until she asks you for a hair tie, which you give gladly. The pillow cases, too, go in the hamper.

Before touching the bedsheets, you remember her body, smooth as velvet, soft as silk. You remove them, balling the sheets up, tossing them over your shoulder. All that is left is the fold-up futon, disguised so carefully as a couch against the far left wall. She pushed you against it and kissed you in the red light of your lava lamps.

You fold the futon, and put it against said wall. The floor is bare. There is no trace left of the beautiful girl who shared your bed She has gone home, back to her boyfriend.

You both must pretend it never happened. The only ones you will ever tell are each other. Every time it happens... if it ever happens again. The secret smiles, the too-long, but too-short-to-bed-suspicious hugs of congratulations, and the way you look at each other and laugh whenever somebody mentions sex. Finally, the note she wrote on your wall in a secret place that no one will ever see.

There are no traces of her, except in the darkest of your secret places.

-October 2003

the littlest wrecking ball

2009-03-19T22:34:00.000-07:00

you're a disaster unfounded
by love and light
a wrecking ball
of felonic misdemeanors
overthrown by manners
and the cruel secret smiles of children
lying in the sun

you're a disaster unknown
a devastation of
proportions and quantities
and lovers left behind

a disaster of physical mind-melds and
science fiction easily unraveled
a technobabble princess
unfounded
lost in galactic override
a beautiful disaster -
you.

Tar, tar a rún

2009-03-12T21:28:00.001-07:00

Tar, tar a rún
come and sit in the smoky bar of my childhood
let me spell love in the dust
of melody and microphone
of harmony and heat
sweetly o'er-reached by soft drums
in a distant, dark melting night

Tar, tar a rún
come and speak through your eyes
over skin and into blood
spell love for my feet
in a beat I will always dance to
knowing the shaking behind my nightmares
is sweetly o'er-perched by steady breath
in a distant, dawn condemning night

Tar, tar a rún
come and let lips close
come and let hair entangle
come and banish sundays 'yond early afternoon
Tar, tar a rún
come, come, my darling
come, come, my love
Tar, tar

To-do list

2009-03-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

1. Grocery list
1. Pudding
2. Tuna fish

2. Work
1. Find some
2. Rewrite resume
3. Figure out humorous, non-pretentious, beautiful cover letter

3. Reading/Fun
1. Memory Keeper's Daughter
2. War Is A Force, again and again until I can haiku it
3. Buy a gun. Learn to shoot it.
4. Avoid murderous rampage

4. IMPORTANT
1. Breathe
2. Let Go.
3,. Pet bunny
4. Play guitar
5. Kiss everyone

5. Clean room/house
1. Reorganize
2. Unpack
3. Wash walls
4. Fall the frack asleep
5. Wake up
6. Make dinner

6. Poetry
1. write it
2. share it
3. over-analyze
4. under-analyze over-analysation
5. Hyperventilate
6. Post
7. Wait.

7. Living
1. Return heart/exchange it??
2. Send Matt his shirt
3. Send Matt my undies???
4. Find new curtains
5. Don't panic
6. Panic
7. Quit smoking again
8. Steal mom's cigarettes

8. Other
1. Write to Jessie
2. Write to Eli
3. Call Brittany
4. Do not get seduced!
5. Seriously, I mean it
6. No, really.
7. Call Dan
8. Rinse, repeat
9. Call Matt
10. Say I love you
Say I love you
Say I love you

Eve

2009-02-23T21:39:00.000-08:00

She speaks of orchards as if
she has seen many
She sucks slurping sections
Spanish oranges as if
style is superfluous to
all the smoke she's made from
candied cigarettes under groves of leathered wood
She tends fruit as if
tending fruit and making love in springtime
were her only duties to the crown

I wait, first to admit
I'm an apple girl nectar doesn't
interest me and I like
words that rhyme better
though I too
tend
to fruits
yellow red green and gold
richly deeply dark in the February night

She'll not return even when
she's run out of Catalina Clementines
and things to suffer for.

And I wait,
crimson fruit round in hand
on top of walls
in corners
under beds
for a fraction section of attention as if
I need to say something in more than words.

cross-country move, part 2

2009-02-13T06:27:00.000-08:00

by the time I am done
organizing
packing
cleaning
the only thing left of you
in my possession
will be two photographs
a postcard
and the squeaky cube rabbit dog toy
which was the first present
you ever gave me

and I don't miss you
anymore
but the rabbit gives me comfort
to know that once
someone loved me that much

dear daddy

2009-02-13T04:18:00.001-08:00

dear daddy, we used to walk
on Tuesdays
your young father laughter
rang and rang
over the park swings,
thirty to thirty-five and
sometimes you woul take me out of school
to swing and slide and read.

dear daddy, all the pieces
of me
that are secretly you
I can't put my finger on but
I sure wish
I had your eyes,
even though mine are
forest clearing wild sunshine
and fields of gold.
I look in the mirror
I wonder where you are in me
as I touch belly thigh foot shoulder
nose ear cheek eyelash.
You must be in my face,
because mom is in my feet.

I curl back my lips
you in my teeth, daddy?
my tongue, pink and red
and gilded silver?
my smile, easy and shy?
Yes. In my cheeks, too,
I can see you, apple round
full of unrelenting pursuit of the
perfect
rock star sneer.
(I don't know who we're kidding with that, daddy,
we're too full of joy for music to be condescending)

dear daddy, the untouchable parts
of me
are you,
the restless tap-tap-tapping rhythm
on tables and legs
bending of book pages
and how my hands
clench
or curl naturally.
Mom always tries
to straighten my fingers but
I like to think they started doing that
in the womb
from all your years of music,
like hands for an instrument
was a star-wish you made for me in California,
a secret wish,
like my gender.

dear daddy, I think
you always trusted me with myself
better than I did
because of all those untouchable parts,
kept me being secretly you.

Modern Spaces

2009-02-11T21:12:00.001-08:00

I am made of subspace
and each moment is a now moment--
when you feel 10--act 7
when you feel 7--act 5
and so on down the line.

when you feel 1--act 10
and emulate the overcast,
the topography of bloodspeech
was lost in kinetic translation.

she can drag her toe across the hardwood floor;
she cannot peek through.
You are a heart problem.
she can drag her toe across all the spanish rugs;
she can't see you.

I am made of subspace;
the Atlantic was not made for me to swim.

Every moment is a now moment
when you feel 1-- act 10
and scream as loud as you can;
take it from the top,
start over,
begin again.

vaguely edited SOC

2009-01-26T18:48:00.000-08:00

your dreams
and I am stagnant with mud walls the smallest pool of water waiting the noon sun to be sucked to the sky and exist anew in a community of cloud vapor white fluffy boring except in angles and prism reflection -- a symbol of calm and relaxation. dull. sucked to the sky to become dull. where is my holy ascent? my machinal doves my crucifixtion my clarity my believers? why does the machine gun's rattle sound like the harsh terrored flapping of dove's wings? why do I dream the daughter of the man who no long inhabits my bed and

your dreams
I never meant to call you fool but where is my desert bollywood romance and you want me to be your naive admirer whom you drown in drugs and break her heart and don't you know that clouds cannot be drowned? and don't you know that I've lost my train of thought again and why can't I stay on track I hate this stupid book I bought in vanity and as such nothing good has come from it. Look at me I can't even write a stream of consciousness without pausing to think how absurd and I hate how down on myself I get when you aren't here I am sorry I need you to believe in me so badly, no I am not sorry

your dreams
you said my body was big enough
strong enough to shield
the world from the shattering pieces of my broken heart
but
shrapnel still makes holes in the barricades

and the barricade still bleeds and
eventually someone has to come out and rebuild or
come out and bury the dead.
the dead don't bury themselves
and yet--andyet--
I become the barefoot mother in the dirty, glass-strewn street
the mother who having no children, tends to all of them.
who carries dead bodies to the foot of the temple steps one by one

and yet and yet becomes the priestess who blesses and
prays for their white prism souls
becomes the janitor who interns their husks in the pauper's pyre
becomes the daughter who stands chained by her will to the city,
to stand against injustice and shelter the mothers
from the air strikes a broken heart in vanity makes

Your dreams
but I am stagnant cesspools of blocked ways and clogged drains.
I am exercising my right to fail and be miserable and i have been doing it far too long; I have become sick.

You dream
but I am unchaining myself from the gates;
the mothers can fend for themselves;
the temples can crumble with the priestesses inside;
the janitors can burn in their own furnaces--

you dream

but I will be sucked the sky, be a thundercloud
I will rain down my soul to flood the world with My dreams
and your dreams
will envy my broken heart

For Nora VI

2009-01-26T17:39:00.000-08:00

Nora,
today I am not myself.
Today I am contemplating
the sale of my guitar
to line my pockets with silver
to make a film star's getaway
into Canada.
Nora,
today I am eschewing the physical Stranger
for the virtual.
Even my handwriting isn't mine.
I keep losing my train of thought like
she's not and
I'm not
quite where we meant to be.
Like lead in my blood, Nora,
just sitting at the bottom of my veins
slowly stopping a trickle
until I've simply gone blue.

And I keep losing my train
of thought like
she's not and I'm not
even gone yet.

Like she's someone I should still
be blanking for.
Nora
I think I'm realizing
that I am much happier
when I am alone.
But I keep losing my memories
like I am a drifter
and I don't feel like myself today
but I don't remember me anymore
because

I'm not like
she is
or she's not like
I am
and rising from it
hurts,
Nora.
I can't write myself out of me.

I am not myself today.
I keep losing my train of thought.

death tanka

2009-01-22T12:24:00.000-08:00

time follows.
my father dies;
I, the stone-eyed daughter,
found grieving
behind closed doors

Let's Go Back to Church

2009-01-12T21:03:00.000-08:00

the sky opened
forgiveness poured down
soft, wet, and virginal
no fire, no breath
our souls rose translucent
caught in webs of neon and city smog
"rise
we rise
we rise together"
the chant of mankind
"ascend and believe"
I closed my ears and denied them

"doubting thomas
will you doubt in eternity
when the sea swallows the land
when the flaming desert consumes
and the rain pours pours down?"

I opened my eyes to glance darting
at their thin lanky frames
streetlight angels preaching the rapture
upon our beds.
I opened my eyes and lifted my heart
for I thought
of this cold grey
beneath the Sound and
Chicago overtaken by the Michigan and
sand sand sand
blown into every crevice.
I saw the fish and the scorpion,
the crab and the fox
and my laughter, nature's bell on the wind,
my answer to their second coming.

I would find greater comfort for my land-weary toes at
the bottom of the ocean
flesh to nourish further,
and my soul free to swim
amongst the reef.
Greater comfort there than ever
a harp or angels risen in song.

I bade them go without me.

They balked as if incomplete,
stuttered and watched in fierce protest
as I dropped from the dock
and melted
into the first wave that kissed me.

For Nora, a Prequel

2008-12-20T00:06:00.000-08:00

Robot apartments!

I am a robot.

My little brain is filled with silly nonsense

You can ask me anything

I will know the Answer.

I have the Answers.

In the traffic to Seattle

you asked me about 16th century lute music,

and I felt ashamed when I knew its history

I had to explain myself and my knowledge

(Juilliard)

And you show me off to your friends!

I read wikipedias every day so that I won't disappoint,

I never want you to be ashamed of me.

when I can't quench your thirst for useless knowledge;

there's a fear in your eyes when I say:

I don't know

so I'll study and pray that the words

will never cross my lips again

And I read encyclopedias till my

brain leaks out my eyes

and gray matter will splash your converse

and that will be the end of Us.

-08/07

found poem: "Howl"

0808: The Origin of Infection: Patient Zero

2008-12-20T00:02:00.000-08:00

my feet are losing feeling!

stare! hard! at my telephone!

in deep concentration

willing myself! willing myself telepathy! will YOU telepathy!

to tell you will you! just! call me! you unreliable BASTARD!

Its been two! long! bloody cold! days

since I kissed your face!

-08/07

Unsung Wartime Romance

2008-12-19T18:23:00.000-08:00

You were kind

for a time

after empty pavement pounding

battles

I epically stomped through

and over you

You were kind for a time,

granting freedoms greater

than those you took away:

a home,

a bed,

a place to rest my head.

You were kind for a time,

allowing me

the knit of the needle

a pink yarn suture

to tie my bloodied heart.

You were kind,

for a time.

And in the space of a breath,

took the knife

from your well-tailored ankle boot,

slid it between my ribs

and smiled a goodbye

from behind.

And all I can think

among these paralleled walls

is how for a time,

you were kind,

and rainkissed my face

under the overpass,

heated my nights

and picknicked steampunk effervescence.

You were kind for a time,

and I played the fool,

unwilling to see;

you were meant to be

a spun-sugar sweetness

lying soothing on the tongue,

and I on the playground,

ate a mouthful of dirt.

The Loop

2008-12-19T18:18:00.000-08:00

there is a strange freedom

in moments of idleness:

watching time pass with

disregard

and the nothing you did today

should have been Something,

but it wasn't.

-081208

Finale

2008-12-07T16:06:00.000-08:00

In a faraway now,
I am sleepless for you.
Waiting at a French door balcony,
trying on
my bridal woes
one last time.

In a faraway now,
it is you calling at one a.m.,
so different in every way.
You are dark, dark
darker, my halfling,
darker than she.

Fingering a ring finger
in the near now
empty where a weight
should be.
Faraway I am a beast
on wing,
all tangled snarls
and water retention
and too much snow
has closed the airport,
so my maid of honor
will never appear.

In a faraway now,
I am lost in smells
the present cannot recollect.
In a faraway now,
three days until
the happiest winter morning.

In a near now,
a distant me pleads
guilty,
if only you'd come
and bring the faraway
near.

In a close now,
in closing now,
three days
and my finger is free.

Crush

2008-11-19T17:09:00.001-08:00

hey you golden guru beer drunk god
of skin and bone and body fat
you are beautiful
and I want to swill your body
among kelp strands and
under a calloused sky
I want to drink the depth of you
until my belly bursts
and keep you under strange stone light
among poisonflower petals
too deep to reach the night

Sunset

2008-11-19T16:58:00.000-08:00

That was the place
where I first kissed your face
among barricade broken and wanting
and this was the lie
that we threw up to the sky
as our fathers sat worried and waiting

and I was so young
had no need for anyone
the rebel flag burning and waving
and you were so old
when you found his love gone cold
your sacrifice wasted in warning

and I held you close
as the cinders touched your toes
among city blocks blasted and curving
and we'd come so far
that they all asked who we are
so we told them wavelength and war

because we have run out of steam
and the giant robot's just become a dream
and I wake in Whitefall alone
but I remember things before we go
and I know

I know

That this is the place
where I first will kiss your face
while the bombs fall and hail to the city
and I will be the lie
God puts up in the sky
to lure you away from that corner

and you will be the star
that drives me from this car
a heartbeat waiting for a dream
and we will be the lie
God puts up in the sky
as a reminder to love beyond your means

Song for Exes of all kinds

2008-11-13T21:15:00.000-08:00

I think that I can accept
that I was never the girl for you
but I hope when you reflect
you look well on me
as I do on you

I could've crossed an ocean
I could've crossed the town
but your house seemed too far away
even though
it was only five miles down

I think that I can accept
I was never the girl for you
but I hope when you reflect
you think well on me
as I do on you

this seems to be my ending
three thousand miles and change
I hope when you still think of me
if you think of me
at all
I hope you remember goodbye
I hope that you won't cry
I seem to remember something
as grains of sand in the hourglass
that I tipped my head my head
and you chose to laugh
and that
was always how I liked it

I think I can accept
that I was never the girl for you
I hope when you reflect
you think well on me
as I do on you
I hope when you accept
that I was never the girl for you
I hope when I reflect
I think well on me
I think well on me
as I do on you

Boston's a weary city
it snows a lot you see
closer to the ocean
closer than you looked at me
and the rain washes around my knees
as I step into the surf
and I hope when you don't see me
I'm invisible
like the rain
I'm invisible
like the trains you forgot

I think that I can accept
I was never the girl for you
and I hope when you reflect
you think well on me
as I do on you

perpendicular

2008-10-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

I need you
to lie my geometry out
and stay congruent to
my desperate angle's shape.
To watch the fitted fog
luminesce on starlight dew,
in round perfect squares,
underneath the crust.

I need your
biting sphere to whisper
soft midnights
through each ear
and clayshape the darkness
to make me disappear.

I need your
tone-deaf fretless wonder
up and down the string
of five-seven-five
and the master's secret thunders
peer beneath your eyes.

I need your
nine-pointed starshine
to collect
in snowdropped pearls,
stowing away secrets
and softly crossing a lie,
dividing my radius
into pieces of pi
underneath the crust.

I need you to lie
within my geometry,
and stay parallel
to my desperate angel shape.

collaborative poem, week 7, spring 2008

2008-10-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

research on the logging business
you do it for me
my dearest Mary Jane
you make me feel insane,
and I can't afford
that kind of distraction;
it always rubs me the right way.
And speaking of rubbing
who decided that rubbing sounded dirty
when my mind ran away with the word
like a puppy with a bone
on a summer's day overwhelmed with joy
the sun caresses a face
long subdued by shades of gray
submissive to the lines that follow
persistent will, not to stay.
Spare me the motivational speech
because sooner or later my inspiration will deflate and
the "what the hell" effect will kick in
and my heavenly essence will kick out
windows of an effervescent soul.

saturday's rain

2008-10-07T20:59:00.000-07:00

you are sixteen tons
of sass and silence,
your favorite letter is 'L'
for love and licentiously
and letters you wrote
to far-away neverlands
that failed to arrive.
It's a romantic notion,
your words scattered
across Siberia,
and you're infatuated
with a face on a screen.
Purple toenails
and cowboy boots,
black leggings
and grey sweater,
blue eyes and
a weary smile.
You are sixteen tons
of sass and silence,
tied to my ankles with
ribbon so red.
I can tell
so many towels from yours
hanging on that rack,
and I know your morning voice
is gravel and butterflies.
I've been here before,
to sit in the red lamp's light
and watched the pine needles dry
and fall from lack of light.
You make me eggs in the morning,
never unfertilized,
and we wonder how bodies
got to be so forbidden.
We eat off the same plate,
you are sunshine in Olympia's
utter damp,
I could kiss those rays
right off your face,
but I won't,
you need them.
(and so does this town)
You are sixteen tons
of silence and sass,
air on my ankles
and I am swimming in you.

"I can brush my teeth in both languages!"

2008-10-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, let's.
Let's go to Spain,
and get married
in a big, fuck-all cathedral.
Let's suck Madrid
in soda water angel hairs
foreseen in gin-tonics we never
pay for.

Yes.
Let's be Parisian affairs
half-past midnight moons,
a one bedroom apartment
on the Champs-Elysees.
Let's sit in cafes in Spring,
the rain pouring misting slumbering
gently down,
wearing wide-brimmed tea hats and
questioning
about the weather in London
this time of year.

Yes.
Let's pastry in Berlin,
custard spilling on hands
ganache slipping on fingers
sticky sweet face kisses
over brunch on Sunday
when everyone else
is in church.
Long walks between
Turkish markets and Lidl,
one for kebab seasoning
and one for potato squat soup.

Yes.
Let's sunglass Morocco,
roll in the desert dust,
wide-eyed peyote visioned desert dreaming.
Let's sing the mosque oasis
through our lungs and run
each Casablancan day from start to start
screaming at the top of our lungs,
"Yanqui go home!"
because this is not Cuba;
they could still shoot
us
at any moment.

Yes.
Let's escape all facades
of the American lexicon,
let's say what we mean and
swallow the bitter pill words later.
Let's tongue trill foreign words
and stamp them on our skin,
a million visas,
"My passport is my body."

Let's be universal bribes
of bridalry
take what we want
and favors be damned --
if you can't write,
we don't love you/
and that/
is final.

shy as virgins

2008-09-30T01:57:00.001-07:00

The last time I touched you, I mean really touched you, you were taken from me in a mess of heartstrings and betrayal. You became the miscarriage of my birth in Paris. You became elusive, you turned at my touch. I turned my eyes from your pleading, too, I am guilty. I am so guilty.

We spoke in Berlin, a little bit. An awkward conversation I broke away from when I realised that I could do nothing without tears. I handed you to the best doctors I knew; they all said there was nothing wrong. You weren't broken. You were brilliant. It was time I saw it.

It was the last time I touched you at all. Now, here, you and me, a different city, a different country. I knew I couldn't avoid you forever; you've stayed in my heart like nobody's business, tearing around, screaming, throwing tantrums, pleading with me to just see you one last time.

You were my jewel, my morning flower, my dew on the grass -- he tore you from me, he crushed you, bled you, and did the same to me.

We were taken from each other in Paris, darling. There's no doctors here, love, and these wounds are older and scarring. To fix them, they must be reopened, and I am no surgeon. It's not going to be pretty. . It's not going to be pretty, but I love you, and if you'll just... give me time, and be patient, I think I can sew us back together.

body music

2008-09-29T04:39:00.000-07:00

shoot me up
my delirious cowboy
dredging the depths
of the dark mystery
returning home,
hat on heart and
boots in hand
shoot me up
in the depths of your delirium
mainline me in the heat
of this stillness
in this blue cooled
sweet staccato of
hips on thighs
pelvis on pelvis
shoot me up
in the depths of
early morning
with my lidded eyes heavy, my dreamer
shoot me up
with sweat and soul
caked on bedsheets
and slammed on walls
repeating and repeating
shoot me up
main line me like breakfast cereal --
cocoa puffs and mimosas
you taste like train whistles and champagne
shoot me up
with you hat on my sunrise
your tall jungle tales on my feet
your boots in my back
and your hands in my hair
main line me electronic
ten paces
high midnight
shoot me up,
let me draw you in

"Le Mixtape"

2008-09-26T03:05:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I am
wrapped up in your smile,
far away
over freeways and post-
apocalyptic dreams
Tonight I am strumming to drums
I forgot
and missing you.
Tomorrow morning will be a
tribute to our punk-rock June.
And I will boom swagger
all down the streets of Seattle,
boom swagger all over
the sidewalks of my life.
(boomboomboom)

Post-Post-Postmodern

2008-09-26T02:47:00.000-07:00

She knows suddenly,
how the story ends:
on the pier after dark,
the benches and filtered
hand-rolled cigarettes
under the no-smoking sign.

She knows the words
before they roll off your tongue,
before your eyes
can even betray brain's glimmer
of betrayal:
"You said you loved me."
"You said, you loved me."
"I did."

No, she knows
how the story ends,
days, weeks, even, before it
comes:
"No, you needed somebody
to help you escape
a toxicity
a wasteland
and I was your lifeline
and you're welcome."

Yes, she knows the retort
towards her back
as she walks distance increasing:
"So did you."

And she'll give pause,
for the final note of
the swan song,
the great crescendo.
She'll consider:
"I never should've let you touch me."
and
"You meant nothing."
or
"She was right, this was a game, I win, you lose, goodbye."

She'll give pause for
the fleeting rests
quarter hald eighth note lies
and settle on four full beats of her heart:
"I don't know
what
I needed.
But
I am glad
you were there."

The cigarette stamped out
the toe of her boot
and the winter rain
dewing on the navy blue coat
you've never seen before;
smells like a life she knew,
a life you feel cheated
having never known.
Wrapped in the strength
of a sea-city's winter,
with the iron will of the lonely,
she's known how
this story ended
before you ever laid your eyes
on her blessed form.

sounds you'd die to

2008-09-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

The syllabic sound
of your name
has been echoing in me.

It starts with my footsteps,
and grows up the creaking of my knees
to the swish-swish of my thighs
warm from walking friction.
Around my back,
calling up my spine to the
thud-thud-thumping of my poorly broken heart.

Your name has been
the echo of my heartbeat
since the day I was born;
I just couldn't hear it
'til some minutes ago.

Changes

2008-09-09T23:07:00.000-07:00

I am going to wrap your heart in butcher's paper,
under every fold I will kiss you in ink.
The pen nib will scratch at your fibres, baby,
but it's all right,
Love is Pain.

I am going to paint your lungs in oils:
red ochre, sweet vermillion and cobalt,
paint you a whore,
and let the air be your pimp.

I am going to coat your ribs in chocolate:
deep, dark, and bittersweet as your lips
in a last good-bye.

Your stomach I will let alone, it's perfect,
acidic, clenching, except for the butterflies --
I will tear their violet wings one by one
to cease the endless concerto flutter of love.

I am going to pluck your eyes,
replace them with the pink roses you see through,

The rest, your skin, your face, your bones
I will leave bare and unblanched
a seeding perfection for all the world to view.

I will depart from you broken,
and fulfilled,
Unspoiled and unsullied
save for the cracks on the discerning come to notice.

Blake's Song

2008-09-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

William.
You and I stood and spoke candidly
before your death.
We stood on cliff's edge
overseeing the masterful slavery of oysters
in the ocean.
We spoke in monochromatic color wheels
and turned every green blade to blue steel.
Equinamity rose and you took your hand
to mine,
painted a book running up my arm.
The last sentence made a declaration of Me
as Soul's inheritor
Soul's hierarchy
and at last spelled out the meaning of ------
just as you went to again dip your brush in ink,
God's breath blew you over the precipice.
You called to me the last words,
of smoke, and vapors;
the illusions of contemporary,
but again God's breath kicked up,
swallowed your words
as a starving infant meets a wet nurse's breast,
and you were gone.
I stood for eternity,
examing a grain of sand,
God's breath returned and tried to take me with you,
but I fought it, William,
with words of spite
and words of anger.
I fought it with the newly forged grass,
among a thousand allies,
an army of Me.
I screamed. I wept against the tyranny of God,
and his tears thundered,
but my tears roared.
My tears roared waves onto shores --
the sea swelled up to meet my backside,
and struck the wind to surrender.
We stood on cliff's edge,
God and I, speaking candidly of your death.
And the hand you held,
on the arm that you scribed,
reached
up.
I quelled, I shook, but
I nary spoke a word as I stepped aside
to let it do a soldier's duty
and pushed.

Song for Wendy

2008-09-08T14:56:00.000-07:00

Paint me in monochrome
unbeknownst to quiet smoke
and vapor lights
inside my blood
inside my bones
my marrow beyond
all reason
I am boneless
among sunflowers
I am wretched pale in moonlight
and poetry is my foreplay beyond
my gilded tongue

Mia Blanca

2008-09-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

you are not my hips cracking
bone-crushing soul-wrenching ache
in the pit of my being
and you are not sweet harmony's forehead
pressed to mine lost
in the universal theories of music
between two girls,
you are not under my skin,
in my blood, my cravings at midnights
or my cries in dreams
you are not my pride,
my joy, or my whiskey morning's kiss.
You are not hands to the floor,
back-bruising instantaneous
wall-clutching,
you are not the force of an orgasm
when the boy next to me has
finally dropped to dream's bullets,
and you are not in my heart of hearts.
But I'm going to keep you all the same,
in the smile behind my eyes
and the rhythms in my toes,
the larynx-tearing pitch.
You will be my song,
when my voice has finally run out.

wild child

2008-08-30T23:07:00.000-07:00

Alessandro says
I used to write wild
and I am perplexed
as if I have forgotten sex,
delved into mystery
my mystery,
the enigma of fuck.
I think William Blake
sucked the marrow from my
language.
I'm still angry.
Self-annihilation is not
the poet's martyrdom.
You lose faith in your Bard,
lose faith in your God,
and your God self-destructs,
and thus annihilates
your soul.
Or your soul's words.
I used to write wild,
blackberry bushes,
growing over fields
my agriculture and my
nothingness.

blues for eagle feather

2008-08-30T22:54:00.000-07:00

I.
blue sky bird with speedy fingers
daughter of three
wife of twenty-one days

amateur guitar god
sweet croon blues devil
brother in chronic
brother in wine
brother in chemical cocaine
stumbling into my bed
four a.m. plastic sheeting
rusty springs tetanus creaks
spun for one more fix
begging my sister for life
(please take)
a quarter of (please take)
one
half of your stash (please
take me) home
to feathers
and hunters
and prayer unholy

dear doctor professor:
my brother fucks with a snorter and crushed powder do you think this is safe?

I am afraid of the answer.

II.
Keen
for my brother he walks with eyes in flame
hopping one foot two foot
over smoke and woodcore
from Poulsboro to
Gratton and back
to the Rossi bottle in the middle
of the sea

what shall we feed our brother
who escaped death once?
who kisses dollar bills
and made friends with the snow
who is afraid of his life
and opens his fingers to
tearing teeth and night terrors

III.
Afternoon and the wooden table
blank verse
seventies vomited all over poets
we are all part of his waking
death

brother and sister I kiss
his lips beneath a table
and my lips catch
a powder sigh

pale cheeks (in sleep)
with body's tears

IV.
Eagle Feather, Eagle Father
our mornings are peppered
with rolled up bills and
empty pens
we cough into ink

our stash is in J's bag
but our fix is nowhere to be found

God is a junkie and he sold salvation
until I murdered him
with
a kiss

tension tanka

2008-08-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

four a.m. --
decaf green tea
you and I
woe to the table
stuck between us

my androgyne

2008-08-21T23:45:00.001-07:00

Something is buzzing in my brain
a literary hum
portraying and waiting
beneath the sidewalks
I am pounding on my way to you.
I will lay scrawling on your velour
velvet violet encasing my fingers
in cracks
filled with pennies and plastic
and orange rinds
from Christmas past.
The smell lingers on toes
even after morning's shower.
Moon winks unscrupulously from the window
leaving me breathless,
and my androgyne spectre
leading by fingernails
drags downward into sweet deep blues.
Kenning the sun will rise,
and eyes awoken by siren's red wail,
grasped by the hair and drug to the surface
waking shore,
and carried gently by my androgyne
to the truth's sunrise.

sun corner

2008-08-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

This morning like all morning afters
I am fading denial from my eyes
cross-country undersea submersibles
waiting in nerve sewers
for the command to leak
speaking intangible ghost bubbles
promising forevers with fingers and spit
but denying all with eyes and lips
so red
what am i to do with this silence
that hangs like battle axes
weight like wine, heavy
on my mind
and waiting for drop the queen's head
wicker basket woven in blood
the endless children of summer
parceled out in fountain packages
a dollar a piece
a dollar for a year of your youth
the old corns of winter witchery weeping
matrons of autumn barking their wares
a dollar a piece
a dollar for a year of his youth
and the infants of spring waiting wide-eyed
and soundless
little faces bloodless in fright
for thier mothers have become
those ghoulish hounds of war
and night.
what am i to do with this silence
what am i to do
with this.

not quite your birthday

2008-08-10T02:34:00.001-07:00

you surround
my soul
and I dream
in rock and roll
pine trees
summer
breaking my skin
tear all
my bones out
I can't get back in