Crush

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

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

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

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

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

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!"

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.