women say they want a sensitive man but they mock me when i sit at the piano crying for hours holding a lighthearted paper candle and a smile tucked in between my lips

they say they want a hard working man with ***** fingernails but
they claw at me if i turn a sun-browned shoulder against them in bed

they say they would love a cultured man but they cringe when i kiss them with lips tasting of whiskey & cigar smoke or touch them with fingers gentle as soft old paper

they say they dig the cold but they huddle in blankets when i stay up all night dancing naked across the lawn listening to joni mitchell in january

they say they want their own sugar space but turn sour when i linger and wake up dreaming of becoming an astronaut

they say they're comfortable with my past imperfections but it's my fault when i have a nightmare about being strung out on the perfume of another woman

they want a man who can write a song but they struggle when i anchor a poem to their delicate ankles and fill their empty rooms with shamefully broken pencils

they love my beautiful tattoos and piercings but shake me when i spend days wrapped inside a coral shell singing a lullaby

they want the idea of a man they've read about in books but won't tolerate me when i read them the atrocities in the sunday paper under the lampshade of an oak tree

women say they'll take me as i am but get lonely when i wander for a week and come home buried in the scent of a rock and roll bar

they say they make friends easily, like me, but can't stand to come home to talking & laughing cynical & drunk in a house full of strangers

they want a quiet man who loves them like the stars but scream when i learn to fly at the mercy of the weather & can't be captured

they want to live naughty with the thick musk of a man but act bewildered when they're caught soaking wet and weak in the knees

women say they love men with a tolerance but get jealous when i'm dizzy drunk at dawn on cheap tequila and the memory of my mother

they want a man who lives inside a corridor of words but hate me when they realize artful compliments are only cages of pretty lies

they're helpless for a man with grace but hate me when i'm pitiful and clumsy in the dark after blowing out candles and closing windows in the middle of june

they say they'll only fall in love with a lover of music but audibly cough when i hush them as Coltrane makes dazzling sodium fall across my face

they all wish for a man with careful eyes
but mine are blue and empty in the end
& it gets lonely
so i will no longer carry a song for them in my heart
like a trail-weary cowboy
no lust
no memory
no guilt
no cups
no whistles
or jewels in my vulnerable shadow

i am a god
lying in my own meadow
under the sky i created
i'm monumental and
i will outlive everyone

but my mind is clouded and
full of ice-cold sheet lightning
sometimes
daydreaming about finger-banging
alone in my dingy room
i speak to walls with the lungs of the wind
my scratchy pen filling poetry books
that no one wants to read

but you said i have the type of
personality disorder that you admire
and you're just looking for someplace
to snooze and cuddle out of
reach of the witching wind

well i'm the only man left
the storm took everyone else
and i was born in a magnetic desert
at the edge of the world

all of the sudden i'm burning up fences
and breaking up labyrinth walls to
find you in a lush garden i hardly remember
under a tall willow tree
long black hair streaming across
your face and bare chest

you make something in me
leap and sing remember
i told you i have a type
and it's complete annihilation
under the wet rose of your latin kiss

violins screech in a pivotal moment
she flashes a reluctant smile at me
teeth halting to pinch her lower lip
across the farmer's market
she is a life-sized toy of wild beauty
my heart sore in my ribs
and i feel an electric current coil between us
the shape of two lovers curled together asleep

but the acid takes on a life of its own
playing a strange game of backward symmetry
every departure is a return to the eternal center
the great yellow paper mother
lying on her own suede tongue
folded into a fleeing gazelle japanese style

potent nostalgia while peeling dogwood
and the pungent smell of leaves as
our midday shadows are thrown uphill
like two wiggly heat waves
incredible light leaping out of our fingers and toes
we are enormous gods
our flesh doesn't sweat
as we dance on the floor of the whole blue sky
tap-dancing on the manly gate of atlantis
drunk with a new horizon

she with the soul of a barn owl
participating in the battleground sunset
drapes herself around my neck
giggling with easter egg pupils
the words **** me hard
in open and lonely places
projected on her face and in
the fractal sky behind it
hands grabbing fast for flesh
my mouth starving for breast-meat
while my heart slams high in my throat
matterhorn **** waiting at the edge
of light hidden under scarlet silk loincloth

at last we sprawled naked tangled together
laughing about an imagined destiny
i felt power flood like a river between her thighs
and we fell into a receptive darkness
of limbs and hair
an island of velvet to
dream on