tossing turning tumbling
these voices in my
head-heart-soul
rip me
tear me
burn me
wound me
scar me
rush me secretly
to some parallel confusion
invasion
conclusion
illusion
a heart in either hand
which to fulfill
which to destroy
take me
wake me
break me
heal me
feel my fear
my love
my hatred
know me
touch me
teach me
reach me
save me
streaming screaming seduction
these voices in my
head-heart-soul
deplore me
restore me
advise me
revise me
take me elusively
to some underground unreality
lucidity
misery
a heart in either hand
which to follow
which to mislead
hate me
love me
leave me
reap me
**** me
take from me
these voices in my
head-heart-soul

a trinity of fairy tales
man
woman
woman scorned
and heaven hath no fury
like
the happily never after
spinning silver lies of lust
remedied by magic dust
or hair
or a slipper
perhaps
from your lady fair
live in your dream of pretty lies
the truth
my love
is in your eyes

she wanted it to be the way she felt when painting
fearless messy vivid
instead of this faded photograph of a staged existence
and click click click she winds the film
dreaming cadmium red and deep cerulean
and the tightening of drying oils on her
fingertips arm lip pulling and biting at flesh like an old lover
wet sable slides across canvas
sweet turpentine and resin saturating the room
like the smell of sweat and *** lingering over some half forgotten affair
and back to the taut fabric again
in flashes of titanium white
the intensity of vermilion
slipping with animal instinct into rich umber and raw sienna
and a final stroke of ultramarine
click

the moon smiles her cheshire grin
through the icicle air
and taunts me with
who i could have been if
streetlights echo her haunting roar
along the glass highway
and weave tales of once upon a time
your gaze slides across my crystal face
as you swing from your star
humming a forgotten melody
i continue on singing
never remember never forget

i am the night watchman
that creeps and crawls inside your skin
and slithers through your mind
stealing pieces of you to build up pieces of me
…say, that’s a lovely memory there
i think i’ll keep it for my own
and in its place i’ll leave you this…or this…
or…
don’t you ever wonder why you wake up screaming?

your winter time draws near as the
perfectly circular moon
spills its perfect circle of light
deeply defined concentric roundness
and note the shadows in his eyes
glimmering white lights and don't go near
destruction lies in children's hands
perfection comes with age and paper
wrapped with wood or brass and
mounted on the wall
did you hear your children call?
then the colors come alive
and your perfect circles are perfectly nothing
perfectly lost
as girls giggle and turn away
and your perfect concentric

i built a snowman in your honor

to burn it to cinder
that would be something
to see it blazing in your eyes
every lie every truth every hate love insult caress
until it leaves this space inside of me
where nothing else belongs
where nothing chooses to belong
to leave me empty hollow vacant
that would be something

so it goes, he said, over and again.
and she knew he only said it to remind her
of her own duty dance with death
but she still wished she had never given him that book.
yeah, well, she said, i want to stay
as close to the edge as i can without going over.
yes, he said. big, undreamed-of things –
the people on the edge see them first.

naked bound blind
this life is only a test
had it been a real life
it would have been
accompanied
by
instructions
on where to go
and what to do
and my legs wind
through yours
the river wild
as your breath
sears my back
exhilaration grips me
tangling fear and
power
into one monster
all of me
wrapped
in all of you
i am naked and bound
and you are blind

every move a memory
smoldering flesh and sinew
burned down to the bone
molten blood slides through my veins
wanting for the fire’s hunt
salvation from its turn to stone

the midday sun is high
and hot
and oppressive
and i lie back and let it gnaw into my skin
pulling me toward the mercy of jumping
to another space in time
oil slicks of oozing rainbows paint my eyes
and i breathe just breathe
just struggle to breathe
just struggle
just breathe
and my heart races
pushing blood
pushing life
pushing me out of this skin
and into another space in time
and the world has gone black and white with a tinge of aquamarine
and i think i must have wandered into someone else's memory
i don't seem to have been here before and
i don't feel like me and
i remember that i don't ever
feel like me
and i remember that
i am just
someone else's memory

no stars out tonight
and wishes are falling all around me deflected
by the clouds and falling and he is three steps behind me no
three steps ahead no
where
and i stop to listen and
do you hear the distant drums singing a song of angry men
and his hand is at my throat and i wouldn't be here if you didn't ask for me he says
and no i say who are you i say and then there is no sound
no drum
no wishes falling
just his hand at my throat and then down
and down to the ground and then the cackle of ten thousand madmen ringing in my head
and then i am three steps behind you no
three steps ahead and your hand is at my throat
and no i say and i know you you say
and the cackle of ten thousand madmen
and i am no one i say there is nothing to know

seconds tick like water torture
and it occurs to me i may have misunderstood
misconstrued
mis...miss...missing
always missing out on you
tick tick drip drop drip
in the distance of my mind the trains collide
and i think if i ever get out of here
i want to collide like that with you
messy and hot and shrapnel flying

the air was thick and heavy and she waited for the storm to come
having in the heat of day sweated out the demons who haunt her nights
longing for the cleansing rain to dance her spirit free
she doesn't feel it but
wants it
needs it
willing some dark prince to empty his soul out of the heavens
she doesn't feel it but is
wanting
needing
crying out in agony of losing what was never hers

a glorious storm and with each flash of purple you stand before me and are gone again
with every rumble and crash screams the echo of blue and black and
red
red
red
and lily white translucent apologies and into your arms i crawl again
always again
tangled up in all it was supposed to be
and don't you love me you said
and of course i said
and forever you said
and as long as we both shall live i said
and in the halo of white lightening i stand before you and am gone again
with each distant roar whispers the echo of silver across ivory and
red
red
red
and lily white translucent apologies and into your arms i crawl again
always again

it was seven steps to nowhere
and i found nobody there
and i knelt before the altar
and nobody said a prayer

and nobody came to save me
and nobody told me this:
all the world’s forgiveness
lies inside a sacred kiss

but between the words an echo rang
so loud i couldn’t hear
and the whispered truth was torn away
before it reached my ear

i took seven steps to nowhere
with nobody there to find
only this unsettled noise
in my unquiet mind

the sun has tattooed a red heat scratching and clawing and licking
the long expanse of white flesh a thousand miles from my toes to my hips
and i doze quietly
happy in the burning pain that reminds me that maybe just maybe
and then it is not the fiery touch of the sun that grips me
and i have never felt a hand so rough and yet so tender
feeling gripping pulling tearing open what no one sees
you lean in close and tell me everything
and for a moment i believe you

whisper the truth
and don’t try to find me
just stay right there where the ground rose up
and swallowed you whole
i promise i will fly away far out to sea
and that girl standing
there
right there
will stay forever
wrapped up in the stories you wanted her to be

to catch the moon
that would be something
to pull it shining from the sky
mold it shape it push and pull it
until it fits this space inside me
where nothing else belongs
where nothing chooses to belong
to fill that chasm that void that need
that would be something

beside you in this perfect storm
the rain won’t fall but floats
a box of marbles lost in space
lightning frozen like cracks in glass
we cannot breathe for fear
it will all crash down around us
so we suffocate to the sounds of
endless thunder and wonder
if this is how it was supposed to be

salty air whips her hair and licks her salt streaked face
through swirling smoke
she breathes you in from one hundred eighty six light seconds and a lifetime away
and no beckoning light comes to lead her to you or
you to she
and the ink black night is suffocatingly limitless
so pull the smooth coolness higher and wrap it tight around the empty eyes
of the girl you never knew
and kiss her salty lips oh so softly
once
before you walk away

the shape of the air where it meets the sea changes with each passing wave and i cannot find the space that was there just a moment ago that place where i might have just slipped through and made my way to the underbelly of this other world and into the cavern we once explored where we left the map to find our way home that place where we laughed together when you said i could get lost inside my own house and promised never to let go my hand but both of my hands are here with me and very much unaccompanied by either of yours and my mind turns over and over yet cannot figure whether you were pulled away or let me go and watched from below as the shape of the sea changed where it met the air

gone are words and the silence is screaming howling screaming
heavy inside the lightness of the lack of you
numb with the feeling of feeling and pulling ripping gripping reaching
choking coughing spitting out the open air
and you said i breathe you in exhale a poison for which there is no cure
and i said had we but world enough and time
yet old ghosts come to call and the silence screams
always the silence screams

trudging through wild valleys and stony mountains
we chase the empty sky shocked silent by blazing white
where lonely black should live
roots and rocks and quiet things grab and dig and wrap around
unknown leads the unknowing
and we begin over and again over and again
winding through the labyrinth i turn away but
you are gone were never there
and i will never solve the puzzle
and you will always hide a piece

sweaty silent hands and stale cigarettes and beer and a thousand savage ghosts
choking every breath
tearing flesh from muscle from bone
and every time you look away and start again it's a new song a new line a new time to say
i knew you when
when
when you could still hear the sound of the sea when you closed your eyes
when i could still be still and be
just be without the rusty razor of madness sliding slipping caressing every movement every
every
every time a new song a new line a new time to decipher
the truth from the lies from the ridiculous notion that any of it matters anyway any day
any day
any day now you will look at me and be left no choice but to separate truth and lie and lie
lie
lie down with me and lie to me some more with your sweet pretty tongue
while the radio screams give me life give me pain give me my self again

will you come into the woods with me?
so many words are lost there
gone like gretel's breadcrumbs
and there's just no way of knowing which direction we are going
will you steal the sun from the sky for me?
the stars were dead before they reached our eyes
so we revel in the reality of the unreal
and replace them all with wishes and
that one there right there do you see?
that one is my favorite wish of all of them
though it never quite came true

so full the moon she leaves me empty
with the howl that never comes
stretching writhing arching slithering
and the almost light leads the search
for that which was never found
was never there
was there only a moment ago

she said: the light across your face just now is thirty thousand years old
(and something about the way she shifted seemed like she wanted to reach out
and brush away the sun from your cheek)

she said: drink deep from that ancient fire
for what we don't understand we can make mean anything
(and something about the way she said it seemed like you should have understood)

she (never) said: i am winding myself around myself and
drinking in the icy ink of this black night and
scratching and clawing and tossing and turning
(and trying to lose for you what you never had for me)

modern days
modern lies
you can say it
think it
never never never
write it down
lie truth lie
honesty lies somewhere
sometimes
modern love
modern hate
you can think it
write it
never never never
say it to me
not to me
lust love lust
emotion lies somewhere
sometimes
modern you
modern me
never never never