How something so sacred,
so beautiful,
began in clouds of
shameful, smoking sin-
the smell of charred barbecue-
no one can know.

We'd take turns in dreams,
waking up lonely
as our other selves,
until he found me
like fate was a bowling ball,
striking down my defenses like pins.

In secret we share blood-
vampires with needles-
and later our hearts dance
like the flames in our gaze,
while the Sky clips the wings
of mourning doves,
and sticky blood runs down our throats.

UFOs come with the midnight
and take us, sew us
together.
We're in a bubble,
an island outside time,
crying the same tears
of ecstasy.

Our souls are a cloud
between us and
we ring with crystal clarity,
praying this embrace holds,
despite the weathering of years,
and that sharing the same blood means
our love will remain immortal.

You’d never guess
By eavesdropping
To the vapid colloquialisms
Of your neighbors, your co-workers
That 5 open sores fester upon our mother’s face,
5 gyres,
(even the word is disgusting),
of floating plastic,
tangle and strangle the warm wombs of our seas,
stretch out at the horizons like blankets of melanoma.

Livid and neon infection
Drips, seeps, spreads from Fukushima,
Genociding the Pacific—3,000 nautical miles
Devoid of breath or heartbeat,
Save a lonely whale with tumors
Full of hot dog coupons and carpet cleaning flyers.

I am convinced
that I'm a tourist on this planet,
in this body.

Things like knowing where my legs are,
or existing in the company of a spider,
shouldn't be such causes for
bewilderment and hysteria,
but they are.

And this is besides my awkwardness
with other human beings.
I attribute this to their being tourists too.
Why else would they take lots of pictures
and leave garbage everywhere?

It's like our bus broke down,
and we're surviving in ramshackle forts,
looking out with binoculars
and waving flags made of Hawaiian shirts.

It must be appalling,
and not a little shocking,
to the natives.
Quiet and peaceful, the plants and animals
watch us from a distance,
at once unnerved and giggling
just a little bit,
as they watch us stumble about
and run shrieking from the spiders.

A beast,
only a little frightening, a little wicked.
Only as much as possessed
by demons in Scotland.

I don't know if it was just
the *******-induced acid-psychosis,
or if we really swapped lives,
and shared with Burroughs in the Sahara.

In any case,
we share the joke of sacrificing children
in repetitious ritual.
We fiends, we leprous pariahs,
who know too much to be safe,
and too little to be truly dangerous.

When I speak,
my eyebrows tell their own story,
filling in the details.
Even when I try my hand
at tact, striving for
porcelain politeness,
my eyebrows loiter in dark corners,
gossiping.

Living with two feral beasts
on one’s face
requires discipline
just short of a chainsaw.

In private I must
chisel & furrow,
for these miniature sculptures,
these Michelangelo topiaries.

This isn’t vanity.
This is protecting a pious public
from a lecherous, libidinous wolf.

For me, leaving the house and
participating in pleasantries,
daily interactions, is enough of a
Leviathan leech loading my back
without seditionist caterpillars
millimeters from munching my eyes out.

It’s for me that I tweeze,
for one only PLUCKS chickens,
that row of hair
which runs the length of my brow.
For me, for my comfort in
social negotiations.

I also do it for you,
if only to keep you from
flinching in fear
as my eyebrows defy
my utmost efforts
at not offending you.

My love of poetry is too great
for Philosophy, physics to glue the skin under my toes
to the floor.
A waif, only dandelion fluff,
I tease the turbid puddles
of wearying intellect.
Life is too beautiful
to compartmentalize,
to classify,
to set unsurmountable borders
on the pleasure that only poets and hopeless romantics comprehend.
Disoriented sight/smell/taste/touch/hearing-
backwards rainbows and the upside-down
scent of oatmeal cookies,
the melancholy of a forever-stilled honey bee,
are more golden than yellow metal,
and certain
more knowledge than a heaping pile
of doctors/lawyers/senators/scientists.
reality's only denizens
are Dreamers.

Twice. onetwo.
INDEPENDENT.
Why not?
NeverbeforehaveIbeen.
Get
in
line.
Put on your wool coat.
And
Get
back
in
line.
Dye your hair to match your
neighbor's car.
A sweet
summer
bluesky.
Drive until your rubber kisses the neighbor's curb.
Jump out and
GET
BACK
IN
LINE