My first impression of the children's hospital was how nice everything was. It was new, with fish tanks and red sofas; pastel windows which made pretty colors on the floor when the sun went through them; walls were freshly painted and everyone talked with a smile. Everything just looked so peaceful.
It wasn't until my second visit that I saw the flaws. I was sitting on one of the red couches, waiting for my name to be called, and I was looking at the fish tank. A little girl was pressed up to the glass telling her mother that she could see nemo. But when I looked closer, I saw a little fish turned over floating at the surface. A man behind the glass quickly pulled it out of the tank, but I saw. That's when I started noticing other things. Like the bloodstain on the cushion next to me. And the fact that a few tiles were missing from the floor. The wood paneling had scratches on it; one of the pastel windows was taped up; and every parent was smiling, but the little kids holding on to them kept asking what was wrong.
Maybe that's just how hospitals are. They want you to think that everything's okay; that all that goes on inside are couches and fishtanks. They think that if they write out the word HOSPITAL in bubbly pink letters people might get it into their brains that everything's okay. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a hospital. Masking pain only works for so long, until broken bits and pieces push their way through.
I think hospitals are just fish tanks. Everyone is put on display for doctors and visitors and things seem okay for a while, you know, until they aren't. When a little nemo dies, they send away his body and just replace him with another orange fish that people can look at. We are all the cracks in the pavement; elevators shut down for repair; a phantom pain that nobody wants to believe is real. If you stand far enough away; if you distance yourselves from anything close to the word hospital, you can just let yourself focus on the mask they put up. But once it's time, and you're sitting on a red couch in the lobby of the children's wing, with a kid asking you where her older brother went, you'll find yourself staring at the cracks in the facade with a single tear running down your face and with emptiness in your stomach.

Every ounce of pressure against my veins,
like the flood of heavy summer rains.
Trying to escape the coating of my flesh,
internal tensions I could not oppress.
I hear crickets, smell the morning dew.
All I can ever concentrate on is you.
Made to feel nervous but oh so calm,
sometimes even sweet like cherry lip balm.
A moment of combustion then release,
your tongue wanders onto my body, into a crease.
I'll never care if I get rich,
so ever long as you ease my twitch.
Stale smoke and the scent of butane,
breath seeps into me like a bloodstain.
You, a child at heart
and I, a freak into abstract art, like Ad Reinhardt.
What a fine creation, our own constellation,
an innovation, better than intoxication.

Red birds flew into my window every day for years, especially during Spring

and I asked my mother

what they were called.

“Cardinals,” she said,

“but I think they’re called to you,

I think—

I think they are for you.”

“Mom, I’ll give that one a name.”

And I did.

——-

I still see cardinals.

The red shocks me,

like a bloodstain in a new house.

——-

When my father almost died,

I was not worried and I did not ask many questions,

only saw his body in the bed, a green-blue-yellow-black mess,

a broken-bone nest,

with sticky pads stuck to his skin, sending electricity to his nerves, lest

they forget themselves.

——-

He had the car turned into a cube, and it is somewhere now,

the cage collapsed,

the rust blooming inside of itself.

The day my father chose to drive into a wall,

going somewhere from 100 to 200 miles an hour (I never asked him), they dubbed him Rocketman.

He flew.

The car toppled and twisted and regurgitated what it could;

it was an illness,

and it could have killed us.

My father is okay.

——-

My father went to an air show months ago to see how those streak clouds are made by planes,

and there was an accident

and he saw peoples’ bodies lying and dying.

He told my mother how he saw hands separate from their owners.

He has not told me these things.

——-

The cardinals have started to scare my father.

He sees them too

like bloodstains in a new house.

bloodstains are pretty
like flowers for people who are sad
or stars for people who are too in love
or little redheaded girls
who are too afraid

A Monday morning in Richmond
     is like waking up with your head
   shaking with commotion.

You pray while you take a dump.
       You end up going across the street to Starbucks,
    with three-sixty left on your credit card.

For some reason unbeknownst to you,
you feel that you're a Renaissance artist,
brought to earth to perform studies on human beings.

Little by little you realize that you're the son of God.
There's a moldy tennis ball in
your pocket labeled: God.

Rap, or is it, Rock music that pumps through your ears?
And you're not afraid anymore.
You start to notice the handwritten facade built around your surroundings.

The State Farm billboards
perched above the scaffolding.
Your nose drizzles with crimson.

Memories of the Christopher Walken Impersonator stains the keyboard.
There is no real difference between the garbage man
and your best friend, the one who supplies you with mescaline.

And the comedown feels like a Indian Monsoon.
Electrocute your senses
until you've turned numb to your baby sister Victoria.

The Toyota Avalon cruising up
the street corner with the yellow high beams
is not the white witch from The Wizard of Oz.

Trip falls.
Inhale smoke.
Speculate more.

Dirigibles in the clear, blue sky plummet down.
You listen to your parents while you're high on *****,
wondering why mom dukes looks like Johnny Depp.

Fingers tremble as you try to type out
a handwritten letter from prison.
You meant to text message your mom, "Happy Mother's Day."

And instead
you typed out to her,
"Happy Birthday Mother!"

Lows and highs permeate through your heart.
Caving in, the walls crush into each other.
That girl was married and you gave her a head start on life.

You stole your best friend's birthday money to buy M. You tell yourself everything
is going to be okay as you swivel in your leather recliner,
A ****** dollar bill jammed up your left nostril.

Long, blue rails dotting the wrinkled notebook paper,
used up from the last owner. You
can't stop coughing.

You throw up on your clothes.
And you start to think that
maybe you are ******* up and you can't stop without an intervention.

Then
you start to think,
maybe this is all in my head.

The cold wind nips at your exposed ankles.
Red sores develop on the back of your elbows.
Local pariah is far away from his hometown.

Your favorite Uncle has stage 4 lung cancer,
and you're chain smoking menthols
to ease the edge that splits your brain in half each morning.

What is struggle without the lost—
without the success on the other side of sanity?
You pop prescriptions to ward off the insects gnawing away at your eyeballs.

Gouge your intestines with a straight edged blade bought
from the dollar store.
Ode to Keroauc.

The unholy manuscript written with pen and needle.
Cool story bro.
But you have nothing, but mistakes to offer to this unjust world.

And earth continues to spin on an uneven axis.
When it comes to a point where fiction and nonfiction
        are void of speculation.

           When it comes to the point where reality and dreams coincide
and you begin to stumble
over your shoelaces that are tied.

When it comes to a point where
               your enemies and friends seem the same that is the point
when you attempt to sleep.

But sleep will always allude you, you Danny Art
          So read your poetry aloud to the unsung.
To the sleepless.

The Walkers dressed in rags approach you,
smoking on black and milds, dark rings
circling their eyelids.  

And the time of night which you so longingly search for
in the face of listening to The Dark Knight soundtrack, gives you a pulse, a sudden click that boosts you into peril.

That bloodstain drenching
the corner of your eye sweats profusely. And that's when you start to wonder:
is everything that I'm doing baked in fallacy and witchcraft?

The comedown.
The comedown.
The comedown.

You are the burden of my fellow constituents, lost in reverie,
gone in madness, forlorn from deeds,
that are too great to imagine.

Your tears mean nothing
in comparison
to the world at large.

And that's okay.
And that's okay.
And that's okay.


You begin to discover,
that you do not write poetry,
but you write greeting cards in a journal.

Or a pen and pad,
ink
and blood.

i.
unfiltered asiatic plaything seeks
hypoactive cradle technocrat
evicting meaningful poach,
mendacious transcripts of
past events found in his
memoryless playhouse.
poplar crowd scribbles observations
outbound punch of laughter
sighs to the scrambled, ethnic
postgrad nation.
microfiche telegram exploits
meaning to deeper courtesies
current surrendered upon
entry.

ii.
psychotropic sustenance
fizz thru ***** vein corridor
secret mission lifestyle
learning fast in enormous packs of
tiny lies.
spew logic chagrin mediated
bloodstain; cerebus twitching
outside of beingself.

iii.
heart ceases,
sacred whitepaint moans.
o infidel,
strike thrice; a chord
binding us- nasty, *****
beads bleeding rich.
cloaked bushes tasting,
hisses cured human oaks;
tapered horns that sob,
casting waved heels.

iv.
dawn fallen, only concrete
possible now. separated by
thousands of what is not,
shocks disintricate; undwindling
patriots mailing lessness,
laughter sounds fetching
offband pitch.

Staring at the world
Sitting by the window
watching it pass her by
Sitting by the window
All alone

Her eyes dried red
Forever Incomplete
Regrets left unsaid
She has no retreat

Willingly Given
Forcibly Taken
Pulled Back
to yesterday

Clothes neatly repressed
Easily suppressed
She puts on a new smile
Disguising inflicted vile

Perfect Darling Princess
Daddy's little girl
Alone in her world of shadows
Voices calling out to her in the swirl

Nail Paints
and a Bloodstain Manicure
Cold Faints
feeling so impure

Some wounds
aren't meant to heal
and some scars
are better left unseen

"please!"

There she lays now..
... Forgotten

Darling Abigail
Beauty so broken
Like the promises i made
Holding you against the wall..

Take it away-
Every emotion and strong-will I possess
throw it out the ******* window, as you jump-
wishing your insides would rot in inverse
as you yell back at me to do something-
but you're already falling to your death
and I can't stop the car because its leading me
to my future and I can't stop time
because I'm not ******* god
and I can't take away the hurt though I wish I ******* could.
I. Can't. Do. Anything. Anymore.
It's funny because these words kiss the page
like an abusive uncle that kissed your mother
against her will but you can't tell anyone
because you're trying to keep what's left of your family together-
It's ink, it's permanent and other people have experienced it to
but not like you, oh **** never like you.
So I take what was mine from the ******* start
and hope I can turn something so tragic
into this thing we like to call art, and poetry
but it seems to me I need a ******* lobotomy
because I don't know what to think or feel or do anymore..
All I know is that I had something once,
held it close to my heart like a pistol
and let everyone witness me playing russian roulette with myself
as the clock strikes game over and the gun is fully loaded
they watch as I pull and pull the trigger until I have nothing left
until blood shed is all over the kitchen floor
and you start to wonder how you're ever going to eat there again
But everyone around you is watching in awe
and saying "let me try".
But little do they know the bloodshed is staining those tiles now
and you're having trouble getting back up....
You left a bloodstain on your new t-shirt
and it kind of represents your blatant disregard
and my foolish naivety thinking things would turn out different.
"Maybe this time, I can help"
but as my face hit the floor and my memory left me
I woke up in a cold sweat, shaky and hazy
and I realized this time was different-
I was shaken up for three days after that
not knowing which house was mine to own
not knowing which words I always chose-
my mind blank on a page for the first time
in weeks, and months and days
you subconsciously shook me
paralyzed with fear, I was crushed by the weight.
So I come to the page that has been my pistol
and put that to my chest once again
but everyone thinks this is just a trend
just something we all do for pretend or therapy-
not me, this is somewhere between mourning and the purgatory.
So take it away, I never had it anyway.

I’ll not take your time, beyond what the need,
To relate to you a story and deed
As there’s no one else to plea this decree …
For just I survived, don’t you see.

I’m an old man, with a mind full of mist
But details of that night in my mind still exist
As vivid and clear, both sharp and exact
No, no mist there – all of it’s fact!

When I was young, and adventure routine,
With excitement and newness still unforeseen
I was eager to spread my wings to the world
And seek more adventures as those wings unfurled

Within my long travels I happened to meet
Two other men, with friendships replete
One was named Beckett, the other one Flynn
And better friends there never have been.

Beckett was tall – an athletic type
While Flynn, the scholar, more of pinstripe
Pinstripe or athlete – it mattered not
It was our essence together and that which it wrought.

Engaged were we in all daring do
High on the mountains, and under seas, too,
We crossed dry deserts, and jungles of green
And other adventures there in between.

We’d been together, t’was our sixth year,
And still our adventures made us cohere
To every madness – to every rave …
Until we decided to enter The Cave.

We discussed the encounter and planning for weeks
And assembled equipment – some new, some antiques
Until at last the day it arrived …
And our excitement?  It still there survived.

The map we used, was bought from a guide
Who told my friend, Flynn: “Don’t go inside”
When he had learned of our journey’s intent:
To enter The Cave, and begin our descent.

The guides’ words, had given us pause
We had thought: What was his reason or cause?
But … dismissed were his words of advice
We had each other … and that would suffice.

With ropes and lantern-hats and other such gear
It was into The Cave we then disappeared.
The light from our lanterns speared into the dark
We spoke very little - made no remark.

Onward, downward, in blackness we went
Placing out markers for our later ascent
The sounds of our footsteps, and scraping of walls
Reverberated ‘round us – as echoed recalls

In about six hours, or maybe ‘twas more
We encountered water upon The Cave floor
And there all around were beautiful shapes
Never were seen such gorgeous landscapes

Stalactites, stalagmites and mineral mounds
And dripping water with its’ “plopping” sounds
Pinks, violets and shades of green hues
And small salamanders made their debuts

We found a small dry spot and then we assessed
This was a place we could stop now to rest.
I turned up my lantern, and took off my hat,
When Beckett said: “Hey.  Did you just hear that?”

I moved not a muscle, and my ears went to strain.
All I could hear were the droplets, like rain.
Then from The Cave’s bowels came a loud din
I continued to listen – then heard it again.

We looked at each other, but said not a word
Confused and startled by what we’d just heard
It wasn’t a moan, it wasn’t a gasp
But more rather like a guttural rasp

One thing was certain, it wasn’t of stone
That could create sounds while standing alone
T’was our discussion, from which to derive:
The source of the sound was something … alive.

Then from The Cave’s deepened black hole
Came again sounds from a source with no soul
The sound was menacing, and one I despise,
I watched the fear grow within my friends’ eyes.

Instinctively, we three then moved as one
In that instant – our re-ascent had begun
I had been last in the line coming down
Now I’d be the first to reach the “above-ground”.

Quickly my feet in the lead, lead the way
Flynn, right behind had nothing to say
My friend Beckett, brought up the rear
And in that position had the greatest to fear

The lamp on my hat pierced through the black
And I looked for our markers to lead us back
To save our strength, nothing was said
Again - the loud sound that filled me with dread.

The sound became louder and closer it be
And I moved faster through the black before me
I could hear Flynn’s breathing, so close behind
I tried to concentrate on the markers to find

Somewhere behind me, then snarls I heard
Loud and vicious, run together and blurred
Close … so close … the beast was so near
Adrenalin rushed through me to react to my fear

T’was then I was hit with an overpowering stench
The smell caused my stomach to turn and to wrench
The odor blew past me, and I knew t’was the breath
Of the Beast of The Cave – its’ oder of death.

I was near running, but down on all fours
Sweat was streaming from all of my pores.
Then I heard those terrible screams
The ones I keep hearing in all of my dreams

It was Beckett I knew in his shocked agony
Midst the snarled snapping of jaws I can’t see
I heard bones cracking and squishing of flesh
And the fear within me gave new strength afresh

My fingers were raw from grabbing the rock
But on moving forward my mind had its’ lock
My stomach still queasy from the stench of the beast
I knew it was finishing its’ beastly feast

I knew, too, t’was only a matter of time
When the beast would return - I had to climb!
I heard Flynn say: “IT’S COMING AGAIN!”
Again was a surge of my fear deep within.

I heard once more the beast from behind
And fought the panic taking over my mind
Something heavy struck against The Cave’s walls
The kind of sounds that ghastly appalls:

A scraping of talons of heavy clawed feet
Caused my heart to double its’ beat
I had the feeling that Flynn lagged behind
I screamed my urgings loud and maligned:

“Flynn!  Flynn!  Catch up to me!”
But took not the time to look back and see
For the beasts’ crashing against The Cave’s face
Told me it neared – and was re-gaining the race

My knee hit a rock, and my balance was lost!
I fell to the ground, and then feared the cost
In losing the time in scrambling free
Again sheer panic stabbed into me.

In less than an instant, Flynn was there too,
His face in my light was of a strange hue
And as he helped me get back to my feet …
Flynn turned around – t’was The Beast there to meet.

The stench overwhelming, but the sight was much worse
There standing before us: The beastly curse
Of overlapping scales in shades of dark gray
The rest of its’ body concealed in umbrae

But its’ eyes … its’ eyes … I’ll never forget
Rheumatoid yellow, and deeply inset
Its’ reptilian lids blinked just one time
‘Fore its’ lips peeled back - revealing the slime

Glistening yellow over dagger-like teeth
Then oozed from its’ mouth to fall there beneath.
The beast reared up, then we saw its’ claws
Sharp and deadly within its’ forepaws

Towering above us, no sound the beast made
On beams of our light had his gaze stayed.
Unexpectedly Flynn then turned and faced me
… With less blinding light, the beast could again see

Why Flynn had turned I never will know
For the beast bit him in two, at his torso
And I was looking at Flynn – direct in his face
When the beasts’ bite his life did erase.

I screamed, and instantly away did I run
Away from the beast, and dead companion
Through the price of Flynn’s life, more time had been bought
To reach The Cave’s entrance – the goal that I sought

Running wildly, several times did I fall
Toppling did not my mission forestall
The beast I knew still somewhere behind
Drove me on forward with my frantic mind

I heard its’ clawed talons scraping the wall
And prayed I’d not again stumble and fall
Then, up ahead, a small opening I viewed
And I saw my chance, with hope there exude

Twelve feet … six feet … then it was three
But the beast and its’ stench was there behind me
I dove through the rock opening, scraping my head
But better that injury than ending up dead

I was elated, and about to rejoice
I then heard a scream – it was my own voice!
In my leg erupted intense blinding pain
Looking down I saw the bloodstain

My leg, through the opening, still was stuck out
There was but split-seconds, before I’d lose it no doubt
I pulled my leg back, and in but a flash
My shoe was removed by a clawed talon slash

I crawled back from the opening, then I could see
My wound was deep, from ankle to knee
Then suddenly through the opening came
A clawed talon whose aim was to maim

I quickly withdrew out of its’ reach
As claws shot through the openings’ breech
The opening too small, for continued rampage
And the beast began then to voice its’ outrage

It’s deafening roars assaulted my ears
Echoed Cave chambers and in my mind did adhere
I began attending unto my grave wound
Knowing I now was no longer marooned.

T’was another hour ‘fore I crawled out The Cave
But many days ‘fore I’d shed the shockwave
Of what had transpired, and what I had seen
And my damaged leg was lost to gangrene.

Now sleep evades me, for my horrible dreams
Show beams of light, and unearthly screams
Of Beckett and Flynn and The Cave we were in
I know tonight, I’ll re-live it again.

So, now you’ve the story, you’ve heard the deed
I swear is the truth I’ve herein decreed
And Beckett and Flynn are enslaved in their grave
And I lost my leg to the Beast of The Cave.

I’ve sat with Silence
As she cast silhouettes
Moving in the likes
of Ballerinas across
My hair.

I’ve moved with them too.
That’s how I’ve come
To know their names
Or natures
As such:

1) The one who sold her soul to the Devil
For pennies and a dollar
So her mother could
Come off the
Corner

2) The one who put Fireflies and Rainbows
In mason jars and played make
Believe with running fingers
And a wounded
Moon

3) The one whose only trace of a father is
The bloodstain on the wall like a
Family photo with X’s over
The faces because he
Destroyed more
Than his own
Soul

4) The one who strung sorrow to the ceiling
To play its marionette with dancing
Shadows weeping and frightfully
Abandoned, hiding under
A candle in shameful
Bliss

5) The one who wandered though fields
Of whispering epitaphs that
Made nursery rhymes
From the likes of
Madness

6) The one who locked her heart in
A vault within ashen walls and
Wrote letters to stars that
Wrote it’s not her fault
She’s infinitesimally
Small

I told myself I would never return
To sleep
To dream
To surrender my mind to its own
Devices
Vices.

But here am I, Lord
Swinging with the wind
Under a purple tinged twilight
Making friends with twisted tongues,
and braided hearts slinking through the alley.

I’ve bore my heart like a cross,
Carried it past moratorium
Marching east for west
Until my frantic feet
Cease to move
Me.

Wishing on the stars
"I wish we had another time and space
I know you can't love me here"
Nothing's gonna work between us
But I've already fallen in love with the back of your head

But I was the bloodstain on your shirt
you try to remove

What should I do?
       What should I do?

I got a bad feeling about this.
Will I have to take a step back to take a step forward?
It's all so redundant.
I'm losing all sense of control, things are just spiraling down before my very eyes.
Moving out of the darkness, into the shadows of the past.
Trading one dark place for another.
No place to go.
People are fading away.
There are no simple solutions, just mindless delusions.
Lost in my confusions.
My heart is full of invisible contusions.
You can't see, my pain strapped away inside.
Sometimes I wonder, how many times do I lie?
To speak the truth, I have to say I'm a bit shy.
Though your ears I can't penetrate.
Inside, my heart grows cold and full of hate.
It's all in vain.
I've been lost in this bloodstain.
I just can't get over it.
That loss of life inside me.
This pain, that you refuse to see.
Maybe I'm just acidic, and each day this darkness grows unhindered,
a poison of bitterness and sorrow.
I just can't continue to trust that there is always tomorrow.
I'm vexed and forgotten, left here sullen and rotten.
I'm absolutely terrified that I'm losing myself and this other entity is taking control,
I'm no longer whole.
My soul is no longer my soul.
All I need is you to help me, but in reality you're no longer there.
It's just not fair.
This bleeding heart was mine to share.
But you are no longer there.
Stitch it up in solemn silence.
Alone, I'll find my peace of mind.
Alone, I may grow unkind...
All by myself to myself to find.
I just can't bare to leave you behind.

Splattered like my fractured heart,
Upon the sky like sensual art.
Blood red and dazzling with sequins.
Her dress drags out my desire,
Her lips smoulder the inner hate filled fire.

The sun is her bloodstain,
Drawing from the blues that wane
Her body was her rapture.
In this dirtiest of endeavours,
My pain weathers.

Even in your death people see only you.
Which is a gift to those that hate you.
For your death is easier to cover,
If no one suspects the lover.

SUNDAY
had a go at hating you, first
found it wouldnt quite fit—well
things like this never did suit us
we're really not the right people for it
not those dark-eyed shark-teeth people
who could craft art from the wreckage
of one another: split each others atoms
open, and maybe find beauty
all the way down
i know we're far too ugly for that
and it occurs to me today
that you likely know it too
so again i'll be the fool, will i?
that's alright; i know you'll get your turn
and i know its always good to have
a little mystery left

MONDAY
i found some old pictures of you
private things, badly-lit:
spent two minutes thinking about
how you almost got there that one time
watching my collarbones twist up into my skin
as i shrugged and said "alright—
do what you like";
spent another one
wondering if youve been there since

TUESDAY
look,
i remember it all just fine
dont tell me a single thing
about how much i did
or didnt eat, and dont you dare try to tell me
how you were always a little drunker
than you let on
ive decided i dont give a ****

WEDNESDAY
i saw your latest ex
just last week—thought you should know
they walked fast like someone with nowhere to be
who does not want anyone to see the aimlessness
of their travels
it reminded me of a bird, i think
or a desperate little moth
or a locust
lost in lieu of an swarm
either way: something with wings
and i wondered for a moment
if in the end theyd believed me after all
and then i went back off on my way
just a bit faster than before

THURSDAY
sometimes i think it wouldve been easier
had you just really made me **** myself
i think you couldve come up with
something really beautiful
if you tried
so at least there is that

FRIDAY
theres a bloodstain on the tracks tonight
a little faded, a little old, not quite enough
im waiting for the last train home
turning myself inside-out
with thoughts of you
and suddenly i am hoping
that wherever you are
you are okay
(i lean my head in against the window
and sleep, all the way
and i dream of you)

SATURDAY [1AM]
i wake up shaking
and i miss my stop
and some other things
and i realise on the long walk home
that you liked my writing before you liked me
and i wonder if youd like this
i wonder if youre winning

SATURDAY [1PM]
you wouldnt touch me like this; sickly
and sweaty and small
paying respects to a watery grave
youd love me but you wouldnt touch me
i left you a message in-between waves
just to ask if you meant what you said the last time
i couldnt even quite remember what it was
something slurred that hit me running
like being passed over by a storm
and then i heaved a dozen flecks
of language up into my hands
watching some illusion of coherency
a quiet, collected existence
drip out through my fingers
and didnt care one bit
yes, im quite sure now
youre winning—no
youve won

SUNDAY**
i thought about it and decided
im starting fresh; it is 10am
and i am trying earnestly
to hate you

let's hug forever
under the stars
let our skins morph
until we melt into one

i've cried enough tears
to water this spark
but you chase away
the clouds in my heart

stepping off the last train
you marked me like a bloodstain
laid there in that central park
humming to our midnight lullabies

telling stories from our past
dreaming adventures for the future
with your body heat next to mine
there never was a cloudy night.

Ugh. **** this, man. I’m going outside.

The ragged scrape of rusted nails on gypsum. Footsteps like a mad zombie.

Oh Christ. C’mon, James. It’s dark. There are things out there now.

The footsteps stop. The rustle of an emaciated shoulder inside nylon.

I told you to stop doing that.

Hh-what? What?

The ****** blasphemy. You’re  laughing at me.

No. No I’m not. Listen, you think I care anymore about your ******* religion? You think I give any kind of **** about what you believe in? I’m too… (okay fine you’ve made your point) I care too much about what’s going on inside my own head. I don’t dream good dreams, ma- (okay i’m sorry jesus) I dream about losing my hands. I dream about you losing your hands. You know (****, man, you’re freaking out, calm the) you know what? I don’t think I even saw the bloodstain. I don’t even think the manhole was crusted up with anybody's ******* brains. I don’t think I saw the imbecile trying to eat smoke. I think it’s all in my **** head. I’m juh-hust –

His voice cracks. Guttural gasping sobs.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

A sigh. Rustle of clothes and the heavy thud of muscle against gypsum.

‘S alright.

Sobs that sound like laughter.

It’s alright. Look, see? I won’t go outside. Are there even things out there?

No. I d-don’t think there’s anything.

Okay. Okay.

Choking sigh.

James?

Hm?

We’re not going to Clifftown, are we?

No. No, we’re not.

Fighting my demons in a cage
With this mounting rage
Boiling up throughout my veins.
If I could snap now,
You bet I would.

Learning to live with ancient pains
Scarring my feeble brain
As she soaks in her bloodstain.
If I could snap now,
You bet I would.

Standing out on the edge
Wishing I was dead
As the wind pushes my head.
If I could snap now,
You bet I would.

But my life ain't history
There's still plenty left to see
Like a day when I stand free.
I know I can't snap now,
I've got to see it through.

How the silence greeted her
1-2-3-4-5-alive-next five
We dug deeper get-up
sleepyhead Zzzz
Clock 5:O clock went boom*
Who met her expectation
Oh! Dear feeling deprived
Things exposed
On the Network 5
But not like a **** painting
Dear Boom all your relatives
came in five
Let's save your heart
It goes boom
Didn't come with gifts
to bloom

High expectations realizing
how low your smile five
degree angle
He's the high hands five
mighty spirit
didn't show to really live it
The revelation he had this
clock-wise reaction
Hush hush sweet Charlotte
curved her position
Heirloom she was seated
The pendulum going back and forth

Mr. Fort William Henry
Lake George new birth
  It was all she could say
she looked up at him
Hearing a boom her eyes were his
golden flames soothing piercing
but painful as we know the
war was heartbreaking

She wasn't sure what to
make of the time
He elapsed like the war
within her legs of her flow
Mommy Dearest Heirloom clocks
At her beach house those
charming ducks
She hopes so strongly
she didn’t jump
into his frying pan of words
like trying to read the top of the hour
Her newspaper eating lemon chicken
with capers

  His second-hand clock tick tock
But first, most importantly we
cannot turn the clock
back to undo the harm it caused
But we certainly need new steps
singing in the rain
And relieving our dear ones
  how there stuck
Getting unstuck  but the stick of
the worst Tacky glue
   Dealing with our negativity but keeping
your chin high positive energy
Here it is the song
Day in and Day out how we listened
to it over again

All you do is dig dig dig…
how we conserve energy per unit time
We put our energies into our brains
With the things that don't have
any use for us
Whoa what a dig of nervous love energy
fighting trying so hard to focus on sexuality
Our bird and the bees
Trying to balance our energy
E=MC -2  that mass movement
He booms my speed of light

the truth of things will set us free

Your the one going solo just go
That pounding and higher ground
How I feel like the piece of rare meat
Clank  clink there he goes boom
Another drink
  What's to think my dead nail beat
Strongheart needs attention
to smooth the beats
How he leveled all his baking cups
to show
her she was his equal

What happens to you
when your day begins
Do we have a second to think
Have a  French kiss Vermouth the warm drink
How can we undo something
How everything remains deep in our hearts?
Something touched your hands it spooked
your thoughts having a retouch
being a good sports nothing gets to me
I am not getting  touched by your words me
My dear boom wasn't enough
explosive words
We develop like a wasp of yellow jackets
How does this entire world deal
with such terrorism? Bloodstain pockets

But not having the time
to tell someone
you love them
because your days come to
close to the end
The drummer boy or the
a thousand drums
marching soldiers
like a bomb will succumb
still on his limb

We visualize more what love really is
All the basic pleasures or nightmares
day in and day out like the song continues on
your digging way down to find something
it's huge so major song flat minor to the surface

The game isn’t over were out
of love down to zero
Like time management oxymoron time
beyond like anger management
regardless of our lives
He retreated one arm against the
mantelpiece his eyes surprised
engagement turned clockwork
burnt orange
so irritated beyond a different time
She was expressing her love and pain
moment of time how she couldn’t
gasp for air

The sensation got stronger how
she was being watched making the
right or wrong moves
With an effort, she forced herself to
straighten her body to behave but her
the mind really needed to function
He sensed the last word rock paper
scissor boom of logs into the
stillness of the room
Emboldened she allowed herself
to see the contour of destined time
contours shaped his face

Like the French Emperor Napoleon
power request so many derogatory
stereotypes
The morning mist was lifted by the time
The Robin responsible for the
past and future
how different time became wanting
my time back
Like the Rehma time flow electric
mechanical clock numbers
How the Heirloom perhaps her time
might have been doomed those deep digs
Like the women movement
Ane her deep mind Goddess of  yoga
her terra cotta hacienda
Her name is Gina he was digging her nails
She had the grace of a ballerina
That dear core of our brain
That cozy warm inviting library
Orient train
Digging out our old grandfather clocks
some of the names
Ingram 1828 Ansonia 1850 and Gilbert
rocking pendulum newton equation
of physics how were fighting for time
and space getting into the light
How someone is born with the
proverbial silver spoon those compounding
assets of his time clock heirloom faces
To dig relive to hug a dear moment
just goes boom
But I will never change my old room

So generous, thou, in reticence,
To caste my cares adrift,
Wondrous diffidence displayed
In judging, now, this slight wind shift.
That tender touched acidity
In holding back thy scything hand,
But a lancing of my sentiments
Despite concessions planned.

Bloodstain on the balcony
Grey torment in the mind
To miss the symptoms here, my friend,
Those blue eye's would be blind,
To wade in waters visceral
Whilst smiling to the face
Suggests a mind incapable
Of compassion's gentle pace.

Let waters flow beneath the bridge
Let time caress the soul,
Let detail's mass minutiae
Bury ruffled thoughts of old
But recall the blatant treachery,
Keep keen that secret blade
To exercise your perogative to
Put right the ****** wrongs made.

Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
22 May 2010

If every human awoke each day,

Believing that they would walk on the moon
By evening tide,
That gods would walk in their footprints
By evening tide,
Saw them self as poet-omnipotent, a creator, a namer,
By evening tide,
Slowed their breathing, their seeing, time in seconds,
By evening tide,
Knowing seconds as days, hours as months, all
By evening tide,
Trained from birth to modify our each action without the word I
Then,
By evening tide,
Would we not

stand straighter, walk more slowly,
see with the clarity of perfect perspective,
know the joy of things, large and small,
remove pride from our nuclei,
jaundice from our eyes,
anger from fists,

and never capitalize an Idea as greater than,
for there is none larger or smaller than human,
then, we could remove the word
bloodstain
from our dictionaries.

and naive, as well.

They found you in the night

dressed in bloodstain

swathed in gauze, cotton, taffeta

a white shelter

doused with brown, pink

the hues of our veins.

I never forgave him.

You thought you knew me
                                                     But you didn't think right this time
                                                I was all you ever wanted
                                           But I'm not at all right this time
                                      My words have been twisted
                                 My lines burned into lies
                             I should have guessed it
                          I'm just a ******* fly
                      On her narrow chest
                   Her breath, oh yes it was haunting
               My chest oh **** it, i'm lying
           Again, again, again
      This is my life
  This is how I am
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Can you get stuck somewhere else
      Will I ever die, alone like the rest
           Like the others, the ones I've ****** so bad

Oh good for me!
Good for you, so good for my death
Live for the worst, long for the best

                                                           ­                                                                 ­                    Can't reach it yet

I avoid your crowd
You **** me dry

A slippery *****
A fake hill
A plastic baseball bat

                                                            ­                                                                 ­                                 I'm a liar

You're nothing to me
I'm a flickering flame
Your last call to a dying name

No friend to call
No name to scratch on the wall

                                                           ­ If I could just feel the skin
                                                            ­The sun and the breeze
                                                          ­  The last words you'll ever send
       To me opening my chest again

                                       I can't repeat another word

      -The speech has left me;
               my face has met the curb-


Bloodstain
Good thing. . .


                                                             ­                                       I                         G
                                                               ­                                       Left                
                                                                ­                                          You
                   ­                                                                 ­                I                         O
                                                               ­                                       Told
                                                           ­                                               You
              ­                                                                 ­                     I                         O
                                                               ­                                       Was
                      ­                                                                 ­                   No
                                                                ­                                                              D

and let's be frank (the radio said)
you'll have to know when to skip dinner
and tell your kids to do the same

and you'll have to know (the radio said)
when a bloodstain is a leaking statue
and when it's just a needed leaching

and don't forget (the radio said)
when to export your sins
when to import others
and when to hide them behind stained glass
good for a few decades, sleet proof

and coming up (the radio said)
the new kind of drama that-CLICK-

You who are silent
You who once tended this garden
You who left once winter closed its teeth

I am sorry for the way
        I missed all your clues
They were subtle
        And I was too busy trying
        To untangle the bird cage
        In my chest
I only wanted to learn how to sing again

We were poor students
        But I have studied
        The trajectory
Of the bullet that broke us
Like a ghost haunting its own bloodstain

We could never negotiate
        Or way thought  the burning
        And the rubble
This ***** gift you left me with
That I hate to unwrap
But cannot help these anxious hands

        You who are silent
You who broke away
You who never learned to bury your
Caskets
I cannot fault you for this
I had hoped that
You would be better
Then the girl who forgot how to love me
But you were the same shape as your shadow

You who are broken
You who sung always in silhouette
        You who are silent

Sometimes on the quietest nights
        I suspect I hear
Your tremble dream
        Damming me for opening
That door you had locked so tight

But
You who took my keys
You who boarded up your spine
        Your who are silent

Someone will have to sing
For the both of us
And we can walk away
        Alone again
        Silent