i leaned to smoke
from film noir
the gritty grey frames
i first saw in cloudy rooms
completely antithetical to the vibrant blockbusters
from my childhood

if i can afford it
i still buy a non-filtered soft-pack
and puff them
three puffs just before
anything is inhaled
mostly for effect
drama

but when i cant
i just think of bogart
tear the filter off
and proceed

but it was never
so much about the act
drawing in a cloud
of overly-processed plant matter
but about the etiquette

if you have ever burned down
something without cotton
you know it is certainly a messy ordeal
but what hepburn and tracy taught
what grant and cagney spoke
with their actions of course
is that there is a reason to this madness

i practice
and i try to teach
that this is an elegant process

while taking in a deep breath
of something
you arent encouraged to love
without any health benefits
simply out of a base habit
some of that shit is going to get in your mouth

it may taste bitter too,
depending on how your buds are aligned,
but grow up
you cant keep just spitting where
other people will soon walk

they never did that
my heroes
instead
they stuck out
the tip of their tongue
pursed their lips
as the face made by
a baby on a commuter rail
staring at you
and you echo back
with a tiny poke
of your front 10000 buds
mostly for spectacle

and when that teensy bit emerges
within or without the train
you have to gently pick
with the forefinger and the thumb
the infinitesimal bits
resting at the tip
pluck them away
rub those two finger together
and pretend
that youre only smoking

and
if you arent looking closely enough
ill tell you
things are turning back into grey
and you turn RIGHT back into
the misogynist you hated
but emulated

youre still smoking though
handing out smokes in fact

holding up "the walls of jericho"
laughing at those
who dont know how
to fold a sheet

oh. but i pledge to quit
and you to change
and us to bond
and my smokes to wain

this isnt about the filter-less
that i had at 3am
its about what i commit
and what you
can respond with
how this can work
and the etiquette necessary

let me
let me
pick the fleck from the tip
of the teasing tongue
just for you
and you tell me
when i have something
in the place that
used to be my mustache

The little bird landed,
the little tan, brown feathers, and
feet hopped, and beaked head, pecked at specks,
under the outdoor chairs.

I spied with my eye,
the carefree chickadee bird dance,
it may have pranced, while it found food to feed,
outside my window seat.

My chickadee friend would,
move from fleck to chunk, head
turning, quickly with spunk and flit if need be
to find safety, outside the coffee shoppe.

The flock would leave this harvest,
in front of me to the tree branches not too far  
from the cars and coffee drinkers, who smoked and
ate the pastries and the breads, crumbs dropped here
and everywhere, just payment for the dance.

In the dim, I fumble for a spark
A fleck, a flame
But there is no light as luminous
Not here

Fondly, I relive the glower of orange
The flash of gorgeous, burning whites
The balminess as I am against it

If only you could see my smile in the dull of this haze
As I warm myself with these thoughts
Distant is your bellicose light
The light I left burning

Minnows suck the throb out of my eyelids
where I jumped in the great pond and was filled with brine
each fleck, a pebble for them to slurp like soup.

I will remember this moment by the clothes I wore
take it out on yellow ruffles, navy strata  
hung attractively on metal shelves but would faint if I were
to wear either once again. The accessories were similar.
Had a fish unbuttoned my blouse he would see
buttons where another female’s nipples would coarsen.

All I had meant to do was water a plant, feed the fish
but their container had grown wool:
I must dive in! It is better to drown than consult a quiet god.
Upon arrival, I realized that this was like entering
another species’ bloodstream. The waves sway your torso.

No wonder these blankets have become pink.
Behind is a freshwater sea, accustomed to the float but not
the dreaded sting. I have even drowned a few times:
I shall curse the flounder who resuscitates me at bottom.

call me a wimp and you will be a wreck
you stupid lad who tells tales out of school
just say the word i'll break your fucking neck

you seemed to think that nobody would check
the things you said that everything was cool
call me a wimp and you will be a wreck

you'll be destroyed naught left no single speck
and all they'll note is you were one more tool
just say the word i'll break your fucking neck

don't think i won't don't think i give a heck
for who you are or all the lies you drool
call me a wimp and you will be a wreck

so now you're silent now you hit the deck
full up with fear you've figured out the rule
just say the word i'll break your fucking neck

you have to understand that not a fleck
of pity will you get since you're the fool
call me a wimp and you will be a wreck
just say the word i'll break your fucking neck

Friends of Friends

A cup of ocean, steaming like an elixir-
boiling empty water like a primordial sauna.
We drink to the thought of a flawed philosophy.
Cheers.
Cuttting all the corners as we skate around our grey garden.

We are friends. We are the friends of friends. We drink thoughts, slurp insight-
trip on _ to Plotinus, dig to Polycarp, copulate
in the stretched shadow of a specter, a long
skeleton Marxist,
beard coated in Ketchup-
Butcher entrails. Fuck the saintly each other.
Never stop. Ingesting. Breathing in. Spitting out.
Friendly manifestos, heartfelt wine grinning slipping spitting
blood forever-

You’re a fat cherub. Coated, winking, grinning, sleeping, shitting-
you are not special.

On the average day,
Laziness takes a grip and forces you back into the bed.
The blankets have a magnetic pull-
Head pounds. Throbbing like a siren, in and out.
You are-
You’re slushy, like a spring day. Lethargic. Sleepy. Reading.

The day soon transforms-
the restless night comes catcalling-
The slurred voice, indiscernible- indescribable
an existing ode, folklore describing the lonely confines of an empty savior.

Not a hymn, but a dirge. A lonely gysm.
A struggling complex-
a grimy,  violated existence of crust. A damp home, a purlieu,
a place to occupy, a dug tunnel dug bed-rest, burrowing in filth like a worm-

Eyelids drooping. Socks wet. Keep them on-
you’ll get sick, but that’s alright.
Bled out from the scrapes and cuts.
Doing nothing ever ever sure does drain the life outta you.

There’s a little stick in your finger where a pin pushed through.
Bood peeked out like little specks,
like crimson blotchy roses- you smeared, painted
the front of an empty milk carton,
turning the white cardboard
red.
It’ll get infected. You should- no, you won’t, because-
you are a tiny splinter. An infection. A tapeworm.
Eating, feeding, relentless, biting-
the cold draining storm. The white fleck
landing on a bushy eyebrow and sticking-
drinking. For the warmth. For the cold. For the love of nothing,
Whiskey. Vodka. Sprite, Sprite and Whiskey, Sprite and Vodka, Salt Lime And Tequila, Gin Tonic Rum Coke, endless libations to only gods you know-
an existence, expansive in scope,
covers the snatch of every friend of friend, every sick sad joke-
acquaintance, take it- cadence, leave it-

call a cab with a friend
or a friend of a friend on a lonesome morning,
stumble and fall and vomit perhaps.
Stick the head in the endless ass and
call the bray of the donkey an orgasmic shrill.
It's not a fib. It's not a lie.
It's an exaggeration.
Blast the mix-tape-
Dig to Hobbes- shuffle out the door while
some Neoplatonist bullshit you feign to
understand loops around twists stabs maliciously inside
the skull of the your own Neanderthal
head-

I liked you more than most things
More than my friends
More than my piano.

I hated you more than most things
More than judgements
More than a narcissist.

I lusted you more than most things
More than alcohol
More than that other guy.

But you treated me like most things
Like a childhood crush
Like an awkward stranger

And now you blame me
You blame me for our downfall
You blame me
You blame me for it all

Like it was my fault,
none of yours.
Like I was just another fleck of sand
washed up on the shores.

And I liked you more than most things
But none of it ever mattered.
None it sparked a flame in my heart.

once a long time back
i planted into sky's soil
a small fleck of hope,
a fading wish of luck

since then i've been
looking among the stars
for some sign of the lost
seed of my tender dream

once someone told me
that plant blossomed
while i was asleep
in some deep slumber

by the time i woke up
it had withered away
sending its bright colors
down to the earth

riding on sun rays
those colors broke
through the window
onto someone's face

and since then,
i have been searching
for that smile that has luck
preserved in its curve

i am looking for the eyes
that have my soul shining
floating in retinal divide
like diamonds cut in elegance

i am waiting for the voice
that has my keen whispers
touching the roots of spine
like enchanted chilling wind

days pass by in stupor
invisibility playing at me
time and again .

I lost it all where I used to live
My hands are tempting but empty
I heard man pulls from the unseen
Anchoring ideas
to acts to models to be.

Is this all that I am?
A speck on a fleck of a single grain of sand?
Is this all I can be, baby
A shadow on wall
A Form out in the fog?

pave me a new road, foreshadowing
and write down your yesterdays before they begin
all these tensions will kill us someday
in whispers that shiver and bring down kings
when will my poetry be more than just words,
and domino songs be felt and not heard?
pavilions of poetry
we're lost on pause with our clothes in their graves
spinning, and how we've lost count of our
futile accounts on the world we fail
to yet understand.
our fingers grow with the grass, it took my whole life
to feel it, but all my courage still amounts to a
fleck of melting snow, and I can't comprehend the way
your hands felt and how it happened
to me.