there are so many places to hide,

in my home at 17th and South screaming death threats at my roommates laughing diabolically playing  videogames and Jeopardy cooking quinoa stretching canvas the dog going mad frothing lunging  spastic to get the monkeys or the wookies or whatever random commandments we issue forth  drunken while Schlock rampages the backdrop,

at my uncle's row house on 22nd and Wallace with my shoes off freezing skipping class to watch March  Madness unwrapping waxpaper hoagies grimacing with each sip of Cherrywine or creamsicle  soda reading chapters at my leisure,

in the stacks among fiberglass and eternal florescent lima-tiled and echo-prone red-eyed and white-faced  caked with asbestos and headphones exhuming ossified pages from layers of cosmic dust  presiding benevolent,

in University City disguised in nothing but a name infiltrating Penn club soccer getting caught after  scoring yet still invited to the pure ***** joy of hell and heaven house parties of ice luge jungle  juice kegstand coke politic networking,

at Drexel's nightlit astroturf with the Jamaicans rolling blunts on the sidelines playing soccer floating in  slo-mo through billows of purple till the early morning or basketball at Penn against goggle- eyed professors in kneepads and copious sweat,

in the shadow tunnels behind Franklin Field always late night loner overlooking rust belt rails abandoned  to an absent tempo till tomorrow never looking behind me in the fear that someone is there,

at Phillies Stadium on glorious summer Tuesdays for dollar dog night laden with algebra geometry and  physics purposely forgetting to apply ballistics to the majestic arc of a home run or in the frozen  subway steam selling F.U. T.O. t-shirts to Eagles fans gnashing when the Cowboys come to town,

at 17th and Sansom in the morning bounding from Little Pete's scrambled eggs toast and black coffee  studying in the Spring thinking All is Full of Love in my ears leaving fog pollen footprints on the  smoking cement blooming,

at the Shambhala Center with dharma lotus dripping from heels soaking rosewater insides thrumming to the  groan of meditation,

at the Art Museum Greco-fleshed and ponderous counting tourists running the Rocky steps staring into shoji screen tatame teahouses,

at the Lebanese place plunked boldly in Reading Terminal Market buying hummus bumping past the Polish  and Irish on my way to the Amish with their wheelwagons packed with pretzels and honey and  chocolate and tea,

at the motheaten thrift store on North Broad buried under sad accumulations of ramshackle clothing  clowning ridiculous in the dim squinting at coathangers through magnifying glasses and mudflat  leather hoping to salvage something insane,

in the brown catacombed warrens of gutted Subterranea trying unsuccessfully to ignore bearded medicine

men adorned with shaman shell necklaces hawking incense bootlegs and broken Zippos halting conversation to listen pensive to the displacement of air after each train hurtles by,

at 30th Street Station cathedral sitting dwarfed by columns Herculean in their ascent and golden light  thunderclap whirligig wings on high circling the luminous waiting sprawled nascent on stringwood pews,

at the Masonic Temple next to City Hall, pretending to be a tourist all the while hoping scouring for clues in the cryptic grand architect apocrypha to expose global conspiracies,

at the Trocadero Electric Factory TLA Khyber Unitarian Church dungeon breaking my neck to basso  perfecto glitch kick drums with a giant's foot stampeding breakbeat holographic mind-boggled  hole-in-the-skull intonations,

at the Medusa Lounge Tritone Bob and Barbara's Silk City et cetera with a pitcher a pounder of Pabst and a  shot of Jim Beam glowing in the dark at the foosball table disco ball bopstepping to hip hop and  jazz and accordions and piano and vinyl,

in gray Fishtown at Gino's recording rap holding pizza debates on the ethics of sampling anything by  David Axelrod rattling tambourines and smiles at the Russian shopgirl downstairs still chained to  soul record crackles of antiquity spiraling from windows above,

at Sam Doom's on 12th and Spring Garden crafting friendship in greenhouse egg crate foam closets  breaking to scrutinize cinema and celebrate Thanksgiving blessed by holy chef Kronick,

in the company of Emily all over or in Kohn's Antiques salvaging for consanguinity and quirky heirlooms  discussing mortality and cancer and celestial funk chord blues as a cosmological constant and  communism and Cuba over mango brown rice plantains baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,

in a Coca Cola truck riding shotgun hot as hell hungover below the raging Kensington El at 6 AM nodding soft to the teamsters' curses the snagglesouled destitute crawling forth poisoned from sheet-metal shanty cardboard box projects this is not desolate,

at the impound lot yet again accusing tow trucks of false pretext paying up sheepish swearing I'll have my  revenge,

in the afterhour streets practicing trashcan kung fu and cinder block shotput shouting sauvage operatic at  tattooed bike messenger tribesmen pitstopped at the food trucks,

in the embrace of those I don't love the names sometimes rush at me drowned and I pray to myself for  asylum,

in the ciphers I host always at least 8 emcee lyric clerics summoning elemental until every pore ruptures  and their eyes erupt furious forever the profound voice of dreadlocked Will still haunting stray  bullet shuffles six years later,

in the caldera of Center City with everyone craning our skulls skyward past the stepped skyscrapers  beaming ear-to-ear welcoming acid sun rain melting maddeningly to reconstitute as concrete  rubber steel glass glowing nymphs,

in Philadelphia where every angle is accounted for and every megawatt careers into every throbbing wall where  Art is a mirror universe for every event ever volleyed through the neurons of History,

in Philadelphia of so many places to hide I am altogether as a funnel cloud frenetic roiling imbuing every corner sanctum sanctorum with jackhammer electromagnetism quivering current realizing stupefied I have failed so utterly wonderful human for in seeking to hide I have found

in Philadelphia

1302

I think that the Root of the Wind is Water—
It would not sound so deep
Were it a Firmamental Product—
Airs no Oceans keep—
Mediterranean intonations—
To a Current’s Ear—
There is a maritime conviction
In the Atmosphere—

If any duck in any brook,
Fluttering the water
For your crumb,
Seemed the helpless daughter

Of a mother
Regretful that she bore her;
Or of another,
Barren, and longing for her;

What of the dove,
Or thrush, or any singing mysteries?
What of the trees
And intonations of the trees?

What of the night
That lights and dims the stars?
Do you know, Hans Christian,
Now that you see the night?

There was sunshine coming off of her
Blues and cream dripping from her lips down the crease of her smile
Pooling in the corners of those cheeks
Neon and tangible
The warmth irradiating from the swirls of her fingers
Southern hues
Her intonations dancing between the half moons between her index and middle fingers
Her skin shines
Mississippi mud runs clear over the rivers that dance beneath her collarbone
You can hear it flutter with the clouds
Her heartbeat
It stills the fields she runs through
There was sunshine coming off of her
Whispering strawberry sweetness
Tingeing the souls we carry on our feet.

redefining awkward definiens
endorsing victorious evening
clamoring hawk-like intonations
conjecturing additional goals
optimizing ambient network
winning illinoisan night

trapping hacked-up events
warping æsthetic remnants
resuming inaudible overture
rallying auric-state net-work
defying anti-punk technophobia
eliminating cavalier homies!

minding icelandic anniversary
winging ersatz excuses
kicking ecstatic nerves
denying lackadaisical event
questioning upper echelons
brûlant en calice

pull back the thin veneer
of pretense that obfuscates
this holiday season
profuse excuses of joy and peace
are hollow and brittle and leave
bitter proof of our lackluster compassion

expose the specter
of greed
dormant in capitalism
vestiges of a dying culture
the refuse of an apathetic
American people numb
to the trauma inflicted
by megalomaniacal leaders
consent given implicitly
in the complacency of obedient conformity

will we refuse to acknowledge
the stains on our hands this Christmas
red liquid misting our faces
bloodlust and endless war
there’s no
rhyme or reason
to these
sycophantic intonations
deafening these words of treason
in vain attempts to assuage guilt
with endless iterations
of false hopes and puny gods in
brainless trying to defy reality

we belie our true intentions
our self-serving obsessions
and inane consumption
hazes of the mundane  
in suburban graves

if the greatest gift is giving itself
we won’t find solace in the holy temples
of strip malls shopping centers
and corporate retail palaces
a Friday as black as our fractured hearts
witness the death of humanity
choking out all we were
grateful for the day before

what you used to do with those fingers
i look for them in pictures
and wonder if it's you sitting in the background
is it you behind the jenga tower
is it you behind that camera lens
yes, I used to say your name in
many intonations, many lungfuls not wasted
but they are wasted now, every time
is it you behind those blocks in that
black sweater, yes I remember you
from so long ago when
you used to say
i love you brooke

So, speak of infinite love and
roll your umber eyes. It goes so
well with the way you roll your r's,
as you teach me your Castilian
intonations. Just don't fall
in that category of immersed lost
Latin loves, of mine, sunk in
wet memory.

Ah, the murk of them, an amalgam.

Each giving to a melting ***,
and me, a liquid molten fraction
of strange tensile strength
and half gold-like luster. An alloy
of allies, do I see them as? Why,
yes, of course.

Now you come. Please stand out
from the mix. Show me your
purity.

Be solid gold.

I know you like my pronunciation.
I need to know now, yours.
Mi Amor

We are apart, and yet when your voice sounds on the telephone, we are not. In those opening seconds a play of inflections and intonations remind each other of this bond between us. As our words fan out across the mostly inconsequential things of a day past or, if it is early morning, a day to come, that binding loosens and we divest ourselves: to feel comfortable. It is so often difficult, but last night, as I stood between the reed beds beneath Constable’s great skies and you sat with our son on his birthday, there was a kind graciousness between us – and I hold it to me now. After our goodbyes I stopped and thought of this birthdate, of this boy of ours, then years past. I see a photo. The candled cake lit and he is leaning over the table about to blow to secure his wish. There I am, my face wind-burnished from a fortnight of walking the cliffs, daily throwing my ideas from the heights to soar like gliders, and returning safely to be launched and soar again, and higher or for longer. Just now I am holding the past dear, and my days are threaded through with memories of the onset of autumn. I dream of an autumn time free from the beginnings of things that one day we might share together; to go out to pick blackberries and return to our small home, and as we drink tea, watch the late afternoon light flicker and flow through the trees to pattern the carpet at our feet.

Last night
as I sat in
the ancient temple
atop the mountain,
my people surrounding
           me, generations
upon generations,
  voices ascending
       in the wispy and
            earthbound solidarity
                 of ancient prayers,
I felt the words
               rise up
around me, protecting, loving
their intonations
           tingling inside
the doorways
         of my brain
expanding the limits
through glass
and sacred ceilings,
       up unto the stars
celestial understandings
pushing through
my crumbling
walls to break
through barriers
         from the thickness
of night
reaching out
      into purity, a beckoning
             of light
and the words, the singsong tones
passed down from the ancients    
like candlelit incantations
         grew soft, invisible wings    
             that touched my cheek
                   the silky presence of
               the grounded power            
             of my ancestors
welling up in the
         dark caverns within
and as we sang
of new beginnings
         and listened with one heart
to the call of the shofar,
        that ram's horn of blessings,
                            my knotted
loops of longing
resonated in musical notes
strands of the primordial
               in the deep forest
echoes
             of my being
linking my soul's cry
to all the people
           of my book
in a long swirling line
              down to the river,
the desert, the oceans
a tight braided chord
of solidarity, of lineage, of blood
the flesh and bones of heritage
pumping crimson freedom
Yes,
somewhere,
          in even the most
                broken chords
                   of heartstrings
                tiny wings
beat                    
        hope

Viscous mellifluous intonations resonate from mountain air.
Lingering in hollows of departed sapling trunks flounced by gravid creek
Lain to rest - stone protrusions nestling expurgated heartwood

A crowded café, bustling, boisterous, filled with jocular
talk and the ardent gossip of young men and women,
a salesman’s smarmy sincerity, and the deft, placid
intonations of desire over two cappuccinos with skim milk,

and she is there, in the corner, against the brick wall, sipping
unadorned Earl Grey, and then a zoom focus, her presence
enhanced, the room falls away, and the chatter quiets into a
cushioning white noise, background to the film he has constructed,

and with the leads filled, the location set, the supporting cast in place,
now, the script.

I

If only the world's most brilliant of scientists
could somehow capture the manner the pen glides
on the paper guided by the motion of your hand;
and put that method on sale;
she'd trade all the love poems she'd ever
written in your memory, in ink and in blood, on paper,
on water, on dusty table-tops, on fogged windshields...
to hold her pen your way and for once,
sign your name against hers.

II

If only the world's most masterful of painters
could somehow capture that same glint
that sparked in your eye the innumerable times
you played a successful prank on her;
and put that painting on sale;
she'd trade all the dreams she'd ever seen, sleeping and
waking, of the future, of the past, as a child, a teen,
of the utmost improbable, of the nearly possible...
to look straight into that glint and for once,
be outshone by your mischievous radiance.

III

If only the world's most dexterous of engineers
could somehow capture the intonations in your voice
when you sung out loud the songs on your mind,
while your conscious brain was occupied elsewhere...;
and put that audio file on sale;
she'd trade all the sounds that ever fell upon her ear -
from her mother's lullabies to her first uttered words,
the music of heartbeat to the pattering of rain,
the rustle of leaves to the soft beating
of sunlight against walls and windows...
to fill the void with your voice and for once,
not know any sound in the world, but yours.

IV

If only the world's most evocative of writers
could somehow capture the deluge of emotions
that ran through her being when she was
going head over heals for you -
the first hug to the first kiss, the holding of
doubtful hands to the perfectly interlocked fingers,
the rendezvous in the coffee shop to the  first dinner
together, to the evening spent in a Lovely restaurant,
and the big-time quarrel on a rainy day;
and put that experience on sale;
she'd trade all her learning - the alphabet, the bachelor's degree,
the wisdom of past relationships; the stepping stones to success;
the laws of Newton, Heisenberg's Principle,
the 4 Ps of Marketing, Black-Scholes and Black-Holes;
to go through it all over again, and for once,
end her life by the breath-taking emotion called LOVE.

Intonations of
Enigmatic incantations
Gouged out our senses
The monomaniacal devotion
To your thirst for malevolence
Has betrayed us all.

the trees whisper
rustling, gilded intonations-
spilling secrets like honey
into the productive blue sky.
sunlight lurches through the trees
and cracks my foolish skull,
sending all of the thoughts
I had left alone in there
spilling over the golden
dappled forest floor.

you seep into my periphery,
delicate and half formed
amongst the moss and the earthworms.
I smile at the exoskeletons of
decaying memories;
crawl, crustacean-like,
sifting for something more tender-

dredging up phantom images
that flutter lazily across my eyelashes
and come to rest in greedy palms.
breathless mirth
and incorrigible melancholy
commingle in your shadow
and hold me fast.

you and I live and breathe
in the same stratosphere
and I don't quite know how
to let it go.

I miss you, and the words
twist around my fingers
like a rosary, pausing
at the accidental stutter
of my naked heart.

this desperate fleeing will come to naught
these poems the last mutterings of madness
the last paper to take flight in the cold black and white photograph of morning
her smile dripped with fetish
but the strong fingers of her words
worked at the lid of my mind
prying lose the harbored fears
and delving into the sweet meat

her own self portrait
is languid and driven with heat
curved back with intonations of lust
but benith its lurid covers
one percives the desperate clawing fingers
and ever hungered never sated eyes

my own photograph
lay out on the floor
stained with age
and torn along the edges
but benith its neat posed glib humor
one percives the
small room ages ago
where hope still endured
that room now vacant

i go
probably to my demise
a last black and white photograph
cast careless from the aperture
of a childhood's camera

everything we thought we'd be
never amounted to enough
everything i though she would be
was just as barren
as my lurid dreams

I like hearing my own voice.

I like its rich tone and sultry air.
Some people called it a little husky for a woman's
but squeaky voices
make people cringe.
I love the feeling of beautiful words rolling off my tongue,
creating intonations that are completely and uniquely
my own,
and re-rehearsing my free verse
so it sounds absolutely perfect
to me.

Yes,
I love hearing my own voice.
I find the greatest joy in listening to my own discourse.
But, sometimes I don't because my voice can also be my
worst enemy.

From a young age,
discrepancies arose in in my communication.
Repetition, prrrrrooooolongation, and ab-   normal stoppages
plagued my speech.
Even with hours of therapy and annunciation drills,
I still couldn't escape
from choking
on my own words.

A quiet child wants nothing more than to demand attention
by speaking boldly.
A voice w-w-worth listening to that is eager to share
hides behind the fear
of stumbling on
little t-teeny letters.
And children are the cruelest of beings.
Their critique on anything abnormal
leaves deep scars.

I wanted to read out loud in class,
be an actress, a poet.
Maybe it's because I love the sound of my own voice,
but with all of these activities revolving around it,
it is laborious to have a
stutter.

letters sit
in order,
line by line
at attention,
waiting for
thoughful reading.
a road,
of sorts,
to redemption
sitting, mulling
ruminating on
scripted worth.
engaged in
conveying thought,
from mind
to page,
to mind
again cyclical,
periodic conversely,
intermittent reoccurrences.

alone most,
are little
strokes of
graphite or
ink calligraphy,
mutterings of
little intonations,
phonectic sonances,
utterings, begetting
for their,
episodic isolation,
mumbo, jumbo,
gibberish as
birthing rooms
but together
ordered, united,
babble becomes
lucent, lucid
oratory of
inordanate worth.

I speak to you in riddles
A mismatch of half formed inflections and watered down complimentary words
I constantly tailor my speech to try and fix the places you need patched
Attempting stitches to fix the pools of pain lingering in the spaces between the freckles spanning your back,
My fingers try to touch them away but my hands cant block the bruising spread beneath the plane of your skin.

You’ve become one of those heartbeats I have to keep my eye on for fear it will scatter down the screen and never return,
Your clothes are brightly colored, meant to weather the wind, but on your thin frame they trap you like wetted wool
Making it impossible for you to leave the form you possessed in the past.


I try different types of talking these days
Leaving maps for you to find the thinly veiled meaning behind the paper kisses
And the gold-leafed print floating inside the swirls of my lips
The pads of my fingers try to score your jaw with reminders
That the only thing hollow is the space between your neck and your chest
And the words I whisper into your void is heavy with inflected subtext.

I want to place your quilting back around your heart,
Make your veins more insular to keep the warmth inside that instead trickles out through your hands and feet that never feel the sun,
Your body temperature is constant and chills my intonations,
I can’t give what you won’t take and every day its 20 degrees.

I hope that in your desperation to forget the words you will better remember their meanings.

Let me say it simply
Because the lowest common denominator
Will fail to comprehend
The loqaucious intonations of a verbose paramour trapped in Tartarus

So simply said
I want the world
And everyone on it
To understand

I only want to love
And it causes me such pain

The phone rings,
Or rather vibrates,
As I stir my instant coffee
Because my Keurig is broken
And I haven’t gotten around to replacing it.
The lady on the other end
Of the call
Says she’s with the bank.
She’s selling identity theft protection subscriptions.
I listen to her
Explain
What that is
With mild excitement growing in my stomach;
Not with regards to the
Subscription,
But over the
Tones and intonations —
The way she breathes:
Softly,
Warmly,
Unconsciously.
I let her run with it,
Feigning curiosity at first.
A question here,
There,
To really get her going.
I wonder when she was last ******?
She asks to verify my name,
Address.
She mentions a credit score package
(Ooh la la)
That will provide me with insight as to whether my identity has ever been
Stolen.
(This call
Is getting steamy)
She tells me that in order to receive the package I need to confirm my enrolment in the subscription.
‘What?
Could you repeat that?’
I can feel it
Tickling,
Licking,
My soul,
As I sip my ****** instant coffee.
I tell her
That I absolutely won’t enrol,
That I refuse,
But that she should be a voice actor
Or that if she was a voice option for Siri
I would surely select her.
She doesn’t have a response,
Choosing to wish me a good evening instead,
And to thank me on behalf of her employer.
‘No,
Thank you dear.
Call this number whenever you like.
I don’t want your talents to go unappreciated by other customers
Who I’m sure are all swines.’
Click.
I stare at the ended call
And fantasize about your voice,
And when you were last ******.
Too bad the coffee is ****.

the fall
that's all i remember
a sudden shove
and after the initial shock registered
all i felt was my arms and legs
cartwheeling
trying to find purchase on a surface that was not really there
and then



and then this
not really sure how to describe it
oh, people have tried
for millenia
the feeling
that everything's a dream
everything's an illusion
a fake
and it is because of this feeling
that i am certain
everything is deadly
and real
and it won't go away

the fall

when they run out of questions,
they generally revert back to one single phrase
worded differently
with different intonations and in different accents
did it hurt
was it painful
did you feel betrayed

i didn't feel anything
i couldn't feel anything
because nothing was real

don't they teach you kids this stuff?
this is important, right?
why don't you know this?

everything stops, at one point or another
everything ends, and then begins

cycles repeat
and repeat
and repeat

and i wait

of course i felt betrayed


...



i'm only human...

the people around me
forget
after a while

everything

i tell them things
and they forget

they tell themselves things
and they forget

the city
bustling
movement without abandon
no-one has tried to restrict them in years
and they celebrate it

by restricting themselves

so i wait

it has been such a long time now

it has been seconds

it has been decades

it has been an eternity

and i wait

Ticking clocks
And marching ants
Alligator skin
Crocodile tears
And wings of angels
Different angles
Many alleys
All my allies
Lay down their arms
At my command

If only forever
Satin skin and living pleasure
These words you speak
Intonations said by me
If I find a way

Lost hours
My way in days
Turtle dove
Carrier pigeon
Battleship
And submarines
Submereged in color
Aquamarine
Sight unseen
Is my belief

And if only light will shine
Bright enough to make me blind
I'll find my way by feeling

I feel you
You are the language written on my soul

The rain pattering upon the window panes would drown out the screaming.
The nightmares that you put into my brain, gave my life meaning.
I could see through eyes that weren't mine,
into lives that were far from sublime.

Their tears were like a treat, a bitter chocolate that made my heart flutter...
Because what you shared with me, was a feeling unlike any other.
Their remarkable sadness, I felt as my own.
Had I not felt what you'd forced me to feel, there is no way I would've ever known.

Sensors that are there for me, are but vacant to the large majority.
What they cannot see and will not see,
combined by what I cannot see and will not see,
It drowns me.

My words rise like bubbles to the surface of this ocean.
If I press that sole piano key, the sound reverberates for an eternity.
And yet, it ceases to wade up above the surface.
I'm but a coelacanth, and my swimming is clumsy.

Not even the sound of that lovely train tune billowing throughout the wintry air...
Not even the audible tone of your crisp voice, nor your hissing within my ear,
Could make me wish to live. Yes, I know, life is unfair.
But it's so much easier for you to say that while you're up there.

The painter who paints with only a black and white canvas,
will have an easier time meshing hues, as opposed to the one who must encompass,
the broad colors of others. Their pigments, their variations,
with some paints dry and cracked, and others melting into congolomerations

Ah, yes. How much easier it is for you to say that from up there.

The lies resound the loudest, because the blatant call for help ceased to be loud enough.
Tell me, God, why wasn't my call loud enough?
In life, I have learned, yes it is not fair.
So I must take what I want. I cannot just sit and stare.

The strong prevail over the weak, or so, that is what you have lovingly taught me.
The man and the nightmare, splaying my insides out upon the pavement
electrocuting my body until not a single grief was left to be.
That pain drained away thanks to you, leaving not sadness... But resentment.

That I am this lone coelacanth, whose colors and intonations
touch but the surface of her own ocean, with but one measley formation.

And yet you swim with me, even if this swimming is clumsy.
As the lone, sea serpent... Whose scales glitter so vibrantly.
Dull to so many others, whom couldn't see your shine.
But I could with these eyes that you so humbly gave to me,
and even if I do not wish to live this life you gave me all the time,

you are but a buried treasure I call mine.

A riveting and lustrous voice
      Echoes through the field
They sing ravishing arias
      Of the past of the meek
As many an ear carressed, so feeble
It seduces, allures the frail weeds

Blinking eyes dull through time
      In an everlasting symphony
The inspiring melodies through time
      In an exposition of frenzy
Preposterous voices, the arias feel,
Carrying the paradoxes and elegies

The empty shells from heaven
      Tending the scars of sleep
The remnant bells unscathed
      Mending the heart I keep
They ring and vibrate, resonating within
Brandishing their inherent melodies

Isolated serenity, the tones
Break
      For they interfere with
Peace
In a greyscale landscape
      For they break
In
P i e c e s
They broke
The harmony, in agony
They danced, amongst the husks of the weak

The brushes trace the corpses
      Of the deceased casts
They paint the territories
      The unsung had masked
A gesture of elation, pure deceit
A potpourri of mere imagery

Eventually everything ceases
What's left, is a painting of a requiem
Voices protruded through reticence
Hauntingly, beautiful intonations with them,
In grievous sonorous silence
It clouds the humane senses in thee

I is for the intonations
Invitingly as human
Imagine our imperfections' illusory connotation
As derivative as medications
For dreamless infarctions
I is unimportant as the quarks
Our atomic precipices
Sleep hence frightening
Mad unrestlessness
I is for irksome individuality
Askance and inhumane
In conclaves of murderous murmurs of erudites
Godly Invictus convictus
Power Interest can't reverse dust
Indivisible I
Is for interference,
Incarcerated indemnity
Futility of cages.
I the innerchild rages,
The living planet ablaze
Heaven lost in ashes
A maze of biblical haze
I is for indifferent
Intoxicated in ****** traipsing
Lost to immovable beliefs
Ashes of illusions
Masters of dust.
I is for the inexplicable
Imperfect human love.
Indivisible.
In who's god to trust,
Soul sucker preacher?
I is for illuminations
Truth as teacher.
Light life proven
Man still individual
Dangerous a shrewd
Creature.

i have been allergic to silver since the first grade.
should a lock fall to the floor i do not hesitate to seize obediently
she alone hears wind chimes; she alone construed the new york vigor as youth
but there is no youth to be had. not for an inamorata of a perfect stranger whose bountiful flora precedes memory
she has plucked his fruit
she has fed it to the children and the vapor is hot on their breath; they have chewed away the pulp
their smoke fills the chamber with syrup, a lachrymose miasma who ripens her essence so quickly as to expedite her decay
alack, she sees the hazy curtain in her drunken state yet it will not suffice!
forty years she has suffered the slow bleed
voices into lungs
lights into hearts as her alveoli freeze diligently
they welcome the intonations with resolve tantamount to her hands' abstinenence
so she repeats her mantra and the paint is preserved

another incarnation
freedom remains elusive

In Morris the goats next door are braying
Hello! Hello!
As I ****** through the underbrush, legs tangled among weeds, hearing
Intonations of the beast, perhaps just a sound but it seemed to me to be:
Goodnight! Goodnight!
Said the goats blight
I see you! I hear you!
Come away from the night.