Science is a wonderful thing, it is
Science is here, there, and surrounding all.
From the mines below to the rocketships above
Technology surrounds us, one and all
We have mixed substances to make concrete
And use concrete to create our buildings.  
Science is such a magnificent thing
And for a couple reasons you see.  
Today, lasers that can destroy aircrafts
‘Morrow even colonizing planets
But one thing is true and one thing is real,
Science is really our true compassion.  
As we search for extraterrestrials
As we look towards spatial expansion.

I want to be inside every girl you ****** before me,
show you the birthmarks you never noticed
shaped like canoes and rocketships.

I will get her chest to rise, then fall,
steal the very source of her breath and curl my fingers
around it –
into dough, how you never could knead.

I have my hand on her throat
because you hated when she would talk.
We could work together, tie her hair into a knot.

I just want to be inside the girls who have intestines
like cotton candy and ******* like watermelon
explain why you should
have loved her as a woman sometimes.

You say you prefer my skin, and the way I whimper
but maybe you just did not
**** her hard enough.

You say there is something great about rocketships and
The lack of oxygen or gravity, I mean
Who needs firmly planted feet or
Even to breath when there are still Saturdays and rain clouds?
I would make you triangles you could fill you house with only
I’d like it to be my house too.
Not now, just, with a dog and a yard.

I am drawing you a sonnet but it is in crayon
And I don’t know if you will like it at all.
Not as much as a Monet, or a Klee, but it
Still had rainbow colors and it is abstract and
Beautiful maybe.
It will lead you to that place (sonnets and maps are what we make)
You know
Where we will grow up in a few years.

build the earth from nothing,
she demanded.

build around me a shield of green and
carve your cityscapes into my ribcage,
burrow deep into my flesh and
drink from my throat like thieves.
i gave you everything but the clothes
on your back and the poison
you stole from my name,
shutting out birdsong and brainwaves for rocketships and
buckets of red that stained my dress like the frost.
i have been bleeding, starving, praying,
but you've only
licked your lips and settled
more comfortably into the rabbit's fur like the demons you are.

an outcry.
we had planted her fingers and
eaten the roots
just as she had asked,
pressed the dark, rich earth between our toes
as blood seeped from the pores of our skin
and acid dripped into the lungs of the children.
we had stood in the cold shivering and knocking
but her door remained sealed
for still she was not pleased.

we had outsmarted her
once before, you see.
twisted glacial rivers and sent showers of sparks towards
the sky in a beauty more precise than arrows,
and by luck of the dice
had turned her pieces round.
but she had shaken us off her shoulder
as easily as a dew droplet or
the shedding of a second skin,
an empty shell that filled with rainwater
when left out for a night.

our punishment was one of unusual origins and
hadn't a fathomable end,
one we couldn't even begin to guess.
our question stands in a noose of gold and silver
and i've a feeling the jury will clatter their knees
to protect the guilty.

and who were we to speak the truth when
the snapping of necks deafened the loudest voice?

When I was a child, my mother would read me
Bedtime stories.
I was transported to fantastic realms,
Populated by goblins and breadcrumbs,
Little bears in cardboard rocketships,
Magic and mystery and adventure.
Never mind that she stood idly by
While my father beat me to hell and back.
This escape was enough.
This scarlet train ride to far off lands.
I would pull the covers up to my chin and listen.
Until I realized this, too, was abuse.
My nightly escape was a lie.
I was lead to believe that,
After one horrible experience,
Being, say, kidnapped by Baba Yaga
Or lost in a labyrinth with a minotaur,
That I would be free in loving arms
And I would live happily ever after.
But I would dream about escape,
Dream about wings that would not melt
Or princesses in castles with magic powers.
And I would wake up in my bed.
Still bruised.
Still afraid of the man who lived in my house.
Still a broken child.
(all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.)

A boy turned to me in class and said
'I'm going to be an astronaut!'
But he thought not of rocketships
So I ignored him.

A girl turned to me and said
'I'm going to be a good person.'
And she smiled so
I believed her.

The adult turned to us and said
'I'm going to be your teacher!'
But she thought not of our minds so
I ignored her.

I turned to their backs and said
'I'm going to be something.'
And they saw nothing in my eyes so
They laughed.

I don't know where they are now, but
Many are not on their set roads, for
I would have seen them and
Walked with them hand in hand.

I stood in nothing but my khaki brown uniform
$12.98 is your change
$8.81
You wanted a black bottom muffin?
Turkey pesto with no onions, add ranch?
Click. Click. Ring. Ring
Forgot what you said
Forgot what she wanted
Ordered and courted by 7 different voices
Head filled to the brim with rocketships
Camera boom and flash
Cell phone buzzes in the backroom
But I can't answer it.

Hit with the sudden wave
The sun starts to show its insides
Everything is pretty solid
Lookin' pretty
On some days
And like the black frightening beast with nothing but fangs
I'll start to hear and feel it rear its head
And I remember how I left it in the art studio
Of my old Christian middle school
Never to see it again
It was my very best piece.

I remember all of its emotion.

Hit with a wave of what I could do
What I haven't tried
If I extend my arm out to you
One last time
Will you bite me with venom?

I took a tally
A poll
Faces that sincerely love me, adore me
Not for my money or my internet presence
In unison all whispered
It won't change him.

So I found peace
With my phone buzzing
Got a warning at work
Cookies, gotta yell about them louder
My brain dripping and sopping
With colorful ribbons and tequila lime
But I don't drink much during the week
I can't possibly attend everything.

I'm super woman
But I'm still gonna bleed red rose petals.

at the age of five
a young boy
with
Ferris wheel eyes
and
a kaleidoscope smile
dreamed of
spacetravel
and
rocketships
to
the stars
we
are made of star stuff

I want you to sway me,
Like how the moon dances with the earth,
Tugging your tides as you hold me close,
And making sure I don’t get lost
In this big wide dark abyss.

Darling let’s dance in the sunshine.
No matter how far away it seems.
We’ll explore each other’s secrets,
And send our whispers on rocketships,
To remember that we’re never alone.

Let’s slow dance until the end of time.
Where I can see your face forever.
Because without you,
These stars don’t shine as bright.

I

        Enough. I am done.
I have no dogs in heaven. Nor one of the Prince’s cockatoos
to leverage favor from. I am the ****** on a cactus.
        I have no more
languages to speak truth, but draw blood.  
        I am a coward,
My tongue not so sharp as a sword.
Remain still. Courage not so stiff as it once was.

II

Everybody inside. On their heels. There is panic
Breaking on the back of soundless numerals. Is it safe
To beg for mercy in the streets?

III

O mercy. The ever-redemptive lack.
And what words at my mercy not co-opted
by avarice, or Sig and his ivy-eyed nephew.
        Ah Um.
Too easy to franchise martyrdom these days, minute 2 minute
        Things swing as usual ah um
Sssome people get rebellion-medallions; most pawn them
in tomorrow’s liquor stores.
                                                         And swing.
O merci, Satyrs of a newly profitable goat-song!
        Who can resist them teasing out the milk?

It almost seems fresh, piped thru
        loudspeakers in Bentham’s skull
Howling ah, Um, Imagine:
Most deformed Society members .  .  .
Strapped to their rocketships, mingling w/ stars
         in corporate menagerie,
Senators and a gaggle of catamites.  .  .  
         On call
Young-things, playthings, old news; money is eternal.
Their’s is a sickness that makes mine worse.

IV

That said. I ain’t got a clue; or a word
to say. Without a code to program the spleen
        in my bomb of a heart.
All communication is shrapnel-blasted-out-shrapnel.

        Grinning over a screen.
No, Worry, slow down. Spleen, relax.
I’m just a man with a telephone wire
Not the sax-playing Mr. Apollinax
Sure can’t talk politic but ah um I can start a fire.

V

My robe swinging open,
        I hang over the balconies of twilight’s regret,
                exposed, and unhappy.
I wish nothing more , that the boon of despair
Drop it, an atom bomb and burst the windows.  .  .  .
Everybody inside, solitary: radiated by me.
Maybe we’d all smile at each other
         when we finally come out from our houses.