The stars in the sky, they seem to sear
They are pasted onto a charred black canvas
It's only a matter of time until the glue melts
And what then?-
I think it will rain molten glue
And when it falls,
Who shall it mutilate?
Who shall it blind?
Who shall it bind together?

I went away, but it wasn't for play
Certainly, though, it didn't show,
the strenuousness--
head wrapped in gauze and cement at once.
And your bed is your grave
like a mummy entombed.
No sleep is ever enough
because it's too late.
But compared to the rest of the world,
it's your sun-infusing life pod.
As Earth's energy grows
stalks to the sky in nature, emerald green
and in the city, tin men and women wound
with a key
tight to within an inch of their lives
to build pillars of silver and glass,
equal parts plaintive and proud.
The atmosphere and ants proceed
as they would
while I cannot be worshipful, as I should,
to this planet we've been given.
My tributes were never tangible--
whispy as they're twisting to, I fear,
be ephemeral.
So why does a pen or keyboard taps
feel like a moral stand?
They say the Devil's playthings are idle hands
but in reality, my corpse hands
cannot volunteer to any definitive ends.
Though sin of sloth, I'll have to admit.

There is an island
called Cat-can-du.
And what can I but conclude:
you should heed my advice
and soon take a trip.
The air full of spices,
including catnip!

Cats, cats enchant
with eyes aglow naturally.
But what about cat eyes
that glow magically?
Those orbs are beacons of light
found in the wise, furry faces
of Cat-can-du felines.

As you catapult from one escapade to the next,
these fun-loving critters will lead
you to heights of sight-seeing so grand
with all of their brilliant cat skills.

From volcanic mounts
to far underground,
showing you hidden catacombs,
with eyes as bright
as any high-powered lantern.
Exploring the city's secrets,
side by side seeking out treasures--
it's exactly within their purrview.
To find old and new writings on shadowy walls
recalling hieroglyphics from cat worshiping Egyptians
and stowed-away diamonds, rubies, ancient coins, and scrolls.

A witch's best companion
Black cats have psychic powers,
it's a fact.
But in Cat-can-du exists a breed so rare
that its mythics are mostly all lost.
Perfect telepathy and with crystal clarity, they read
each and every one of your thoughts.

Their fur is so black it is almost blue--
but a very different hue
from the aquamarine waters
lapping at the shore like the cats lap at milk.
Now, it's common knowledge cats don't like water.
But here, oh here, in Cat-can-du
all cats, they swim like otters!

Another kind of magic kitty, has wings
to fly high into the sky, and a mane like a lion,
but in pastels, oh so pretty.
They write songs of daring do like minstrels of old
and will certainly create some of their best
about the adventures you'll share with them!
Now, do you know the name of a creature like that?
Here's a hint:
What if I were to say, it's also a cat with a horn
smack on its forehead?
It's a unicat!

These supernatural furballs
on this island do dwell.
I hope you'll find a way
to get there someday.
But until then, the next best thing
is perhaps just to picture yourself there,
to let your imagination set sail!

Drunk. That tilt-o-whirl
feeling to like; remember
childhood and spinning
around in circles to get dizzy.

Myopia. All’s fuzzy around
the edges, but softened
reality isn’t any prettier.
Not impressed.

Indelible stamp, maybe, on your mind,
if not on mine. Hateful bonding.
Moldy melted bones where there's nothing sharp
to cut through. Inarticulate shame.
Inauthentically uninhibited. Laughing and waiting.

Blanket smoke, the breath of someone else's life.
Daytime: fools apart,
with no excuse, so...
Nighttime: fools together.
A fish or a bird pretending
to be each other can feel stupid.
What of those who won't fly or swim?

I feel anguished ; don't know
if that's foolish.
But I'll keep blowing hot and cold if you keep flipping
the switch.

Unlike Narcissus drowning,
As though in a puddle
Of his own courage drought,
Her time she gives away freely.
Like stopping her own gears;
Let it and all her mechanisms
Flow outward.


At night she seeks the glass.
Unspool her hair, she combs
Her musings, the yards she's given
To every inch-worth endeavor.
Generous, her heart and hope spring.
Gray, the world, and short, her time.
And she's never belonged
As truly as she does to her own head.


And in her mirror, there are colors
that dye the glass and allow
the best to shine in,
like stained windows in a church.
Under hers she prays.


Happy you may think the woman
Who sees what she likes under glass.
Would it could be preserved forever.
But who is to bring her flowers?
Who knows what kind to bring?


Which man can give the compliments
she’d most delight to receive?
What rites for each aspect of her visage?
No eyes could flatter like hers.
See in her Goddess Myth any fragility
to stand up to reflect the inner soul.


But you can’t put lungs in the looking glass,
And breathe air into those lungs.
Though she wants to pull
a gender-swapped mirror image
out into the world, her other half
is the man from Backwards Land.
It would have to be the reverse.
Else he'd expect to see his mirror image;
not to be the double of hers.

Thumbs hooked through jean belt loops,

pulling her to you.

You kiss.

Over and over again, you kiss:

so many quick little pecks in a row.

I hope you don't

kiss your mother like that,

but is SHE your mama bird?

It's like you take nourishment

from her kisses.

Is she dropping

food into your mouth?



So greedy,

can't get enough.

Of her time, either.

The odd purity that comes

from being complemented

for the first time this way.

How she leans against your knee,

she's the missing puzzle piece.

The crook of her neck, there,

just there.

The pressure where she uses you

for a chin rest.

During any violent-as-you-wish

T.V. show and

she'd even be

cool to chill with you when

you're with your bro's.

Though alone time is the best.



All that you could ask for,

through hills and valleys

you ride along.

Everything is smooth and firm,

smooth and firm.

Smooth, no hiccup in the road.

Firm is the belief in

the reliability of the course.

They're hot;

the heat

rushes through them,

complete.

Ain't never gonna feel

this way again.

Not with anybody else.

You two could lie in bed all day.



We're making relationship flambe.

A secret recipe of

inside jokes and

somebody finally wanting your ingredients,

lit afire by some mystery combustible.

You'd deny 'til you were hoarse

that it's only flash in the pan.



Until one day, it seems like-

how can you have

all these shared memories,

all this love,

yet it's still as if the person standing there

is barely the same person from before?



No more pulling her frontward or backward

by her belt loops,

always pulling her toward

the pulse of your passion.

But  the beat of love's life, at least,

grows faint, and she threatens

to take you out with it.

He'd seen her raise the gun,

for all the good it did.

A bullet hole in his forehead

And it's like his third eye's crying blood.



He didn't want to see

what he saw too long ago.

And he just delayed their misery.

Do you take your meat rare?

This cut's dripping in disillusion,

the animal neutralized, a dead

bag of blood and bones.

No; you're still

all-too human, though.

Alone in a room, it's all you can do

to remember to breathe.

But that's step one.

The sconce on the wall
for crackling torches left burning for a returning
resents the assumption of infinite patience.
She's attached to an old brick wall;
not by affection, but by habit
and tools of the trade of attachment.
Occasionally-replaced simple screws worked into the bracket.
The wall is as dusty to touch, as divisive
as a tome of records, of laws of old.
The sconce respects history-- wishes more would become antiquity.
Knowing every flame left ardently lit, eventually burns out.
While here she stays.

Perfect purity doesn’t persist, even exist--
Not even in children.
Who have to learn to grow a soul,
Share their toys,
Not emotionally blackmail,
And understand death and that pain to others is real.

Still I feel as if my own childhood’s eyes
Wouldn’t recognize, wide and impressionable
As watercolor lilies,
The woman with eyes fogged
From overpopulation of troubles.
Green grass to jaded.

Self-doubt blooms like the flower
It would be ashamed to be.
Rushing up like a seed that feeds
In the darkness, in, perversely, the gut.
Unknown in youth, it towers,
Then plateaus, in ego.

Vines of avarice mustn’t be allowed
To grasp for the old selfishness.
Placidity can’t be tranquilly accepted
When it slips cozily into the bed to invasively smother
hard-wished-for dreams and hard-won values.

Go the hearty and fertile ground in the middle,
For there we all have our hope.

You know it's funny--
our late nights when we're chasing
the dawn. I think we're waiting,
we're thinking
if we can just make it
for long enough, a big red sun
will clear squinting red eyes.
We're staying up for a revelation.
The new day will tell us
that we were wise
for chasing the light.
That it's all alright.
After all our dark nights.
Dancing our feet off for it.
Arguing with each other,
familiarity breeding contempt,
when it's 3 a.m. and we've been together
since Friday night dinner.
When a demon named Insomnia
whispers to keep our eyes open,
we do it because we don't want to lose.
In the morning, we pray,
we'll know what we should do.

Blood-soaked, too close, unspoke words.
Your mom's eyes, but never her ear.
Dad's words of wisdom, but you know
next to nothing about his life experiences.
Granddaddy calls your brother by gay slurs
Still, when you talk to him, you're expected
to say, “Yes, sir.” Share a room,
share your clothes with your sister.
She won't share why she stays
with a boyfriend who hits her.
There's been too much agression
already, so you don't want to pry,
you don't want to push.
Family functional means carrying on,
harmony at the expense of heart.

The violent violets of her eyes
The latitude of her mattress of green,
the greenest grass by the lily pond
where she dreams to say, "Share my ship of
the fallen leaves and algae, green, the greenest."
Natures plays her tricks again
clad in clothes which are
a gauzy garden of renewal.

Bruised bitter apple:
the horror! To roll across my tracks.
Of the crab variety,
we decipher what's in cider.
Fright, how might, precisely,
the worms persisted- when once
flesh was tender enough?
Now they are dead, the apple dented
where butted their unsuspecting heads.
When guts are made a graveyard,
no Wicked Queen’s power overrules
the external grotesque, or the royal
inner circle’s internal damage, ringed
  like trees,
   like circles of hell.
Sour taste, and, more importantly--
wriggling, struggling,
self-pesticidal hopes and dreams.
Unsightly to fit their environs.
Some as parasites, but some only friends.