I strip you naked,
leave you firmly fixed to the spot
in the cold
encircled by a metal
fence.

You're rooted to that spot.
Without me, you'll never
leave
and with my cold metal devices
I will find the disease in you.
Driving it out
for fear it will reach the core.

--

You're curled inward,
dense limbs jumbled  
hindering my stare.
Arms overlapping,
heavy with dew
clinging to each blond hair.

I carve voluptuous curves
out of your jagged exterior,
slicing membrane cleanly.

My body is worn thoroughly
and I want so badly to stop,
wrists sore, plastic catching
anything I drop.

--

Everyday is aggravated
by the sweltering sun then
you're purple in the aging cold
and wilted you sleep half done
in the embrace of dark.

I worry in the morning
I will find you gone,

but I don't burn with it
rejoicing for you have no
tongue.

--

I have untied you piece by piece
from your wire and wood cradle,

and will with loving care
hang
you.

He opened his coffin and folded the side down, swung his legs over.

Gathered his strength
and pushed off heavily, rising unsteadily to his feet.

          "Dead man walking"

He catcalled,
giggling to himself.

          "That never gets old"

He couldn't sleep,
a family of worms had taken residence in his skull,
what a racket they were making.

So he went walking,
wind whipping his ragged coat tails
and straining against his top hat but a gaunt sallow hand kept it steady.

Through the small town,
still sleepy in the early morning.
Darkness was starting to fade when he settled down on a park bench.

The sun was starting to peek
out above the trees, warmth was spreading
and the world was starting to move with increasing speed.

          "I wasn't expecting company, least that of the living dead."

He started with surprise,
a lady sat to his right with a wry smile on her face.

Plump lips curling.
He nodded.
And said something but it was lost in the wind.

          "What did you say?"

asked the lady politely.

          **"I said, a sunrise as beautiful as this really tugs at the heartstrings."

The transvestite
in the corner
sauntered over to me dripping ******
while I tightly gripped j&b; on the rocks in a heavy glass

ignoring myself

and he whispers heavily in my ear
after colliding with the bar, sitting down hard
"I want to be treated like a woman, and ****** like one."

The ****** next to us at the bar,
Thin legs crossed, drinkless and bruised
                      hearing this, turned,
Saying around a thin menthol on a long filter

"Oh' honee'y"

Making a small 'tch 'tch 'tch noise with her tongue seductively.

"You don't **** us, we *******."

I miss being filled with a sense of here and now from
the unclouded mental vision of youth before
the eclosion from adolescent reverie to
adult delusions.
Every moment thereafter
being crystallized with serene debasement of self.
With age eagerly gripping the hand of heartache,
will you worry about losing relevance?
survey says, an astounding "YES"
Frightening,
knee-knocking
shoot the stranger who walks at dusk questions arise...
How long will my mental faculties survive this torment of existence?
How long till I am the stranger blinded and in the dark?
How long till I am the fly caught in a web of ineptitude?
Forever the convalescent,
I revel in and reveal the depths of human insolence.
For, ever striving to be the emotion-less outsider,
I become buried beneath the
inherent
ephemerality
of
cerebral
acuity.

Do you know what it means to have a moment encapsulated and remain enthralled with an utterance for what seems a century?
Or more?
It isn't your voice or your beleaguered indiscretion
it is not your rounded shoulders and body (language) speaking of consequential truths
its the way your words round my hard thoughts, softening and falling to slide off the firm curve of my breast.
Feeling each individual letter glide delightfully around my mouth
after being in yours
and I taste something new amid
a festival of enunciation.
There is false bravado in me and you
slip it off, along with my clothes.
I'm left naked and shy
almost hiding now, what I previously
wanted to share so much.
Almost, as your tender words guide an
embrace
I fall in love for the first time with a word
knowing you can only ever possess me physically.