Look to the gloom,
yielding no depth of distance,
only pinpoints of light
blaring the selfish madness of man
and beast alike.
Look to oval eyed Saturn, and
notice not the opalescent crenulation
of teeth, or
the rigid celestial body
inflated and bloated-
floating in the absence of fettered air;
all that is important
is the lifeless bodies
cannibalized and
invariably stuck in an endless orbit
of the greedy giant.

We lay, you on your right side and I
on my stomach

  you can   hear  waves   crash
(steel girders twisting under stress)
An ocean of mercury, sloshing lightly- less than silently.
Ripples radiating as waves collide and
a drop is flung free,
into the perfect moment of    separation.
As the bauble is balanced,
I float momentarily flawless- circular with surface tension;
my wagging tongue wrenched free and swallowed whole
in the moment while I wait
for your answer.
I asked
are you in love with me.

I am not found loud in revelry-
in the noise of the night I am quiet
without the distinct need for rioting definition.
Not to debase their need
or to glorify my sweet bashful greed.
For peace, is something I crave, unsatisfied- I am unsavory.
The noise brings meaning to:
Ring in the New Year.
I find your little cries delightful, a better noise:
the groans of sleepy pleasure shrouded in night-
which is full of cupped spoons soon to be rinsed clean.
Deemed sparkling humanity,
with the presence of goodwill
presenting a better side of selflessness.
It is good medicine for a creative ego.

The cold metal grate calms her, as supple flesh conforms
into the crenellated ridge of many miniature rectangles.
With widening eyes focusing so goes her mind into spasms of elastic thought.
Unleashed imagination simulates the mass of steel and
plastic encapsulating her in a headlong tumbling orbit.
She lingers lonely as the space station spins.

While I drive left-handed
you scratch at the white clouds
drifting out on the growth
of my fingernails, and
rub salient fire down tendons
toward fingers of gnarled roots
and less a hand, than work incarnate-
in essence of character. In lines, in
worried skin and flattened bones:
the misshapen unity of labor in lengthened phalanges.
You speak to me about how getting older means:
you can always remember a better time than now and
about the city of angels who never sleep,
staring open eyed, hazy with intangible halos.
How is mans great struggle now with society and no longer himself?
As the sharp angles of the road drive our skin to tight contact,
I find myself in the air between your breath and sweat slickened palms.

In the nebulous dark
a train rumbles distantly
in seconds a whistle blows
and later as quiet settles back
the whippoorwills call
as if in belated answer
while crickets rustle amid the grass
in the lukewarm tranquility of morning.
The earth,
moves with eluviate grace.
The baby,
weeps lonely with tears sparkling
on a weak wobbling chin,
and me,
I just hold my bones still and quiet.
The poet,
he tells me to shake the dust off,
but I take every moment I can
to let the dust settle evenly
in fine layers across coarse body hair
and sun reddened skin.
I take solace in moments where
the almost constant clarity is lost-  
adrift in the absolute essence of silence.  
Detached,
the field of time is shown to be relative
to velocity,
to gravity, and-
to how far away I am from you.

The finger oil glistens in wide smears across convex glass
and the tired man in ***** Carhartts
asks the price for a rack of beef ribs.
The deli woman answers, his vision
quavers from the gristle and grease
as he dismisses the possibility of a feast,  
it just looked so good
he comments,  almost
pained or embarrassed.
She offers to cut it in half as
Dave the BBQ cook calls to me
across the fray and I wonder
if he wants my company,
for we talk long
about recent literary conquests
and our love of atypical diction.
The middle aged man
in the old ***** Carhartts
who walks
with the upright pain
of enduring parenthood
through poverty
refuses the meat with wry hurt
and wanders out of my life.
I drive one handed,
twelve ribs covered in tin foil
clutched dripping
as I peel back a metal edge
and gnaw flesh from bone.