Back in touch with virtual reality,
fingers caress the keyboard
and the screen
(the gentle, intimate touch of lovers),
plugged in the earphones and became
part of the circuit,
electrons zipped into one ear
and were discharged from the other.

Put aside the world for an hour
or two (lost track of time;
it flies when you spend it
with love interests);
drowned self in a smaller /
larger world of blue glowing
screens and perpetual music.
One thousand million songs.
Free. Click. Here. Now.

All you lovely strangers so much
more real than real,
so cool and artistic and how I
wish I could write poetry like you.
How I wish.

Open the door and observe:
the human component of
a full parallel circuit.
Exchange and exchange.
Fixated on a blank screen.
Tapping foot to invisible sound.
Typing faster than would talk.

Close the door.
Walk away.

Once there was a mad Arabian poet,
he said,
who wrote a Book of Death
and an Unsettling Couplet
and inspired him
in the way that a car-wreck
may inspire a tattooist’s
gruesome designs.

O, the frightening things
that ran through his mind!
So unsettled was he,
so disturbed.
O, the way that they leered
at his table they dined!
So confused were his colleagues,
so perturbed.

God, the things that came creeping
in the early hours of dawn
when the town was asleep
and the moon was forlorn.
How he tossed in his sleep –
Was it sleep? was it real?
There were Things he did see
there were Things he did feel.

Lovecraft, Lovecraft –
my quiet recluse –
why are you so pale?
Pray tell. What phantom-horror
did you see in the night?
Why are you so blue?
Why do you shake? Are you
ill, are you sad, are you
broken in the mind?

But all of the doctors,
the scientists, the friends,
THEY COULD NOT REALISE
the horror, the nightmares,
the Things in the dark.

Escape through your head
through the blood-and-ink stained alleyways
within. Retire to your room
with a pen and an electric light.
Try as you might
not all of your stories with
their horror that some find unspeakable,
others disturbing –
THEY CANNOT EXPRESS
that pure form of fear
your mind feels at the idea
of the mad Arab’s couplet.

*That is not dead which can eternal lie
And with strange aeons, even death may die.

The saffron of virtue and contentment
Is dissolved in the water-gun of love and affection.
Pink and red clouds of emotion are flying about,
Limitless colours raining down.
All the covers of the earthen vessel of my body are wide open;
I have thrown away all shame before the world.
Mira's Lord is the Mountain-Holder, the suave lover.
I sacrifice myself in devotion to His lotus feet.

my mother used to mow our lawn
in her bikini  -bandeau top-
black with pink polka dots,
and black shades.

her toned olive skin covered in sweat
that dripped down to her
lime green, grass stained mowin' shoes.

grass clippings stuck to her sweaty legs
that walked to the porch
so she could stand in the shade a second
and swig sweet tea.

maybe stare at the house across the street.

at least twice that i know of
mom gathered up some of my sister and i's
clothes and toys, then asked a friend for
some of the same from her two little boys.

she cinched all the gifts together one night
for that family across the street
who had a lot of kids and pets
and not enough to eat~

Drops of liking
spatter the roof,
oozing their way
through every  

crack to the room
littered with chipped
China teacups, frying
pans, and flower pots

scattered on nightstands,
mantels, and worn
Turkish rugs, desperate to

gather the bits of
affection that might
someday add up to love.

I find you in the strangest of places
in empty streets beneath the trees
in crowded rooms full of music and strangers
and sometimes I even find your eyes catch mine or your voice say my name
I find you when you’re not there at all
in the lines of songs and the pages of books
in the caress of my pillow and the formation of my smile
But the strangest place I find you, strangest of all
is on my mind
constantly and irrevocably