Of the stars and nights
Circling into
Yellow and circular more
Twist roll out to blues
That twist the black hope
And steeple
Of the people
That would shudder to think

He walked among them
And would dream this
And see it into stroke

Deliver the back break
And gold fields
Of wheat
To the edging black wings
They edge the pickers
They weigh their burden
And carry into
Sudden night

To see a man
As he sees himself
And cannot hear
the left of himself
Or see the right of it

And a red haired madman
Holds our discomfort
And the utter
Beauty of it
Bristles through
With raving disclosures
Bristles splayed blue and black

Much as if the bruises to
An unowned sanity
And his fear of going unnoticed
But oh the irony
Of the insane existence
Of genius
And it’s departure

Of color
And it’s carry on
Through spirit
And inspiration
Wherever it is found
It has been proven
More formidable than death
A formidable opponent

Indeed

in the far east of the sands
of the great Mojave
with upright    
cheerful cactus  
and the Joshua tree    
for company  
    
(and oh my how they had dug in and held, no small feat in this climate)  
    
An old marker read  
    
here lies Uncle  
Uncle was my horse  
it took two days in the hot sun  
to bury him    
but he was a very good horse  
Uncle RIP  
    
the sands had once formed a soft curve  
over the top of the cowboys hard work  
but now there was nothing but    
the weathered marker  
showing time passed  
with brittled barn wood heartbreak  
and memory drifting to the east with it  
    
like the coiling sands  
and their fine mimic    
of the rattlesnake  
slithering to meal  
twirling off towards the Joshua  
seeking to pile against him  
for ease and comfort  
and some rest  
    
it was surely a very hot wind  
that had carried the cowboy on  
after such a loss  
of a very good horse  
we will remember him now  
called Uncle  
    
(i am sure he was a noble steed and even in his eve of passing quite handsome to the cowboy)  
    
and surely that wind carried his sorrowful melody to the Joshua  
for cowboys often sing very sad songs  
and the Joshua heard the loss  
in the cowboy song  
and most likely wept    
a fortunes worth of affinity  
in tears of an evergreens nurture  
and sheltered him a moment in kind  
    
the cowboy head off  
long  
long ago  
in search of a hopeful Eden  
in search of new companions  
to lift his weariness  
and place his boots  
    
but for the Joshua  
his surprising elevation  
and ability to watch  
and remember  
long after the timber    
fades to forget  
nobody would  
    
and the sad cowboy  
in the blink of an eye  
far from the sands    
now to the west  
and under his own stone  
and the worn down of it  
    
and i become the Joshua  
and feel the time of this  
into my depths    
though they may be shallow  
they are strong  
they know their fortune    
and are kind to what is buried near  
    
and what might walk away from it

When seeing Red

Had I possessed
An astrologer’s poetic vagueness
Along with a mind bent
Like the ******* of Saints
A slow cautionary peace
Dubious to react
When prodded and poked
By eyes direct
And boasting a manly strength

Had I possessed this
And had not preferred the sound
Of crack a bone whip and snap
The cold breaking sound
Of meaty
And violent reckoning
With those who concerned me
With a complacent idiocy
And question piled upon question
Some fragile corroded brick
So brittle I might blow them down

Had I possessed
Arms gathering awareness
Like gentle summer storms
Pulling up grey and billowing clouds
Only to empty
And replenish
A kind and fruitful way to turn
Would be destruction

My heart then..
she would not hurt so
When my mind wanders through my castle built
Of selfish walls held tight by a mortar worth its weight in only gold
Gold holds no value in the heavens

....
  
These strongholds
like legs
It is like I could not walk without them
As if with all my might
I could not breathe without them

They split my middle
Of love and hate
And on one side I could not win
And with the other
I am unfamiliar

It has served some purpose
My human being
My strength in episodic reach
The collaborative effect
Come pheromones to nostrils
That rounds pupils
Breaking out in embrace
Skin to skin for a moment
Though it might chance souls touching

My human being alive
Being proud of her show
Being far beyond anything she once hoped to have appeared
In the other minds eye
Let alone ..
daily plans
Breakfast
The normalcy of toast and butter, jelly
And knowing exactly how we like each other's eggs prepared

Discrepancies the thickness of yolk
Minor and shades of yellow like discourage
It was un brave of us to fear the trembling

....
But so very human being of us to begin the act
....
So very

And on and on
This comfortable horizon

....
So very human being

The instrumental blows
Slow saxophone    
Accompanying my mood    
I tip the man with dip and shake    
    
Smoke and it's pillaring      
High and blue    
Like writhing tendrils    
Of the Medusa      
And her memories of when    
She was a beauty queen      
      
A thought occurs    
by tossed delivery    
However heavy my scrupulous resolve    
This kind of heaven is thick    
With indiscretion      
      
So one for my baby    
And one more for the road    
      
My bend of elbow      
Breeches slow slur    
My tongue takes on heaviness    
Ripe without pretense      
Formulation of rationale      
Dissolves    
      
My hands sticky      
With traces of me    
      
And my eye    
covers itself with hanging hood    
My view now comfortably obscured    
I am everything      
And I am nothing    
      
But hold on to this babygirl    
      
I am everything      
When not nothing    
      
The secrets of my skin    
Still feel beyond the numbing      
Goosefleshed and cold with fear    
Of the wide awake in darkness    
      
I am so afraid of the dark    
I have been made to exist    
under this neon light    
    
Somewhere inside it feels    
This heaven is not right    
My bliss is a traitor    
He might hang for these crimes    
    
And my soul    
She hurts    
My bridge is under fire    
The water boils    
    
And still I dip my toes    
    
Beyond the carnage and heat    
Still the sax man blows    
And lulls me    
But how I love this music    
I sink and I listen  
    
Until all around me shoosh  
Shoosh  
And ease into breathe  
Way to close for comfort  
So close to death
  
I raise my glass to my new companion
She stares with eyes
Of truth and beauty
their light I have never seen
nor hoped to
  
And still they shake me to my bones  
  
So much so and that ever after
The darkness has befriended me
And built me a home  
And kept my peace

A horse called West

There was an infinite horse called West
He cantered Stallion chest
Heaving, thrusting forward
Beads of salted sweat
To the throttled floor
And hardened salt bed flats
With gifts of pound and precision
The grand machinery of nature
Without untimely death
To reign the beast in

Mortality can appear a noose
Even when the hangman has just cause
And the look of a saint
Beneath his dark hood

West had no knowledge
Of discourage

opposable thumbs were not in his
Chocolate brown make up
His eye dipped
Creamy and soft
If you stared into them
He might appear
To gaze back
Like a lover

Ready and willing
For care and soft
Gentle caress
He might appear to be
But would not stop
A break neck pace
Towards....

For kind things and touch

But for Omega
He had no vision
No need or desire
To hinder him

He was
As well
Without desperation
He was.....

Just as well

Another horse
Would halt him two foaled
And creation would bring the East
And a certainty

He had yet to see a sun rise
Nor see a sun set

His eyes black as night hooks
His eyes black as solemn nickels
And to be spent
Perversely

On treats
Poked and prodded
Prayed from the gripping hands
Pried by means
Rough like shoddy tendrils
Of the beggar
Or the mercenary
Of the wino turned soldier
Of dubious fog and haze

He seeks non-combatant
Non-committal
Well turned flesh

White mooned orbs
And a gaze like death
Corseted to her cheeks
A rosened hue
Of chalk and fear

And brings a suddenness
Intended to escape memory

It seems the foreboding nature
Of this sidewalk itself
Causes her stoop
That mimics a sway
That shakes her hips
Like battleships

And in his mind
It has become a war
It is his call
His strike
And beyond his command

Torrent-bed

I seek him in a torrent-bed
I seek him in the divine waters of unconstitutional purpose
I have no doubt
My mind will ease there
And that my thoughts will trickle through
And down into
Between nothing and faith

Somewhere in between I am sure of it

My hand grips blasphemy like a crow
How cunning
This cry out from my reaches
From out of the very depths of me
It shudders up and begs
It wants to burst from me
And caw
And scream
And turn my brows to arches
My face angular with passion
My body braces from the intensity

I feel sick
My stomach has swallowed my heart
And she still beats
Each thump swirls my head
Each thump drives me to let her loose
And heave

My fingers have found a new curve
As if they have turned themselves around something sharp
And jagged
And liable to cut that curve away

She was the reckoning
In God’s eye  
  
And she came before his moment  
Not unlike
The clamshell breathe  
That exhaled enough  
Of gritty debris  
And salty waste  
To stir warm waters to rise  
  
A momentum growing  
From one minuscule  
Molluskular  
Involuntary reaction  
To his “pain in her mask”  
Pure no count dumb fuckery  
  
A momentum that would rise  
And fall  
To onslaught  
Tidal wave effects  
  
And land  
(An understatement at the very least)  
Onto his his psyche  
(She sees dumb **** beach)  
And leave in tatters  
  
Browned and dimmed  
Once fresh pressed  
Buttoned downed to tanned flattened  
navel  
Supremely white cotton shirt  
And smirking logo stitched on it  
  
And she would grin  
Clamshell wide  
At how his smile once matched the smirk  
Of the perfectly put and odd little logo  
That sat  
(almost mocking her)  
Upon his white shirt  
  
But now due to  
The much needed exhale  
(Involuntary Molluskular removal of little more that bits of would be ****)  
  
Had left him only the expression  
Of purely God Smacked

He tromped steadily with vainglorious posture
Into dark and barbaric wood
The snap of root beneath him vibrated a high hat syncopation
Tisk tisk counterpoint to the thunderous
Boom and boom of violent step
  
He was a fortress of ability
Cloaked in musky matted brown and carcass of meal
The scent of which filled his moist ****** and intake of frosted forrest air
Filling giant lungs with monstrous roar
And raised his swinging head to shout a warning  
Unstopable emphasis shown  
By extension of bulk  
And arms squeezing menace between massive paws
  
This alarm echoed through shadowy expanses of Aspen and the Evergreen
Releasing a riot of wings  
And emptying the rookery
The Forrest felt the tick tock tick  
Of a grandfather clock's hollow chest and emptiness  
Desolation's silence became deafening
  
All activities of the normal lives of communal creatures were ordered:
Cease and desist  
And they burrowed and denned
They hid in shelters built for temporary oasis
And their hearts beat with mad desire for what lay outside of these spaces
  
They preoccupied themselves through the chaotic approach
Gathered well and nurtured their offspring with nut and berries
And well spent breath to calm claustrophobic urge
  
It would end
They knew that it would
But each time it felt as if the first time
When trouble encroached and compromised solidarities unit
singular minds often dream alike
Even the smallest of these  
Felt enormous in it's own existence  
  
The bear
And his sweltering cause  
Had brought new reminder to his domain
His bravado and grand display
breeding virtue and patience in spite of himself

Moon

In moments when the long night
Recoils from even the moonlight
Stars and their whispering intentions
Time and its travel slowly
To the fields
And their reach

To draw to the beaches
Harsh pounding wave
And sudden crash
Climactic breach
Of security and sinking feet

We try and clang the bell
Announce the fall
To all who might dwell in that place
Distanced from the longing
By loneliness and crippling complacency

Like shadows of our youth
And the days we grinned the future
Wearing it proudly on brown arms
The sun and my freckled smile

Captured in a Kodak captivity
Loss of better things
Or promise?
A tomorrow lit up
Even in the night

The great skill
Of healing well
And rest was not lost for the wicked

The might of consequence
Had not taken its swing
And days were spent without concern of their cost
A weary hour had not yet creased my forehead

My thoughts race faster than the clock
And still the tick tick
Slip away
Of what it meant to me
Your embrace
I could not now
Sketch your face

Once singing clarity
A vanishing
But the cloud that kills the moon
And hope would feel like anarchy

But the moon will surely pull
The waves to shore
And with their rapture
Your wake

And a golden spot to cause my eye to blink
For time
She does move surely
And on and on into this
And so do I as well

So do I as well

Is there a death
Or a corpse among us
With the unwilting power
To flower
In face

To transform
Remorse’s course
And not stand in place

With footprints sure
On the edge of obscure

But not a tip toe in to six
And deep
To unshovel the ashes
From out of the heap

A noose who’d unravel
After judges gavel
A careless hood that might show
Sweet hangman’s face

O’ face please lie
Tell me I might not die
Tell me I edge ever still
Towards my infancy

Will my mirror to crack
I will gather her back
Puzzle pieced
And closer to thee

Christina’s World

My life...
my legs they have kept far away from me
From the loft
From the rafters
In the night come rumbling
The pans had fallen from the shelves

In the growing distance
My home
In the growing distance

It has spread before me
And no longer reaches the gingham
The hem and floral petals
Shiver in the wind

Something grows in the space
From here to there..
an emptiness
And yet it grows

My smile haunts my forehead
It creases and is spittled with heat
My smile had fallen from the shelves
Along with the pans
And my Mothers booming laugh

My Mothers laughter echoes the distance
It is like lightning crack
When I awaken from it
And can no longer find my step

I reach ..
I pull away with timid hand
I am the field mouse
I am the scarecrow off her post
I am beauty on an island
Of memory and remorse
And the Sea
She folds in browns
The screams of the cicada

I have felt more dead than I’ve ever been
Half alive and roses
Five rows and a casket
Cracked open slightly
By a jagged thing
Sloughing velvet
The color of my rouge

Underneath
I have watched miles of countless scenery
And the grey and scrubbed tracks of Men
Making their way
Down the highways that never got them there

Disapproval
Disappointment shoveled onto their laps
Like the burden of children
It’s all in a life.. ..

It is all in a life

When Golden Years
Are shed like tears
And tattooed blue ink to cheeks
Once pink with promise

Salty trails of permanence

Adhere and there..
Here and there,
But what’s in a life but death?
What’s in a death but a life un-lived .. ?

I ask
And raise the lid to look
Peek for the answers that might break my heart
A scattered skeleton ... to the floor
The bones that cradle my flesh inside
So that I might hide
From the discomfort of it

I might hide from the comfort of it..

My tongue caresses the inside of my jaw
To beg a gape and awe..
to urge a childlike response to the world
Not to encourage
A brutal and courageous faith..
but one that is innate and infallible

The seed that caused the first instrument to blow
And charcoaled the walks of the Neanderthal
(Or more appropriate name for that human)
But being all the same..
and became Man kind as his spiritual need met the need to survive
And it shown on his face like grace

My Rocking Chair

It is empty in this chair  
As I sit and lean back into a space
I am destined to fall into  
Arms wide  
A look of shock dropping my chin  
Into a chest you once crossed with your fingertips  
In such a way  
My ******* formed perfect candied peaks  
  
The thought of your mouth there,  
Sets me to rocking  
Oblivion awaits to swoop me up...  
  
Cold hard facts
And points like diamonds
  
The sky once scattered in them  
And they shone in my eyes so
They scorched  
And blinded  
  
“Why do you wear that skirt, those boots, that look .. and inspire such filthy reciprocity”  
He gaslights the diamonds  
My eyes they bleed  
My arms flail through the air
  
Oh it is not easy  
In this rocking chair  
It is not easy
But I rock into a sightless sway  
I think on the day...  
  
And these words from a man who gripped a harness in his hand  
To the extent  
And brutal force
That I can no longer stand the sound of twisting leather
  
He said to me ..  
(and with this look on his face)
He said to me;
“Woman those hips! You woman, those hips.,  . You were born to spread those thighs. I’ll be born again, right there in your thighs!”  
  
And in the night he had done it..  
in no stealthy way  
Or like a panther  
But with force and monster like stare  
My eyes..  
they still burn from his ***** glare

Little birds

Little trails into a soul setting sun    
Little birds into a Cairo view  
Through the doorways of blue tiled mansion walks  
Plays a karyokinesis tune    
    
Splitting by an eye wink    
Spitting haze into Set    
And to dream of this un reality    
With out the microscopic oblivion    
    
Held perversions of dreams    
Of when you....    
    
Dot dot dot... so clearly    
That I    
    
Twisted in dance there    
With sheer red skirts    
Go round and round    
So lost in it    
    
That I...    
    
Had forgotten to un break    
Had forgotten the edges of my smile    
    
I smell a peculiar scent    
And I shrug incense from my posture    
    
My awaiting stance holds little promise    
And is full of dilution    
My synapses spark    
A nights view from lost doorways    
To golden alleys that fail to exist    
    
Anymore    
The little birds sing  
    
Anymore    
Through tiled windows    
And sheer skirts    
    
Fragrant plumes like feathers    
Whip soft cotton air    
To travel    
And torture and sift away    
    
To split and turn my actuality’s notion of romance    
Into particles like dust

A Wah Wahhh song

Punch drunk
By my oh my...
funk
Oh the cold cocked

rhythm and these blues

Uhm...hmmmm... shaking my dropped
Dripping head..

Shook my smile yesterday
It took two to take...

Quick flick.. tick again...
she slid right off
Like turrets
Flying a ****

Like a cheap date
Tossing a Marlboro

Quickly
Carelessly

What a monster
This new normal
And its contrary Benefits

I ***** a Joan Jett curly lip
Circa Runnaways angst
Leather jacket
And serious strappy heels

That kind of contrary
But filled with Rock n Roll
Lust and undercurrent

A whiskey’d throat to my silent
My oh my...

Icky Thumped lick to its rip
(Hear that guitar)

So you know, I probably appear pretty cool here..

But my future is bright
(I gotta wear shades?)

I might just get...
Cool as black ice
Tattooed on my hand

I might just get...

Over it

To beat back the bear    
One must wear the fortress  
Of outward iron maiden  
    
A sneer and tortured intent    
Spiking steely eyes    
through triangulate of iris    
Sticking through it    
welling the blue    
And the belladonna    
Blooming through rage    
like primal    
feral crushing    
It glows and brightens the circle    
as if the whole sky were there    
    
En masse    
at large    
The posse en route    
Vigilante purpose violating all compact    
Builds the refugee    
And it's hovering camp    
    
it growls    
And grows    
too large and uncompromising    
Oh what nastiness,    
she shows sharp teeth    
    
To clamp and clang    
Down on it    
with the fury and force    
Of the whole    
Of the clan and brutal squeeze    
    
It might crimp the fortress    
And its shiny style    
Like the knights    
In a state of madness    
And their oddly worn smirks    
Would leave them alone    
    
Would they be fingerless  
And folly their way back home  
unable to remove themselves  
From the cloak  
And its vice  
now sweltering unimportant  
Enclosure  
  
And leave them exposed by harsh  
Sound and sight  
And the eyes of others  
Never having trampled  
Into their wilderness  
  
such spectacle  
Would be ghastly  
And devoutly remembered  
attached in the permanent mind  
And fearsome gesture there  
  
gesture would fly  
he would be unable to catch it  
But he would reach

Scar tissue like finger trails
Placed roughly at times
The self induced wounds weave
Round and pink like threads of a worn down quilt
and at times it does not cover my feet
My body shakes off the cold
My head eases into pillows of thought
Calm placed angel faced considerations
And arching white bones cradle my heart
Rocking its pump and burn
To lull my scream
And cause my hoods to flutter
Until they are down
And pose on my cheeks like Monarchs
Orange and black fragile illusions
That become my gatekeepers
Of sweet dreams
And into the night
A delicate sleep
If one could stand over
And count on their fingers
The fitful probabilities
They would not have enough
My tall keeper in his dark shell
would become worn down
By the burden
And collapse his frustration into the corner and its rocking chair
Unaware that its squeak and squeak
Is shooosh girl and temporary blessing
My mother had rocked me like this
The sound of it a lullaby
And warm breath on my soft head
Peace
But this night I am alone
And have only the culminations of my past to cover me
As the gatekeepers I imagine hover my cheeks
I am unafraid to go it this way
Even if my dreams plump the scars
My blanket would be fuller
Its thread count higher
With understanding
And richer with the color of my being

Let me show you
Through the soft and gentle folds
Of fabric stitched with a fine silk threading
My raison d'etre

See there in the yellows of sun
And the pinks of this special moon
A new season
And reason to bloom

I have had days too long
And nights that fought the dawn to come
I have been so tired
From lonesome walks that I placed first foot in surely

But there are heavenly eyes that have brightened to see my arrival
And my eyes would shine to see yours

Of possessions
I need none but this
A loving glove for my hand that feels good in yours
To cover past fortunes told

But covered only a little while
until the comfort found in our grasp
Is as easy and familiar
As you once thought it used to be

The Lake

I stand before her
She is bold and blue
And cracks
With boning pressure and the shock of release

To bobbing sternum sheath
As if the chest
Of this now breathing frozen lake
Intubated by the will
And warm might of the sun

It’s rays like pumping hands
She moans
And underneath the sloshing of Iced veins
As they push through

Newborn

A magic shot
Shudders through
And shouts entrapment

Corrupting the silent calm
Sentinel of the wild

They stand watching
And fear her resurrection

She holds in pale blue
Electric palm
The capacity
And surreal intent
To tread through stability
And destroy the taproot
Of all that is known

“The ancient map”
And take down their King
With cool
Uncaring flinch

She breathes
And her chest
Rises
And falls
Great calamity
A cold terror

Blows through the sleeves of strong men
Spreads frostbite through the tips of fingers

Of able hands
Crippled by her might

And crestfallen
They disembark
On readied boats
On the opened currents
She has shown

Paired quailing  
Marked Oreortyx pictus
Apostrophe’d plume  
From called “wet my lips”
Invitation
  
Black spot curling into the nest
Rising and falling  
Scaley feather’d chest
Ashen dot  
And cinder’d
  
Remember’d not lost for keeping
Oval’d strength  
Warm’d pale shell baby blues
To break and grow and coo
“Wet lipped” tunes
  
Come peckish March  
And in solidarity  
Grey suits line’d for forage
The seed swallowed  
Through neck arch  
And keen awareness
  
Sound panick’d  
Shot sudden scatter
Through the troupe  
Break’d family
Throughout the underbrush
  
But never permanent swaying
Nature calls  
Foreign to solo  
Blue jaying
They gather again
In apostrophe’d queue
  
Symbology thus
Lightening strike totem
Curly queue’d head
Ahead of the game  
Take the brass ring  
Momentum’d gold
And with whom ye gather
Do not unfold  
  
Point administer’d
With any purpose  
Forward and try, try again
(If at first you do not fricassee, fry fry a hen?)
With humble’d walk
To save your wings

See what he wears
A smirk like a *******
To be pulled back
And allow
Perversity
To flick forked
And attempt to tingle

As spittle flies from tongue
I would be unhappy to taste
His desire foams
And falls from his face
With a palsy of droop and moan
Unkempt hair falls in greasy fit
To shade a left
And wicked eye

And from the right
A stare that would like to pervert me
To down my *******
With a wink
And crooked tooth

From the thought of it
Grime settles on my nature
My shoulders bother me to stoop
As if I were to sleep
Inside the doorways of the bodegas
And my stature would slip into his pocket
A dime and a few pennies
Loose change

Into this I stare
Right into the red rimmed hole
I would be grateful
To pluck out
And put upon a pirates toothpick
to garnish his ginned state
Shaken and stirred
******* pulled and stroke
His stinking tongue
Until spit like *******
Hits his plucked eye
And I can show him where he’s ******* from

Caught

There is a deer here
.....veers from the head lamps
And shoots his sweltering skin
He slows
And feels alive
His chest heaves
The onslaught of branches
A rocking chair

he is swaddled by the darkness

.....has shed the light

Once submitted
Bathroom stall push
Through sign
Hung to progeny carefully
Reading:
Non violent
No entry
Special

Once over
Grimy bowl
And hands gripping rail
Face precariously close
To gaping glory hole

Sign reading:
Seeking
Truck stop peckers
And the trap house
Un mighty
Card board rejects
Trading dollars
For rolls of pennies

Once over
Shocked face
Replaced by
Clouded eyes
Enough to shove it deep

She breathes mightily
And stashes her sack
Between two white
Tear drop shaped
Pillows meant to nurture

Sign reading:
Do not suckle here
You would wet my rock
Not my crotch

If they would be bared
And react without permission
Suggesting tease
Toothy tug
Or for play

This sign would be a lie

You see
The points that drive her
To 76
Station stalls
1 cc
Ends
That drive into her skin
Down little blue highways

My perception fades
And in the darkness
A sound  
Like the cry of the withering  
  
With careful place of soul to heap  
I carry my heart    
To what I fear may break it  
    
I envision....  
come hallowed grounds    
And the bodies that lie there  
in mass and lump  
fresh from hangman's noose  
    
Their penalty's might have been mine  
if I had had the nerve to reach them  
    
in my haze  
And a mighty aspiration called indifference    
My gaze had I diverted skillfully  
With enough success that i did not even recognise their cause  
    
I pray with soulless conjuring    
For their redemption    
And for my own  
Unwilling to own this duality  
    
For self and pardoning  
And only just..  ..  
    
I stitch a blindfold  
Of crushed red velvet    
And monogrammed on it a J  
In the prettiest blue  
    
The color of the sky    
Nowhere to be seen  
in all this midnight and black  
    
But I have loved this track  
it has covered me discreetly    
Like a clandestine lover    
I have run to meet it  
    
now this cry through the fog  
My awareness shocked to submission  
    
And my own body I have not touched  
in such a long...  
long time  
tremors....  
My knuckles streaked    
In reds through white and terrors grip  
    
My God relieve me  
And my soul what have I done?    
The cry...  
It is an echo  
It is my own and I feel it so deeply  
    
Like the scarecrow  
And the post he sits  
I feel I might slide right off of myself

Iove is a young green willow shimmering at the bare wood's edge
    
She bends, soft hands gracing the waters edge...sending blue green echoes of her laughter out to give company to the tad poles who miss their Mama's low croaking lullaby....they wriggle gladly and extend brand new webbed digits to embrace their siblings....tad pole giggles, how wonderful! She rises back up, gleaming, as tiny droplets of pond water cling to her limbs, glowing iridescent in the sun.    
      
5.  the wind at nightfall bending the rose    
      
He had fallen fully for her the first time he saw her. She had danced naked and alone in the gloaming, tall and beautiful. He caught a hint of her extraordinary perfume and was moved to sweep in placing forceful hands in the small of her back, and dip her. She shook as his lips graced her long neck and landed with gusto on her ruby red lips.    
      
2.  beneath the quiet heaven of your eyes    
      
He had rode on the backs of ponies painted like a Monet, their flare of Nostrils exhaling grand snorts and their hooves smashing into the high plains, creating a thundering cacophony....and knew what it was to appreciate the enormity of quiet that followed after in those black hills. But the first time he caught the first glimmer of love in her eyes, he felt true stillness, peace in the grand expanse of her undying gaze.    
      
4. your thighs are appletrees your knees are a southern breeze    
      
He extended a strong hand up, longing to pick her ripe and red delicious. The apple of his eye. As of yet remaining just out of his meaty reach....until she parted white cloudy thighs, and a warm ***** breeze swept in to let fall his bounty.    
      
5. It is only a moment, we die every night    
      
Goddess Moon loved Sun....proudly, fiercely. And Sun loved her back, but had been unerved at how rude his Goddess had been to his sweet old aunts, Nymbus. Slow in their old age, they wandered by in a dizzying creep past his window in their old fashioned, billowy skirts. Sun had never raised his voice to Goddess, but when she scolded his favorite auntie Cumula for obstructing Moons view of Sun for too long he forgot himself and shouted....    
      
For Goddess sake! Its just a moment! We die every night!

Vacation

Interacting with the locals
Carrying baskets  
Bulging fresh fruit  
And palm tree smacked grin
  
The sun kissed
And grabbed me by the skin  
She danced the light
And smattered it  
Across my wrinkled  
Up nose  
  
Playful  
Kool aid carefreed  
Steel drummed  
Rolling round plinking and  
Plopped down to beach it
While curling toes felt up the sand  
  
I just lay
And soaked up the Rastafarian  
Three man band  
And the **** of spliff  
And the **** of spliff
Tobacco scent  
Wrought ****** havoc  
To rims eeeeking red  
My blink ate dust
  
Soon
Like monsoon season  
And it’s worst  
Fuzzy shores  
A sky too electric blue  
To be right  
The edges of a postcard  
Eroded by salty water  
Takes the better part of a memory  
  
Come November
I stood scanning channels  
On a ****** radio  
To try and catch a glimpse  
Maybe Marley  
Or at the very least  
Calypso?  
At this point  
I’d Belefonte  
The **** outta this joint
  
It turned out
You can go back home again

I had been in my head one morning
Feeling some kind of melancholy
Irregular to the sky
The summer sun
And the warmth and promise it so generously offered

The almighty intervenes in the oddest ways at times
For my weary gaze was caught by the unusual
And diverted me
From my self indulgent considerations

I pushed back my sunglasses
Careful to shade my curiosity
It can be a blurry line
when you are old watching the young
Between what is accepted as wanted
voyeuristic appreciation of a former season
And the unwanted perverse stroking of a tired past

While eavesdropping discretely
Into the conversation between an eclectic young man
And his significant other
A wild beauty
With blue Mohawk
And candied apple lip gloss

I heard him say
That the first night they made love
when he saw her shed her camo jacket
Her dress
Kick off her combat boots
And watched as they landed under his bed

He said that
he had prayed for the first time in a very long time
At that moment
He had prayed for their permanence
In his space

He said
He knew God again
As his eyes traced the gentle lines of her
And saw before him
A celestial soul
Who's body looked like it had been sculpted from the moon itself

The pretty girl wearing the blue Mohawk
Leaned into the young man's chest
She weeped softly
And he held her close
They stood quiet for a long while
rocking back n forth in the sweetest dance

Eventually I collected myself
My things
And excused myself unoticed
And walked away smiling
The loving scene still on my mind
Their faces and the peculiar way his eyes had shone
And prayed I would remember always
The earnest in them as he spoke of grace

While snapping green beans

I sit in the sun today  
Presently it is gorgeous
And always subject to change  

There is music in my ears  
Pokey Lafarge  
Wailing  
"I need something to, **** me up!"  
It is down home muddy water wailing  
I am snapping beans  
Grinning at the pop  
And eating what drops  
  
The music changes  
"But nothing, is never ending.."  
In my headphones  
And I consider this  
And look at the familiarity in my hands  
They are my grandma's knuckles  
As they bend the beans and I hear them spit  
Easily manipulating 3, 4 at a time  
I see her in them so clear  
And I see my mother bent over a row  
And I see my youth beside her  
  
The woman's voice in my ears  
Is throaty and ****  
Now I find a sensuality in the task  
It's intent to pleasure the receiver  
To see the look on their face filled with what's in the spoon  
And feel a peculiar satisfaction  
The pleasure of pleasuring  
And it might be afternoon  
And it will feel like mid day love making  
The serious and just must have you  
Delicious kind  
  
"And nothing is never ending.. "  
Oooh ooh ooooh...  
I sing and drop the green beans in the ***  
The onion and bacon, the fat grey mushrooms  
I wonder if my mother ever felt this way  
I bet so, hope she still does  
I see her in the kitchen, my step dad  
And her way with him  
And my Grandma  
With my Grampa  
Hope she did  
I bet so  
That would have been something strange to understand back then  
But now..  
Oooh oooh oooh...  
  
"Nothing, is never ending...  "  
  
I miss my husband today  
It is not often I do this much  
When this *** is done  
There are many hands that will be anxious for the spoon  
But none with the look in his eyes  
They would simmer through the swallow  
Into mine and drown them with stimulating appreciation  
  
The last weekend I had with my son  
I taught my future daughter in law to crochet, just she and I  
It was a sweet few hours  
The next time I can  
I will show her how to make a good *** of green beans  
  
Oooh ooh oooh...  
"Nothing, is never ending.."  
I think the lady might be mistaken

Temperate sympathies
That do not cross
On mild  
well wishing winds
  
My mind ...
Thoughts drape
Like a sky  
Crossed by indifference  
Slow cumulonimbus drifting  
  
Obscure references  
That part
You and me
  
You see...
What matters to me now
Is not what mattered to me then  
  
Like the owl
Who shattered his beak
Trying
Then with slow turning of his head...
Spies his meal
And cannot eat
  
To seek
Broken and in need  
To find what might nourish you
Its appeal rolling small and helpless  
In the grass
Or underneath layers
Of dead wood and compost
  
Heaped over a trembling effort  
To hide and stay lost  
From piercing capture
  
To watch that vulnerable discomfort
Out of the gaze  
Of an eye ready with capable force
And wicked ability to take it...
And,
Transform loss through its digestion
Into
Energy
  
To just look  
Chest heaving with power  
Over it?  
  
To sit on wooden ledge  
With any comfort?
  
Surely I would turn my stare  
round towards some other  
ease for my yearnings  
A penchant for what stirs me
set softly to the side
  
So I am implying  
Your sympathies are false
To your nature
And my security
  
Here in this underbrush
And shaky home

It comes to me this season  
An urge to blow the bloom  
into
This day
And watch it float on the wind  
  
In this light  
It would be  
An awesome spectacle  
Like an apparition  
Of phantasmic spiral  
Twirling into its seek  
The darkness a great ride for it  
And platform to coast it's colors  
  
Though they fade  
They would surely fade  
And be nothing  
  
I had felt this  
And done it  
And would not do it again  
  
I cannot blow along  
Familiar winds  
  
But new currents have come along  
And hooked the corners of my smile  
urging itself  
To spread wide against the O  
And my uncalm  
Inhaled  
At odds with with the corners of  
What I am  
Used to  
  
I breathe through it  
And the lovely  
Ease and it's scent exists easier  
Inside me  
Daily  
  
When pigments of new petals  
Turn blue  
I dip and streak it  
Into indigo slant  
across page  
Delivering my self free of the shade  
But not the rise of it  
To the sun  
  
not the totalling of it to my whole  
And it would be if ...  
  
But I don't  
I am much too eager  
To let it lie and rest a little  
To meet myself I've cast into  
the role played convincingly  
  
My own shadow  
And see her grow out of it

I had entered the blue lights
And fog of the joint
Mostly to become oblivious
Tip of elbow
And Gin colicky
By sunken treasured
Green olive
No pimento
To dissolve through the juniper taste
Salty swill
And swilling

And would to the extent
Of almost un noticing
The cantor of would be stallions
Surrounding my ******
Their prance intent
On heightening my heel
A good five inches
That oblivion
Hooked
Spiked over
Curved steel
To balance Gin effects
Over the bottom of
The barstool

A mighty swig
Or two or five
Might notice their buck
And haws enough
To grind stilettos
Into dance floor
The Stones in the mix
Pivoting my drunken hips
Enough to cradle a hand
Or three

Enough to squint against
Red rimmed eyes
Displace my empty
With a poor replacement
Cheap thrills
Vain attempts
At “No”
That came out of my
Movements
“Yes”

But soon the ponies ran
As anger bent ****
And flooze
Into something ugly
Curved and toppled over
To the floor
That did not deserve red shoes
Or top shelf
Anything

As hard as I try
I cannot remember dissolving
I do not remember the hands
That tried to catch my fall
On my way down
To fast escape

By my stool
(The second from the end near the tray of olives and maraschino cherries)
There might be a marker
That reads
“Here lies Jen, you should have seen her drink”

In that world there were a lot of maybes
I just don’t know

Crushing soul swept
Blown by the force of human
And rises within me
Fight  
  
****** temptation  
And fists to swing
And break  
You  
  
Me
  
My might not disclosed
Betrayed by my face
Shocked
Flatlined mouth
No words
  
Not any
  
Come a day  
Without it  
This that would cause
Me to bend down  
And deliver it  
  
My face ticking like a bomb
Twitching conservatory  
What remains
A frown  
Awaits chagrin
  
Awaiting comfort
Ease and freedom from this
And others that would trumpet  
Victory  
  
But low key  
Easy listening  
  
Others that carry  
A smile in pocket  
To take out  
Whenever
  
You know
Just whenever
  
And just like that man
I mean I’d be fine with
Just like that
  
Man
  
Casual  
Careless whenever
It’s cool man it’s cool  
And I’d mean it
  
Sincerely  
  
No clenched fist
But flat palm offered for  
Shake  
Or even
A low five
  
Ya dig?  
  
I know I would  
Will  
I see it clearly
Behind eyes
That squint  
Fierce lines
Of battle
  
The drums are too loud  
Boom my mind
But I feel  
Wrists are tired  
With  
Rat a tat tat
  
  
(Finger tapping)
I’ll twist this tissue
And wait

When were you cast out Brother?
I had named you
Adam
Your woman still lies
In great beauty  
Red hair spilled on the desert floor
Great sands pillowing against  
Open thighs
As sometimes
In its infinite piling
As it would be rough
With your fingertips  
Pressed  
Preparing her for entry
  
Sweet tendrils  
Wrap vermillion and dark
Like the cinder curling of  
My word as it burns
The ink bleeds mankind
Into ashen wandering  
And back again  
To dust
In only the blink of my eye
  
It is not the fragile kind
My weeping  
The tears have purpose
And would filter in  
To flood this valley of loss
And wipe it new
And not without her
  
One existing soul  
Will grow and thrive and exist  
In another’s body
To dance and sing with the great spirit  
Of thousands
A sound mind  
And purpose  
That survived outside  
Of the red tent
Even without the hand  
of Jacobs lead

Bone

It is not a pretty thing..
or any kind of delicate cling
.... the scent of rose hips to pink skin
.... the new morning dew drop
To blade of grass, bent from it....

But more like the red shade
One might see..
Across two yellowed tooth’s
Jagged and arching from a mauvened grin
... teeth like a menacing and red smeared
Ancient ivory and bone menagerie
...
And pouring stink
Pouring stink

It is red and clings and dries to bone
..... and
The bone was used to unleash it

A torrent spill
From whack and grotesque thud
Until....

Whack and whack and grotesque thud
And death dump thump

And the life
And the life
And the...... life
She, ...

A lesser spill..
she does not breathe...
I .... over ****

I over ****..
To hollow her out
Her skull .. brainless skull

To hollow me out

The spill
She slows to stop and I...
find belladonna’d glaze of eyes
Find stillness in the red cementing of fate..
See art in its red and drying state......

Red smears on tooth’s
Like a cold ***** menagerie
Like a Grand Monet
In my own private gallery

...

This derelict mansion
My soul
And its worn fine embroidered
Green silk and
Once charming blinds
In tatters
Tatters I tell you

What say you
You and I
Hunt forgotten treasure
Here,
In long winding
Once bourgeoisie
Halls
Red carpeted halls
Of misdirection

Hunt treasure here
Perhaps pearls were once
Unstrung suddenly
As rough hand
Skipped its catch
And the beauty of pearls
Slipped and had scattered
Just rolled off and away from
Her smile

Just rolled away
And a tear
Like crystalline
Of little self
Was all there could be left
To shine him away

Derelict mansion
Of soul
Of little self
And forgotten treasure
Torments
Like howling caving walls
And floors sinking in
Like memories
Of torrential
Musty moisture
Grow into them
And show like dark faces
In screaming silence

Show like howling emblem
Mid seething anthem
To a shabby state

The days clouds creating shattering, shadowing furnaces,  
None of us could stand so close  
To your ceiling an ocean, eyes of a lid in glowing coal  
  
Tempering a fragile strange stare, an old awe,  
Glassware that was passed to us  
When we were young,  
Looking up so frail,  
They rise to their grave,  
Harbour in the sky  
In the bolt of an eye  
  
The godly sins where sunshine ends,  
The things you say with the fury you took in the fall  
Nameless gods put up your road block,  
Play your show and roar  
How could we kneel?  
How could we be smaller?  
When you recognize the fear in our eyes  
With an impulse to split us in two.  
  
Afternoon light is dimmed, heat  
Subdued,  
Clouds  
Lending the  
Whole, a soft  
Cloister, thunderous  
Reverberations  
Grumbling  
In the  
Atmospheric  
Periphery, just  
Strong  
Enough,  
To be felt  
  
It is cool here  
The sky is calling as well  
Pregnant with rain,  
Hovering mass potential  
Wicked winds  
Eminent  
But her currents wear  
Silent mouth  
  
It is still enough  
To just be in it,  
Sticky with its dark  
Sweat clings  
To show its worth  
Closing in  
On permanence  
  
Like time is its currency  
And it might come down  
In silver coin  
That it would be imprinted  
The face of Nero  
And not  
The stamp of God  
  
What God exists  
In silver or  
By face  
By name at all  
Nevertheless  
The rain  
Its burden approaching  
So that we do not fiddle  
Or burn it down  
  
The electric in the sky  
A great battle, this  
Its inner turmoil fights  
Corrupts  
And blankets the sky  
Purple,  
Neon flash of a gate keeper without sword  
  
And perhaps it takes a little madness,  
A delicious drop, a  
Perfect  
Accent ingredient,  
A willingness to  
Bear  
The transformative  
Embrace  
Of naked flame,  
To love forces that  
Threaten with glowering black  
Brow, lowered to an angle  
That can  
Only  
Conclude  
In collision  
And ruin, twisted  
Horns protruding above a  
Neck  
Thick  
With muscle, which promises  
Only  
To ultimately  
Overcome us  
And all we've wrought  
In cold iron,  
Threaded in tightly  
Woven  
Rivets,  
All  
We've erected,  
For our enduring names sake,  
Rent to idle tatters with  
Great  
Chaotic  
Strides,  
Nameless gods, unconcerned  
With our rites  
  
Gods that uproot our long  
Cherished  
Hopes, secretly  
Harbored, too  
Precious  
To be  
Uttered, for fear they'd  
Flash  
And  
Dissipate  
Upon contact  
With the air  
  
Gods with the flippant  
Grin of a street corner  
Illusionist, with a flourish of  
Fluid  
Movement and practiced  
Ease, unmake  
The earth,  
Beneath our feet  
And erase,  
Our hand me down names  
  
This is how it goes  
With myself and the Magician  
And the Observer  
Of natural law  
When things with subtle edge  
Like talk about the weather  
Like a description of three different skies  
Unite in the mind’s eye  
  
The reverb of heart  
Blends into one sight  
A universal speculation  
Of what might come down  
And the parts of it that matter

Expert at:
Seduction, opening cheap wine.
With steak knife.
Watch it...
Too fast...
That ***** squirts everywhere.
******* Men & wine.

I
Ask for the blessing
I ask for your eye  
And knowing smile
  
When seeking  
And carving out
The brutal travels of hands
In ****** earth  
Of time  
Its squeeze of dirt  
Hiding footprints  
With the elliptical youth of days
Their revolution  
Into hardened tidiness  
  
I climb stories up
And time flings back
Into the recesses
To find cool and gentle rooms  
Where solitary men  
Had left red woven  
Rugs and charred prayers
Of rolling wax  
And a match to strike  
  
I begin it again
The flame is yellow  
It dances  
And sees me
I take this as a nod
A gesture of deliverance
  
And stand
  
Gazing out of doors  
To skied God
And the bellied drop below me
Tempts me to fall into it
Hurdle me from myself
Cry for mercy in my plummeting  
Wide awake to the impact  
And full force  
Of ground to belly
And my face to the desert floor
  
This is Set
  
I remember the cool chamber
My grip on the outcropping to pull up
The light that flickered
And how it found me
The dance of days on my skin
And in my head  
And from my tongue  
  
While laying here
While crumpled and cracked
With the body of utter defeat
With miserable failure  
My aspect and injury
  
I ask for the blessing  
I ask for your eye
And knowing smile
  
I begin it again
The flame will be yellow  
In my sight skied God  
And below me the fall

Is my hair on fire?
It is the darkness
It is the cloud that hovers it
The dismal fog and fade
From destination
(II was once propelled by its heat)

Now a smoldering
Now a dissension in the ranks
This un-twist of plaited red
And amber
And just a glint
But fading gold

And just a glint

Enough to keep me wandering
Wondering

Bits and pieces
Shoes tossed across the room
My clothes piled in a corner
The smell of coffee scorching on the burner

Tomorrow I might rise and clean the mess
Tomorrow I might rise
Today I just go to bed

At times I’m purely shocked by the living
And then
Beats
And I believe life
Might be
A world within
A sociopaths dreamscape
If and when they dream

If and when their ground exists beyond
The next footfall
Steps fall
They thud their ******* boots
And pound my paranoia

My march of heart
But do I feel
Deeply
At all
Too much?

It could all be this
And ....

Then again
My sugar might be low
Or
I should eat a banana
(As a powdered jelly filled corrupts my face)

Oh yes,
Much better
The next human that passes
And meets my eye
I will see the undead there
And his heart
On blue sleeve

(I just said heart on, and wonder if they exist either)

Not for the faint I whisper to the dead

(I see dumb people)
Why are they still speaking?
Like a talking head
I say something once
Why say it again

The alive
Seem so sheltered by the status quo
(Suffocated?)
Umbrella’d

The next storm
The big wind that blows
Even if all around me neon blue
Light and crack
(Gripping crack)

Even if all around me this...
I am determined to have mine blown
Upright
And melt into it

Just tip my chin skywards
And melt before I drown in it
(And peel my banana, for I’m sure to survive it.)

I could spit across the moon’s long axis
I could holler into the stars that they are stale ..  
that the bowels of hell are my window to their view  
I could do all of this,  
Without you
  
But keep in myself  
A promise  
Like the lamb screaming  
There is a lion  
And he approaches to shred me  
And eat me  
And deliver me onto the field  
Some meadow of gold and rebirth  
Where harvest holds my future  
And the stale stars will shine again  
  
I can’t complain  
I choose  
I breathe because I am ready to
I ache so  
Because I am often well  
I search for the divine  
Because I have known hell  
  
My song I sing like scorched Earth  
It knows the truth of things  
And all the while  
The electric lick of moan  
And wail
And a pleasure so sweet  
Just on the other side
  
A pleasure so sweet....  
  
I can almost taste it ...

When I am thrown back to
Shades of dying
Through walking breathe Universe
In search of resurrection
To lighten the tongue softly
With Star talk
Offering scores of Gods
The ability
To shine their ego
In a constant crown
Of constellation
With extravagant names
Of ancient Kings
Fierce hunters brandishing weapons pulled and ready to pierce
And women with the intuitive smoke
Of oracles

When I am in this space
Of mist and vague illusion
And the ambient effects
Of wine
Or others that might bend my sky enough
To see beyond it
And into others

I come before a Father
God with sheepish grin
And barely covered
His arm outstretched
And finger pointed before it
To pinpoints, brightnesses
Scattered carefully
And covering the great map of the infinite

And I would wander through
The rest of my days
Thinking on his smile
And wondering why it would look that way

Here it is the time  
Of climbs
By the side
Of men who reach
With clank  
Of armored  
Coats
gruff suits of musk
And little afterthought
  
But you reach  
Through the smoke
As if it were only dusk
And the twilight of it
Would be spread by  
Love  

(We breathe it in and your grin)
  
I might shower in your perfume
Have it sprinkle like rain  
To think of you often
  
(Again and again)  
And remember  
To not hide my heart away
No shelter from life
could be worth
Avoiding its pain  
  
I have seen you take life  
Its shrapnel  
Plinking  
Again and again...  
again and again
  
And breathe even deeper  
Through the daggers dig
And stand higher  
Still
To take the fall
  
What balance hides in those cheeks
And the tender time  
Slung below your eyes
They show your age
Your beauty and wisdom  
  
With each blink  
That sets you down
I rise comfortably there  
And prepare myself to hold you
As you have held my journey in your care
  
You grant me this  
By your grace
You teach me this  
In your every way
  
(A chorus because it would please you)
  
My Mother you’ve sung
Of love and death
Mother you’ve rocked me to sleep  
My Mother you’ve whispered my shame away
And allowed me my secrets to keep
  
(An afterthought and prayer)
  
I lay down tonight  
A vision of you  
Moonlight on your knees
A soft touch of breeze  
To ease you from the remnants  
Of this long summers day
And know I would care  
To hear you strum your guitar
Sit beside you and sing
A song of the hills
And would know its worth  
The scars I might find there  
The pain they might bring  
  
And watch you whistle out to the black dog
His pant as he heels at your side
His sniff of home  
Un loitering  
And I would understand his condition  
Completely  
His look of peace in chocolate eyes
That transcends mere loyalty

We had kept discord
In mason jars
Wrenched the spiral tightly  
With ape ****** dexterity  
And nodded politely as we placed them on the shelf  
  
The tippy toe effort  
To reach them again  
Enough to keep them dusty  
And in this kitchen  
With all the tasks to do  
Mindless chatter here  
A hungry man there  
  
They go unnoticed  
Until another is closed  
And placed beside its brother  
Swirling discontent and sloshing sound  
In the others  
No longer clear  
And the breaking down  
  
Today it is toast and jelly  
And alone with the sound  
Of crusty spread and scrape  
The bite warm and sweet  
  
I think I will clean house  
Toss the old and rotting into the bin  
With pleasing thump into bagged bottom  
And heave it out of my house  
The burden on my shoulder  
Easy  
  
When considering the great burden  
Of time wasted  
And jarred resentment fermenting  
My peace coldly interrupted  
By seemingly innocuous canned goods  
  
And it might just be that simple  
Or, it might not  
Either way  
I might just be ok  
(I’ll be just fine)  
  
I’ll write it all down in ***** metaphor  
To place the comfort of spiritual logic  
By bits and pieces within me  
Practice believing it  
Until it is a wholehearted effort  
And ability  
That mirrors faith  
  
(To be well within my soul)  
I am well within my soul  
I sing it like my grandfather  
During a Baptist revival by an Ozark river  
  
He seemed very happy  
Was a Godly man  
Salt of the Earth made by a God he knew well  
And my Grandma  
She kept plenty on her shelf  
She opened them for us  
(Peach preserves spread liberally)  
And everyone was happy there  
  
I do not remember being alone a day  
Even when I was
  
So this chore done
Spreads good news in my house
(Home)
I emphasize this word
Home
And believe it makes the difference
Enough to still my tummy
And lift my shrug
Apple my cheeks a while
  
I will fall to my knees  
Each time I feel whole
It has been a long while
And I am ever so grateful
So very blessed  
And I should be
Grateful  
For many many things
The greatest of these
Love
The following peace
The affirmation a comfort far beyond  
Anything I might place politely on a shelf

I look around this empty space    
And wonder at it  
how it all became  
And was put into piles collected    
To be tossed    
And was    
And piled again    
And Again  
    
Then in my mind....  
My gut  
My instinct  
My intuition and the following  
It plays out  
Right out of me
    
    
*  
    
There is a game      
Played      
Movements easy around the board      
The dice      
Tossed and rolled      
Tumbled to stop      
      
All flick of the wrist      
And chance      
And loss      
The mind behind it heavy      
Intense concern about its numbers      
      
We diminish ourselves      
By bets placed      
On unstable circumstance      
On games we are not meant to win      
But only pass time      
It's reckoning around the board      
      
The chance cards intended      
To bloom us      
Or bust us completely      
This game has great power      
But it is no Ouija of fate      
      
I cannot believe what is written      
Is placed there      
Though the roll      
Highly unpredictable      
I do choose to roll      
      
*    
      
my life has been messy      
I try cleaning it up      
I use rags of ***** promise      
I try willing the dust to stay      
And dance on the other side of the window      
      
But the day      
she blows      
Strong and forces what is fated through      
The dust settles in my room      
I must live there      
And should be comfortable      
      
So I keep myself      
And toss the ***** rags      
With the rest of the waste      
I know loss      
I am capable of suffering it willingly        
      
*    
      
Should I choose to roll again      
My head turned      
By the spectacle of black dots spiraling      
Preying on their fall      
      
Then all bets are off brother      
My poker face      
A shamble      
You know the chance I hold      
so do I      
My card would be mighty      
But only a card      
      
It is a game man      
only a game....      
      
**    
      
I wipe off my bedside table      
With the hem of my night gown      
A dark circle remains where i once sat your photograph      
It was beautiful      
You were smiling      
And so was I      
      
The memory still lovely      
And as fresh as the room in it      
It was once our room      
And it was your own      
keep it      
I am laying down      
To sleep in peace      
And dream in this one

I have tired eyes  
For behind me sleeps the dying  
They would punish me  
If I’d let them
They are capable
And the withering of their bodies
The curling in their fingers
Are mine
  
Fringed hoods droop
Obscuring the future  

Wide  
It is vast and blank  
Not empty  
But alive in its gesso white  
Brilliant and blinking  
  
Blue highways  
Turned canvas to take me  
And be  
Just be  
Breathe ....  
What I exhale meets the next moment  
  
As cars scream by  
They go so fast  
And  
It has been my suffering  
Strapped to the backseat  
I see my reflection in the rear view  
I am reluctantly drawn to catch my eye  
Her hold  
Pulls me back  
Tightens the buckle  
  
The lane continued without me  
Before  
Would do it again  
I am not willing  
  
The brush dots the median
It is my stroke  
  
The next town  
And it’s roadside attraction  
In cages  
For a minutes wild regard  
Of pedestrian exotica  
Nature timid and tamed  
Turn tailed to the tide  
Of oppression  
Seething counter intuitive  
Self destruction  
He paces complacency  
And laps his pride  
Like milk  
  
What opportunity  
Ability lost  
And the man  
With rotting teeth  
Bent core  
Holds the whip  
His sneer bends its tail  
Striped yellow with black  
And camouflages great promise  
  
I will pass it by  
With heartache  
And simply refuse my curiosity  
To indulge it  
Would be my key in the lock  
  
I can only pray  
That the caged finds in him  
Power and revolt  
Enough to rock itself  
And bust the barn wood  
Twisted steel through the dusty old  
Porch of his keeper  
The man in filthy bibs  
Holding a leather whip  
And spitting terror  
And unholy demise  
Of what would be wild  
  
It is enough today that it is not me  
Tired eyes  
Staring out of bars  
And shameful need  
Shaking hands reaching through  
Clutching at things  
That are not mine  
  
Tomorrow I will wake again  
And be down this road further  
I hope to find my feet dusty  
Dirt roads can seem endless  
Mine sure as hell did  
But I would enjoy  
A long stretch ahead of me  
And in it’s scenic bends  
Sights of things  
That I love  
And familiar faces  
Grinning a willingness to be there

Enter this cloud
Of nostalgia that tufts and rises  
Dark and billowy
Promising summer storms  
Of slanted rains  
Strong enough for redemption  
  
(They will be broken promises, it will blow much stronger than that)  
  
And any effect it might have on you  
This cloud  
With it's seriously thick ways  
Manifested *******  
To stick in skies  
That mean to be blue  
  
They just may cling  
And swamp you  
Dampen your skin  
Slick you with perspiration  
Like the afterglow of red hot lovers  
  
I swear by the residuals  
Of that atmosphere  
Where I store my most sensual  
And intimate memories  
They will cling tightly  
  
(And somewhat perversely on my part I might add)  
  
So high the humidity  
It's density in comparison to say. .  
Florida  
During hurricane season  
Similar...  
And as equally volitale  
  
I have imagined in the center of it  
The eye of the storm  
So to speak...  
A still life  
Of my cataclysmic genesis  
  
And have warped around it  
With twist and dark funneling  
Swirling justification  
Around all events following  
Eden and the walk out of it  
A naked shame  
  
Because it has been an eternity  
From here to that calm  
My feet are blistered with remorse  
I should be grateful  
For all the precipitation  
In this desert  
  
I should hold up my cup  
And let it be half filled  
when I am this thirsty  
  
(And then be able to offer a sip to you)  
  
But for now  
I can only offer entrance  
And this warning  
Alerting you to what you might weather  
And wear  
The heat and sweat  
The smell of bodies grinding unholy position  
  
.....the after effects of red hot lovers

See the lizard with the walking stick
An absurd rhythm  
It applies to a scurried gate
For fashion it would suit him
Only if he were made
A hat band  
For my houndstooth fedora
  
The green flash
And blue feather
Would bring out my eye
  
I eye him  
With a curiosity
And enough desire now
To make his skinny neck gulp
  
A new bejiggity  
Gitter up and go
Now see him drop the stick
He fast approaches frantic
And also drops his tail
  
The fine neon stripe  
Of tail had done him much less damage  
Than the stick
Both attempts at vanity
Utter failures in the end
  
I pick them up both
Twirling one on my left finger
One on my right
See the stick
She matches my fine shoes
See the neon flash of tail
Now curling from my pocket?  
  
Don’t his tail make the perfect  
Company for the green in my eye?