Listen: that is air;
                   that is birdsong;
                              the total weightlessness
of freedom without consequence
felt not even in the moment before
it flees, but once its residue breathes
a small signal, whispering, "Listen!"

Now hear: that is mind;
                            second self;
                                   the Thing that chides cautiously,
"Life is an intricate system of Dominoes,
             and you are as the first block in the series.
                        No sweet moment goes unnoticed by the universe."

--and I am eternally at the ready
to invite some awful Punishment
into my world, should I choose
this small happiness.  Ah,
is that what you'd have me believe?

The air is too cool, the birdsong
too bright, and the streets
too clean and white that I might
ere long make my leave.  Not yet,
not yet.

Listen, voice,
           Listen, psyche,
                       Listen, Thing: today, I take no heed of you!

Seven of eight pups writhe against each other
in a great cardboard box cut to enclose them
with pink blanket and wet towel and maternal warmth,
curled up against one another, noses searching their blind world to nurse.
One is dying.  It is the one my mother holds
against her stomach--the one who suckles her fingertip, which she's dipped in water--
the one who moans again, again, again, more raucous than any of them,
though it can no longer even lift its head.
It is this one whom little Jaedon has been watching
for hours with tears in his eyes, speaking earnestly from
his seven-year-old heart for this thing that has lived not even two weeks,
"I would do anything, anything, anything..."
again, again, again.  In him still is such hope
it may live, but his cries are an awful din to me.
I cannot cry with him.  I cannot even touch
the little animal anymore.

a poet doesn't live in here


just a hallowed wreck


woe is me ... all that ****

i only want respect


a blind man couldn't see him

so he thought he was a farce


stumbling down flashlight paths

taking to himself in the dark

whispering all the sick things  she would have liked to hear

screamed silent lullabies about the brutal world of fear


a poet doesn't live here

just a 17 year old's self esteem

little boy's riots and life-long bad dreams


i wanted to pain you a picture

dead bodies on trampolines

smiles on their faces...


know what i mean?


i wanna cut my heart out

black dead and cold

and give up what's left of

my shattered dustpan soul,


this whole thing for me

was like pulling teeth

slowly twisting one by one

and gargling gasoline,


a poet doesn't live here

he's all dried up inside

and summer's come

it's time for fun, no more time to write.

Human Love,
When you come to eat the rations of my heart,
remember, then, that starving is an art;
that to consume would be to ****--a crime;
that to exhume this cherry seed of mine
will drain me of a blood as thin as grape juice;
that in time, I will mourn my stolen-***** fruit.
-Ocean

            ------

Ocean,
You speak unto your seedling self, child.
You are weak--we are weak.  No mild
measure of halfway self-control can live
in mental habitat which exists to give
and only to give.  Your fluids will seep
and you'll be unable even to weep.
-Earth
            ---
Obtuse Earth,
Stop your assaulting me with these words.
Stop your quiet screaming, this dirge
which comes under guise of gentility--
insufferably loud, however creatively.
I never addressed you, ugly whisperer.
I never addressed you, nuissance, stranger.
-Ocean
            ---
Stubborn Ocean,
Do not be foolish!  Listen, girl.
Spurn him now with resolve; lest how
can dignity you preserve in any small
amount?  He doesn't love you at all.
And knowing that, you gave me address:
indeed, you have addressed yourself.
-Earth

            ------

Love,
Were that I could say it's so,
I would not give this room to grow.
But oh, if I do hold it back
then infinitely I should retract
into myself.  So speak or speak not,
but if so, speak now, for I am distraught.
-Ocean