I’d cut you out
Toss you to the starving wolves
Let them pick apart your lumbering mass
But even under your mask
You’re insignificant at best.

Leave you to your own
Let you fester despite your growth
Because no matter what you do,
In eyes that stare back at you
In all that you stir and stew
With propaganda songs,
And protesting vigils;
Assembly halls full of sycophants.
When the lights go out,
You’re all alone.

No you see the truth is:

All that you are,
And could ever be,
Is benign.

I want to twist with you
Like a helix creating life
In every little death,
Sinking deeper down your depths
Until we pant and chase a breath.

I want to feel your heart
Syncopated with my own
Sweat lubricating the friction
As we collide like carnival bumper cars.

I want to hear you scream,
In lost tongues conjured from hoarse lungs
As you find god in the crash upon your eager shores
Praising to the lord like a good nun,
Better pet, when the leash is tugged.

We connect like candles to a flame
Pouring hot paraffin on milky white skin
Catching an exhaled sigh with a well placed kiss
Stealing breath and stealing your soul
While we tangle under a pallid dim moon,
Devils in our delights.

Following the tracks,
I pick up the scent of everything that attracts hate.
The smell is pungent and bitter, like a rotten apple.
But I’m going hunting; I’m the hunter.

It’s a watershed moment when the villains rouse their cheers.
A paradigm is built from the ruins of fallen heroes.

They sing their songs,
Praising the things they’ve razed with their iron shackles,
Honed with a need to peck the bone.
They scavenge off the sick and mad.

But I’m the hunter, and I’m going hunting.
I follow in shadows,
Watching with purpose.
Should the city cry out,
I’ll bring the game.

Feed a future—
Full of the fruit of the garden.
Wearing snake skin,
I’m alive in the light of enlightenment.
And I’m a hunter, and I’m going hunting.

…Barely      Breath.                    Lungs
             A                 Left     These.       God
                                         In                         Pl-
                                                             ­          Ea-
                                                             ­             Se  help me, I am too young to go_____

While thoughts escape
Like water evaporates
There is enough moisture
For my massaging palms,
To grip the pink putty,
And shape your perception.

If there is art in sculpting
The very nature you see statues
Staring back in awe of your philosophic tangents
Wrapped upon the senses, as you can taste words
And hear flavors, while seeing sound
As I play maestro.

Does the soothing touch
Pinching and pulling clay
Release enough dopamine
To unfurl those brows
And turn a frown into a grin?

Can you feel the synapses fire like pistons
Grafting new sensation
Causing involuntary motion to feel like an ordinary choice?
Does the gift I’ve given in the foresight of what was
Now seems so prolific as I change it,
Sculpting you, molding every secret
From you, like god, malleable mud
Into a fire kiln vase -
And break you just the same as terra-cotta

Stubborn steeled reserve
Grit stone and colder than an ice storm
It’s taken all these fine lines
To curve you into shapes
Tracing fingers along the surface of a smooth face

You keep with your attrition
Battle me for eons
Trample our traditions
But I’ll keep my hands hewing at your ramparts
Until I can see your soul flowing like a river
And who would dare tear your heart from me
If you had the axe, my love, would you hew into me?

Stubborn, but you’re folding
Like a bad hand at the table.
I’ll wager myself for your honor
If you could bluff me with your silence,
Knowing inside there’s a violence
Magma rising to the surface,
And cursing through your words shipped
Erupting from your tempest temper

Is that hard to see?
That these carpenter hands
Bend to the curve of your structure
To make art of your luster,
A statue maker worshipping Athena
Now hew like a great oak
Let me fall away,
Tell me that I’m nothing
When you’re weeping in a steadfast free-fall.

Little laddie was a baddy,
Broke the rules -
Missused daddy's tools
Chucked rocks at fools
Watched as brother rocked a squirrel
Brother socked a loser
But mummy wasn't a soother.

Tooth fairy principled
Knock-Loose discipline
Lost tooth hits the porcelain
Another root dug out
Pick out the weeds
And let the rot grow from trees

Laddie in a playground
Abandoned by the swings,
Inert babbling,
Whistling through the gap
Where his teeth once yapped

Aghast,
A wolf approaches
Jiggling a bag of mummy's teeth.

No one mourns the wicked,
Not a single lachrymose face in the crowd,
No rainfall from the heavens,
No priest to eulogize or ask forgiveness.

Even the monotone wreaths seem brighter,
The sun shines proudly with its radiant warmth
There is no chill in the zephyrs,
Not even a murmur this morning,
They’re not even wearing black or a shawl.

No, no one mourns the wicked,
There is candor among the many,
Huddled ‘round the casket,
Casting their stones instead of roses
Take into the earth with fleeting retribution.

No one mourns the wicked -
As the ground trembles and trees shake
From the effusive cheers create percussion
A symphony of lost sympathy
As the tombstone reads.

“No one mourns the wicked”

Your tongue makes a precise incision,
Words like a scalpel, cutting with precision,
Bypassing my systems like a jewel thief,
Grasping hold of my heart.

Are you a bard or a thief?
It’s hard to tell the difference—
When you play my strings like a guitar,
Out of mind, yet in tune with the violence.
Your eyes direct like storm clouds,
Twisting my image until it suits your need.

Just make a decision—
I’m exhausted with pretense,
Starving for substance,
Why is it that no one replaces what they take?

And if I were a bodega,
I’d stock only the finest farewells,
So you couldn’t buy happiness,
While pawning my world to the highest bidder.
You thought me caramel, but I tasted bitter,
Spoiled long before you spun a web.
I’m not dancing to your tune; the music is dead.

If words were an ocean,
You would drown in your excrement.

Mind on the brink,
Sunk thoughts in a blink
Who’s there?………
                            ….Where are you?….
….What?…
                                                    …no..

Scotty didn’t know,
What brother did in tow,
How greasy hands touch upon the innocent
A daughter doesn’t tell,
The scars they never show.

Scotty doesn’t know
Wife got out the papers,
The lawyer signed and notarized
Waiting for the right time
Manilla envelope creased with sweaty hand prints.

Scotty was fond of rope,
But could never buy a vowel,
Clues left him clueless to the truth
The pills make him expel the bowels.

Scotty doesn’t know,
The voices aren’t real,
Brother looks like a nephilim
Wings made of goose down and paper meal
He’s dancing upon the tree tops
Trying to write the words,
Striking out as the swing tightens.

Scotty was playing hangman,
Tire rope swing, swung
Saying goodbye to the demons
Voices that ring his bells rung
How his brother never loved him,
Only the fruits of his own creation,
And with her lost innocence premeditated
He offered to solve the puzzle,
Eyes dilated.

Another bottle down,
Hoping it can distort truth
Maybe if the mirror’s fogged, it can’t reflect
Can’t show him the middle-aged wreck.

Another chug of warm swill,
Hops molded, no bubbles, flat
Looking at baby pictures and a bag of teeth
Mummy left them, he feels the pain in his jaw
Maybe with another swig, he’ll be rid of it all.

Father watches from his sick bed,
Colostomy bag overflowing,
The excrement covers the scent of shame
As eyes barely raise to see his progeny

No he’s clicking the button to call the morphine
Drips entering to send him to a new dream,
Unable to stand the sight of his kindred,
As the boy that became a man, indigent.

Bryan takes another swig of clotted wine
A Merlot collecting dust upon his desk,
The keyboard is crusted over, white film, flaky
As he tends to his perversions, hoping a spark can awaken

On here he can be anyone,
But his lungs fail to inflate fully
And the liver shrivels to a freeze-dried remnant,
It’s only been minutes, but he shakes
Begging with forgiveness
Needing something to wash down the pittance
One more swig’ll do her!
Another drink to soothe.

As father watches on,
Glazed eyes and singing Aussie songs
He’s ******* post the catheter bag
Flowing yellow rivers down his bedside

Dreams fill his head,
Hoping Bryan dies,
So he could mend and heal,
Watching as he sips forever,
With jaundiced, glassed-over eyes.

If he could write it,
Or murmur sound
He’d say he was disappointed
But all he does is frown

While Bryan,
Consumed with trauma
Caught in his self-made prisons
Drowns in a sea of sick
And cheap bourbon.

Forever a child in a man’s husk
Daddy’s little burden.

Your eyes spoke softly,
And I, abashed and shyly listened.

Suddenly, my lips part,
As I try to resist the pull of gravity.

“If I could walk with you,” I said,
“I’d like to steal some time.”

You replied with a pull of a tie,
“I’ll make you mine.”

Blonde locks adorned in lavender,
Blue hues piercing through the shade
Lashes batting like a strobe,
Captivating like a silent film.

This fedora dripped,
Melting from my careless hands.
I clenched my fists for a moment.

How simple words fall on deaf ears
When no one listens to the signs,
Just like we do.

Sing a song, bluebird.
I’m all ears to hear your lyrics hum.
Wash over me in technicolor.
I’ve dreamt of nothing better.

This scene is so noir,
But I see the light.
Sun hues, greener grass,
and thoughts of you.

Is this real or am I dreaming again?

Night Red and blue neon
All that I know
I bled for this.

Drug dealer avenues
****** blvd
Watching the night life illuminate
Like bioluminescence.

Predators to prey
A missing person a day
****** in every crack in the sidewalk

Day after day
Night after night
Watching the worst use the streets for play

******* snow angels
**** addled tremors
Narcan for the homeless

This is not cinema
This is middle America
When the stars all shine
The creatures make their move

Is it in your chemistry?
I wonder as I’m choking down
Tears scorching my throat like an acid rain
Hoping to bleach your name from my recesses
Built a bridge past the swap of your defenses
Tried to massage your heart without pretenses
But you burn me down.

Do you feel anything when you immolate
Everything sets you off like a hair trigger,
Bear trap my mind and clamp down while you drill deeper
Pour in your toxicity like a waste dump
And set it all on fire.
I’ll be the embers to dance at your command.
Ashes drifting like autumn leaves
Snow down in a distance like a winter dream.

Is it in our chemistry?
Do I excite you to ignition
Gods envy the way our bodies friction
But you believe the fiction,
So I’ll weep for an ending,
Burning my nerves as the acid’s etching.
Retching flames like an allergic fire eater
Your conflagration rings around me.

Are you the pallid horseman
Can I be the one to the blow the horn?
I’m weary and ready for an ending
And you burn me like white phosphorus .
Can we mix and tether,
One day coalesce
Solvent in your trepidation
Waters deeper than the ocean.

Is it in your chemistry?

You relish the way I caress your flesh,
Kneading into your deep tissue,
Exfoliating with grit and ground remedies,
And brushing the cool, slick oils up and down your curves.

You share stories of saunas,
Describing how you enjoy the steamy sensation
As I lay you upon the rack, closing the hatch-
Infused with the aroma of oak and red cherry.

The enticing scent of your sweat fills the air
Creating a potpourri of aromas.
The sizzling of your songs tingle in my soul like a reverie,
captivating my senses.

Hours pass, and I, like a tempting man,
Brush your bronzed body to a tease,
Kissing with my nostrils to your sear marks.
As I feel your heat envelop my follicles, 
I’m consumed by a lustful desire.

Finally, I remove you from the iron-hot bed
And place you on the cleanest marble.
I stare at you, awestruck by your perfect brown and moist skin,
Dripping with juices succinctly.
You radiate such radiance, beauty, and temptation
That I can’t resist the urge to devour you.

“You’re smoking!” I exclaim, my hunger palpable.