Cicadas creating a cacophony,
emerald leaves gracing limbs
centuries old; the park is alive.

Neighbors walking dogs, rumbling
home after a long work week, a lively game of tennis is being played across the way.

I should feel...
good
happy
content
calm
something

In our astral oasis
the scorpion and the fish
have no secrets.

The shadows have been buried
under rocks on the bottom
of our stream
and
time is always now,
distance is always here.

Here and now,
I feel your fingertips
in the warm evening air.
Fingers on hands I've never held.

I hear these hands
writing a letter,
sliding across the paper
leaving whispers on the leaves
and fingerprints on
the ancient roots.

My lips on your lips,
Dainty feet gracing shoulders.
Tasting the divine.

This restless and irritating
little tick in my skin
won't leave me alone.
I scratch and I pick
and I peel away
my flesh, digging
away the rotten.
My words are matted
cat hair and
malignant growths, needing
to be cut off and out.
I reek of apathy
and whiskey
and lies
and lost sleep
and I feel
as if I am
caught in a swirling
whirlpool of
the kind of loneliness
that consumes men whole.

This has to end.

I've rearranged my furniture
and tried holding
different hands
and
different ****
and tried kissing
different lips
and I've even went
so far as to try
eating different *****,
but the hands
don't fit the
right way and
the **** don't look
the same
and I never
did want to kiss
anyone
but you and
nobody's ****
will ever taste
as good as yours.

Here and now, alone.
Missing you, empty again.
I ******* love you.

You are my sugar.
Bugs and worms whispered the truth.
So get used to it.

Listen buttercup,
This is just the way it is.
Now do what I said.

I hate myself, now.
I want to die, today, now.
I choose life, right now.

Apathetic sloth,
Your whorish ways bring me down,
*******, filthy ****.

Stone washed denim sky,
Tree limbs bathed in emerald,
Birds whistle, dogs bark.

***** water sky,
Trees dipped in ebony ink,
Night, my lover now.

Right now I want to cut myself,
deep.
I'd like to drop lit,
wooden kitchen matches
onto my willing abdomen
and watch
my flesh melt
away.

Something has to give.

Bind me to an iron cross
and flay my skin.
Strike my joints
with a metal rod
until I am
completely broken.

This cannot last.

I'd like to grab
hold of the flesh
under my jaw
and rip my ugly face
off of my ugly head.
I want to pound nails
into my knees,
chew on thumb tacks,
skewer my eyes
with toothpicks.

I spent an hour
scraping calloused feet
and toes when I could
have cut them off
with a pruner
and saved some time.

I'd like to do these
things, but I am
not a *******
I am no victim.
I am no martyr.
I am not so deep
in The Nothing.

I would rather
perform these acts
upon you.

Sycamore floaters fill the park
and shadows grow long on the hill
as the sun sets on my peaceful oasis.
Dogs are being walked and chickens
are being watered.
The tweekers are on their
rigged up, gas powered bicycles, zipping through
the streets like squirrels in the ancient oak
tree guarding my corner of the block.
Everywhere I look I see fifteen million
emerald leaves shining back the truth to me.

Here and now,
basking in the echoes
of your voice,
I feel your hands on me.

Hands I've never seen.

I run my fingers through
your ironed hair
and softly kiss your cheek
as the stains of memory
fade.

Toad legs and tattoos
intertwine; skin to skin,
we become one.

Within you, I shed
my shadows.
Surrounding me,
your fears fall away.

This is my here and now
as the night blooms
and sleep gathers dust.

Soil, mulch and flora.
Odors of spring on bodies.
Peonies ripen.

With a mouth full of bile,
I kiss your rotting lips.
I spew my rancid seed
on your blackened eyes
and know they will soon
be crusted shut, tainted
by my sickly venom.

I am poison.

I seep into
your wet parts and
consume all that is good and pure,
leaving nothing but **** in
your bloodstream, ***** in your lungs.

I am malignant by nature,
malevolent by choice.

And I have chosen you as next.

It's only you,
my dearest, my darkest;
it's only your
soft voice I hear
in the small hours.

These lilac bushes breathe
your name and the soil listens,
remembering everything.

It's only a whisper
of rose oil and
amber, of silk and
skin.

Just a whisper.

It's only you
in the small hours.

am not kissing you
within five seconds
of seeing your eyes
in shared sunlight,
then the earthworms
will swarm to our
feet and by seven seconds
our tongues will touch
and the universe will
stop holding it’s breath,
knowing our time has begun.

Luna waxes, wanes.
Blood. Water. Our passions tide.
Gravity's death grip.

I'm sick of writing *******
angst fueled piles of
**** poems about how much
I think about stupid *******
and how I sickly miss their sadistic
tendencies exercised upon my
unsuspecting psyche.

I write of greys and nothings
and try to create murky landscapes
because I'm ******* bored and high
and I know that kind of ****
resonates with some of you creepy *******.

I wrote so many ******* poems for her,
for you, dearest.
So many poems I thought you would see
how much I love you, how much I would give all of myself.
For nothing.
I told you no the other day,
after not hearing from you for months.
That twisted my guts but I asked
my sister what to do and she is
one of the few creatures with a ******
I trust.

I'm sick of reading other peoples
**** of lost love and broken hearts
and **** gone wrong and he loves
her but she likes ***** and *******
empty heads smashing empty hearts
and abuse and neglect and so many
******* gut wrenching tales of woe
it makes me sad to be a part of this..
pathetic conglomeration of fools, humans.

Sure, there is some positive **** out there,
but even that makes me want to puke.
I'm envious and doubtful, cynical and jaded.

I want to believe my one is out there,
but I'm not getting any prettier
or any smarter
and I have grown weary of
even trying to try.

I'm tired and ******
and I just want a soft
sweet smelling pile of flesh
next to me rubbing my
temples and whispering in my ear
stories of bugs and latex body paint
and what dress she is going to wear
for me.

****.

I'm tired of writing poems like this
and I'm tired of reading poems like this
and I only want a sweet dripping ***** on my face.
I never claimed to be a poet.

You can do it now, if you want.
Get ****** up,
****** over,
Stepped on,
****** with
and just plain ******.

Right in your ***, if you want.

You can wallow and writhe
in miserys mud, carve a new scar
and think it's all your fault,
If you want.

You can even throw a bag
of your body parts into the river,
if that's your kind of happy.
You can do it now, if you want.

You can drop the false smiles
and start telling these mother *******
how it really is, also.

It's ok to drop a little venom in the tea
because these ***** have ****** on the carpet
too many times and nobody likes
a loud mouth drunk *****.

Some just have it coming and I'm ok with being the one that gives it to them.
Because I can.
So can you, if you want.

So if it's a toss up between
getting ****** or
rising above,
bend over ***** because
I'm not letting you
stand in my way.

My blood runs thick
for those I love.
If you are mine
you feel it in your bones
and I am the sound
of sugar that makes you wet.

Here and now, alone,
My thoughts turn to you,
your pale skin
your new glasses.
Your black hair is
getting longer.
I didn't expect to find
a picture of you waiting
for me this morning,
I didn't expect to
feel this emptiness
eat me again.

I thought I was getting better.

With a flutter of joy
comes a deep red on her cheeks,
neck and collarbones follow suit.

Our creek and the sky
and the earth
and the birds
give us all the
answers so let us find
other uses for our tongues.

Together in this
quiet and safe
garden we have created,
we will share our secrets
with the flowers
and listen to the stories
of earthworms.

We will give
the soil
small tastes of ourselves
under Luna's smile.

Let us drink deep
from this water
cold and clear
and become one
under the mighty
Cottonwood trees.

With a warm glow
around my tired bones,
I feel the chemicals
slowly take effect.

It's ok with me, precious,
if you think I'm ugly.
I'll love you just the same.

My hands knew your skin
before we ever touched lips
because you are missing from me.

It's ok my dear,
if we never live
I'll love you just the same.
It's the honey on your lips
that keeps me on my knees.

Shadows taste like unanswered crickets and last years leaves.
This question crawls in your skin
as you try to wring the answers out of *******.
There is no right or wrong
in the realm of exo-skeletons
so the crickets sing as
I part the earth and
come on your sacred soil.

I know what I am.

You are my sugar,
white and heaping.

There is only this.
There is only now.

You are here
and I am there
and I will choke on these
shadows the way you choke me
behind your lovely lashes.
Don’t die so soon,precious;
I have many flowers to
spread on your skin.

Today I killed
the last piece
of love
inside me.

I fed it poison
and watched it
convulse and die
as the cicadas rotated
shifts in my ears.

Yesterday a blind woman
touched my face
as I carried her through
the desert to
the Holy Lake in the mountains.
She touched my face
and asked me to put her down;
she no longer wanted my help
because she knew my
nothing was greater than hers.

Tonight I drink the shadows
of your name, heavy with
time.

Blood.
So much blood.
Bright red against her pale skin,
and his wood floors.

Crumpled, a heap on the floor,
she bleeds and moans, ruined.

Mechanisms years in the wanting, seconds to bloom,
he gave her the love she thought was dead.

Even the ones that know how to
take a big **** sometimes
bleed, just not this much.

So much blood.

42 since I started to breathe rotting leaves under a November blizzard.
34 since I entered this body that day on the porch.
32 since I understood violence to be an accepted
part of life.

So many years I have carried this burden and I am tired, so tired.

So many sad Novembers.

But it's April now and 29 since I tasted a woman's mouth. 26 since I discovered how it felt to be inside another human, while completely inside myself.

It's April now and I crave the pale round goblets of milky skin these young flowers offer.
New rituals indeed smolder as centuries unfold.

It's only been 12 since I knew I was part of God
and 7 since I started hating us for being so close.

It was last March since I lost faith in you and I haven't stopped breathing shadows.
I am so tired, dearest.
What must I do?
It's April now, the walnut tree is black against the streetlight; the sycamores line the empty boulevard and I can smell the ghosts in the park.

These milky skies and milky thighs burn in
my skull.  January has lost her way
again as everyone forgets about the poets.
It's the poets that get them through a grey December.
We all share the same air, we all breathe
each other.
There is a lone willow tree, in the cradle of the park, bearing your divine name, which can be heard whispered by the ghosts who wander
on this lonely reservoir.

I am pining for dried tea bags and empty dresses as long summer nights bring insects and revelations.
I am your stone gargoyle.

and *****, slimy and rotten
to the core.
The Id rules here
so ******* and fighting
at playtime now means
****** and killing
for breakfast.
I had feelings once
when the world was bright
and what the fists didn't beat out of me,
the women devoured.
I would give anything
to just be the mighty
sycamore guarding
the park.
Anything to not be this, now.
No lilies in my eyes
since you left me,
like they all do.
No amber
or candles
or soft kisses on
wet thighs.
Nothing but filth
and the familiar stench of
being alone and unwanted
here.
Filth and refuse,
remnants of earlier tortures,
limbs and guts,
decaying art of us
stinking up the place.
It's a sunny day here but
the shadow of our rot
weighs heavy.

My cherry blossoms.
Gather slowly, my precious,
the day is long, here.

Another midnight
Bach's cello soothes the cold air.
Scorpion eclipse.

One room away is a woman
who wants me to **** her.
She is beautiful, intelligent, and drunk.

I am ugly, intelligent, and sober.

Even though my highest and best
tells me to walk away with a smile,
my core screams for a ruining.

One room away is a drunk, *****,
dripping work of art who is also
very, very lucky.

Charles tells me to listen to
my **** and Pablo whispers a reminder
to remember the smell
of early morning wheat
and your eyelashes
while Walt and I gaze at the stars
and think of death.

I smile to myself,
soaking in the after glow
of vanilla chai, good ****,
and dead poets.

One room away is a woman
who's fate was in my sadistic hands.
Two rooms away is a twelve year old
who is dreaming of flag football
and Vans and getting to
level 37 of Skyrim
and one day,
after he wakes up
and after we have our
toaster strudel,
and somewhere in between
me stopping for coffee
and dropping him off,
I'll remind him
that good ***** is everywhere
so take your time and do it right
and when you just don't want to
look at their face,
make some tea,
catch a buzz,
and read some poetry.

With stones in my eyes
and your flesh
between my teeth,
I rot a little more.

My plants weep and wander
as I try to
conjure your smells
from the cold.

Grey is the color of your skin
and the night is thick
with our black blood.

Closing my eyes,
breathing deep,
my hands remember
the curve of your hip
and the miles between us
are molecules.

Another breath and
amber fills my mouth.
Tea bags drying
and good whiskey
with limes
and lilac
and bleach
and mastiffs
and skin
all burn in me now
with enough heat
to tighten the flesh
around my ribs.

I cannot stand this empty
air and the weight
of our nothing
has stamped me flat.

No cherry blossoms here
as the lies
cover the soil,
poisoning the root.

Another breath,
my head tilts back
and mouth opens
in remembrance of our sacrament.

With a dry mouth and bound feet,
I ponder your undoing.
Seeing you
reduced to a quivering mass
of gellied flesh
is going to make me feel quite satisfied.


Quite satisfied indeed.

I won't be worried about who is right or wrong.
I won't be thinking of egos and consequences.

My mind is made up
and some beatings are in order.

I will have one goal and that
is to inflict pain and suffering
on you and your entire family.

Every last stinking one of you fat stupid *****.

You see, you think you know me, and you are correct. You do. You know me better than most.
You don't know this part.
You have never seen what I am capable of,
what I have done.
  
You know not the lengths of great
personal sacrifice I will endure
just to see you bleed,
*******.

I will stew
and brood
and contemplate
and daydream about
your mouth caving
under my fists.

*****.

I'm going to take
what little manhood
you have left
and completely destroy
everything left to do with it.

Nothing can save you,
my mind is made up.
You have no hope.
I don't have to wonder
if I will see you,
I will.
Be ready to bleed.
My mind is made up.
Nothing can save you.

You can get it wrong, at 1 a.m.
If you listen to the whispers
of the blue smoke.

Intentional bruises sneak in between the thunder and we build our altar on the ashes of tradition.

Now.
you are My sugar.

The drums and whistles of our dead keep rhythm as we dance alone in the cold of our
Great Nothing.

You can get it wrong at 1a.m.
If you wait for the smoke to clear.

Traffic hums away.
Open windows bring forth songs.
My city, singing.

You can get it right, at 4 a.m.,
if you listen to the birds waking up.

My heavy lungs remember your amber
as my neck revolts in agony.

I hurt so bad right now and all
I want to do is taste your wet.

You can get it right, at 4 a.m.,
if you listen to the birds.

Your pale skin wrapped
only in a black corset
and ebony hair,
the welts begin their ascension
towards grace.

No need to burn when
I am around for I bring
enough pain to satisfy
all of our dark desires.

That time is dying and
I have new rituals for your
milky curves.

Tonight you crawl through me
as I bind your ankles
to your wrists,
my thoughts to
your blood.

Submission, like honey.
Slow and ageless,
forever ready for my tongue.

Tasting bliss centuries old
and loosening the knots
inside, we lick our wounds clean.

Time and distance
don't exist in our cathedral.

Morning blooms grey,
even the birds are quiet.
I broke two more hearts this week
and all I want to do
is hear your laugh.

You put strings in my joints

Your wooden face still hangs on my door
and Buddha squats on my granite nightstand.
Tastes of you are everywhere I look.

You shoved it in my face

******* and fighting
my way back to me,
I'm shedding skin
and growing teeth
and breaking bones
and doing **** my way
and loving it,
really loving it.
Still I hate every second
I am not with you.

*The coldness of your nothing

Bloodstained parchments.
Broken oaths.
Chiseled granite
with
promises
weightless as shadows.

But still we lie.

Wading in  the great nothing,
waist deep in murky inks,
wandering
sightless, senseless,
I feel my way.

Memories of grey skin,
black blood.
******* wrapped in ropes,
cherry blossoms
and alcohol.

Still we love our bruises.
  
Blind and cold
in the nothing,
we feel our way.

First warm day in months,
raking uncovered flowers.
Parks fill with laughter.

Sweet woman,
in your mountain's embrace
I see you cry alone.
I long to be at your bedside
but my ways are treacherous,
and my time is short.

I give you as much as I have
to offer.

Precious girl,
I feel the heat of your devotion
through the miles.
I long to be between your thighs,

but my skin is cold
and my time is short.

Nocturnal bloodlust.
Pale Luna cries tears of stone.
He drowns in her fruits.

You are going to die
before me.

I already know this.

You are going to get fat
and go completely blind
and probably,
eventually, they will
cut some parts off.

You are going to fall apart
in front of me.

I know this.

I still choose to stay.
I will be there
through all the appointments,
the stickings and pokings and cuttings and bleedings.

I have only wiped
a few *****
in my life.
Mine,
my son's,
a few babies
of friends.

I already plan on wiping yours
when you cannot.

I will draw
little sugar skulls
on your prosthetic feet.

I will make sure you always have enough medicine and it is always refrigerated.
I will help you
in and out
of the bathtub.
I will massage your legs
and arms
and back
and head
and neck,

every day.

I will make our boys breakfast
and walk the dogs
and make sure everything
goes back in the
same exact spot
and keep a file with all the pertinent medical information
so I can fill out all the paperwork.

I will take you to
all those folk rock shows you love so much
and describe the singers to you.

We will still garden together.
I can see you in a chair,
barking out questions
about our harvest and me,
going back and forth,
bringing you the biggest squash
to hold.

You see, I have given up thinking
I am ever going to
give myself to anyone else.

It is you and you alone.

So, when you start to fall apart,
and you will fall apart,
don't worry baby.
I am going to be there to wipe your ***.