~
Sleep, sweet darling
Sleep

Remember drowsy
blue waters
heal and swoon
the ennui haze

In softly pillowed oblivion
where even your
little toes and feet
touch bottom

Beloved dreamer
in tempera obscurity
there will be no memory
of the procession
ferrying our kipped-down family

They will dance
widdershins around us
with fluttered eyelids
and reclining hearts

But whether an
allegory of the cave or
an analogy of the sun toward
some dividing line between
~either way~

Sleep, sweet darling
Sleep
~

With a hint of death
mingling in the air,
the nocturnal snapdragon is
digging wells,
not just for water,
but also as final resting
places for friends back home,
in the garden,
deep within the soil.

Callous hands and feet
speak of insufficiency
and misery under the sun,
the one lone solace comes
with night,
and the partaking of
her body's delicacies,
bringing her innumerably
to the helve,
as she sings heavenly things
about the architecture
we creatures fall
so easily from.

There is no middle ground
This taking sides again

It's Adam or Eve
She, deceived
He, the willful one

Once naked
Now ashamed
And misconnected

Within an
Inauguration of leaves

Sleeping upon
Thorns and thistles

The genetic defect their own
To carry forth
Children of sin and death

In the shadow
Of something now
Unattainable

It was never
About appetite

It was always
About sovereignty

Earth is in orbit.

I can see it in the window.

From the window of this
Conflict-free
Facility.

A crew of
Four souls

In gravitational symphony.

A crew of
Four colors

Ad rem and
Unsegregated.

The vastness of space
Brought us together.

What's the transmission?

"Why can't the world below
Live like this?"

They fought with swords and shields in sorted fields

of acrimony, declared life and limb to a barren kingdom,

bowed to the royal crown and wooed its fairest daughter.

They won her heart, graced her walls, and worked within them to produce an offspring

—a love child forged with the will of iron and a random, but possessive eye chart.

It nearly took the death of an empire to bring this passion to birth,

and here it so rests upon her breast, pleading an allegiance to her tattered flag.

Why even a thousand years of war demurred to her letting down her hair.

But whose army crossed that wanton bridge and stroked her into carnal submission?

Who kept watch at the crossroads?

History tells us c'est la vie was the culprit, and détente the better angel.

Sometimes it's useless to be useful...

Claypan
Hideaway
Constant instars
Exiled metamorphosis
So quiet you can almost
Hear the sun go down

Valle de Las Hamacas
Vista Hermosa
Spheres of Paradiso
Seismic dewdrop points
Listening to the night
Fall with the rain

Right at the contour,

Decorative canyons of dire, descending ornaments,

Occluded with mixed smoke signals.

Those heading to their number beds,

Pray to the analytical gods,

"Dear Lord, bell curve distribution. Please, please, please..."

In the haze of
Cerebral hemispheres
Counting the seconds between
Lightning and thunder
Returning fire
With the same manic glee
As eating ice cream
Right from the carton

Two Minutes Hate

I'm bleeding out like
Notes from underground
That contain secrets
Of the wounded sky
I feel a provoked heaviness like
Manhole covers
Razing cane over
The shoddy infrastructure

Two Minutes Hate

"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in." - George Orwell, from the novel 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'

~

What is reality?
What is theory?

Sometimes four
Sometimes five

Sometimes both
Of them at once

Control the future
By controlling the past

Listen here, Oceania
War is peace

First, we'll give everything its due
Then say it never happened

Again and again
Until you believe it's true

I've been a combination
of many things:

Window slats
& Roman numerals

Door knobs
& swimming pools

Bulletproof glass
& Magic Wand Massagers

Bird droppings
& ruffled feathers

The beginnings of a migraine
& a burst of birdsong

Alas!
My heart was never into it

Not one could return me
To sinus rhythm

Not of ancient lore,
or some cross to bear.
But here. But now.
No Prince Charming
at the castle door.
Only her, Miss Damsel herself.
In some paper city,
called Zilch,
where things fall apart fast.
She's trapped in no tower,
but a loft instead.
With tin-foil crown,
she climbs across
the kitchen table
to slay the dragon,
in the flames
of his own black-hearted
bedevilment.
A dagger to the heart
of the matter,
and all is quiet again.
Then with a satisfied yawn,
she retires for her afternoon nap.

Let men burn stars out from innocuous lightyears pulled through the vortex

Like needle and thread, sown by centuries of sparked, graceful union

(Their strength and vigor found in the cross-stitching)

And ever gently unfolding like outer reach, like inner *****

In the garden of our senses, flowing with milk and honey, by means of forethought or afterglow

One thought of ecstasy, one thought of infinite parable taking new light to bed

The sacred beams bending to form a crescent, a lunula of utmost happiness

a glimpse of
what might have been:
the candle
and the blow

pacing the floor
mind filled with nighthawks
stomach with bitter pills

snow on the window sill
--the long winter
of our love

it comes out of the blue
like dead reckoning

thoughts of us
unfinished

a hand withdrawn
the final wager on goodbye

Here come the confectionary clouds
Packed like powdered sugar

And
They
Drizzle
All
Over
Her
Hankering
Hungry
Heart

Little quicksilver has
A bit of a sweet tooth
And grubby hands well into
A box of Quality Street

There's no line for
implants or alcohol

Autumn leaves fall in time
not just for October

Voices are liminal
neither hide nor hair

*** is a capricious contest
where anyone can be assassin

Limitless horizons abound
where even bottomfeeders
fear to tread

Welcome to phase II
It's only the beginning
(of the end)

High above this
destiny

I can see your private
mystery

Mechanical wasp controls
the hive

Its sensors are buzzing and about
to go live

Over the shoulder, around
the bend

The naked you is about
to trend

Shine like it does

You set the sun against me

And here I fell

Only to find my feet

Along the blinding path

To dust, the persecuting heart returned

So too, the spirit flew

And like scales

The veil lifted

And I caught sight

Of something quite intangible

Yet, therein I found true freedom

In slaving for you

As a fisher of men

Her constellations move differently

She no longer controls star systems

Only one remaining cluster
now orbits her

But it is more than enough

For they need and love her as their light-giving empyrean

In the lull
Of our constricted voice

In the hushing
Of our sullen realm

In the finite
Of our broken hinterlands

A watermark
No, rather

A barrow
A grave

Without inscription
Only handprints

In memoriam
Of the receding surf

Never heard
Never reached

~
"Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement."
~
A mixture
of sinister and sweet,
smoking gun at your feet.
Reclining dead
in a meadow,
or wishing you were
as you gaze out your window.

Bottling undecided dark,
catching keyed-up light,
in random, misleading angles.
The uniform hour
holds Grace, Grant,
and the mystery
it entangles.

Don't look directly
at the camera,
icy blonde afterimage.
Everything you need
is written on the page.
Number 13,
Mrs. Peabody?
Don't you know
all contemporary
escapist entertainment
begins by turning your back?
Lingering on what
suspicious minds track.

The migrating voyeurism
sits as the crow,
wired and unfriendly.
The method is an organism,
an implication, a crossbow,
thought, but unseen.
He will push the girl,
until you succumb
to dream sequences.
It's snowing humiliation
at Winter's Grace,
for out of the male gaze,
invading your space,
you become gifted
at doing nothing well,
in sheer
under-things,

(for inner circles & triangles of fur
are all the rage in Europe).

Yes, he hates pregnant women,
because then they have children.
So leave him
to his work,
to analyze your handwriting,
and build that ramp
directly into your trailer.

His larger than life silhouette
will fill the silver screen
with tension,
trip wire,
and a ****** ambivalence,
that ends with
the violent sound
of someone
packing a suitcase.

He enters by virtue of this door,
and you leave through another,
and another,
and another,
until the final scene
alters your state of mind.

Your pretty little feet
dangling precariously
over the edge...

Equations
in the sand

Laid out
and toweling off

Curvatures to
algebraic form

They define her lines
shape her axis

My island of
expectation

Amid summer's long
subterfuge

There are whispers

Suffocating rumors

Tomorrow's deep pockets are full of sand

We hold power in our hands like water

No containment

Fear must fall in drops and settle into streams

Drink it up

Feel it in your thirst

Feel it tighten 'round your throat

Broke through the dark
by wounding one of its own

La luna lone

Made a hole in the heart
of my midnight

Bleeding out acetylene light

Grief is the haze

A mist shrouding reality
within these closing days

I begin anew
I begin with you

You are my isthmus
You are my tombolo

You connect me
You ground me

To this place
To this duration

One heart
One love

Shipwrecks
and underwater ruins

Dressed as shiny
moons and stars

That shimmer
for the sandpipers

When the sun drops her guard
and shows a little skin

I held the moon

And knew immortality

I traded all my unforsaken days

To move within the eternal orbit of her night

To eclipse death

Yet here then the gap narrowed

~
We don't need
Other worlds
We need mirrors

We need thin waists
And a hysteresis curve
To the hips

Let us drink in the sea
And laugh as our number
Comes up

Let us commit
To be noncommittal
And talk nary a word

On age and death
Over afternoon tea
In the bright withered garden

Where the goodness of man
Longed to be more
Than its darkling reflection
~

Riding
The color
Wheel

From
Liftoff
To splashdown

Onyx
Eyelids
Heavy with rheum

Waking to
Laminated
Stick-ons

A vinyl ocean
Of unco adhesion
And snap vacuum

Jettisoned
Trinkets
Of youth

Soaring
Prophetically
Overhead

Acquiescing
As scenes
Of upended worlds

The simple playgrounds
Both remembered
And loved