It's not your fault

the lines on your face

are familiar seismic places

some are lakes

some are caves

some have seen their better days

but the thought of you

hiding a hundred years

of advanced technology

from your ovaries

and letting them wither away

keeps paranoia from lowering its

drawbridge

I've been sent to prism
For minor refractions
My days of frequent violets
Are now in the past
As the light in me
Is slowly emerging
Tomorrow I'll open my eyes
And find correction of vision
Mingled with distorted spectrum

Now that I think about it
I haven't heard
a crossword
from her
all day

It's a bad dating sign
When even Alexa
Starts ghosting you

Iniquitous priests and cannibals
Absolve
Then feed
Upon childhood dreams

I cannot breathe
Any longer
In this unfiltered
Parsimonious pond

Must
Push back what entangles

Must
Pull away from a myriad of angry souls

Must
Lift this ill-harboring mind free

Agony
He is my constant friend

And
He reminds me
I'm (somewhat) alive

And
That one shiny day
Along the suspicious river Difficult
I will finally slay him

I dreamt of lighter fluid
As desert rain

Matchsticks
Stricken against the wind

Building into a phosphorus
Shower

A smiling inferno
In the fast lane

Hot cinder rims
Giving joyride the third degree

With fiscal intentions
Of burning this

Highway
Right off the map

Man-made phenomena
litters the sky,
these satellites orbit themselves
--celestial magnets
befriending the galaxy.

Eccentric hours of
the day and night
lend themselves to the after party,
where the girls run in spirals,
the boys just taper off,
it’s a strange side effect
to all the confection and confetti
--an interstellar jackpot
with all the quirks!

There’s no moon out of reach
to bury one’s flag in to
or hang a quote from,
no riddle wisenheimers can't
complacently decipher.

As missions go this is prime
and far too lucrative
when the star machine
starts throwing back from
the electronic heavens,
shooting them off
in such bizarre bans
of incensed fire,
a sure reflection of fireworks
against the artificial currents
of this drug.

There’s no catching
these shooting stars
lightyears from here,
but if you ask nice,
they just might send you a selfie
the next time
your trajectories coincide.

At first, time will settle for a minute of your time. But in the end it will claim everything, sans the end. So I sharpen time and run with it. I make it mine to bring to ruin with. I wield it like a sword. I give it out of fear, take it out of regret. I battle and **** for it, hold others hostage with it. Time doesn't want salute or tribute. It wants you to forgot it's there. Just turn your head as it chews the road you built. This non-negotiable is often called the great equalizer. It's my friend until it's not. And I know that day is quickly coming.

I wonder what monsters
believe are lurking
under their own beds at night

Maybe you or me?

You and I,
we floated upon
clouds of cotton candy,
felt the warmth
of the butterscotch sun,
and with eyes tightly closed,
we kissed each other
like wishful stars of sugar.

It's a crying shame
our parachutes failed to open...

Navigating mercy

An asylum harbor from afar

Here, in the gloaming of your closed
notebooks

A faint-hearted horizon

And the wide beam sea

Two days out from despair

The written word will capsize
you, Anne

God is in your typewriter
and where the boats so often go

Standing at the launching
of rabid filibustering grenades,
soaring high,
bursting brilliant,
reeking havoc
--chaos like inner city canyons imploding
in on themselves;
--then again--
news breaks of blood
on a naked white girl, and
the memory of them fades...

Yesterday,
I caught death
going through my trash,
looking for cans.
I asked him
if there wasn't somewhere else
he needed to be.
He said he was
in between jobs at the moment,
and thought he'd do
a little recycling
in the meantime.
I told him to move on...

It's said
Behavior is learned
Especially thru close association

This explains why
My cellphone is also depressed

If you judge a book
by its cover
then you shouldn't
be surprised
to find yourself
on the wrong page

Under the bow
of a failing nebula
floats a time capsule
full of unused bandwidth
and disappearing summers

Swimming-pool eyes
they're in remission
discovering Columbus
on the starboard side
of this standard suburban saltbox

Fragility and risk is this
cosmic companionship
rowing to latitude
through dark matter
seiche or refracted

The oncoming tide
will mean a migration of steep passages
"though shiny, sculpted pebbles
spoke of frequent waves
the sea was docile that day"

made by human hands/from elements of the ground/and from afar/silver gold and star/burning without memory/or clear trajectory/in a ritual of prayer/and smoke-filled arena air/the only thing that shines forth/the peril and glory/an endlessly rewritten story/of their own sudden demise

On a dead of winter day
our footsteps in the snow
melt too quickly
for anyone to follow

In drops of steady rain
we picnic beside the lake
and watch fireworks
fizzle out with summer

Riding the crest of fall
but stalked by spring
and so, in the throes
of such invisible connections
we're preserved

And sitting on a shelf
awaiting our turn
to be pried open
and spread like jam
for someone to consume...

You may be able to keep
Your money in a bank
But never your secrets

Not with so many tellers

The swing
The spinning top
The doll
Wooden horses
Battledore and shuttlecock
Trumpet and drum
Soap bubbles
**** in the corner
Blind man's buff
Leap-frog
Little husband, little wife
The ball

Please let me return
To my childhood ways
And the happy games
We played

We are fragile figures. Our pillows at the outskirts of paradise. Befriended by dreams, the mind begins to process the day in Kodachrome. Once it starts, there's no turning off the pictures. She lies beside me. She's reached paradoxical sleep. I'm still on the outside looking in.

Take me there. Beyond the eyelids, where the mind wanders each night. To where the seeds of disturbance must be resolved within us. Some are strengthened. Others desolve as mist. This is how we survive. Chemical fires burn, become tides of memory. Pass the torch of preservation. Keeping them warm and remembered.

A miraculous routine. Live together. Dream alone. Desolate. Magnificent. My eyes are at the moment the apparitions are shut away. My mind in this place, a stretched fabric. Yet, it's far from alone. In the cataloging of miles and years, I sense an odd fellowship cresting without limit. I thought I saw her smile in agreement from her side of sleep.

You or me

You then me

But never
You and me?

The more we walk together
The less we know one another

School teachers
deserve hazard pay

Mastermind
Before their time
Or so their bio's show
They paint like
Picasso for a day
By numbers the rest of the year
Billboards say "This way"
But the intellectual vibe
Is the yellow brick road
To never, neverland
They speak rousingly clear
Talk of big plans
But fail to execute on game day
They critique us
Repeatedly so, only
Because they wish they were us
Their belief in nothing
But themselves is undeniably
The fatal flaw

She enters the gratification car
With Victorian lace choker
Porcelain décolletage
And phasers on stun
Don't worry lovergirl
You can't hold a candle to her
But you'll burn your fingers trying
Look at the front of her dress
Look at her passport
Look at how the aisleway clears
She's enroute to a foreign
Meet and greet
Tracking approval
With the shape
Of her sitzfleisch
The conductor has
No need of compass
For her ******* point the way
Once derailed
You can mock and stomp
'Til kingdom come
Until then save your pandering
For trips to the loo
You'll enjoy the ride
Far better if you pretend
She's your sister
And not the woman
Who gave birth to you...

Ah
to be your
spider
all webs
and legs
and tasty things
in the parlor
and then when
the eggs
hatch away
it's curtains for
you and me

The best tea parties
in the whole wide world
are hosted, not by queens,
but by little five-year-old girls:

They're major dress-up,
with a who's who guest list
that includes
teddy bears, Barbie dolls,
and sock puppets.

They must always have
a special theme,
be it the family pet's birthday
or in honor of a favorite
cartoon character.

What she serves
is anybody's guess,
and indeed,
the menu will vary
for it's all make believe,
but her imagination
is quite real,
and a big part of the charm.

Count your lucky stars if invited.

Ruler of the sheets
Sleep has its own zip code

Dreamland is the nightly
Wait and wonder
We all have membership to

But this has its limits

The boundaries belong
To another kingdom

One of fun and adventure

A place of equilibristic feats
And corporeal claims

It's a fair trade-off

Sometimes we count sheep
In the center

Other times we play games
On the perimeter

Encircle or recycle
the elastic of her *******,
for they're a bit worn and showing,
proving the theory of gravity.
But his hands still
lustfully reach for them.

The cinch of her waist,
no longer tailor made,
has inched itself out a little too far.
But he thinks it just right
in placing his arms around.

The sculpture of her ***
not quite cut from stone.
But he still daydreams about
how on fleek her cheeks.

The added width to her hips
the result of two full terms
and one premature.
But they do somehow
remarkably sway him.

Descending silver streams upon her belly,
those tributaries leading
to her Garden of Eden,
evidence of their past work
in the practice room.

Here she smiles,
blushes even at such retrospect.
He is so passionate about those lines
and the gifts they've brought.
Alas! He's more a madman
than ever for her fruit
and it's heady aroma.

Resistance is futile.
Acceptance is freedom.
She makes up her mind to be
comfortable in her own skin.

A woman's life
is a series of alterations,
some less prepared for
than others.
But there is little denying
her body is a temple
that continues to be worshipped.