~
Pieces of this and that

From remember when

It used to be a flowershop

She used to smell of roses

Panting church candles

Now and again

From the quiet corner of absolution

Eyes closed to the dusk of sensualité

In search of lost time

"yearning for a song of reply"
~

Different
lines on the thermometer,
when it happens,
it moves all by itself.

Deliberately
random restless waters,
terrestrials standing on their banks,
recidivists having deposits
and withdrawals
at an inflated rate.

Dungeoneering
--the amplified gesture
means a convenience charge,
elevate me later.

Defibrillation,
I'm on the existential end
of viral paradise,
"the files you have on me"
are a trail of stolen pebbles,
sure to inoculate my final
walk into the sea.

Let's paint with broad brush strokes
from centuries of blood,
ye fair permeable maidens:
Once upon a summer's eve,
menotoxins killed crops and wilted spring flowers.
Pandora's box, opening to such bad reviews,
closed down and fled to a monastery,
where she wrote scarlet letters to family back home.

Vallopes of black holland cloth, intrusive
but necessary little bedfellows fit for a queen.
Don't keep us in suspense,
your fancy royal harness,
guards are posted at either side, hooked & girdled.
Take Communion some other day,
Elizabethan petticoat.

History tells of the strangest restraining order:
Hippocrates threw his two cents into the fountain,
banning bleeders from nearing the wishing well.
Hey, Father of Medicine,
our hallowed moon lures the currents,
driving us all a little mad on some enchanted evening,
not just the lassies.

The foil of every fable
rests in the absurdity of its fate,
so often presumed upon the faint of heart:
A damsel in distress,
who must be saved from herself.
The nonsense of which then seeps into the pores
of reality, rousing fear in certain unmentionables
that just might one day incite anarchy,
tipping our planet over on its side
and away we fly.

Ignorance wears rose-colored glasses.
It's high time he got his eyes checked.

~
His latest greatest film,
Spa Days Before Life Support,
welcomes back misanthropy,
ventures with vultures
--tasteless exchange--
a depraved ideology
that drains the heaven inside
his lead actress.

Straw men,
watching the storm clock
on opening night,
praise its framework
even if hollow within.

Visits to the ***** carnival
next to the reconstruction site,
leave the pamphleteer
with no options other than
filling silk pockets.

And his trophy wife,
good for the press conference,
bad for the environment.

Let the ladies know
empowerment
is another name for
imprisonment.
~

A snakepit, a lion’s den,
a second-hand shark cage.
The Big Apple, the Little Rascals,
everything after the Victorian Age.
These things scare me on sight,
but not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.

The Trix Rabbit with a gun,
The Dodgers winning a World Series.
Parallel parking with Mark Hamill,
Sesame Street conspiracy theories.
These things make me shake at night,
but not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.

The White Album, the Black Plague,
toenail clippers, salad bars and Disneyland.
The Richter scale, the Mendoza line,
Any and every last teenage boy band.
These things give me such a fright,
but not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.

Television reruns of H.R. Pufnstuf,
An opened jar of Miracle Whip.
The names of Frank Zappa’s kids,
vacationing on a Carnival cruise ship.
These things horrify me alright,
but still not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.

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

Invariably,
You prefer to come
To me in the dark.
"You're more my temperature then,"
You once said.
I'm not much of a thermometer,
But I am the eurythmy
To each syllable you give
In such settled shadow.
A play of murmurs and fingertips,
You once named this.
Always I see a wreath in your hair,
In colors of Persia,
Textures of night,
And the soft blended lines
Of you I know
Infallibly.

Remember they're monsters

Not just in theory, but really

It's no longer about the evidence

(If it ever was...)

But a call to collusion

They want you silent

Unless you recite after them

So they can write papers

On pipe dreams

Within the nook of a dell,
a good distance
from obloquy
and inhibition,
floating on water,
listening to birdsong
descend down
the stream
of a musical scale.
Don’t need to believe
or even consent to
any critique,
any look-see,
you are free and light
on the surface,
buoyant and supple
beneath.

Languid movements,
reminiscent
of a weir,
cascade
and trickle,
springing forth
to orchestrate an overture.
This feeling is
beatific,
euphoric,
the moment one of
nonpareil,
bijou,
objet d’art,
and these transports
are yours only
to involuntarily
succumb to and relive:

Rhythmic waves
quivering
upon your shore,
as your limbs and spine camber.
It’s no wonder
you often lift
your voice in song.

Awaiting the hot element
of a shifting sun
she surveys the pond
in minimal raiment

Concealed in the thicket
she loosens ties and stays
til away from hips they fall
and onto the grassy knoll

She ventures to the edge
one toe in to assess its viability
playfully ******* the surface as
she waves him hither

Besotted by the nakedness
of her artless endeavor
he disrobes in quiet
anticipation (of sorts)

Come to her he shall
and with a fair bit
of ****** and parry together
they shall master the water

~
drawn to a twinkling
crown of muted lights

a moment in the waterfront
of your eyes

in between circadian rhythm
and a place called irresistible

there we listen to sun-filled hymns
and children's laughter

not caring what comes after...
~

Blindfolded in the center ring

The crowd wants blood

Everything forgotten
to pandemonium

The bell rings

The round begins

If nothing else
one thing is certain

We're in for the fight
of our lives

~
It feels like the anesthetic is wearing off

This circus of machines

From coin-operated hostility

To wholesale apathy refineries

They tell us it's winter down in the subdermal

They tell us the foundation has grown weak

Dislocation is an incoming storm

Mirrors are distorted screens

Placeholders really

In a city without children

Even the statues weep

Snow upon the ground that was once blood

Now an empire without heirs

Even the trees hate us
~

From
the veil of
trees, I can
peer into
your window,
and count
the family,
imagine them
gone to bed,
dreaming of blue,
"underwater, unaware."

Those summer
evaporations tickle
my skin,
bring on such
an observational
itch:
how you,
freshly out
of the pool,
bloomed
brightly on
Betamax.

The blue boat,
white ships,
dissolve,
wash
into pastel houses,

                    sea foam,
                    evaporation.

The light passes through
the pigment,
reflects from the paper,
and passes
a second time through,

                    luminous, see
                    transparency.

From the windowsill,
a reeves box,
a splashing of color,
a loved one
in nature's hue,
drying her hair,

                    sight-seeing,
                    undressed rehearsal.

The painter,
walking his pathos home,
reaches for china white,
sprinkling his soul,
religiously
translucent,

                    murky sea,
                    christendom.

Waiting for his muse
to disrobe,
move into a pose,
make her body
an overwhelming
curiosity,

                    in a sea of watercolor,
                    naturally!

It blew in off the sea

It went out on a limb

And broke the olive branch

Do you hear the wind through the hair of revolution

--black raven hair--

Bone straight and frayed

The split ends of society forging separate paths

Progression at their tips, regression in their roots

It makes a sound akin to the back of an old haunted house settling

It wandered here in due season

It's about to be cut short

It's about to be swept away

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

a falling boy's
measured out footprint,
slipping in vain search
for a breadcrumb of solace

lost is spring, and green,
and bird nesting,
lost is his mother's smile,
he breathes in deeply

a memory of trees,
an afternoon sun
emptied of fertility:
a high wood on its last, teetering legs

urban air is everywhere
and wishes to be free,
but we are all carbon emissions,
separate living-dying pieces

polluted hieroglyphics
with nothing to convey,
fragments of a prayer
with nothing left to say

letter by letter,
     some of great lust,
     some of espionage,
     and secret meetings.

part film,
part theatre,
part fever dream.

we were woven together somehow,
      like we were characters in a book
      being read out-loud somewhere.

I could never be a skyscraper,
never an airplane.

I could never be the Space Needle,
never the Eiffel Tower.

I could never, ever be Mount Everest,
never a California redwood.

I've a fear of heights, you see,
space and motion not my thing.

"Confront your fear," they say.

But let's face it, I just can't face it.

"Do it for me," she said.

Well, if it takes climbing the sky
to prove my love for you,
I guess I'll die trying.

Literally.

So long as we don't talk about
my even bigger fear of widths...

Welcome to Misadventure, you're drawn to it in some berserk way, maybe due to it's atomic habits or technological urges,

sometimes there are cool, but irrational gun-totting robots who speak in foam, their presence detected by iron filings or teeth fillings or both or neither,

I just know there are tire tracks on your wife's new dress, the smell of gasoline coming from the guest bedroom, and a half-eaten Stouffers lasagna rotating on the record turntable,

and here a replicated version of your wife dances to the Italian Song, her ******* like lodestones, upturned and pressed together,

drawing you to them in some berserk way,
and they give such life and merriment to your brain's parcel of needles, that they prance and sway as if the devil were in them.

The first glance

Unsteady, unsure

One beautiful smile

One thoughtful flutter

Godspeed you butterfly!

She comes to my shoulder

And pins a rose on me

She leaves a note

She lifts the net

But wants no words to her song

She is from November

And I am from snow

We stand together

And everything is new

~
Hark!
He knocks.
Time, it's time,
the Kuroi Jukai within me.

Finding an unordinary
drifting off to sleep point,
a hollowed-out spot,
where I can let
God dream for me.

Whistles in the wind,
in lullaby the sky and sea
seem to trade places,
bending around me
as vertical blanketed surges.

My carcass is a colonization (of bones)
for my dearly departed ones,
forbearers of migration,
seeking endless sea,
until like them,
I settle upon
their ancestral shore.
~

He left
A mark the color of red wine
Zinfandel
Placed high on cheek bone
Directly under her left eye
Such tears only bruising
It further

I didn't mean to
He simply stated

She left
A note the color of resentment
Charcoal
Placed atop bedroom dresser
Directly over her exiled contents
Such emptiness only reinforcing
It further

Once was more than enough
She simply stated

On the second floor
of a department store

At the DMV
appointment window

In the kissing booth
on Coney Island

Anywhere around
her pineapple grove

One night
I was a werewolf,
but that got out of hand.
One night
you were a peach,
but I preferred fresh
over canned.

The blood scent was strong
and on your collar,
or was it spaghetti sauce?
We meandered in
the lost city of angels,
but those women
in the maternity ward
were better shape-shifters.

Couldn't see if the moon
was full against
the polluted skyline,
(but I bet it wasn't).

Then somewhere
down the tracks,
the howler (that's you),
half a dream away
on some deserted block,
and flat on your back
like a pancake,
with the nightmares
stacking up,
and dripping
with strawberry syrup.

Or was it blood?
(I bet it wasn't).

Are the pedals on a piano
There because it once was a vehicle?

Are there long lines tonight
At the nudie fish market?

Is that a ****** dressed as your wife
On the Lord's day?

Is your depression building its own
Glorified bomb shelter?

Do you pray for what wilts
As equally as for what blossoms?

Did someone ***
In your sandbox again?

Was it you?

Beneath the arch,
        among the branches,
      the maunder of her eyes
           finds noir in an afterimage,
every reflection is unique,
    explicit and indivisible,
        every reflection is her,
      there she looks close
       for gracefulness,
            in the essays of her skin
               and their brazen transparencies,
         she enters into her body fable,
      the shape of her resembles
           the tenor viol: where it widens,
                  where it narrows,
                where it digresses
              and monochromes,
           she reflects a fragile geography,
             a soft cargo, but
               an inkling of hurricane,
             rendering the fault lines
          beautiful and strong,
       in supplication tomorrow's explorer
will disturb the patterns
   until she's become her own lullaby

~
alone and an imposter,
deep in syndrome.

she absorbs the frost of seasonal ghosts
and hopeless feelings
of death and darkness.

she only shows one side of her every time.
she calls a random number
from a bar in the middle of the night,
seeking to confess
or find solace in the voice of a stranger.

but any stranger might just happen to be
a lie detector.

still she lays bare all the duplicity
and fragmentation of self:

prescription bottles with two different names,
elaborate façades in Los Angeles
and in New York,
so complicated she creates
something she calls the lie box.

inside her purse there's a collection
of file cards. "I tell so many lies," she says.
"I have to write them down and keep them
in a box so I can keep them straight."

alone she waits for either
sweet apricity or identikit:
each a memento of her faces.
~