you play
finger puppets
in the black sky
warm
unperturbed
little worms
eating
hot soil
and foot

“I’m going to
eat this star.
Actually, I’m going
to eat them all.
I’m awfully
hungry.”

you find the
nutella I hid
under the rock
and dip the
puppets in

“Did you know
I sew?
I sewed these
puppets.
Even
the little black
eyes and the
teensy red
buttons. All in
the patience
this sky taught
me.”

your mouth
is dry and
you search
for lake water

“I swear, it’s
so hard being
a fish in
Arizona.”

the desert
agrees

once
we prayed for
rain and danced
naked in
the sand
now it’s
night and
the sand went
to sleep
now it’s night
and the stars
are disks

“Lord, take
me now. I’m a
painter, a
painter without
color.”

the act is
over
the shield
put down
and the night
swallows
disks
as you lick
chocolate paint
from your
fingers

“Goodnight, friend.
Sleep well, fish.
Until tomorrow, moon.”

your body
fresh
black
the emerald
of color

let this be proof that on day
***
I am alive
and kicking
with nothing but a
caffeine headache
and a good
twenty days of
September
in my back pocket
but now
the cross breeze
comes and
I lament the past four
autumns
how they left me
cold
broken
and seeing women jump
off buildings
God!
Sovereign soldier!
Sinner!
Saint!
let me live more than
20 days
I am a good person
I only **** when asked
I eat spaghetti with a fork
and spoon
I once tried to jump off
a cliff
but that was then
and this is now
and the breeze is as cold
as winter
don’t think that I ever enjoyed this
time with you
don’t think that I won’t ever
try that again
I promise I won’t float
in the air
no
not this time

you had me when you
skinned my hide—the future
and present of squiggled
intestines tilting with the
rotation of earth.

I am macho—no nighttime.
the summer constellations
throw me a bone and big crunch
as my molars snap with my
jaw.

it takes a year to go around the sun once.
it takes a trawl to fish properly.
it takes a dog to chase the brightest
star.

*Sirius.

I was flying home from Denver
and the man next to me ordered 3 double vodkas
slipping the stewardess a hundred bucks
by the end of the flight he was asking me
to come home with him
he had a sheepskin bed throw
that would keep us perfectly warm
this chill winter night
I refused
called him a drunk freak
and giggled when he stumbled down the escalator
and split a **** in his forehead
that cracked like
like Easter
smothered in chocolate frosting

you are called away
clear and cold

pummeled by the ice
that tears dove wings
into water

diseased blood is spread
in the snow
art in the clarity
of genius as

evil is cut
from your body

here there is
no winter

only a deep light
harbored within as
you sit on dream’s pier
with a worm in your mouth

you

alone

and nature
watching you cry

the furrow of
your brow grows deep
as a bear’s growl

your eyes split two
the bang of
red sweetness
the communion of sleep
never to wake

everything is on sale
and I eat and eat
and yell at the couple
arguing in the ATM line
and smirk at the pharmacist
as I toss my meds in the
can behind the counter
king soopers
my realm
of crushed potpourri
honeycrisp apples
black cocktail dresses
stuck
shut with
peanut butter

I love grocery
shopping.

the muse of nature revels
in the cradle of a loved one’s whisper

the salsa of wind knifes off rock and
spreads melting sand into stained glass

a rainbow loops out the ears
and croons the rain into a gentle patter

the indefinite bruises the back of the throat
as half-notes are woven into air—

silence forever dreaming of music

The universe at its right angle
changes you into
day. Yet again, next year
you will look the same—  

unpunctuated

line of zodiac
in easterly motion
makes its highest path to
you in winter.

Sunlight pours down to earth from every angle.
You emerge with your mouth.

The universe’s only apparent movement.

it’s a kiss of
blowsy fate:

the yellow leaves
float and
hold the
moment of
brown-blue
crunch
under new
tennies—
cool

and the kiss
of an old
mattress flipped,

a pumpkin vine
twisted,

a musty basement
coated in
lavender mist—

the breadth
of nascence in
my mouth:
Ginger

I think was
her name

and the ash
of my cigarette
smokes
the blown
sidewalk.

Smell of lilacs bloom
to no end—a nebulous glow of
purple, perfect, and unperturbed—your
poem of lilies with caution tape
snug in my backpack—
your pollen hundreds of miles
away—a firebrick orange
sung again and again. A cotton
blow unlike anything colorful
—a white puff of dandruff before
the rain—a bouquet for
your spring stitched
stem by stem.

trim and clipped,
a puff on sheets and—
oh my—a parallax
fairies down like
cars being pulled
across an ocean.
I ate you.
three times ten to the
power of light, a cobalt
yellow and megaton
of arum lilies
wreathing your
apple’s bottom.

a waxing crescent grows thicker
every day—a careening sickle
half-hugged and begging
—below, flying flecks
of salt. The

pang-tamed wile—gems wrapped in
foil and heated in
god’s shadow in space. I am

close to those I love. I am

made of molten jewels.
meltingly.
meltingly. bowl of

wisdom—a dish for
old mints and mammalian
eyes. These tears—

they are mine.

the shock
of bodies—
a sound
rippled in
cheetah lightening
to wings of blasted
flowers taught
red
yellow
lavender sky—

butterfly wound
festering pollened
breeze to
where your
mouth
is opened
breath
tongue
and twisted cord—

opaque bee
twirling with
opaque stamen
lit
in a wall of
rushing
waterfall—a
perfect contrast
of forgiveness

soon I found
where you wrote those words
on the back of your hand
soon I found
the black planet
where you reside
soon I found
a child’s sickness
and the comfort it takes
to make one whole
soon I found
that you went with him
with a Salisbury steak
and a name tag that read
husband
soon I found a hole
dug by a badger
I donned its claws with my fingers
I carved a toilet in the corner
I drew your face on the ceiling
soon I found
I was an animal
a boy
alone
soon I found
I was never to be conceived
I was never without legs and feet
I was never meant to
climb out of the black star
soon I found
I would be without you
forever

I am unsure of the geology
of where you’re from.

I expect there exists
shelves and sheaths

pale grey-yellow
like serum in the blood

and rocks resembling
sun-weathered lobster

carapaces.
all of this enclosed by

a festoon of green pine—
its regalia cut sonic

and naked
wrung and wrung again

by august.
on the edge

a cabin is hemmed on
the skirt of ocean—

spikes of molding logs
propped and resting

akimbo.
a wave comes in.

a wave goes out.
a wave stays to shake

your hand.
introduces itself as

sensate verge
and wonderment.

home.

I can only imagine what
it is for you.

I stay awake—
gas,
ion and
tail.

your ghost strokes
my back, fingers
ski-jumping vertebrae
as my face steams into
powder.

your pith, soft and white:
our star in you—
rove to your low neckline in
fire humming comet.

space is blameless in
this limb of heartbreak.

milk warm and
child rotates backwards in womb

clouds become the drums

angels in the front row cheer
as men fight over screaming throat

woman smokes with dragon—
never before corked *****
and the ash that settled over

this is my innermost truth:
a dwell of birds inside my body

and I think so little of myself

I forgive my dreams cut
in the maritime gloom of your blue eyes—
a rehearsal and hush of dead shells beating in the water

I never knew the binds of you would cuff me for this long—
your naked ocean now overgrown with a different plaque
and somehow more beautiful, younger, and vulnerable

I am the queen of shock and shiver,
proclaims my wondrous mind
I forgive my dreams of loving the invisible
and the seagulls fly
one by
one by

tenderness leaves
my eyes in capillary ribbons.
your diamond lips are chalked,
released from rock.
your head, a knot of angel pine—
a dark-brown blooming
sticky and lucked to the back
of my throat.
it is in this moment that
I hear a wisp of rapture
blowing through the oak overhead.
my heart’s motor cranked
like October’s last churning
bumble bee.
pollination
susurration
be gone…
you kept looking past me,
your hand on my shoulder.
the precious gauze of your profile
mixed porcelain doll and found a
chisel to perfect your nose.
I feel the love of everything and
you—so unaware of your
beautiful.

I still skip stones
across your ocean—your foaming white
cut from the butterfly vine
flips the beached fish
into the definition of liveliness
takes to the sun—a pearled pantina of ocean rain
connecting my nose and mouth
into the rainbow vision
of your thin lips mending the
the maimed crab’s claw

this is how I will always think of you
my wishing well babe
neck-deep in sand
the butterfly vine entering your mouth
pulling your tongue to say
those three words aloud
finally, like you mean it
like I want it, the ocean tide
bathing my ankles

I’ll chase you over
backwards and sideways

cover you in chocolate,
peel off your shell,
fill you with another body

I’ll eat you a rainbow
separate the opals,
moonstones,
malachite

love—little girl with scotch-brown hair
soft, eggshell yellow and
crack

oh god...

I'm sorry.

all my goodness has flown—
from the wildflower’s wrath to
my fingers

pressing invisible buttons on
grassy dew.
I

should know this season by now—
dry of meaning and bent metal
into the frozen river.

the note I wrote you was short—
spoke of moons we cannot see
and my rushing ego
drowning mountains
on tiny blue-green surface—
a million

bleached bones
are wrapped in their tired stripes—
now crushed,
miniature,
and multiplied—
many of the many

and the red feathers that float

away.

this table in the
shade
these commune hippies
in the river
I wrote a poem
in my sleep
I looked at the mountains
and thought
rain
staccato
metronome
irrigation
and caps
melting
but enough of this
nature
let’s go back
to the concrete
mouth
where we walk
through the city
full of cake
bloated like
balloons
but rolling
because
cake doesn’t make
you float
no
cake only makes you
fat
the conversation turns
to the stench
there’s something dying
in the air
we leave
and roll joints
spot magnums
on tree branches
and think
only monkeys ****
in trees
and we would never
want to see
monkey ***
and ******?
no
we’d never try it
and the homeless man next to us
puts his spoon
away
but god
why do we sleep
when we just wake up?
why do we sleep
to dream
such ******-up
things
where celebrities
feed us salami in
back alleyways
and we see our mother
pooping on
world maps?
time rips of
lyrical grass
conductive smile
soap bubbles
these beautiful
dreamtime mornings
spent thinking of you
in playhouse mountains
like a child
you smile
like a friend
I offer you my hand
and we walk
to the white
together
bill withers is there
he is singing
in his yellow
turtleneck

my complex jupiter pops
full body into
infectious night—mouth
bursting and bang
taught curtains
so the light can shine through
every cherry blossom
I

never asked
what I meant to you
before
you

pink in my watching

slip into
the miniature composition
of splotched blue—

and I know everything
in space
is finished

"some cry with tears,
others with thoughts"*

sun-way heat beats against
quiet bodies.

my truth left two souls
melding with a splash of
purple—

the mimicry of my cry
surging with
impending ocean.

you who I truly know
last kissed June 7th
in eternal sunshine—go
to beach

and be free.

I’ll wait for you in
the meantime.

gnaw red your bone
in the aliform of dream
this

allocation of my
guts spreads lips
onto stained paint buckets
I

never meant for
us to be beautiful
adding

music
to every line
that came out
your mouth—

a moth-springing
butterfly
its

wings no longer
dusted but

dried and wasteful.

it was the
paradox of doubt
and

I cried through
painkiller night

I try to cry
but I can’t
I mute my tv
so I can hear
the pain reverberating
from my nostrils
like I am being
clamped together
in the fetal position
until blood squirts
out my ears

I try to cry
but I can’t
I mute the dog by
giving her a bone
I mute the sun by
drawing the shades

I try to cry
but I can’t
this muted pain
it’s locked in the attic
deteriorating
I mute my neck by
taping it to the fan
I mute my breath
with my belt

roll down my eye
to my lips
I want to taste
this ******* stupid world
for myself

moonlight caught the top of the lighthouse
bounced of its silver mirror
its beaded tears filled my bottle
and I drank until I couldn’t stand any longer
it’s okay, boy
said the man selling fruit at 1 am
and I embraced his dead shadow

I say blood
marbled floors
and boats
somewhere on the Ganges River
Africa?
no.
wait—I think it’s
sadness
that flows out every hole
onto the plain
into the water
out of the well
all of the elephants swallowed
and digested
down to the bones
on colors
on sky diamonds
on lovely wax and wane
this river
these people
blood and guts
cooking
tradition
knowing
that it’s the last meal
to throw to the gods
in the water

oh my sister,
there are 77 dreams
I wrote in a journal
there is a glass of water I left
on some patio
there is a box of wisdom
I buried at a dusty crossroad
there is a beach where you are
I can see you in the waves
the razzle of the sand
like a billion speckled stars
and the horizon—black galaxy
next time I see you
you’ll be tan
like Cary Grant
but alive
and without the baby turtles
I asked for
I’ll ask how it went
and you’ll say
like a book
like a dream
like a starfish
are there even starfish
where you are?
if there are, please don’t
eat them
it would hurt your mouth
until then
look at the sun
she is beautiful—even I
a wannabe recluse poet
can appreciate nature
through my window

Dewy

I light two candles; one purple, one black
Ignite the lavender powder, stick the space between my nostrils
Feel the place between my ears

you have re-emerged from
The center of my brain
This overcast/grey-cloud tattoo of light particles mend the broken, background mandala

I have dreams of saving New Mexico, every shattered kingdom, every splattered heart. I hope you still believe in love too. I hope you don’t comprise oxygen like I do. I hope you still tie carbon into infinity knots.

I promised myself I would only write of god
Of the rose that roots itself in your shoulder in this post-winter aid
But all I want to say is that I hope you’re well

clouds are knotted over—
soft q-tip plunge
into your mopped halo.
time dilates
itself into big rain, big thunder—
a concentration of stringed lights
hanging on a rusted picture wire

I’ve written this before but
we are nothing but bones underneath—
mortal refuse cooling in the shade
until our joints are locked
and we toboggan down
with tight jaws

seeing the physical doesn’t mean
you can see—
the tendency to blindfold oneself
snuggles inside judgment,
moves inside the tracks like a swallowed pearl
until you dig through
and find the bruised dream

I let the lightning roll off of the
table, spill on the wood floor.
I don’t mop it up;
I no longer buy the delusion
of messes made. I **** the
electric lemon. feel my face go
cold and numb. succumb to
the dominant, coronal moonshine.

here we are—heaps in the corners
of a corner-less world. we hook things
like fish. we perform fire drills. we love
the act of escaping.
here we are—piles of human, our knees
in our hands.

the next strike comes. ommmmmms into omen.

in this cardboard kingdom, our houses sag
when it rains and we crouch down to survive.
but I will always remember the clouds,
driving knots into your cells as the roof
fell in. and we were both soaked. both sacks
of pearled bones.

I’m sorry you have to see me like this
all stinky and bruised
love, these thoughts torture me like this pie
it’s made with red corn syrup
it reminds me of your blood
I see underneath your skin
to your almond eyes shimmering
to your beating heart somewhere in Colorado
lord, how I love you
lord, how life is a road trip through hell sometimes
how we end up in rooms with pink noise
but how?
how does love end in places where no one wants to go?
where no one lives
where pie taste like blood
and you are pale, grief-stricken
almost crying
I see how things are
I see how I am a man destined to eat the air you left behind
you, perfumed with thoughts of me and I beat because of it
you, tortured by my spirit
you, half my soul. don’t run away just yet
wait until I finish my pie and fall over, flushed.

I pluck you a crocus
and all life becomes
a legend of the body

a torch-whipped storm
pastel in its fire
buries me in you

when I hand you the stem
a shake
and the yellow stamen

loses its dust

lady lady
forgets its bug
when I place the flower

in your vase

spots wiped black-less
insect no more
lady lady

the inspection of autumn
bulb-less growth
and a string of red

***** and betting its stripes

a tiny mound of dirt
obscured by rotting leaves

the last of you reaching for my hand

you stand
and offer

the sun
not yet risen

silver-tongued
you tilt words

into winter

you whittle
the wind

trick the sky
into death

pound my
love into stone

I scrape
my knee

and cry our
love open

to wound
and bleed

a dog attempts to
lick and heal

how could life
be this way?

I write you to sleep
in the other room
the leaves and fire of
your dream wisdom,
a dosha to create
each particular function
wrought in sweet, bitter, uncanny can-can
last night I saw you
in the rain with my
jean jacket
you asked about your face
and read me
catholic gospel/the body’s innate wisdom
free of threadworms, windup toys,
each nasty gut of wind
when I love you
I always see you in white
(this is all the time)
and you clear the toxins
from my accounts,
hold up my husband by
his flags,
tell him to
woosh
woosh
woosh
there is a pearl at
the bottom of us
and we touch it with
un-bitten fingers
this essential does not
go unnoticed in
our hearts but
ties our mouths so
we cannot speak—
a grammar lesson on love
and checkmate of birdwings
you awaken
come out for your phone
tell you to go back to sleep
you smile

I have so much to love god for

my laughing river
banks the shivering pebbles
into silence—a hot, holy
moon that splits and crumbles,
rushes and spills into
a space vacu-ata and serene
loss of meaning

I never thought I’d miss you this much—
red, toiled, and soaked to the bone,
letters and numbers jumbled to bake
in hot mouths, hot atmosphere  

a shimmer
a shimmy
a bottle
and nurse a wound burnt with
a hair straightener ten years ago
dear friend,

I wear you on my shoulders everyday
and you are heavy,
sore to the touch,
cradled and band aid-ed cross
until
there you are
dreaming like you always did
in the back of my mind

I kiss secrets to your fate

a forest tree of lights amongst

velvet curtains

I don’t think about

your consciousness

when you are kissing me

but imagine your

tattersall expression

resting on my flannel

you

perfect love chameleon

you

queen of extremely small kisses

I catch you looking with

a sideways eye

always twisted in my memory

a corkscrew willow

a head of tangled roots

pulled from the moist soil

I lean in to blend

kiss?

why not.

Slightly, brightly
Amarillo heavens, whispered
Lather,
Lavender clouds, and your
Butterfly belly button
Soapy on the car hood. I
Cast my brain's map wide
And narrow.
I can't make time--one thousand
Years feels like one day; one heart--
A desert of sand while wind
Pushes in violet patterns.
those
Spots on your eyes
Never so warm--cinnamon.
And you know how I'd stir
Your coffee.

I reemphasized myself again
this time straightening my back
to become as tall as possible
to intimidate and deliver the
words like heat seeking missiles
aimed for earth’s ever-beating
heart and before I could begin
I heard a baby giggle
this made me giggle
and the whole bowlful of crowd
laughed along with us as I let
the doves flutter out of
my hat

I fear.
I fission.
I flow.
like a sponge,
I become aqueous
when wiping blood or saliva.
like a finger, I lose myself in rings of prints.

I am the ography
of space loosely tied to the
end of a carrot. detach me from
ice and I float to the other side of the island.
I wave at ships passing night or day, captains
drunk or sober, buoys clean or covered in mucky ****.

save me.
I am losing my
mind on these stairs
crawling the ceiling, these
riches made of paper, these children
using liters of glue to stick themselves to
each other.

everyone is stuck.
everyone is covered in barnacles.
everyone is design on my pine tree’s needled hooves.

*a horse gallops four at a time. they name it “power” for the dreams it has of stormy women.

we are monsters
from the boutique to the
embroidered throw pillows the
pen dashed around the neck
stage 5 bone cut
sawing ossification to the
hollow core

we are monsters
hooting in tunnels lined
with bats coming out to feast
creation
to scrape the streets
shimmy the walls
bust the coffin and
succckk

we are monsters
who can't enter under the
doorframe
fearful of being burned by
the sun silver stake
rat poison holy water sickle
and windmill ash

we are monsters
sewed stapled dead meat
skin hair plugs ceramic
teeth tested and tasted by
rats

we are monsters
jumping high over white
fences frenzied explosion
running through corn
angrily bled in a field shot and
hunted like embarrassing
waterfowl in the jaws of
mammalia

we are monsters
of flaming brilliance flashing
in your inbox
read us and gnaw
braised
roasted
grilled limbs
watch
as we watch you
be scared and
stab
I promise we don't die.

it started with a jaw
twitch vibrating ear
to lip side to side up
and down like I was a horse
shaking off a fly I
saw her legs spread
scissors in hand
as her head popped
and popped
and
popped
like a jack-in-the-box film
screening 3 inches in front
of my eyes until I hid
in a barrel and kept on
driving
north to wherever
lights off and
hooting like a madman
to visions of ariana grande
standing
out in the snow with a purple
beanie and frozen mittens
waiting for me to pull up
the driveway tumble out
the car door and say
you were right
so she can pour hot chocolate
on my face and walk back
inside to stoke the dying
fire

crew-cut,
winter’s rust,
my tongue smudged with coal,
snagged with the bug I rise,
crawl my stare across space to where you lie
perfect in ashes,
un-spread and boxed,
I plant a kiss on your screaming lily.

your hair appears darker
when wet.
black, corded,
thick as puzzlegrass.
a companion in contrast
to frosted
cupcake blue eyes and
incense burning
in the ashtray.

memories thrown
in the laundry pile
with the wet towel
swirling upon
your head.
your smile
bitter as asparagus,
staining my *****
for the next two days.
your frame
soft and slender
as balsa wood.

I’d eat your air
freshly oxygenated
and bend you into
an arc.
the waves would split
on your bow
and shower my face
wet
dark
corded
thick as puzzlegrass.
then
from your finger
the standard of a
dove leaving
olive branch in
mouth
into the frosted
cupcake blue
sky.

a miracle in
the eye of the
waning storm.

we had too much to drink and
you saw your mom crouched in
the corner smoking a
cigarette through her
neck hole

you missed with the marble
ashtray and shattered the mirror
with the hand-carved gold-leafed
frame

Melissa screamed

I followed as you tore through
puddles of sunken sidewalk
until you sat
at the bus stop and buried your
eyes

I put my hand on yours and
felt your raining pulse

we got on the bus with the
red and green stripes
hopped off at Wong’s and
bought 3 dozen eggs
to throw at the

lighthouse

spring’s breath hums on your face
sits upon a fencepost, hawk-like and stoic

its infant rays nuzzle, organized and coded
its beauty, slightly bothersome
to the man who mistook god’s warmth as permanent

all planets in space operate between two foci
and ted hughes wrote “crow” as a bedtime story
for the lovers he abandoned  

what I’m trying to say is this:
spring will leave earth
like a two-faced lover
but never forget the monday you shared with her
as she breathed winter’s hangover
down your holy throat

for that is something memorable

key into lock
skull-like
iris
blooming
in the corner
vintage red
sipped down
2 liters
of 2006
an amount of
a capacity of
mind
pink
rose
horse out of
water
through mud
moon gallops
across
warzones
couples kissing
and
for a moment
winks in
the horizon
of day