I am capable of love,
even during,
the coldest of nights.

as we talk
around in circles
words fall
******* silence

I left
immaculately folded tan chino pants
cuffed and disheveled
atop the department store rack
in the Young Men’s section.

They were too big at the waist,
letting me swim laps in them,
stretching out the front with a thumb and forefinger
looking like a successful weight loss ad.

Atop the rack they sat,
cuffed and disheveled,
amongst immaculately folded
tan chino pants
its kin
and they looked human.

Something about them,
factory made, dime a dozen,
not on sale,
but with the spectral imprint
of spaces and wrinkles where legs had been
amongst all those patient, forlorn folds
gave humanity
to the anomaly.

i finally told him
I want to try.
with you.
I want to try, with you.
I want to be with you.
I want to be with you.
because it's been there
at the forefront of everything
Waiting to be said
okay. okay.  like a sigh--
I had been trying all night
From the moment he threatened
To drive away, standing insolently
In front of his headlights--
but he was quiet and
all i could do was smile
and say, but that's not
enough anymore, is it?
no, it's not.
but I know why it isn't,
and why this poem is
short with so very
few
words.
because decisions are
yes or no, but some yes'
are too
late and
some no's
follow in suit.

She opted for verdant grass
scintillating and dewy
in the offset of an afternoon
thunderstorm

as opposed to the tepid
red brick pathway
damp and sanguine

sauntering in her black flip flops
blades of grass reach over
her soles and glaze
her milky toes

the bell sounds the hour
six o’clock
i’m late for class

Woman at diner who knew Fugazi,
I wear all these pins
on my denim jacket
waiting for someone like you
because a t-shirt isn’t
loud enough.

Woman who knew Fugazi,
waitress at diner,
had “seen them twenty times,”
without exaggeration—

with cracking olive skin
and graying curly black
hair to her shoulders,

the light refracting off my pin
my friend bought at a record store
in Philly      reflecting her the image
of a slender, voluptuous youth
donned in fake leather
worn Levis and beat Vans

shaking her mop of jet-black curly hair
in a throng of like-minded dressed
individuals in a dingy club
          angsty Washingtonians
fleeing the Reagan Youth

mad at Capitalism
mad at Middle Class,
mad at Excess, Abuse, Malaise—
driven by the furious punk rhythms
of sweat-drenched Fugazi.

Woman who knew Fugazi,
friends with Ian MacKaye,
hadn’t seen him in years—

waitress at restaurant
where the scrambled eggs are dry
and the coffee is stale.

Waitress at diner,
Mother now,
wife, adult,

                 [[punk]]
at heart.

Come one, come all, see the resurrection of the self-victimizing *****!
See her weave a noose out of others sorrows!
See her cry wolf before a crowd!
See her grasp to the comfort strangers comments can give!
Yes! Come one, come all, see the destruction of the self-victimizing *****!
See her become the leech she is**.

…the dream sequence
plays like vaudeville
in the peephole
of a kinetoscope

my drunken subconscious thoughts
undulate in murky waters
and slurin the visions of specters past

infrastructures and pylons
formed from childhood homes schools
skate parks friend’s houssand churches

faces familiar unfamiliar
mold and mend in wicked contortions
and diaphanous ambiguity
what obfuscates me from the truths
of my mind

I stumble through the chambers
haunted by childhood nightmares
and tickled by ancient fantasies

my arms
               and legs
                             are like
                                          rubber
           ­                              I
                                 feel
                  torpidity
overcome

and the words
are like alphabet soup
in the director’s commentary
splashing around aimlessly mingling
in the waves of broth

what will be revealed
in this phantasmagoric phenomena
wax figures coming to life
and panoramas dancing on the walls

my body somewhere in time
waits with pen and paper in hand
eager to counter the façade
with the utmost coherence

just you wait til I wake up
and reveal all your secrets
oh wondrous mind…