Take a shower so hot
It will melt my skin
And send it down the drain.
Maybe it might float though the pipes
And travel to the sea.
Eventually it might make it to Spain
Maybe I'll get all that traveling in
That I never had the time for.
Perhaps I'll get to see
The wonders of the world,
And fulfill my dream
So I'll take a shower so hot
It will melt my skin.

Hunger is a strong word,
My mother warned me once.
It goes to the gym and lifts
Some weights so it can have
Some masculinity to flaunt,
Even though flaunting is
Usually a very feminine thing.
It carries milk gallons with ease,
And claps between every push up.
Hunger is a strong word,
My mother warned me once.
It can hurt you.

I like music by men with impressive beards.
With meaning and obscurity, with charming
Rhyme schemes and wonderful chime themes.
I like poems by men with clean shaven faces.
With nativity and angst, sometimes in
Foreign languages that make me just as
Confused as the poet was.
I like buildings designed by men with skinny ties.
Their buildings always seem to make
So much sense.
I like romances with men with frames
Over the bridges of their noses, so they hide
What their eyes really feel, and in order to
Show me, they have to take them off before
We kiss. But that blurs how they see what I
Really feel.

Hate me
Without cautious despite.
Hate me with
Ferocious luster, without
A gleam of hope of you
Ever finding my smile
Endearing again. Hate me
So good, so bad, that my eyes
Are forests with dense trees
That you get lost in and always
Want to leave. Hate me without
Guilty despair, hate me without
A burden in your heart, instead
Of hating me without you.

I am a Russian winter.
Still and cold, with the
Beauty of disdain, filled
With the finesse of foxes
With mud on their paws,
Dew on their whiskers, as
They tumble through forests
Of berch tress and burrow
Into their dens. I elude no
One, while eluding everyone.

I sit inside my podunk room,
As a million meteors make mad dashes
For different conners of The Universe
Like galactic kids stuck in a game of
Sharks and Minnows.
They snap their space caps over their heads,
Adjust their goggles, and dive into the galaxy;
With the refreshing burn of
Firery friction against their faces
As they glide through the galaxy.

Above my head these nova swimmers soar,
As I pull a folded list from a desk drawer
And lean out the window with a quilt
To stop the chill from getting to me.
I close my eyes and let the cold moon light
Reflect off my surface and pale my skin.
The moon has no purpose but to moon bathe  with, of course.
Of the meteors that circle the sky
I have a very different purpose for.

One by one I recite wishes,
One special I had saved just for this night;
Scribbled in marker with fast hands belonging to a busy brain,
Elegant cursive dawned by a deary mind,
My best script for my friendly letters.
Some I whisper, some I shout,
Some I struggle just to get out.
But one by one these wishes are told
To the night sky, the meteors swimming pool.

Suddenly the windowsill creaks and cracks
My eyes snap open, the timber of my home breaks
And my house, my yard, the trees and the leaves
All disappear, and suddenly,
I am splashing and slushing  in a puddle of
Endless Blue Water until I
get the sense about me to swim.

I swim until the water reaches my head,
My eyes, my nose, my chin,
Drains from my ears
Splatters on my shoulders.
I walk when I can, through
A tunnel of cattails, seaweed, and pond things,
Like a swamp without a sky,
That make the Endless Blue Water a canal with
A wooden door that I reach
After many steps.

Knocking twice, I stand patient
Busy with the thought of what brought me here.
A slot in the door slides open,
Old eyes framed by glasses peer back at me.
"Go away!" The old man barks,
"I can't let you in. All of
The water will get everywhere on my feet."
I stand, my eyes pleading with angst,
Eyelashes that drip water.
"No, it's ok Grandpa. Let her in,
She is tired." A voice, gentle and sweet, speaks
With a melody of a thousand guitars
Tuned to the exact preference of my own ears.

With a grumble and groan.
A click and a clack,
The slot slides shut harshly
And with a creak and force,
The floor flies open and
I am urged by the Sweet Voice to
"Hurry Great Darling! Hurry!"
And I squeezed through
The door, but so does the
Viscous water.

It flows rapidly past the door jam,
And the owner of the Sweet Voice scrambles
To convice the hinges that they
Want to turn the other way.
The dusty ground I now stand on
Quickly turns to mud, as the water flows.
We cannot stop the water from flowing.

The water makes a will of its own,
Rises with vigorous ebb,
And carries Sweet Voice's Grandfather with it
Into the dust bowl in which it surges so fiercely to.
I go with it, emerged once again as I
Grasp for a wrist, an ankle,
A collar, until I find a strap
Of a suspender, and hold fast to the door handle,
As Sweet Voice whispers hopes
That the water will stop. He grits his teeth, and
I'll never forget what he said:

"You are magnificent, Great Darling.
I would have loved you endlessly."

And with that, the water reversed,
Taking the sweet voice back into
The Tunnel of Pond Things,
And slamming the door shut.

The Grandfather and I, sat on grassy moss
That once was barren dirt, that climbed into fingernails
And settled homes between human and calcium.
The Endless Blue Waters  had cleansed the dirt from before,
But had also taken my lovely paramour.

And with this, I wailed great echoes
That shook the ground, because
The sweet voice was the wish
Whispered so delicately but so
Anxiously on my windowsill
That lonely night.

After my fit, I turned to see
Great followers of the Barren Lands,
Ghastly beasts with spots and rabbit ears,
Humans with skin clear, great dragons
That inspired no fear, that
All stood before the Grandfather and I.
They held their hands before their faces,
Checked their teeth, and found it free of the dust
And dirt that haunted their days.

A great feast was arranged,
A thousand chairs at seven hundred tables,
All lined with a feast
Of cooked carrots and sweet potatoes,
Texas toast and orange marmalade,
Corn beef and root beer;
As kites with tails and laughter with squeals
Floated through with wind and smoke
Of campfires yellow, all
To celebrate the arrival of me,
The Great Darling,
Who had cleansed the Barren Lands
And brought about the begining of
The Hallow Lands.

I sat alone at this great feast,
Weary of my loss, when I felt
A tapping on my shoulder. It was
The Sweet Voice who had returned.  
I asked, elated by his arrival, about the
Means of his return, and he replied:

"The moon has more purpose than you
Assumed, Great Darling.
The moon controls all tides, and
With its power on my side, I asked it to
Take me back to you, and kindly it did, as
the moon understands that poles and magnetism
Are not the only forces than bring great things together;
That love can do that great deed too."

We sat under the lemon tree,  
My quilt, retrieved on Sweet Voice's journey,
Spread beneath us, as we watched the moon
Circle the sky for many nights,
Until we decided to join in its company.
One by two, we stepped up stepping stones
On a hill that reached the meteors pool,
Where my paramour and I lived
In galactic happiness forever more.

There once was fellow
Of whom I was rather fond,
But there was such an idiosyncrasy,
That he cheerfully donned.
It was adding this boy was drawn to,
But not just numbers,
Such as two plus two,
But syllables, like bill·a·bles.

His lips would murmur
As mine would speak,
But I'd stand attentive,
Tongue in cheek.
Every syllable I would say
Would be counted
In every single way.
"Could I have a glass of water?"
"That one was eight"
"Come on," I said
"You're ruining our date."

I grew weary of having
To deal with
The incessant word adding;
And so I decided the thing to do,
Was to take it up
With my obnoxious beau.  
"What is it with the counting and computing of all my confab
It's neither dashing nor is it longer dazzling
In fact, It has turned to be rather drab."
His face contorted to the most cruel of expressions,
As his mouth went to conference one of its many confessions:
"You know babe,
Well first order is first,
That was thirty-six,
And nervously dispersed.
And secondly I must say,
When it comes to alliteration,
You tend to get a bit carried away."
"That's preposterous!" I plustered, providently provoked,
I do not choose clusters of complementary chords,
To do so would make me choke!"
As these words left my mouth as I spoke,
My beloved's face grew rather amused,
And my face flushed a fluorescent fuchsia,
When I realized his reckoned ruse.  

And so it may seem that the other
May be wrapped up in some insidious blunder,
Yet please do consider,
That you yourself can be guilty of some other habit,
In which you do plunder.