My house will be filled with the things that I love;
Goldfish, dandelions,
Green sofas, Greek mythology,
Books of psychology.
Books. Lots of books with lots of words.
Multiple copies of the really good books too.
All stacked to the ceiling
on bookshelves adequate to
The height of the house
All equivalent to
My love of the place I’ll call home.
A sock monkey here or there,
pillows and throw blankets.
Pictures of Lake Louise, and a souvenir
If I’m ever lucky enough to go there.
I will print poetry, frame it, put it on my walls.
My walls will be yellow gray and blue,
I will have a boombox with speakers that go BOOM
(but at night it will sing me to sleep
with many sweet lullabies).
And it’s music will fade to the sound of voices
Voices of people I love and admire
Who can walk through the door,
of the place I aspire
To make my own,
To share and not waste
With the precious presence of others
And their ideas
And hopes and dreams
So if you aren't a thing I love,
You have to leave.
I’ll probably have a lot of lamps too.

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 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.

The main theme of this poem is um, triumph
So uh the secondary theme of this poem is defeat?
How could that be? Is that even what a poem is?
Is my life a song? Is this the ******* chorus?

Something crawls up from the drain through the ***** dishes and out of the sink. It grips me! It’s got me!

[This is the part I want to hide]

I saw a man so beautiful
Rarely is there ever a beautiful man--
a man so beautiful you want to kneel
and scream “You’re so beautiful!”
But instead I’ll worship him in the ways he insists:
by stepping aside on the sidewalk,
by laughing at the jokes he steals from me,
by squandering the money he pays me to do his job.

Is my life a song? Is this the ******* chorus?

It took me three to four years to learn
the difference between worshiping and begging,
between faith and belief
And now I have neither and engage in both and yet
My life feels like a free coffee and bagel
My life feels like an unwrapped candy bar
My life feels like a compliment from a stranger
My life feels like a birthday card with cash in it
Is my life a song? Is this the ******* chorus?

This is my once-yearly poem.
It’s like a broken perfume bottle at the bottom of my bag.
Look at it-- read it. Smell it.  Literal swill.  Most things make me feel sad, even more things make me feel threatened, especially this poem.
What is there to do but put my head in my hands?
What is there to say if not sorry?

Eleanor P. Carney sat with her legs folded,
Casually reading a catalogue
As she waited. Her mind drifted
Effortlessly away from Joe until:
"Come this way"  said a voice dimmed,
In light of the current situation.
The click of Ellie's t-strap heels
Turned the heads of many
Beauty parlor goers, as she
Was lead to a back door.
A *** of boiling water hosted
Sharp things for slaughter.
"Now, I have to ask,
On account of virtue,
Do you really want to do this?"
The beauty practitioner who
Practiced more than beauty, stood in
The corner, tying an apron
around her thin waist.
Eleanor P. Carney shook  her head,
And sat down on the
Cold counter knowing that
She would not regret this.

Ruth L. ****** struggled everyday
To find new ways to disgust herself,
But the lack Ms.Carney's
Shame and guilt would
Do just fine for today.

Give them no plea,
Stay steadfast in your way.
Do it, do it, do it for me.

When they set flame to all you see
The fire will surge and rage, but
Give them no plea.

They will wait for you to change your decree
But sit silent, lips pierced too quiet —
Do it, do it, do it for me.

When they hold your judgement over high sea
During the toughest storm,
Give them no plea.

Do not accept what they say is to be
As what it is to be, or how it has been.
Do it, do it, do it for me.

When they strive against your way
And your will strives at your mercy,
Give them no plea.  
Do it, do it, do it for me.

Mmm, the sound babies make
before they know how to speak.
Small murmurs in the dark, waiting for light through the window.
I try to follow the recipe:
Hazelnut, flour, pretense.
Stir, stir, stir.

I hear the radio from the living room:
Silent night, o holy night
My mother sleeps on the sofa,
and she’ll sleep until the light comes through the window.
Coffee sloshes against the back of my teeth like whistling wind on a train through Mumbai, and I hear the voice in the back of my head:
Take your mother to India before she dies.

Eggs, butter, time: whip and stir.
I am trying myself to bake the cake for my mother’s birthday. She deserves so much.
I think of the summer in the south
The neighbor with the baby
The mother wailing
I can’t do this I can’t do this
And I hear my mother’s voice in the back of my head:
If you want something done right,
do it yourself.

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.

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.

Ruth T. ****** put her cigarette between
Her chapped lips and sighed
As she started the dishes.
She was feminine in the same way
that Clint Eastwood is; She wasn't.
"Mama?"
"Oh god!" Ruth squealed,
Allowing the cigarette to fall
From her mouth into the sink where
It went out with a sizzle.
"I don't mean to scare you none,"
"What?"
"Where's Papa? He said he'd be
Home tonight to help me fix my wagon
For Bugsy."
"Well he isn't." Ruth resumed
The dishes in the same way that one
would pick up a book.
"But where is he?"
"I don't know ******!" But she most
Certianly did know. "Did you string the
Laundry on the line like I told you to?"
"No."

Rosie J. ****** fell asleep that night,
Thinking that she had deserved
Exactly what her Mama had
Done to her left eye.

Soldier,
Do not tell me that
All is fair in love
and in war;
Especially when nations
are tried
For crimes against humanity
When they lose a war.
Trust me, Soldier:
Love is a war you do not want to lose.

When Christmas time comes around,
Christmas lights are hung
Outside everywhere.
On houses on trees on bushes and lamp posts.
But I'll tell you a secret,
These aren't lights!
No sir, they are stars.
Fallen, jealous stars.
Envious for once that they must
Hover above the magnificent world
Below them.
Because when pine trees' branches
Are heavy with snow,
And our hearts
Are heavy with love,
And when nights are quiet and still,
Because of the cold,
Our world is a better place.
To be a part of the  world below them,
The stars willingly jump from the sky,
Like baby birds jumping from nests.
They soar and float through the winter air,
Surfing through the breeze,
On surf boards make of luck
Until they land in the safe arms of
The Christmas Light Factory.
Careful! They're hot
-don't touch them just yet,
They'll find their own way into
Strands of wires,
So that we can hang them
On our roofs and trees and bushes,
So they can be part of us
Instead of above us.
That's why sir,
When we drive around the neighborhood,
Looking at the lights,
My eyes are always closed.
Murmuring wishes yet to be granted,
Because I know better than
To be fooled by
The lights that are actually stars.

If you are defeated,
Fall victim to desideratum;
You should achieve. Together
We can consummate your
Greatest accomplishments as
We take account of others' deeds.

If you are lonely,
Find yourself forlorn;
You can find company in me
To be not so lonesome.
Together we will be where we belong.

If you are ill,
Stricken with disease;
We can cope with the mortal glow
of your grin as pestilent germs
Infect our infectious yearning.

If you are hungry,
Starved with empty and lack;
You should eat.
And if you are tired,
You should sleep.

Joesph L. Clark then decided to stand up, because
The gravel was hurting his knee.
"Well, why not?" He pondered,
Aloud. That was a mistake.
"Because Joe,
You can't make a living off of
Poetry and whiskey."
Her voice was sharp
Like knives, as strong as
A meat pounder.
Joe short of liked that,
Though.
"And besides, there are other men
Here in this town that can hold my
Hand tighter than you ever will."
To that, Mr.Clark's jaw tightened,
His hands around themselves did so as well,
And with a tilt of his head he muttered
These words out of his bearded face:
"I'm no option baby,
I'm all or nothing."
And walked away knowing that
At least he had the dignitiy to be
A man at times.

Ms. Eleanor P. Carney's
T-strap heels struggled against
The grain of the dirt road, as she ran after him.
Tight hand holding made her palms sweaty, anyways.

I slept through a dream in which the flowers wouldn't grow,
And all the books were written in languages I didn't know.

I myself was enfixed within a village,
Perplexed by its lack of esteem,
And its lights and their lack of algeam.

I danced around this dreary place,
And ran into other dreamers,
That dwelled in the same the tragedy I feebly faced.

The villagers were somber,
Silent in their trudge,
Never allowing their enslaved minds to wander
Trivializing their reluctant grudge.

I waltzed through their pilgrimage,
As freely as I could,
But of the purpose of their mindless journey,
Is something I never understood.

It was a dreadful situation,
The most serious of all plights
In which the most wonderful of ideas
Couldn't take flight.

We arrived at our destination,
Though it never was in view.
And soon the of denunciation
of any sort of act of wondrous might
Would promptly ensue.

Impatiently I waited
Shifting feverishly in my place,
Forever waiting for the awakening
of the of minds of null space
That left my confidence wavering.

Soon a ghastly figure appeared,
and announced to the multitude
An inevitable fate inevitably feared:
Our generation had arrived at a
Gruesome interlude.

But then it all ceased,
My eyes fluttered open
And I sat up straight last not least.
Thank heavens my mind could only imagine
Such imagination decreased.

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 allow myself to love you
Although you drift back and forth to me
Like the tide does to the shore.
You are rushes of warm salt water
That are all too confident in knowing
That the patience I carry
Exceeds the amount of grains of sand
That rest on beaches
That quietly await the sun.
What will you do
When you return from sea
And realize that the coast
Was slowly eroded away by
The storm you brought with you?

You will not leave me.

This isn't a statement of confidence.
Believe me when I say my faith in you,
Wavers every day.
When I say you will not leave me,
This is what I mean-

Twice a day you will look at the time and wish you hadn't.

Wood chips will now be more than splinters to you.

Station wagons will drive not only to places real, but they will drive you insane.

Record stores will be graveyards, hosting tombstone after tombstone of vinyl records.

You will not leave me, because even if you do, I will not leave you.

I am a tree
Whose roots have smuggled their way into the sediments of your life.
I have grown too tall for you to up-root me now.

And her presence will not
Fill the voids left by me;
I am not dirt, meant to
Fill the holes you dig.
We are puzzle pieces
and we fit where
We belong and

She does not belong in
the same space as I do.

If you leave,
I will not want you back.
If you leave
I would want you to
let me be to deal
with my own doings please.

I have loved you
Even as you left me.
I have stayed
I have watched
You, drift to and from me
Like the sea to the shore.
My involvement with
You, has been relentless.

What you don't realize is that
I have loved you with a rigor
Thicker than my head.
But

You will not leave me, because even if you do, I will not leave you.

And I have lost
And I have lost every hope of decency.
And that’s when I lost every hope of
Decency.
Despite of what
What of, despite the fact that,
Decency.
I have lost it, despite
Despite I have lost.
I have lost despite
and I have lost Decency.
But sans these evils,
I am human
I am kind, virtuous and whole.
Despite my loss
of  decency.

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.

I would give anything to be a synesthete. 
I would give up anything to be a synesthete, 
To taste maple syrup when you whisper in my ear; 
Just the slight sensation of your words in my ear
And I would hear the ocean, feel its mist and I would
Hear the lull of my mother's lullaby. Her words would 
Bring me back to the sweet feel of strawberries that I taste
When your eyes sweetly feel for my taste.

Lets make our bedroom a place
To love each other, and only that.
You can do just fine by putting
Your shoes on slowly (not
Unlike Mr.Rogers) sitting on the
Sofa, as opposed to sitting on the bed.
And I will stop sitting in bed
To edit those manuscripts and flip
The pages of books I have already
Read a thousand times. Instead,
A thousand times I will love you;
With the swell of storms at sea,
Yet with the clarity of the sky
After such storm.
You can do just fine by my side,
and myself by yours. As we lay in bed
And wonder what makes us feel so warm,
When the ceiling fan above our bed makes such cold air.

I love you subtly, quietly.
I love you as I subtly sleep,
and I love you as I quietly wake.
I love you carefully, delicately.
I love you as I carefully pour my coffee,
and I love you as I delicately turn the news paper page.
I love you meticulously, cautiously.
I love you as I meticulously apply my lip stick,
and I love you as I cautiously curl my hair.
I love you quickly, routinely.
I love you as I quickly get dressed,
and I love you as I routinely drive to work.
I love you briskly, mindlessly.
I love you as I briskly file books away,
and I love you as I mindlessly write another word.

I love you normally, unusually.
I love you as I normally drive home
And I love you as I unusually stop by your place.

I love you regrettably, reluctantly.
I love you as I regrettably watch you love another woman,
and I love you as I reluctantly leave.
I love you hapzardly, accidentally.
I love you as I hapzardly bump elbows,
and I love you as I accidentally drink a little too much.
I love you defectively, selfishly.
I love you as I defectively try not to feel so lonely,
and I love you as I selfishly suduce others.
I love you terribly, awfully.
I love you as I terribly attempt not to,
and I love you like I'm supposed to, like I don't want to. Awfully.
I love you endlessly, hopelessly.
I love you as I endlessly toss and turn,
and I love you as I hopelessly lie awake.

I love you subtly, quietly.
I love you as I subtly sleep,
and I love you as I quietly wake.

This is a reminder to myself.
I'll put it in a place I'll remember to look.

When I lift open the cover of a book other than my favorite,
or struggle to reach titles from top shelves, I will be reminded
Of how inadequacy felt when I first met you.

I will be reminded of how slowly your thumb runs across my palm,
Simply by its lingering absence, as I sit silently in an audience
of other symphony goers orchestrating our bereft greetings which lead
To our brief meetings.

This is a reminder to myself of how
Very impolite it is to smile without valid occasion
As I check the clock to see that it is 11:11, and know
That you are doing, smiling, at the exact same
as a reminder to yourself of myself, and the love that
Grows greater between the affirming tock of every second.

The star that rises in the morning
Hangs irrevocably above me.
Its light is the product of the mind.

It casts my shadow by the doing of brilliant light. Freeing myself from its follow is a plight
I know well.

You are the closest star until the morning
Living and burning and being in the dark
--the splendor of that lightless radiance;
but where there is no follow there is no guide:
You are a proxminity never the vicinity of something I could see.

You are the closest star until the morning.
Although you are closest you are still far
Even the sun is closer to me than you

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.

I counted all the times I should have kissed you,
With your own fingers, rugged and perfect,
And plucked a kiss on every callus.

One on the thumb for the last time we met,
Two on each pinky for the time after breakfast,
And five on each finger for the eternity
We  thought we'd never realize.

I want nothing more than to
Burst apart
And let the sun evaporate this heavy feeling
That has weighed me down
Ever since I realized
You'll never love me.

I want to be the reason
Why you never give up.

I want you to glance
Over to your side when you're
Tired, defeated, forgotten, forlorn;
Uninspired, depleted, rotten, and torn
And see me there and hear me say:

"Don't you dare."

and those words would send you wild and running and driven into your dreams--

Only to find me there again.

There is a need to degrade yourself so you can truly understand your worth.

There is a need to deprive yourself so you can remember what you have.

There is a need to disagree with yourself so you can structure your morals.

There is a need to discover yourself.

Oh come on,
What is it with you
and the setting sun?
You are like brothers.
You both need something inside of you
that burns no matter what.

I am a signed document
a fit of freedom written in last minute ink
My hair the lustrous curls of knowing
what it’s like to unwind a little.

My breath is the mist of the Baltic Sea, rising to meet the heat
of an argument, a moment, a feeling.
I light a fire with my pen.

I hide my tired eyes, clenched jaw
and write with a tight grip.
Voices echo through the forest,
Révolution ! Commencer la revolution !
Trees fall to thunder.

Self-doubt sinks to the bottom of my sea
like a shipwreck. My armies trench through fields
mowed in circles
the rings moving out like zen,
and I practice tai chi in the middle of battle
finding peace at last.

Now I live a lifetime of summer.

And when I let the maelstrom of my life wash over me,
I cried and cried and cried
And I let my body lie in bed
until the blood pooled at the back of my legs.
There is no good way to fall out of love:
there are only the meandering strides in and out
and back again.

Humans are truly amazing,
I'm having one of those moments.