I tear flesh from myself and toss it into the flames;
Not to watch it burn but in hopes I can make the hole in my heart a tangible part of my being..
I won't need a warning label if people can peek in and see for themselves there's nothing left of a real man.
Like Pinocchio I strive to feel a thump in my chest but a wooden core doesn't pump.
I'm dancing attached to strings like a Halloween skeleton in a bad movie.
All grin and nothing to back it up.
It's useless to think someone might share their heart with mine and bring me to life.
I'll fill the hole in my chest with clear apoxy and dance empty with that skeletal grin stretched comically over a hard face holding nothing.
Eventually I'll feed the fire with my bones and turn to dust,
as old toys do.
There's nothing like a paper man for tinder.

like a dream resurfacing
from the layers of my memory
you come back to me
bathed in glory
your eyes telling a thousand stories

your wings
once they were broken
today they have unfurled
silky to the touch, it is almost sudden
how they glimmer without being risen

your majesty
it takes the air out of my lungs
i almost collapse into nothing
but soon find myself in your wings, tucked
the stars in your eyes, songs to be sung

the world cowers
as it does not deserve you
nor can it ever repay what you have given
us mortal humans, we wish to reach you
but we fail to see the things that make you

Where the sunlight splashes through
The barely moving branches of the Magnolia tree
It makes a fascinating pattern on the patio.
Amy Lowell wrote of patterns in a lovely, angry verse
When she was writing about how she hated war.

I bend to trace the patterns with my toe
And focus on the possibilities of now
With monster canons rolling down the boulevards
And goose-step imitators marching by
While in the stands a devilishly evil Buddha smiles.

A zephyr gently stirs the leaves
And all the patterns rearrange again
I look at them with half closed eyes
And I can’t find the symmetry
That I saw just an hour ago.

The Kraken still is held by chains
And though he gushes fire and venom
The patterns on the wall contain him
As he thrashes to replace the sun
With a new one of his own creation.

Amy walked a peaceful garden path
In dappled sunlight long ago
Creating lines that live today.
I trundle down a brick-lined walk
And hope that I will have tomorrow.
                         ljm

Full moon veiled in a silken mist
Outline dim and wan
Mocking the hour when last we kissed
Now that love has gone.
ljm

Silent thunder shakes the windows
Causing birds to flee the tree outside
And fling themselves into the raging wind

Jagged lightning flames the sky
In all the colors of a sunrise
While the moon still says it’s midnight

Rain has finally found it’s way
Around the thirsty desert mountains
And readies itself for the deluge

Sandbags may hold back the flood
But they can’t stop tomorrow
And the monsoon putting on its boots

Dawning comes in dreary clothing
Gray and heavy in the hems
Waiting to start shrugging off

The weather, like a game of
Stack the Timber Tower
Debates the utmost time to tumble

Everything is battened down
Awaiting the first sprinkles
That will presage the downpour

The birds have come back to the trees
But they are silent like the thunder
While the city holds it’s breath

And watches out a million windows
With the TV standing by
As we all wait to meet the wet
   ljm

If you are a suicide survivor
Inbox me your name
And I’ll add it to my tattoos of others

You guys mean the world to me
And I have my own name on my arm
Because I too, am a suicide survivor.

flatten your tongue
slip it between your teeth

n.

your little lips
forming an elipsis

o.

put them together
and may you declare
a word you’d so carefully deny—
no.

you spell it out
on table tops
shout it
from the rooftops

and when cursed hands
seek to defile your shrine
may you exclaim
"i am mine"

euphoric paranoia
               accompanies your touch
as you finger your way
               under my skin
shadows on the curve
               of your neck
jitters of reality
               involuntary fantasy
caverns in my body
               unrecognizable reflections
disintegrating away
               maybe its your love
                            maybe its ****

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
****** up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.