“Poets never ****.”
            -V. Nabakov


Oh, but don’t we?
Our methodology might
Differ, our craft more subtle-
And yet the end result,
Escorting some poor soul
To the gates of whatever end
Awaits them beyond this frame,
Is abhorrently familiar,
Our motives no more pure-

We move in different mediums
Some artists in oils,
Others in brute force-
Working in time signatures
Of days and weeks, years-
not Mere seconds-
This is not impulse-
But words weaponized?
That is artistry refined.
We work in palettes of grays.

We need to know them
For the poison to take hold.
To work it’s way through
The bloodstream, through
Every muscle until it is absorbed
Into who they believe themselves
To be, something they can never
Change about themselves
That they are sure is visible
To every passerby,
Some fracture in the facade.

The planting of a seed,
A word, a phrase-
Insidious in its design
A dark spot on the mind
So small, seemingly
Insignificant, but the foundation
Upon which we build our
Scaffold, buried in some
Line of text, in some metaphor
That draws an indelible line
Between some worldly beauty
And a deep buried flaw
They try to hide from the eyes of the world.
It’s delicate business after all,
Planting self doubt and loathing
So ingrained that one is unsure
Whether they ever existed before
The thought that now destroys them.

You take the words,
All my words from me-
You leave me speechless, breathless,
with no way
To express how much
I love you,
Save how you read in my eyes,
Like the pages of some book you touch
Delicately, softly, lovingly,
How I adore your smile, burn for your touch,
How your softest kisses melt me,
How I constantly ache for your sweet words,
whispered under our stars-
In my gaze you see it all...

But I must sincerely apologize, my love.
The previous stanza is not entirely true.
It is a trope that I cannot, in good conscience,
Lay at your feet.
You do not take my words from me.
I offer them up to you,
like candles in a church-
Lit like little hopeful prayers,
Each one with one task-
That they might show you
How I long for you, how truly beautiful you are
And how precious every moment with you is.
I gift them to you, because my touch
Is inconstant, and my song cannot always
Reach you, but the words-
Your words, all of them,
They are permanent, undiminished
by time and distance. And in them,
I give you all of me.

In the dressing room-
Mirror upon mirror,
Folded just right,
Creating a continuum
Of dimensions in which
I stand in silent observation,
Am I the man I see
(Or wish I saw)
Or am I merely A man-
Like any other?

Over time I dissolve,
My vision shattering me
Into the parts that
Make up my body-
The veins on the back of my hand,
The knuckle dislocated, offset
By some long-forgotten
Trauma ignited by an impotent rage
At not having the right words-
The brown in my eye that reflects
The look of a father who gifted
Me this, and nothing else.
The creases that time has carved
In my smile-
A testament to the unforgiving
Desert sun’s ability
To break me down-
To the heart’s inability
To ever truly forgive,
Let alone forget.
Am I not greater than the sum
Of these parts?

I am all that the mirrors
Reflect upon themselves,
The testament to
What air and heat and gravity
Have imposed upon me.
But within the blood
coursing beneath
The skin, lives every song
That broke me, every poem
That fractured me,
Every sunrise I waited up
For, to tuck me in,
Every ocean wave that
Moved my small
insignificant self
Along the grainy
unforgiving strand,
Every kiss that destroyed me,
In the most perfect of ways-
And in those I am not
Merely a man-
I just Am.

I think I missed it
Failed to hear
the clarion call
The notes that pierced
the night sky
calling everyone
home

“And now it’s cold,”
You hear her words
On the wind
But even her voice
Offers no warmth,
For the moonlight
Paints illusions
That she’s yours
But she never was.

Her kiss goodbye,
Full of tenderness
And heartbreak,
Stung of a finality
of a pity
More profound
Than I could process,
And now in the silence
Left in her wake,
I’ve nothing but
Regrets

It’s not the “if”but the “when”,
That idea humming in the
Back of your mind-
The question echoing
In hushed tones, on repeat-
when will I succumb
To the ache to be
Consumed, primally,
Viscerally, again,
To be muscle and nerve,
Sinew and synapse,
To exist only as breath and bliss-
To let thought and process
Dissolve under his touch?

That siren song
Is not yours alone-
It reverberates through my hungry
Frame, my five senses
Alert and famished-
Overwhelming me with
An irresistible longing
To take, to own, to possess-
That urgent call-
our bodies electric, alive with
An unrelenting Desire,
flexing like a heartbeat-
Burning for the other side of
Midnight- when our
Breathing becomes harmony-
And sensibility bows to
pure sensation.

Let me take your hands in mine-
Let my graceless touch
Memorize them,
Lift them to my face,
To my mouth,
Take between my lips
Your sweet fingertips
To kiss and bite to taste,
Let my tongue recapture the
Sugar-salt of you,
your palms, Your wrists-
my body quietly burning
with a melody of the
Intractable tenderness,
The vast immeasurable love
That our bodies understand
When words fail.

I cannot wish
That these be the last words
I commit to paper for you,
That this is my grand exit,
these weak, lonely,
Ineffectual
Lines, my parting gift
To all that time....

I am rendered mute-
Cannot possibly convey
What you mean,
(Never really could)
But should these be
The last lines you hold
As a memory of me,
Here then-

I Adore you-
Cannot imagine
A world in which you
And I do not exist,
Nor do I want to...

But what god ever
Gave a **** about that?

The grey morning sky-
In my dulcet dreams we claim it as ours,
When I wake with you breathing softly
Next to me, to the song
Of the rain and the ghost of your three
Sweetest whispered words
still hanging in the air,
to the curve of your naked silhouette
Half-covered by a soft white sheet,
So ******* lovely and pure and perfect-
I want to watch you stretch, languidly,
towards my kisses and my embrace-  
you are everything I ever need or want
in the light of our new day, my love.

The profane nature of my heart’s desire
Does not merit prayers
that a purer path may present itself-
My impious thoughts burn through me
Like a prairie brush fire that
paints the night sky red
And all the verses culled from the
holy texts meant to palliate my appetites
Cannot quiet
how I ache for you
my longing striking a sustained chord,
atonement slipping through my fingers.

Every time we touch, you leave a mark

A ****** of crows
Converge,  holding court,
In the towering elm tree
That is framed by the broad sky
Outside my window-
The green leaves
Vibrant and bright
Against the backdrop of their
Majestic plumage-
To share the wealth
That sunlight revealed,
Striking a joyful chorus
A celebration of their
Homeward return,
Their song cracking open
The quiet peace of
The evening sky,
The chaotic din belying
The order of their nightly
Congress, the hierarchy
That they know in their blood.
Their flailing inelegant dance
As they bound
among the branches
Is so contrary to their powerful grace
As they take flight,
Their blue black wings beating
At the air, shimmering in the dying light
Of the sunset, fast fading,
Ushering in the stars

Tonight’s cold breeze brings
On its wings the palpable memories
Vivid and visceral, of when my lips
First touched yours-
The night my heart’s defenses
Evaporated, carried away
With but a kiss.

It whispers in my ears
The seductive song of your desire
Of your longing,
Of the ache my body suffers
In the absence of you.

The vast endless sky
Tonight, is the canvas
Upon which my memory
Paints- of when I
touch your skin,
you close your eyes
Trying to fight back the ecstasy,
Wave after wave of bliss,
That our bodies offer up

The very elements of tonight kindle
Deep within me a desire
I burn for you
I am Insatiate,
enraptured,
haunted-
I need to consume and be devoured.

midnight encircles me in her blanket of stars
And again I know you-
I close my eyes and feel you,
As the wind sings me your song.

When our lips touch
We chase the briefest
Of eternities-
We are timeless-
Weightless on
A black ocean,
Under stars extinguished
Long ago,
Whose light still
Bears witness
To this,
Whose light
Is ours alone.

Some secrets I push down-
Let them drift away
Through the passing of the times,
Until those moments are lost
In the ether of neglect and distractions,
Their importance forgotten, dissolving
They become but brief muted images,
The ghosts of curling photographs
That rudely interrupt a placid dream
Or an old song-
Full of nostalgia,
But lacking context,
Have lost their meaning.

But some secrets I have stolen away-
Shielding them fiercely from the brutal inelegance
Of the grinding everyday-
Guarding them in their amber vaults,
Whose sentries, ever vigilant
Are immune to the erosion of years.

Those secrets-

The taste of your lips,
The curve of your throat,
The sigh of your voice,
The caress of your hands,

They continue to sing,
Vibrant and living,
In the space between.

These are the secrets I covet-
And I hang them like precious stars
In the night sky
-crystalline constellations,
Beacons that guide me to you-
Through my darkest of hours,
When I succumb to sleep
And close my eyes
And you are not with me.

How could he not taste the goodbye
In her kiss,
He thinks
As the street lights splinter
Into prisms through
His tears

He touches his lips,
But the ghost of her
Is already fading.

I was wrong-
It’s not the darkest starless nights when
My longing for you is at its zenith,
When the empty world has gone quiet
And only the distant songs of lonely trains and traffic
Accompany me in my reveries of you and me
In a place away from the cruel touch of time-
Where only I can see the sweetness in your eyes
That makes me melt for you
every time my eyes meet yours-

It is in the very stillest part of dawn
When the first rays of sun crest the horizon
Splintering the eastern sky, erasing the nearest stars-
The only stars bold enough to stand defiant
Against the incessant city lights-
It is this ghostly light that I miss you most,
When your absence is most profound,
When my mind, unable to distract itself,
Is most acutely aware that you are not with me-
When my hands need your hands,
When my lips need your lips,
When my heart needs your heart,
When my soul needs your song.

For at least in the chill of night,
I might dream of you
And sometimes dreams,
while only ether, are enough.

your body
Sings through the
stinging Desire,
The awakened ache,
Of this moment-
The carnal urgency
That must be answered-
It will have my response,
I promise, my love-

And when it does
Will your eyes be
open or closed
To the gift I offer up to
You, the awareness
Of just how beautiful
you truly are, just how perfect
You feel tangled deep
in my embrace?

Will the rain falling
Hard outside our motel
Window be that lasting image-
our heads sharing this pillow,
The graying sky keeping her
Silent vigil over us tonight-
haunting your beautiful
Brain when it’s quiet?

When the taste of
Tonight
Is a fading ghost on your
Tongue- touch your lips-
Gently, softly-
Trace the path of my kiss-
The skin has its own
Memory of
the heat of us
Long after.

If the lines of her-
Her Exquisite body
Her diamond eyes
Her perfect curves,
Her ravishing lips
With their mysterious smile,
Were sketched by some god,
They were drawn in ink,
Smooth and unwavering,
For there was no doubt,
No hesitation
In the hand that framed her,
Created her form and design,
Inspired by the canvas
Of the night sky,
For in her, heavenly and
Fragile, beauty resided-
She was divine.

Why have you become every storm to me?
Each snowflake that graces an eyelash,
Each drop of rain?
Your glances, lightning that flashes across my grey horizon
Your sighs, the gentle wind that brings soft summer showers?

I don’t need to see the night sky
To envision our stars, I need only your eyes-
Your autumnal Eyes that speak
In the beautiful tongue that only we share-
I don’t need the perfect words from your lips
To know what you desire, what you burn for-
I need only the soft touch of your hand,
The brush of your lips on my skin
And I know what we are together.

We are what the night allows, my love
We exist in stolen secret moments,
Instances where ecstasy and sorrow
Intertwine like lovers under the cover of twilight
Stealing precious minutes for each other
In the space in which you are my everything-
And it is in you that I find solace in silence
It is in you that I love the longing.


With a mere touch, the world melts away
With a whisper, you break my heart
With a word, my soul sings out
With a kiss, you devastate me
And I am yours.

In my lover’s eyes
Burn my hopes, hide my fears-
dreams with candles that light
My way through this autumnal glade-
Of yellows and browns and greens
seeking her touch

On my lover’s lips
Rest my prayers-
For twilight to descend,
For one simple word from her
To bring about my ascent
Into the still of this spring night,
To bleed into the colors of
her sky

In my lover’s ears
I whisper my desire
To get lost in her,
To be lost to time and memory-
To wrap myself around her,
To fall for her soft breath
As she shares my bed tonight

As the solstice approaches,
Its bitter sweet arrival
Heralding the advent of
The cold moon,
Singing brightly,
Embraced by its icy halo,
In the obsidian night,
A chorus of stars
Shimmers in a sky
That stays dark
one moment longer
Just for us, my love,
As the intoxicating
winter jasmine blossoms,
Awakened by the frost,
Bear witness to
Our perfect kiss tonight.