You're daring enough to have ventured into the night,
he sounded delirious in the wispy light.

Half a mile across the lagoon
moondrunk Ridleys in ghostly shadows
would be digging holes in the sands
to lay their lives for posterity
away from the phosphoric melody
leaving the orphaned to find their way
once the shells cracked under silica.

They look like a procession of mourners,
the man whispered between strokes of oars
sloshing the rising tides of the channel
his deft hands rowing the fastest
cutting across the half mile to Cuthbert Bay.

The night ripened enough by that time
unfolded the crawling shadows from the sea
slowing time in frameshot motions
of rows of celebrating marchers.

Dead of night the stars were burning out
and I called out to the boatman.

To this day I don't believe what I heard.

None was ever ferried back by the boatman.

Missing you
At the end of a day
in the space of a moment
in the breath of allay
in the wings of an angel
the space of a bar
music
transposed
from the heavens

my heart from afar

i.

in the wild, drumming rain
blossoms sink, confetti pinks,
riotous whites, collapse
in spring’s paper mache pools.

ii.

on a hot tin roof
the rain plays her wind
guitars and percussion
while the sea recharges
her engines with the
thunder of the waves.

iii.

the sound of the rain, chiming,
a crazy singer on the forlorn
lawn, stretching like an
accordion, wild in her
wilderness,  crashing
like the waves
drawing me closer to you.

iv.


you kiss me and
my heart skips a beat,
flutters with excitement.

i long for summer with her
gold sun, warm, rushing
streams and bottle-blue sea...

the other day we were in a
bookstore in the mall
and my woman said, "look, there's
Bob!"

"I don't know him," I said.

"we had dinner with him
not too long ago," she said.

"all right," I said, "let's get
out of here."

Bob was a clerk in the store
and his back was to us.

my woman yelled, "hello, Bob!"

Bob turned and smiled, waved.
my woman waved back.
I nodded at Bob, a very
delicate blushing fellow.
(Bob, that is.)

outside my woman asked, "don't you remember him?"

"no."

"he came over with Ella. re- member Ella?"

"no."

my woman remembers everything.

I don't understand it, although
I suppose it's polite
to remember names and faces
I just can't do it
I don't want to carry all those
Bobs and Ellas and Jacks and Marions
and Darlenes around in my mind. eating and
drinking with them is difficult en- ough.
to attempt to recall them at will
is an affront to my well-
being.

that they remember me is
bad enough.

My body is a temple
Destroyed
Crumbling
Broken
Worshiping inner demons and external pleasures
The pursuit of glory through the forbidden fruit
A blood sacrifice is demanded
By a god at the altar
But there is nothing holy about this
The only heaven I will ever find
Is in beaded red lines
I confess my sins to thee
But there are no answers to my prayers
There is no one to answer to
Higher powers have forgotten me
I have forsaken me
And there is no grace in pain
No forgiveness in punishment
And no God to blame for my sins
As I kneel adorned with my own crown of thorns
Constructed from my own deceptions and faults
I wonder why the only person willing to die for my sins
Is me

I want to
feel nothing for you.
I want to
soak myself in Novocain
when you pass me on the street.
I want to
not be blown away by the way
your hips shift when you walk .
I want to
delete memories of you
like they were data on a disk.
I want to
shove you so deep into a crowded backpack.
That thousands of years could pass
before I found you.
I want to
be like the neutered dog
able to **** away and away
with no consequence.
I want to
close my eyes and think of anything else
literally anything else
like dead bodies decaying
or something along those lines.
I want to
be free from your chains
and I mean that.
You don't seem to understand that
but I do.

Mean it.

Believe me.

I want to feel nothing for you.