That’s talent
Sniffing out drugs
Down two floors
Down deep in the recess
Of your drawer
Because it lay
Down deep in the recess
Of my mind
Down two floors
Stored for a slow
Calculated
Take down of your mind
Whilst it picks away
At my carefully
Orchestrated sobriety
Down deep
Layered over
With career
With kids
With paint
With healing sounds
Don’t come around here no more
But it do
But it do
Cause I’ve got a talent
for Sniffing out
The drudgery
For sniffing out
The dark side
Wars colliding in my mind
Cause the army I built is
Only as good as the fort I built in front of them.
And this nose. This nose..
I’ve got a talent.

Do you remember when you were a go-go dancer and I a dom;
That was a long time ago; ages really.

Or the time we were tossed out of the family home on a drunkin whim?
Jealous matriarchs angered by youthful hope;
She’d long ago lost.

But we came a long way.
Career chicks;
With eyes for a better life
We carried our families with a clean hustle,
With sweat,
Eating tears,
Shared with each other
Eating it.. for the kids.

I’m speechless without you
My fire
My confidant
My sister

You were so gorgeous to me
So gorgeous that we nicknamed you “gorgeous George-ous”
Gorgeous George-ous with
The the bright blue eyes
I’d never experienced that type of stare
Whose name tattooed across back
Just in case the night took you somewhere unexpected
And you needed to be ... identified
Whose tag name I quietly new but was never discussed
As it should have been...
Unlike today.
Who made love to me abruptly on 44th street between 9th and 10th
Right there in the street with a nothing of a fence separating us from the passerby’s.
I didn’t care.
A flag waving quietly, high above our heads
Whose lips kissed me under the pillared circular structure on a midtown corner
Which was never to be forgotten
I linger each time I happen to pass it for just a second
To smile over that moment
Still after all these years.

Caffeinate
Try not to hate
Only create
once-Devastated
And now mediated
Sealed and fated
Better off
Getting off
The lights down low
See nice and slow
But she said no
So on we go
The daily grind
Chewing up my mind
12 hr days
But getting paid
No sleep in sight
I put up a fight
Stretched to the limit
Now you swimmin in it
Tapped line straight to Feds
Closin in and now I'm seein red
closing in, and yeah
They closing in
Mind alert
Goin berzerk
Hurry up it'll be too late
Go ahead and Fill up my plate
Over flow
The lights down low
They'll never know
Down we go

You in too deep
Too late for sleep and so we
Caffeinate.. And yeah we caffeinate

Grapefruit soda first thing in the morning
Longing for Jamaican beef patty winning combination
Queens to Manhattan commute
Diverse and chasing
Ever late and racing
But not today
Today I sip on a fancy soda that taste like ting but with a manhattan price ticket
With a few minutes left
Before the race begins again.

5 dollars for the beer
And 5 for your sadness
Could have been something
But the light went out
Dust collecting to the right
It could have been dynamite
Champion of the come and unwind
Instead in creeps what the devil may find
Dreams don’t live here
Only remnants of better days
And the crackle of desperation
So 5 dollars for the beer
And 5 for your sadness
The least I can do.
Before moving on to the next spot.

Almost midnight and the night finished with a fantastic kiss
Something started long ago
I'm giddy but recall your issues w me
You spelled them out quietly
Wet lips on mine
Tall strong looking fine
You hugged me and still that
Subtle shake that brings me fever
Our paths vary greatly
I'm not inclined to let it go
Never gave it up to me
Always left a mystery
Sleeping next to me
Get next to me
Give me that moment
You in me

Notes to a lover who once was

If I go over
what I did enough times
Laugh it out the way you did
As if my feelings were
in of themselves
a joke to be had

If I wish you away in my mind
Think of anything but your touch
The sweet one where
you rumble deep
Memories
Please fade away

You buried your face beneath your hands the first time
I walked into your place
Embarrassed by its state
as if it wasn’t a fact of your existence
Testimony to your state of pause

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!

Apologies in fast succession

OCD triplets Im familiar

I play back the hours that we share the same space

I smell the instability in the air.

Faint but present under cigarettes and old spice

Familiar like family

Eager to enter (me)

Beneath the banter (sweet and constant)

Slowly you pace the apartment searching for a plug you’d lost the year before.

Wasting time because it seems to be your comfort zone.

I lay back and patiently wait for you to do the same.

But you continue to delay.

Unsettled.

The elusive Alex
Whose mouth causes that good ache
The kind one thinks of late in the night
When no one else is present
When the house is quiet
And you can finally sit alone with your thoughts

The elusive Alex
Whom will never be caught
Whom doesn’t need to be caught
Unsettled as a permanent solution to that feeling in the gut
Perhaps the search is the point

I only like broken
I only like the imperfect

I consider deleting your contact
Perhaps I’m not ready for
Feelings

I opened myself from collar bone to ****
Ending where you lapped
Hungrily
Where I longed for touch

I opened my heart up despite the danger
Of ending in heartache
Willingly
Because I long for depth

I rise in the am
Dress wounds
I should have grown out of

I rise in the am
Wash away
the night before
your imprints
On my ***

I rise in the am
Force out
The hours of conversation
We’ve shared

Because this panic doesn’t suit me

Because I’m scared that your touch completes me only too perfectly

And perhaps life doesn’t hand me sweetness so easily

Wake me
Like the scent of havdalah spices
That breathe life into a slumbering soul

Wake me
Like giggling from the other Room naughty kids
Plotting plotting

Wake me
Like the touch on my shoulder
Ever so close to my neck
Your fingers against my flesh

This empty bed pains me
But the prospect of a dead marriage pains me more

Daily grind finds me
Plotting; plotting

But days turn to wasted weeks
Only just plotting; plotting

I should have backed out
when instinct told me to
run;
run far,
run now.

When you closed eyes a little too long for a healthy man;
I know that nod only too well.

When the blame game you play spins to everyone but yourself

I should have backed out.
I should have backed out.

Now you Tangled my
Heart strings

Now you Mangled
My mind

When you surprised me with
Outrage over my feelings
On being an afterthought
Over your : addictions
Over your:  obsessions
Over : anything that could come before me

When you surprised me with
A Luke warm return

I should have backed out.
I should have backed out.

The door.

So now I’ll go.

Run
Run far
Run now..