You cut my chest
Open
With a scalpel
And remove my heart.

I let the blood cover
Your sober hands
That never touch
Such impurities.

I let you watch
Blatantly
As I slowly drift
Into a loveless death.

And as I watch
Your uncaring glance
Turn into a frown
Of sorrow
I still believe
There's hope in the world.

She is a felon
Of time in check.
She punctures
The seconds, minutes, hours
With thoughts, fantasies
That elude her own eyes.

She bleeds passing moments
And drinks them like wine.
She bleeds me, too,
For I am but a collection
Of years at a time.

Chaotic words, chaotic thoughts,
Bombastic ideas and pensive deliberations
That float, even fly like volcanic ash,
Pounded out of the molten Earth as if
God were hitting the crust with a hammer,
And the masses of ash and dust cloud the sky,
Streaming like red and black chalk
Across the asphalt of uncharted thoughts.

And they rain, rain down
Like a tempestuous conflagration,
Beating upon the earth like mallets on drums,
Vibrating ever-so tenuously in the ears,
But resonating with verve somewhere within,
And then it stops,
Never to be heard or seen again.

And in its place are the bright rays of the sun,
Shooting light like a harpoon toward the ground,
Digging into the supple soil with a medley
Of confusion and anger,
Of apprehension and isolation,
And they burn caustically,
Warm the body as if they were pockets of magma,
Sliding across the flesh
And trickling into the pores, digging down
Into the heart, shaking it, squeezing it, weeping atop it.

And then the night comes on
As the sun retreats below the horizon,
And it brings with it the complacent lights
Of the stars high above,
That glow gently atop our brows and
Reflect dully off our shirts,
Dotting us with the paint-like
Stains of the unbridled release
Of laughter and intimacy,
Of love and vivacity.

And the placid night lights,
They seem to **** up all the heat,
Seem to save it from its vice,
And they dispel it into the great beyond,
Into the great unknown that stares down on the Earth
And renders it quiet and inhospitable.

Yet for some reason,
For some ungodly or unholy reason,
This night brings peace,
Even if dangers lurk somewhere in the dark.

Couple them together
Like a star and its space
Take them away
But there's no tuneful grace
In this race
My love

It stings not for its shine
But strikes nerves for its truth
For the time cannot turn
Back toward what could have been
Moved together
My love

The time has passed long
Much too far for any taste
Toward sweetness and purity
Unbound by hidden chaste
That you could have shown
To me
My love

The blood flows now
Too thick to pass like water
Which flows over ocean seas
But it is now a bother
To me
And to you
My love

I am unable to believe
Although I see it
High above the shore
But the days will only sit
Stagnant
For me
My love

Rest a bit
Now
My love
Rest a bit
Now
For me.

In meadows of supple leaves
and sands of crystal grass,
long-lived fears
of a life lived long have passed.

Still, cradled in the veins
of another person’s heart,
you cannot help but bleed.

On days of untold
ire, your eyes wet and red,
you rue the day you took a breath
from the old ocean sun.

Yet salty waves of green
could never hold back
your swelling song.

I have watched you grow
and have watched you drink
water from the riverside mound
upon which lay
the dreams you have held
since you were a child.

I know not where you belong,
where years will place you then,
but sirens wail upon your hearth,

Wherever you end up
you will be beautiful.

I am the liquefying touch
Of boundless intrigue,
The thin coating
Over the map of anthropogenic
Wisdom, the thick seas
Dividing lands and soil,
The clear droplets
That slide down windows,
Burst with energy,
Coagulate with brotherhood.

I divide people,
I join masses,
I scorch the Earth
And I flood its plains,
I drink the verve
Of fallen comrades,
Expiate the sorrows
Swollen with God's irate shouts
And I shake the Earth's core,
Pour my brethren upon
Boundless grasslands and plains.

I am ambivalent emotion
Sprung from fountains
Of unobtainable youth,
Spry and fresh like grateful pride,
I am light in darkness,
Confounding isolation,
Unbearable dissociation,
Conceivable admiration,
But most of all,
And this rings true,
I am life itself
And I stick to everything
Around me and you.

I rest my consciousness
On the proliferating meadows
That stretch toward the sun,
That sway in placid solitude
In the tacit winds
That flow across my body.

I rest my consciousness
In the stars of the night
That caress my jaded visage
And assure me that my wishes
Will manifest themselves
Within my beating heart.

I rest my consciousness
Atop mountains and peaks
That envision a world of harmony
By harboring the aspirations
Of those who stand atop them,
Awe-struck by the omnipresent calm.

I rest my consciousness
In the landscape of my thoughts
That, like the meadows,
Will stretch onward
Until I draw my last breath
And exhale dispassionately.

I rest my consciousness
In the world of make-believe,
In the world that accepts me
Not because I am normal,
But because I can only be content
When I channel my inner wordsmith.

I rest my consciousness
In a night filled with silence
And, as I close my eyes
And let the dark fall over me,
I grin, cognizant
That my dreams are boundless.

Sake bowls and forks and knives,
And tables strewn with overgrown hives
Of mahogany stools and empty plates
And rosy cheeks that scream wealth is fate.

From the window a rag man peeks his head,
His only child starved cold and dead.
He glares at broken bread inside of bowls
Then at his ragged pants, pocked with holes.

An earthquake deep within a cage
Rocks his hands with carnal rage
He begs the stars for mercy and prays for light
But his shouts echo dully into the night.

Tears sting hot on a kettle bell
And on asphalt grass far down in hell
The winds whip through and tear to shreds
His eternal cushion on concrete bed.

He kneels like a pauper to his King
And cups his hands and starts to sing
A melody that floats like air
To free himself from glowing despair.

His voice trails off as time grows dim
And golden watches tick on a whim
Before he lies on the ground to die
He asks God why, oh why, oh why?

Morning light shines down today
And lights the rag man's figure away
No eulogies given for splitting holes
In clothes, in hearts, or even in bones.

Her hair reminded me of electric trees
Vibrating in waves of soundless lightning

Her teeth were suns that blinded the moon

Each word she twiddled on her tongue
Reminded me of the day she whispered to the forest

That she would trudge along alone

I find myself a fool for wasting light
Living in the shadow

Of her purple flame

When the dust of her old hums finally fade
And the music she brought spins scratches into stone

I’ll ask to where she twirled her head

To find herself in those smoldering orange eyes
She spun away on a silent gray morning

To lug her fire back home

I'm alive
I'm alive
I'm alive

Iridescent glow
Whiter than black sunlight
Translucent rays of
Incoherent ire
Burn like molten heartbreak
As a feeling
Redolent of regret
Chars my skin
As though I were
Desolation incarnate.

Glowing orbs
Of incandescent light
That gleam like star-struck eyes
In the waking, placid night
These cities below me
Sit quiet, asleep
As far as the eye can see.
Their hushed cries
Of encapsulated innocence
Are all but unheard so high above,
And their mature, conflicting bellows
Are all but forgotten
In the midst of the dark,
Undefined horizon.
But look beyond their seeming insignificance,
Their appeared impotence,
And you'll see the light
That seems to never die
Despite the arising fatigue within their
Moonlit streets
And tall, shrouded buildings.
Look beyond their flawed structures,
Graffiti-stained walls, and you'll see
They're made,
Just as we are,
Of undying light,
That seems to shine best
When darkness clouds the sky.

I often wonder
How odd it is
To love someone
With all of your heart.

If you love someone
With such passion as that
Will there be room
For other love?

A family
A child
A late relative
Can you still love them?

Because if you give your
Heart
Away so quickly,
There can only be room
For excruciating pain.

In my eyes
You see brilliant
Suns
But I feel
Like pale
Moons
Most days

Oh I wish she could see
All the days we'd never be
Falling forward in one place
I could always see her face.

When I was younger and tame
My heart always felt the same
But I grew older and so did she
A simple thought I'd never let be.

When the leaves all bloomed for spring
I caught the wind beneath my wings
The river flowed and the seas turned
The daylight crashed and the moonlight burned.

Cigarettes don't always burn
Even in the flame they're spurned
All these days in greying light
Can't keep the ashes out of my mind.

Abandoned mansions where we lived
Parks and meadows where we'd been.
I can't wake up without a care
At least in dreams she was always there.

But I can't help but wonder
If we're going under
Is this all we have to give?
Sell our souls with hidden sin?

I drink the fire, let its
Freezing burn slide down
My throat, feel it sting
My open wounds and
Cloud the pathways to
My heart, feel its ineffable
Rage sizzle against the
Backdrop of unsaid woes and
Unwarranted apologies.

I drink the fire
To sacrifice my maddening
Remembrances, to
Focus on the pain in
My throat instead of the
Smoldering in my chest,
To sterilize the *****
Palms of God that can't
Pacify the raging tides
Above my cheeks, to
Cauterize the raw
Wounds that bleed tears
Onto the blackened
Soil of uncertainty.

I drink the fire
To feel sensation, to
Feel something other
Than the colossal
Void, to feel something
Other than the dull
Pangs of your broken
Words, to feel something
That washes away the
Fragile memories I keep, to
Feel the flames ***** at
My skin and blow black
Smoke out of my eyes,
To feel something other
Than the reluctance of
Dragging weeping Pegasi
Across the ground like
Caged birds begging
To be freed.

I drink the fire,
Hoping that you'll
Remember me while
I forget you, hoping
That you'll touch my
Scalded face and
Bleeding lips,
Hoping that you'll
Twist your hands in a
Knot to restrain your
Uneasy urges,
Hoping that you'll
Remember my countenance
As I turn to dusty ash
That twirls like a
Tornado barreling into
The darkened past.

I drink the fire
To forget why I
Fell so hard, sip it
To forget why I
Tumbled like a fool
Over your shattered
Promises, gulp it
To forget that you're
Forever stuck in my
Heaving breath,
Down it to forget
The unbearable fact
That I still love you,
And that I adore
The pain even more.

I've been sitting
Atop this lonely spot
For as long as I can remember.
But time does not affect it, for time
Is a pure abstraction
Of my ephemeral presence,
My waning consciousness.

I drift like a cloud,
Sway like a stray hair,
Waiting for the dawn that won't arrive.
The day when you'll grab me
By the soul, scan the pages of my heart,
Look me in the eyes without
Innumerable distraction,
And treat me as a human,
Treat me as a mate,
Treat me as a love.

I'll wait while you take
Solemn breaths upon the
Dying waters of ignorance,
The calming tides of playful banter,
Meaningless discourse,
Wait while you run
Through mud-stained plains
Expecting to stay clean,
Wait while you cry tears
Expecting not to get wet,
Wait while you speak words
Expecting nobody to
Remember what you said;
I'll wait patiently, obediently,
Hoping, praying, that one day
The tormenting clouds will part
And reveal the omniscient light from above,
That it'll cleanse the world like a rag,
And soak up the raw injustice
That stems from opportune circumstance.

But until then I'll sit here,
Unbound by the tribulations
Of passing time,
And I'll watch as the last
Grain of sand stays dormant
In the hourglass of our time on Earth;
But until the day you achieve clarity,
Until the day you feel what I feel,
I'll be picking flowers that
Sprout from the infinite soils,
Waiting for the dawn that won't arrive.

I smell the wind-whipped breeze of
A thousand sun-kissed days,
Breathe the crumbling masses
Of a million broken stars,
Hear the hushed, blank cries
Of a billion swollen hearts,
And taste the bitter tears
Of the whitecapped ocean
Beneath your chest-hugged legs.

This amalgam of hues on
A blank paper page is
Nothing but a wistful image,
A reflection of a dying moment,
A passed eon in the midst of
What’s left, gone, seen,
But I faun over it, dote its
Tacit candor, glide my
Chilly soul over it,
Disillusioned, unaware of
The face behind the blue eyes,
The dark, flowing hair,
The slender figure hunched over
A granite island in the midst of the
Green and gray canyons,
Like a perched hawk over
A boulder-faced mountain,
And I find that I’m falling
In love with you,
With the scent of the past,
With the novel sagacity stuck
On your cherry-licked lips,
With the sun’s golden fingers
That caress the water’s surface
Like a silken stare at the
Edge of a lush green meadow.

But tell me, my thorny rose,
Am I not falling in love
With your unproven allure,
Your fixated transience,
Your deceiving honesty?
Can I truly be in love
With an image, an obstinate replica,
Without having felt the loneliness
Of longing, unblinking glances
With your impalpable reality?

Tell me, my heart,
And don’t feed me bitter lies,
Can I love what’s but only a wish,
An enigma that visits me
When I drift away with the rising tides?

I am not
what I foresaw

Among rainbow-colored
lands askew with fruit ripe and seeping
springs wallowing on ancient forest loam
I used to dream of the sky

Now I lay upon nail beds
destined by shadows demanding
legacies foretold by soothsayers
with eyes clouding against the present

I am nothing
change is something

Was I ever
something

I can feel my heart beat
In my eyes, pacing quick.
My chest, oh how it stings,
And how bitter it seems to me
To stare at the stars above
Knowing I haven’t spoken to them
In far too long a time.

City lights flare in the distance
As I lie in this swaying chair.
Its reflection burns gold
In the windows to my petrified
Spirit, somewhere deep
In the shaking of my hands.

Music sounds too sweet;
Too sweet not to be loved
Like a blood moon floating
In the corner of night’s space.
Only I can hear it,
As I’ve been told time and time again.

If only I could see the sun once more,
Or touch it from afar,
I’d greet it with a frown,
Not one of pain but one filled
With reminiscence of time gone,
Of years that haven’t yet come to pass.

A broken man I lay,
A dying man I become.
The mountains call me away
As does the blowing wind,
Pleading for another moment’s breath.

Keep on sulking, stalling, flying, driving,
waiting for time to roll.
Keep on bickering, crying, screaming, searching,
waiting for words to grow.
Turn your lips around, my dear,
there's no more sense in trying
to keep yourself away from tears
and the jealousy you're hiding.

Fill the broken pieces
with bottles of reclaimed wine.
Kiss the man who preaches
about those who've gone and died.
Will you find your way home
in the streetlights up ahead?
Or will you carry on all alone
until you're gone and left for dead?

We were indefinite
moments

We were habits
built and snapped
promises made and snuffed

We were village idiots
nocturnal cretins running
stop signs and red lights
and bounding a hundred miles an hour
down empty highways
at three o’clock in the morning

chattering and chortling
and secretly feeling
at each other’s hearts

trying to hoodwink the universe
into believing
even for a moment

that we were more
than just a flock of sleepless kids
searching for unattainable
meaning

A shadow crept on your black stained lips
Hoping to cut out your lies

Skies bore flames down on you
And wiped away your sight

You tore his dancing box to pieces
When he claimed his heart was pure

Only to find that you misplaced what he sold
By hand
Pocked with blisters and sores

If, when we die,
We choose our
Destination,
I would travel
Into the night sky
And become one
With the stars.

They lack judgment,
They lack wisdom,
Yet they are animals
Of infinite spans of
Inherent mystery.

As my body would
Materialize
And drift slowly
Through the airless
Darkness,
I would close my
Eyes,
And listen to the
Cacophonous silence.

I would let my
Eyes
Rest upon beds of
Black nothingness
And let my vision
Focus only ahead
Of me
On the supernova
Of my own fleeting
Past.

I would let my
Troubles
Become simple
Memories
And let my
Petty body float
Away
As my mind would
Drift
Far into the boundless
Void.

And, as I would
Near the end of
My journey, I
Would not cry,
For that would
Insinuate
That I wasn't at
Peace
For a single
Moment
Of my voyage through
Time and space.

Distant cries of a foreign city,
Melodic fluctuations
Of tumult and reverberation
Weeping aloud at the gates of heaven,
Painfully singing a dream of bliss,
Joyously chanting an echoing hymn,
Spreading ethereal wings
High above the ground
Made of fertile silver ash.
And what complex simplicity,
What gracious harmony!
Wishes more than granted,
Heart more than stolen,
Vibrations more than sensation,
Memory more than a fleeting instant.
Life may go on,
But I'll stay here
Right at this very moment.

I want you
To see my heart
Sing for you
And watch it pound
Faster
When I ride
The green seas
Floating in your eyes.
Because every time
I go to sleep
I dream endlessly
Of you and I.

Take me away
My body astray
In diamonds I see
Nothing for me
Where shall I go
When the skies fill with snow
I don't know
I don't know

Why can't I stay
Even when I pray
That one day I'll be free
From whatever it is I'll be
I see home in the world
Too far from this hold
In dreams I'd know the sun
But all I see is what I run from

I'm just a spindle of silk
Cradled too close by distant ilk
The seas glimmer bright
Farther than eye's dwindling sight
While grass waits to grow
I wait for wind to blow
In places I'll never see
That's where time would be

Wishes grew with me
Under the mid morning tree
Hundreds of years it wept
Until it broke its roots and left
Tell me why distant memories
Split apart all too clearly
I wish I knew
I wish I knew

An old man
Lies helplessly
On his mattress,
Covered by darkness
And filled with grief.

A young man,
His son,
Stands next to him,
His arm outstretched,
Gripping his father's lanky fingers.

The son glances at him
Half-expecting his dad
To say something,
Yet all the old man can do
Is close his eyes.

His breathing stops.

His vision goes black.
Yet, somehow,
Through the darkness,
Shines a light, so bright in view,
So welcoming in presence.

He is transported to a green meadow,
Filled with black roses,
That beckon him to move ahead,
To let go
Of the past.

Hesitantly he stands,
Takes a deep breath, and,
Tilting his head toward the sky,
Frowns reluctantly.

He looks ahead,
Staring at his fleeting past.
He takes a step through his childhood,
Through his adolescence,
Through his adulthood,
Through his marriage,
Through the birth of his child,
Through the death of his lover.

He reaches the end,
The future made only of light.
He looks behind him once more,
Unsure about letting go.

His memories become distant.
They dissolve into the fine air
And dissipate like vapor,
Until all that remains
Is the green grass below them.

He looks at the light,
As it becomes more welcoming
Than ever.
He weeps for a moment,
And steps inside.

I love you,
My eyes scream,
But you only hear
When I am glaring
At the gashes and cracks
Deep in my chest.

I fear that when I die, I’ll forget who I am.

I fear that all of my memories will wash away

And never return; that they’ll be left to die

In the midst of space, that they’ll drift to another world.



I fear that I’ll forget that I loved people

As much as I loved the world

That I loved watching sunsets

More than I loved sleeping

That I loved to think with words

More than I loved to think with images.



I fear that I’ll forget my loving parents

Who loved me for my what I’d become

I fear that I’ll forget my siblings

Who loved me for what I’d done

I fear that I’ll forget my friends

Who loved me for what I’d loved

And I fear that I’ll forget how to breathe,

For it reminded me I'm only human.



I fear that I’ll forget my life

And that time will swallow me whole

That it’ll bare its glass-edged teeth

And bite down on my soul

I fear I’ll bleed profusely,

But that my blood will be black

I fear I’ll reach out longingly

As my mind will shed its light.

That I’ll become a paragon of nothing,

That I won’t be able to stay.



But everyone must die, that’s true,

It’s the one thing we all see.

Though people can’t come to terms with it,

It’s an inevitable end for all.

But don’t focus on death, no,

For you’ll surely lose your way.

Instead, focus on making more memories

Because they’ll save you from the gray.