You would figure
such a moment would be burned
into the paradigm of memory
when exactly did I learn
life was no cartoon?
well, it wasn’t one traumatic incident
rather a rushing current of events
a drunk uncle here, a screaming mom there
a belting boyfriend or toy-stealing sister
playmates picked dead last no matter
older boys bullying the younger
teachers who didn’t particularly bother
some cousins had yards and fathers
while others like me had neither
always more chores than fun
and no one ever explained how come
priests were less present and less kind
than the mexican street venders
there’s no specific scene to pause when I rewind
I honestly can’t remember.

It wasn’t at a funeral, by then
though I was young , I somehow knew
life was not all beautiful and true
that those adults who told me what to do
sobbed on dark beds and screamed at phones
then wiped their tears or ****** walls
before reentering the room
their eyes a little more like stone
while I pretended to un-see it all
and kept on playing with my toys, alone.

It’s like some beast
whose roar startles
drowsy landscapes  
from a mechanical planet
where veins leak oil
where organs deoxidize
where bones lay scattered
unburied like discarded rods
homes are garages
churches are factories
cemeteries are junkyards
where all organisms operate
toward a singular optimum imperative:

EFFICIENCY

I do a few pushups

Before you visit

I rummage for the good cologne

Dash some on wrist, neck

Crotch

I trim my hair

Sweep the floor

Swipe the gunk

Off sinks

Wash the dishes

Stuff all the junk

Socks, backpacks, ****

Into the closet

Rearrange my trinkets

Shelve the various books

Thrown all about

Lay out the good movies

Songs, covers

Ready at hand

Prep my mind

With witticisms and humor

Hang up strawberry

Car-fresheners

Buy wine

Out of my price range

Dim the lights

Scrape the crust

Dust off the shadows

For you

I dream

I told them,  “I don’t feel sorry for Robin Williams.
He lived it. Coke-fueled, bearded trickster of ******.
Well traveled and well versed, raging into worlds
Physical and ephemeral, like a ghostly bull
Goring mortals to unfeel the estoques
Sunk deep into his vital corpse.”

I had a friend who blew his brains out
While his parents were watching tv in the living room
And another who rented a room at the Marriott
Then hung himself off the shower-rod

Both early 20s
You won’t see them on the big screen
Or hear their witty banter on interviews
Chic celebs won’t eulogize them
On “Extra”, “TMZ”,  or “Access Hollywood”
No 2 minute montages
At award shows, while tuxes and gowns float
Clapping in ovation behind the shimmering façade
Of golden statues

They got a few lines in an obituary, in A7
Those who knew them will speak in hushed euphemisms
No one daring to whisper “suicide”
As if it’s the ****** Mary of deaths
Like walking under a ladder, or breaking a mirror
The mirror containing, like smoke, the future
The jagged shards reflecting moonlight faintly

I love them all the same

“ash”

a swelling fills my chest
it sounds like heavy waves crashing
against jagged cliffs

     stars stars stars

silver spears descend
   i am pierced


        here

through my clavicle

the rain-swept streets waft with reminisces
  like stale perfume on a black wrinkled shirt

            my head half
submersed in water


                tickling my ear

        I can hear my nose breathing
                  heart pounding
                      throat gulping

body floating

                         dismembered
                  

                       in this liquid abyss


               like a spirit lost
                        in the neon-green ether
         of absinthe

                            lips
              press against my shivering skin

                 a warm palm plunges

                            clasps my numb hand

   a light delves

                            into the obsidian chasm

                   pallid faces

      innumerable

materialize

               from a cavernous distance      

fiery orbs combust

              crackling

                                like dry wood

                               in a snowy forest

smoke billows
                                     towards the fathomless night
                            
                             rising

                       rising

                rising

                   chest

swells
                      
waves

     crash
    

lungs

            bells
                          

eyes


ash...

II

“Shadow-Play”

The shadows in the corners of the room
whisper my name
they are the same shadows
by alley ways,
            behind tombstones
       beneath beds
inside my head

over the plains

the highest and whitest of clouds
cast darkest hues

the brightest of suns

i think of you

                         the whispers get louder
                         the curtains flutter
                         the air turns colder

somewhere a murmur

                         shhh

be still   be still  my dear

the rope hanging in the attic
                        the vague visions through the static
                                    the tremors of the addict

shhh
  be still
      my dear

                          love casts its pallor
                                blood on pale collar
                                  i hear you call her


                   by candle lights
                        as rain drops
                               and winds howl
                                       and wood creaks


      
               icy razors lay on warm tubs
                            guillotines fly through the air                
                    birds fall from thick heights
               like notes of despair


don't shake your head
it will all end
soon
in the corner of the room
There
where the shadows call out your name
like the wind sweeps the rain


               pull out a smoke
                    drag over a chair
                          sit by the window
                            and stare


there is the world    there is the world
   you are not a part of
                there is the world
            full of cruel love
        there the children laugh and play
like you never have
or ever could

   It’s understood

                  the rain floods into gutters
                       the once crisp leaves drift
                          they sog and they shudder
                          from spring-autumn skies
                                 down down sewage drains
                                     all truths mask in lies
                                          all love in pain      

shhh  shhh

the shadows the shadows

   they whisper my name

III

“eternally…”

I see your spectral silhouette
   hovering on the sea's horizon
      at midnight

  as the surf struggles and collapses
     before my feet

    it's so **** cold
     my gut convulses
      my hands shake
        my being shivers

              your hair whips
                 the dark air
               like thunder

                           the wind lashes
                         my numbed skin with coarse sand


            and it's so dark

                    the moon oscillates wide rings
                            of pallid skeletal light

                               and you flutter there exactly
  where the sun set
       six hours ago

                                 when its afterglow
                    disintegrated
                             pixel x pixel
    

                               your shadowy figure
                                   now beckons

                                      join me
                                    this night
                                and every night

                                    hereafter

                                      love
                          
                              I close my eyes....

                                    ...

dancing and sweating

  we lay in my room

             under burgundy covers

                      reeking of cheap beer
                               and dirt

your ******* still slightly moist
    flung on my chair

  my sticky shirt still emanates smoke
     like an industrial factory

you arms wrap a

Your eyes are not portals to your soul
They are not some archaic metaphysical equation
Ancient mathematicians formulated to confound

They are pastures for nymphs
They are branches for fruit
They are laurels for poets

They rend me open like a flaming axe
They tie my stomach like knotted roots
I lose myself in their dusky wilderness

In them, I observe universes
Perpetually exploding and collapsing
Your pupils are black holes
At the center of galaxies
Balancing energy and force
Bending light inward

Like a sickle glistening high over hayfields

In them I hear songs
And sagas narrated by savage tongues
Of catastrophic floods and rebirth
Aryan myths about oneness

In them I see IVs dripping
Candles flickering behind carved pumpkins

I loiter in them like a pauper
With a styrofoam cup

Gazing on them is nearly intolerable
Like glaring at hydrogen bombs blinding

It is like Hebrews
Uttering the name of El- who cannot be named
El- who is above mortal matrices

The eye that never sleeps
The ear that always comprehends
The self that waivers like the sea

Eternity ends when you blink
Infernos extinguish when you sob

I tremble before them
As if they're holy relics
Decaying into perfection

Oh look upon me one last time
My love

Oh glance at me before
I petrify into pillars of salt

Look upon me
Before I transfigure into an amnestic god
Bearing light pure

Peer once more into my binary pulsars, frozen
In a fathomless abyss.

I make sure to punch my bf in the face
Just to let him know im not ******* around
Then i slink off to a corner
And pound the
Rest of the *****

Before they walk in to check on me
I backslap my tears from the darkness
" of course I'm ok, *******."
Then peer out into that song.

That song which beckons on the sea
Which makes me want to love and fight
I crunch a can , and squeeze a lung
And gasp An indeterindeterminate light