Morning's breathlessness
Hanging with wint'ry glow
Bracing
Speeding my pulse
Waking up my skin
Pale blue arc of gleaming sky
Against a white sun
Emerging
Hurts the eyes
Washes out the face
Dawn came
Earlier to the horizon
To warm the soul
Awakening
The dream of day

I hate to be phobic
Or repetative
Hate to be petty
But I worry
That one day
It will all run out
The words, the thoughts
The pictures
And muses
Swirl and slip
Down a sink in my soul
Like a vapor
That I'll sit down
With a pen
And have nothing
Nothing left to say
Worth saying
That hasn't been heard
Imagined
Or spoken
It doesn't make sense
But still
The gremlins ****
Leave me be
Let me write in peace
For as long as I can

The milky threads of calm, wound less neat
tighten their spread and tangled nets of heat

split seconds post an apocalyptic maelstrom
here rises the silence before the firestorm

furiously raveling strings of energy to a fiery knot
compressing all matter until it burns white and hot

molded and collapsing in its own gravity
the folding and re-folding of infinity

all universal light, crunched to but a single ray
explodes to birth the stars and break the day

an interstellar consummation of luminosity
until all is, yet at once, will cease to be.

Never ******* apologize
   for believing the liars

Never ******* apologize
  for loving the loveless

Never ******* apologize
   for the darkness

Never ******* apologize
   for deserving better

   for you are a luminous being
   you are a beautiful soul
   you deserve every kindness, and
   you will see it done
   even if you have to do it all yourself

Never ******* apologize
   for hoping

You
Yes, you
You’re not supposed to know
About the parts of my body that shiver
With pleasure at the purchase of a glossy Spider-Man comic

And
You
You’re not allowed to know
How I want to dig my fingernails into
My brain matter when it’s racing light-years ahead of my emotions

And
You
You’re a stranger who shouldn’t hear
How I jettison ideas like bullets, poetry like shrapnel
In hopes that it will hit someone’s beating heart and make it bleed

And
You
You’re not obliged to absorb
My metaphors for how martyring it is to be alone
And truthfully how much more terrifying it is to belong to someone

You
Yes, you
You’re not allowed to read this
Barrage of brokenness if you found it under my bed, only
When I whirl it in cyberspace, shotgun-like, to blast you in the face

Yes
I said
You’re not allowed to read this
But truthfully?
All poets lie.

Torch flame and red wine.
                          I'm doused in paint and sweat
                          Stomach curdled in hunger and irritation.
He is late.
He usually is.
                          The wine was for me.      
                          Nevertheless, I let him sip from my glass.
           We argue. Pardon...discuss.
                           I win.
                           I usually do.
           We watch the bottle vanish.
           We recline.
           We muse.
                           I relax into my own sore muscles
                           including the muscle in my chest
                           tell a story that sharpens its ache.
He stutters.
                           I startle as
he kicks his chair out from under him.
            Tears flicker in torchlight.
            Hands clasp too fervently.
            Questions.
                           No. Actually...
                                  
...just one.

                           I knew the answer, but was
                           left
                           utterly

                                                        ­                                                                 ­                                     
                           ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­ speechless.

I've never met anyone like you before
Anyone so clear, so simple, uncomplicated
Black rolled-up sleeves bare your heart
Pink lips that trip over incalculable risk

You are a cosmic irregularity
A consummate anomaly
A grammatical inconsistency
A mathematical improbability

The type that always knows what it wants
And that, you say, is me.

I've never met anyone like you before
I don't know if I ever will again
I didn't know what I wanted
Now I know

It's you.

Knuckles break
With whippish crack
So much to take
The quiverous wrack
And the injustice drives me insane

They say not to bite
The hand that feeds
But I do bear spite
For the one that beats
And sometimes they are the same

If I were a spirit
I'd be ***
Bittersweet
Or an elf child
Light of feet

If I were a dye
I'd be red
Smoldering
Or a yellow
Emboldening

If I were a bird
I'd be a sparrow
Quite plain
Or an arrow
Restrained

If I were a rock
I'd be iron
Steadfast
Or a tear
Long to last

If I were a gem
I'd be broken
But blinking

If I were a word
I'd be spoken
Not thinking

French music
espresso swirls in my Chai
the rumble of conversation
clink of glass and silver
lean in to the chair back
admiring the view of a blank page
paper has poetic potential

when a voice crackles
severing my reverie
shredding my illusion
my carefully crafted imaginarium
I lean forward and type, suddenly
cringing, squinting, now
conscious of the fluorescent light
overhead and worker bees
buzzing in an office next to mine

my cup is made of paper
my music on a radio
my silver and glass only
kindly ambient noise
recorded by some lucky chap
really reclining
in a cafe somewhere
where they grind the coffee beans
fresh behind the counter

sad to think
my desk is no magic carpet
so much for a memory
of a Paris cafe

One look at you is all it takes
An injection of your kiss and glow
And my will just breaks
I think you know

I was a liar before I met you
Now your tenderness makes me weak
How can I lie so near to goodness
When I cannot even speak?

People stick to me
Like flies to caramel
My sweetness draws them
Then they're caught
I keep them close
Against their will
Holding still
Until
Death

There was a once upon a time
When this day brought trembling
And swayed my self with tears
The sight of velvet petals splashed
In scarlet flutters
Made my lower lip quiver
Crudely cobbled rhymes
Pricked the corners of my nose

And I hardened my eyes
Turning away, shouldering
The world and denying any feeling
Denouncing love
All the while, your halo was choking
Your absence was a presence
Like a tumor

But a year's distance
Has reawakened my adoration
For the taste of spring
And affection for roses
Realization that I cannot sink
When I'm holding others up
Focusing lenses on pain worse than mine
Releases my love
My Valentine
To the world

I'm hungry
hungry for air

I kiss you
and surface from deep water

a ragged inhale
sputtering exhale

buoyant
breathing

for the first time
in five whole lung-burning minutes

if minutes were years.

I am a reflection of the Great
The One who was
Before anything else came to be
One who is the essence of Good
Yet I cannot help but see
How if I reflect Him
How much more does He also
Correspond to my humanity?
For is it not so
That I am human
Only because He made me to be so
And that my humanness
Was, as He said, the image of Himself?
So, in a sense, God is more human
Excepting the failings,
Than even I am
His sorrows are deeper and sharper
His laughter is more radiant
More joyful and abundant
His pain so intense
That my eyes squeeze shut
Merely to contemplate its acuity
If I love beauty and warmth
How much more does He love it?
If I am jealous for those I adore
How much more His jealousy for me?
If I wish to be great and purposed
How much stronger
His good wishes for me?
If I feel alone and lost
How much more alone does He feel
When I seek not to be with Him?
I serve a GodWho cries over me
Who rejoices over me
Who loves fiercely
In a suddenness it springs in me
The idea 
That I am man
Only because He first
Was God

You chalk my slate with questions
               and wipe it blank again.

Brown eyes, almost black -
lackadaisical?
Calypso, but male -
malevolent?
Lent me your cap -
capricious?
Using my heat -
heathen?

You chalk my slate with questions
               and wipe it blank again.

Drunken infatuation, leave away
Blurring the vision of reasonable men
Weakens knees, causes thought to stray
Clinging dreams that only “should have been”
Stirs in healthy folk a gutty knot
Ties the tongue or looses it by turn
Makes all common sense appear forgot
Chills the bones and leaves the face to burn
No cousin to true love, yet seems to me
Infatuation, more action does decree

So sick, so sick of the digital age
The clock is looming, and in rage
I wrap my arms around the hands
And **** with all my inner man

I want to pull it back, pull back
But the tower won't even crack
So we gaze at old creation
Us artists of an artless nation

Look back on the past and cry
Meanwhile the music left to die
Those of us who still remember
All the real-ness gone forever

Cellophane on new CDs
Music  videos on MTV
Friends that actually called
Before Twitter stripped our gall,
Global markets stole our soul,
And Miley called herself rock ‘n roll

I'm going back to 1990. Goodbye.
Thanks for the memories
Love, Generation Y

Hello. So...

I see you're writing - good -
of love and nicotine in ink
and ****** threads, like vapor
swirling down the sink
of dreams and dying hopes
and burning for a drink
aching lust for perfume
that leaves a ling'ring stink
of epic love and romance
chained with iron link
of standing in a storm
or skating thinnest rink
being on a bridge
or breaking on a brink
bemoan that no one listens
but don't say what you think
a soulful galactic pull, or
stars suicid'ing wink -

tell me how you know so much, poet...
      when you've been here but a blink.

Someday a watch will tick
Night away to dawn
Someday warm will pool
To signal shadows gone

Someday stars will touch me
And sap away the pain
Someday suns will nudge me
Til my eyelids rise again

Someday I will wake up
And find I wasn't dreaming
Someday I will realize
I never stopped believing

Mommy, can I keep him?

With his warm, dark eyes
and jet black whiskers
and wide, impish grin.

Mommy, can I keep him?

With his leaping limbs
and cuddling frame
and thudding heart.

Mommy, can I keep him?

With his barking laugh
and knack for love
and gentle kisses.

Mommy...I want to keep him, but don't know if I can.

Do you think I will make him happy?
Do you think he will want to stay?
Am I strong and smart enough?
Now that I'm grown up?
Should I keep him?
Dare I even try?

Mommy...
can I?

It stuck in my throat like glue
the first time that I said it back to you.
It buzzed like cables being rewired
crackled air as if a gunshot had been fired.
My gut swirled acidic. What comes next?
What promises might settle in the subtext?
What does it take for me to say it, too?
Thaw out my heart and cry out, "I love you."
You see, the problem is...I already do
but I fear someday that I'll be breaking you

just moments before your love can break me through.

I hate you
For
Not
Ever
Meeting
My
Eyes

I told you
One
Ten
Hundred
Thousand
Odd
Times

I loved you
Why
Did
You
Always
Act so
Surprised?

You rub your fingertip
in a circle the size of a dime
on my spine
after the curtains ceased to move
I chortle
like a babe
swaddled in happiness
being with you
in the sunlight
and dust motes
and hushed notes
is safe and tranquil and flushed
with joy
and boy
being your girl
is sun-broken and mild
for this mustang spirit
used to wand'ring in the wild
I hold you tightly to me
and hope you see
that all I ever want to do
is love you
if you let me.

I have no qualm with Christ,
insists the common man or woman,
My thorn lies with "Christians."*

Interesting. It makes me think.
Perhaps there is a difference, then
between "Christian" and "follower."

One can deride a "member"
as one chortles at an arrogant child
for presiding over a tree house.

His father planted the tree
and his father nailed the boards to it
yet the child excludes as he sees fit.

One cannot demean a "follower"
for the follower acts the part of his father
and invites the other children in.

He learns their names and smiles
and shares his sandwich and cookies
with the *****, hungry faces.

So many among us will
step forward and throw the first stone
at the stain glass of a church

Yet who among you would
pluck that same stone and hurl it
at the face of Christ himself?

I want to help
But I really must dash
They're waiting for me
In the conference room
If I had the time
The skill, the cash
I would assist you, really
But my bus leaves soon

I wish you the best
But I can't stay too long
And isn't it the thought
That counts anyway?
Important matters await
And I'm just not that strong
Things, other than you
Need fixing today

I hate to be a coward
But I'm just human, you know?
And only can do so much
If you knew my life
You'd understand I must go
Please, don't stare at me such

I'm sorry I cannot be what you ask
I'm sorry to lie - but I really must dash

The creases in her hands
were ironed once
and iron-wrought
clutched like twin vises
blotched the hue of bleach
as she gripped the puppet’s strings
reigned them up
and made the beast dance

Wind shook the steel shell
bellowed at its underbelly
braced her back to leather straps
cringed her brow
over a sky-blue glare
crackling with lightning
until the basilisk beneath moaned
trembled
then settled in the stars

The stars hang higher from the patio
the furrow of the brow
has softened
accompanied by new furrows
as she gazes up
the shards of lightning
long ago dimmed to a pearly gleam
the hands that tamed the beast
now shake
under the weight of a glass of rosé

She has no say
nor have I
but I will recall someday
as she does now
the days when
the sky was her oyster
the engines her chariot
and the cane
mere misty imagination

Since when did the world split
because someone walked into a room
10 minutes past due?
**** me now.

Since when did the earth shift
because you called someone at noon
and they called back around 2?
**** me now.

Since when did time rift
because you don't share their "soon"
but still came through?
**** me now.

Since when did we get caught up in arbitrary pettiness
of e-mails, phone calls, meetings, minutes, seconds
and miss the point entirely?

Mother of God.
**** me now.

Would that I could break my body from my chest
crack and spread the bones between my *******
release the fluttering muscle tied within
a bird bashing skull against my cage of sin.

Would that I could unzip my flesh, step outside
to finally inhale, exhale without such tightened hide
that keeps my anxious breaths bound among
the shrinking corded confines of my lungs.

Would that I could peel back my ribs and skin
at the sternum to set free the beast within
unfetter the spirit that cares so much it aches
from all the petty failures for which it breaks.

Would that I could scream and rip my hair
as though slicing to ribbons each worry, every care.
Would that I could - would I? I know not.
I would just as soon have all loves be forgot.

The match strikes
Scrape, crackle, hiss
Wisp of smoke
Waft of flameful bliss
So, too, you ignite me
With but a single kiss

I live in a world without faces
My friends are screen-written in black
Via virtual reality, we speak
Through computerized smiles, we laugh  

I know what each one is doing
Every second of every long day
My own moves are ripe for the viewing
So, too, the great thoughts I will say 

We chat and we email and text
Rarely catching a voice on the phone
God knows whatever comes next
Will leave me busy, but wholly alone 

The experts from so many places
State we gain more, with time, than we lose
But if in gaining, I lose only faces
Then I’d trade for the olds, all the news

My dry, swollen lids flicker open
a gust of sulfur and ash dries my tongue
clogs my narrow throat with chalk.
The concrete under my ribs is warm
still vibrating from the detonation
wet with gasoline or oil or...my blood?
My hand reaches to brace myself
I collapse gasping as the pain ignites
my flesh, and all I can see is meat,
a mangled sinewy stump where an elbow
my book-carrying elbow, had been.
Black smoke belches and plumes
the street that was pregnant with screaming
now still as a newborn birthed dead.
Sirens shriek, television crews scuttle
in hopes of burning our blood into film, but
my skull falls back, eyes roll, lashes fall, and
as my skin drains of heat and fluid, I realize
all I wanted was to go to school today.
That's all I wanted.

That's all.

We are all planets; orbited by moons, gases, comets.
We fear when they escape our gravity.
Why? Suns fix our revolution, not they.

We each consider ourselves the martyrs of our own tragedy.
We think our pain is paramount -
that no one else could possibly understand.

We might be less anxious, more content, tranquil
if we realized we are satellites.
Not stars.

Heat pulses inside an eggshell of white glass
my feelers undulating on its surface
scalding incandescence singes my digits
yet I return to kiss the light
lover of fire
charred
yet soaring in bliss and
in pain.

O! what elated flame
yet tragic trend
to adore that which
will **** you in the end.

He shot Max.
My God. He shot Max.

Blood sprayed on the streets
at the uniform's feet.

They shot Kirby.
Oh Lord. They shot Kirby.

Bullet holes punch his flesh.
Pain radiates fresh.

She shot Kiki.
F**k me. She shot Kiki.

Inside her own fence?
You call that self-defense?

So man's best friend
comes to an end.

Out has slipped away my breathWith a Love that defies deathBanishing the worried qualmsEnfolds the soul in utter calmGod of Heaven and this earthWho gives me life and second birth

What is
  happy?

Chasing...
  retrieving?

Knowing...
  believing?

Feeling...
  choosing?

Loving...
   losing?

What is
  this word
  a noun
  a verb?
  a tense
  a sense?

God, how I hate
  and want
Happiness

I want to swallow up my soul
until its deep inside where no one can find it
I want to dig a bottomless hole
to bury this beating lump where no one can mine it
I want to carve away my brain
until all that's left is simply survival and no more
I want to squeeze out all the pain
to drink it down and **** it on the floor

Curl up
Fade out
End scene

we all think we have something like no other
we all think "no one else has had late night talks like ours"
      "kisses like ours," "*** like ours," "a love like ours"    
we all think ours will not leave us

and when they do

we all think no one's pain can rival our own
we all think "no one has ever felt loss, tragedy like mine"
      "aches like mine," "benders like mine," "tears like mine"  
we all think we'll die alone

and when we don't

we all think we've hardened and learned our lessons
we all think “I'll never be that person who does it over and over again”
      “be loved again,” “abused again,” “betrayed again”
we all think we’ll never fall

and then we do.

I am not good at "letting"
much less "letting go."
I am not good at "forgetting"
the ways things "used to go."
I **** at "simply setting" -
most miserably so.

"Let go and let God"
"Live and let live"
"Let bygones be bygones"
"Let's forget and forgive."

This "let" is a word
that I've no easy knack
If you let me, I'll grip you
'til my fingernails crack

"Letting" is brave -
so it is, so they say -
it's trust and it's strength
at the end of the day
but I'm not a "letter"
not by blood anyway.

Yet however intensely
knuckles tighten to white,
there are things that will rip
out our hearts when we fight

some creatures will claw
'til we let them take flight.