*******
you rattled me
i felt so close
frighteningly close
i
dont
want
to shake
or dwell
or explain it away
but i do
steal my soul from my mouth

12:15 AM
it was over.
finished
and requiring no further complicity for another onslaught
of banal narrative to be revealed just before my the half opened
windows creaked.
i sought the most deadly habit,
against which she had warned.

12:17 AM
**** it im out. but wait everyone is asleep. so take a flashlight with you dummy.
no.
the click makes too much noise.
a lighter? NO!
even worse.
grab a phone in the remote chance
that,
while im alone,
aside the ever-greening pool,
she might call.

12:21 AM
that stupid ******* glow-in-the-dark rosary!
it ruins me every time and so does
the 14th 16th, and 9th step from the bottom
with their relentless creak.
i should have learned by now
their pattern
but, then again,
i only need it when nefarious action is in play.
shame on me.
my phone served as an appropriate guide
(as long as it shone away from my parents door, of course)
tip-toeing over the debris that still remains
from a "successful" marriage
i arrived at the back door.
it has a trick though.

12:24 AM
it depends on which way you are going
but to eek out of it properly
you have to pull in and THEN turn the handle.
NO SCRATCH THAT REVERSE IT and vice versa.
the out of doors is only slightly more liberating
than being cloistered in a room
bound by roddenberry.
on this night
however
the night provided
what might be considered
by people in towns whose income
centers around cattle feeding and slaughter
breezy and cool environs.

12:26 AM
where ARE those cigarettes??
**** it.
a **** will do.
traipse around the green until you realize
you know where every piece of debris is
you are stepping over the things that you cant see.
surreal.
****. look up to ascertain your spatial coordinate
figures.

12:30 AM
**** it.
again.
some more.
keep looking up looking at the flaming ***** of helium
trillions of light years away
and someone comes out
they will probably think that
you are just contemplating
your own existence
as opposed to the other...thing
something that really has no name.
the place between dream and reality
this place, though, has a certain specificity
no clarity
i consider then what i am privy to

12:33 AM
small dots above me.
in a globular dispersion beyond
what im told is that they are steadily
NO
rapidly retreating
i am told
all of these dots have more dots
that i cant see
that move around them
and
on those dots sentient things might exist
might
i know that I DO
as well as i am able to ascertain

12:35 AM
well ****.
these dots
these ******* white dots
as they flee with their potential
i realize [yet again mind you]
that i have things that might be unique
to me
and
only a handful of other things

12:38 AM
if i were to ignore those statistically remote similarities
here
near me
i would be as foolish
as the pinball that believes
it belongs among the bumpers
i belong in a hole
at least one that fits my shape.
i am no pinball.
but
i live amongst those things
that tell me what i know
what i have known
what continues to reveal
to me the nature of nature.

12:48 AM
startled i ***** my cigarette on the bench
the bench my father and i once made
for an family easter get-together
withdraw with my phone
again towards roddenberrys lair
past the pile of old coats near the back door
beyond the 52" plasma
still playing a re-run of diners, drive-ins and whatever the ****
shining the light away from my parents door
i climbed the stairs.
making sure to hit 9, 14, and 16 on the way up
cursing myself at the top
"you mind if i pseudo-rant for a bit while?"
i smashed on the remote keys.

i fell from the stratosphere
leafy and light
and i thought of my brothers
deeply rooted in
the soil that provided me
such sold structure

they would never
my sisters, brothers and cousins
they would have never have guessed
allen would have
enamored her
right below
staring towards me
bright eyes and hoping
hoping

she doesnt know i wont fix it
she doesnt know
ill soon be the makings
of a steaming compost pile

i cant blame her
as i floated down
i saw all of the worlds beauty

i became attached to several things
things that would never wrap
anything around me

paper bag

i fooled her
but not by my own design
i am perfectly innocent
who else could i have been

perfectly manicured nails
snatched at me
and
crumpled up beneath
all ten of them
i was cast off

of the earth
i became
and am still becoming
and will be becoming
matter
for her
love
gia
earth

inside her i no longer need
to remember my flight
my descent
i am as much dirt
as i am american
honest
zoroastrian

my decomposition now
means as much as my flight
as much as my identity
as much as my life as a plant
as much as
well
everything
nothing

im a writer
mostly on the mirror
when you're not looking
i wait patiently
no longer soapy
but squeaky
until those curls are
being lathered and rinsed
until your eyes are pinched tight
thats when i
carefully remove myself
from the place where we two
spit on each other for fun
and while you rinse
i make absolutely sure
not to disturb
the ringlets that
give weightlessness to
our privacy
to the mat
and then forward
to the reflecting surface
to my canvas
glistening
it invites me
and i paint
single finger extended
i eek it out
it squeaks
prints against glass
this is my textual dead drop
an espionage of love
scrawled above my sink
only for you
hurriedly i escape
before you know
whats happened
before you know im not there

now you are
squeaky
and wet
and upset
that im not...
what the...
"live long and prosper"
?

waiting for you
clad in narry a single article
i hear you lament
until
a heavy sigh emits
from the tiled "bachelor room"
adjacent to mine
a half curse and
then a swoon
and then squeaks

you traipse in
naked
earthly hips swinging
fling open
and then shut
the edifice that marks the barrier
between the real
and the imaginary
you
force yourself into
the place between my eyes
and the place that knows

"brush your teeth again real quick"
you want me
but
who wants to smell
the cheapest whiskey
while you make love

obliging i shuffle off
hoping to please
my only muse
when i read
below mine

"make it so"

keeper.

To become aware of the single moment that needs interpreting
To be jolted from sleep between sheets creased in the tribulations of dreamscapes
Clammy hand pressed to neck you remember yourself
And before it slips and crumbles spiraling up to the cosmos it is captured
Pinch your eyes together and draw the cool water from the well

A friend’s arm around your shoulder; a sweaty smile, meandering through
The crowds of faces, each one drab and still, motionless for you
Tendrils of tenderness wandering o’er a body consumed in secret greed and corrosion
And the cheeky faced attached returning curiosity masked in love
Flitting up and down the stem of the one you knew to be yours
Yearning for her to open her petals and reward arduous labor
The repose of correcting ages of missteps and the satisfaction of
Correctly placing lost experience
Enjoying the rhythm pounded out by drums of progress, and then pacing
To one all your own
Reasserting brutal individuality in spite of legions upon legions of conformity
Then ironically setting the trend

Once seized, every vague trapping melts down weary head, past hunched back
Beyond knees bend to reach toe tip
Revitalized by the comfortable shade of your whole self, the parts unwanted, unseen
Usurped, intangible, inconceivable, and most illustrated purely glow
A self if surely sacked, a reanimated soul now softly speaks, and sexuality is assured in
Each slow step

Worn like badges these tears of forgiveness
Proud and glistening like a hilltop beacon
What cant be seen through these pearly
Manifestations of empathy
Are the millions of compounded experiences
Over the course of blossoming relationships
My ****** Mary as innocent as the most pure marble
As generous as the trunk that houses
The raven and its prey alike
The only remaining vestige of
What can be seen good in this world
Seen as a guiding relic
One noble and presumptuous
Taking on every lament brought
And shedding for the followers
Tears of redemption as deep and cathartic
As the thriving sea
As wonderful and symbolic
As the universe embodied
I am her prophet
Face down and prostrate
I assume her worldly debt

CHIT CHAT and then lets
Freeze this moment
still as night
Finish the cup of black
And replace it completely
With half and half
Done and captured
But why remember
Who will ******* remember
Develop the postcard
And scratch your beaten head