I.
a shining city,
rich with a tangible pleasures
and docile smiles

II.
skyscrapers gleaming;
invisible almost ‘til
somebody leaps off

III.
concrete streets over
flowing with cigarette butts
where flowers should be

IV.
inhale the poison;
breathe deep venomous air where
oxygen should be

V.
live one life here
for you are so near the end;
so close to freedom

to the girl in the deli
whose whipped-cream face
is topped with freckles,

to the girl who winked back at me,

to the girl whose eyes
are sanctuary,
like a red-glowing fire on
a brisk autumn evening

to the girl behind the counter
wearing a hair net
looking cuter than
i don't even know what,

to the girl with dainty fingers
and shapely hips
and thighs like a sunrise
that creeps slowly across a room
to slap it's warmth across my face,





what time do you get a break?

That summer the sky was hedged in
by clouds, as if to stave off emptiness.  

When trees unfolded their fragrant bones
you were enveloped in the lavender
scent of solitude and you could not shed
the bitterest memories.

You learned truths
that seemed unkind:

the world is insincere
and you will never be beautiful.  
It is best to care for nothing.
To dream of lines and endings.

It was then that you noticed
the contradiction inherent in hinges,

how a door can blossom
and wither in the same breath.  
How it all depends
on the will of a hand.

Life is not always what you planned.
We were in the back yard of the abandoned house next door to his watching his two mutts chase each other around the perimeter. House after tiny peeling white painted house line the street “Summerbelle” with roofs covered in crinkled brown leaves. He runs his hand through his too long ***** brown hair. Tall and blue eyed, he could have been handsome maybe.
I had stopped by to pick up my glasses from on top of his coffee table. I don’t remember how they had gotten there exactly but at some point last night roasting-marshmallows-and-a-bonfire had turned into mango-juice-*****- forgetting-your-glasses-party with all the neighbors.
We were talking about fall, how the colors and the smells are beautiful, but foreboding, warning that winter and depression are coming. It’s a problem we have. On my walk over I had stopped to pick up a particularly beautiful leaf to give to him. It was just the sort of thing he would understand.
I reminded him we have to dress up for class on the 6th, and asked if he even had a suit. He then launched into a ten minute story about how he used to work on a senator’s campaign, 18 hour days and everything.
Not something I would have expected.
We gradually shuffle into the house, and I pick up my glasses from right where I had left them. The door is never locked in his house, but no one usually steals anything.  The walls are covered in crayoned drawings and quotes, over the top of it all “Fleetwood” graffitied in orange and red. I remember that is what we had decided to name the house last night. I had been sitting on the couch with a beer admiring the artist, bringing him a new Blue Ribbon can periodically for a kiss.
“Are you and A together now?”
I shake off the hazy memories. “Hm?”
“You and A.”
“Oh. We’re…yeah.” His signature grin never faded but his eyes had dipped to the floor. “How could you tell?”
“The way you spoke to him.” It was all the explanation he offered. “He’s a good guy.”
“He is.”
My mind wandered back to the morning, waking up next to the artist brushing my hair off my face, kissing my forehead. Surreal.
There wasn’t much left to say, so it was time for me to go. Turning to the door I saw what I had written on the wall last night, hidden under the windowsill, part way behind the couch. Under the song lyrics, clichéd quotes like “Be good or be good at it” and messages of peace, love and adventure it was nestled.
*All the same, we are nothing.

The Boogaloo plays on the rin-tin, tin-can speakers at my Mexican hang out.  
Spinsters smile in sun-glow, while I cower in the shadow,
being not buzzed but bothered by some sort of flying ant;
floating around the purple flowers on the sill in which I sit.
I am waiting for the autumn.
The sun has got his mace out. The sun has got his Cat-O-Nine-Tails out,
and he is whipping me without a whisper of mercy.
I will feel fine when the night falls,
when sun becomes moon, when sun kills moon,
when the old man dying in his ship with the great fish strapped to the bow dreams about the lions once more and how it is a good thing that man does not have to fight the moon each night.
Today is the day they said that the world would end.
I am waiting, waiting patient, still, like some great stone Buddha,
for the rapture, or the four horsemen or the stargate,
the end all of the be all.
People around me seem calm.
I am calm too.                                                             ­                                                                 ­  

The lizard people are coming!!


later we drank and smoked and drank some more; running in the rain and falling off of buildings like nothing had ever happened.
”Just one more step”



{thoughts on tomorrows Rapture to be added in the next few days... probably}

There is nowhere to hold this, and it is heavy.

We drink coffee in white, square mugs
on the fifth ***** step.
I am sick and the coffee pinballs in my stomach.
You do not care about hydration.
You are covered in so much paint
you look like Matisse in a fender-******.
You look sore all the way down to your fingers.

The bed in the opposite room won't be yours,
but could be.

I lope around nauseous on the mornings
I don't work. I light candles that jump
with a stench of French Vanilla. Dogs bark
unholy early.
I tire of the anxious sleep of the newly living-there,
the newly living.
The loud neighbour,
the considerate neighbour,
the ******* dogs.

I open the bedside drawer.
No Gideon hotel bibles.
Condoms, picture frames,
instructions for a washing machine.
No Bibles.

Sometimes, I find it in my shoes - this envy -
or in my pockets.
And sometimes I drag it behind me,
like wedding cans on a bachelor's car,
filaments of grief and filthy broken dinnerware,
threaded cotton of towels
too often used without washing
and wine bottle bones.

And somebody once told me not to paint a
room in it, but this jealousy is sage, not lime,
and I could **** well sleep in here,
and sometimes do.