"I went back home when things got ugly."
O' things be a'gettin' uglier-ugly these days.
These days spent slipping into subtle sub-absurdities.
These days spent alone with the maimed voices of vocal minds.

I caught a ratta-boar-ship sailin' across the mellow seas.
Its engine burned on days past and the trimmings of willow trees.
Oil pools and plumes. How all colors do break!
Tongue-in-cheek statements cross my illogical state.

I’m all a’breakin’ down on these dead-leaf mounds.
The rabbit breaks swiftly at the neck without sound.
I pledge fanfare to the reeds in the marshes between woods.
Aye, this confidence had been borne of harshness, all raked.

You line'd and fume'd– body and mind and breath.
Yea, my love burns long before fleeting into death.
Spin some honey in mud, them lies are laced with truths.
Honey hunted down from them hives all exhumed.

I exclaim, for I know.
Facts gathered from sea-salt snows
were read concisely and plain.
One must share what one knows:

This craft berates waves.
So intent on indexing all of those days.
Such absurdity. How vexing.
Confusion! Confusion! So bent and off-putting.
‘Twas Confusion who first sank in simple, mud-less footing.
Her clumsiness could not be stayed, nor postponed or ever-praised.
No, not by slipshod attempts at brewing a lightly-dark grey.
Spare drops a'dribblin' 'round the base of the water tower.
Shadows of clouds with night approaching by the hour.
Knocks a’rappin’ on a door hung without hinges.
Stomachs full of hunger. Hearts fearing blood.
Lungs on smoke-binges. Forest fires during floods.
My body's burnt-out on them rank soul-singes.
Confusion bating breath through chapped-lip fringes
whilst catching fish without string.
As the sun at dawn and the moon at dusk,
steam rises when eyes have been cast far from us.

Waters be a'ripplin' beneath your trudge-boots.
In the marshes makin' movements in the moonlight.
Only patience will bring the sunlight.
"I’m raking harshness in the morning."

I say, status seems pychic– How! Za-zoo! And how!
O' that brain be electric as a buzz!

I'm all a'fixin' to be boxed.
These joints are a'sprainin–
Winter wind snakes done
constricted and strainèd.

Out of place. Almost out of time, I swear:
Never enough place, barely enough time.

Korean girl's all a'watchin' to see
how I sip hot tea... Out! Get out!
I got them delusions, deliriums–
All's done. I'm diluted, sayin':

“Medicine for my grievin'–
Aye, my confidence has been gone.
Never did speak of leavin'–
I met him at the ditch at dawn.”

And left unsaid was better yet,
coos all a'whisperin' by waters.
Water's runnin' thin now.
Creek's gone, ran dry.
He's a man of stature,
he can't just go!
Anthills and ant
burrows 'neath
sands gone mad–
O’ bore teeth! Yea!
Where's the meter
meeting the rhyme
when your bliss'd
metronomicist
loses pace
and dies?
Slows
and slows
and slower yet
his heart does beat
and the last of his words
do run across his teak frame:

“O' bore teeth!
Bearing ‘em all;
All is a'grinding!”

It’s but a machine to keep one’s rhythm,
to help one maintain the desired beat.

She kisses me on the forehead.
I return the gesture on her cheek.
He whispers to me through darkness:
“There are many worlds we’ve yet to see.”

It is thoughts like that which grant me focus.
Where all’s good and wishes, like prayers, be lent.

My thoughts lag behind, weighted by you.
I strain them through hot water for tea.
She watches as I drink. I waited for you–
Drank it by the ditch in the morning.

I fend off these demons in the courtyard.
Winter spells done summoned my greyest thoughts.

Here all's good! Yea, all be lent–
I tacked your name to the corkboard.
Alas, none was meant for you–
I fend off thoughts in the courtyard.

O’ that mind be broken, still-painted grey!
Not much I can do but keep the winter at bay.

Stars a'spanglin' across them blue-dye skies,
them mid-night-summer-night none too bright
starred out janglin'– O' them blitzin' skies.

"Hey. Would ya look in that westward?
That western, he's too bored to breathe."

Fire's a'preyin' here nightly. Owl feathers and the soot.
I call crab-apples applied science. Red shone blue by the water.
I'm sayin' don't tread lightly when there's snow underfoot.

"You gotta breathe it if you ain't playin'.
Gotta be sure, be assuring you're right."

Feelin' some skin by the waterside! Them ditches all dug so deep–
Gonna feel it out, all clamorin' with a'drummin' hearts by the ditch.
Majesty, majesty, majesty. Aubergine, neigh. O' Sanguine, you keep.

"I'll mark you.
You mark me."

What a deed by the ditch– skin!
Yea to that red, hot and lit and all a'dangerin'.
O' burning, blood beating–
Embers a'glowin' now. Tobacco's back to bein' lit.
Skin singes and I'll scab up.
I cross'd them arms by that ditch. Waters be dark.
All them remedies be done.

Bar me off, Useless! Cryin' a'sighin'– over cliffs, over.
She caught me a'whisperin' at the docks! Far, yea, far;
And when did compersion to the western wayside go?
Feeling let down. Staircase is a'goin' for a day or two!

Distance between two points. Farther, father, fathoming depths.
Low, now! Lower bent! –you, so far bent, did ask him so.
"Chief Joseph– St. Joseph– Won't he have word with me?
Nonsensical, man. Understand! If only for a day or two."

Yea, some men never call. Some callers a'callin' do.
Blue collared jazz blues– You saving it for the morning?
Where the sea meets the land. Find him by the cowrie reef–
I say that's unnecessary. Stand by me for a day or two!

And them stories be so far bent,
all a'tellin' them so:

He fell out! What a falling out!
Talked about for years to come!
And hear they come 'round the bend–
Lessening distance between points. I see horizon.
O' horizon! Yonder horizon! And the sun all arisin' be!

Huddlin'– All huddled like. Beneath the comet's tail she caught me.
Found me all a'whisperin' at the docks...        and            I             say:

*"Seaside, O' Seaside! Beneath them netherskies you wait. Yea, if a fool's never foolish are his thought's so foolish, see– I never felt so transfixed. Them waters got a depth to them– Therein lies weight. I talk to still paintings– none be a'talkin' back to me! Minds racing backwards. Would you listen to that still? Silence, she finds me in unnerving non-natural states. Psychosis takes a seat. They say them waters at the western wayside foam! A real, true foam! Froth and cough into your sleeve, white foam! Kiss me on the lips and tell me secrets for a day– Frenzy! Riot on! Whitewaters, subtle sexes, and a midnight matinee. I say what a night– What a comet's shone today!"

Hey, remember when we went to Vegas?
You were the only friend I had.

Remember when we went to Vegas?
I couldn't have done it without you.

Remember when we went to Vegas?
All be a'droppin' at the bridge.

Remember when we went to Vegas?
Inane insanities in the sands.

Remember when we went to Vegas?
I'd bet all my chips on you.

Remember when we went to Vegas?
O' desert night, bring me home.

Remember when we went to Vegas?
Hey, you were the only friend I had.

That was a long night in Vegas:
Take me through the desert again.

I'm telling you, there's something about a dune that's bigger than the both of us.
This tablecloth is singed with the cinders of cigarettes.
Them lights gotta be yellows, just see–

Looks like some yellows to me.
Looks like some skulls stuck up in the stucco.
Looks like a nice trip to me.
Looks like in Vegas I found myself and yourself, likewise, found me.
Looks like the best hours I've ever spent were spent sitting on the roadside
aside the road that sits beneath every star
waiting  for     the      cars        to         pass.

Remember when we went to Vegas?
*You are the best friend I have.

I wrap my arms about my torso and brush my thoughts 'gainst you,
crying.

Rainwater best cures a torn-soul
when boiled in a *** atop
a burner left burning all night.

Crying,
the sky giveth us wonders and taketh the wonders away.

O' the water's down a'boilin'.
Ye' it all boils down to you.
To you and how you go.
Ye' when you go, you go.
O' where you a'goin' too?

See that go-getter go-gettin' his girl–
Good for him. Good for him.

Send some good for the man with a will when he wills his will to be.
And good for the fingers who first feel a fortune 'fore the fortune is seen.
And good for the addicts relapsing in attics with kisses of dopamine.
And good for the thoughts of you that brush against my skin,
that for days on will hold–

Eighteen! Eighteen! I say eighteen years is the bridge,
the forest fires will forever forget to burn!

I say give it a year and call him on that telephone and
he will answer on that telephone and
you will beg his heart come home, beggin' a'bargainin'–

Eighteen! Eighteen! I have missed you for some time,
bent-to-bet a century's pass'd since we last kissed.

One match done been lit in the county matchbook.
Such is the click-click of a gas stove igniting,
I call that rip-exciting, torn-enticing, fates be a'dicing–

*Eighteen! Eighteen! It was another day–
It was another life.

Amidst my self-sinkin' a'droppin' down
into involuntary shunts you note:

"Pensive, pensive–
He is always so pensive.
He smokes another cigarette
and takes another bath."

Amidst crossin' o'clawfeet
in clawfoot tubs you repeat:

"Check the water for them words
you were park-wanderin' a'lookin' for
while I was out all last night
a'lookin' only for you."

And as I look,
I do only, for you.

"Sometimes – sometimes I am so in love with you, it's surrealism.
My heart's breaking from the weight, from my romanticism,
a castaway'd castawayer a'makin' memoirs in the morning.
I'm a beach-combing romantic; I'll fall out of love by the morning."

Ponderin' a'wanderin' takes me back to the Fall with leaves, fallen too;
to our breaking point, pointing skywards in the off-season kite flying season.
I kiss the wind washing over my face and curse all the dumb, **** reasons
that I never did kiss you; I never meant to kiss you. I do only, for you.

*"Pensive, dear pensive,
you do this for me:
Go ponderin' for months–
O' sonderin' on o'er me."

Helicopter seeds descending from tree houses
and
resting in ponds shadowed by shaken needles;

—I awoke from a dream this morning—

Forests in fiery oranges plagued by pine beetles
and
a man fishing in the dusk, a sole fish he arouses.

—such a dreamin' I had me—

How about them men in the mountains, hermit'd, high, isolated,
and
pensive with pens in ink, draftin' a'lookin' after their suicide notes:

—it was nonsensical, such nonsense—

I can feel my bones aching,
my finger bones aching.

Don't you apologize, fish, for biting bait
lest the others hear that I commiserate  
amongst the fishes in the lake water:
"She could have a mother; she could be a daughter!"

I feel that boom; I know that boom:
That's Thunder's yellow rumble a'stumblin'
'cross the oak-wood floors of my room–
That's naked, **** clothes strip'd.

A pile and a bundle,
my bones are aching.

That's a candle left burning,
that's saints speaking in tongues,
that's men hung like curtains on rungs–
This world is getting old, times are a'turning.

That's a taxi cab afterlife, a mail-order wife,
that's pills on the floor of a Motel 6 in Reno,
that's forty-four hundred lost playing keno.
We can't always be lucky, who calls that a life?

My joints are a'sprainin' aching
with the preempt of a storm.

That's writer's block and cramped hands, cramped hearts,
that's a hovel heated by an oven, heads found in hot ovens,
that's the hillside and the glens past where the track bends but
just before the dens of monsters that I swear I left behind that night.

—dreamin' a'dazin' and days in always let my demons out—

That night I hid another razor in the rafters thinking,
"My thoughts I'll bury."
I ran away to sell maps of the human heart en Algérie.

Such is the sound–
These hearts are a'breakin'.

Snap.

Only I know that crink in my neck–
that sprainin' a'joints grinding 'gainst disks.
I know how the cold creeks do get in October,
sheets and slabs, it's wet in October.
Listen to those frost-ridden reams underfoot!

Snap.

Cold conversing, I said, "A'hush off. . . Now, now. . . smirk'd, yea-sayin' open an ear–"
Listen to that shard, to them shimmerin' sheets of ice underfoot: Snap.
You'd think them finger-snappin's was some jazz! Jam! Jubilate! Just do it again.
I want an iced, ambient encore; chilled to the bone-core, I grab that glarin' a'glistenin' glass.
The median is near the middle, give that shard a shove, I want to hear it again–

Snap.

That's my kick, my wake-me-not whistle borne of creekwater:
That single soundin' o'shatterin' of sharded sheets,
two halves of a once-whole gripped,
glistenin' a glass singin' as it snaps:

I, ice, do hiss!
Listen: it's in the hiss, man!
And my snaps sound ballistic
when I break, balletic, in two!

'Twas a hiss indeed.
that ice does as electricity:

O' it does cry when it cracks,
it does fizzle as it fragments,
it does spark as it splits,
it does bend light between bubbles,
it does melt in my midst,
things do get wet in October.
O' it was by the creek that I told her:

"Such is the sound of two hearts a'breakin'–
'Tis only ice underfoot."

(I)

Whose coat is this? Sure as hell isn't my coat. I ain't got no coat with this parka ****, it's *******. I ain't no furry flamin' ******. I ain't no ****** chochy Molly-May-Ze-**** chokin' down chickens and nasalin' a'sniffin' snortin' nasty-*** choch; that ain't me. That ain't me. Look at this coat– I'm like an Eskimo *****. I'm like a butch-**** bull-**** crotch-lappin' a'swimmin' laps in that guy's swimmin' pool. Who's that guy? Who owns that guy? 'Ey, anyone here the owner of this guy– guy ain't got no owner? Whose coat is this? It's nice, real nice. Bet she said, "Does it come from France? Where do I buy one?" I want to buy one, I think I need to buy **** more. I sure as hell need to buy one of these. "And I need one these too and one of them too and I need a petticoat and a tipper-tapper and a whimpratic garfielder and one of them new bartlemores, I need more of them bartlemores. I need more, more, more, more, more, more..." That ain't enough. ****'s from France. ****'s from Paris, that's romantic. You think I'm romantic? I eat hearts for dinner, I chew down nails like nuts for my midnight snack. I smoke cigarettes and spit on concrete slabs, you think that's ****? I'll show you ****. I'll show you Paris, New York City, Rome, romance you in Rome. I'll get real ******' Roman. I'll take you to the desert and make love to you. That's how a free man does a woman, and I'm a real free man. Who's ownin' this guy? It ain't you, it ain't me. I don't own you, you don't own me. I'm a free man:

I said,
"Fire and wood, fire and wood, fire and wood. It is late, it is late, it is far, far too late."

I set
fire to wood, fire to wood; feel that fire fired fresh from that firewood.

I dug the pit,
he gathered the wood,
she started the fire.

She really does make that fire start.

O' how she makes that fire burn,
O' how the wood's wrapped in white hots,
O' how they smoke their smokestacked pipes,
O' tobacco teeming teenagers, tormented by and through youth,
O' adolescence, trending topics, and forget-me-not flowers,
O' old age, Floridan coffins, and coughing  cancers,
O' writers in the mountains writing to be,
O' painters and **** bodies in studies by the sea,
O' thinkers in their mindset, mindsetting the table for dinner,
O' tables set to bursting,
O' wallets so thick,
O' community,
O' society, our social games,
O' hope,
O' peace,
O' that I may be at peace,
O' that I may be content and pray only for peace,
O' how about them true believers,
O' how about that love at first sight,
O' sandstone. My sandstone. That guy sittin' on sandstone.

That's my guy. That's my guy. I own this ****.

Is a man breathing on a mirror the sum of his breaths?
Breaths foggin' a'mistin' my view,
my view of a body and that face,
you're a body.
You're a workin' day's bell,
you're my chill in an Icelandic draft,
you're my spare in a Middle Eastern draft,
you're my pawn in chest-to-chest chess.

You've got this. You've got this. You own this ****.

And it is ****, too. I'd be set, real ******' set, with someone like you. I'll make you a woman, check this parka ****. Coat's mine. I'm a classy igloo runner, runnin' a'ragin' a'czebelskiin' meriteratin', I'll be reiteratin' your points. Check the time, it's late! It's late! ***** was in the grassy knoll turnin' trap tunes on her turntable. Would you listen to that? She sounds late to me, does she sound late to you? I like the music; I like the music. What happened to Woodstock? Where's my watergate, Nixon? Where's my generation, Ginsberg? Where's the meaning? This music's too loud! We're so profound! O' profundity!

Tell me something I didn't know, I'm craving' the new.
Give me the new while I spit on the old,
while I spit on this fine art finely art'd by and for fine artists–
******' fine artists. ******* fine artists.

(You can realize radical-realist realism but you can't be real with me?)

O' fine art!
What fine art!
Which fine artists are dead?



(II)

Looks like they're dead.

Looks like them ******* choked out all them ghettos, choked out all them rednecks, chokin' a'stranglin' by-God-oh-God straddlin' the breeders. I sure did like them babes– babes with their laughin' a'lackin' o' cynicism. They don't know the word "****."

I sure am forgetful–
I forgot that smoke doesn't dissipate,
I forgot how to smell autumn leaves,
I forgot to check the heart against the fingertips,
I forgot why my fingertips went numb,
I forgot to cue in the meaning when the sentence was complete,
I forget to complete my sentences,
I forget who you were wanting when you said, "I want you."

I got as much depth as an in-depth discussion, high hats and electropercussion have got me going. I'm goin' downtown, uptown bourgeois tricked me out, johns and yellow Hummers laid me down and cussed me out. That's not a discussion. That's not my scent scenting my towel, this breath reeks of wintry air– my fingertips went numb.

"I want you."

"Oh would you look at that moon?
Take a look at that moon.
Look at that moon with the ******' mountains.
I love that moon.
That's my moon."

I love darin' a'dusty dareelin' derailin' your dreams, whose dreams are these? They ain't my dreams– ain't no dream derailin' a'nileerad radiatiatin' some hint of joy or Jamison Scotch Liqueur. Drink that ****. That's my ****, I own that ****.
I'm sittin' on this stoop like I own this ****, like this **** owns me; I owed me. I don't own me, you owe me:

Pay up man, feet off the stoop.
Pay up man, be real with me.
Pay up man, you ever thought of a man as a man?
Pay up man, give it in.
Pay up man, give in.
Pay up man, I need you to do me a solid. Do me solid from crown-to-toe, we're toe-to-toe let's do-si-do bro-to-** I'm ready go, **, jo, ko, lo, get low… Now I'm ramblin'. You say, "Ramble in to the stoop and tell me a story."

What's a stoop– who's a stoop? That **** ain't stoop– you ain't stoop. You're stupid. You're a joke, check out the joke. Hey ladies, you seen this joke– joke ain't been seen by them ladies? I'm a joke. We ain't laughin' with you, they're laughin' at you.

O' hilarity!
Such hilarity!
What hilarious histories have passed?



(III)*

"I said I loved him once. I only loved him once."
(And how long once has been...)

I sure did like them hand-holdins,
them star-gazin' moments,
them moon phasin' nighttime nuances,
them fingertip feelin' a'findin',
them sessions o'meshin' limber legs unto steadfast *****,
heads cocked like guns toward the sky,
beyond the horizon
but well
below the belt.

Them star-gazing moments seeing stars seemin' small, I love how they gleam- gleamin' a'glarin' comparin' shine to shine, shimmerin' a glimmer shone stumblin' her way home from the bar. She's drunk. She's brilliant, brilliance of whit and wantin' a'wanderlustin' gypsy nomads- that ***** gyp'd me, no mad man would take a cerebral slam to the face lest them moving pictures are involved. Read a ******' book, it'll last longer. Kiss me on the collar bones, clavicles shone shining with slick saliva pining for my affections. You're clammerin' to feel me, clammin' up (Just feel me.) I want to run my hands through long hair and peg the nausea nervosa to the wall. The writing's on the wall:

The sun bent over so the moon could rise, chanting,
"Goodbye and good riddance,
I never wanted to shine down
on them seas o' tranquilities anyhow."*

O' what a day. What a day.

And the wind ruffles leaves and it ruffles feathers on birds eating worms in brown soil.

What a day. What a day.

And the men under the bridge gather in traitorous conversation of governments overthrown and border dissolution and poetry with meters bent out of tune.

What a day. What a day.

And the billboards are dry for all the consumers to consume, use, and review.

What a day. What a day.

And hearts break messiest when you're not looking.

What a day. What a day.

And the ego and the id and the redwood trees are talking. They're sitting **** in the marshes, bathing in the bogwater while fondling foreign fine wines and whisperin' a'veerin' conversations towards topics kept well out of hand, out of the game, nontobe racin' in races, rampant radical racists betting bets on bent, bald Bolshevik racists wagging Marxist manifestos in the bourgeois' faces, yes. Make it be. Nontobe sanity as the captain creases his pleats, pleasin' her creases and the dewdrops of sweat trailing down the small of her back– down the ridge of her spine forming solitary springs of saline saltwater in the small of her back. Aye-aye, guy's pleasin' a'makin' choices a'steerin'– government's a'veerin' a hard left into the ice.

'Berg! 'Berg!
Danger in the icy 'berg!
None too soon a 'berg!
Bound to bump a 'berg!
O' inevitably unnerving 'berg!
Authoritative 'berg!
Totalitarian 'berg!
Surveillance of *** and the sexes 'berg!
O' fatalist fetishist 'berg!
Benevolent big brother 'berg!
Homosocial socialization 'berg!
Romanticized Roman 'berg!
O' virginal mother 'berg!
City on a hill on a 'berg!
Subtly socialist 'berg!
Nongovernmental 'berg!
O' illustrious libertine 'berg!
Freedom of the people 'berg!
Water privatization 'berg!
Alcohol idolization 'berg!
O' corrupt and courageous 'berg!
Church and a stately 'berg!
Pray to your ceiling fan 'berg!
Biblically borne 'berg!
O' godly and gorgeous 'berg!
Ferocious freedom fighters launching lackluster demonstrations far too post-demonstration feeling liberty and love, la vie en rouge, revolving revolutionist ranting on revolution tangible as
an ice cold 'berg.

'Berg! 'Berg!
O' the 'berg, the ****** iceberg–
You'll be the death of me.

C'etait vraiment une belle soirée,
la plus-que parfait soirée de toute ma vie.
C'etait un soir amaranthine.

I have seen God,
and he is pistons on iron.
Grey-blue eyes, saltwater pools.
That squeelin' a'screechin whimperin' whinin' hydraulics,
Can you feel the hydraulic boom-boom bass-bass..

He is a man crying "Hey,"
he is a woman selling jewelry
he is wraps and rounds, garnets that glow,
he is 'Tree Fort' musically meditating with meditating musicians,
he is a writer writing in the woods,
he is burning paolo santo,
he is iced off dose,
real European ****.

(Boom, boom. Bass, bass.)

he is Scorpio sun signs sun shining,
he is a man's heart shining.

Won't you look at all these hearts,
really have a look at them,
and tell me that they aren't the most

beautiful
creative
spirited

hearts that you've ever seen?

Scorpio, I love you. I really did love you. And how I've loved you since.

It was truly a beautiful party,
the most beautiful party of my whole life.
It was a night amaranthine.

It's the skin on skin basics:
You may touch, but please don't look.

I hand him a pinecone,
pale petals,
and some Tulgeywood bark
saying "Feel it out in the dark,"
saying

"Can you tell me what that is?

Can you dab your flesh on those pine needles,
***** your tips in the dark?

Feel it out in the light now.
Can you taste it:

Can you lap it, lick it?
Bite it, mosquito, bite
'til your lips are swollen
and
'til your teeth are blunted
and
'til the thought of one more cigarette
is enough to
make you sick,
make you smile,
make you laugh for a short while or an hour or two...

Spit, *****, spit; you're a jumpy little mare.
If you don't know what a pinecone feels like
I'll break all 13 hands of you.

Can you press petals in your fingers
and call it the skin on the small of my back?

Call the dew in small beads the perspirin' of my lust?

Can you do that for me?
Imagine, for a second?"

I imagine for a second—
I imagine for a second or two.

It's been one hell of a night.

She sat in blue light, artificial,
fingers tangled in dreds, natural,
head bobbing to bare beats
and **** draws upon the well of
electronica, O' jazzia,
O' sense-sinking psychedelia,
O' fleeting fingers ******* false feelings in the dark;

And this is what music is.
This is what music has always been.

The arrangement of sounds to tell a story,
paint a picture,
build mindscapes and landscapes upon which stories and feelings
will meld and melt and freeze to ice,
hot ice,*
a paradoxical nocturnal noctuary of dreams and nightmares and candles dripping with wax.

Sing me home, Chet Faker,
bring me back to your apartment.
Sing it long and sing it low,
(This gas station fluorescence sure is ******* the eyes.)
sing me back to Boulder, Colorado;
to Joliet, Montana.

O' jazzia, my jazzia,
my sweet sand dollar saxophony,
will you meet me in Amarillo, Texas?
Will you play me a tune before the water-meter puts me to sleep?

I've heard that wakefulness is life.

That hearin' and seein'
and feelin' a'tastin' and touchin'
are living all the same.

I've heard that to bear one's heart is above all deeds.

He said,
"The world's built for cynics, don't say such things. I'd spit on an ant just to sit and watch it drown before I'd share a picnic crumb with an ant who can't swim."

I'm not a heavy sleeper,
I don't spend much time shot puttin' a'careenin'
through nighttime and midday naps.

I think it's hard to bear one's heart.

I hope that someday my son has a branch outside his window.
And that at night it will whip o' wind
and scratch a'scrapin' at his window
and his call will bring me in to bear my heart.

And that the person I first love will walk out the door,
intent to leave me forever, just so I can run after them.
In a sprint to hailing cab to feet on airport linoleum I won't dare say,

"Come back."

No, I'll be a'whisperin' sayin',

"I don't care where that plane's going as long as I'm going there with you."

In the terminal I'll run in to bear my heart.
I guess at the bottom of it all I just want to bear my heart.

I've heard that wakefulness is life
and that the sleeping are not living.

Nor a'dying buyin' time in nonexistent shot putt courts
where they aim for dreams within their dream.
The sleeping are surely always dreaming. But wakefulness is life.

How about that gasoline
in Autumn rain puddles?

How about them cars that don't start,
can't start.

I just wanted to start.

Playing games like this never amused me much;
I guess I'm more of a reader than a writer than a toy-game-player.

I want the facts.

None of this horseshit media circus,
ignorance is neither knowing nor caring.

Nay bliss,

It was bliss on those cold winter nights,
night twilights pressed hard against the city-smogged sky
where the gases of sugar beets and petroleum reflect back down orange.

Orange on the snow and orange on snow drifts and snow flakes on your eyelashes.
Little orange dusts
(**** your lashes grow long)
dusts fallen halfheartedly like rain in the fall
and rain puddles shone red
and blue
and green
and orange, orange, orange...

Always orange.

Like gasoline in rain puddles,
gasoline in cars that won't start.

They can't start, don't start;
My engine must be misfiring.

(How about them metaphors for a heart?)

Will you call me when you get there?

We should be finished by next fall. Last autumn was a good time and I hear history repeats itself. Sleeping under trees, smoking Lucky Strikes and tending to our hobbies. Lackadaisically bent over antediluvian scrapbooks, I hear this winter's to melt into a flood. The ark is under way, we should be finished by next fall.

It was something in the calm drift of the clouds or the tick-tick of the water meter. There was us and then there was them. We were flushed, the world was bluffing. There was us:

Deep breath.

We were the lost children roaming 'round Cair Paravel; the boxed kit youth unboxing on a caravel watching hypnotic YouTube videos and firing fire out of firewood; that was when I fell. Beside the flames under cover of conversation of God and Hell and all the proper nouns that we fear so much. But fires burn out, so let's be civil. We should be finished by next fall.


But how can I be civil when I hope that your spit flies back in your face; that when you flick your wrist, your muscles tear because I've torn too. It's torn past the heart into my legs, immobile, and my arms, useless. These hands are cramped and shredded; scraps and pieces and bits, drill bits carving their way in. You carved your way in. They say an animal in a tailor-made niche is an animal in a found home. So carve away, carver, we should be finished by next fall.

I always feel like I’m running.
Not running away, there’s no such thing.
Just running forward towards something.

Something.

There’s no such place.

With how long I've been running
surely I'd have found it by now.

I've though of what it must look like.

Something could be a field
buried in a brilliant, sunlit cloud of alfalfa.

It could be a tundra,
frozen and without borders.

A rainforest,
vivid with life, green and flourishing.

A mountain, lurching
over a city,
and in the city there would be nothing but good men.

No liars, nor cheats.

Just good men and good women,
good drink and bad bars,
blocks and city blocks of motels
riddled, reeking with  the smoke of cigarettes
smoked sometime post-***.

And in the city there would be nothing but goodmen
railing
good men
raving and ranting, chanting for more
railing.

These stairs sure are steep,
I best not fall.

Something could be a desert.
The dunes would stretch, immaculate, across my vision.
The horizon would be sun, sand, and sun again.

Is the sky still blue in a desert?
Is desert wind built of language and faith, or just oxygen heated to boiling?
Is the night full of hushed whispered deviance?
Is the night bent over the day's sofa?
Is he waiting for sunrise?

Rise, sun, rise,
what are you waiting for?

Do it.

It's too cold to smoke.

The thermometer reads twenty-one degrees
imperial.

My chest feels too hot, I best take off this sweater.

You're absent from my bed;
I'd best alert those concerned:

Note to self.

My heart's so *******
I can hardly breathe.

It seems, to me, that every scent is yours
every sight or sound,
song lyric or strip of poetry
relates back to you and the knot in my chest.

I best recruit a young sailor
to untie and bend these cravings.

These faint and vague desires
not to kiss you
nor to *******
but to see you, lay with you, be with you.

That is what I crave daily,
what I need to loosen this knot.

But
the knot
just
tightens.

I crave to see you alone on a walk
or you with others
or you with me.
I especially crave to see you with me.

O' that which I'd give
to see you with me.

It must have been the grass
or the beers
or the LSD
because no natural occasion could make me feel this way.

I first heard you before I saw,
singing across the fence.

Your voice was like cream in hot coffee
scintillating, mesmerizing
fascinating, and light;
a drop of sweet in the dark, dark bitter.

I never knew that drinking coffee black
would soon become impossible.

Everything is
bitter
when you've tasted
sweet.

It's something in the way you visibly think
about the world and
others actions and
everything I say and do; something in the way you care.

It's something in the way you spit,
claiming the concrete as your own, a primal beast.

You are an incarnadine being,
a vastly deep creature whose
curls I can be lost in for
hours and days if not for those eyes.

Those eyes steal me with every glance,
dark mines of copper and fool's gold.

But pyrite is the sheen to which my mind melts,
and Scorpio sun signs
paint the mystique
that keeps me awake and alert all through the night

You keep me awake and alert,
waiting for the next move.

Yes, I'd be a liar if I said I felt friendship for you
and a heretic if I
dared to touch you.
But you dare to touch me. Every day,

you brush your hand 'gainst my leg,
grab my shoulder and hold,
knock your knee upon mine,
you push me gently,
but I die when you grab my thigh,
grab my thigh and squeeze it tightly
reassuring me that you're there
you're real
you're caring for me
and when the goodbyes come
**** the goodbyes
you hug me so closely and so tightly
that my heart,
knotted as it is,
beats faster than it ever has.

I swear that it beats
faster than it ever could.

And in this speed, this conflagration of emotion,
I feel how the knot
only tightens to where
even the youngest sailor lacks the nimbility to loosen it.

I swear that it's much
tighter than it ever was;

that no one has stressed my mind so,
kept my heart strained to where it
beats
faster than it ever could,

it beats faster yet, than the
rush of a train upon steel.

"I've missed you so much,"
I prepare as I walk through the door.

The rich scent of sweet cream
waffle cones and
brownie chunks
float in the air as thick as
smoke
in a happy car.

Her eyes are small and poignant,
tiny apostrophes,
commas beneath her blonde curls.

I stand by the door as she helps a customer.
I've missed her so much.

She glances up and her
perpetual glare fades.
The commas light up,
brilliant,
and the sentence is completed
by the curl of her lips.

I love that smile.
"I've missed you so much."

"That one looks like a dragon,"

you said, extending your arm to the night sky.

Sure enough,
against the aubergine purple,
there is a head
and a tail and a tongue
and a tiny lick of flame.

The wheat feels frigid
when compared to the heat of your waist.

I pull you in closer
terrified that the immensity of this field
will swallow us.

That we would sink down its esophagus,
away from the sky.

The stars are out now.
And I imagine being
swallowed.
Of falling up into the universe.
A celestial dive.

I lick my lips and whisper to you and the stars and even the wheat,

"This night will haunt me forever."

There are some nights when I lay awake,

staring at the darkness of my room,
so dark that my eyes cannot adjust
and it is as black as the base of a stone labyrinth.

When I lay awake and pray and dream and hope
that there will be days in our future that we spend together.

Days when it is just you and me.
When we run barefoot in the sands of some faraway beach,
farenoughaway that all of our problems will be in the past.

In the distant memories of the mountains.

This was the tree I first slept beneath.

It was summertime then, when
nights were warmed by hot breezes
and spritzing sodas were the drink of choice.

She could overthrow a king with the fall of her leaves.

These leaves fallin’ a’briskin’ the air
hung-hangin’ leaves in air cold and frozen—
iced off leaves hangin’ a’swayin’ like a gallow’d man.

Now she is gold and old and losing leaves.

These leaves crinkle like foil
snap, crunch, crinkle
Oh I do hope they are ok.

I pray that Winter will be good to her.

They say it will be a cold one,
I think to myself as I rest against her.
The air smells spiced and dry.

I hope she will be ok.

Running, panting, I would sprint to the alfalfa field
on windy summer days
just to feel the blistering heat blowing across my cheeks
like an oven cracked open.

Maybe I will live in the desert.

In the sandy dunes and hot wind I will find myself
and explore my thoughts and revive my faith.

With sand in my shoes and cracks on my hands
I will walk in Christ's footsteps and drink from an oasis.

I will wander into the desert, murmuring,
"It is late, it is late, it is so very late..."

And then I will wait in the cold for the next day
when I will find relief in the hot air rolling over the dunes.

And then I will sweat.

It's a curious affect, to love hot air
O' wind blow
Find me an oasis, carry me to the water.
My mouth is so, so dry.

You said you hated me.

We could have been the most beautiful pair in the whole town.
You could have had the moon.

Just be cautious: porcelain shatters with ease.

And when you were happy you would be very happy.
I would wrangle in each and every thing that you desired.

Every thing is not every one.

And when you were sad I would press your eyes into my shirt.
Please stain my sleeves with your tears, warm my arm with your sobbing.

I think your tears are painfully beautiful.

And when you were angry, I would never leave.
I would listen, empathize, and always care. But never leave.

Unless you asked me to.

And when you were sick I would mend you to health.
I would travel to the ends of the globe to find a cure.

To keep you alive.

And when you were tired I could carry you.
It would be an honest trip from the sofa to the bedroom.

I'd lift you like air, so you would never wake up.

And when you were high I would never let you come down
until every thought had been traced ten times.

Every inch had been touched twice.

And when you were drunk I would hold your hair
as you empty into the porcelain.

I would marvel at how the moon was not marred.

And when you said you hated me
I would leave to make you happy.

I left to make you happy.

And if you died,
I'd die too.

And that's all I have to say about that.

I want to go for a walk at night.

We can listen for frogs near lakes
or
crickets in meadows
or
bears in the mountains.

Cars in the city.

Then we will come across a dock on the lake
or
a patch in the meadow
or
a tree in the mountains.

My room in the city.

California isn't so far.

Kiss me.

The world isn't that big.

I see the mole.

It lies just south of his petite clavicles,
parenthesizing his fragile neck.

I'd like to find the others.

Moles dotting his figure,
beacons on his frame.

Showing me where to touch.

I'll map them all out,
every last speck.

Just call me the cartographer.

I'll connect the dots, drawing lines,
building routes with my fingertips.

Your body will be mapped like the Silk Road.

But no ideas will be exchanged, nor words spoken.
No empires will be connected across this globe.

Only moles.

It's true,

I think you've forgotten
how to skip rocks
so as not to have them

sink

into that murky, swampy
artificial lake that crosses
beneath the railroad tracks.

down

beneath the tracks there is
nothing but muck and a few
corpses weighted with stones.

below

the corpses at the bottom,
their faces twisted with
decomposition, there is

earth's

body for miles and miles, and only
a little patch of Hell deep down.
The rest of it is has seeped onto the

surface.

Just look at the city and talk to the people.
If this is not Hell, and these are not demons
then did we ever really have anything to fear

after all?

His touch
feels to me as stated:

CALLOUS, WARM, DANGEROUS

hand grazing mine
in a crowd

like water buffalo
to a field
or
timid mice
to weighted trap.

His touch
is hopelessly, listlessly

ELECTRIC

and my body the machine
whose lips thirst for volts.

Tell me, Mr. Milgram,
how many more
clicks
until he is in my
pants and I in his bed?

Smoke slips through his curls
in and up and down about again.

FAST AND ******

his kisses feel as they
barrage my mouth with heat.

Heat, heat, so very hot
that I can hardly
breathe.
Hands in pants
and bodies in shallow tubs.

Water feels foreign in the
hopeless intensity.

HOPELESS INTENSITY

only lasts until the player
**** on his stomach.

I lean past his shoulder
so as not to be
seen
dipping in with my
fingers and tasting his.

Sweet like honey
sans a hint of salt.

HONEY

O baby, won't you take me home?
I think I could love not loving you.

The word 'Montana' has a taste to it.

It is a being, it really is.
There is a spirit in those fields.
And you won't know it!
You won't! Know!

YOU CAN'T SEE

how much it has gripped you,
how firmly it has your heart until you are long gone.
Then you miss it. I miss it, friend, like a distant love.
It is like a massive pylon with bright red ribbon,

INCARNADINE

ribbon wrapped around your wrists.
No matter where you go you will always be connected.
It will always call your name, like a siren
in the seas calling a sailor home

BEFORE

cursing him and
devouring him forever.
Like the earth is to the moon,
distant and gripping,

Montana is my anchor.

i am very very sad.

and when i am very very sad

all i want are flowers

because flowers are pretty

and dont care to know it

Marcy Shultz was a typist.
She typed and typed the day through
but never wrote a single thing.

Each morning she would drink her coffee
with a sunken ring at the base of the mug.

It was her good luck charm,
an assurance that at one point in one moment
someone had truly, honestly cared.

At noon she would salsa with the air,
knowing **** well that she would later devour it.

But the air knew nothing,
Thought nothing, just stood there.
Air is naïve, and she was alone.

At night she would shower with the blinds open
figuring if someone looked, someone cared.

But nobody ever looked, and Marcy never blushed.
She'd type little tales on her little laptop.
Typed little stories of little couples

walking dogs
kissing in park benches
laughing at rude jokes
eating tiramisu in little cafés
weaving stories of passers-by
carving initials in wood
waking up in the dead of night
to hear the rhythm of the other's breathing
before
holding each other's hands
and whispering softly in the light of the full moon
flooding in like spilt milk from the cracked window
saying,
"We are together now
and if a moment like this is happening,
then a moment apart is only imaginary."
Then,
always,
always,
always,

The little couples would make love.
Their moans bled through the window
like timeless cries over the milky moon.

The cats in the alley would circle about the songs
echoing loud from the little couple's little love.

Then always, always, always with frustration
Marcy Schultz would toss the tales and go to bed
and the couples would live on in crumpled paper.

I want something more than what you are thinking.

I want the sway of your hips as we gaze into the sea,
examine its sheer force and power and immaculate size,
then reflect unto our reflections and realize that we are small.

I may be six feet to heaven, but I am the smallest person I know.

**** me like the ocean would the moon, Dear Amaranthine.
Teach me as you would any abecedarian, slow with pace.
My pallid arms are spread, and feet are crossed.
Crucify me, like one of your French girls.

Your endless frame arched over mine
a vaulting testament to the heat
of your front against my back.
This scene should have been a chapel.

Through hazed musk I can taste the saline
as it tumbles from your dripping brunette tendrils
forming brooks and lagoons the color of flesh
in the glens and about the islands of my spine.

I wish I could write about you in me
while you dance a contemporary beat
ceaseless, indeterminate, untold are
your feats within and upon my person.

For a split moment, seconds shattered in two,
I am completely and totally permeated by you.
I whine for you to vacillate me, I am ******* begging
to be occupied, satiated, by a rhythm akin to the sway of trees.

Love me fast and kiss me slow, Dear Amaranthine.
My palms are red, and feet bloodied, too. I moan.
Call me your poetaster but don't come on my chest;
There's far too much weight there already, my dear.

Being alone with you is like being alone.
But being alone is like being nothing.

I love to hold your hands while we hike through the crevasses
especially when you could fall and I'd have to save you.

Rocks are coldest when compared to your hands
I think as we break contact to scale yet another.
My favorite lyrics become distant rhythms
the moment your mouth moves and song bleeds out.

I think the catchiest song
is the sound of your lexicon.

But you're not singing,
you are simply talking

about that moment when the cigarette, dribbling with smoke, pulls away
from your perfect lips, the lowest of which hangs in a perpetual pout.
That is the soft line of flesh I would like for my tongue to skate upon.
Pirouettes are crisp and cantilevers are hopeful but I would much prefer

To enter a deep outside edge
while performing an open stroke.

But that is slicing ice, not kissing.
And we are climbing rocks, not kissing.

*What's the difference?

The carpet is stained with your beer.

You used to have the sharpest mouth
a tongue like a serpent's in slow motion
as it flicks, nay as it laps into the dark of my mouth.
Your lips felt like frozen lines of gasoline.

They tasted like the fires of the oil refinery.

I used to beg you to let me ride with you
through the forested paths lacing behind my house
on your mobylette we would fly down the gravel
like birds upon a cloud, with more bumping and rattling.

But birds aren't aroused by the turbulence of clouds.

I loved the feeling of my arms about your waist
holding you close as a reminder that if I let go
I would fall and when the day came that I let go
standing in the living room as you drank beer...

There was no where to fall but up.

When I was small I would lie

every single day

and run to the mirror to see if my

nose had grown

because all I wanted was*

to be a real boy.

I am in love with you sometimes
like when I am riding the bus
beneath luminous buildings stapled deep
into the polluted black of the sky
that sadistic monoliths so horribly scrape.

Then there are times when I want you dead.
I scream loud into my pillow
then press my ear to the cotton
but after my punches it is too scared to reply
so all I hear are the echoes of my scream.

You ought to be ashamed for what you've done.
I am a strong, resilient, independent young person
and you blank face, you liar,
you slaughterhouse chief...
You ought to be ashamed.

Does your heart beat like a racehorse
when the Jockeys come off?
Are you aroused when a man in a suit,
a business-man suit,
tosses the homeless a quarter?

Do you hope that it lands by their tattered, torn shoe heads up?
Do you think they just need a little luck?

If you do,
then I have a secret to tell you:

*You are the most flawless person I have ever seen,
and holding hands on the city bus scares the living **** out of me.