The brick wall towers between us; crossing seems out of the question.
I know no way of touching your heart
Hollow I sit wondering why you built it,
was it to keep me out?


I used to make you laugh and hold your hand;
talk late into the night, our love knowing no bounds.

As the moon rose so did our voices;
now I hear nothing but my own thoughts grinding away.

My brain holds no answers yet I still search the day away hoping to find what I did wrong...

I don’t know myself anymore;
I feel like a stranger, finding his way in an unknown body.

Events of my past that should define me-
hold no more power over me; grief strikes more than just the soul.

When thinking becomes a chore,
chores become monotony;
days will melt into months,
just as your love melted away.

I feel those bricks will never come down no matter how hard I try.

I wonder if I ever truly loved you or if I just loved the thought of you.

Just as your wall shuts me out I will build my own wall.

I wonder if anyone will find my heart?

You were ‘mom’ and I was ‘dad’
And my stuffed plush toys
Stood in for our children.
We did what parents did and do
And soon you said it was time for bed.

We laid down and you,
You pulled my face near
And pressed my lips to yours
And held me
So that I could not move.

I stayed put.

You were older after all,
I looked up to you.
But then you took my fingers
Into your mouth
And down your Tinkerbell *******
To lead me inside yourself.

I pulled back, I think,
But you threatened to tell,
To get me in trouble for something,
It’s hazy, I can’t remember now.

So you kept my fingers
Trapped in you,
No matter the complaints
Or the moist cheeks.
You made them travel and discover
More than I ever wanted them to.

In the hanging kitchen, the smell-
cut cayenned sausage, ejective tomato slices
the whole thing in the back of the throat, inflamed.
Olive oil. Vinegar. Billie talks about her "girl
friend." She lives in Mayfair. (Almost pretty;
don't look too long.)

At times I feel sick.

American man he
strikes the figure of a half-God
broad-shouldered, burned
he does Not exist, John Henry
split his bust long ago and we
are huddled small boys imperfect
in the dust of his legacy.

Our fathers stood from dinner tables kissed
wives were kissed by children one last sip of old
wines and walked into the night looking
for burned-up lamps, the memories of mountains.
Ate stone. Drank mist.
(A thirst for adventure is close to your heart.)
Fell into the grit, the failure, fell
into everything.
(Little else has taste once the spice of life is on your tongue.)

I have nothing but my understanding.
I want to be swaddled, paralytically blind, shamelessly loved.
Or to go out in the wicker
world, there to find whatever our best
died looking for, tigers or ruins or
a life after adventure.

A young spring-tender girl
combed her joyous hair
'You are very ugly' said the mirror.
But,
on her lips hung
a smile of dove-secret loveliness,
for only that morning had not
the blind boy said,
'You are beautiful'?

Philip Le Barr,
Was knock down by a car,
On the road to Mandalay.
He was knocked down again
By a dust cart in Spain
And again in Zanzibar.
So,
He travled at night
In the pale moon light
Away from the traffic growl
But terrible luck
He was hit by a duck
Driven by an owl.