The navy blue evening sky cut out by the black silhouette of trees. The moths fluttering under the moon. The way all trees bristle one another. The courage when on the first date she laid her hand on his knee. The comfort of hollow churches. The emptiness and then everywhere something. The anonymous scent of ripeness in the air. The feeling of energy realizing itself.

Those nights when the stars
are hidden by clouds
as big as your heart.

receptivity
moon yawns out day
flames flicker the dawn

con-scious-ness
rises in drowning
and bubbles up again

“here now child,”
it echos, “just feel feelings”
and the adult resists

seasons color change
blue years to red seconds
head into sunlight heaven

divine intuition speaks
out of in our hearts
essence of expanding

a single lopsided wilt rose
the metamorphosis of
a dreamer who is not here

old man in the old cafe
he reads all day
long pauses pleasing

soggy California
a deer framed by headlights
predator and prey

water cleanses me
rapids under rope bridges
wind chimes of I, I, I…

the more I relax
water cleanses I of me
the more you will see

my smirk in the light
like waves lap on distant shores
****** mermaids; higher kites

Burn the way money burns,  
clear into ash our feelings glow.
You could write a book through me through you.
You could be my father when winter is snow.

Me, like some precious stone, I sink,
like the one I grasp around the nape of my neck,
the turquoise one with the ivory glow,
some symbols are lost but this one grows.

You, like some enchanting pond, you pool
hard like truth, like summer out of school,  
colors blend the songs of you,
and speak to me though an invisible ear.

You're bouyant and I float on my elbows,
inching to gaze down the deep end of me.  
But you feel the whiplash of my current
first red hot, the cauldron of morning, then blue.

Your eyes get hard and lidless;
you're a cyclone off the South Pacific of my heart.
I hear you wailing wind into me.
You sound like the bagpipes of my life.

You think I don't know,
the weight of me in the pool of you
but even a fool can see, thats not true,
because the myth of me is found in you.

Reality is a tissue;
a sneezing factory.

When you sneeze,
you lose sight of everything.

Reality is like a tissue;
frail, almost there, then totally
out of sight.

Heavy
like a chest
A single tear

Just a hand
cupping a mouth
catching the fear

At night
she likes to run
It’s the moon

Heavy
like the universe
she’s alone

Just a sweat
dripping down her back
pooling and then gone

A savage girl
her wild auburn hair
twirling and then gone

The world hangs on a thin thread,
the psyche of the mind.

And lets be honest,
we know nothing of it.

The way in which a person behaves,
is indicative of an archetype,
a way of presenting oneself.

But what if that self is so sensitive to rejection,
it rejects itself consciously,
with such fearlessness it assumes a fluid

transformation of self.
Patterns of energy from which everything is drawn,
from which everything is made.

It acts as others would like it to appear
as it has seen their hidden fantasies in and of another,
all because it does not believe it is who it appears to be,
all because it feels who it appears to be.

My coworker speaks in idioms,
he says he's true blue, I say, yeah,
like red and white and wayward too.
People like that are a dime a dozen:
cheap, until outlived: a legend in his own mind,
always drawing out to kids.
When I speak to him, I hear his thunder,
Come again? Speak up sister! His reaction -
like a flash in a pan, because, because,
I could not listen, as the story goes, any bit  - faster.

I have left, pig-mudding drunk,
having sipped from stock to stock on fraying cheer, stages.
I have stood in foreign basements; sweaty cellars of youth;
begot by attitude breeding spaces of the hip;
drawn circles searching for love in recreating nonsense:
a silly pupil, moon-eyed, out of breathe.

I have heard them quack, reveal their cords;
heard them whisper a thousand and one secrets,
heard them deconstruct their circumstances as pilgrims, penniless and sick.
I have their memories now, an image of a depressed,
***-imprinted pillow soaked in liquor and a feeling of nausea
where ribs sleep on this couch tonight, every night.
I have heard one refute the weight of living, ******,
on the banks of his best friends hospitality, and thought
How much is it worth?

And I have envied every **** greasy pored hipster,
the ones fixing on makingitnew now kind of clan; stared blankly at fashion,
a culture back door where pink fish scales sparkle high from runway halters
to the tops of grown men, bearded and chesty.
And your mothers pearls sit, not your mother’s pearls but your mother’s, mother’s pearls,
that old world clout ornamented around those hairy *******.
Oh yes, I have seen men become peacocks, charmed animals of *******;
seen them teeth at discourse in the noise they create, wide-mouthed and pointed;
I have seen them masked like frantic felines: wooly bully cats trying-to-roll their own meter,
their tobacco stained black charcoal over soft bricked lips quiver to their beats:
those painted lemmingings, without a parachute: kamikaze felons.

I have desired absolute sterility: white china,
in the egg of a toilet bowl I spewed out, shut-up my exuberance for the night;
sorry-pleaded my resolutions to gag out the naughty nouns in my life.
I have quit; turned in my lust for performing the lioness, paw-licking,
snarly creature: the predator of my youth, and now,
I am pretty-headed, tamed in bath oils and schedules;
a spotted fox, in plain view, one medium-sized mammal getting by.

****** a self bone love
where only crystal skulls *****
in morphine harbors of youth.

Penetrate the gentle pink dawn
of dead days hanging -
moon rising red mouth, half-open.

Savor the metallic ******* ragtime
of cold handsome lips.

Razz the fluid glutted
plop of fossil *****.

Slip the light, hot licks, squid squirm
tight snarl back to spread-eagle rising.

Gnaw at the fresh goose-pimpled flesh
in tribes of sweat crossing.

See the green railwayed eyes,
half-smile sprouting.

Urge spasms to go slack, end-to-end
like hair bellies over, shudders run-
down one foot flutters, fluid waves drop.

Flash on the swamp cypress relief
as the **** sputters out
and faded pink curtains heave.

Allow the bring down roll.
The two planes, silent park
like some ***** bed repose.

I am barely a mineral now, not yet a woman in the ground,
not yet growing gardens and begging people to cook my peppers.
My home is dizzy from my constant re-entry, which helps me to cheat,
in life I am looking for the harvest in  people. I am a thread of cotton pulling
every word like it is more porous than the next, which helps me.
I summersault through conversations rather read in sharpie,
on the last corner white space of bathroom stalls,
alone and blushed. I remember love like a tagline inviting a smile
and messages to strangers. When I look in the mirror I am always inhaling,
my mouth says O, O I am out of excuses. I tell everyone I’m tired of working,
which helps me to hide in my comet ways. I am tight-lined,  
which is to say I feel love on the hairs of my arms, the wind,
the blades of fans speak to me at night when I have nothing left to say.
I am licensed to moving. In the dark in the cities public spaces and
also in alleyways I am soft like a moonbeam. I am convinced the world is a sewer,
which helps me to explain the exchange of waste and skin and the secrets hidden
in tunnels of shadows. When I move the world blurs with me like a heartbeat.
I am underground like the sewer, rotten in negative spaces, which helps me,
to hear the echo ripple swish of every piece of trash call my name.
I have no response. Some days the world is too *****. One day I will learn
to quilt and stitch together every important face, which will help me
to remember my grandmother and how she loved to balloon to the sky.
I dream she is a large magellanic cloud beaming out of the universe, the force
of believing is the word Hallelujah sung from the lips of Leonard Cohen.
It is midnight. It is noon. I close my eyes for a second and I see myself as miles
from the moon. I am running every day now and there is nothing left to see. My heart
is a kitchen door swinging and it does not want to stop.

Butterfly globe make light in a passion pit.
My beach house is surreal, is a high water mark,
is the heart of all the radio left in this world.

But I am here writing technical reports
about environmental beasts in Massachusetts,
in New York in Connecticut where I think

people stuff air, drive slow and waste everything.
I can tell by the aerial maps that geography is
tethered by our parceled teeth of desire.

In the office I whisper, love is urban
a little too loud but no one decides to hear
and so I scribble it on the FOIL and send it

to municipalities in search of property records
in search of environmental concerns,
old pre-industrial gas stations with nameless owners.

I like to zoom in and out real neurotic  
When I should be looking for the Site,
with the – Conditionally Exempt Small Quantity Generator.

Instead, I’d like to live between every green space on GoogleEarth,
an ubiquitous witch fevering undulating land,
thighs straddling the seasons between documentation and myth.

Release. Repeat the Response Action Outcome.
Instead, I envy the road – all wide open
yawn stripe and ticking yellow. I’d write,

"Tank Status: Removed," in purple chalk across
the brick and vinyl siding of all the buildings on Columbus Avenue.
This morning I am impossible.

This morning I believe I am Earth and I can’t say no
to the height of caffeine in subterranean climates
and the reflection my mouth makes swallowing navy blue,

waves like falsity, waves like any nation flag
under screen.  I often think an office is not a space,
there would be less sighing, there would be love in action.

He touched me and I said,
“Lock it up, dear
lay off my skillet, *****
I’m running wild fire, anyways,
You know nothing about the smell of burning lilies,
You know nothing of me
I like your winks but only because
the way the lighting frames your face
so beat it solo
and face the clouds alone.”

When my uncle Frankie died
I didn’t think much about death
or the short fact of living.
I thought about my cousin Siobhan.
Everybody did.
He left 3 children dying,
but Siobhan was already dead -
the part that harvested hope anyway.
But people tend to focus on what’s missing
probably because we're all obsessed with growing.  
Anyways, I knew then that she’d try to fill that void
like a hoarder, collecting anything within reach.
But her father’s watch wasn’t a token of relief
it sent her body into epileptic shock,
clutching white-knuckled at his biological clock.
And his glasses? Well she still wears them
but if she misplaces them for a moment
she’s liable to panic into another dimension.
Yes, Frankie’s death defined a tragedy
but Siobhan’s living only defined a tragic heroine
and all anybody could do was study her face,
know when it wrinkled from living
listlessly expressing that void, the missing,  
the agonizing in the glass of her eyes
that tells me she’ll never again hear her father call her,
Blondie, creep up behind, massage her tired shoulders
and tell her without words that he will always be there –
there with her.
Siobhan would count her losses like this
making grief tangible in memory –
like the loss of language her and Frankie shared.
Sometimes at night I think of Siobhan
at last thanksgiving watching her daddy wave back to her
on home movies never saying much but smiling wide,
wide enough to make you gulp and twitch
and feel the hairs of your arm rise.
I remembered thinking that not many daddy’s have kindness in their smile.
But I knew then that everybody was playing detective
secretly watching Siobhan, screening her face
for clues to a crime unsolved
talking to every other family member in the room.
I often wished I felt brave enough
to grab her hand and squeeze it to stone
and tell her very “undetective” like,
“If this isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”

Yellow is ***** or is it? I know a lot of yellow people that think like dishwashers
spinning turning loose their causes for finding likeness compatible. I know people that like to machinify the living and talk about furniture as if it heard the rumors in the fabric already supposedly threading. I know people that lust after red draping rooms thinking it more desperate than the sun I’ve seen them click at it looking directly into the lighting of things making drama more dramatic than modern living. I’ve heard people make relationships out of these resemblances as if every eye had an ear to be heard without looking making silence appear chilling but every bit thrilling. Was it just yesterday a girl confessed she named her plants with each passing lover? There are people that attach themselves to objects so violently they fall in love with a chair a chair worth a thousand words more than it gives in its cedar vintage dress but that’s just one chair. I know people that vacation to inns retreat to estate sales to hoard stories in bracelets and oil lamps tracking floorboards with time uttering words no longer used like duvets and chesterfields and smirking into their dusty reflection from an embroidered hand mirror. I know people that would buy used postcards. Yellow. All I’m saying is I know people that avoid white at all cost.

Kiss my cheek,
Again. Tell me
I’m pretty. Whisper
to me, again
the parting of
your lips
they crack
so wicked ****.
Move my hips
they stand still
for most of the day
Let them know
Its o.k to hulahoop
A love tale. Go Ahead,
wisk by me,
Temptation works best
In brushstrokes
And dial tones.
Just don’t shun
falling tears,
they soak your face
and make it brighter
before morning coffee.

I can feel it seizing understanding
beating against words fleeting through space
as I run up this slippery staircase
I know so well, the one,
with the black tape to gripe my fall,
despite the rise, I feel,
I am landing every time -
each foot, an undulation of fear
to let go, is to stand
still fixed in emotions once heard and said,
said fairly obtuse, so I say
love does not exist.
Love is existing
like it exists between my thighs
stroke nothing too long though because
violence is en-vitiable
as is love
projecting the desire for the absolute
insatiable. insatiable. I need. I want. I feel
helpless in your devotion to me, in your separation from me
from me to you, to you I'm in a -
and there you have it.

Cold and naked like iron church bells
I rang thoughts each more hollow than the next.
Through my mind I skulled over tomorrow,
my bare-mattress weight stuck to my twenty-one-year-old
bones hesitating with the heat.

July tastes all moonshine and sunshine
until your alone without company and the fruit
of adventure decays romance from it candy sweet
fragrance leaving like a raspberry bruise,
a penalty scared on your mommas red lips:
How ya gonna make a living sweetheart?

Eh, I’ll grab a buoy and drink wine until
my teeth rot and ill say **** tomorrow,
Ill **** drunks and scribble my tin sorrows
in ***** yellow journals. I’ll bear my chest
to strangers with ******* hard against the moon.

Because I know
when I find routine,
I’ll be skin-laced and bored,
undertowed and unseen.

Brett Jones has a book called
White and Society.
How funny he is,
What a subversive rebel man.
Can he sing the songs that make him sound so plastic,
and break them over again like the glass humor he embodies?
White and Society is a trace title.
It should live up to its apparent suspicions.
How lovely to think of it as a pop up book,
Imposing constructions before your eyes.

His hands speak louder
than his large black lips,
its ironic signing that gives him
a swift slick reflection,
like he’s grabbing you by the face
calling you baby I barely know you,
but you smoke faster than you click
and so if you just eye me steady,
id let you cry a thousand and one times faster than Jesus, baby listen,
you wrote my luxury when you walked in with that cherry smile
gleaming apple wishes in dimple mirrors – ****
I’m so glad there was never a split fragment between our lifelines,
crossing blue drapery like the high clothes hanging in ***** New York alley ways.
So you just realize everything brings color when you remind yourself,
you're young and if I could hear the sound of youth, I would
for the rest of my water-balloon life.

Days sometimes blind me like hotel rooms-
all stuffy air heating over zesty grey radiators,
I want to lift the blinds; I already see the light shading through.
That’s not enough; I want to feel orange again,
play with the sunning glow as it re-imagines beauty in skins devilish pores.
I want August’s comfort in afternoon naked towel naps
dreaming that cable dishes are just fish carcasses in the wind,
imagine its possible to watch nails grow,
bed them in earth’s soil, and let it remind me of ***
and the unevenness of intimacy strewn oddly when ***** sweaty limbs
can not keep up with eyes that dart faster than the sway, stay of pendulum pressure.
I want to remind myself that everything exists in contexts
casting emotion on stripped layers, crusts of being.
So I invite my nearest tempest, maybe that moon soft roof
to captain ships of candy shoppe imagination over my starving anxiety  
and chalk them out on cemented buildings. I talk to myself loudly.
I tell myself, isn’t it funny when words become tools of composition?
But its ironic because I weigh them with as much suspicion as a glass of milk –
I hesitate to think I ever really have to question anything,
when really, quite possibly, anything is possible
in a sentence pure and ending.

We are manufactured landscapes,
constructed through naming nouns –
we celebrate difference.
We are compelled into being one or the other,
like a nail or a hammer.

We reference nature through motherhood,
voluptuous in her national pride narrative,
her lips red pucker supple metaphors like her fertile ground,
her belly always pregnant
ready to plant desire in discourse.

We forget her industrial miscarriages,
her toxic tar-sulfur consumption,
her global half-bred garbage in words left unsaid,
her ***** laundry in patriarchal hands.

We forget her midwives,
her toiling underpaid workers
who support generations of waste
who spit up truth in plastic mouthfuls,
who regurgitate material narratives
to celebrate flesh in mythic wholeness.

When will the nation, earth and world step from its subject of motherly pedestal and name its androgynous existence, its forgotten lifelines?

I want a man that reads with blue pen,
ink blots a page like he unbuttons my blouse
slow breathy traces from knot to knot
fingers passing every imperfect freckle that dots
his eyes to my skin. Then pause.
I want him to read closely
the blooming scents that escape
my sighs – first quick and salty
anticipating a touch flirtation at my
inner thigh, then a rub, no,
a well placed grasp. I want
him to know when to squeeze
throw down my hair and pace
the heaving contours that flow
more passionately than the Baltic Sea.
Then I want to make waves
make him crash and sway into me
deep until the sheets seem to float
above us and then drop to drape like flags
pull under me once again reading
my gaping breaths now heavy
like a volcanoes peak, tasting the raspberry
magma of my tongue. I want a man
to study the life lines of my erosion,
know where they crack and ache
and split into new directions.
I want a man to know
the geography of my desire.

Keep your feet on the ground even though your friends
flatter you. (Movies have pause, friends don’t.)
Traveling this year will bring your life into greater
perspective. (Actions speak nothing, without the motive.)
People enjoy having you around. (Appreciate this.)
Your emotional currents are flowing powerfully now.
(Movies have pause, friends don’t.) Listen to yourself more often -
you are thinking about doing something.
Impossible standards just make life difficult. (Actions speak nothing,
without the motive.) Don’t do it, it won’t help anything.
May you have great luck. You are admired for your
adventurous ways. (Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it.)
Right now there is energy pushing you in a new direction. (Hard words
break no bones, fine words butter no parsnips.)
People in your background will be more co-operative than normal. You
are the master of every situation. Listen to yourself more often.
(When the moment comes, take the top one.)Your emotional currents are flowing powerfully now. (Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it.) Encourage your peers. (For hate is never conquered by hate.)
You will be successful in your work. (Appreciate this.) Use your head,
live in your heart. (Hate is conquered by love.)
Don’t do anything, it won’t help you. When the moment comes take the top one. Soon life will become more interesting.

Ears pressed cool against
glass tables and vinyl flooring
words score high drained slowly
slow like wasps caught in guttered draining
not like velvet names etched in casing, but weathered like bricked and beaten graffiti –
Waning like wax always melting

Tools: spelling and grammar – uncheck

Don’t fret too many gerunds grounding air suffocating hearing between the lines that past lower truths out straight in dirt and stinky face: eyes drawn with pensive staring
lines drawn global remains of words unused: boycott form because it isn’t daring.
Adopt sonar because it traces the smokestack between eaves drop
and scrap metal hearing like thorns prickled cut by cleaver.

Clink, clink, clank.

Unlatch cellar doors of images fixed in meaning: glances slanted
heads poked out behind legs enchanting ink under eyelids.

Clank, click, click.

Wishing: Sunday morning came to rest and the cat perched rest without the windowsill and the space between my legs lost meaning.

Forgetting: Painted houses haunting furniture misplaced, training lessons in memory fading.  

Dreaming: Sounds dipped in vegetable oil, Van Morrison in teething states caring.

Still lost without my last breathe wondering…

Just last night I caught gender
waltzing with *** in an entirely gestural affair.
I hailed them both to come join the rest of the party
but they were quite content dancing there
while the well dressed men and women ignored their spectacle.

Perhaps they did not remember their previous performances
that cast them into exclusion,
because their bodies were so entwined with such fluidity,
their parts swirled the whole of them into a state
of being only Picasso could understand.

I entered the world like most of my kind – whitewashed and nameless,
faceless yet searching for a face
to nibble on corn mashed scrapings of my time and place,
just hungry enough to pervade ignorance and grapple at the ripeness
of a more fruitful
truth
acknowledged in a vacuum
where dreams rot and decay and suffocate the eyes,
where an echo reverberates a menacing shriek
that tastes foul and perverse – dried sweat teared in blood
but it stays with me and my kind
alone in the haystack by God and his word
silenced by the power of an unlicensed scripture
these conditions fixate me, us
as they fixate the man behind the whip
as they fixate the land, the family, the working stick.
but I unlike most of my kind
have choked on an inch, and spit up a mile
and wielded a pen to inkblot a trial,
a trial constructed outside the vacuum
offering light, air and room to breathe
in the tangibility of humanity.

Because the thirst wouldn’t simmer; it ruptured cities into boils,
turned cultures into armies, an armageddon of cheeky stubborn Irish Catholics and thick veined Germans couldn’t imagine a world without their stout hearty headed pint.

Because white dry protestant angels thought crime existed in a vacuum, in a filthy saw-dusted saloon, the hub spawn of evil.

Because twice as many of those saloons were ******* by unlicensed blind pigs, not through free swinging doors on the streets, but in the domestic sphere; in the dark crept crevices of household sanctuaries.  

Because bootlegging capitalist princes turned the industry into a stenchy liability with their home brewed distilled poisons. Alky cookers wrapped the commodity fetish and dubbed it moonshine.

Moonshine – spirits for the poor and blind.

Because this social reform was a moral reform lost in the oblivion of politics, lost in the timeliness of progressive spring-cleaning referenda’s.

Because the ragged, toothless class had to be scold, striped clean of their traditional barings,

because wisdom is everything and they’re spirits ran vilely wild.

You don’t understand,
At first it was a compromise I had to accept,
The sulfur-ridden stench that blazed my nostrils
And made me seek a foreign tongue.
They do not think I worked
But I did.
I washed the pains that clenched at
My existence.
I refused to ignore that foul pulpous print.
Lured did it!
Lured me to utmost perfection.
Then John became but a stone
In lurking shadows completely unseen.
I revealed me to myself
And hands were not shaken, that was not custom.
Into the circle of my life
One revelation proved its superiority,
And now its comfort has deserted me.
Take me back
Take me back
Wrap me in your shredded parcels of paper-tainted glory
Tinge me with indecencies. I fear no guilt.
I want to see my better half sing
And dance between lines and smudges that thwart
Into perception,
To suspend the hour.
Being.
Doing.
Without Needing
To be
There is no sanctuary here
I lie in a familiar position now
The attic floor cools my flushed face
Pinching nerves cultivate essence
My hands clench a tight fist
My knuckles…
They bleed yellow.

The sun bakes down heavily on a plastic micro planet in Orlando, Florida
where crowded trams drop American bushels of tourists into an alien world.
Quickly fantasy comes alive
through a corporation of disguise.
The workers mask themselves in a drapery of familiar life
-like costumes to charm little children’s hearts.
They smile wildly, carving a clear dimple line on the but of their cheeks. Walt’s Disney World
must have driven every one of America’s circuses out of business.
The flying trapeze is too elegant,
people now want to be strapped in,
buckled up and whipped around
to forcibly experience the true velocity of entertainment.
Even the participant’s attire is geared for this third world oblivion. Neon ***** packs rest like bloated kangaroo pouches
on fat sweaty old lady’s round hips, their plump fingers
holding on to leashed harnesses reined to their child’s small chest.
This is vacation,
strangers of people in massive conglomerations
with confused expressions and burnt faces.
Even the food seems wickedly unnatural,
like an artificial order of burning plastic and sour dough surprise.
Waiting is the enthusiast’s pastime as parades
of anxious voyeurs are captivated by a trance
fixation of lights and whistles.
They line up like schools of lemming,
plunging on rides,
one by one.

This is the place
Where memories are made
And dreams come true

Weathered flesh tightens tenderly in ever-expanding fibers
like an anatomical snuffbox.
The perspiring philtrum of a flew
is carved quickly but more desperate than a slice of kerf.
Uncoiled youth cissing uneven pigmentation
has been slaughtered like fall duff.
Yet she rejoices, snood and all,
To the tap, tap, tap
Of little dingbats.

A wicked smirk in the wrong direction
Which Lingers precariously.
While the drummer boy’s buoyant beat
Throbs feverishly, bleeding hearts.
Outside the autumn leaves smolder to a charcoal hue
Mocking the Burns of yesterday’s splendor.
Sweet, sour then stale rots the candy dials on wrists
Teasing the helplessly hoping to a quench
While beholders glisten in eternal sunshine
Chasing their immaculate beasts
With each rising of the moon.

I imagine you a bloodcurdling scene,
with your
avant-garde of conscious stream
slaying syntax
smearing words
like the battered wife
whose entity shadows identity.
and your rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
revolves a continuous, endless carousal
repeating controversies
without just end,
just being
oh, You voodoo Queen of rare success
how does this convince the modernist?

I want to dance in Ireland
in crowded pubs with rose-faced men
drinking my sanity with whisky, wine or gin.

I’d listen to angelic brogues spin
cherished tales, which they’ll profess yet again
oh, how I want to dance in Ireland,

amidst such folks I call my kin
whose natural pride is celebrated then
I will drink back my sanity with whisky, wine or gin.

my euphoric state of ecstasy will win
my senses from my limbs like a nervous linemen
yet, I want to dance in Ireland.

like the rest of my swaggering friends
I hope to be three sheets to the wind.
for I will drink my sanity with whiskey, wine or gin.

and in good company my lips will curl to grin
certain of such happiness when
life has brought me Irishmen
thankful to finally dance in my sweet Ireland.

Along the brittle sandy shoreline fish carcasses, pungent like morning breath and stale milk attract unlikely furry hunters before noon. These unleashed dogs trot slowly. The burden of the sun cracks feverishly upon their sticky, rotted coats. Their tongues roll out helplessly dragging their intimidation down with them like foolish clowns on Sunday morning. On the upper crest of the beach an old woman sits dutifully in her black latched beach chair. Her eyes, beady and gray reflect out into the vast lake. She does not blink. Her cottage, crafted purely of cedar wood comforts like the smell of an old book. On rare occasions athletic fresh water fish pierce through the water’s surface. Flying fish echo their rippled splashes throughout this vacant canvas. But still they are rarely seen or heard. There are hardly any tourists that visit cedar bay. No oiled teenage girls or playful sand kneed toddlers. Once in a while a charcoaled pit circled with empty beer cans lingers in the morning light; its smoggy remains clings tightly to summer clothes that will soon reek of burnt leaves and gasoline. When the time is right, some noble person will try to rehabilitate this stoic landfill, to lift

away stark-lit layers
ill suited for human plea-
sures. It shall rest in piece.

The gracegel fixed a whisilpur stir
Of beamish walldows plenty glee
Lursting gentile sodjar words
To rise a slumgraven lad from slee

Wiss! Youshun beware of me!
Yelpsured this famil somber chord
For I tis sent from spirits upthee
To scrapple luscious souls earthwart
Whose frangled lives are of odd degree.

The lad’s eyes engrossed with squinty cheer
Permazed at this zartrous sight.
The gracegel behooved its transparent skin
Then wishbamboozled the rooms in a fandacisnt blight
And Together lad and gracegel consured the night

Word Meaning
Gracegel: a high and elite angel                                                                                  Whisilpur: silent, purring noise
Beamish:  concentrated light
Walldows: shadows on the wall
Lursting: quiet echoing whispers
Sodjar: important, necessary
Slumgraven: distraught, troubled
Slee: worried state that leaves people to stay awake before sleep
Youshun: you shouldn’t
Yelpsured: to make certain
Famil: inherently known
Upthee: refers to head gracegel
Earthwart: out of earth
Frangled: mix-matched
Permazed: perplexed and amazed
Zartrous: uncommon
Wishbamboozled: to spin something violently
Fandacisnt: magical
Consured: to fly without wings

Fluid like the Guinness that flows from the oil rust taps, rapid and white battered. It laps quickly between every bridges thigh, whining as waves do in captivity. The air is thick and dewy in the Galway harbor. Each breath tastes saltier than the next. The rush, the rapid race signals the open sea. Spring could not come sooner than is demanded. Still six old rust stained fishing boats bob along the mossy stonewall. Untouched. The flow churns quicker; the longer the eye stands in gaze. A ***** yellow sign signals caution –a stolen ringbouy, a stolen life. And there amid the unrest I like to rest and reflect beside fettered waters whose tempest surface hides my face.

I am not alone,
the troubled waters
call my name.

come choked up bled up fed up folks
and drink my robust brew my sweet Catawba
no, my sauterene or rock and rye
brush that musty blue off your cog stained collar
and stay a while
pay a while
two beers later when your tongue seethes dry
try my salt savored fish, my baked bean surprise
tilt your nostrils and inhale my dried herring
my free lunched ties really please the eyes
I’ll saturate your wet drawn gobs
like sand slips through sieves  
teasing you by my strategic arrayed feast
until dollars are quenched out
by watering tongues that then dry the eyes
so come stand social where men may be men
enter through my wood swinging shut
-tered realm
and slug down your ticking inhibitions
gobble up this wonderful enterprise
and leave with that coat savored
by the mixed smell of sawdust, alcohol and cigars
hell, there’s no manners here
and class only exists in tolerance
for it feeds a fine exchange for a parcel of wage
to forget that day you bonded your body to your lady’s gaze
to forget the rascals of tots that teeth at you feet
to forgot the boss that tills your knees
so lets play mirror medley choose your poison
and chose it quick
this may be the Poor Man’s Retreat
but pocket less men make me tick

Unfamiliar furniture trims the parlor room
embellished with odd relics
of histories past.
Their eerie faces haunt me
incriminating
this momentous hour
my mother’s voice fades away to gray
Be strong, be strong . . .

It has begun
Are there telephones in heaven?
Maybe it’s a one-way call.
My cryptic eyes dart a heavy daze
hiccupping on salty streams that overflow composure
But he is the essence of grace,
a beautiful surrender.

Step forward into the light
that shines upon infallible judgment,
my turn to wager peace
with this glorious king,
this King of May!
Blooming virtues in my ears.
I am still the apple of your eye.

I riffle through timely prayers
that floats aloof to I don’t know who?
I say old man forgive me
for you are right:
I will forget what you have said.
Nor will I remember things you’ve done.
But I will
never forget how you
have made me
Feel…