My successor lives a life of taught 
asceticism,
corrupted by nothing,
but a heart and a mind, his own drum
and band
 and beat. Worries escape
his unlocked hell. Possessing the same
antique key, molded
in our old hurried erstwhile
intimate flame.
She once left me to burn. 


Oh how I long for this emancipation,

unaffected freedom and thought,
turned to open a heart’s beating lock. 

But still I feel a pull towards her
and an arrow shot from her being,

stabbed and wounded, 

the speed unbearable.
Dark red ****,
a flooding river,
flowing from the hole,
drowned out our pyre,
poured down a love’s last lung.  

Her existence, vitality, 

and sharpened breathing clock
opened wide my ocean. 


Why does your effect,

still burn, infect,
still 
keep my innards
 wanting, longing, 

for further cooling plaster
and my retired
matron master.
Oh sew and needle me.

Jealousy and need 
and human lust
and self 
absorption never stung so deep.
I miss this arrow’s fire,
and blazing tip,
cutting at heart’s fibers,
probing at psyche’s delicate despair,
replaced now, by another,
a latest fair haired heir
to my sweet woeful blunder.

Yet you’re my only bygone brunette.
And the marks left from a glowing brand
remain scorched,
internal.
Still I cherish
a pain-past impression
and your heirloom flames
used as sacred protection.

Pop-pop had really dark skin.
Brown sunshine soaked within him and
heated up the prodded red kindling of a young heart.
Fingers were bruised
and cracked and torn along the palms
and insides and betweens of his nails.
Sometimes he would touch me
with those hands, pat heads
or rub backs. Brown leafy eyes
made sure to do most of the reassuring.
I don't remember a lot. Just a soft Delaware accent, and tattered overalls reaching up and around
a remedying belly where I would put my head.

Delaware has a part
of cornfields and small ponds and towering trees,
and people don't see it
and people deny it.

But the sufficient Autumn airs and
broken summer starlight
invites 4th grade me for a stroll.
To old banks of muddy palisades
to patches of moss and turtle shells.
Overturned boulder's and empty cracked roads
kindly instructed and nudged a boy onto a bike
onto dirt backpaths,
complex limabean farms,
crop-dust and those delicate farmer's planes circling,
nurturing grain.

Ticks, black beetles and mosquito bites
and a striped red snake
we spotted once
under the brick scared you, Brother, to death,
me too.

Slowsong
turns on and it's jazzy and reluctant
and her hips belong where my rough palms sweat.
A graceful ****** of the evening's closest
company and sparkling stars
and her and I pull deep into each other.

Swaying to and back and Coltrane and an ashtray of sadness
when I get back to the room. Zipper down the waist
while her leisure stagnantly becomes mine.
Covers are her cold guide and tepid flesh is mine.  
Sincere nakedness and hospitable skin
and the hotel has a damp aroma,
we embraced with the room
and the sheets
and slept.

Shampooed hair with floral trace
but I can't keep the lids of my eyes down
a white ceiling and the draw of a life
so immediate whispers for me to stay present.

Don't escape by giving in
or to be a guide to a girl
and road and route that has the
same signs as a love past. The dotted dome
of the plaster Holiday Inn roof
beckons and urges
and leaks into a bygone brunette
and I wish that one, Sarah,
was as present,
awake.

Windows are down and gusts
blow back my hair.
An ancient breeze and Josh's cigarette is lit
and swells deep into my lungs.

So this is what it is like to come back home,
to a place we grew up
and spent days,
and hasty afternoons under trickling sunlight.
The old bench still stares
longingly at the Bay,
the seat where I first kissed Sarah
and felt the warmth of her skin
in November,
it was thanksgiving break.  

I dart my eyes from the ghost,
and back at the road.
And keep my ears sharp and alert,
hunting for another past
and a different memory.

These words have no meaning just opened ended feeling.

I went to a club today
and didn't feel like dancing.
I went to a bar and didn't feel like a drink.
I went to a girls fourth floor apartment
across from a 7-11, her underwear salmon pink,
and I was nervous.

A head so clouded
by heavy darkened thought
and fake instilled meanings
and cannabis.

Hopefully there's more than this

What's success but a bubble of lies.
Be a failure
and burst these toxic
green mists
and let the ooze run down your forehead
and into your spine
and feel failure
and feel lost.
Then you'll know of my progress.