the trouble with trouble is
waiting for the next big hit
sipping on a bracing shot

the jitters could be the espresso
or everyone biting their tongues
choking on the unspoken name
of fear or dread or the grinning grave

but the medicine does work
bitter coming down to sit and clot
where the stomach meets the heart,

so your eyes can open up to a world
which wasn't yours, but the dream tells you
it could be there waiting in your hands

so trouble can wait another sip,
another slip, another dream
where time and space and all between
come still

Pour it out like water from an empty sky
Before you turn and see the clouds,
Like salt sloughs off the shovel's edge
Once ice creeps in to choke the streets.
Pour it out like the fire searing your veins
Where passion became love became fury,
Like ink left to seep into pristine paper
From another careless stroke of the pen.
Let it out, like the words tied into a knot
Resting heavy between tongue and throat,
Like spit and bitter bile left to sit, clotted.
Let it out, like breaking whatever breaks
When those shackles slip from your wrists,
Like stepping away from the cage to fly.

Drawn deep on the seething alcohol sting
Of a summer-sweat mask made with every effort
Drinking down to the bottle's bottom.

On the way, we'll see a dozen devils in familiar faces,
Friendly smiles and devilish grins, temptations,
Invitations beckoning attention and so much more...

The heat washes down to lingering hands, to lips, to eyes,
Dragging them away from propriety, tangling their leashes,
Stripping away restraint, shattering will.

So, this is godhood. This is how it works.
It's dreaming up a world and killing it,
Abandoning the foibles and the quirks
Of crushed-together crumblings and bits,
Then sweeping out the wreckage with a curse
And carving out another fever dream.
It's wandering a mindscape universe
And sifting through the crop to find the cream
So you can save it while you burn the rest,
Just for the room to have another try.
The lovelies you've been cradling close to chest?
In time you'll cast them off to wilt and die
But for a while they're almost what you need.
Go raze the field and plant another seed.

Here, where your searing body pressed close to mine
Puts Vulcan's furnaces' heat to frigid shame,
Where crashing sun-showers rinse away the brine
Of held hands, shared secrets and our glancing games,
Where fleeing through rainy May and summer wine
Brings together close encounters, whispered names;
Here, more as two than just ourselves, **** the cares
And **** remembering what awaits out there...

There, far away from home, hemorrhaging heat,
Left to my own hollowed-out devices
Where the concrete jungle strangles every street,
Leaving lives wilted and dry, no surprises
Where novelty passes for a catchy beat:
Here, alone, all identity is crisis.
The wasteland surrenders in time, have no fear;
With my eyes shut, I can see the path back here...

Down where the ocean drowned another day,
Where silver shards of moonlight coalesce
As salt-spray rushes up and falls away
Like laughter, murmured out with a caress,
A dreamed-up Venus wreathed in seafoam light
Steps lively, dancing lonesome on the strand.
Capricious in her shroud of murdered light:
The sea-witch calls a lover from the land
'Til, tangled all together in the neath,
Adrift in trance below the rolling waves,
Eyes meet, then hands, then lips. Why stop to breathe?
Her siren-song calls out to passion's slaves
And once the sea's crescendo drowns out dread,
She snares a heart and makes it hers instead.
Wrapped close enough to strangle, clinging tight
To every curve, each shifting of the tide
As if the midnight moon drowned politesse
To crush together spite and searing lust:
A tempest in a bruise-black dancing dress:
No pity for her prey, ****** dry, left dust.
I dreamed her laughter and her wicked grin
And barely dragged myself, with stifled scream
From drowning in that sweet, voracious sin -
And waking, I grew desperate to dream.
Eternity I spent all piece by piece
'Til, blinded by the darkness, I could slip
Beyond the cruel moon and find release
In Venus, and perfection in her lips.

If I could bless you, yet to come,
If words could bear their power down
Through fretful days and fearful years,
Through all your mother's silent tears
Spent sparingly while dreaming you,
If I could press lips to your crown
And whisper wisdom, scraps held dear,
Preserved as desperation grew -
The memories, the failures, too -

I'd give them freely, every one.
I'd rob you of your first frontiers,
I'd slay your pains, as parents do...
Or as they wish, but that's no life.
I wish you joy, not absent strife.
I can't be kinder than the world,
Not if I have to leave you here.
It breaks my heart to be unkind,
To do you wrong, to harm you so...

But I will see you rise and shine,
And I will see you stand and grow,
I'll see you fight and try yourself,
I'll see your agonies and smile,
I'll try, I swear I'll try. I will.
But if I bless you, little one,
So far from here, still yet to come,
I can't give what I haven't found.
I can't wish what I haven't known.