Sometimes I wish that I
Was a Tuna fish on rye
One that you often find
Is always on your hungry mind

When I'm gone and all that's left
Of me there'd be no need to guess
All that lingers on your breath
Is me when all is done and said

You would think of me and sigh
I would wink and you would smile
I'd be all in all you like
Tuna fish on rye

keep the window open i cant stand to smell your skin, you are shivering. youre cold
(you tell me so (you want a response (i nod,)))
(but you are still cold)
do you have any
fantasies?
this halting voice heaves in my stomach pressing against the walls, making
me sick, the snap of your blinking lids a pickaxe to my temple. i think about
fire
a lot. i think about forest fires. filling the tank in a dead town, dark night quiet town,
the gas tank overflows (your nervous eyes in your sweating sticky face {your twitching gaze stroking the lighter in the glove compartment} dry dry lips {your wet tongue only makes them dryer})
breathing in her ear you say tie me to the stake tight tight so rope burn sears my wrist,
burn me with the dry kindling,
condensation drips down her neck, sliding down the arm. on the sidewalk in the pit of her shadow a puddle forms, wetting the wings of the unhappy wasps, joints twisted, the gaps in the exoskeleton show something bright, something bulbous, with forceps and needles it could be reached? its delicate skin pierced, oozing thick light (do you have any
fantasies?)
[so there are two of me, right,
clones, equivalent beings but
individuals. some sort of sick
government secret. human ex
periments. its not important.
i grab my clone by the neck or
it grabs me, its not important,
the dust billows when my feet
skid, im choking, vision blurr
ing, i claw at my hands, we f
all, dust bursts into the air, m
y fist makes sick thudding sou
nds when it hits, bruising my
knuckles on the structural bon
es of my face, possibly breaki
ng the more delicate ones. im
straddling my chest and im s
pitting out the teeth that i di
dnt swallow. then the clones
****? im not really sure.]

You couldn't believe
so quiet could be the croc
its eyes a wise sage
scales rigid rock

lay frozen on the mud
no flies could stir
stubbornly in trance
mind elsewhere

sixteen feet in size
dumb cool in creek
in the hermit's guise
lamblike tender meek

pounce it does when needs
not preys on what eats not
the human hunter feeds
on hatred and whole lot.

brushstrokes, some broad,  
some as narrow as one fine hair,  
are often red  

scarlet and scattered
across the canvas, splattered
against a crumbling wall, where,
for no rhyme or reason, the artist
may place a wilted wreath of flowers,
pallid, yellow
      
horses and people, babes
and the ancient not spared  
their share of the crimson cream  
the painter heaped munificently
on their mangled remains

Paris, Beirut, Yola yet to be painted
but there is still time: in its abundance
someone else will need only lift a hand  
to spill the ubiquitous blood      

our palettes do own other hues
black for charred crosses, white,
the lightning streaked screaming sky
but  none so plentiful as the red  
none so plentiful as the red

The last time we kissed
I broke out in hives
from the honey on her breath
and the sting of her lies.
I swear, I'd die a thousand deaths
if she were the queen of my hive.

Would you like to see a trick
I hear that you like magic
As the world takes hold our hearts
Watch it disappear with them

Would you like to take a guess
At how it saws our love in half
Can you see the slight of heart
And figure out where it's at

What we had before all that
Was only smoke and mirrors
Where we found nothing left
Once the room had cleared

Just like the rabbit in the hat
Love up and hopped away
What is left with that said
I guess the tricks on you and me