I visited her cottage each month, never
staying the night

through her window by the oak table
we watched the surf

on days when the sea was angry, we could hear
the waves crack against earth's spare spine

those times I liked, for she would hold my hand,
tightly, like I was her tether to the wide world

I would leave as the sun set, the moment a million
gold sparkles vanished from the waters

when I found her, I pretended she was asleep
but her eyes were open and still

staring it seemed through the same window
I sat with her and rubbed her cold hand

I stayed until the sun sank into the same salty sea
wondering if the old tales were true...

if a billion tears had flowed into the blue depths
making a soulful brine

I know mine fell on the soggy sand, disappearing
in the dusk that swallowed my tracks

I'm not out to project my own down going.
I love him whose soul is fickle despite chance
As the world's retort.
When they told me how you got cut
I bought enough drugs to put monster under
and celebrated for the both of us.
They weren't my limbs that were lost
but I reached for and sprinted towards
a wholesome grief
and couldn't carry it all.
Took me a month to even talk
Poetry sounds so selfish
When you are needed to help another walk.
The first night,  a friend had called
Said, "Get it all out
For tomorrow you have to be strong."

Sorry ain't enough and my sorrow's only purpose
is as a reminder for what needs to be done
And to forget about any lesser want.
My darling, I can't know without losing my leg
In a hit and run
But I know now you wear the same smile as before
My god how could I have known something
With such a fragile frame
Could be so tough.

Most folks, myself, a poet included,
Speak of greater reasons
And ponder tragedy's meaning.
Like us,
She knows she doesn't deserve all she is made to
Suffer.
And I've found the greater ungodly glory
Most folks are looking for
In her unbroken joy.

There's a mechanism
buried alive inside you
alive despite you
sack of omnipresent water
chalk full of code
whispers of people who no longer exist
asking that same question,
"To what capacity do I exist?"

I know some sons that come from cell division
they've won the entire human race.
I must be some mutant in the main vein
spectacular artery pumping symmetry  
trying to grow up.
Look closer.
I'm not burning ants with my lens anymore
in open ceiling
side walk heat
hot enough to burn role models.

Because they ain't sorry in heaven.
Their faces can be touched but they aren't there
and the same look persists
through spilt milk
and spilt blood.
Making me hot enough to burn flags
it's ours to destroy
we bought it with dead sons
dead daughters
and ******* so dense I'm not sure which is which anymore.

Drawn lines that we rehearse in the shower.
Songs where we exist for a brief moment
then grow quiet
with numb mouths
that have separated their speech
from what they wish to sing
divided by a distance too far to dream.
Like lobbing a football or collect call
between your own split cells.

I am so tired operator.
We need to marry these two points
by their spines.
I cannot connect the dots
for others but I can foster
my insides, out.
They exist in some capacity now.
Catch.

I am at your mercy stranger.
You naive monarch .
You impatient mortal.
You radical catalyst.
Take this and rule over it like it was yours
because by the time I reach you,
it is.
You cannot stay at this intersection for long
it's dying now
for the next.

You had to be me
talking **** about Aristotle
then finding him in the poem on the next page.
We had been talking about how rhetoric makes students of analysis
feel like they live in some intelligent matrix.

You had to be me
to know that was very topical at that time in my life.
To know what wild bewilderment meant
at it’s actual size.
Two eyes, about the size of spare change, must of been going crazy,
but I couldn’t know unless I was you.

You had to be me
to feel as if you were enclosed in open space
feeling simultaneously,

empty objects come to life.
Tugging at the connections in mind
I was bound to make because of where
those same mechanical hands
had already fostered me.

Making me think something like god
could be construction lights over my exit sign
creating a tunnel out of the kind of darkness
night tells tired protagonists
exists to make you stronger.

You had to be me
to know that strength is a metric of preparedness,
and preparedness is a metric of memory.
I forgave mine.
I only know an instant,
the past shrinks under the weight of my experience
like a shivering body
under a bed sheet.

My strength dreams quiet fists and
sweats from voracious hips.
Unlike the stories,
the night has made me a tender man.
Unlike the stories,
that’s ok.
I’m dying just as fast as any hero with much more romance.

I found some grammer of the universe:
Not easy to catch, but easy to find,
as it is simply everywhere.
In the navel and in the fridge.
In a teacup and in a dream.
In a memory and in a grain of dust
as much as in a withering biography.
Sometimes I mix up prepositions,
so that I my beloved feels demagnified.
But I will take the effort to spell lovable meaning in that language.
And it happens that I use wrong keys
- and I don't get the meaning of sentences
that couchsurf my mind - but it's all furnished
with such a beautiful mess. Oh dear,
let me play on you(r) combinations.
And embed the failure in the long run of light.
I know, everything is meant to glow.
Furthermore there is the challenge of silence,
t h e   a b s o l u t e l y   s u p e r c o n n e c t i v e
muting the noisy pain of opposition.
Let us meditate on that.

I’ve been trying to rearrange letters to make sounds that unfortunately don’t translate into anything meaningful
and I’ve been drawing out diagrams to display the small fraction of insight that my heart has decided to be generous with
I am as in the dark as you are
I don’t have answers, just apologies.
I know that are two sides to this and just like my hand I know one is rough, and will bruise and punch but
the other a my softer and will always try to make up for the regretful but nonetheless truthful company she has
the other will nurture, and point to the quiet things.
and maybe that’s not enough
I know you still want both sides connected
a full circle around them each, encasing them to you in a ring.
but I think the main problem is that you don’t make me feel free.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry like a school teacher who has to lie through old dingy frames and slowly break a dream to a young man
because you’re right, that’s life and feelings aren’t choices, they aren’t light-switches
and I can’t turn this off
but I think maybe I could be like a star, maybe I can’t comfort but I can be around anyway.
maybe that’s not what you need and that’s what makes me sorry.
does it matter that I’m sorry?

a butterfly-garden on a hill
behind the wall
of
your par-need




who fills the tank
                                 and pays the bills?
                                                          ­         it's not ur car..

who rots away in a meeting
                                  while trailing mind-tunnels out
                                                             ­           doodles to escape tedium..

who feels despair on the shoulder
                                  and tries to **** it up
                                                              ­         while hearing the ocean's call..

who sees the stark-brilliance
                                      right before unbelievably blind-eyes
                                                      ­                  casting pearls before swine..


hey..
*******, man!




we see only what we want to see
why can nobody see
the rare butterflies
right here
in our midst?*


S T - 10 octagon 2013