The remnants of memories
can be so addictive
like 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯
𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘴,
and you,
alone in dark place
𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴
𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘪𝘥𝘦,
longing to walk
by the shore,
to feel
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘮 𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦
𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘻𝘦,
to listen
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥
𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘴
until the dawning light
appears before your eyes,
to find an escape
for you are caught
𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘭𝘦
𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘯
𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘬𝘺.

how empty are all your handfuls?
do we all sleep where the wolves blink-
and the moon seep into howling
lather?
do we choke on the foam
of our persistent cadavers by scooping -
lungs from a pit of breathlessness?
do we do such things to under-last
the span of our questioning?
if so, is all the life at our fingertips
gleaming euphoric in a fit of grief?
or at an angle in a wrinkle
of mischief
that corners the bruise
where the pretty
Is a living
thing?

At the corner of Toil and Banks
A waitress with wheels in motion
had to stop.
It felt like a joke about you
with a misspelled nametag.
but she missed the bus
so it felt worse.

her tips were burning pinpricks
in her 9 pm jersey
where the seal was broken
by unseasonably warm
candor.
but getting a taxi was like
an orchid arithmetic
with gold chains
made of Concrete
Aloe Virtual.
and a spot
of constant
heart in a
marsh.

she was never after.

I see Spring now. tipping green sprouts into grey days, as April showers
and May dips a towheaded Sun above the brisk humidity of a strange tangle
of Seasons… spooning in the dark at midday.
I see Spring now, lilting in the underbrush; fetching imminent spoils
as fairy rings and bluegrass tango in the corrugated lawns
of our fathers.
a wealth of exchange is bilking the dam for all its girth. an ocean of tomorrows
with midges and scissortail cleaving the blue with sharp beaks
and black eyes like a shy Luger
on a hip.

whatever land you’re in, i’ll know it by the elemental books
and the babbling brooks of your palatial retreat.
i’ll know you're there when i cross the boundaries of your remove
by the scent of your moon-barrels of rain
and the warped coin of your realm
slipped into my palm by sleight of hands
too small to get wet
in a pond.

your ripples will find me attuned to your island by kite-string
and periwinkle post-Its. my radio will have you mapped
to a dun hill where other hills are chaste and smothered in fog.
but bitten by sunshine on the nape of a shadow -
I’ll know you for your regal fatigue
and embrace you with the love
at my core, so that our magnets may kiss
and restore your silhouette
to my blindspot
like a vital conundrum
with an operatic lisp.

Like too many kisses on a loose tooth, a butterfly dances.
the air like syrup and gossamer, with clouds out of time’s grip
scudding the blue raiment of the world, with happy gnats flapping
in the teeming as shoots of fennel curl in the copious soliloquy
of the infinite canvas.
the day is all things. i witness unrecoiled, on a bench of Springtime.
soaking my tendons in tumultuous calm.
a goodly amount of nectar, beads the forehead of a Bee.
and i am constantly amazed
where it hurts.

Love unfurls in the small hour of our moment in the dark
and blooms like a caterwaul of siege-engines, churning pearls into vice grips
clutching the heart where it numbs best; restoring the vulnerable to the throne
and tossing the agony of pointless birth signs
over the Niagra Pause
of our downhill
telemetry.

Love stuns at rest, like a spoonful of lightning from an olive press.

whatcha gonna do?

James Joyce had smelling salts and ***** tins tucked in his Dramamine
and just off the coast of his swarthy daggers, lay all the pirates of bright minds
clumped in a sponge of all the orange that an insipid grin
could forge into a cufflink at today’s prices -
and still bargain.
Frumpy catalogs of myriad departures, woven into leathery air… dark portals and cucumber sandwiches; savoring an afternoon of incomplete theorems
At High Tea, at odds -
with Low Tide…
but consensual by default
Like a lamb in a spider’s web
when all flies are ghosts
of Veal.

A beautiful victim
of poisonous greed,
hurt, *****, abused
but was known to be
a monstrous villain.

not the best gardener, but the best critic.
I tease ivy into voluptuous spasms
by letting go to let god
do the work of a thousand
busy joys.

i assume the spice knows the dish
but keep copper in my whiskers.
gone are the days of my perpetual
soliloquy… battle born to the air
of all my sorrows
sleeping with ill fish
in dank thought
but surfacing
to continue.

my tamarind pixels lack focus
but all the happy at my disposal
serves the purpose
of my flailing
rainbows die like *******
on a wire,
and all the everything
you came for
is too long
to be
yes

I remember the East Coast, though I’ve never been. Did you feel what I meant by that?
There is something in the air that brings a stone to a feather
and somehow the whole world is more than an absolute failure.
more like a Roman nose on a resolute Bagpipe.
so many terminals sifting through haggard tributaries, anointing the fumes
of our empirical dialysis with all sweet fear of mortal life.
conjoining the wheel with the purpose.
so a stone knows it’s weight… but an hour lacks
a thought to contend with the moral of the story.
All the world like a constant balloon
made all of our things
at a glance.