Your touch is a bliss

But your hands wore thorns

the shelters were full
surely that is why I found her
in the alley

she was as old and white as time...
probably three score, at most, though curled up
like a babe in the womb

her eyes were yet open:
what had she seen last, what had
her last supper been?

and where were the disciples
with bread and wine, with body and blood
while she froze on the hard earth?

When I was just a little kid
I never liked a ****.
When I grew up it didn’t change
When I went to work.
I didn’t much like pranks and such
And  most practical jokes,
Whoopie cushions, pulled out chairs
And winking, leering blokes.

It was much more annoying to me
When the liars got to win.
It made me want to call them names
And kick them in the shin.
How anyone ever thought well of them
Made no sense to me.
They should have been taken to task
And called the enemy.

Schoolyard antics
Made me frantic
When they harassed the weak
The underweight, those in glasses
Those whose noses were tweaked.
Why didn’t their parents teach
These creeps to be more kind?
Or keep them home full time,
I’m sure nobody would mind.

Now I hate to watch the news
And see how many got elected.
If the average voter doesn’t know
At least they should have suspected
When billions of dollars disappear
And nobody is ever put in prison.
That means there are jerks out there
And that doesn’t take a lot of wisdom.

I sometimes wish Kafka was right
And the evil woke up differently.
Maybe they could be one foot tall
And not quite reach my knee.
Then we could see the crooks arrive
And lock them out of our conventions.
We’d just have to lglance to know
That they have dishonest intentions.

Schoolyard antics
Made me frantic
When they harassed the weak
The underweight, those in glasses
Those whose noses were tweaked.
Why didn’t their parents teach
These creeps to be more kind?
Or keep them home full time,
I’m sure nobody would mind.

in the early morning hum,
in the beat of the drum of the white noise and the misplaced light, i
treasure you.
the sole familiar thing.

an old, cloying taste
clings to my mouth.
i think you are sleeping.
i know? you are sleeping.
i awoke to silence filled by your silence.
i know you are sleeping;
i felt loved by your silence, still.

i know this is love i imagine for myself in the ways i need it most;
i know how this goes.

in the early morning hum,
in the beat of the drum of the white noise and the misplaced light,
i allow myself to feel a very real fear that you
will be everything i needed
and almost everything i want.

and so in preparation,
a separation:
i shift and twitch and shiver until i am at once here
and not,
until i am at once here
and in the moment,
some way down the line,
that old, cloying taste magnified,
when all comes to pass as i knew it would and i can say
“i knew it would.”
i know how this goes.

you take the morning bus to secaucus,
and i, the one to new york.
when sleep greets me and leans my head
gently
against the window pane,
i will let it come.
i will let it try to fill your absence
in ways i know to be short-lived, for naught,
but i will let it try.

i will miss you when i wake up,
miss the silence that i thought you crafted for me,
but which was really just
silence.
i will miss you when i wake up as i miss you when you are next to me.
i want, for us, something infinite:
that which we cannot have and which you do not want,
hard as i wish you did.

but.
the sun rises —
i know how this goes —
and the misplaced light finds its place again.
the silence i thought you crafted for me, which was really just
silence,
becomes noise.
hectic. colorful without order.
i will miss you when i wake up,
but what ache is strong enough to pull something personal
from all that noise?

you take the morning bus to secaucus,
and somewhere in new york i try to live a life as though you have already left me.
if i had my way,
hopeful, futile grasps towards the infinite would not hold ample weight for a haunting.

and yet,
that old, cloying taste.

still.

(a.m.)

We run with flames in our hearts
in our hands
in our voices
in the lands,
We stand on the rocks letting people know that
we are here
that we don't stand for us
that we stand for them
we've—been here
we've—slept here
we've—loved the soil
every inch of its worth—here.
And to think that we'd step off our Rock, now?
For every one of us that They knock down
They exude monsters out of the cracks in Their teeth
laughter roars
money pours
They've created unspeakable wars
Let us be.