We're like wolves
Gnarling at each other
Shooting poison arrows
Hating everything we are together

Our hate is love

Moon hour

Waking up,
the streets are with so empty
it's hard to believe night
could hold the moon so delicately
in its hand, detached,
like a mirror.

The mirror while we sleep
gathers the mountains up
and waters the thirsty dreams
of thistles
blowing in the moon breeze
the moon aloft
yolked to night forever,
neither dejected nor happy
it wanders its light through
its milk on the ground.


Sleepwalk**

Your mother in a sleepwalk began searching in the leftovers
of what lay in her mind for the three things she had misplaced.

A ring of keys or a wooden bowl, an appointment not written down,
a door not closed.

There she is descending the stairs, opening drawers and pulling
back curtains until her father wakes her, asking

"What is it your looking for?" And leads her back to her room,
where the future resumes and she is telling this story to a child.

Under the orange
street lights
it's 3am

Longing to find him,
she skulks alone
in the dark

And as London sleeps
her cries go unheard
by all but one

Mirrors, paintings
Mirrors, paintings
of me.
Cut fingertips bandaged nicely
Always asked for, always acknowledged,
always gifting the best
each holiday season.
People are so modest, people are so kind,
People created the devil
called Wine.
That's what makes people oh-so
Divine.

Drop the rocks
Full-grown pop in the jaw
Bleeding gold
Won't save your soul
Moving again and again and again and again
Until the pacific
Closes behind your back
because criticism smacks
kids out of whack
Morphemes-phonemes again
and again
Given the knowledge
of a recycling bin of
letters

Use them again and again
Won't save your soul
Atom smash logic replaying
and playing before your eyes
Some days it's too much
coal to mine
Mouth covered when you
step in time
Won't make your life
I'm a goner if I can't
stand on the rocks
and if the laundry doesn't burn
If the grim reaper doesn't speak
nonsense words from one
state of consciousness
to the other

Drop the bomb
Call the mob
Stock our shelves
Grow the letters
Feed all those starving
tongues

Let me tell you a story
Once the grim reaper
dressed like an old woman
and bought denture cream
just to know how it feels to
grow old
A human is an animal
Some think an olive is a fruit
A dog is a wolf on the inside
Begging to learn the trick
Speak

Next in line most wait
for straight prose
pinch their noses misguided
Want blood to bleed red
Don't want ideas to smash
their bread
Won't save their minds
from a punch in the gut
Mine closing in their faces
and their Atlantic drowns
shattered glass
encasing words upon words
owned by streams of

Consciousness running
all around
Those nonsense words
running aground
can't swim though all
the world's frowns.

Don't leave me loving you
Here alone
***** my finger, at least,
and lull me to sleep
before you go.

Brisk air can soothe you
Because warmth isn't enough to
Entertain your lungs