I know the lingerie is meant to be taken off, but
my nakedness makes my eyes dart quick and
count every hair on my skin.
picking scabs turns into scars that
I have yet to tell you about.
without permission, I close my eyes
as you love me in the dark and
I wonder if you’re counting too.

No wonder each tickle is seismic
There are mountains in your fingerprints
Tiny topographic maps
I want to sculpt a range of them
All peaks, plateaus and lowest points
All jades and pines and shades of you
And epoxy brooks will pool
Where swirls of myself etch the plaster
For if I touch you,
I thirst to water you
I thirst to water you

Please don’t leave those bruises on my thighs,
for me to look on fondly when you’re gone.

after a long monsoon,
the sun dries the cloud's tears.

if i can turn back time
if only i can do that,

i wouldn't meet you.

you wouldn't get to know me.
then you would be safe and happy.

if only i could do that...

feeling unkempt
left me untethered, you caught the next cab
south of any air
ill keep close ithaca, warm me from the inside, heading anywhere
be too loud for me
perpetually alone
keep me far from anything ive not learned i need to know

and earthly ties they’ll ask for closure
while the bed pulls you closer
feeling unkempt
choked me breathless, i climbed an unsteady ladder, running out of air
ill be dumb for you, bliss
wrap me in illusion
evidently ill be consequently blind for you
perpetually forgone
any sense of known
tell me again, call me your fool
feeling unkempt

ill forget me again for you.

I am no poet nor elysian saint.
I am nothing more than a
living record of transgressions:
odes and testaments of
tarnished gold intentions.

it is for naught: sincere
folly to search for an
elusive inner meaning.
I cannot ascertain if
any exist. take heed to
proceed with caution

there are years which
answer; providing insight,
clarity, a gateway to serenity.

yet there are the years
yielding naught but
empty questions

   e  
  c 
    h
    o  
   i    
n  
   g

soundlessly across
the starless horizon.

these hands are riddled
with memories of all
that I burnt, broke
and dismantled.

scorch marks
embellish my skin:
lamenting cries tasting
of ashes and insidious intent.

whenever home is no longer
hospitable; the foundation
crumbling under derelict
decay and dilapidated
compassion. empathy
common sense.
boundaries.

where does one begin
unravelling the shards of
broken bonds, presuming
to eradicate the distorted
fragments of fermented
claws, kisses, and teeth?

I am a storm with skin:
volatile, tempestuous,
forever untamed by
human hands.

do not misinterpret
the agelessness of
my Soul as a catalyst
for destruction.
chaos is no longer the
joy in my heart.

love gripped light

~ for r, sleuth of life ~

you sleep with a metal detector,
unearthing dreamed artifacts,
that messenger many fates of many young,
belongings of dead men living again

and

of a living solitary man, a vision of him, envisioning,
dancing on a property line dividing
immortality dreams
and finality schemes

dead men living,
these different men, haunting and roaring, sighing pointlessly,
speaking to you alone, pithy commentaries, they, predecessor poets,
someone’s ancestors inhabiting a soil world familiar, awaiting we too

you whip yourself over life’s lost campaigns,
where strategy proved insufficient,
lost to men and materiel superior in numbers,
the hearts that were captured, imprisoned, stolen,
and worst, lost by grievous bad judgement human weak,
your dreams are you own artifacts, recovered

long after the battle smoke clears, you remain,
questioning not the how, where or when, only
was it worth it? and so sadly,
you answer yes.

you keep a record of your poems, losses,
each battlefield has no victors, only losses,
each poemfield has no victors, only losses,
it tires you so, to be guardian, the promise keeper,
you asked for burdens, you got just desserts awarded,
you share some, the ones under the pillow,
gripped lightly and tightly, simultaneously

with long distance lovers of your soul,
those you barely know, until met in red soil someday,
what matters it, they ken a kinship bond, and
love you oh so lightly

and they are

gripping you so lightly/tightly with the lightness/tightness
of words,
two book bound souls.
one shared spine...

2/10/20
100 Centre St.
NY Criminal Court
1:38

Warm, sparkling waters are rising
And we drink it from filthy, cracked glasses
They say "No worry, no problem.
Only high class in the masses"

Have you completely lost it?
Are you absolutely crazy?
My opinions remain unchanged
My mind's gotten a bit hazy

Engulf your mind in
euphoric tides
and speak your true mind
as if it's truly where your heart resides

Glance at your reflection
What do you see?
Devil horns, lizard skin?
Or a face carefree?

"Don't say that!"
"We don't think so, it's okay,"
How could you?
Do you not see infinite shades of gray?

I just want to swim deep
Lost in the high euphoric tides
Where time has no restrictions
and this horrid storm subsides.