floating lights 
and dark skies
sit on the phantom
heir as chair

a soft touch
a ripple 
in the deep
blue sea

paper chairs 
and crosses
float 
beneath 
the skies
as sheet

(the eye wake
gaze
at merry old
stars;
the ***** wonder )

we are weak
when we 
are poor
and meek
when we 
admit the tongue
did defeat

an old pair
of glasses
as glory

we all
 wither
                  all mouths
meet winter
i hope
to 
see
wall
grow flowers

before 
a machine
gives
birth.

Dear Adulterer

the present is the only girl worth living
for in her bed is where you
always are

time brings about the decay of perfection

always,
breathe

and lend half a knee to the ground

to send naked prayers to the sky
for wifi—
we are supposed
to be our ancestor’s sci-fi.

Before guns wore make-up,
We used to put pennies in our socks
So we’d always walk on the root of all evil.

Now Wall Street angels frolic through satellite clouds borrowed
from youths educated by universities of smoke and plastic bags.
                  
(The tears of a child are homage to the waning gods)
For in a day not far away,
Over the painted moon of the Morning Son,
The sun will rise wearing the finest war scars money can buy.

And the screams of humanity will be heard from Venus,
Forgetting that the reciprocal of   L-I-V-E   itself  is     E-V-I-L
And perhaps death is the life meant to be lived.

In the burning right hand of the bald city,
denizens frame calories and count instagram blessings
while beacons of hope refund inspiration in USADA *** cups.

Abyssinian maids wail over yesterday lovers
who wore Ginsberg’s skirt with less  pizzazz
and watched bedbugs **** blood off knee caps
wondering, what if Jesus Christ drove a Nissan?

As bullets of paragraphs fall Vietnamese pesticides on my head,
The dusts off my breath sing homilies
With letters of broken leather whiskey,
For even in the most dishonest jest,
clandestine toothbrushes are overrated
and every first false lie is the only truth.

Funny how we woke up in the morning
and pretended that tomorrow never happened—
strutted naked in mirrors celebrating our youth,
laughing, knowing suns and moons couldn’t do the same.

We borrowed our arms from the fridge
and peddled bicycles with bad breath—
trading war stories ‘cause we knew
if we came back alive
life would still be the death of us.

(for a.)*

mapped wishes
handed over,
blown into the wind

a path of gold
in dawning roads

sanguine brilliance,
pearled frailty

fallen

flattened
crackling

a tracery
of bones or hands

reaching out
for the ******
of a beginning

songs come via friends,
the books we read,
the place we breathe,
songs of the fading,of life

the words hit our hearts,
and sink in to stay, to pledge
another stage set,
small life

driving the land, the songs,
carry us along, to our place,
the constant places,
we think don’t change,


the song of love, spinning,
dizzying, head and mind,
words of the books,
black and white

so the falling days,
end today, winter waits,
and the songs, and words,
tunes are all to warm us,
and hold us safe

sbm