Take me back to the
Ashtray, in which we burned
Incense, in the front
Of my truck

Flick your ash out the
Window. Keep an eye out for
Anyone working harder than we
Believe they should. Or danger.

Read me a story. Tell me
How he’s not what you thought.
Diffuse the red dye of your
Stained words through the air.
Breathe deep. Hold for ten.

Delete the stanzas, re-read,
Test foundation under shaky limbs.
Burn your bra, don’t turn around.
Forget.

Become the bare-footed rockstar in
His maharishi mansion.
Hating hate, with vivacious volition.
Crusade against indifference.

Retire to your riches. 
Numb out everything they’ve already said.
And have foresight, of what they haven’t.
Novus Ordo Seclorum.
Defeat the mundane.

Return to your home world. 
Return to the truck. 
Light the **** incense.
Don’t ash on the rug.

Gray waves of glowing
Boredom wash over your 
Pre-glossed eyes.

Dance, clouds!
These will serve as your instructions.
She will serve as your guide.

Hold on, for dear life. 
Sometimes the inconsequentiality,
Can send you through the shield.
Novus ordinary Seclorom

You never sing to her softly
Letting your voice carry more
Than the lyrics
I'm not saying I do
I'm not saying I'm any more deserving
Because truthfully, I'm not.

You don't look out at the waves and
Wonder why those work,
But peace won't
And the pieces of your heart
Don't wane as she walks by.

You seldom shut people out, or
Smoke yourself to sleep, since the
Haze is perfect for
Hiding your inhibitions.

And I'll never be drunk enough to
Tell her I love her.
Silver-eyed stories that
Send her on trips of 
Simple joys
And me, on
Walks into abysses
Which speak louder than her words.

Breaking bottles in the streets
Shaking off the beat of the
Buttons of the wrists 
Of the shirt you were wearing as it
Struck the wood of the guitar
And lighting up once more
Even though I know I shouldn't,
And you never would

Brown paper battle scars
Listening to the rustle of the
Running shoes against the 
Grain of the stories I'd been told and the
Lessons I was supposed to learn
But you told me not to

If I were to send you off
Into space with the aspirations of my ancestors, 
My predecessors
My most appreciated poems,
Would you celebrate with me?
Would you dance?
Like your best friend's parents
Have left for the weekend
And summer vacation started
Yesterday?

I'd hope you would.
Because you never used to.
And it kills me that I inhabit the same housing as you, 
When I want to be nothing like you
Eviction would be a drug for me
Letting go would be a killing
But like the records in which I
Invest my time
You just keep spinning and
Spinning and
Spinning and
The only way to stop you is to
Acknowledge that you'll never.

I want this to be about you, 
But it's not

It resides in the hours
That I spent wide awake
When I couldn't sleep so I smoked
And I couldn't dream so I wrote
What I hoped I'd see

For the metaphors 
I couldn't keep churning out
So I smoked some more
And I spurted out
Lines about lines

For the driver on the dented highway
With the window cracked
To feel the chills of the air blowing past
Listening to Bob Dylan tell her
The person she was supposed to be but
Never was
And never will

I want this to tell you how I feel,
But it won't

And if she drives far enough she'll reach that
Looming exit
The one she knows she must take
Back to the life she's sick of living
But fights through the pain
For the same reasons that I
Fight through, because
I want to meet a pretty girl
With great vocabulary,
And a smile like Rita Heyworth

I'm still looking for that girl
To drive me across that highway
And recycle old Dylan lines
As if they were personal dictums
She had synthesized herself
And we can freewheel this road together

See I'll never be that great poet that
Three hundred and twenty-nine thousand people
Have watched on the Internet
And that is a comfort

Because the truth resists simplicity
And in my heart of hearts I am a simple man
And telling the truth through words in meter
Or in stanzas
Will never come as naturally to me
As it does to Dylan
But in my acceptance of my ignorance
I become more powerful
Than I'd ever need to be 
Poetic.

So if writing is always my hobby
And never my workhorse
If I can self-satisfy through 
Strict stanzas that I will
Seldom share
If it is only to a girl 
Driving on a highway
Singing songs about formerly-modern America that I
Recite these rehearsed thoughts of mine
Than I will have succeeded

Because my career will have been love
And maybe I can write this 
About you.
And then, and only then, it will be.

The senses, being irrelevant
And often misleading,
Have led me to answering questions,
You've never bothered asking

When "when" is not a timeframe
So much, as it is a 
Time of day, be it
Morning over coffee,
Or a digital dessert, I can't be
Made to let go of the
Gasps I grab for, upon your entrance
Or exit, breath becomes trivial.

You steal jealousy from
My eyes, and quite a jealous
Man can I be. Those same portals
You fill up every day with
Smoke and sensationalism, through which
Stolen intentions, kept quiet,
Are made mutineers
Against their vigilant captains. 

The how came from surrender. 
Realizing you turn me against 
Myself. And as the world falls
Down around me I can't
Get that awful sound of my
Own hypocrisy, crashing down, out
From the canals they've found to call home. 

Below broken-hearted-bowls,
And lying over the phone, and a
Cancerous presence on the
Stage of Socialites, you still look
Perfect with a cigarette in your lips.

I've used "portals" before.
To mean eyes.
And cigarettes before.
To mean freedom. 
But you just smoke them... Don't you...?

There are those who marvel
At the size of her, before taking in
The expansive beauty the moon can speak. 
Some are willing to court her,
Others rip the hoop skirt off,
And **** her 'til she bleeds. 

Oddly, no one is ever jealous,
Of the time others spend with her. 
She's taken for granted, as
The passed-around property
Of the Uncultured Below. 
But that's not why I'm sorry...

Or don't you wonder...
Don't you ever wonder?
Who went wrong?
What's correctly missing?

It is in how I love,
The ways not withstanding,
And reason, remaining remiss,
That I ask you to forgive me. 
You are who you are
Because I love you. 
And I am who I am,
Because you are.

His middle parts were
Passing through the couch that I was
Sitting on, but his
Face felt nice and fuzzy.
And it was way too
Way too loud.

Ocean water, creeping
Up the black-sanded beach
On the island where 
He drank his ***.
And he's telling lies to any
Crustaceans brave enough to
Traverse his thinning limbs.

Yet, reflecting neatly 
Off the ebony, and decisively
Catching his eye, is the light of her
Tiara, embracing her
Maneless neck.
In walks Nala, and the tide,
His tide, recedes.
The island becomes
Her savannah.

I watch him smile, and 
Close his eyes, and
Soak the moment in. 
Her claws extended, sharp,
Etching proof of her
Arrival into the eager,
Earthy floor.

Owning the steps she takes,

I shudder and attempt to stand.

But stop, as she paws his wrist,

Gripping it tighter,

Scarring him with 

Pointed, filed nails. 
Making him 

Bleed, and making 

Him beam.

Pride is just a 
Noun when there is
Hemorrhaging to handle.
Pressure must be
Applied on all sides of the 
Wound, in order to prevent
Infection, and infatuation.

But I guess when a 
Beast of beauty, makes a black
Sea walkable for you, 
You're liable to get caught up
Staring at the jewels
She's ripped out of her crown, and 
Sewn into her hair. She'll make you 
Hiss back at the sun, and
Talk about wild life.

The Queen, snowed-in, stopped for
Cigarettes and milk
Then drove another hundred. 
The Governor told her not to. 
I suppose I did too.

But it's two weeks later and 
I'll be ****** if we've heard
From her. 
Passionate about black lines,
And smaller yellow ones,
Metal arches, sweating salt
Since stained rain came,
And big green signs,
With numbered shields. 

She said, before she left, that she felt,
"Like a consequence.
Something that is constantly flaunting
How severe it is. 
A recourse, to a long-forgotten mistake,
That just learns to be dealt with."

Traversing the wasteland of white
Can teach you a thing, or 
Three. Like how you're not ready
To move upwards, if the
Phantom's shovel keeps filling
In your igloo. 

Every time she left,
I wrote myself down. 
Stories about how, when, and who
Should-Be-Growing,
And the day she lost Heyworth's smile.
I changed her name.
Poetic license, and whatnot.

It doesn't take long to 
Realize, picture or
No picture, they'll all
Still say their 1,000 words.
They earned them, when they
Caught you with the flash,
In-between dreamings. 

I don't need to hear from her.
I know what she'll say. 
A scathing remark about my advice,
A bite-back.
"Lay off the smokes. The Greyness may not claim us, 
Flagstaff, but sure as hell, has it made me paler."

You weren’t worth the
Hundred dollars it cost to
Keep you in my car. 
Princess got poached by the
League of Losers with Pedestrian Ideals.

I’d spit venom in your direction, if 
Poison meant anything to you. But
Akin to most things, so sub-human,
You miss the world moving around your
Ever pulsating veins, and repel these
Toxins with a slip of the tongue.

Around you I could line
Bodies of those you’d loved and left.
Each clasping hands with one another,
Privy to a specific type of pain, only you can
Deal out. And

In the center of the circle you’d
Stare, stunned by your state of
Affairs, and flings. Collectively concerned
For the safety of your
Rotting consciousness.

One by one, I could set these men
On fire, and hand you a place 
Where your head could be danced off.
Drunken and diving heart-first into
The burning lake of a 
Surfable crowd. Since that’s
All we are, serfs.

I hope the fire gets too close to your
Gorgeous face. I hope the
Love you receive is no more likable
Than a few more licks from the flames.
The scars couldn’t sideline you.
No one can stop ****.