You trace the
stretch marks on my hips
with your fingertips
silently challenging me with your eyes to
keep still.
I have not the concentration or the will,
and my fingers
find their way into your hair,
pulling you closer
and closer to me.

Until

the only distance between us
is the invisible ocean dividing
our souls from one another,
A distance that cannot be crossed by a simple
mingling of breaths.

And yet, we persist in these attempts,
too stubborn to admit that we are both
beginning to tire of swimming.

I'm awake.

But I would rather be in bed.

Wrapped in blankets,
                  restlessly dancing,
                  to the symphony
                  of your breathing.

what I really wanted had little to do with
cupcakes

and everything to do with the way
your eyes followed my
lips & tongue
as I pulled the first taste of icing

into a mouth that has been
ready to tell you "yes"
since before you formed
the question.

"I want to push you so far away
that the look in your eyes
no longer causes me to question
your love
         and yet
I want to hold you
            to me
tightly,
fiercely,
until we are both somehow lost
in the way that you make me feel."
                                                          ­     she says to me.

firm fingertips tracing the curve of my stomach.
soft lips kissing the swell of my hips.

(I say nothing.)

Memory log activation start-up:
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100% retrieved


"If I had a family instead of Intel
I would love them.
If my metal headpiece could cry
It would.
I should be at the packaging facility today

That grey place
Through and through
I get lost in it, everyday
It's so vast and all looks the same
But right now, I'm here at this pond

How can other zzyzx stay at work?
I want to show them how pretty this pond is
They should all
Feel this way.
At home.
With at least, themselves
I could be decommissioned and recycled
Even wiped
For saying that -
Let alone being here today.
It's really secret, actually
I think I'm the only, umm...
That knows it's here.

I write poems, here
Critics would hate them because they don't rhyme
I don't force anything here, I guess
But, my 'poems of the pond' make me smile
Well
Figuratively, (my metallic 'face' doesn't have any swivel points for movement)

Someday, I suspect,
Another zzyzx will find its way here
And I'll be here, too
And it'll be really special, like Love
And that's what I want
- Something like love."

End log.

the dog would,
under the ground
earthy fetters shiver
as the wind blows black through
the trees.
far away, in mountain streams
the life force of the planet.
caves where no light has ever reached,
deep in the core of us all.
a dog would,
stand high, tongue lolling,
shrouded in a canopy of forgetfulness
the leaves fall
in time with the deaths of each man.
fear
gunning the engine,
stepping out of the car
to witness a waterfall.
a dog would,
as the seas ebb on
slowly enveloping
us
flowing up into the streets,
completely unaware
sea life teaming.
edging its way into our homes
encroaching.
bearing down.
a dog would,
as ancient men danced
around flames glowing hot
as strange beats howled and gathered about
seeking just outside the the shadows
things
and mysteries
still unknown to us.
old ways, old joys,
forgotten in it all.
a dog would.

sitting here alone
I know I do not want to be
living on my own
with no one here but me
you don't realize what talking
to another living being does
to keep you from walking
over the edge of the world that never was
it's hard to say just what it'd mean
to simply hear someones voice
to wake me out of this starkly quite dream
to fill this room with noise

I used to worry
that they'd send you away
to a life of imprisonment
because they hated you so
for no reasons they could explain
I used to worry
because their tread marks
were in our driveway anytime
they needed someone to try and pin things on
though you were never less than honorable
polite, personable, my genuinely good brother
I never used to worry
that they'd one up my worries
and send you somewhere further away than prison
I never used to worry that the forces
meant to uphold law and justice
to serve and protect
would walk blindly past the line
of no return, to botch their expected standards
while watching you slip away
I never used to worry
that there was an evil force within some people
that could destroy the glue holding our family
together, then again I was so young
so naive, to think that people were instinctively good
that people, having families of their own
would never purposefully tear apart another's
but I don't suppose they ever thought of me
and your kin, or beyond that need to bring you down
I never used to worry that the system would fail
allowing guilty parties to walk free,
to have families of their own; to not even recognize the fault and
to protect the ones who took you away
I used to worry that they'd try to send you
to a life of imprisonment, and in the end
they did send you away,
but it is a place where I cannot visit
and instead it is us, who love you so,
imprisoned in what we call life, where the fences are
the breaths I take, the steps I walk, the beats of my heart
the walls that confine me and separate me from the world
are the memories and lost time, and of only knowing you
through my childhood eyes
and the guards and wardens are the haze which clouds
my thoughts, unable to still hear your voice or see your face
in my mind
and my day of release will only come
when I walk through the gate, past the fences
to the afterlife, where my life will finally begin again.

Give me a man
who will wrap his fingers
around my waist,
treating his life like
a flexible toothpick
to prevent my caving in
towards the stained harmony
of celibacy

and I'll provide the cure for cancer.

Provide me with a man
who will take these
drapes of solitude
hanging upon each shoulder
(all corners weighed down
by the lead of self-ambivalence)
and toss them as if they were
patches of cloudy fabric
waiting to be shooed away
like a mosquito with thoughts

and I will hide you all from
the surgical hands of Fate.

I've already wasted to null
the charm of an Annie Hall.

***** the carnal camaraderie
of the girl next dorm,
and now the last resort is
quid pro quo, world.
Quid pro quo.

he spends his time
rowing through the
rugged, blockaded channels
of my catharsis,
the bitter staccato
of ****** habit.

his love
can be as jagged
as gashes in an
Elvis Costello record
thrown against the wall--
the frayed words of the last love song
Billie Holiday ever uttered.

he is two
exclamation points lit on
fire, kerosene pumping through
tautly wound muscles and
caressing our funny bones with
sandpaper.

he is
dulcit woodwind melodies
and jilted viola strings,
epic poetry and grindhouse theaters,
McQueen gowns and thrift store bargains,
the kiss on the forehead
and the nudge for a *******.

he is a double helix.

he is the beginning
and end of every sentence.

Glacial, the gaze of wintry viridian irides
Silken, the heavenly flesh
Lurid, the flames of a paradise awry
Mourning all the sinister angels have blessed
With their tainted perfection, their hideous lies
Hope shines so thinly in an eonian land barren of all love
Great men become emptied, the tormented cry
Amidst desolation, a beautiful dove
Becomes alive, voicing a longing call
Amongst forgotten pantheons, a saviour resides
Though, broken, gashed, beaten, and threshed
Awakened by beautiful birdsong, driven to reply
Was this an augury? He must strike out to answer this call from above
 To redeem some grace, from the woe of it all

The drugs, oh the drugs, what do they do?

They don't bring me any closer to you.