"It's only a poem,
Dont read so much into it."
      
             Dedpoet

poetry lets go
what
the body
can no
longer hold.

i.

night pours water
from a jug,

the earth is softened by
the tears of the rain.

ii.

i dream, the dark
unravels its flowers,

ghosts whistle and hum.

iii.

we pocketed stars and honey
moons, unwrapped summer seas
our love more tender than dream,
our love the night’s caverns
of black inks, timeless and
filled with dark golds.  

iv.

you wrap your legs
around mine and we sink forever,
sink like the sway of a tide
emboldened with love.

Randy was a roach
Of the american cockroach variety
He was a deep brown and had a sickly shine
To his wings and antennae
And he studied both of us
From a perch in our suitcase
In my girlfriend's East Harlem apartment
In the early hours of a sunday morning

"**** it! Get it out of the suitcase!"
My girlfriend yelled
Flailing her arms
As Randy reclined on our valuables
His antennae twitching

As in most crisis
I hesitated
And Randy burrowed into the suitcase
Past the underwear, collard shirts, and sunscreen

I dug in a frenzy
Rending my girlfriend's meticulous packing plan
And scattering clothes about
All in the name of meaningless destruction

But I couldn't find Randy
"He's probably in the collar of one of your shirts, or in a pair of my shoes"
My girlfriend speculated
And I started shaking the clothes wildly about the room
Wanting more than anything to extinguish Randy's life
To sterilize our newfound stowaways presence
But I never found him
And Randy boarded the plane with us to ***** Cana

While our plane painted dizzying contrails over the ocean
We speculated about Randy's
Most likely devious activities
"I bet he's eating the granola bars under my bikinis"
"I bet there is more than one in there"
"Maybe he's dead?"
"I bet he's laying eggs"
We both pondered over the fact that Randy could be Rhonda
And that we would open the suitcase to a scattering of near microscopic progeny
And we clutched each other in the cold, recycled air of the cabin

When we got to the room
Past all the tin shacks and open air bars
Where the locals sat in plastic lawn chairs
Staring at the tourist shuttles
That carted pale skin behind tinted windows
To decadently decorated rooms where the towels were folded into swans
We opened the bag to see if Randy
Had surfaced, died, or multiplied

But Randy was no where to be seen , a phantom
We unpacked everything under the utmost scrutiny
Not trusting any of the items we had packed so lovingly and repacked
Shaking cover ups and tee shirts like the wind shakes the leaves in autumn
But he never presented himself
And we saw none of his foul brood
We even unzipped the lining
But Randy had simply vanished
Evaporating into the humid, tropical air

I like to think that Randy is somewhere on the island still
That he has impregnated or has been impregnated
That he spends his days under the intense sun
And cottony wisps of clouds
Sipping Presidente
Sitting under an umbrella made of dried palm fronds
Happy to be away from the honking horns and crowded subways
Just like we were

I swung on the pole, around my reflections
of should I just jump off.
Or should I wonder in thought as I swung
like a hang man on his last breaths?

Shouting at me to jump,  descend, goaded
to take another round trip on this pole
of which so many hands had grasped.
I was having the last moments of my life.

I had the song "Singing In The Rain, replaying
in jest  on my subconscious. Picking a tune for
me too replay this effort for one more swing
on this pole of regrets, as I danced one more time.

Jump or not? the perplexing question on the edge
of my footing, it started to rain and that song
repeated on my mind. Should I give it one more
Try. *"Then my footing went and I fell but which way?

'Do you like me? Or no?'

Shut up.

You are igniting these forgotten feelings.

Shut up.

You make me feel like it's fourth of July.

Shut up.

It's not Valentine's Day.

.... and most especially April Fools.

Shut up.

You are making me forget who I am.

If you can conquer your anger,abandon your ego,have a positive mindset,a determined attitude,loads of patience and the ability to laugh at yourself then you can virtually get through any problem that life throws at you.

Many moons had eclipsed on this
awaiting beryl infused opening
that had not received a palm
of welcoming in ages past.

The interior  had rained its petals
of fossilized memories within this
once warming place, and static they
stayed barring all  as silence breathed.

Exterior loosening's had now eroded
like stale teeth never in motion they
hung there awaiting for there time
descend and the door still stands silently.

follow the yellow brick road...*

The terrible freedom unleashed by typewriters.
Condition of complexity judged without criteria.
Radical provocations. Urinals and prams. Contingent.
Anarchist aesthetic. Not truth nor beauty but freedom.
Materiality of language. Multi-hued wheel barrows.
A cuttlefish. A crate. A cassowary. A cigarette. A ******.
Paratactic order. Particular phrasing. Pulsing pastiche.
An infinite conversation without resolution
as with the stupid friend who won’t shut up. Ever.
A transcendent dialectic based solely on proximity.
Ineluctable modality of the near. Only that. Buck it.
An unquiet ghost endlessly self-questioning. No answers.
Moaning in the meaning. A simple stuttering. Sibilant.
Turbulent and unpredictable as waddling wolverines.
Words that only mean whatever is seen. Juxtaposition.
Dissolving into desired dissonance. The magic chord.
Absolute verity in the experience of the fraudulent
for the same reason as the ubiquity of toothpaste.
     The poem as its own universe, complete and whole,
     fodder for the mind, not balm for the soul.