I could not talk him down, or
listen him up,  though that is
what I was trained to do, tried to do  
he gazed only at the street,
his final resting place, where  
he would soon be
a crushed crimson spectacle
for greedy and empty eyes  
whose mouths would tell
of his demise, but none
even knew his name,
I learned it was Everett, and  
that he had three daughters
lost in suburbia, eons from this ledge
where he stood, and talked to a stranger  
who was stranger than he  
for I looked to the skies
above the humming city, as if
they would be my salvation  
an airy home to spread wings
with angels, and glide endlessly
through blue heavens, but Everett knew  
there were no winged saviors awaiting him  
to grab him before his lonely leap
only the unmovable slab of concrete below
the craned necks of other flatlanders  
who would watch his final descent
and not realize his brief eternal fall
through the invisible place between two worlds  
would be the closest any would ever be  
to freedom

they acted as if I was not there  
alone with my elbows on Formica, only six feet from their booth    
she said she wished his mother was not moving to town  
“I wish she had not outlived Dad” he said,
his eyes looking through the window  
like he expected to see her appear  
or perhaps, through the old glass, he saw his father
stretched out in a dark pressed suit, silent, supine  
while his mother sat tall in the first pew  
feigning agony for the loss
of something she never found  
her face hidden in her hands
while the priest prayed, and
spoke of the man he did not know,
one who had only come to his church  
after time had silenced his days  
and the embalming fluid filled his veins  
but mother wanted the mass  
mother wanted a glistening casket
a shining home he would not even see  
“Dad did not believe”  
“I know” she said,
stroking his hand that held an indifferent cup
from which he had not drunk a drop  
“I know, but it was for the family”  
“*******, we are the family” he said,
pulling away, sitting upright in his own pew  
again looking through the glass  
I knew, he must have been back
with his father, when they sat
together for the feast,
or that moment in time when his father  
released his grip from the bicycle
for the first and final time
setting him free to spin down the roads
his father knew too well, perhaps
even the one that ended in this café  
where on a mournful Monday  
he and his wife would lament loss
over unbroken bread, and let a stranger
hear their tormented tale

The villains like you, the souls that crave to take the world for themselves
more often than not are more pure and honest than the **** living off
the scrapes of their god's good green earth

because we the people hold many kinds of strange, veiled monsters in the bright sun that
shatters our land; you say you're bursting with demons but my world is even fuller.

In the light of your eyes i can see nothing more than a boy afraid and placid in his heart,
and thunderous, driven by a hatred so grand, so glorious that not even
the roads of hell could dare ensnare in its engulfing flames.

You are not as evil as they say, BECAUSE THEY LIED to you and me,
they slandered the tale of your people, of their malicious minds (and
I just can't bear the thought of you laying alone anymore,

the tears sting and the shine cuts unusually deep but not all the way through)
and they keep lying when we ask why the jade knight was cast away,
why the peace truly reigns, and why we must obey to the unfit beasts that threaten our dying solace.

everything's funny
everything hurts
and it will all be gone
in the morning

thumb frozen, ears red in the cold heat  
Interstate-25 apocalyptically empty, windless and mute
my northbound shoes the only sound
on the dull dawn’s ashen, soundless stage  
what other survivor of a sleepless rocky mountain night
would I encounter?  when would I see another face?  

the cars came with the sun as it struggled to make
white progress in a gray sky  
they passed me, again and again
like I was not there, or
little more than a faded billboard
they chose not to read  

when her brake lights came on,
a half mile down the road, I ran towards her
wondering if I had been an afterthought
a simple ambiguity
her black Porsche 911 backed up to meet me  
a turquoise covered hand opened the door
extended itself to me in the warm sea of air
in her tiny cabin, “Hi, I’m Myra”
“Denver?” I asked
“No, just the Springs, but we’ll see what he can do”  
and Myra and I flew by the cars that had passed me  
I gave each a haughty stare, those slower vessels
that had left me there, to freeze on a Colorado plain  

“Escaping” from Taos she said, from a bar
on Canyon Road, where “he” had turned on her,
spilled their sacred secrets like beer on the tavern floor  
she made her exit when he was in the john,
******* or puking, she knew not which,  now,
at 90 miles per hour with a stranger half her age  
she was spilling her own secrets into my eager ears
her black mini skirt, red skin tight sweater spoke to me  
as much as her words--she was there for the taking  
precious flesh ready for greedy consumption
her stone heavy hand touched my leg, punctuating her story  
with breathy exclamation points, plaintive question marks
and prescient pregnant  pauses, I wondered
where she would take me or if she would take me  
“Denver?” she asked, “Mind a little detour?”
it didn’t matter where, thumb time
is measured in miles, not minutes,
and Denver was as cold as the road
from which she plucked me    

her house was a wall of glass,
with Pikes Peak framed perfectly
by her bedroom window, and when  
we finally swam smoothly on the waves of her waterbed  
she cried out that all was beautiful again
now that she was home, in the shadow of her mountain
in the arms of a stranger, whose seed rolled down her leg
as she moved farther from the Taos tavern and
whatever truth she could not face  

I wanted more of her, but the intoxication of strangers
lasts only minutes longer than full blooded wine  
she called me a cab, and in a black silk robe
glided me to the door, where she laid $100 in my hand
“The plane is warm and the airfare is only $39”
I tried to kiss her one final time
when the taxi stopped at her steep drive,
but she buried her face in my chest,
“No more, he will be here soon”  

the midmorning sun now burned the sky blue  
the cabbie slapped his meter on
and I was back to measuring minutes and miles  
I looked back for as long as I could  
and saw the perfect reflection of her mountain
in all that shining glass, her black silhouette
only a curious slice in the reflected portrait
of the beautiful fleeting morn

boys always try to tell me
"red, you don't know how to say
i love you"
and that i don't know
how to express it...
that i don't know
how to get it out
that i'm like a rock
they have to chisel
or a small child
they have to bribe
with sweet words
and
treats.
they always tell me
i am so
difficult.

but maybe
i am difficult
because i actually don't
love you
maybe i am a rock
that cannot be chiseled
because you simply don't know how
maybe
i would come to you
and let you hold me
if you weren't so
frightening...

...maybe a lot of things would happen
if i actually
did
love you.

these boys think
we are in love
and that one-way streets
don't exist
but they will discover otherwise
when they go down one
long enough

I

We sit on a tailgate pointed toward
the hills, where life ripples down the slopes
gathers in pools of the creek and begins again
to climb up the peaks and tree trunks on the
other side. It colors the breaths we take
green.
Children run here, learn their legs, as stalks
graze their shoulders and block their
view. They get dizzy as rows rush by.
We rein in our bovine friends here, watch
them jump and kick, see them call in
spring

II

We walk between rows of highly stacked cement and exhale smog that drifts
upwards to
join the cloud of soot.
We walk among so many abrasive shoulders. We get
hung up on abrasive personalities.
A gray wave in a black sea we’re vapidly
drifting. Legs move quickly to stay afloat.
swimming. Swimming always. Swimming further.

III

We sit for pictures with clogged eyes and stuffed chests
We coo at portraits of masks and dummies
We write books for laughs and money and friends
We read a little to find the romance and sorrow
and lay cold on the slab while our own pages turn.

IV

We pass out of porcelain faces with their tightly
drawn eyes that cast gazes over shoulders, homes
of last night’s kisses. We pass out of the electrical
current of youth
numbed and still alive
with eyes that look like stained glass windows of the
Church of Holy Suffering.


V

We wait for Sunday night to turn the dial to the Blues. We keep throwing something for an animal to pick up and return.  We string beads and sell them for redemption.

VI

We think of our friends. They’re draped in a future,
warmed with hot blood rushing through their veins,
slamming fists to tables, pronouncing their minds.
ripping off dresses, sharing their madness.
tossing paint to canvas, showing their hearts.
asking questions to startle, proving their love.

VII

We think of our parents.
dead and gone, dead to us, dead by self-proclamation -
Is their blood cold and still in their withered veins?
Have they their fill of slamming fists and ripped dresses and tossed paint and startling questions?

VIII

We are sad.