Fires burn pink gray sky.
Dusk pulls night's blanket out west.
Her death is Golden.

we escaped
the ravenous crowds of the beach
the secrets seagulls screech
that discussed the implausibility
of you leaving with me
you walked
with the sound of the coast
the deep ancient sea
clearing its throat
to call you home
furthering the distance
from me
to you.

If I asked you
would you let me
affix you to chains?

And if I pleaded
would you take my heaviness
overboard with you?

Would you be the anchor
that ties the vessel
to the ocean bed?

The voice that
quietly lays down the word:
"sleep,"
to my ears?

When the gray sea of life
lurches to and fro
with its infinite unrest

with every droplet quivering here,
and despite my years abroad
I still cant decipher
all of its erratic movements

Oh, Al-Mateen,
Will you hold me still?
Because I think I like it motionless

we are dinosaurs.

me and my friends:
are chalky ***** figures.

spine-braced--
in a claymation display.

you will never truly
know us.

we are:
not
living.

we are:
the insides
of buildings.

we are:
a main exhibit

watch:
the stutter
of movements.

cold,
lucid,
lizards.

every shroud
thrown on

only invokes
the wrath
of the architecht

after all
what is a body
but a bag of bones
wagered to
break
or tossed on turtle shells
to predict
great things.

"Because you have done this,
cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures;
upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."* Genesis 3:14-15

oh my dear eve
to be young and stupid with you
to be stillborn naked into a cold world
mouth full of rotten fruit
the taste of broken promises and half-truths
what I wouldn’t give to sleep naive
next to you and under a tree
to see God and myself hidden shyly behind fig leafs
to name animals and constellations
to experience lust and love
all at once
and without a whimper, concede to those foolish temptations
but you speak softly to brother snake
and every morning before I wake up
you slither away
it must be that fiend, that belly-down devil
who took you from me
oh, if only i or God were so convincing
but politely wincing,
a gentleman retreating
i press knowledge to my lips
and follow you, head down
out of heaven
And into a neverending
eternal
Hell.

sheep do not exit gracefully
no, the shepard
no, the dogs
must bring them in
yes, the crook
yes, the growl
must turn their necks
toward pastures
toward homes
much greener than
the barren deserts
they have wandered in.

for some reason,
i’m infatuated with libraries.
so many thoughts, so many voices, so many dreams.
all collecting dust

in one
quiet
place.

Freedom is
a fly caught by the fish
that sits
on the tongue,
to ponder thoughts
to dark for digestion.

Repulsed,
as the silvery mouth opens up
and in that single moment
i think
the fly is
lost.

A hundred eyes
unveil the cloudy parched sky
that reflects off the surface

and reveals only the illusion of space
trapped in a ripple
like the image of a face
looking down upon the wavering nights
thinking about the freedom
found in the mouth
of a fish.

A poem
is like my breath
on a windowpane,
a condensation of my soul,
developing only to dissipate,
leaving dusty ancient clues.
Fingerprints of my true name
point back at me.

you always come home with this armor
like your hiding this great big jug of happiness in there.
is this image of her a one sided mirror?
or her bed time clothings reflection?
cutting out the curves, leaving only the armor

and these shaking words
'explain yourself! your eyes
are dull they must
glimmer for someone else!'

you are a shell within a shell
a self-sufficient snail
judging by the oxygen packs
strapped on your back
you're too good for this pollution
turning her lungs a midnight black

and you wear it well
a chest with no heartbeats
only clicks and beeps
absent minded
messages home
to the mothership

but she can see through you,
'just be gone like a demon
back to Nibiru.
circle the sun. your path
now altered in degrees.
but from your caustic debris,
your persisting memory,
still orbits me as a moon,
making me drunk and dizzy.
so still i must insist you leave me.'

and so you do
with your jug of happiness
successfully guarded
still intact
you are a fortress
a dam holding back
the ravenous waters
you cant share
with the indigenous people
here
your head floating
up in the
atmosphere
an unfamilar creature
safe inside the walls
of your space suit armor.

Insects mimic man,
swarming the street lamps warm glow.
Only G-d knows why.

Every night you can paint me the fool:
with wide white smiles,
under a punctuated brow.

I can feign happiness,
without expression.

My face burning red
like this ball nose still.

What would be said of an actor
and his stage,
without a performance?

The show persists itself,
and thusly must keep going on.

Line, after practiced line.
Tangled in a web.
With spiders closing in.

And their laughter approaches as a storm:
teaching me humility, in all of its forms.

Flushed egg white dripping down my face,
as the ink, shameful, sinks into permanence.

The spot light flickers,
as the dust, suspended, sinks like a swift snow.

I should of known, fame

like love

doesn’t last forever.

I think you revel in my fear
I think you bathe in it
Like you were Elizabeth
And it was blood
And by some ******* of logic
It kept you young

I think you want me
Like a fish in a bowl
Swimming circles
In the space you rent to me
I am the tenant of your uncertainty
Forever taxed, and begging for the scraps
You’d leave

I think you smile
When I fall for your snares
With lustful eyes that raises both suspicion
And hairs
As I gnaw my leg, through bone and vanity
To run away, to be free

As you yell from behind,
“you’ll be mine for eternity
I am the entrance and the exit
You will see, oh, you will see”

I think every word you’d speak
Was just to show the point
of your teeth
and tongue
still sharp enough
to puncture my bagpipe lungs

mournfully humming along
“let me be, oh, let me be”

My skull cracks open at the eye lids,
as the light pools across the morning.

And Heaven is not peaceful, but spiraled, turbalent:
as ivory continents drift, aimlessly, about the hollow firmament.

They foam and twist, and I ask again,
for uneven patience.

My shoulder blades bend, I cannot pray, so I ask again:
for seven severed seraphs wings,

each outstretched against the dawns edges folding in.
My cracked hands hold equal parts water and oxygen,

though I'm still unsure which is the more transparent,
each is fleeting, and will not be cupped,

and will not be pressed, drawn into, dry desert lips.
I shall not pray, so I ask again:

for pale landscapes to be first outlined, then colored in.
The light and the distance,

the unaswered question,
the curious reply of morning,

as all the world bleeds out from my eye lids.

did you come to be alone?
when you first came to my room? i no longer see you
as something relative in
space, but more the opposite.

time snakes your trailing coordinates and occupied
places. you are fleeting.

you are
gone. all i see are
the empty spaces,

eyes in love with the wall who
wove wounds
into
itself: to silhouette you.

but you go on, peggy, you insist much like the rest
of them
to make me wish
with a most wishful
wit we have
all had the good fortune to witness.

but how can i shoo you away?

your beauty perches and whines into the night
beating my window
as she stalks the walls beside my bed,
perching, but also,
purring.

&above; all things, peggy
learn to live,
patiently.

because you cant

leave,
i have not washed that sheet;

⁢ still holds you
i know you wrap it around
you like you
wish it were a
woeful
and warm
me.

these are things i know.
but did you come here to be alone?

its cold out here
and me on the other side of space
opposite of a *******
exploding star
what was i to do?
but not say a thing
and take in all the bitter temperatures.

peggy shannon,
wont you share the covers?

i would like to stand beside kathryn burke.
well
only if You
can promise
it wouldn't hurt.

a promise: is a
promise: and You
promised: You would.

i would just be happy
if she would sit beside me
on a park bench
under a sky
as absent, as dark
as the black lace that chased
her skin

and even if You were
really dead and gone,
(or so says Nietzsche,
a fact i still find hard to believe)
even then,
i wouldn't mind.
as long as that rib
was returned to my side.

then i wouldnt be so half-
empty.
so inside:
out.

then maybe the mirror
would bare an image to me.

boy, i'd finally be living!

who would of thought
a sorry lot
like me
would be
a **** worth giving?

surely
none of the Lords
that are still
living?

but a promise: is a
promise:
and she always

promises.

like those pretty eyes of hers
i couldn't keep

in pockets full of posies

kathryn burke?

does it hurt?

to stand, to sit, to lay
beside me?

the maryland girls
sit with half eaten smiles
speak sideways
half truths
casting lines out into the Chesapeake
where men jump
at shiny elusive things
hook in lip
blood in mouth
worms writhing on their tongues
pulled to shore
uncomfortable
choking on oxygen
pretty eyes eclipsing sun
measuring by skeptical scales
a good heart for loving
strong lungs for screaming her name
soft hands to chase her hair from her face
hook from mouth
worm swimming down throat
pulled to feet
she kissed me
[swallowed it]
pressed for just a few seconds
[but shes still kissing me to this very day]
she whispers to go
but i so desperately want to stay
fish out of sea
she'll agree that i taste nice
but through seemingly faked sorrow
she'll admit she has lost her appetite
knife in chest
gutted head to toe
tossed back into
the frozen mouth of the Chesepeake
and i will be swallowed
we'll all be
and when i come floating down to Baltimore
They wont find much of me
like the Tomb i will be found empty
but since there are no places in heaven for fish
i simply will cease to exist

maryland girls
sit with half eaten smiles
waiting to devour
dreaming to digest
stupid
floundering
gullible
fish.

we are ascending,
like birds who pray.

losing cabin
pressure,

when pressed,
against the floor.

dropping oxygen masks,
from the ceiling.

ripping off buttons
from the doors.

regulated
breathing.

my stomach,
turbulent.

from either
gravity or grace,

clouds of blue,
and skies of grey.

falling, falling,
always ******* falling:

though i’m still not sure
what this means to me.

We found our way in-
to gutters, in search of food.
Their scraps are our meals.

Daily,
Anna Tole
rides by me.

sitting up straight;
pedaling awkwardly.

she looks down:
maybe at the dirt
or a stone,

but it’s most probably
something i cant see
with glass eyes
alone.

she sees things…

like a seed taking root
or a nest where foxes
chew rocks
in constant costly pursuit
of that elusive sharper tooth

clouded. constant. clarity.

she looks closer
to see grains of sand
much darker
than her pre-disposed
pre-dawn
darkness

the kind
that attaches itself
tangled up behind her

she might as well be
tying soda cans
to tap out a
telegraph message

s.o.s…s.o.s…s.o.s…

The darkest humorist:
makes light my fears,
so that this floating ship
will not sink
some 20,000 leagues
under it's panicked weight,
pointing to six exits,
laughing, she straps me to a chair
and tells me,
"The place we are all going--
soon, we'll be there."

the world;
and my bed.

which
is the refuge?

and which
is the storm?

when
long time friends:

are inward
projections;

are simply further proof
of myself;

are shadowy
conjugal visits:

holding hands
with their phantom limbs.

every day,
dissolved and disillusioned,

nails rake
dirt

and it
doesnt feel real

i'm
poking holes.

into

shrouds! fogs!
lights! atoms!

I sit beside you,
and your beauty is terrorful;
like frost on a window pane,
it keeps me still,
like the bouncing of the plane
that reminds me i'm falling
through a cloudy world
that hides flying dangers like you,
and though without the brave voice of the captain,
silently, i say to you,
"You are beautiful."

Lately when it rains-
Your articles on the floor.
The whining pacing dog,
relieves himself, what can't be stomached.
No, I don't think he likes your work.

I imagine myself
anxious and digested
in the belly of a 747,
constantly falling.

But outside this hollow cabin,
in the clouds, hidden:
i see the love of a great child
whose hand holds me up
as he runs the course of his backyard.

Come now:
as the night inhales,
and while the guards rest.

Wearing shadows
like loosely fitting robes.
May each footfall press
lightly, like a thousand soft kisses
across a long sleeping body.

Come now,
hold my hand
when the world, for once, is silent:
Al-Khafid, take this city.

you do not know art, like i know Art.
though you paraded your passings in public
it was i who, Art, trusted with his secrets
it was my window, that Art, tapped when the arguing began
yes, you may have enjoyed a dinner or engaged in conversation with him
but he never trusted you with paintings of the english language
or pictures worth a thousand songs
you didnt get 6 stitches, with Art, when you tried to climb the tallest tree
to reach out and touch heaven but still fear the fall
you didnt find Art trembling in a bathroom from what he saw
that day. You didnt find Art in broad daylight dancing
to some invisible meter, some transparent beat
you didnt see the patterns left in the steps of his feet
and while you may have gone to the cinema with Art
it was i he forwarded the scripts
to reenact a lifetime of moments
because we, Art and i, wanted a silver lining
something vague, something inspiring
to keep this momentum going
and while you claim to know this being, Art
you have not participated in a drunken brawl
with Art, involving a few rotten Connecticut men
and things not in our control
you haven't discussed eternity and death
with Art, or any of his close friends
and though, i'm sure you may have wish you did
you do not know art, like i do.