Here we are again,
in the same places–
kneeled over–
staring down at the
very knife that gutted us.

The blood is gone,
wiped clean from the blade;
shining and clear and gleaming
now like it is brand new
in the dim light.

How many times must we
impale ourselves
before understanding sets in,
before we realize we are
bleeding out again
beside the bed.

the siege begins again
as it has and is and always will
stay inside the castle walls
there's no need for this
we shall build and rebuild
the bastion
these walls shall never fall
after the last
swore they
would never be
breached again
swore none would
come close

but here we are

they surround the palisade
they tempt you with gifts
and batter you with armaments
they fly different flags
and different banners
they carry different faces and
different names
but always the
same catapults
the same battering rams
laying siege with their
sharp tongues
and gilded hands
come to burn
come to plunder
come to take everything away

for days and weeks
the siege continues
tearing at these walls
you worked so hard
to build
and rebuild
but you're tired
you are so tired!
of fighting
of tending to the wall
why not let loose the gates
and allow entrance once more
don't let those thoughts consume you
you can't let them in
they'll burn you down
they'll burn you down
they'll steal you away
and ruin you
you can't let them in
you can't
fall for that 
trojan horse
again

I used to eat dinner with his family.
I would drive over there,
once I had a car, and have a
meal prior to going out. I never enjoy
eating with another set of parents.
Each has their own rituals,
habits, structures around which
they sit down together.
I was an interloper. No one noticed
the awkwardness but me,
perhaps, but in my eyes it was palpable.
His mother didn’t work.
She was a mild-mannered woman
who cared for her children
because she realized that was what
one was to do. She was the
one who would pick us up from
concerts in her Mercedes SUV
and take us home before we could
drive. Or to the movies. She
didn’t mind if it was rated R.
She was a hero for that. His father
was a businessman. I didn’t know him
very well. I shook his
hand when we were older because
men do that. I don’t think he
minded me. His little brother was four
years younger. He was my
savior at dinner because he didn’t
understand the regulations.
The slurp of his spaghetti kept the
tension light. After the accident
I only ate with them once more.
It’s hard to associate with people
when the mutual interest is gone.
Especially with the guilt choking
down any conversation starter
in my throat. I didn’t speak much
that last dinner. I tried very hard
not to spill on my suit. I was the
interloper still. No one noticed the
guilt but me, perhaps, but in
my eyes it was palpable.
The brother didn’t slurp his spaghetti.
The tension choked in my throat
and I think I started crying.
No one spoke.

My father used to call them
stitches in the ground.
He said they were
just like mine,
only bigger.

Big metal tacks of red-iron,
breaking through the brush
on planks of driftwood,
placed methodically
by his grandfather—
a patriarch I will never meet.

Miles of them,
pacing the landscape,
allowing direction for us to walk.
I asked how the ground
cut itself so bad.
He said it was an accident
just like mine,
only bigger.

I imagined an old man
drubbing stretches of metal
between wood and dirt;
green earth-blood stemmed
by scarred, titian hues.

My father used to call them
stitches in the ground.
He said it after I cut my arm open
so I could feel better about it.

My son is in the hospital
with new stitches.
My father is dead—
a patriarch he will never meet.
The tracks sit stolid
and indifferent;
red and brown between the
buried remnants of timber
stifling the undergrowth.

When thinking on everything
It's hard not to understand
Why people hope for
A greater being
Some form of deity
It's hard not
To hope for
An almighty design
After seeing
How humanity has
Killed itself
Hard not to hope

So I've come to an
Agreement
With my simple minded
Spirituality
And decided
That all of existence
Is made by some
Heavenly Author
Creating entertainment
For the almighty masses
A Celestial bestseller
So to speak

All the death
Catastrophe
Love and Hate and Chaos
All of it
In order to keep the
Pages turning

Therefore,
Just as
Mercutio was born to die

Just as
Every aspect of his character
And life
Was molded around the single
Unwavering moment
Of his death
At Tybalt's hand

Just as
He existed to serve his purpose
Between his best friend
And the tip of a blade
So must I serve
And finish a chapter
Of this epic poem

Write on, Shakespeare
I follow your lead

Here I am, drowning within
myself. Ripping my hair out
for weeks, it seems.
Torn between what is right
and what is good. Unsure what
those even mean. Yet here I am;
breaking bones under a cross
I'm not sure I wish to carry.
Breaking down to a place I'm not
sure I want to visit. Fighting a fight
I didn't mean to pick, and losing
a war I never meant to finish. Here I am
in the trenches. Here I am.
Knee deep in a love I never really knew, in a life
I never really wanted. Here I am. Treading water,
waiting for sharks to smell the blood.
Come! Here I am, I have nothing left to lose.
Come, take everything that remains.
I've been ripping my hair out for weeks,
here she comes to the door now, here she comes.
Sharks where are you? I am sinking,
hoping for an easy way out. Don't let me down.
The footsteps only get louder. Don't let me drown.
Here she comes. I am here and here she comes.
No one should have to feel this way about a woman.
The last breath chokes out of
collapsed lungs and
she smiles.

My father always
taught me to
pick my battles,
physical
or otherwise.
To choose
very wisely
what exactly was,
and was not,
worth fighting for.

Years later
I still struggle.
My eyes are black
and swollen
while my father
sits back, laughing
in his sales pitches and
stock options,
bartering cubicles for
candy bars.

"Keep it up, son"
he says,
"keep it up.
You’ll
win one,
eventually.
Keep blowing chances
and closing doors,
don't worry,
you'll grow up
eventually."

Yet I’m still here.
Street cornered with
broken bones
and gutted pride,
late nights spent
throwing fists at
passing shadows.

Back then for awhile,
the fire-escapes were
balconies instead of
warning signs.
We would share a couple of
cigarettes so you could shed the
guilt of smoking them alone.
Cars would yell past at timed intervals,
a welcome reminder that there
is always some place else.

We never touched one another.
It would not have been proper—
though whether it would have
been right is now lost to us.
We stood on the balcony.
Staring over moonlit traffic lines,
spaced a breath apart,
wondering where it all went.
Cigarette ash blew off into the air
and we were old enough to feel
nostalgic for the first time.

Back then, for awhile,
the fire-escapes were
balconies instead of
warning signs.
Convenience store lights
glittering on the road and
the landlord ready to kick
you out—for good, this time.
You were getting married and
said the traffic lights were
giving you mixed signals
to stay, then go, then stay again.
Cigarette ash blew off into the air
and we were in love enough to talk
of maybe’s and might-have-been’s.
The light flickered green and the
traffic sped off to some place else
and we sat sharing cigarettes,
close, but not quite touching.

Look at you
standing there;
fumbling at the clasp
of your bra,
stripping down
to the core,
hoping I see you,
hoping I save you,
as if I'm the
cure for
who you've become.
You plead with me
--breath of a cheap,
distilled liquor--
to let you stay.
You ask me if I
think you're pretty.
Sure, I respond,
sure you're pretty.
Hell I haven't met
many naked women
standing in my
bedroom who aren't.
But I can't save you.
I'm not the one who
will keep you honest.
I'm not the one to kiss
you on the head
and tell you goodnight.
Sure you're pretty, and
sure I'll *******, baby,
but I'm not sure
if I can fix you.

It is the flaw of humankind to feel love.
Once upon a time I didn’t
believe in it. Once upon a time
I was safe from it. Escape has
proven to be difficult, however,
our programming is wire tight.

It is the flaw of humankind to feel love.
Oh, how our arguments screamed
into the coming morning
as I barred you from your own doorway,
incapacitated with an irrational passion.
You rolled your eyes as your
roommate let you in.

It is the flaw of humankind to feel love.
I remember your flaws well.
I could paint them beautiful across canvas
from only details in my mind.
I remember you:
from the freckles dotting your cheeks
to the horse shaped birthmark,
galloping across your inner thigh.

It is the flaw of humankind to feel love.
It is a flaw of my own to have lost it.

under layers of dust
wise men in caves
break bones and bread
slaving at a history
no one ever knew
striving for a salvation
no one ever knows
or perhaps only for peace
left instead cursing
the cold and
the Christ who never came

they look at old San Pedro
outside Gethsemane asleep
dreaming of the God
in the flowers
where he lay
by Christ weeping
dreaming of the God
in a lover's touch
so sweet so gentle
yet gone so far away
they see how he dreams
of the God in the heavens
oh, to hold his hand
oh, to kiss his face
what wonder it must be
while Christ lay weeping
and the pharisees come
forever closer

thirty pieces of silver
bought the Son of God
for a bargain

wise men in caves
perhaps sit silent
now and forever
under layers of dust
no longer cursing
no longer breaking
only sitting
dreaming of God
like Peter in the flowers
like Christ weeping
waiting for a way out
now we all sit silent
staring upwards
searching for answers
in a Christ who never came

There had been a clearing in thick
of the old forest behind our houses
where we nailed pieces of wood,
stolen from neighbors yards,
to a nearby oak tree and climbing
up, up, up, about twenty feet,
to the lowest of the branches,
looked out over the gray roofing
of the houses and could see
the world from our secret perch,
feeling it then but not quite
yet understanding;

it would be better to have
never come down.

Being eaten alive cannot be
that terrible. It was a tempting idea,
as I thought on the vultures
that wait there upon the fence.
As I thought on the beaks
snapping at my ventricles, claws
grasping with taloned ferocity deep
into the pit of my stomach.
It cannot be so bad.
Inside the bar, I sip
on scotch and soda
I was out with a woman;
an older beaut that led me
in magnificent circles
of conversation till
I found myself drunk and
without a word to say. Slightly
later in the evening I
ran into an old flame that
I never wished had gone
out. --Yet as they do,
so did she--
This vulture was stunning
in the lamplight of the
plaza, asking me over a drink
how I came to have this woman out,
in all this time without one.
Boredom was my only answer.
Its tendency to draw me in,
with an excusable neglect to
realize the futility of such sport.
She knew, merely in the look she
gave me. She knew the ***** secret of the
skin that grasps and yearns for that almighty friction.
She knew, for indeed she played the
game well enough. Many men have found
her since me, and many more would
seek her out and find her, until I was
merely a tally on the mark. But she
knew that moment, over scotch and soda,
how bad the vultures had me, she
knew that moment, sitting there upon the fence,
that she led the charge.
She never said a word, finished her drink,
took a dance with a man I'll never know.
The woman I came with stormed home,
enraged over something I'll never know,
and the world danced around me to
a tune of which I'll never know.
Instead, I sat over another scotch and soda
and wondered how
bad it could possibly be
to be eaten alive.

Everywhere I look I see
my old women, moving on.
They are happy in love --perhaps
unhappy-- but nonetheless
without any thought or worry
to the well being of my soul.
I see them in photographs. I see
them in sweet glimpses as we pass
on separate sides of the street.
I see them with their children, and
their loved ones, and their everything
that they once gave to me. I sometimes
envy the lives I have pushed away. Sometimes
I stay late at the typewriter, pushing keys
into the memory of old flames and burnt
bridges. The vultures stare at me,
at what I have become, and their
cackling laughter can be heard
the whole world over. The road
I have chosen is not a
glorious one.
They have won. They have
their money and their love, and
that’s all they ever wanted. I could
not give it to them. I hurt them all
in order to hurt myself-- perhaps
to save myself-- but they are gone
regardless, and I am left in
what is left.
The ***** are quick, the nights
are long, and the love is
missing. But the words are there,
omnipresent, keeping me aligned
with what I’m here to do, and
who I’m here to do it with; myself.
There is no alternative. There is no
happy in love. There is ink and there
is paper.
The road I have chosen
is not a glorious one.

You wake up every morning,
at 6:30, to go to the hospital
where you work with people
who deserve miracles but
sometimes don’t receive them.

I would sit on the steps of the
apartment complex across from
yours and watch as the light
in your bedroom would flicker on
and count the moments until you
emerged from that front door.

What a love is a love like that!

To imagine your movements there
as you fixed your coffee with
a slight amount of sugar,
in order to go about your day.

Oh, how I could smell it, how
I could feel the warmth as you
would smile up, over the mug
and upwards at me.

What a love is a love like that!

Weeks later I sit here.
I am on the same stoop,
looking upwards at your window.
It is almost time for your alarm to
go off. I remember it well.

I stand, turn the corner quickly
before temptation grabs me
and forces me to your door.
My newfound irrelevance has remained
a source of consternation for me.

As I walk home I wonder whether
someone else will walk you to the bus.
Perhaps, you are smiling at that
someone now, over the top of your
slightly sugared coffee.

I open the door to my house.
I can't think of anything else,
only stop and pray that one day
you will perform a miracle
for someone who doesn't
quite deserve it.

They flit like pages or old ghosts
through the dark spaces of your mind,
front to back like a laundry lists of good
memories gilded and soured
both-- by time and retrospect.
They come in little images like behind
the big, blue trash cans on the playground
where Marie kissed you
and you ran away.
The leather seats of
her father's car where McKinley
undressed herself that first time,
belt buckle taut against you hip.

All of them like snapshots
blending upward and forward
toward you until the recent,
fresh and inflamed as if the skin
of some rotten, festered wound.
How you see her here,
sitting there across the
edge of the bed
a million miles away.  
She is salvation if only you can grab her,
but you cannot anymore.
See her in dark hair, tied loosely
back behind her.
See her in anger at the turn of her lip,
sweet flesh-- even as the words sour.
See her in reflections of light
softening her eye against the welling tear
she dares to fall.

Torn-out pages of scripture.
Sad beautiful ghosts that,
if not dead, are far
from here--

And what ought love to do
from a thousand miles
but die.

Your hands were always cold,
even when you were mad–
even when they were
entwined in my oafish hands.
Oh, and how you would get mad!
I remember how those thin, delicate fingers
would tense up,
long and slender as they were,
and you would press the nail
of your index finger into the
side of your thumb.
You didn’t even notice you would do it.
It got to a point that we fought so often
you had cuts from your own nails.
The most beautiful fingers,
graceful and untouched,
except for those little stress-cuts
dug into the side of the thumbs.
And always cold,
even when you were mad–
even when they were
entwined in my oafish hands.

I am sorry we fought.
I always thought
if I could just keep those hands
warm a little longer,
we would make it through alright.
The fighting and the winters
and the coldness of it all
proved a little too much.
For that, I am sorry.
I hope you found yourself a
warmer hand to hold.

An abandoned amusement park,
the ruins of a funhouse,
mirrors cloudy and thick with soot.
Stare at the various reflections:
warped and distorted
to gross effect, like entryways into
equal and opposite pasts.

Do you remember the way
the smiles used to rise up
from the glass and echo
against the translucent light?
Some distant tinny laughter
brings you into daylight:
a chirping bird, a memory,
a rusted bell shaking
against the fog.

there's nothing left
there's no other side
there's no next time
there's only this 20 years
past
and the next 20 years
and hopefully the
next
*******
what have I done
this life burns
in the saddle
I can feel it
but the horse
won't stop
won't turn around
and people say
you're young
you're whole life
is ahead of you
but that horse
won't stop
won't turn around
get me out of the saddle
please
******* please
someone help
I can't do this anymore
get me out of here
you're young
till you're old
till you're dead
and then you're
nothing
but fodder for
the worms
this horse won't
stop
won't turn around
hell he won't even
slow down
he's a stubborn *******
and soon
fodder for the worms
and those flowers
that bloom every
spring
for this 20
and the next
and the next

When the knife is in your
hands, I won't blame you.
When it kisses my throat
as you used to,
I won't blame you.
You with the kind brown eyes,
You with the silk strung hair,
You with the soft smile and
the burning fire in your chest,
I won't blame you.
Instead I will remember;
the touch that faded, but never
truly stopped burning.
The nights that ended, but never
truly left us.
The love that was extinguished, but never
truly burnt away.
There are embers even now,
smoldering in your hand around my neck,
I feel it. But the thin line between love and hate
is one I pushed you across long ago, and that
passion burns anger in your eyes, where once was love.
You gave me everything you had,
and I gave you not enough,
so when that blade comes to take
the rest,
I won't blame you.

Oh darling, I hope
you understand, I only slept
with you because you look
so devastatingly similar to
Ben Affleck, merely
for the fantasy of the
thing. You must understand
this sort of coincidence doesn't
come around all of the time.
I'm so terribly sorry if
I gave you any sort of false pretense.
Oh love, don't give me that look,
it's just I adored him in
Argo. You remember that one?
With all those cute business
men running around trying
to make a movie? Oh but love,
it wasn't a real movie, you see? And there was that Ben
of yours with that beard, Oh darling, you have
his jawline I am sure of it.
Oh sweetheart, it was a delightful film.
We must watch it together sometime, I
promise you won't regret it. Oh, look at the
clock, it is time to be getting on, isn't it? I shall
most defnitely give you a call in the coming days,
won't I? Perhaps we can get dinner,
wouldn't that be nice? Yes, yes, I think it would be.
Me and my Benjamin, oh love, we look so cute together,
there is no doubt, but I must be getting on, there are
so many things to do, you understand I'm sure?

I watch the schism shift beneath us,
lengthening shadows in a fading afternoon.
Gaps appear where the mountain
once stood strongest.
The glaciers fail in the never-melt
and fall to the ground as water,
as loss.

All of the world is tilting in
an endless and slight off-kilter tumult.
All of the world is spinning in
an endless pulling apart at the seams.

I watch the schism grow beneath us,
yawning darkness in a once well-lit place.
Handholds become razor-sharp ridge lines.
Features that once welcomed now
yield little but hard stone and
a long climb back down again.

You're mother hugged me
when I walked in.
Asked how I'd been.
Told me it had been too long.
Picked me dry about
every little detail of my life;
where I was,
how I was doing,
how the northeast was treating me.
--Oh, it's all so splendid!--
She was enamored, your mother,
and I took you before dinner
in the back room
where your brother used to sleep.
--Like riding a bike, one never
truly forgets a woman--
It was magnificent
in all the ways I had remembered
and your father had cooked
the beef tips and broccoli
that he had made for your
birthday dinner all those winters ago
and we made small talk over the
beat of clinked china and good drink.
--They had a nicer bottle
of red for the occasion--
There was an intimacy to it
one that almost betrayed our
hidden skeletons.
It had been years since I'd seen you
I'd been away and traveling,
engaging in school
and intellectual activity
but the reason I left
--to find myself, if you recall
I told your mother--
was still unknown to our hosts.
Your mother hugged me
and the guilt ripped throughout like
a nail through wet wood,
and the look in your eyes
with your hand on your stomach
convinced me that we were both
condemned and that
damnation was the only honest
retribution we could deserve
and somewhere right this moment
there is a child
with her grandparents
making love with cheerios
and wailing her antipathies for the
world to hear
but for us there is
none.
There is only the look you gave me
as your mother hugged me
and the emptiness that filled
and still fills my stomach
much greater and
much longer than
your father's cooking
ever could.

i wake up
in the morning
crooked on the mattress
all turned around
black eye
swollen jaw
reminiscent
of a night i
refuse to remember
bless the small graces
of the subconscious
the brain is burning
in it's sockets
consequence of a chemical
i swore
to be rid of
what a life i live
counting down to
senility
and death
speeding up the clock
with forty creek and rat poison
sticking a knife in my stomach
to call it a good time
can't get the taste out of my mouth
like rust and vinegar
can't open my jaw
the night
retreats
victorious and grinning
it has claimed me
once more
this cycle is tiring
the hull can't hold
ship soon sunk
the whole world greyed
by a sunrise i can't see
and a life i seem to have
lost control of
the edge has gone
the sharpness in the contrast
no vivid blues
when i see the sky
no no no
only grey
cold and unwelcome
each morning
you wake
and it seems a little worse
the body can't keep
this up forever
that's what your doctor said
that's what your woman begged
but there is comfort
familiarity
in the blurred sacrifice
of terrible numbness
and as i awake
every morning
i almost see the golds and greens
but a little color
goes each time
and now there is only grey

didn't shower
sitting in the cubicle
for long hours
didn't shower
and blood
is still on hands
and feet are still riddled
with dirt
staining cheap
carpet floorprint
afraid to touch
anything
coworkers peer
over
their fabric palisades
eyes burning holes
through ripped shirt
and crooked tie
head down
don't exist
no one has to
know a thing

didn't shower
hair is manged and
disoriented
I can feel blood
drip off fingertips
pat - pat - pat
on bland slate
carpet design
can't concentrate
didn't shower
everyone stares
black eye
swollen and scabbed
everyone knows
have to
it's all puddling at feet
washing with the dirt
look away

******* look away!

head is severed
on the mahogany finish desk
black eye bulged
black and purple tennis ball
everyone gathers
whispers whispers
jaw opens
teeth fall out
pat - pat - pat
no one says anything
look away look away
look away
get up to leave
the head stays there
dark souvenir

quick drive
home
shower
hours melt away
infirmities recede
sink back below skin
didn't shower
everyone knew
what happened
last night
but now
no evidence
no witnesses
no one knows
the perfect crime
a cruel smile
emerges on
bare white teeth
as night sets in once again

He sees you around
every corner he turns.
There's the back of a head,
and the brown hair parts
the way yours does,
or your olive winter coat
with the fur-lined hood
breaks across his vision
for a split second.
Then the angle changes
and the heavens close
and the reflection is gone,
it is another woman,
another pitiful replacement,
another worthless excuse
for something he'll never own up to.

Turn left and there
you are again.
It's the laugh this time,
a slightly throaty trill
echoing in a happiness
that never covered the whole
range of sound.
Keep walking, and there ,
yes right over there,
are the eyes that brought down
the walls of Troy,
or the smile that murdered
God in his slumber.
There you are,
again and again,
again and again and again,
but he hasn't seen you in weeks.

she sat across the bar from me
almost within reach
and throughout the night
we would catch each other's eye
sworn she smiled
once or twice
but then she left
and we had never
said a word
just a quick glance back
as the door shut behind her

good riddance
I'm glad she's gone
got to keep your distance
that moment was
more than enough
whoever she is
will share a small memory
with me forever
and that's just enough
anymore and it leads
to complications
and chaos
got to keep your distance
can't get too close
she knows it
--just like I do--
that's why we never
said a word

everything is
more beautiful
from far away

she called me a pig
--I said something
inappropriate
I'm sure--
I don't know if
it was enough
for her to stomp
off like she did
but I've always
enjoyed a little
drama
so I didn't stop
her
the bar was filled
with degenerates
of the holiest kind
cheap liquor
loose smiles
and easy times
I figured that
pigs must enjoy the mud
sometimes
if not most of the time
and I figured she
mustn't enjoy the mud
and I figured she
mustn't enjoy the
pigs
oh well
what is one to do
I hope she can
atleast enjoy the rain
because we're ten blocks
away from her
apartment
and
I have
the car keys

It was Tucson in the endless dog
days of an endless summer.
The heat was inescapable,
pooling in the window frames
and the air as it coughed from the vents:
A fever that would never break.

Two weeks we lay there, knee deep in the throws
of a heat that would never subdue, a summer
that would never end. You would knock on my door,
laying there on the bed, staring holes into the
dripped and melting ceiling.
You held a paper bag of cheap wine between
your ****** and tarnished fingers,
clinking against the rings you wore like
trophies. I don’t know where I found you,
golden brown and beautiful out amongst
an vast eternity of ugliness.

We took mescaline we had gotten from
your cousin living back out on the reservation.
Laying there passing back the wine
you told me how the desert was alive,
how it had been swallowing you your whole life.
You told me that the dryness and the heat
had consumed you, burnt you through until
you couldn’t bear to be yourself anymore.
The scorching heat overcame you and you told me
there had been no choice but to become the desert.
I had only been in the southwest two months,
but I saw it, although I was untouched.
You had grown here, you said,
wilting to ash together with the desert.

The mescaline had me by the throat and
I saw you from dust to dust.
I saw you at one with the desert.
You were beautiful amongst the
red and ochre blood of the sand
and at once I wanted to melt to ash
and burn into the desert alongside you.
I told you and you laughed and I laughed
and we made love to the heat
and to the sweat driven
out from underneath our pores,
inflamed by the drugs and
the inescapable heat.
The room was aflame and
the great desert was alive
and ripping at us
through the open window
with claws of heat that
slashed at our backs.

I awoke and you were tying your shoes.
Just like that, the fever had broken,
and already you could feel
autumn coming in with its swathes
of chilled air sweeping across the plains.
I had been in love those two weeks.
With the sun and the dust and the ash
and the desert and all of it being one
with you. As it all collapsed around me
I felt saddened at its loss.
You were out the door
and the summer was over.
I moved back east where the
winter came faster and colder
and the desert was
of a different kind.

these bones are
growing heavy
can't hardly
walk up the
stairs anymore
only a matter of time
before they break
and I fall
down
step after step
can't lift my
arms
can't get up
anymore
as the vultures
circle above
and the sharks
smell blood
swoop in
add insult to injury
unable to move
listening
as the world falls apart
step after step
the women
move on and around
money gone
memories leaving
so heavy
can't get up anymore
the women get me the worst
laughing and laughing
burning knives into my back
they have been waiting
for this
for me to fall apart
they knew it was
only a matter of time
they plotted and schemed
behind their
smiles
they jumped
from the
sinking ship
so slowly drowned
unable to swim
just smell that blood
in the water
here they come
here they come
as everyone laughs
and I do nothing

my bones have grown heavy
and I cannot get up

It is OK to hurt over things lost,
or things time has changed and
separated from what it was
you once knew.
In fact, it is productive to do so.
It is wrong– detrimental, even,
to believe one must run from
hurt such as this.
Memory and mistake often come
one wrapped within the other,
thus to grow and learn
one must take them both in hand
and embrace them as old friends.

Throughout life, the list of memories
and the list of mistakes grow.
Acquaint yourself with them.
Look backwards and wave fondly
at each as you strive further and
further up the path
away from them.

I've had the same view
here in the city
for awhile now
the banks of the schuylkill
the art museum
rocky balboa himself
its been 6 months
the same window
the same view
so many lights
always on
occasional cars
I can hardly see
last nights snow
littering the ground
7 stories downward
one hell of a fall
the glass is too thick
don't worry
no cleanup today
only me
watching the snow melt
and the cars pass
and the life
of everything
drudging slowly onwards
as it has for six months now
here on the banks
of the schuylkill
the tempo is all off
a terrible pace
in a terrible place
Kerouac did a year
up in New York
6 months more
then maybe I'm out
of here
on the road
to mexico
cheap liquor
and cheaper love
the heart beats
quicker there
stooped up in
some backwards
bordello
paying dime a dollar
for another round
then off to san francisco
where the beat stomps
and stutters under that
spotlight
or maybe the blood red mesas
of el paso
where the young broads
dark as honey
can taste just as sweet
but only just a while
its that thrill
you long to have
one more time
breaking a sweat in
the backyards
sneaking love
under fences
and desert floors
just to be anywhere else
where the beat is quicker
than here
I'm growing deaf to it
here in the doldrums
here in the city
of brotherly love
on the banks of the schuylkill
watching the same view
from the same window
as rocky balboa stands tall
moving faster than me in
that forever celebration

She's beautiful
there on the corner,
as I leave the comfort
of the bar toward the winter's
cold.
She's standing,
sipping on a parliament,
--Perhaps not the best
choice in cigarette--
covered up in an army
green coat with a fox fur
edging the hood and
framing her face
in an idyllic beauty
cast in the smoky fog
of cigarette and winter breath.
We passed brief conversation
back and forth.
She smiled with a grimace
and impeccable grace,
she laughed with a wail.
Terribly drunk and miserably happy;
in a life here between cities and here
between careers.
Here between men she never cared for
but aways loved.
She's beautiful
as she says her goodbye
with a trained grace
and a measured smile.
She's beautiful
as she stomps out the parliament
and opens the door
to a cab back to her
hotel and back to
her half-loved men,
her half-loved home, and
her half smoked cigarettes.
She only wanted
a little relief.
She only wanted
an escape.
I am a terribly selfish man,
but for once I wish
I could have a part
in that escape.

I talked to you last night for the first time in a long time.
It felt good to hear you again.
When we go so long without contact,
my imagination grows awry with
conceptions of you.
A flurry of ideas that burn
through me like gasoline.
All this time apart, I forget that I know you.
I forget there was a time when the walls
between us crashed down and we lay
amongst the wreckage like lovers at the
end of the world.

It felt good to hear you again.
I could feel your beautiful pride in every word.
You phrase each sentence carefully,
never letting me forget who the culprit here is.
I broke your heart.
A full year of suffering, you told me,
after that first break.
I remember the unreachable highs
that came between the inescapable lows
better than you, but that is to be expected.
You burn with that unbreakable anger.

It felt good to hear you again.
It grounded me against all of the
delusions going on around us.
I was scared to think your apathy
had grown from a wish into reality.
You never said you still cared,
you would never allow it,
but I know the way you phrase your
words so that the true meanings can pass by
your pride without causing offense to it.

I talked to you last night for the first time in a long time.
It felt good to hear you again.
Over a year now since that first strike,
and here we are still,
trading blows in the trenches.

It felt good to remember
what I was fighting for again.

the night sky and I watched in
silence as he lay there
hemmoraging to death on the
side of the highway
staring up into
that celestial witness
there was only one tiny
blip of light
too close to the city to
see any others
but he stared at that small
little light and saw salvation
in it's beady, off-white eye
'oh god oh god' he wailed
'save me if you ever saved
any of us'
and I stood there
careful to not ruin
my shoes in
the blood
and the police
arrived and the
emergency services
arrived and
all these other
lights crowded
and competed for
the vision of
this man
pumping hemoglobin
onto the concrete
but he stared into the eye
of god and he felt
destined for salvation
he felt peace amongst
the cold pavement and
white double lines that
held his scattered corpse
he died knowing where
he was going
and as his innards
got cold on the median
of southbound I-76
the American Airlines nonstop
from Atlanta got ready
for it's final descent

when I was young
I wanted to fall in love
wanted to feel something
special with someone
and to be a rock star
and to travel the world
but now reality
has punched me in the gut
and dragged me through
the twelfth round
I have come to a different
truth
I wake up every morning
to the same sun
but I **** women to not
feel a thing
I demoted from
rock star
to poet,
and moved to
Philadelphia
from Florida
and hate it
here

one of those days
where the whole world
is inside
sad and self pitying
as the sky falls
and has been falling
for years it seems
but that's nothing new
whats new is this
cut on my arm
and the half smoked
cigarette
smoldering by the mattress
and whatever there was
to drink last night
stained in the carpet
as i look around
i already know
its one of those days
but i don't bother to
look outside
or do anything
besides close my eyes
there's enough
to deal with inside
apparently the sky is falling
but life
goes
on
so they say

the soft smell of spring
sweeps through on the breeze
flirting with the senses
invigorating
inviting
holding close memories
forgotten feelings long erased
growing old under the setting sun
lost in the sentiments of the quickly passing afternoon
such a sight to behold
all that is lost might again be renewed
reminiscing
regretting

rising in the wind
sailing towards eternity
and falling towards inevitability
the golden ship of youth sails by
coasting in the waters of opportunity
sinking in the swamps of time
the roots have grown
planted
safe and secure
into middle-class
middle-aged mediocrity
no lofty longing of dreams unreachable
no sweet determination to reach the destination
only the reality of a life
once loved
now lost
pragmatic and practical

that golden ship is nearly out of sight
those wings of wax can no longer fly me to the sun
I cannot see the sun
cannot feel the thrill of flight
only the fear
and the fall
I cannot see the goal
because the trials stand too tall

and now the ship is gone
and the roots are solid
there is no living left to be done
only lessons to be learned from the mistakes of the past
and the hope that they do not become the future

but alas
the sun has now set
and darkness is upon us
so sleep now
and wake to see what tomorrow may bring

You forget how lonely it is.
You forget that you’re only any good
when it’s all bad around you.
You forget about the bitterness
and the anger
pitted in your stomach like a weight.
The drink helps best.
The ****** try.
The door swings open and shut
and it looks like it is nice and
it looks like it is fine and
you forget for a moment how lonely it is.

Then all the sudden, like a car crash
or a bullet wound, all of the sudden
you feel it, and it all comes down
and hits you in the gut.
It hits you in the gut and
it hits you in the heart
and sometimes you feel it and
it hits you in the throat.

The drink helps best.
It is cool and burns you as you try
to forget again.
The women try.
They are cool and never more beautiful
then when you try to forget again.

In the end, it is there,
all wrenched up in your gut.
The sweet, terrible, unending
emptiness of
being alive.

At the end of the day
there's always another
for her to
come home to.
Normally it's
just your luck;
he's some upper class
Ivy leaguer
with a stable income,
a degree or two,
and a large need
to get punched
in the mouth,
but there's always
another,

no matter what.

You only have her
for quick
fleeting moments:
she picked you up
from work,
maybe met you
at the bus stop,
winked as you
climb in for
the quick ride
to her place,
hardly making it
to the bedroom
before tearing each
other apart,

no matter what.

Quick flings of passion;
hand wrapped
on your neck,
hair all around.
She smiles
that *****
devil and god smile,
and you swear
that there's no one
else in this world.
But it's only
quick moments,
then it's that long lonely
cab ride home
as some Mercedes
pulls in
the driveway
behind you,

no matter what.

the picture was pixelated
you told me
it didn't print the way you
wanted it to
wasn't fully in focus
--I guess in retrospect
it's fitting--
but I wanted you to go back
and reprint it
I was afraid you'd just
throw it away
I was afraid you'd never
frame it
afraid you'd never
place it at your bedside
afraid you would never
let it be as beautiful as
we both knew
that picture was

you didn't reprint it
it was stuck being blurred
said you didn't mind
and you still framed it
you still placed it there
by your bedside
seems ironic now
with both picture and
frame broken
tucked under
some box in a closet
that I was the one
who was afraid

In Spring, it is possible
to find God with only
slight attention to detail.
There is a park tucked
between the city blocks
and the green of the grass
breaks the slate pavement
and the jawline skyscrapers
like teeth, serrated edges
up against the blue.

In Winter, He can be found as well,
but it is not the same, he is not beautiful
in his pallid forms as he is across those
verdant leaves hanging.
It is much harder to notice,
and one must look closely
at the frost alongside the branch
shining in grim reflection atop the walk.
—if one can manage the cold and
the wind and the everything frozen
without hurrying too muchalong—
I find that Hell may indeed
be a cold, cruel place.

Perhaps they are both in tandem
with one another. Winter begets
Spring and back again.
I step back from both and let
them play their tug-of-war.
Build and destroy and build again.

So I sit in Spring,
and God is there dancing,
out in the wisps of light
that brim amongst the
petals and the great
wonderful things and
I laugh, feigning hope,
knowing so quickly how it will
freeze again.

You sit next to me,
most unwillingly,
and I can't help but stare.
You have remade yourself;
a group of working parts
of which I am not apart.
Same beautiful woman.
Same beautiful pride,
with that air of regality
that leaves everyone else
pondering their inferiority.
However, now there
is something new.
An awe inspiring anger
that flushes your cheeks
and clenches your fingers.
You are gorgeous when you're angry.
You have this face that you put on;
a flare in your eyes and a
compression of your lips.
You would never let yourself
come down from this ledge.
--even though if you jumped
I would catch you, I promise--
You have remade yourself
into a new whole and
I have received my eviction notice.
But I know it's not as simple
as you allow it to be,
I can see the digs in the edge
of your thumbnails
where you bite into them with
your index finger.
Signs of stress
to anyone enough to know.
I see it in your flippancy.
You are not a reckless person, always
careful, calculating risk and reward,
but you've thrown
caution to the wind, it seems.
Perhaps an act of revenge,
perhaps of retribution,
it doesn't make a difference.
I only watch in wonder of the woman
I escorted out of my life, as
she sits next to me
unspeaking, unfeeling.
And I've never felt farther
in my life.

A parking lot off the coast
of Madeira beach.
A thin trail of smoke trailing off
unfinished into a dew-heavy evening.
A pair of headlights illuminate tall reeds
like thin yellow towers,
toppling in a sudden breeze.
The streetlight flickers,
buzzing in the slender hum
of electric current before surrendering
itself back towards the silence.

An evening as any other evening:
tall dunes of ochre that have been
built and rebuilt by time–
un-eager hands, molding slowly
as the earth careens against itself.
Reeds in silhouette against the pale headlight,
shadows bending in shapes as ink,
laid out along thin canvas.

It is something for memories
to dance as ghosts.
Fall into the sand as young lovers,
laugh and shout, call out
to the ocean into its own
low and distant rumble–
as if it were in on the joke.

The ocean laughs still, in similar tides,
though the ghosts have gone.
There is humor in its breath,
thick and heavy with salt.
The joke is old.
The punchlines thin
with age and poor taste.

An evening settles into itself.
A car pulls off, the gravel gives slightly
beneath the weight.
A streetlight blinks dead
and then awakens again.
Reeds purr and shake
into the ghosts of darkness,
the ocean hums a tune.

Looking out the glass
down over damp streets
spread like boundaries;
streetlights and stop signs
to keep everything in, or out.

This city is a prison.

Your heartbeat is steady
next to me, slow.
Beneath that slight frame,
veins pump the blood that
gives you life.
The same blood that
allows you to cry at your
worst mistakes, or mine.

This room is a prison.

There is a rotating light,
the spotlight overseeing these
midnight prison grounds.
It burns from green to orange,
back to green again.

Your chest heaves, hitches,
I can feel it as the sobs
whisper out like a jury sentence.
The prison is here in white sheets,
where sighed whispers of
blame echo out.
Aside from that, it is silent,
the window holds out
noises of another world.

I wonder, glowing orange
to somber green,
what crimes I have committed
that hold me here.

I wonder, trapped by these
barbed wire streets,
what repentance I must seek out
to find sleep.

walked along the beach
barefoot, blinded
by a sun that
refused to rise
and a past
that refused to set

the ethereal glow
of the twilight
burned violet
reflections off
of the ocean
and the sand

raised a hand
to cover the
glare of the
sun exploding
sprawling out
against the horizon

sun rays over the water
laid out toward
me like avenues
of heat and radiation
stretched out
in endless highway

or perhaps fingers
caressing
tendrils of light
that lover
you knew but
never touched

the violet sunrise
stretches over the ocean
lapping your feet
tearing at them
the beggar grasping
at the ankle, pulling

soon knee deep
the violet seeping
through
the shore recedes
as station to train
and the journey continues

waist deep
violets bleed to orange
and ****** red
the sun is up
yet the past still haunts
with failing eyesight
hindsight is still twenty twenty

and the water is cool
there is a
breeze from the sea
chest deep
the avenues open up
divide and collide

all roads
lead toward one destination
the tendrils on that golden hand
beckon me closer
who was that lover?
she once had a name

neck deep
and the sun is up so high
up so high
where are the clouds?
there was supposed
to be rain today

water is up to
the eyes and rising
failing eyesight
and hindsight remains
twenty twenty
unfortunately

but for the first time
it appears that
I can see
where I am going
as well as what
is behind

As I submerge
I feel the past close up
behind me
it bottles up as hot air
as the demon forever
clawing at my neck

exhale and exorcise

the sun sets violet
hewed with crimson
growing colder
the water gets deeper
reflections
through the waves

spears of violet
jab at seaweed
with failing eyesight
there is no past to see
there is no future
there is only the sea

In dreams, you are back again;
deadbeat dog-days of a heat
that left us trapped with nothing
but the dry-cough staleness
of early afternoon.
The sweat evaporates as it falls
in unmoved puddles beneath you.
The horizon past the windowsill
holds faint outlines of a breeze
that never comes,
of a promise left unfulfilled.

In dreams, you are there again.
Wrapped in my shirt, too big
and loose at the shoulder.
You are knee-bent by the edge of the bed,
pulling hands through hair;
making love with your little movements,
heavy with the suffocation of
a hundred degrees pressing down
on the pretty, brown complexions
of skin taut against your temples.
Air-conditioning, out again,
gasping against the windowsill.

In dreams, you leave the phone to ring.
Your mother wants you home,
your father wants me dead,
we only want to be cold again
It can be a hard thing to find in the heat,
happiness.

In dreams, framed by the sun-soaked
sheets of the bed, thin and damp,
you almost smile. Dark eyes
lightening at the edges.

In dreams, we keep the shower
on all-the-way cold
through long, dry afternoons—
thinking of rain.

and she was there
California wasn't for
her
--and neither
was he
apparently--
said she was there
two months before
she realized he didn't
love her
and another one
before she
caught the
other woman
and the next day
she was on a
flight back east
day after that
she was on my
doorstep

--"I know I should've
called but I figured I
might as well just
come by and see
you in person
I was hoping we could
stay together again
oh I've missed you
and oh I'm so very lonely
it'll only be for a little while
I'll cook for you and clean
for you and we can
make beautiful love
on the kitchen counter
like we used to"--

like a kid who runs away
with no regret
believing the grass is greener
only to return
teary eyed and pleading
three months later

the dilemmas love
places upon us are
amazingly difficult
as the heart and the
head battle for supremacy
and the pride you
hope to retain is
swallowed
by a love that
left you out to dry

at least I have the kitchen counter

Is it morning? I think I imagine it as a
spring morning—you with a coffee mug
in both hands, the early breeze
sweeping through the white curtains
of your bedroom, and the just-now-breaking
coverage of clouds parted by
the rising sunlight like the words
of a lover passing through gray lips.

It is not quite spring here,
but you can tell that the world is
beginning to awaken to itself.
The trees fight to bloom just as we
must have once, two strangers
scrambling out of the darkness.
I remember you
as a child in large mittens,
hands always cold even later
when your fingers had become
long, sensual, and painted dark against
your now-gray-but-once-red lips.

The most basic of desires is that
pit-of-stomach desire for a loved
one’s happiness, wherever it is that
they may be. And so I hope that you are happy.
I hope that the wind blows the sunlight
in through open curtain windows softly
like a whispered word and the coffee
is always just warm enough to keep
your fingers from the chill
and that it is always spring,
wherever you are.

there was a hand holding my head
an angel, I'm sure
the reflection in the water was blurry
and my eyes
caked with tears
threatening to fall
the taste in my mouth was
of blood and *****
as if death itself
had called my name
but the angel simply rubbed
my head and swore it
would be alright

woke up the next afternoon
in the bathroom
almost catatonic
with a ****** headache
and bad breath
spit
******
grabbed a glass of
water from the tap
and realized
that despite
the death that hangs over
every bad decision
like breath in arctic air
the angel wasn't lying