i will learn to taste the honeydew
and pretend to like it

i will taste the honeysuckle
and not have to pretend

i will feel grass in my hands and
say it is the best of life

and not the woman i need between my teeth

i am not ferocious, not demanding, not unwise,
simply at peace.

i am the sparkler to the firework
the star to the sun
the kitten to the lion.

but are these not all one and the same?

i see dandelion seeds and
though they are weeds i will
watch their dance anyway

i dive into agua dulce
wishing to be stardust instead of glitter
but glitter is certainly better than ash

under the water i have a moment to myself
where it
takes my screams into pockets of air
floating up without consequence

escaping my body at last in
a beautiful anonymity

may watchful eyes devour my body
unmarked, unblemished, devoid.

and they will watch as i make myself perfect

…but if the powdered sugar somehow melts off of my skin
i beg you to look away
for your sake and mine

there is a calmness at the top of a mountain–
the sweet sugar dew doesn’t
in of itself have a taste but somehow
the temperature makes it seem that way

there is a ruby mixture in the coldness
of the winter
on the snow
on the silver
cutting through a violent white

but i pretend it’s ink. i tell
you it’s ink so you don’t
ask any more questions

just look at me, dear
look at the folds in my
fingertips and know that
i am real

i am skin and bone
flesh and blood
fire and water
i am whatever
you need me to be

its christmas and the only gift i want is to lose weight

Songs of Oregon: No. 1 “Gonna Make You Crazy, That Place”

nuts, crazy peeps

whomever wherever,
regardless of race creed color or gender (did I get ‘em all?)
current state of residence (geo-identified)
a poem - the very same recited,
as a disclaimer, a yellow finger wagging warning:

“Don’t go! If you go, you won’t come back”

now kids, I’m a veteran of foreign travel,
many continents, cold and hot, rivers and seas,
some living, some dead,
some so big they named it Endless,
been to the great cities, Swiss villages,
pyramids, climbed Masada,
danced on grapes (why can’t I recall where)
skied the Alps, trekked the Sinai Desert,
clubbed in Rio, and danced till morn,
on a certain Greek Isle that rhymes with Mickey’s Nose
even been to L.A and San Fran, left poorer
but in sync,
always came home
with my mind decently reshaped

me/ a product of gritty unpretty grime,
streets of normal humans
acting like normal escaped mad persons,
this brutal city island instilled a
layer of fat and smog neath my skin,
a kind of migrating duck-like survival kit,
came with a homing beacon included

the those of you who know me,
perhaps too well, ken we citified islanders
love our beaches (fire hydrants)
cherish our sun dappled blessings
upon on farms (window sill herb gardens)
and sunning settlements (rooftops)

they say our tap water is secretly bottled,
sold in places where the springs purportedly
run crystalline

though we don’t got no pinot, just sweet concord grape,
so sweet, the wine of children and street nodders,
needy for instant sugar highs

so as we new Yorkers proudly
say on our license plates,
prove it or stfup!

so a first hand investigation for which
the taxpayers won’t be charged even a lousy mill,
deemed necessary to put to rest this crazy claiming warning

“Don’t go! If you go, you won’t come back”

guessing must be something in the water and the wine

your lips have melted iron

tasted the wicked, subtle, penny-bitter condensation
off of my skin
and within myself
within that place

i’m so sorry that it wasn’t the
smooth cold of porcelain
you’re used to
but i think part of you likes that
it’s not

you want me to cut up your tongue, just a little

that’s all you’ve ever wanted
someone to love you
fiercely. uncontrollably.

is this really what you wanted?
and to think i hold so much back, so tightly,
for both your sake and mine.

my sweet darling it is simply pandemonium