The sweat on my lip
brings this barometric memory
of heat and flesh
to the forefront.

Two fronts,
a Summer monsoon
where pale lightning plays
through reefs of golden cloud
circling an alabaster cliff
humming like live wires
with soft and hard design
with rain and sea spray.

The curve of your back
is a horizon.
The lines carved on your chest
are highways and slipstreams
above which gulls wing and wheel
below which mysteries are concealed.

And I sigh like thunder
to the softness of your storm
and I sigh like thunder,
to your silver screen embrace
I sigh like thunder.
I sigh like thunder.

I see all the pale faced hipsters
Staring through windows losing hours
And days
And evenings
And memories
In this unlived time of ****** incarnate.

Suffering cotton mendacity of the soul
Cursing the wind coiled clouds
Rushing past
Missing their own minds
Losing their own souls
Inch by torrid inch
And gracing us all with their plastic complexions
And soft minded delusions
Mincing words with fashion
On paper from a burnt out Bible

I see all the pale faced hipsters;
They see the mirror reflecting hollow.
Chosen by the inky hands of
Moses
Allah
Elvis
God.

But not Jesus.
He's too real for these cats.

I scoured countless streets
For an exorcist to rid me
Of your ghost.

The neon charlatans
Shapeshifted through
The spicy summer sweat
In forms of wasted witchery
And white hot shots of snake oil.

Each a silver bullet,
Swarming upon me as vultures
To peck the stains of yesteryear
That lingers like the promise
Of cool autumn air.

And now that all evenings have shrunk,
And all shameful charlatans revealed,
I find myself once again
Dancing with your ghost;
A man haunted.

At the old hotel
the one by the wharf
with the peeling paint
(those clapboard memories
that linger as summer does)
we traveled to exotic lands
foreign for these travelers.

Our fingers were the compass that led the way
for two fugitives sailing silken waves.

Your hair was morphine
in the sweetest way,
Your lips were like ice
on a hot summer day.

We never questioned the reasons why
the afternoon crumbled us into dust.
Yet I recall the handful you took from me,
and you recall the teaspoon I took from you.

On the pier I was cast to the wind,
and on the shore I let my passion burn you
into a diamond.

Goodbye.

We graced the morning
after wandering
one way antique streets
your pain and comfort found themselves
unwrapped from all deceit.

All you were and all you are
From your head down to your feet
called to me through rising dawn
stung with personal defeat.
And I wished that you would smile,
I prayed that you would laugh
sans misery or grief,
The way you did as we once wandered
antique one way streets.

And I know you seek redemption.
with an eye locked on belief,
And you know I love the way you looked
When the sunset kissed your cheeks.
I was silenced by beauty then,
my words were obsolete
the poets purpose put away
down antique one way streets.

I cannot write like Cohen
Or Cave, Blake or Swift
but all your inner knowings
held me in the heat
and all I ever wanted
is to never feel defeat.

But this I'll know,
and this I'll want
till time starts to retreat.
If I could take away your pain
as I know you know my grief;
I would hold you as I did that day
down antique one way streets.

B cup
C cup
but D cup, the better.

A nip,
a tuck—
reverse the clock.

For beauty’s the past,
and beauty’s the young.

Thus,
reupholster the fruit of the womb
and iron the sags low.
Recapture the past glow,
for after all,
the future is wherever you don’t exist yet.