She loved the heat--
I knew she did, the
licks of fire nipping
at her Yellow hair.
She cried for joy,
tears of joy.
You wouldn't understand.
Her skin curled up
like paper, crumbled--
a gorgeous brown.
Cracked deep and
seeping blood--
A desert floor under beating sun,
black with slick oil
like her eyes,
like her eyes.
Her legs *******
how she liked it
everytime we made love.
We made love.
It was love we made.
You wouldn't understand.
When the light left her
eyes, the flame grew
Alive, Alive and then too
died.

A thin curled wisp of smoke,
like from a chimney on
a white winter morning
printed on a postcard from Alaska.

And there I lay,
curled up with knees
against chest; shaking
for hours, for hours.
I reread old messages
and masturbated then
went to sleep.

You wouldn't understand.
You wouldn't understand.

All is lost, All is lost.
We on barstools
and burnished thrones,
We are lost men--
When rises the day, we flee
like roaches from the light;

Undone, Undone, I lay still
on beds of straw amongst
the beasts and slumber.
Undone, I lay restless
on beds of jagged springs--
with cheap cologne under
mismatched clothes, and
a syringe of what, I wonder?

He is but a lost man
in a coffin being lowered,
Gazing at a lid locked tight,
believing it to be the sky--
while guests stand grave and shudder.
Is there a man more lost than he?
Are there men more lost than we?

A hand slides over the
rosewood frets,
gliding over bronze strings,
like veins within a body so
beautiful.
Callused fingers press down
on threads firm, yet yielding.
A note echoes across the
hollow maple stretch
reaching restless ears.
And the music begins!--
Molded like clay and
painted on silence,
sweet notes stroll and then
begin to scurry.
Then they sprint in
every direction,
encompassing senses, and
thoughts, and dreams, and
stirring the soul,
but a BUZZ; glaring and
loud awakes reality.
Fingers missed the
mark; notes stumble
and then fall flat.
nervousness and
shaking leads to
dreaded silence.

Yet the song begins anew,
as it will always do,
until we cease to listen.

Piercing whispers like
acrid mice-- scurrying with
tiny claws, snatching onto
scraps of spotlight, then
staggering into cracks and
crevices that blemish the walls
when bedroom lights ignite.
Whispers that echo behind
closed doors and under covers.

Laughter, not bellowed of the soul,
but that of the mind so
dark and outraged floods the
room; cackling from a tongue
dipped in acid, or perhaps
in the juices of an apple
most forbidden.

Unreliable truths beckon
relentless vanity.

We don't know,
and still we whisper.

I know not what spills from my
fingertips-- what pours from my soul.
Nothing, I suppose. Or not.
A gentle longing? Yes, not a desire
that burns, but the fragile current of
a small stream chilled on bare feet;
Where to myself a mighty river!
Am I mistaken? That is, to long for
release; to drink from the waters
and then surge into the cold,
wherein perhaps I will drift along,
(ensnaring breaths from the world
which I so readily decline)
Numb to scrapes against my back
from splintered rocks which lie beneath.
And blissfully will I head towards...
tomorrow; and a land unknown--
untamed and wild! With canopies high
and an orchestra of stars that play
all night, only for me and for no one else;
With the crackle of fire a masterful
conductor to the sound of the heavens.
Yes! There my spirit rests away,
amidst chaos far from here.
And there I find peace, and redemption,
and love, and solace, and all which can
make man wish for nothing more--
all within my fingertips.

To leave you, my dear,
empty, open and wounded--
Leaving you is all I think about.

To strand you, darling,
speechless at your door--
a prison with no escape but me.

To discard you, like wrappers
from mistakes I've made with you,
or photos ripped and broken glass.

To crush your heart, still beating,
'til the final thud, as you did, and do,
to me. To steal from you your smile, and
each dead-end of bone & marrow.
Of what am I more sure than this?

And yet, the arms that fasten you to me
are mine. A night of hopeless atrophy,
two bodies intertwined.

Back to back,
     we sit tonight,
wearing nothing,
     spines fitted
like mountain ridges,
     zippered up
along the bones
     beneath our skin--
A perfect match,
     I say to you, beloved.

On my nape,
     a crevice, where
you place your crown
     and rest,
and close your
     gentle eyes and sigh.
Atop your hair,
     a spot of quiet
peace, and home.