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.

Like ants, like ants
with frantic legs we run.
Running, not in lines
No. No, in all directions!
Scurrying-- no orders,
Not a voice from up above.
The Queen is dead,
The Queen is dead--
A dead and broken dove.

Where is our God now?
(Is he counting souls in heaven?)
Where is your God now?
(Was he left on barren Earth?)

Like Jericho's great façade,
torn down by seven sirens,
We scurry like the smallest ants
with spines like that of serpents;
We crawled and shrieked and cowered.
We left the young and sick.
Although we prayed immortal life,
we now beg our end be quick.

Like ants in a sea of elephants,
From dust to dust, and dust to ****.

Little, insignificant thing, you plague me-- with the slightest touch,
I come undone. Miniscule, you are miniscule; yet, you chill blood
you clench fists you **** friends you fake smiles you feign tears
you forge lies. You are to me a flesh infected cancer virus parasite,
gripping me, like fingers through a chain link fence. You are
nothing, and everything--an infuriating anomaly--a stone in my shoe,
and in my heel, and spine, and brain stem...a creaking, wooden
floorboard in my neck, and brow, and knees...a nail in my sternum...

I need you
like a restless night;
I need you
like a ****** sore without the ***.

I don't need you.
I don't need you.
I can barely bring myself to want you.

I lied; I want your touch, eyes shut. You are the flame, and the moth;
you are my end, and my truth, you are the loss I feel at morning--
You are the first ray of light that robs me of my welcome dream.

You should be an attic box,
tucked away and left forgotten.
(But even your silence is heavy,
and your absence has a gravity.)

Inside me is a cold war,
too scared to escalate;
hushed battles leave
halves of broken things--
All that's left is smoke
and noise.

Science tells us love
is nothing but chemicals,

so I am a chemical imbalance
with my head against your doorway,

you are a thermal detonation
of a chemical explosive,

and we are a chemical spill,
burning holes into your bedroom floor.

Three pats on the windshield,
and you say the rain has started--
but the drops fell five-thousand feet, and,
factoring in the wind, and the size of the raindrops,
the rain had started over three minutes ago.
And against the wind, against all odds,
it fell between us, parked outside your
home in the suburbs.

So when you whisper "It's over",
and grab your bag to leave,
I am still; because we fell roughly
five-hundred and twenty-five thousand,
nine-hundred forty-nine times longer
than the raindrops did to remind me
that I knew we were already done.

I used to think the bravest man
was he who had nothing to lose--
for he, though lost, was wild,
strong, and unyielding.

But then, you made me a man
with everything to lose in you.

So I was scared,
because you made me weak--
weak in the knees, and tired
of heart. You wearied the creatures
in the pit of my stomach,
because they were in uproar
at the slightest thought of you
(And I surely know I flooded
them with thoughts of you).

(In the deepest of deep
in my chest, I knew)
I had everything to lose,
when I was with you.

It scared me
that in the brightest memory
of the brightest day, you were there--
that in the darkest pit of my heart,
you resided, as well--
that you made me weak,
and there was no escape from you.

You scared me
in the way that I am a pebble on the tracks
and you, an oncoming train.
You scared me
in the way that I am driftwood afloat,
and you, an encroaching tidal wave.

I was scared,
because I had fallen into your heart,
and it had swallowed me whole.

So I closed my heart to you;
I shut the doors with lock and key--
a mistake, I surely realize.
So now I open my heart to you;
I claw at the walls that kept you away,
for you do not make me afraid,
and you do not make me weak.

And now, I know the bravest man
is one with everything to lose--
for he, though vulnerable, will
fight to keep his world intact,

and my world, my true, is you.

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.

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.

At my place of study,
a group of south campus students
of science and quiet, collected knowledge,
have long nights of graph paper and lab manuals.

But today they open a window,
and welcome the beautiful day.
"This is so north campus of us,"
they giggle--as light spills into the room.

A simpler life, they're sure,
of an artist at play.

As if we don't slave away
by the light of monitors
in the darkest minutes of night.

As if long hours aren't
spent with ink & crumpled paper

As if there's no science
in the art we create.

Yet these lines are experiments
tested in the fiery eyes of youth & age.
These building blocks
are bodies in motion
and chemicals bubbling
in the life & the lifeless;
spilling ink onto the page.

In these words are everything I've ever lived--
everyone I've ever loved.
I am these words; and
these words are me in my entirety.
My totality in a handful of symbols.

This is the science of living,
and the study of purpose;
of love & passion,
and profound, decadent
anger, and loss.

Each line a bubble of life
in a barren sea,
or a moment of clarity.

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.

Sadness is a heavy stone
laid and pressed against the heart,
worn with rounded edges--
An old lover stopping for a drink
who overstays her welcome.
Sorrow is my Mother's cry
for her Son, lost sheep,
who slinks his hand away
and averts his gaze from hers.
Anguish is sweaty palms and
trembling voice; it is stomach clenched
and eyes welled up, legs bent to pray;
I've got nothing but time, he said.
Nothing left for me but time,
though time has left me nothing.

Devoid of human life,
the drone flies above
a family of four, targets,
fires. After the impact is
silence. Silently, it flies
away, toward base.
The family is dead.

Devoid of human life,
the building smokes,
and heaves its breath--
a final creak before collapse.
Under rubble freshly
wrought, and pieces
of a meal half-eaten,
scattered throughout
the street, are the
bodies.

Brimming with human life,
the streets awaken,
to find the family buried.
A cry cuts the still air--
a morning funeral,
just as the sun kisses
the open air above the hills,
his children in solemn embrace.

Seven-thousand miles away,
the pilot is relieved.

Target Acquired.

A breath.

Target Eliminated.

A smile--
               Just in time for bed.

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?

The whole earth and all creation
in a swirling blue marble glass,
struck by the nail of a schoolboy
on asphalt near the swing set.
Through squinted eye, it strikes another
(spinning, as the world does).

All creation in the motion
of hair, brushed behind a lonesome ear,
and a shuddered breath whispered “Stay…”
Or in the smell of autumn yellow,
and the heft of sky closing eyes goodnight.

Or all of us, the final note—
sung at once before the silence.

When, like a fire, I am
extinguished, I will not be
the gentle flickering of a
candle, put out by the
light pinch of two callused
fingers. I will not be
choked off by lack of
fuel, lack of substance.
I will not be covered by
beds of dirt, or blown out
by the gentle gust of
the evening winds.
I will be an inferno--
that of which devours
trees & scorches cities.
What desires does
my soul possess-- that
though my life may
as brief as the glint of
sun in the waking eye,
it will be of color so
intense as to leave
the world ablaze with
light; an impression on earth
that fails to wash away.

A memory that
fails to be forgotten.

You soften my heart,
when it is hardened.
It is what you do better
than anyone else,
and what makes you,
my sweet, so special to me.

When I am ready to give up
on you, on us,
you save me from my monsters,
and remind me why
I want you, and the
chaos that you bring.
You remind me how glad
I am to see you,
hear you, touch you.

Remind me, love,
how quickly you pick me up
with just a simple message.
Remind me how stupid
I've been to worry.
Remind me how wondrous it is
to hear your laugh,
or to look at your smile
from miles away, as though
you are next to me.

Remind me, because I have forgotten,
and I need you to soften my heart again.
It has become old and jaded;
it has become tired and weak--
and you, my dear, make it anew.

Remind me, because I have forgotten,
and it is you I ache to remember.

I've cognized you again--
a shock of nerves, electric impulse,
shooting from the touch of freshly shaven legs
to the way you clean your fingernails.
A road map lights up, all at once.

And then you fall into the pit of my skull,
and for a moment,
I am you; and you are me--
and we are one fleeting pressure
of everything I've ever known, and loved, and breathed.
We are a mass of gray, limp and soggy flesh, made bright,
fueled by the rush of blood
through a speeding freeway of pipes, and nerves
ending in a flicker.

Until you linger,
faintly,
as a node of light, (a spark),
blinking, alive, beneath my skin.

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.

I said I love you like a sigh,
a tired breath,
escaped from me--
I've given in.
You've won, and bridged
the gap between.

Slings and arrows pierced the mark,
and left me here,
defenseless.
I said I love you like a whimper,
or white flag torn asunder,
as I held you close, and restless.

I've given in to you, and your
relentless amity, and now
await, my dear--
I await, as fear subsides,
and scars depart from mind's eye,
for your call, a gentle breeze,
a breath exhaled, much like mine,
a tired one of conquest.

You've won, my dear,
and I surrender--
my words an offering of peace.
No longer can I stand against
what you have done to me.
I fool no man,
nor beast, nor child,
denying what is mine--
and what is mine is yours, my dear,
and what is yours is I.

What are we but cracks in the skin
and the curves in our bones?
What are we but these callused hands
and fatigue in our souls?
Do we dream dreams alone?

What are we but trees in a storm
and what of the colors of rain?
What are we if not wholly insane?
What are we but those who forget
and fade into night with the sunset?

What are we but fluttering hope
and the quiet smile of lovers eloped
and the innocence with which we keep
and the will to be complete?

What am I but an infant heart,
and a soul that has lived through eternity?

You are bones buried,
senses wearied--
a storm at the foot of
headstones.
You are a hale of
wind holding snow,
and snow.
You are coal
ember, dead kindle
leaves in pieces
blackened white.
You are the stillness.
You are cheeks
powdered and
eyes closed.
You are the moon
sinking come morning,
and the time
after your breath

when I am uncertain
of the next.

But it's to here I’m drawn
once again to sit
amidst the fragrance
of dark coffee,
in a room dim with
the gentle clinking
of glass and fingers
tapped on wood,
looking towards a
window streaked
with trails of rain
and the longing eyes
which left me here.

I'd made my heart a monster--
One that only you, my dear,
could love. Could you?
I turn to you and breathe the air
you breathe-- your breath
a storm, as summer stumbles.

I'd found it dull (I think)
the way the seasons leave,
and then turn back;
the way they greet the day
as old lovers entwined,
                     embraced,
                     eloped & gone again.
I'd found it sad (I think)
how a shirt with holes, and torn,
feels heavy on the shoulders,
more than one complete.
I'd found it weary-- Life, that is.

I found and lost until I, you;
By accident; or fate, you say--
or luck and miracle. I found you mine
and beautiful. I'm finding all of me
in all of you, and you in me through
steady breaths between us two.

You let me bend your underwire.
I let you break me-- all of me.
We let the wisps of smoke
dance like ribbons to the vents.
I breathed you in and let you fill me,
and you exhaled and let me free;
Before you, I let myself dissolve.

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.

To think of ended love as such—
a frantic note on napkin folded,
inside a drawer barely open
in a room no longer enter(tain)ed.
Pray, though you think of new love,

That my name will fill your lungs again;

That it will linger on your lips,
a scent not far from winter morning,
before my way to home I find—
to you, my home, my recompense;
to you and you,            
                                              al­one.

To think of ended love as such—
an empty sigh chilled through my bones.