for Daniel,
                   and anyone else who cares*

I'm relatively new at this,
if you consider that I've
never done this before.

And this is the only time I'll read this;
this is the cherry
exploding in your mouth,
between your hungry teeth
digging into the skin.

You are a window pane,
but you are not stained glass.
You are less clear than that.

You make less sense than
the spider veins of a kiss imprinted
on a bus window.

You make less sense than kissing a bus window,
arching and aching for that semi-perfect,
seventy percent reflection of yourself
as you float above and before
birds picking at beetles in the grass.

You make more sense than a thousand
kisses on a bus window
the driver has to keep cleaning off because
who really wants to kiss a bus window, anyway?

And still they're there, the oils and grease
immortalized for a few months,
the impression of imagined romance
pressed against the scratched glass on which someone tried to write,
"*******," backwards with a safety pin.

This is my first time reading this,
and the last time I will say it,
though it sounds much better when
the man inside my head so charismatically reads it aloud
to his audience
kind of like a dry comedian would tell a joke.

This is my first time standing before you,
and let me say that sometimes
I might offend you,
preachers, and speakers, and pew sitters;
evangelists and full blooded, God-fearing sinners alike.
And maybe you can forgive me
if I occasionally step on your closed-minded toes
in your sensible shoes.

Or perhaps they aren't so sensible.

And I got a haircut recently--
and here I'm expected to say something profound.
Something that perhaps sounds like,
"I got a haircut recently
while you stood in the bathroom with an electric razor
and shaved ten months of memories from your scalp."

Scalp.
The word makes me think of natives,
and it makes me wonder how long it takes
to collect the bleeding wigs from
the hairless children you left in the street.

Street.
That word makes me think of--
and here again I must choose my words carefully,
because the next thing I say will expose myself
poetically and psychologically--
spinal injuries.

All the careless children walking down sidewalks
not thinking of their mothers as they step
on every single crack in the pavement.

But what if everything we were superstitious about
were real?

Would we repave the world every week
so that there would be no chance of breaking
an innocent woman's back through carelessness?
There will be no cracks for thoughtless children
in their sneakers
they are too young to tie on their own.

Or perhaps the world would be covered in grass,
and every day mother would wrap the scarf
tightly about her son's ears and whisper,
"Don't step on any rocks today, my love.
I'm still recovering from last week."

But that's ridiculous.

I suppose it's surprising to me how many words
the man in my head can say while staring at a
Manhattan Morning in black and white
hung on your wall by three thumb tacks.
The lower right corner hangs idly where I took
the fourth one out to make this poem sound better.

There is a solar system in your ceiling,
did you know that, my love?
It is not in the asymmetrically placed
glow in the dark stars you placed at random,
nor is it in that one dolphin that seems to
swim amongst the Saturns and galaxies
that make no sense in context.
It isn't the seahorse, either.

Would you say that the Milky Way is made of wishes?
When I lie next to you in the darkness
uttering soft lullabies, I make wishes to your ceiling
that my voice doesn't crack
and you don't wake up again.
And also that perhaps one of us is wrong about God
and maybe he is out there after all
and mass-delusion doesn't exist.

I still think I'm right, though.

You make less sense than a kiss that means nothing.

But you, my love, you are more than a thousand kisses.
You are more than the thousand words
a picture may be worth.
And if I were better at saying things
maybe I could preserve you in a poem.

But I don't think anyone can.
No one can shape words and pages to your figure,
the fullness of your lips and
the strength of your nose;
the holes in your ears and
the life between your legs.

I got a haircut the other day
and cut twenty months of memories from my scalp.
It feels nice to not remember,
anymore.

I could tell you, Near and Far, the same old thing;
Near, however, cannot stray
and Far is always too much away;
     but God in fury doth sleep the day,
       and to his mouth he holds the pray
               ;
His Far-to-Near-ness never says a thing;
Near, however, cannot stay
and Far is ever convinced away;
      but God in fury doth sweep the sway
       and to his mouth he keeps to play

So, carry on, ye Cherubim!
And let the Lyres of Heaven sing!
While Seraphim doth give to sway
those Pearly Gates of yesterday!
       and God in fury will find the way
        to hold your count of ne'er away

Forever! he sings, Forever and Now!
While Near and Far burn deep below;
the surface with its great bellows
with furnace in St. Helen's grace;

And God, in fury, will keep you here,
and have your counts from Far and Near
and hold the evils giv'n to sway
the gracely thoughts of how-today

**while never was a grace beheld
than that of Far and Near...

what is it, exactly,,,?
that makes your head

s
  p
     i
  n
n
n
n

the way it does---

so expertly done

and i hunger for something deeper than
appreciation from you..&
i hunger for something

simpler than,,"I want to know you..."

but
  whatever...

i want the ellipsis from you


....

for Daniel, again

It's like an image you stare at for hours,
minutes, maybe
--as you are so aware of time--
of the galaxies from Hubble

painted in blue hues or yellow subtones
as if to say, *This is your heaven,
and it's so far away.

Except it isn't.

I mean, it isn't like that at all,
because I could stare at the stars forever
and feel utterly alone,
except for the cicadas telling me

Hello, hello, we are here, remember?

It's like an image you could stare at
for hours,
a picture in a gallery
someone decided was art.

Except it is, isn't it?

I...?

&

You are off in another room
but your eyes linger here;
your laughter gathers in pools
of twine around my feet.

I can hear you echoing like
a Doppler effect in my
ears.

love...?

&

It's been a day but it's been years,
you know--years and so many
years
and for all the smiles there's still that

overwhelming fear that maybe
someday you'll be gone

and I'll be old,
or maybe a little less young,

or something...

Maybe tomorrow you won't call.

Maybe you'll never say it.

you...?

&

I don't think there's enough time
for me to---your eyes like waves--...?

And the music in my head
reaches a crescendo

when I fall asleep beside--,,

!;

for Daniel*

I smell you on my clothes.

It is a warm memory,
a hint of laughter or
perhaps a smile.

I want to destroy in you
the things that destroy you,
that fear and those sounds,
and her name...

I want to take that heart you buried away,
the thing that still beats however faintly
in its box underground, under flesh,
and whisper things and things
and so many things.

I want to embroider my name on your soul,
I want to smooth the wrinkles in your mind
and tell you everything you are is mine.

Mine to fix, mine to hold,
mine to poke little holes
into and let all the nightmares bleed
like gas
into dream catchers.

Into inch worms and spider webs.

Into my arms and my hair.

And don't forget to fall asleep
while breathing me in;
and don't forget to
fall asleep.

You may not understand
me, but that's quite all right,
you know.

You may not know me very
well; well, I may surprise you in
some way,

but that's quite all right you know.

This isn't meant for interpretation,
cryptography,
nothingness.

It is only meant to eat its
wormy way through the wrinkles
in your brain,

the gray matter the white matter
the brain

and linger there like a nerve ending
firing constantly,

giving you a headache.

Let her go, I said;
don't remember her perfume or the way
her lips kissed yours
or anything of the sort

that might bring you back to loving her.

Let her go;
don't expect her to follow you home
as much as you look over your shoulder,
that sixth sense telling you

she's there and waiting for your love.

Don't forget me,
or time or anything,
don't forget your medication
while I sit here spitting typos

into a keyboard ignorant and dim.

Sound the trumpet;
send the walls of Jericho tumbling down
a day late.
The heathens did see it coming

and left three days ago, you fools,
you arrogant fools.

He never loved you, no;
well, perhaps at the beginning,
until He saw that we are nothing
but insignificant little things

incapable of love, true love.

You say I don't know It,
that book, that wretched book;
I know enough.
I know enough of preacher games

and so much of
we-are-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket.

Every one of us.