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.

Let's go out to the ocean.

We can build our home where
anenomes grow
and the starfish lose their limbs among stones.
We can dance with the tide
and call the moon our mother
as she pulls us up from our watery home.

We can forget how to breathe--
grow gills and drink air--
forget how to swim and be fish--
be together in our house beneath the waves.

Let's dance in the schools
frolicking among the seaweed
growing too tall for the depths to the sun.
We can find shallow pools and take in the warmth
of the star we don't see anymore.

"I miss it," you say.

"I'll follow," I say.

Together we leave paradise for our forgotten tennis shoes.

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.

The storm outside grew calmer,
calmer and calmer still,
until

we realized the birds were out
and suddenly, people were
mowing

their lawns and making noise
and why did it have to be so loud
when

it was more quiet during the storm
as the storm outside grew calmer,
calmer and calmer; still.

You are more like
a photograph to me,
a still-frame memory like that
picture of my dog when she was younger,

the one that was in an album
that got water damage.

You're like that.

Except your hair's a little sharper,
your tongue a bit wetter,
your lip ring might just be
more kissable these days.

Haunting apathy clouds and clots
the blood beneath insomniac eyes
and the thoughts becoming tangible
simply search for reasons.

If everything is settled now, then
why the sudden start of regression
leading to apathetic depression
from a catalyst to happiness?

Temporary respite from endless fatigue
and allergies to chocolate cake--
sick in my mouth and mind
and lethargy the glue between my sheets:

a silent prayer never crosses the ceiling
because amidst all the turmoil of
a phantom city
never was a god.

anger;

and all the dewbud roses fall silent in the sway grass breeze;
grasshopper and cricket fight over landing ... but what is that?

bleeding
the pen leaves puddles of unhappy gravity on your pages

and you are nothing without her love

anger;
and her skin sweats blood in the fading sunlight of after-hours.

Ooh, crazy, crazy, crazy,* they whisper all at once, now, together.
You, you do not belong here.
ha! ha!
And the lights are too bright, god ******.
Still talking to her? Now there's a pity worth a princess.
A princess in a tower?
A princess with a towel
and a dragon and a trowel
but she'll never have loose bowels
oh, the chicken with the towels.
A few random moments of clarity;
I don't need charity.
It's a rarity,
I'll guarantee,
but prithee, why so far?

I am an empty thing
hollowed out by time
devoid of your love

I am pulling you out by the roots
grabbing fistfuls of memories
burning away the dead flesh
cauterizing my broken skin

I will exterminate the spiders
making webs of all that you said

I will not be convinced again
not even by the phantom of you
that stayed when you left

Lonesome--I cannot write today.

I read your words like heartbreak
heartbroken
from your bleeding pen

leaving tears on the page.

And see where here we are foremost together;
alas a dreamingdream in a picture frame.

Interrupted only I thirst for water downed the drain.

This is only an appeal to the beginning,
a reference to something present and
a radio signal to what endsshallend.

EverytimeIwrite I feel
a little more
eighteen and a little less
four
and twelve
and seventysix.

But I long for Seven.

Lonesome--I cannot write today.

Shan't winit, shanty, so give the lass a kiss from 'far and wee.

Itwasallingood fun,--so--(where nowhere I belong is
wherever you may be)

And can't you see I love you?(where far and shingle
houses ullulate and wait) I undulate and unzip
but whichweigh the feather lightly?

Lonesome--I cannot write today.

So write tomorrow, I say.

Turning sixty today
don't feel **** older

speaking of,
the hell's that dog off to

now, hmm?

******* ****-taker,
I tell you,

and those meds, mm-mm
ain't working no more, I say, I say, you hear me?

What I say?

~

Turning seventy today,
you rude *****

you know your sister
better than you, yeah, you hear me, I say?

She got it down, you just a *****,
always hated you, never cared, no, *******.

Is this hell?
Staring at the seat of your pants
I can see each thread of the denim.

Your deity lies on the sofa across from us;
this house is empty
except for the bed and your single barrel shotgun.

That wasn't me, I want to say;
you keep poor tempo with drums.
Is this hell?

You hold me close so I can hear you tell me
that you have to keep me away;
I saw your naked body by the knives.

This is hell;
we were going to have chicken tonight;
a one night stand salad of condoms.

I saw your naked body in the knives,
your naked body,
and the knives,

and a wild hog as I chased you down the road
as you drive off with your deity on the front seat,
and this is hell, I say,

this is hell,
and your naked body,
and the knives...

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--,,

!;

In your little heart beat strong the cricket chirps night-long,
And hear me say what I think I say tonight,
That if you ever set it good, set it good, set it right,
I'll see you out to where your beating brain belong.

In your little heart beat fast the day today the day the last,
And hear me think what I say I think today,
That if you ever find it out, find it out, find the way,
I'll take you out to nowhere land in past.

In your small tree stump hands behold the beauty of the lands,
All the treasure you can take, I think you'll find tonight.
It's up to you to set it straight, set it straight, set it aright,
So the planes can sit and stare at the sands.

Waking up to the window leaking life back into the cell
mixing with the white walls and echoing clock
and the dents in the door knobs.
I know I'm leaving today.
I don't take my medicine today.
I'm not going to be sleepy today.

Outside the creaky locked door I find nothing new
except faces I'll never see again and won't get to know,
this time.
Impatiently waiting for the call, for the call, for the call
when they'll let me out of this place.
Time ticks like a creaky fan on a summer afternoon,
consistently slowly.

Finally, out. Eight days gone and only my hair is longer.

On the floor the scent of coffee mixes with my perfume
and the musty smell of old books.
Here too early we welcomed ourselves in anyway
and she let us stay inside for a while.

I find myself a new thing to wear, here and there.
Happier now and content with myself
and rediscovering everything;
and I'm surprised to find everything where I left it.
Not just the clockwork of my room
but the architecture of the dining room as well.
The dresses are hung where they were before;
the tables haven't walked away.
With my name around my wrist I explore the nooks and crannies
and find no new spiders there.

But my eyes are different and the air more autumnal
than ever were before I went away.
The world isn't so dark and
maybe that's okay.

There is a part of me that hopes
your insides ache with the last words I said to you

Regret is a powerful poison
I can't hope to control

But there is nothing left inside of me
That holds a memory of your touch
I have long since forgotten
Even which of your teeth are crooked

And you cannot bring me back
Not with thousand word pictures
Not even a post it note

I am long gone
And you can have your leash

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...

The heart is beating;
but that’s all it ever does,
ever does,
just keeps beating beatbeat;
and the heart is beating.

The wound is—-
gaping, gaping wide
The maw within the
maw surrounded by
the teeth, the little arteries
just keep beating.
And the teeth are beating.

——All the while the autumn breathes
her final sigh, sigh,
And who am I?

But is that it?
The heart keeps beating
and the teeth are beating
the autumn breathing
and the spider is weaving.

Drown the sheep in wine
and soap.

Love Songs from the Pillows

     I
You are real like nothing else is;
like the god of bellows never was
beyond the stars and waves of ocean
crying out to sister moon

you are real like no one else is.

    II
We've been waiting for days
and rather I've been crawling tearing holes in my knees
I am crumpled and worn out I am an old pair of shoes
but we mold together

two separate pieces of the same broken glass.
But we are real like no one else is.

   III
I am not the same I am empty--
rather I am a goddess of the cemetery and no one seems to notice--
you plant flowers in the weeping bed of skeletons
and bury your face in my love--

we are an embrace of air and loneliness,
two separate pieces of the same broken glass;
we are real like no one else is.

    IV
Finally we come to rest beneath a peace and heaven
between a soul and the bedsheets we find solace
in a whisper--
you and I are a dream,

and we are the dreamers,
an embrace of air and loneliness--
two separate pieces of the same glass,

real like no one else could be.

You’ve gone to find what you had lost when you
Were young and we were young and love was still
Inside of us.  You took my words and to
Your end you left them there like cups to fill.
And now they sit upon the window sill
Collecting dust and bugs and rain like sieves;
They’re dripping, draining--- and we’ve time to ****
Before fall down our tears like autumn leaves.
But what you lost was love; it gathers cobwebs in the eaves.

Now by my side you sit silent, alone---
You say you’re shouting inside, but to you
I’m blind. Have not I well enough you shown
My love, my care, and feelings towards you, too.
Quite like a bird you think from you it flew.
It’s lost on you, and here now you despair;
And there to gray skies turn your skies of blue.
All lost, all lost, and whither shall you fare?
Once you are dead and gone, no, I shall not meet you there.

Forever in a heartbeat, beat, beat;
a thousand heartbeats; a thousand forevers.
Somewhere the sunbeams catch your hair
alighting gently like sparrows at the tips,
turning each fly-away in turn a subdued golden hue
which radiates softly from your eyes.
Quiet sighs echo through the sheets;
Good morning, my love.
Unhurried, unworried;
Let's spend the day here.
Fading in and out, in and out of consciousness
to the sound of you breathing beside me;
waking up to feel your arms loosely pulling me back.
It's still too early yet;
though the sun has long since turned dark.
A crooked smile—the most beautiful thing I have ever seen—
and your voice telling me to
Dream sweetly. We'll eat in the morning.
Morning comes to rain; rain falls to autumn.
Beside me a yellow slip on the pillowcase reads
I don't love you.
I smile and listen for the sound of your footsteps.
I hear you, whistling tunelessly, and you call to me;
Have you woken yet?
As I meet you in the kitchen I find your eyes
and silently shake my head.
*I suppose one more day couldn't hurt.

I really have no choice
It's all for nothing
But I will try to make you happy

Let you down, kept you drowning
The rain on your windowpanes--
Home, where the candle burns for no one
Let you down, kept you drowning
But I never left you alone

It's all for nothing

Let you down, left you weeping
Der Regen auf deine Fensterscheibe
Die Kerze brennt für niemand
But I let you down and kept you drowning

It's all for nothing
But I will try to make you happy

Saturday left me reeling with her
pleasures and passing fun.
Sunday left me wondering
what else there was to come.
Monday teased me, left me to die.
Tuesday found me beneath the open sky.
Wednesday left me stranded in the
middle of the road,
Thursday found me and
brought me only so far, but
Friday found the end for me,
in her shining golden car.

I remembered our hotel staircase
and was suddenly sick with longing for you.
In my mind you're as beautiful as ever
and your voice still floats like
young spiders' silk threads in the air.
All the midnight city lights only
serve to remind me
of how long it's been since i last
held your hand.
Could I hold your hand again?

I am growing old
beneath this ceiling.
Mind you, I've always been
growing old,
but I regret growing old
here, in this
ridiculous excuse
of a room.

There are ants, you know.
I don't think they
can wait much longer.
But tell them it's okay,
I'll be in their home
soon enough.

And what is this?
Do you
really expect me to eat --
this?
Would you eat it? Dried lettuce,
old tomatoes, gray pieces of
carrots hiding beneath a sad attempt
at dressing.
Pathetic, that's what they give me here.
Pathetic.

But I bide my time.
Have you seen my poetry
in the hallways?
They've hung some, you know.
It's as if this were
a preschool,
and the nurses were
our teachers,
and the things we do to
keep our minds "busy"
(I prefer "preoccupied")
were things to be proud of.
It's like I'm back where
I started --
just a bit less
naïve.

That man, next door,
do you remember him?
He spoke to you the last time
you visited.
They took him to the back
a few days ago.
Please, son, you have to promise me,
you won't let them
take me there.
No one ever returns.

I think that's where they take us to
die.

*Then she turned to me,
that familiar, cynical smile
I've known all my life stretched
across her face, and she asked,
"What's the difference between
a nursing home and
an asylum?"

Do not take this lightly, my love;
if I say, “I love you, my love,” do not take it lightly.

You know I ****** someone who wasn’t you, my love,
but I want to come home to you.

Do not take this lightly.

I am messed up sometimes, my love,
and you know this to be true, I’m sure you do,

so do not take it lightly, my love
when I tell you tonight that I love you,

when I tell you tonight that I love you,
do not take it lightly.

There fly the butterflies again,
and flutter through my mind
the thoughts of you.

Your heartbeat and your warmth
permeating my own thin skin
pulsing blood through my veins
and into you.

You are life and I am life
and we are breathing our scents
into each other's lungs.

But fear I that his wall should stand
an impenetrable membrane
just solid enough to keep us from embracing;

just solid enough to
keep me from falling into you.

Simple and simply put--
light cast down lightly
in shadows' gentle chill.

Flickering darkness in search
of flesh upon flesh
and soft voices echoing.

Love and lovely rustles--
butterflies beneath fan blades
collecting dust in their stillness.

Eyes catching candlelight flames
and smiling--
forever and always in night's short hours.

A starlit ceiling--
we never were anything else
but lovers fated to dream of sunlight.

Sunset, over your warm
body still lying beside me.
The grass sways gently

growing slowly to the rhythm
"bm....bm....bm...."
the heartbeat of the earth only

you can hear now, in your
little sleep, little sleep,
body still lying beside me.

He said, "Walk faster,"
so I did.

Nevermind the cockroaches on the sidewalks
or the locusts in the grass.
Forget the cicadas in the trees
and the worms within the dirt.

Dress to impress, and
impressive I was,
beneath a stoplight shining red
for no one and nothing but asphalt
dim in the night.

As worthless as
a pavement girl in the suburbs
what more did I have to live for?

Except to make the boys
dance and whisper
please please baby.

What more to do and
who to please?
Smashed between the earth and the stars
numbness seeps into the pores like a soul.

When tomorrows are all the same
and todays are passing dreams
I don't fight it but instead
join in and revel in

the lust blowing like dust on the wind.

Everything--
except you,
represented in the emptiness
of a nighttime landscape.

The suburbs glittering
and in the distance the refineries
I found one day with--

Why does the half-darkness
remind me of you?

If we never spent a night together,
never saw the lights suspended within
steel structures and burning fires,
why is it that I regret you now,

beneath the glare of buzzing light pollution
on the top floor of a garage?

wild, and free,
and I know your wiles and
want to free your

hair from its restraint,
binding it at the nape of your
neck and let the wind into

your mind and show you,
show you there is nothing to
hide, nothing to hide except maybe

the unread text messages from
her asking,
"where are you?"

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.

There, departing--did you see?--
my inspiration fleeing from me.

I want you to remember everything you've ever done for me.
I don't ever want you to forget me.
I want you to stay for me, to wait for me--
because I'm selfish and vain
and can't stand to have you
not love me.

I love you.
I guess you already knew that;
even so, beneath the stars
and winding cars

I love you.
It's old news, this.
Even without your caring
force, I'm staring--

I love you.
You say that you know;
you say you knew all along;
silly, go on:

I love you.

I'm sorry I couldn't be your everything.

I'm sorry I couldn't be everything
you needed.

But I can't be everybody's everything because
there would be nothing left

for me.

I haven't thought about it
in a while,
that time I carved thin marks in
the sand with a
razor blade.

But as I was sweeping the beach,
I found them, now old
and barely there,
yet still present and visible
in the sun.

Eventually someone would
notice them, perhaps
as they stepped through
barefoot and sticky
from the sea.

I'm sure someday
all the footprints
from other people's lives
will erase the little marks
and all else besides.

I waited until the darkness
brushed its hand through
the sand
and the moon took the tide up
to wash them away.

Sonnet II

Beneath the moon and scattered stars, between
the night and day, I find the threads of light
are pooling into puddles from the beams
of softly glowing cosmic things tonight.

Away, the wind takes up its nightly ruse
to rouse the ruffled pigeons' sleeping forms.
The moon speaks softly; she, my only muse,
continues nightly duties she performs.

The doves, asleep, are dreaming little dreams
about tomorrow's promise: sun and clouds.
The moon their plumage catches, sets agleam
the feathers moving with the wind. Aloud,

I whisper wishes, all of them of you;
I know the moon may someday make them true.

Handholds placed at random
and footholds where my hands should go.
Down below, the bored crowd waiting its turn
and above, a spinning red light awaiting the bell.
Halfway up and I've realized
I never learned how to rock climb anyway.

I can't take the input from your insanity--
It clings to me like
                                     your arms
&&when; I closerly look, it harms
the insatiable glance between
                                                     insistency
and whatever comes next in persistency
but your legs
                         tower like warm/s
     sandcastles taking indefinite forms
it's all just your insanity breathtakingly
wanting nothing more than my love
as perhaps it always was with you

but I try:not to remember such things
such things as
                          :::&etc; and above
you look down and try to make it true

as ready for insistence and silver rings.

like subtle strings i can feel you
breaking;
apart, alone, distanced and isolated i can feel you
drifting;
like a phase i was only a dream--
transient;
you can say i'm still there and you're still here,
yet
there you go, drifting off into your dark clouds
again,
looking back at me with remorse--
i was too much a spectator to keep the strings
stable.

I don't know you.

You speak and nothing comes out--
but fumes.

Are you anything at all?--
behind the veil
piano keys half-formed, drifting...

I don't know who you are--
what it takes to make you
fall in love, or
smile...

I'm sure it's simple,
it's all so very simple,
and you're just waiting for me
to figure it out,
aren't you?

Hmm, what's this?--hourglass figure,
trickle sands of time
tick tick tick
tick
Who are youwerbistdu? Hmm, what's this?--a spider,
step veins cry tremor
click click click
dead.

I need to feel alive again.
---Need,
   like air---
I need it to be alive.

I'm so jaded
the infectious numbness
has pushed me out of my skin
---as if it were a glove,

and my soul is the naked hand exposed to sunlight.

Submerge me in life's cool pools
because as a fish I am
gasping and gulping for sustenance,
for water to breathe.

Laid out completely bare in
the barren landscape of emotionless doldrums,
barely frozen but numb just the same,
I stare at the permanent face

fog-breathed in the static mirror of the sky.

Watch
myself
live

as if everything is a dream I am both
wholeheartedly devoted to
and
watching from afar.

Watch myself walking---
---I am walking---
but sleeping awake
and feeling nothing.

Awake, awake, awake
every sleepy night---

who's story am I living now?

As I flip the calendar page,
I think back to everything which has happened
throughout this year.
So close to the end, I cannot help but think
about those things which changed me.
Like those hospitalizations,
for depression, they said;
for bipolar, they said;
and all those medications.
And now, they have me half-asleep,
a waking zombie,
because they don't want me getting paranoid.
I miss that black cat.
And I miss getting giddy about the faces in the night.
November, you leave me
changed.

My life
stretches before me like a
wide, fallow field.

I could plant seeds--
watch them grow
and someday have a field
which thrives;
or

I could light it
on fire.

It hit the window like a bird;
it hit the
nothingness like a wind.

You knew you were supposed to feel it,
feel it but all you could
feel was the rough brush of his stubble

on your chest. And he smelled of
colored bubbles and wax.
And you knew how much he wished you were

someone/anyone else, someone
else than who you were at that moment,
feeling his stubble and his breath

on your chest while you thought about
your thousand voices
in the eyes of
God.

between Patrick Thompson and this one*

It's huge.
       Floating, bobbing on the current--
I try:not to remember such
                                 thin  g           s,
      Sinewy and grasping as they are,
                            wraiths, demons, and shades alike.
      It all just
                      (makes sense &)
                                     tells of truths
                                                              ?
                                                               .
                                                               .
                                                               .
"Truths." As true as truthiness can be
                    through a glass onion.
              -------------------------------------- - Run.

Laughing, that's all they ever do is laugh.
Stupid children running rampant through my head
flipping switches and leaving lights on.
Papers crumple in mid-air
and my attention span goes numb.
P--
P--
P--
B--
B--
M--
M--
J--
                   What is
                               this
                       f    u    c    k    i    n    g
                               ­       thing?