I was a moth
drawn to your flame
once.

I was a moth
when I saw your candle
extinguish
from afar.

I was a moth
being burned by your embers
touching
the scales on my wings.

I was a moth
on your doorstep;
I fluttered about the light on your front porch
while
you kissed her goodnight.

I was a moth;

I was a moth;

I am a moth,
and I am dying.

I am a moth,
and there is little time left for me.

For, in a month,
the magnetism will cease,
and the flame
will burn out.

Then what is left?

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.

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.

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.

lingering
like a memory
but fresher--
the scent of your cologne
absorbed by my skin.

one a.m. headlights
and two strangers pass--
the rumble of your idle car
beneath the gray clouds
and beside our embracing forms.

just three minutes longer,
that's all i ask,
as i pull you closer and
hold you tighter.

i'll miss you,
we whisper.

only the breeze
hears.

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.

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.

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 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 cactus ate the moon;
a cosmic starflower;
a cyanide razorblade.

You ate your way through the mouse droppings
in the cereal bowl
and look at me through lens-less everythings.

The sun took the moon
to his midnight hideaway
and she was absent that night.

Beneath the artificial breeze
blowing noisily, raucous;
birds in a tree eating acorns like squirrels do.

I never gave you hope;
I never gave you nothing;
I never gave you what you deserved.

Senseless, mindless, wandering wanderlust
wonderlust
you're keeping yourself company tonight.

Ha! playing with yourself again, I see.
Picking your nose and rubbing your toes
in the sandy sandy dandy boy beaches.

Friendly, never ceasing.

Repeating repeating repeating lines
repeating repeating repeating signs
repeating repeating relocating lies

Nice to just let go
no reality
no gravity.

But I'm not defying, no
nor scrying, oh
but lying, go.

She gave me her hand
and expected me to restitch the fibres
as if I were ever so good a tailor.

Surgeon.

Nevermind.

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

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, *******.

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.

Small, twinkling star,
out before your siblings,
shining bright before the
dusk has fully set.
I don't know what you are,
bright star,
but you are mine.
At least for tonight you are mine.

Sitting above the trees
in a darkening blue abyss
I can see through my window
between the slits in the blinds
how you move
slowly ever downward in the sky.
Let down your silvery hair
and leave a trail of stardust
to my windowsill.
I don't know what you are called,
but tonight I call you mine.

And as the darkness
filters through my window and
crawls along my bed
I will watch you descend the heavens.
Bright celestial body,
outshining the waning moon tonight,
I will sleep beneath your caresses
and dream of your embrace.

You are alone.

I can see you now,
in my ever-omniscient
mind's eye.

You are alone, and
you are unhappy about it.
You are sitting upon the floor
wringing your hands,
wishing that days did not exist
and nights were not
so dark.
You are thinking
of how cold the air is
and how silent the house is.

Yes, you are
exactly as I want you.
I laugh, triumphantly,
bitterly,
miles away with
my eyes closed
to the nighttime and to
reality.

after Patrick Thompson*

Suppose::I must apologize be,cause--
well, it's allmyfault anyway,

sleepingly dreamingliest the movements
come as per rote per wrote

and (I'm sorry) doesn't quite cover it anymore,

             well, I can see it clearingly you still desire closeness
             I cannot give, it's not enough…

But,,love…however long and far away,
a paper kite the tail is trailing far below

catch me, catch me i'm falling,,,&(I'm sorry)

doesn't quite cover it any,mor,e...

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?

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.

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

Well, what now, hey?
     I threw the dog overboard yesterday.
     The day before, the day?
Where will you go, hey?

I heard the orchestra-man play
The same way,
     Sanctum, requiem, asylum
All Latin in his French dog-eared play.

     Hear the monkey, playing accordion play
To the whirling whirly-whirly-ghig
     Tre dramatique, no? Today
I understand you're just as "tramatig."

I want to hear your Frenchmen play
Play ***** pipes play play
      In his dog-eared French *****-man
Play

But I cannot, cannot say
     Tears of joy, in hydrant spray
The Hyades triumphant rainbow stay
     Cough your little fears away;

Hear the Star Spangled Francis Key play
Frenchmen play, play,
Little piggies counted play
Black white keys with little piggle-plumps play

Atone-al, A-tonal---atonal tonal sounds as if to say
"Getting married here to stay"
       All alone and all today
      Settle down if for a day
And who will hear the trumpet play
When *****-man Frenchman say
"Where? Home of the free" and stay

Keep your hands away
Never want to        let you say
               "Hear me, hear ye, all you weary, weary dreamers
         But never left your confidence like Russell-rustle leaf-blown willow-white

You fill them up with seventy two pay
      Make a kite, to(k)night, allRight
      Thank god for the fleas in the right
Hairless creatures for to sway

I threw the dog overboard yesterday
The day before, the day
And if you'd wanted it to stay
You should've say, you should've say

But never let my hand betray
The vein, the line, the artery
Of arterial shells bombastically
Loquacious to a fault, this day

They say "You want another day"
They say "You never wanted say"
They say "You wasted every day"
They say "They say, they say, they say"

                   But e'er forget, ne'er forget
                   I'll despise you abandon heaven for earth to get
       And leave your money, your millions behind
       For mansions with my Lord to find

But in the ceiling never was a god to pray

You were so cute
when you loved me
and now you're an arrogant *******.

You were so loving
when you loved me
and now it's almost as if you hate me.

You were so beautiful
when you loved me
and now I can't stand to see you.

You were so perfect
when you loved me
but now you've fallen from grace.

And I wonder if
now that you love her
you're everything you were to me.

Cute, loving, beautiful, perfect;
are you all these things?

Or are you pretending for her
like you did for me?

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.

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.

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?

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.

Before you know it,
or perhaps after you know it, but too soon,
too soon all the same--
growing old--
the men are scarce.

He took my hand in his,
his hand in mine we walked beside the water--
the moon reflects in the choppy waves
but light pollution dims the stars
and fogs his eyes.

Sometimes you still get it from a bullet
imagining fishnets around your
ankles and your dress
on
the floor--

He sings and
it is a beautiful thing when I think about
the past--
everything has led up to this
but this will soon be over, and over again--

--pick up the pieces--
the lamp lies on the floor
and shards, the remains of an ******
still lingers in your pupils
but ******* never liked it that way, anyway.

He tells me I'm scatterbrained.
I tell him I'm planning

Why are you bleeding why are you bleeding why
are you
bleeding?

something to write but there's no

It's over, it's over, and over again.*

tension.

I hope you've buried her body.
Somewhere deep, somewhere hidden
so you'll never find her again.

I want to hate you for the way
you felt about her.
I want to hate you.

But I can't.

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

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.

I am going to show you just exactly what I mean when I say
Get away from me,
and just exactly what I mean when I say
Never show your face again.

You don't even have to ask, because I am going to tell you
You're a worthless pig,
and there won't be any questions left.
Your head is empty inside.

My dear, it's all so simple and painfully plain, you see
I want you to touch me;
I'm a slave to my hormones
*and I'm sorry I hurt you so.

sleep deprivation:
I wrap a blanket of the stuff
around me
and drink another round of
coffee.

no, that's a lie. I'm not drinking
coffee. I'm drinking--
get this--
sorrow and you know what?
black.

sleep deprivation:
is it too much to say that I'm
waiting for you to call and
answer that heavy question
I'd asked two days ago.

why do you love me?

no, that's not a lie. I really did
ask him that.
don't believe me?

well, he's _5 and I'm not
seventeen years enough to get
anything out of the way he
feels for me.

sleep deprivation:
enough to hallucinate circles
and twiddley-lumps on strangers.

suffice to say I'm waiting on the
insignificance of the moment,
the unimportance of the lifetime.

like the lifetime of a star on the other
side of the universe:
she burned herself out and is now just

a ten cent ****** with a smoker's cough.

sleep deprivation:



                                         ha, circles.

Nothing on the floor--
greens and blues and lighter shades of pale
stretched out in stripes from the sun
shining through the curtains.

Solace in a puddle on the floor--
drip, drip, from the bloated ceiling tiles
browning from the rain.

Somewhere, down the garden path,
past the Easter lilies and scattered ferns,
a butterfly drinks the nectar
of a honeydew blossom.

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?

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.

Sonnet I

Across the bridge, I saw within my mind
--not missing it, but rather finding it--
an older love, the kind I'd left behind.
'Twas like the grains of sand, which never fit

together in the hour glass, but fight
for freedom 'gainst each other, falling down
until they land on top each other, right
and left of where they want to be. The frown

that took my face--which left it starved for joy--
reminded me of loving him; but now
there is another one, another boy
who loves the way I laugh. I now know how

to leave behind the one, the lost, the old,
for something new: the one I love to hold.

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.

Sonnet III

The angel's wings were folded at his side;
his perfect feathers neatly tucked in rows
of white were shining in the sun. Below,
the earth was turning; water blue belied
the peace the world possessed. He stood beside
a newly-risen soul, a babe whose nose
had never breathed before it decomposed,
whose eyes had never seen and never cried.

The angel took the soul's small hand in his
and led the babe to see the almost-birth
it never had, the almost-life and love
of humans it would never feel. From this
it turned away. Forgetting mother earth,
the babe grew wings and lived its life above.

I don't feel it, You say. And, pray tell her
name, my sir, that i may find she thee and prithee

Bear me off to southern sounds, fallow fields,
an altar ground, a garland rope of singing springtime snows.

this may be more than i can--;;
                        YOU
                        ARE
 ­                       NOT
                        WOR
          ­              THW
                        HILE

and i had such an awful dream last night--

you said, Bronwen, my love;
and i could not sweep her hair from the floorboards
beneath which you hid your ***** mags from mice.

because you tell me about it.

                                                            ­              WHOAM?
you speak of gOd like dOgs & i am worthless coinage
in the sewers. the sewers find my dress still hanging from your bones.
your bones your bones your piano finger bones
kiss me again

until my lips swell my throat bleeds i do not want you to know how much i crawl spiderlike through the trails of hair in the drain as the autumn leaves the summer leaves the spring buds freeze over hell i am not i am not listening pan-drum please let me say this one last thing:;

he is your accordion player the ***** player man who speaks fluent french and inflected english he is your accordion player on the pipes-----

and you say i do not feel and i reply,

this is too bad too late, chuckle replay as your fantasy walks through the door my team my team she is porcelain lovely see the perfume in your synesthesia colorblind goat footed grandiose Cesar with epilepsy she is your dream she is she is she is!

&meanwhile; the trumpet in soul still plays solfeggio---

1 2 le 3 4 1 2 le 3---1 2 le 3 4 1 3--le 1 le 3 le 1
she is the discord of the seventh in the tenor line
she is membranes she is rain she is towels

                      LEIGH **** IT

if only if only you weren't so lonely i might call you mine and bring you back homely.
IF ONLY-----Charles weren't so busy while you

stare at silver spoons and cherub smiles

and cupid calls you home again.

Under the streetlights shining silver stars into puddles
and throwing shadows at roaches
I wait patiently for my not-quite-charming prince to drive up
in his silver-armoured vehicle
and take me away.

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.

This darkness is absolute--
but never empty.
You cannot see, but
your hands are still here.
I am still here.

I cannot shine
candlelight
upon quiet birds in the nighttime.
I cannot bring
starlight
upon dew-covered leaves of grass.

But I can hold you
steady.

And when you open your eyes
to the beauty of
dead men's clouds,

then your sunshine will show you--
the darkness isn't real

and it never was.

Suppose we were a dream;

suppose the subtle incarnations of pseudo-reality
were just that, horses grazing on an incarnate field of
blue colored clouds like crayon boxes left empty
in a sandbox

when it was raining.

And, suppose::

that this is just what we were looking for, as if
wedding bands were eternal
and heaven is real; there is no need to stop and count
snowflakes in Idyllwild because

it never snows in New Orleans anyway.

Right.

Just for a moment, imagine that
we are together forever
and forever has already come and gone
and we are ashes in the ethereal moonbeams

of just-a-dream-I-had-last-night.

Deep and provocative,

think of her hollows and holocausts
and the conflagration of her soul
as if, as if she were ever just
outer space

and perhaps a slice

of buttered toast on Sunday afternoons.

The day's works doing have been done;
the midnight caught in the eaves
the eve of morning is lingering in your breath:
Against my ears eyes flutter and there is no undoing,
there is no unbuttoning or unzipping of clothes.

The day is working doing and done;
there is a shaking in the leaves
as leave you move a lingering in your step:
And my heart lungs whisper soft lullabies like yesterdays,
there is no forgetting, or letting, or knotting.

There! fingers break and unravel and
Yet! still sitting on the patio she is having her think
fighting pigeons with stale bread;
stepping on fallen branches you snap like a twig.
To think! to behold! to fall!;
she is your tea leaves, she is your hollow tree;
she is your empty cup and broken knee;

she is your hello to strangers and your goodbye to friends;
she is, she is,...!

She is!

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


....

Your name is beautiful.
Your name is so ******* beautiful,
and I want to cry.
Something about the z,
or perhaps the sch
that makes me think of
hurricanes and daisies.

It's all dreams now;
tornado pastures amidst
raindrops
s(h)ifting like a fog
where the light is thin.

But you don't live here anymore.
Your bed is empty and
the sheets lie neatly.
And when your air conditioner kicks on
the air it breathes
no longer smells of you.
I think I'll sneak in through your window
to sleep in your bed
beside the soft pillowed impression
of the memory of you.

The sand lies thin on
the carpeted floor;
acrylic-painted seashells
for housing hermit *****
rest beside the television
empty.
Within the walls
hallucinations of your voice
and on the keys of the piano
the indentations of your fingers.

The hammers are broken.
Still your melody plays.

But you don't live here anymore.
At 2 a.m. I wipe the condensation
from your window pane
and shine the flashlight into your eyes--
just my reflection in the glass.
My fingerprints are fresher than yours
and where my feet fall
the dust from your shoes will be late to meet.
I think I'll lie naked between your sheets
so maybe the mattress will remember
that you felt different than I do.

Your name is beautiful.
Something about the phr,
or the nia...

We went to the movies the day of the apocalypse.
We happened to be the only ones there
and neither of us heard a thing.

It was like something out of the Twilight Zone;
everyone was gone and we were left without our glasses
and a book full of poetry which had been scratched out.

And all we ever muttered was,
"There was so much time;
there was so much time."

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.

Woken from a dream by nothing but the fanblades--
It's two a.m. and I'm left wondering
silly things, of course--
and maybe I'm still sleeping anyway.
I wonder if I ever really loved you
and I wonder if you still...

Everything's gone wrong since you.
You like to say that it's your fault I had the seizures,
but that's my fault. I did that to myself.
All of this is my fault.
I couldn't let you go.
You know, it's funny;
I led you on because I liked the attention.
And I let you have me so I wouldn't lose you---
and look what that did.

And even when it was time to let you go---
"Let's cheat; let's ****,"
was in your eyes that night.
So I didn't let you go.

I tried, at some point---
I told you I hated you.
And you punched the ground.

Everything's gone wrong since you.

And now they have me on some medication.
That's my fault, too.
It makes me sleepy and it makes me numb---
everything feels gray now--
and lifeless.
You try to say something
to keep me from wanting to die
but you can't.
Even the clouds whose whispers
I heard and took pleasure in
have been grayed out by the sweeping hand
of medications.
There is nothing, anymore.

I wonder if you still love me.

I'm unfair, you know.
I want you to---
still love me.
I want you to be under my sticky spell---
I want you to do anything for me.
Even though we're long gone
and I have someone new now.

I wonder if I'm in love.

I told him yes but the meds---
they dull the soul
and turn the heart to stone.

It's two a.m. and I wonder too much.
I can feel myself hurting things.
This is what I get for being honest.

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?

I am here to hurt you.

Hand me your heart,
bleeding and succulent
and young,
and I will show you what it means
to have loved and lost.

I am here to love you.

Hand me your soul,
singing and blossoming
and pure,
and I will show you what it means
to ascend to heaven.

Embrace my smile.
Surrender to my eyes.

Convince yourself
that everything that is wrong in my head
is something you can fix.