What artist chiseled you?

What stone birthed you?

What dream gave you

soul, and who dreamt you?



What levin cracked you?

What rivers eroded you?

What iron painted you

red, and who dreamt you?



What winters withheld you?

What springs undressed you?

What summers promised you

fall, and who dreamt you?



What pain makes you?

What time keeps you?

What things did you

dream, and who dreamt you?

I
Through vines indeterminate
Red cherry eyes peeped,
And spied two forms,
Fleshy pink and brown
Trees, tangled at the roots,
kissing in the canopy.

II
The garden was our
Discotheque, the sullen
Moonlight reflected
On the Black Beauties,
Twisted black mirrors,
in the garden of joy.

III
O, to again be mov'd
By your heirloom lips,
I'd give it all, the earth,
the sun, and the water.
A sacrifice: my Homesteads,
for a home.

IV
Soil runs dry.
The sun scorches.
Plagues run rampant.
We burn, we are sacked
and pillaged, and destroyed.
Roma, Roma, Roma.

V.
Maybe the rain,
Or sweet shade,
Or gentle sun,
Or simply the need
To be so defiantly
alive, will bring us again,
And I will drink you up again,  
Brandywine.

The light of the television
dimly lit two
lovers,
but not really.
He stunk of wine
from the lips and
mauve teeth,
she stunk of wine
by proxy.
her legs, only slightly
unshaven, he stroked
gently, which they
both enjoyed, but
not really.

***** pots, plates, and
cutlery lay placid
in the sink.
They'll be washed
sometime soon,
and put away in  
cabinets of wasted
white wood, very soon,
but not really.

The floor, like them,
began growing clothing
like wild moss or ivy,
and claimed the room
& claimed them too.

The movie, he'd recall,
but, then, she would
not.
He watched the blood,
and conflict,
and at times laughed,
and she saw him,
and conflict,
and didn't laugh at all,
which he knew was strange,
but not really.

On the dim, small, screen,
The lean and hungry man had his
Nemesis on the
sepia-tone ground,
and finished it all,
with rage and mercy,
with a stomp
to the
heart.

They watched, her eyes wide,
for she knew this was
them, her on the ground,
and him in the air, and she gripped
him a bit tighter,
which he noticed,
but not really,
which she noticed,
but not really.
In the dimly lit room,
they could not see
they were alone,
and it was true,
only Bruce Lee & He,
and She.

Savor these hard times,
Cherish every drop,
For one day they'll be
far past and behind.

Joy is warm and sweet,
Anger burns the tongue,
Sadness makes its case,
Dressed in smoky char.

Let the others eat
portions meant for kings;
I am far too well
With the bits I find.

Desires aren't ripened tangerines
They do not fall off the tree when they are ready
They do not fertilize the roots below
They do not shrug off the sense of un-pickedness,
just like that,
Not like tangerines do.

Desires unspent are starving termites.
They bite into living bark
And burrow into the breathing deep
Past rings and rings of precious age.
They corrupt the tender core
And, soon, no new leaves grow
And no more fruit drops.

For all the earth in the world,
For the varied chunks,
shapes and shades
of brown, keep an eye out!

There, somewhere in the dirt,
Next to the writhing worm,
Gasping at pockets of sunlight,
Green life ruminates, and
pushes, pushes up,
through the soil,
intrepid, unlikely.  
It abandons its old husk house,
what little safety it knew,
and, daring to dream,
thrusts itself into existence,
and feels the day's cooling kiss,

a multi cellular masterpiece,
when yesterday, there was only
dirt.

For the love of god, write.
Write.
Write like all hell.
Write as if your heart is on
Fire, and the only way to quell it is to
Shoot
The
Flames
from your fingertips.
Your nerve-bitten nails &
****** ripped skin strips,
The papercut pains,
Have all been for this,
You
     have
            been  
                  trained.
No sweeter burn,
No better hurt.
Write, **** you.
Write.
Nobody knows your story
As perfectly as you.

It bears down heavy
Tonight's rain.

Hat almost
Soaked through.

Bombardment
Will get me soon.

They will breach
The pocket where my phone is.

And make
It impossible to call you.

And that is the
Heaviest drop
Of all.

I am a Harbor
Moss-covered barnacles
govern my legs, and my back
is drenched in fog.

My wooden walkways creak,
and the wind makes me
groan with loneliness;
but life stirs underneath,
in waves.

Ships arrive at the worst hour,
full of regrets and suspicions,
and aches and envies,
and troubles and fears.

I welcome angry sailors,
the worst of all mankind,
to drink at my tavern,
and dangle their feet
off my docks, and
stare at the sea.

They look
east by southeast, north by northwest,
to home, where only
memories
return.

Some men are bustling airports;
they welcome millions a day,
and millions a night,
see them off to other skies
and do it over again.

But I am a jealous Harbor.
I keep my vessels with me forever.
I guard them with an icy peace.
And relish in the slap of the sea.
And bathe in the salt of the wind.

I L U like my ***** clothes
Love being forgotten
On my bedroom floor

I L U like chores love the
music that helps them
forget they're chores

I L U like ***** dishes
Love hot showers and
the other side of the sink

I L U like I love spilling
Salt, and warding off the evil,
By tossing some behind my back

I L U like I love
Breaking rules about
my own supposed
non-Superstition

I L U like black cats love
Bad luck, cause to them,
It's just Friday, you know?

I L U like the hot dog bun
Loves staring at the beef patty,
Wishing "if only, if only"

I L U like bread loves
Being forgotten till we're really hungry
And then we're all ungrateful, like
"Hey bread, you remember us?"
And bread is high above us, like
"Always."
Not even a hint of scorn

I L U like the first time I saw
Jurassic Park, The dinosaurs
Were real enough
sans chicken feathers, and
Who needs modern science anyways
when love has no fossil records?

I L U like the weather loves
Surprise parties.
I L U like painful
surprise party memories love
being forgotten on my bedroom floor

I love you like Mayflies love living,
oh so briefly, once a day, every single day,
Chapter one to chapter none

I love you like mayflies love themselves,
brevity and all, stirred by nothing but
the glow of Dawn's light,
Dead by dusk, the Mayfly never
knows its final form.
It dies
in complete
incompletion,
but that's okay.

It drank the salt ocean,
it breathed the living air,
And that's how I want to L U

It's like
I haven't seen you in so long
But even that's a lie.

I've seen your past in pictures
and I've see your present
In Facebook updates.
Seen your new happy
so close to your old sad.

And even when I tear myself
from the screen,
there still remains
the imprint of your face
burned into the inside of my
eyelids, so that
Everytime I want to look at NOTHING,
I see you.

Everytime
I rub my eyes,
or wash my face,
I'm haunted by your look.

When I try to sleep,
I see you staring back.

It's like Everytime I sneeze,
my body wills me into
catching a glimpse of you.

And even when I beat myself into dead slumber,
you burrow through my optic stems, claw into my cortex,
and sink your teeth into my very dreams.  

I wake up, too shaken to scream,
too weak for words, and still,
somehow, I manage to spell your name
on my back and on my sheets,
in trickling droplets of sweat.  

You linger in my mind like nuclear fallout.

I tell myself,
Maybe one day
I'll brave Old Chernobyl.
I'll pass by the radioactive signs,
the wise warnings, without fear or worry.
I'll use my coward's camera to capture
preserved pockets of the past, looking,
helplessly, for the secret to having loved you,
and maybe even the secret
to forgetting you.

But even that's a lie.

I share my bed with demons.
Goblins, and Rakshasa,
And Japanese Oni
stain my sheets,
already crimson,
with red hot unrest.
They do not speak in whispers.
They do not close their eyes.
Together we lie and toss,
And think and sleep
Not a wink, not a wink!
Just listen to the
Crickets and wind and,
below us,
Hear slow, steady,
Heartbeats of
the hell they call home.

Follow sulfur incense strings,
My mercy, down to the
ninth circle of my bed.  
**** the swelter of
this under-the-covers underworld,
Drown touch-starved fires
with holy water sweat.
Suffocate a roomful of shadows,
with a fistful of light.
Guide my way to dreams.

Save me, save me, save me.

When you are not with me
I share my bed with demons.

It was the summer.
It was the summer
Of roadtrips
And heartbreak,
Of wave breaks,
And road rage,
And sunsets,
And guilt trips.

It was the best of times
And the fast of times
And the worst of times
And the last of times
It was the summer.

It was the summer of
Tollbooths and
Accelerating cars
And as quick as you go
You pull what chases you
Just at fast,
Newton laws,
For it was the summer.

It was the summer
Of never and always
Of fears and futures
Of clairvoyance
And of foolishness.

To look so on trees,
In Summer's waning scorch
And not see the leaves
Changing, is blindness.
But it was the summer
Of changes unseen.

Autumn slipped in silently,
Not through the back,
Like a servant,
But through the front door,
Like an assassin.

Words were had,

Shots were fired.

Summer is dead,
Cradled in Autumn's arms,
Green life turning to crimson
And yellow, and brown.

The past is only
As good as our last summer.
And this one, well,
It was the summer.
It was the summer.

You looked at me in that way
That a dog stares helpless
At the unrelenting traffic passing by.

You looked at me, and the gusts
Of winds blowing this/that way,
Seemed a bit more certain and sure.

You stared at me, trying not to
Linger on my eyes, and opened
and closed your mouth, almost saying.

You, again, and forever,
Walk away, and before you leave
You turn and make time shatter between us.

And you mumble something,
Under your breath, I can only understand
"What do I know
Oh god
What do I know"

Si fueras tú un árbol,
Quisiera ser el leñador
Quisiera un alma de valor,
Quisiera un hacha de mármol.

Quisiera poder pasar
Mi mano por tu coraza
Y si más no se desplaza,
Tumbarte horizontal.

Quisiera hacer un hogar
De tu torso de madera,
Y en tu pecho, si se abriera,
Una cuna de anidar,

Quiero dormir sobre tu pelo,
Bajo tus ojos de ventana,
Y despertar cada mañana
Besando los pies de tu suelo.

Si fueras para mí,
Tus semillas guardaría
Y en la noche sembraría
Todo un bosque de ti.

You. You.
Little loud voice.
You keep me up,
All night, with your
Little whispers.

You shift to your side
Little Tectonic shifts,
To confound my sleep,
To sully my slumber,
To drown my dreams,

You keep, you keep,
You keep me up.
You played all night
With your little big band.

A Valentine's Card dressed
With Steve Buscemi's face,
photoshopped onto a child,
disturbing and hilarious,
tattooed on the inside
with once-true truths.
Flammable.

A severed chunk of
35 mm film,
cut in a rhombus,
or trapeze or whatever,
highly flammable.

A piece of cloth
I brought with me,
And the part of
the belt I had to cut
off so it would fit
my skinny ***.
Flammable, slightly.

A dead and dried up leaf,
Impaled on the bulletin board,
From a tree I don't even know what,
That sometimes crinkles with the wind,
If she were alive still,
She would comment on the
Cold thumbtack spear
In her abdomen, and
Sniff regrets at the sweet,
Artificial Vanilla waves below.

I keep my wall of
flammable memories
Above a lit candle,
Every day, I wish the flames
Would reach a little higher, but
Every day, the wax sinks,
low, low, lower still.

Don't call me a volcano,
I don't want to be a volcano!
Sometimes active,
Mostly dormant,
A stiff peak with indigestion,
Birthing igneous isles
across the seas,
Starving for eruption,
Hardening.
Waiting.

Call me a hurricane,
Say it with a tremble.
Never expect me,
Dread my return.
Never dormant,
Always hungry,
Carving my path,
Landmass by landmass,
Conquering, Striding,
Devastating.

Get your facts straight
Before you call me a disaster.

We worry.
We wonder why.
We wake, we wait, we work
We worry.

We whine wuthering
Whispers, wavering, wasted,
Wishing while wishing
Wanting while wanting,
Wondering why.

We work well,
Well, we work,
While wizardly weaving
Wispy wavelengths,
Weedy wasps of
Wanton whimsy,
Wired well within.

We will warmongers
Without wonder
Who wreak
Widespread waste,
Welcome Wasteland,
Washing with war the
Wounded World.

We will war
War wills we
We wage war
With weird weapons.
We wrestle with will.
Why?

We wait whole
Weekdays, weekends. A
Ways away, the waning
Winter winds of men's
Wisdom's wavering.

Withering winks from
Wistful women,
Widening wingspans,
Wads of we, we,
Wandering westwards
Where suns wane,
Wait out wear of weather ,
Wondering why.

Warm waters will wash us,
We will wake up well.