By and by,
we lie, we lie.

Clap your hands
to their lullaby
and become their wonder—
96% of humanity
is worth $6 in space
carrots.

The Cartier watch ticks
and some postmodern twitter
handle rocks
a swear jar full of
16th century curse words.

By and by,
we lie, we lie.

Before guns wore make-up,
We used to put pennies in our socks
So we’d always walk on the root of all evil.

Now Wall Street angels frolic through satellite clouds borrowed
from youths educated by universities of smoke and plastic bags.
                  
(The tears of a child are homage to the waning gods)
For in a day not far away,
Over the painted moon of the Morning Son,
The sun will rise wearing the finest war scars money can buy.

And the screams of humanity will be heard from Venus,
Forgetting that the reciprocal of   L-I-V-E   itself  is     E-V-I-L
And perhaps death is the life meant to be lived.

I remember the morning Tuesday was invented—
how gleeful we sang across the streets—
forgetting that the day after tomorrow would be Thor’s day
and that one we didn’t own, too.

I remember the bathroom stalls, the sins of Leviticus
we survived
comforting our confusion with the indulgence that God too
love man, kind.

Let the purgatory full of half good men sing about their sins
with pride and laugh at the moons and stars for being without limbs
and tongues to protest their innocence and Idontgiveadamnisms;

For I remember being fed the tenets of heterosexual history in elementary school
yet wondering why queer gods are the ones named after the planets.

I started writing poems years ago.
Someone said i even missed my calling,
which is kinda flattering but may also have meant i was pretty lame at my real job.
I get distracted by the Likes
Verse and vice,
Prose and price,
On the site.
Statistics and counting,
not lofty fodder for wit and imagination and love and bleeding.
But, I get distracted by the likes,
And I want them.
Natalie said they don't count twice.
Ooh, once I was even trending.  But I suspect that's a ploy to bait me.
Still, a time in the sun, even if just a coding device.
No real poet would find that proper.
Perhaps I'm just not a poet, or even poetic.
I suspect there's other evidence to indict me.
Please don't be too harsh, or worse, click away.
I want to write a verse that strikes a chord,
But I get stuck on just which ones to play.
Because I'm looking for the lightening bolt to turn yellow.
I have IRBD envy.  But not of verse but of what, or who follows.
For Likes.
I know thats lame and not what a real poet would do.
A poet of noble and lofty thoughts, of obtuse meaning and lyric wordsmithing.
With a cult-like following and others just trying to figure out what it means,
But they know the poets name, and that counts for something.
I'm impure and unworthy, or perhaps not talented
A poetic imposter, a fraud.
I've got the likes to prove that anyway,
If, that's what they prove.

In the panes of her window,
reflecting, resting on her elbow,
she wonders if there's meaning
in that circumstantial meeting...
A faltering, so fleeting,
as the caress of their eyes
unveiled in each a soft disguise:
tiny blue planets, blanketed by sky,
graceless in their natural orbit,
revolving her every plane, looking to explore it...
Decelerating in search of her balanceable center,
clumsily gravitating almost against her,
a pair of unsettled, timid satellites
passing both slow, and at the speed of light...
Two beautiful, flickering, twinkling stars,
both six feet close, and light years far...
Her own tiny brown comets in a dusty trail descent,
averting, avoiding the light, reflected and bent.
She, aligned in that momentary eclipse...
a time and a space she chose to dismiss.

It’s the memories that haunt us
That we seem to cherish most
And what you thought was the light in her eyes
Was a ghost
Of all the things that used to make her smile most of all
But the smile breaks to pieces
And the pieces start to fall
On the floor by her feet
So she retreats inside her head
Never mind that inside
Is where the sickness starts to spread
To her soul
Makes her cold
Makes her wanna lose control
Of everything. With every sting
With every needle in her skin
That sinks to the vein
And then dampens down the pain
With the bitter sweet retreat and each
And every dull refrain.

how often have I been like this?
connecting to the world of nothingness
that thinks of something so obscure
one that cannot be fathomed.
though I try to look for it in my mind
every step, it seems to falter.
then I go back to who I am not
and regret the world I created.

I wish that I
could fall in love
with a female,
for she would make
a far better muse than
the gruff sailors and musicians
and drunks and men
in general that I am
inclined to crave.

to write about
a painted pout or
skin that brushes against
your own like nylon,
sunlight shining through
the window onto a Cupid's bow
and dancing down to
a delicate clavicle, or
black eyelashes that bat
and blink remorse
into your cavernous heart,
to muse over such aesthetic
delights, would be
ecstasy for my poetess heart.

I linger, staring, at beautiful
women, androgynous women,
delicate, feline women,
stringing words
together in my head
over long legs and
hair that flutters like silk,
and they think I'm crazy
or in love with them.
well, maybe I am crazy,
but I crawl into bed each night
with my snarling, gleaming,
mahogany gentleman,
and I love him madly,
my rugged muse.