you slept on the inside of the bed
I on the outside
you were cooler
I was calmer
and we talked of everything
but of course - mostly - nothing
you left early in the morning
I slept while you readied

you eskimo kissed my nose
to say you were leaving
and leaving me there
and before my smile reached both ears
you reached the door and were gone
but still there in my head
heading toward my heart

No, I've never writ of butterflies-
pretty things that flit about the flowers.
I've often thought to catch so dear a prize,
but then found better use for fleeting hours.
They won't be caught and if caught can't be kept
unless their hunter's more than passing cruel.
So, watch them, watch each flower they've o'er leapt...
then watch their sick pursuers, each a fool.
For if caught, then, what then? Forever trapped?
Those tender wings would break in any hand,
they'll batter 'gainst their bars till will's full sapped.
The corpse of what once flew has no demand.
Hold anything to tightly and it dies,
but no, I've never writ of butterflies.

Take a road trip in my heart my dear, the highways are all marked.
Head down any route you choose, where every onetime romance sparked.

Just in case you won't remember, take a picture of my heart.
Get close - catch all the little cracks from where it broke apart

But I stumbled through the red tape, built the infrastructure new.
Now with tearful eyes and outstretched arms,
I give the key to you.

Ride through my heart with all the lumps in it, they fell down from my throat.
See the well from which I've drawn out every word I ever wrote.

Take a souvenir from my heart, it's something you must do.
It's risky but I have to trust a piece is safe with you.

If you held it close to your heart that would probably be best,
it might be warm and safe there if it's pressed against your chest.

Please leave my heart quite carefully or never leave at all.
If i keep giving pieces out it may end up too small.

Her collection contained every song you joked about
(but secretly loved).
She listened to the jokes and laughed...
She listened to the songs and danced.
She got the jokers dancing too.
I'm not quite sure who wouldn't dance with her...
would you?

Since words have always been my closest friends-
it reasons that they're jealous now of you,
the she whose dear affection never bends
and now controls my heart beat through and through.
Ambassadors they once were to my heart
before you came and turned it inside out,
and though they matched you squarely at the start
they have since then been beaten without doubt.
So then it's little wonder they deny
to strive in constant effort to meet you.
I work them, wear them - pray that they comply
but in the end it seems they never do.
So words my once great love have lost their place
like everything that fails to match your grace.

Oh dear one, give me something I can keep,
let words be ardent messengers of thought,
then yours will be the place twixt wake and sleep,
and once that's true you'll never be forgot.
For now your mind's a window shut and drawn
and I outside can only overhear,
I'll piece together stories till the dawn
though if you'd open up I'd give you ear.
A simple peice of mind is all I ask
and hopefully it's flown up from your heart
let fly the words you've held up in your casque
and once they're in the air you've done your part.
Oh, speak your passions in a conscious stream
and claim the place of peace before a dream.

Power lines like ropes of black licorice against the cotton candy sky
blues and pinks, pink and blue
I guess I wish you here to share the view.

So how bout we go around, you and I? Like kids,
stick out our tongues at all the things that we don't like...
and the sun of messy egg yolk, will come and shine on us.

It kills me that I can't keep you in words,
The more I write the more I seem to miss.
Like meaning from my pen is far off lured,
I can't put down your smile, your eyes, your kiss.
A kiss that for my life I can't describe,
despite how hard I try or oft I write.
Transform me hence into your willing scribe,
I'll work to make dark ink match your eyes light...
and though I know I'll fail I still write on,
hoping beyond hope that I'll succeed
in writing down some truth before I'm gone,
one truth might then find others and so breed.
Not unlike I found you and you found me
or how our I's met up to forge a we.

You came from nowhere
out of a storm - into my heart
and we jumped into fountains
snuggled in bed
made forts out of blankets when cell phones were dead.
Following shadows in hallways
we found and we lost each other.
with the flash of your smile
the fire in my eye
the burst of your giggle
the break of my sigh

You wore this slim black night shirt
a cotton cocktail dress
and Your hair fell in accidental curls
like a waterfall
                         "cute hair, right?"
yes actually
then You got in bed
and i got in bed

but i woke
and Your black dress
of soft clean cotton
was rising up Your leg
nothing but you underneath
and although it didn't matter
and of course no one would see
i adjusted it

I miss you
and whatever talk we need to have
make it a mad lib
fill in responses you like
so long as we're talking
and laughing
again.
I want the smell of a hotel
I booked to go catch you
to hit me
and swirl through my nose.

Seismographs,
thimbles,
songs that won't be played again...
I can't go go back to your house anymore.

I ruminate confined in my white room
about what is too much to now confide,
in you, the she who left more than perfume.
Forgive me if these words seem qualified:
It only took one week of sleep by you...
habitualized embracing through a dream.
and now deprived of contact all night through,
tonight is longer than all nights beside you seem.
Despite your sweet suggestions, I can't sleep,
I think a thousand thoughts all at one time-
So, though I need not hours we tried keep,
I'll use them now to write you verse and rhyme.
It seems there's nothing else that I can do,
for while I toss and turn, thoughts turn to you.

If you lay still, I'll entomb thee
Stay and capture, but ne'er doom thee
Lie here - So entombed, you'll never die

Let me take thee, let me have you,
I can make us, you won't have to!
In these lines forever we will lie.

Writing this I have already
rose like Romeo, though by lead he
swore his soul would sink the stars. Oh, Fie.

"Liar" - Please, I pray pronounce him,
truth exposed I do denounce him.
Dramatist. You made love with your words.

We make angels from a nothing.
Ones who'll bear the cherubs touching,
probing - dreams, desires, future fears...

Now I ramble - please forgive me,
Fear no lecture though, for give me
Time - I'll write the rhyme to make you see:

If you lay still, I'll entomb me
Rhyme to love - and always move me.
I have leaned that love is in the eye.

If you may still have desire
I'll rhyme and write - then throw to fire
lines in which forever I will lie.

I wished upon your eyelash that the world would shrink in size,
so when i'm off without you...I still could see your eyes.
Oh, we'll condense the distance with affection - that we know,
but since the world won't shrink in size, I guess our hearts must grow.

I wish for her - and wishing's not my wont -
then moments later ween my wish too much.
To see her, hold her hand, is all I want
to wean me of her distant love by touch.
So I must words most tenderly select,
-to woo this wish from her I deem most fair-
write them, speak them, fight them till correct.
Ascendant recitation, be my prayer:
Give me this day, an hour of your time,
forgive me if affection makes me bold,
but tempt me, lead down paths to verse and rhyme
and I'll deliver beauties yet untold.
     Unlock this gated garden of the heart
     and henceforth ever play the muses part.

There were bugs in the whiskey
But he didn't care
His lover just left him
She left him to stare
At the wall in the bedroom
Where he spent the night
The setting he'd see when he replayed the fight
In his head in the morning
and every day after
the sound of the screaming and sharp callous laughter

There was blood in the water
One unfriendly drop
But once you star bleeding it's so hard to stop
The ships hull was shattered the life boat is bust
It's all so expected
Expected to rust
You're all on your own now
So swim to survive
Get to the shore where at least you're alive
But know when you get there
For better or not
That you'll sure be shore covered
When all goes to rot

There were bones in the graveyard
That's where they go
A ***** closed curtain for the end of the show
But that's for the lucky with money and love
Some get no protection below from above
They're cleaned up all lovely
And sparkling white
by the bugs
Who come crawling the very first night

These were thoughts in his head
As it spun round and round
The ships and the water
The blood and the ground
Then his mind snaps on back to the room and the wall
The glory of man and his heart wrenching fall
Then back to the bugs and their hunger and thirst
So he drank down the whiskey
So he'd get to them first.

Let's say **** it
buy whiskey
and drink till we ****.
Lock the door,
break our phones,
and we'll fake like we're stuck.
ignore work
ignore class
say goodbye to the world.
Get hot under covers
with twenty toes curled.
If we wake in the morning
oh if precious if
we'll say **** it
buy whiskey
and drink till we're stiff.

I'll let you read these
and make your guesses
smile your smiles
question your questions
and when all is done - you'll not dare to ask me, who was she?
when was that?
you'll say: that was nice
I liked that bit about the dress...
and the butterflies.
and I'll say: thank you.

If you're a plague to me then what's the cure?
or what's the solve that would my symptoms ease?
that you're the cause is sure to me, past sure,
you are in every meaning my disease.
Unless you're poison,that's a different case,
a malady that time cannot undo.
Only antidote can win that race,
so I must find an antidote most true.
They'll farm a snake to take its venom out
make remedy from that which else is death
so if I need a medicine sans doubt
the ingredients are your manner, words and breath.
Then close to you is where I'll find my cure
and close to you my sickness will endure.

I caught a glance from you within the crowd
and held with mine your eyes surprising long
if looks could be deemed so your eyes were loud
and so by seeing eyes I heard a song.

by this sweet music we two looked and danced
although we never touched or shared a word
oh, this is how the ancestors romanced
they looked and danced and loved to songs unheard.

This history commends you to the bone
so every step we dance moves all of me
and so the crowd might well leave us alone
for they are deaf that see not what I see.

Now senseless they insists it's senseless I
but they know naught that have not seen thy eye.

This is the clutch
the phone
the crutch
I don't have to interact if i don't want to
and nothing can make me
nothing can take me from- my phone...
My phone which saves me...
So maybe i'm texting a friend
a lover
the end all
the be all
you want her to be all
the things you ever dreamed up
but that's not fair
like she is
all too fair's
what she is
and nothing can measure the feeling
the reeling you do inside your head
god, I hope i'm right.
Lest we start some fight
Some one in a number
I can't even count
lest the whole thing amounts to amount
in which case we're mounting a much larger problem.
so we should talk,
what's happ'ning?
we should talk,
what's not?
anything.

Your name last night alighted on my phone
and gave my nightstand luminescent pride
re-lighting torches that within me shone
to brightly once, consumed themselves, and died.

The embers of my love, mocked by this light
re-grow themselves to match their history
engulfing me in flames as though by right.
the cost? My cost. She burns up all of me.

Incineration forced my smouldering hand
to grab the blameful spark of my desire
and as I grabbed this coal, this too hot brand
the light went out, you left me with my fire.
    
       and so let lesser hearts be swan or dove,
       the Phoenix is the spirit of my love.

are too sweet
when they've cried all the salt out

If I could hold a coal in hand then maybe I'd get close to you.

A lover's task: to give and no to take
To see in eyes what is a heart could need
to grow a garden with the love you make
to tend the place where you have planted seed.
Sweet flowers then will lovers cultivate,
or hardy crops withstanding summer rain
but every living thing runs out its date
the harvest of your love will bring you pain.
and so by days and years we sow our love
then reap a foreign feeling from the ground
this common ground, this dirt fed from above
has nothing left but holes to which we're bound
from love to love we spring but end in dirt
then love again, forgetting last springs hurt.