It's dark and the light leaks out
like the change in my pockets;
like the blood from her nose;
like knowledge from my head.

And I can feel myself being
  swallowed by this systematic
long dark. I cannot remove myself,
  a gut-worm in the lower-mantle
belly. Watching video-cassettes of
  my birthday. I don't know what
happened to my birthday video.
  I don't know what happened to
my parents or what I did to happen
  to them.

The light leaks, again, and I
choke on my celebri-thoughts;
mentally-******* to the
waves I'd give on a book tour
or studio lot. Talking about some
movie that made some money,
somewhere in Santa Fe or L.A.

The news is channeling my president:
a swollen man that is the physical representation
that a lot of American people are parasitic;
lovers in racism, xenophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia,
homophobia; scared of everything except the 'straight-talking'
magnate they put in office. Not playing president; playing God.

I'd hate to get political, though. I'd hate to ramble on
and on about something I don't know enough about to
**** myself over. I can feel myself picking up steam.
I can feel myself getting redundant but embracing the
bruised ego and poor technique. Loving the entrails
spilling out of the splits of my fingertips;
more beautiful than the brains I bashed on the sidewalks
of old Morgantown. Morgantown, a town so kind you
are gently destroyed by its over-crowded masses,
dying to be different or drunk -- I suppose that's not very
different than most places.

But let's get back to these trees that I haven't even talked about.
Let's get back to the kitchen table with the hollowed hard-drive,
with wires and cords flopping to the sides, like a
gutted spaghetti eater with poor stomach acid.
How terrible. I'll never forgive myself for that last line.

I feel so rudderless. So cynical with a touch of cliche.
I keep pushing back that age for success, thinking
that I have the luxury of choosing. My vocabulary is
limited. My intelligence is assumed; probably a void,
where delusions manifest and asian **** rewinds and plays,
  rewinds and plays.

I remember that spring
That summer
I was asked for color
You have forgotten your gloves...

یادم می آمد
آن بهار را
آن تابستان را
از من می خواستند رنگ بزنم
...دستکش هایت یادت نبود

i.

night,
smudged
like the
moon-inks of
mascara,

dark waves,
torn below
the ephemeral
mists of
the sky,

course grasses
scrape the paths.

ii.

in a second
of life,
bulbs with
their pearl-
paper
baubles
nudge
the earth

announce
themselves,
whisper they
no longer
hide in
the cold
that they
never feared
the dark.

iii.

sky of flooding
blossom rests,
whisper of spring
in shadows of
warming isles,
coast of riotous
song sweeping
its way along those
sandy paths.

iv.

boy, we
were here once
before,
so long ago,

i'm dissolving
cloud-like
in love,

memories of
our hearts
their crazy
love, those
emotions like
dance and
desolation.

v.

the emotional
blues of our hearts,
emotion, i will
never forget,
love like a midnight
sea sweeping out,
how i melted for
you, sea, star, night-
cloud of love,
beautiful boy.

.
How I wish I could lay my head
down gently on your thighs,
to make you moan and sigh aloud
and slowly close your eyes.

How I wish I could use my tongue
and give you more than rhyme,
to bring a flush up to your cheek,
of feelings beyond space and time.

How I wish that I could speak
in words of feathered certainty
and so entice your curious mind
to lay down with me for eternity.
.
.
© Pagan Paul (2017)