I broke up with God
at our favorite eatery
in our favorite booth.

We settled into familiar creases
and asked for the usual.

My eyes lazily staring at fingers
stirring the straw around the ice cubes,
God cautiously spoke up:

“Is something wrong?”

“Nothing.” (Thinking about the dormant phone
concealing behind the lock screen
the open Facebook tab
lingering over the relationship status section.)

They silently mused over the laconic reply,
til the waitress showed up with the food.

“Thank you!” God blurted with agonizing alacrity.

I received the sustenance lifelessly
and aimlessly poked at the burgers and fries.

The waitress eyed me with vague inquisition,
popping a bubble in the gum between
big teeth, refilled my water
and pirouetted hastily.

We ate in ostensible harmony,
the silence gripping like a chokehold,
the visible anxiety and subdued resolve
settling like a stifling blanket
over the child waking
from a nightmare—

Til we couldn’t breathe,
and I ripped back the covers
and looked into the eyes
of my tormentor.

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

God, taken aback by the curt statement,
dropped their burger with shaking hands,
silently begging with wetting eyes
a greater explanation.

So I elaborated:

“It’s not you, it’s me.

For your immaculate conception
was created by human hands,

your adages rendered obsolete
by human words,

your purpose and plan for us
distorted by human nature—

I cannot hate myself any longer.

I cannot pretend to know you at all.

Who my mother and father say you are
is not who my friends think you are,
nor my teachers, my pastor,
the president, Stephen Hawking,
Muhammed, the KKK, Buddha,
the Westboro Baptist Church,
Walt Whitman, Derek Zanetti,
******,
and Billy Graham.

I am told you care who I bring into bed (and when),
and what movies I watch,
and what music I listen to—

I have not heard what you say about
child soldiers, the use of mosquitos,
or the increased destruction of the earth
which you proudly proclaimed your creation,
or the poverty and disease and famine
which has ridden so many of your children—”

God interjected,
“But you’re chosen!”

I snorted,

“You say I’m chosen
to spend eternity with you—
why me?

Why’d you pick me among
thousands, millions, billions?

I’ve been told I’m ‘chosen’
since birth
by others like me—

those with fair complexion,
blue eyes,
blonde hair,
a firm overt ****** attraction towards women,
and a great big house
with immaculate white fences
delineating their Jericho.

I’ve already fabricated eternity
here among the other ‘chosen’
and there is a world of suffering
right outside the fence
and I see them
through the window of my bedroom
every day.

Am I chosen,
if I don’t vote Republican

Am I chosen
if I am Pro-Choice

Am I chosen
if I cohabitate with my girlfriend

Am I chosen
if I never have kids

Am I chosen
if I say ‘Happy Holidays’

Am I chosen
if I don’t want public prayer in schools

Am I chosen
if I don’t want a Christian nation

Am I chosen
if I don’t repost you on my wall
or retweet your adages?

I’m tired
being the ubermensch,
for it has not brought me
happiness
and I blame you.

I will not ignore
the cries of the suffering
believing it is I
who is destined to live
in bliss.

I will not buy
Joel Osteen’s autobiography(ies).

I will not tithe
you my money
for a megachurch
when another homeless shelter
closes down.

I will not tell a woman
what to do with her body,
or a man
that he is a man
if they say they are not.

I am neither Jew nor Gentile,
and I will stand with
my brothers and sisters
of Faith and Faithlessness,

Gay and Straight,
Black and White,

and apart from these extremes
free from absolutes
the ambiguous, amorphous
nature of Humankind
which I praise.

There is much pain and suffering
in this world,
potentially preventable,
but hardly can I believe
it’s part of your plan
to save
me.

I will not be saved
if we are not
all saved—

not one will burn
for my divinity.

The gates will be open to all—
and perhaps you believe that too,
but I’ve gotten you all wrong
and that cannot change,
as long as there is
mortality, and
corruption, and
power, and
lust, and
greed.”

God whined, growing bellicose,

“It is through me that you will find eternity,
I am the one true god!
I am the God of your fallen ancestors,
it is because you have fallen short
that you need me!”

I replied, growing in confidence,

“We have all fallen short,
yes,
but we are also magnificent.

We have evolved,
we have created,
we have adapted,
we have survived.

We have built empires,
and we have destroyed them.

We have cured diseases,
and we have created them.

We have done much in your name.
We’ve done good,
and we’ve done evil—

And unfortunately it’s all about
who you ask.

Your name is a burden on the oppressed
and a weapon of the oppressor.

You are abusive, God.

You tell me you are jealous.

You tell me apart from you I will suffer for an eternity.

I’m scared to die, yet want to die,
because of you.

You have made life a waiting room
that is now my purgatory. It is

Hell On Earth.

So you see,
it’s not you,
it’s me—
a mere mortal
who has tried to put a face
to eternity
and it has left me
empty.

And also,
it’s me,
for I have learned to love me,
as I have expelled your self-loathing imbibition,
and the deleterious zeal
I have proclaimed
through ceaseless
trepidation
and self-flagellation—

I have learned to love me
by realizing I am not inherently evil,
that my body is not evil,
that my mind is not evil,
and, ultimately, that
there is no good
and there is no evil.

My body is beautiful,
my mind is beautiful,
this world is beautiful,
and we are destroying it
waiting for you to claim
us.

I leave you
in hopes to see you
again one day,

and perhaps you will look
different than I have
perceived or imagined,

and in fact
I certainly hope so.”

Just then the waitress strolled back up
with a servile smile:
“Dessert?”

“No, thank you,”
I smiled politely.

And with that,
I paid the check,
and took a to-go box—

walked out into the evening rain
to my car,
put on a secular song
that meant something real to me
and drove off
into the night—

feeling for the first time
free
and alive.

The concrete jungle.
Home of the dreaded concrete beasts
Who lie in plain sight for the world to see

Crouched in marble ledges, twisted in metal beams
Wrapped around handrails, perched in their cemented trees
They laugh at those who cannot perceive
Because they don’t believe.

And who am I,
Yes possibly me
To find my identity
In removing my wooden sword from its sheath

Placing it beneath my two shuffled feet
To answer the alluring call of the beasts beckoning
To my hero’s heart, for my eyes to blink
To suddenly see them as they were meant to be.

In a world between
Real and imaginary.

For it is I,
Yes I believe it to be
Chosen to find my destiny
In a single push

That propels me
Into the path of the snarling beasts
Approaching their stairs and rails, ledges and beams
Gaps and bumps and ramps with speed

And as they stare at me hungrily
Opening their mouths expecting me
I will stand strong on my wooden sword
As the wheels of fire erupt beneath

And the scenery blurs in the flash of the rapidity
I bend my knees and grit my teeth
My eyes narrow and the drum in my chest crescendos its beat
A shout explodes from my chest, a primal scream

As I press on
In the concrete jungle.

Home of the dreaded concrete beasts
Who quiver in plain sight for the world to see
And whimper at the sight of who they now perceive
Because I do believe.

And it is I,
Yes undoubtedly me
Who will find my destiny
Conquering the concrete jungles of the world unseen

Surfing the concrete waves of the world between
With my loyal vessel being the wooden sword from the sheath,
That remains steady in the face of danger beneath my feet.

I am alive
In the concrete jungle.

Your love rains down
                                       from the shower head.

Sharp needles of fire
                                                                ­                  dousing cold feet.

                                   It feels like daggers,

                                               and wouldn't be so,

if I hadn't lingered for so long,
                                                                           in my frigid hesitancy.

High above dear Maple Street
There looms a cold iron curtain of fear
That dares to drop and let all the monsters
Unleash their dreaded promise of chaos
As in Europe despots gift a new World War
Trembling parlors hug the radio

Hallows Eve: the radio
Begins to sing throughout dear Maple Street
The Seventh Trumpet declares all out war
And that heavy iron curtain of fear
Eclipses the sun and invites chaos
In vacant hearts of men into monsters

Halloween Night: the monsters
Now dance to the tune of the radio
Raiding the stores, jumping bridges, chaos
Entombing the stretch of this blood strewn street
Parlors gorging on endless waves of fear
Riding hysteria, imminent war

O great catalyst of war
Twisting the minds of men into monsters
Diving your hands in that great pit of fear
Now throbbing with screams from the radio
No fences nor faces can save Maple Street
Now plunged in the throes of sweet sultry Chaos

And we call it Chaos
This boiling of minds all stewing with war
Once masked with humanity on this street
Now reveals good neighbors make great monsters
Skies of martians (n)or men, the radio
Hissing, twists the knobs and tunes in to fear

And when that curtain of fear
Draws, and shadeless light casts on the chaos
And the broadcast fades on the radio
And mere fiction rescinds the throne of war
What will we make of all of these monsters
Scattered about in a daze through the street

Where there are minds of fear and war,
Chaos reigns and calls to the sleeping monsters;
Tune in to Welles’s radio on Sterling’s street.

i am the wiggling worm
writhing on the slippery sidewalk
on a cold, and dreary,
rainy day.

i weave the baleful boots
yield the pernicious puddles
on a cold, and dreary,
rainy day.

i am pelted by relentless rain
pummeled by its wanton weight
on a cold, and dreary,
rainy day.

you may ask, "why wiggling worm?
why take this cursed course
on a cold, and dreary,
rainy day?

have you no humbled home
have you no able abode
on a cold, and dreary,
rainy day?"

"i am the vivacious vagabond," i reply
"i am admittedly ambulant,
on this cold, and dreary,
rainy day.

because i must agnize affliction
i must debase duress
on this cold, and dreary,
rainy day.

if i am to appreciate the bountiful bloom
i must know the duteous doom
such as this cold, and dreary,
rainy day.

What is this
Satirical mask
That weeps self-deprecating tears
Through plastic slits
Down over a contorted smile
That mocks society
In pictoral flagellations
Of an aching conscience.

**** Middle-Aged Dad at the Water Park,
this is an ode to you.

**** Middle-Aged Dad at the Water Park
ambles behind
the kids sprawling out of the entrance
like baby spiders spilling
out of the crushed mother’s abdomen.

**** Middle-Aged Dad at the Waterpark
flip-flops his way to the lazy river,
shies his black Harley Davidson tanktop
to reveal his sunburnt
abdomious belly
flopping over his camo swim trunks.

He shakes off his flip-flops
and awkwardly wades in,
his hulking mass shifting with
each foot and tree trunk
of a leg smashing into
the shallow water,
sending shockwaves towards
screaming toddlers
in his wake.

Finding a vacant tube,
he turns his body around
and heaves himself
into the neon green donut
with considerable
and farcical
difficulty.

Mother at the pavilion
opens an eye from the lawn chair
and chuckles to herself,
applying another layer of sunscreen
over ruddy cancer-sensitive skin.

Sporting oblong racecar sunglasses
atop flushed puffy cheeks,
**** Middle-Aged Dad at the Waterpark
basks in the baking mid-summer sun
and the cool ****-ridden waters
he sinks his hands and feet into.

What is on his mind?
I imagine it is as close
to nothing
as he aims to get,

free from responsibility
like a wiry youth
he knew
from long ago.

The piercing screams of laughter
from ambulant children
splashing about him
are fruitless
in penetrating
his enclave.

He coasts about this way
for an eternity,
his red leather hide
burning in the hot sun
enwreathing his glasses.

Meanwhile,
mother reads
under the cool shade
of the pavilion,

the kids tumble down
slides and splash gleefully,
endlessly,

and life lingers on a moment
for a necessary
sojourn.

**** Middle-Aged Dad
awakens from his sun-cooked daze,
approaches the exit
and prepares himself
for his departure.

Waddling left and right,
he flops starboard
splashing magnificently
like a cannonball rolling off the deck
into the ocean.

His sunglasses leave him in the ruckus,
he gropes blindly
with chlorine-infested eyes,
til he grasps the visage
and stands up in the water.

His great body surges
from the waters,
fading tattoos gleam
along with a bald spot
in the sunlight.

He ambles through the waters—
water spilling out of rolls of fat
undulating in the motion—
and sensuously runs a baseball glove of a hand
through thinning hair.

His trunks bunch up around
firm, beefy buttocks
and a tired old *****,
thick tree trunk thighs,
ending its constriction just above
the wrinkled knot
of kneecaps.

Mother snapshots a photo
of the visage,
his fruits spilling about him
in perpetual glee,
his stolid look of authority,
wisdom, drive,
and endearment.

Years later,
the ambulant youths
on the cusp of adulthood

leaf through old photo albums
suddenly eyeing the Father piously
in a newfound awe,

aware of his gargantuan countenance
that shielded their efflorescence.

He was their sun,
he was their shade,
and their sky—

for he knew
when to plant,
and when to water,
and when to wait.

Running a thumb over
the diaphanous visage
exemplifying
an analog adolescence,

they jeer each other
over the Father,
secretly harboring
an amassing reverence
for the great figure,

the **** Middle-Aged Dad at the Water Park.

It's seemingly not enough
to curtly say what I've done
and truth be truly told,
there honestly hasn't been much

so thank you kindly
for craftily making it seem
like apparently there's so much more
than what's inherently me.

Just a little off the top.
Drawin' a dotted line
'round the skull
takin' your shears
just above the ear.

Cuttin' a close crop.
Burrowin' into the skin this time
'round the skull
now your clippers
smilin' so chipper.

Leavin' a head clean smooth.
Whistlin' at a near-finished work
'round the skull
peelin' back the skin
bravin' a peek within.

Grabbin' that comb with its fine tooth.
Unfurlin' that pink mass of quirk
'round the skull
eyein' where tendrils append
trimmin' the dead ends.

All hail the Lizard King,
whose esoteric words crawl like sirens
over hungry rocks
baring teeth to the hypnotized sailor
steering his ship into the jagged maw.

All hail the Lizard King,
perched upon his Dionysian throne,
ambrosial ecstasies fill his cup
while jongleurs dance to psychedelic chansons.

At his feet
prey the nubile maidens of yore
flower-eyed and pearly-teethed.

His eyes, mighty azure pools of madness
within which Byzantine kings were murdered--
blood darts through the mysterious waters
into the hysterical white void.

Alexander the Great
sits poised like a statue
where his libido crouches like a panther
'til the aural adonis
leaps from his confines
an amorous figure of tantalizing flesh and blood
with supple lips pouting, naked muscles taut,
mad eyes gleaming.

All hail the Lizard King,
from lush lips poetic decrees
sing forth into the endless night
penetrating taverns and bedrooms and radios
and stadiums.

The electric shaman leaps from his throne
to cast his wicked incantation,
a spark from his eyes shoots to the pyre
where a lustful blue flame erupts from
the bones of the prophets.

HIs voice soothing, haunting,
the sonic alchemist
sings his siren song into the cataclysm
where we are cast in abeyance--

We follow him,
but is he only leading us deeper
into the darkness,
or does he truly see the light?

The endless night.

All hail the Lizard King.

The smell of a spring rain
settling on the earth
is the smell of life anew.

At the window, I sit with a book,
both cracked,
cooled by the alfresco air seeping through,
and tiny droplets glissando down the pane.

The pitter-patter of a soft rain
falling to the parched earth
is the sound of life replenished.

At the rain's offset, I leap from my chair,
exiting the front door,
to saunter through the lush green pastures
that linger outside the library's confines.

How green the trees appear, and the grass--
how rich the stalks of the trees,
their boughs with budding leaves quenched,
glistening in the sun.

I even enjoy the scent coming off the once arid pavement--
it is the smell of the earth,
freed from its impedance,
rising above the stifling asphalt.  

I smell the life that lingers beneath,
and the dull metallic tinfoil taste of the pavement
fills my open nostrils--

It is pleasant, though a little less so, than the ambrosial landscape.

I inhale ever so deeply,
relishing my favorite part of spring,
in the offset of a warm afternoon rain on a brisk day,
sauntering through the wood-laden trails on worn brick paths,

to the paved parking lot where my car awaits--
delineated in a filmy layer of mired pollen residue.
It needed a wash anyways.

Nostalgia
is a poor excuse
for ignorance

yet it pervades
with a tenacity
stemming from fabricated desire
for the smell of ****
we're told
is roses

and it's blasphemous
to question potential "isms"
lurking behind the veil
of Saturday morning cartoons
and black and white family sitcoms.

Yet by the time the sonic *** organs
have lain into us with repressed emotion,
the holy spirit has spilled its ***** in the dirt
to traverse onward floating apparition
out of the room and down the hall
closer towards progress.

and we are left reeling
stumbling into the hallway
buttoning our blouses
and yanking at our zippers

wondering what could cause
such great haste
and we follow blindly
in the wake of the first high

or we turn backwards
and plunge into fading bricolage
as a means to cope
with the rapid and fleeting *******
of the electric eye
in its shape-shifting pylons and appendages
getting smaller in the naked eye
and gargantuan in the mind.

Clutching our *******
in great amorous heaves
of lust
or donning our father's clothes
in a mask of artifice
and enlightened cultural pretension.

Moaning for the days of youth a week ago,
the epoch squeezed in the space between thumbs,
looking for treasures in the trash
craving something tangible
in an increasingly intangible world.

The semblance of touch lost on a generation
who knows only of emotion through hieroglyphics
and never through direct sensation.

So we dig through the toy boxes
and leave Generation X puzzled
as we dig into their records
in Guns n Roses T-shirts
and high waisted jeans.

We're just looking for an immaculate conception of something palpable.

The soda can rumbles in the bowels,
tumbling into the gaping mouth
into which I enter a hand
to protrude my sugar rush.

sssni-kah, then the slurp of an obnoxiously pleasing sip.
I let the carbonation tickle my tongue,
reveling in the effervescent sensation.

The smell of old tires,
malodorous oil and gasoline,
and stale cigarettes fill the air.

My vexatious sips go unperturbing the dense atmosphere
that thickens outside the small air-conditioned office
and into the gas station,

where the mutters and sputters of drills,
kakadoo, kakadoo,
the squeaking and squawking of rotors and axles,
the interjections of swears and grunts
fill the air.

I peek through the ***** smudgy glass window in the door
to see grimy overalled ants meandering
under the body of our red mini-van
hiked up into the air like a figure skater,
suspended by the rusty clawed accompanist,
not a tremor of strain, unflinching,
letting the greasy men crawl underneath, hiking up her skirt
to examine her anatomy.

I walk outside and sit on a dusty tire stacked with others
on the side of the building--
some growing forlorn in tall grass
weaving in and out of the aperturous rim,
the fingers latching onto fissures and pulling it down
into the hungry earth.

Another slurp and I set the can down
to step onto my skateboard--
rolling across the gritty pavement,
snapping ollies and pop-shuv-its
to add my timbre to the cacophony
leaping out of the open garage doors.

I look over to the barbershop adjacent to the station--

The off-white single room squat allowing the cylindrical swirl
perpetually pirouetting atop the door-frame
to dazzle in a placid manner.

It is there I get my close trims
and pull a lollipop from the cavernous bowl
sitting atop the counter.

The barber, working silently behind his dull gray mustache
and dull gray eyes.

Outside the barbershop to the left,
Leicester Highway ambles onward,
diverging at a fork just ahead of the lot,
and the road adjacent that winds down my neighborhood,
Juno Drive.

I've never embarked down either divergent,
and I wonder which one is the less traveled.
(Frost, guide me.)

I go to the mailbox teetering on the edge of the highway
and hastily grab our mail,
the wind slapping at my *** as the cars whisk by
in their infinitesimal haste.

I feel like time slows once you step onto Juno Drive.

I turn around and saunter back to the station to see Billy,
my Working-Class Hero,
who I mostly see strolling up to the driver's side window
of our dull red mini-van
to loosely rest his arms crossed atop the window frame,
resting his sweaty forehead on his sticky hairy forearms.

Leaning in,

his blackened hands with his greasy smile
behind a scruffy scattered beard caked with dirt and grime,
atop a dark red leather face--
but eyes bright and merry.

His laugh, a phlegmy two-pack-a-day sputter
hacking and pummeling through the van,
all the way to me in the backseat peeking around mom's shoulders
to catch a look at this superhero anomaly.

And his southern drawl wrenching out of lungs
caked in tar and exhaust fumes,
that torpid slur that executes like the garbled hum
of an Oldsmobile engine chugging restlessly--

His laugh, an engine that won't turn over, sputtering to life
but falling right back down into the dirt,
lying on the oil-stained cold concrete floors ***** boots slipping over
and sticking too like wads of gum.

The charismatic mechanic who knew the answer to all things,
always ready to flash me that crooked greasy smile
stretching across his ruddy leather face.

I step back onto my skateboard, with soda in hand,
mail in the other,
and silently say goodbye to my Greasy Eden
before making my way down Juno Drive
towards the first house on the left,

following the road as it snakes past the trees,
alongside the creek, around the bend,
and out of sight.

Enjoying the cool evening air
in the middle of May.
Walking my dog through the neighborhood,
enchanted by its bucolic setting--

Besotted with the scent of freshly cut grass,
and the drone from the lawnmower that renders it,
and the chatter of crickets far in the distance,
preparing for their evening performance,

and closer to me are the squawks and chirps of the birds
hunched in the brush and perched upon telephone wires.

Enamored with the sight of lush foliage,
scintillating at the utmost tier of the woods
where the golden haze of the shrinking afternoon sun
is still hopelessly chromantic in its fading vigor.

The clouds, dispersed like shreds of cloth
against a looming soft blue sky,
the color of the walls in my crib-room as an infant.

The affable hand-waves veiled behind translucent glass passing by
propelling fleeting smiles onward in the journey.

Though the atmosphere is dense,
its ambiance expounds a soft lull.
          There's a hush over the six o'clock late afternoon day,
as the auriculariae settle gently aside my temples,
placating the rooted tendons wrapped tautly
in my grove of flesh and bone.

                  It suddenly becomes disturbed

by the creaking and squeaking of a rusty frame,
the slow groan of old worn tires treading across harsh gravel,
and the conductor of the indistinct cacophony himself:

A placid old man,
in his worn red and black plaid long sleeve shirt,
faded grey work trousers,
dingy black socks,
muddy crusty ragged off-white sneakers,
and an old camouflage military cap to top it all off.

His face, barely visible under the old cap
and the worn silent shroud of his visage,
holds dull dark eyes steadfast peering ahead,
off into the horizon,
with slackened skin the color of clay,
from afar having the countenance of subtle cracks in worn concrete.

The One Man Band rides atop his aged machination silently--
I hear no stressed breath or grunts,
but in passing--

a slow mechanical raise of the right hand,
a slight tip of the head,
and a soft whisper of a hello in greeting.

          If I had blinked I would have missed it.

He slowly creaked and squeaked and groaned his way onward,
in his slow and steady rhythmic pace,
until he disappeared in the golden afternoon horizon.

I see him every morning and afternoon
as I drive in and out of the neighborhood--
I wave, always he in return with that slow mechanical gesture,
like an old theme park ride from the fifties.

It was the first time I had actually heard and felt his presence,
to see up close the picture of health and resilience that he is,
the Dorian Gray of bicyclists,
transferring his years of wear and tear onto his metal frame
and his balding rubber soles.

Every time I see him come round the bend now,
I still think of that aged Carousel with the rusty horses
and the song worn a semitone off-pitch,
or the "tranquil" boat ride with the languid mechanical dolls
with thick black eyes goggling eerily
and sallow arms waving infirmly--

but he will not erode as the horses, dolls, and his bicycle--
he will live on, and only he shall demarcate
the trash from the treasure.

There is a bullet in a box of crayons with really strange names like Parkland Perrywinkle, Sandy Hook Sanguine, and Great Mills Green in a place where children play Russian Roulette with their school supplies when they reach in to grab one and they’ve been learning about probability this week Forrest Gump will tell them you never know if you’re going to finish the lesson or turn into a statistic my sister likes to create mosaics by putting a hairdryer to crayons melting cascades of wax down a blank page sometimes she reaches in and it’s the one lead crayon at the top of the page and it’s only one color that seeps down into the crevices of the cafeteria’s tile floor that proceeds to wash away the Proud Honor Roll Parent stickers washes away the Proud Honor Roll Parent stickers I see another child reach into the box and I write another word problem I write another word problem: “Zoey reaches into a box of crayons. What is the likelihood she will not get to hang her drawing up on her kitchen refrigerator? What is the likelihood her funeral photo will hang there instead?” Draw students’ attention to the key word “likelihood.” Tell students This word shows that the question is asking whether or not you will live to tell your parents how your day at school was. and I wonder when school desks will take the shape of caskets in a place where both screams of laughter and screams of terror
are permitted

Serendipity
I wait for you to find me
An eternity

I've always felt
mirrors worked two ways
standing naked gleaming
dreamily gazing
unknowingly staring
in God's hidden eyes
either boastful or ashamed.

We sat outside the coffee shop
next to a fire,
watching the sun set behind decrepit buildings.

I lamented over the lack of a roller rink in the area,
reflecting on memories of wobbling around in circles
with dizzying lights and blaring speakers
ejecting Pink, Daft Punk, and Eiffel 65 onto my critical youth.

I felt like a king.

We finished our smoothies and retreated
to an empty hotel parking lot,
where I taught her to skateboard.

One foot over the front bolts,
the back foot over two of the back bolts
but resting over the tail,
kick, push,
it's in the ***** of your feet--
weight distribution.

Tic, tac, scrape, thud--
she falls repeatedly
and gets back up.

I admire her resilience and perpetual smile--

This is what skateboarding is all about.

We roll around the hotel parking lot,
our endpoints being a lone luminescent lamppost
and a telephone pole beleaguered by a plot of shrubbery
that demarcates itself from the pavement.

We circle around the poles for hours,
forming an imaginary oblong track between the two,
our laughs carrying into the cool summer night lullaby
that sang the drowsy small town to sleep.

The fading throb of the wedding reception
at the bottom of the town square by the wharf,
carrying over to us.

The stores closed up hours ago,
silent empty windows reflecting the lonely streetlights
and our ambulance back at us.

We skated on unperturbed into the night hour.

A man walks outside the hotel
to have a cigarette on the sidewalk--
I imagine he is watching us and admiring our glee.

Rolling between this telephone pole and lamppost,
the glare and reflection of the empty silent windows,
the soundtrack singing above our heads,
our laughs, and the tic-tac of skateboards
and groaning of wheels over stubborn pavement
bringing my melancholic reverie to a halt,
recognizing and understanding happiness in the present moment--

This is my roller rink.

If you drive down route 235,
the lonely parallel line of route 5,
running through St. Mary's County, Maryland,

between the intersection of Old Three Notch road
and St. Andrew's Church road,
and the liquor store at the corner of Mattapany--
you must do so with a fat wallet,
and a growling stomach,

who barks at the flashing signs
of the sparkling chain restaurants--
wafting their familiar scents out the windows
and onto the busy street.

Utterly beleaguered every which way by these olfactory factories,
your mouth waters and your wallet lightens
as the tantalizing sensations
permeate your vehicle.

So you cave;
another lost soul vacates the street at Restaurant Alley,
under the prowling searchlights
and the intoxicating smells lingering like a dense fog;

You linger in your purgatory with glee.

You exit satisfied, patting your abdominous belly
and lifting your smiling face to the sky
in thanks to the gluttonous gods
who rain down these chain restaurants
from the heavens.

A satisfied sigh seeps out of loose lips,
barely hanging on to your fleshy face,
so ruddy and fat.

You act like your stop was something novel,
like it wasn't routine to acquiesce to these temptations;
you return to your car to continue your roamings
down restaurant alley.

Sadly, a full stomach won't stifle a querying nose,
and your senses are soon at it again;
just as the waiters and waitresses,
cooks and busboys--
are back at the window, leaning outside
with their clamorings and bustlings and cookings--

You pretend to entertain willpower as your copilot,
but even if that were so,
your senses would still be at the wheel,
with your mind bound and gagged in the trunk.

Restaurant Alley goes on for miles and miles and miles,
seemingly endless in the permeating fog of
burgers and pancakes and pasta and chicken and fries and burgers and soda and ice cream and beer and pasta and wine and America and pancakes and steak and appetizers and desserts and entrees and specials and kids menus and burgers and chicken and pasta and fries and burgers and ice cream and salad and burgers and soda and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat!

There's nothing to eat;
there's nothing to do but eat in Restaurant Alley,
on route 235 in St. Mary's County, Maryland.

So fasten your seat belt,
and loosen your waist belt,
and take a doomed trip down the endless roadway--

where you are dragged, shackled to food chains
that haul you from the perdition that is the lobby's waiting room
to be seated with loved ones at the mercy seat of Ambrosia.

as i sit
unperturbed it seems
i feel the familiar itch
of the nicotine screen
at the back of my head
in the conscious unseen
i feel the familiar itch
of the nicotine screen
my eyes adrift
in the circuital seas
i crave a quick drag
of the nicotine screen
scratch the itch
wipe the conscience clean
but i'll soon lust again
for the nicotine screen

It’s strange to be
nostalgic about a
grocery store. But
there it is.

In the lobby were
quarter machines. In
exchange for coins I’d
dig from couch cushions
and mom from the bowels
of her purse,

I’d watch colorful gumballs
spiral down a slide and
tumble through the open hatch
into my awaiting palm,
and another with wax figures
which I collected.

Inside to the left
past the magic sliding
glass doors was a DVD
rental section. Rows and rows
of movies I’d peruse
looking for something to watch
on a school night.

Across from that were
the magazine and
candy aisles with
various furniture—tables and
couches and chairs and sofas—
spread out
in the middle. I would

read skateboard magazines
beating my short legs against
the static incline of a sofa
chair and
one time a lady watched me
placidly reading on a comfy chair
from the security cam
and thought I was reading
something pornographic
and told my mom at the
register.

At the register,
mom would let me get
Archie comics and
bubble gum—

One time when I was five
I stole a pack of Fruit Stripe
gum. In the mini-van I
revealed my sin to mom
and she had me (alone)
walk back into the store
and hand it back to the cashier,
apologizing for my grand
theft.

When my dad would
take me to the grocery store
he would like to play
games.

He once took an egg
out of the carton
and tossed it to me
down the aisle. Too
scared to catch, I let
it fall to my feet with
a wet crack spilling
egg all over the gleaming
porcelain.

He grabbed soda bottles
and junk food from the shelves
and consumed them
then and there, handing
the cashier the empty
containers.

There was a coffee shop
inside the grocery store
he would stop by every
morning. Some Saturdays
he would wrench me from my
cartoons and take me with him
and I would play the 25 cent
slot machines while he got his
venti mocha latte.

Once I had a
nightmare I walked
into the parking lot
and couldn’t find my
dad. I called and called
for him but couldn’t find
him anywhere. Suddenly
his voice boomed at me
from the clouds.

In a thunderous yet
soothing voice of one who
has passed on to nirvana,
he said I would be okay, and
to take care of my mother
and my little brother and
sister. I cried and cried
out to him, searching for
his earthly body in the
grocery store parking lot.

I woke up in my parents’ waterbed
choking on my tears;
dad ran out of the bathroom mid-
shave to his side of the bed where
I slept and I threw my arms around his
neck.

Years,
and a decade later,
I drove my fiancé through
the old town I was raised in
and told her stories of the
pawn shop,
gas station,
video rental,
Mexican restaurant,
and grocery store.

With the video rental
now a tire station,
and the mom and pops
in chains,
we drove by the old grocery store
standing tall and proud
still as colossal as I remembered.

As the memories flowed
from my heart to my lungs
babbling from the driver’s seat,
that old grocery store
I gave my time and quarters to
carried a greater weight
than I ever thought
grocery shopping on Saturday mornings
and Sunday afternoons
could ever have.

what an eerie night
                               where wind whistles through the
                                                                           trees
                                   whose branches snare
                                                         and
                                                 snarl in the moonlight.

Flip flip slide slide
grind grind pop pop
concentration.

hours and hours
sweat pours
bruised ankles bruised kneecaps
scraped shinbones scraped elbows
scabs and scars.

shirts and jeans torn, worn;
shoes a tattered mess--
laces shredded to bits tied desperately
clinging on to lapping tongues.

hair matted to skull sweating within damp skullcaps,
whether be it helmets (by choice or restriction),
or fitted baseball hats turned backwards,
or cuffed beanies in the dead of winter.
(father says the latter choices work well to soak all the blood up, I always roll my eyes in naivete.)

The paved driveway, where on my eighth birthday
a shining basketball goal sat at its full height
towering in the mountain sky--

stood forlorn in place as wide eyes glued to the pavement--

where shoes stood atop the gritty surface of a wooden board
with wheels attached to gleaming metal axles
rolled smoothly excitedly across the pavement in perpetuity.

destiny.

You were draped across a girlfriend's bedroom wall
where a cross would be,
your arms held out loosely like an ambiguous invitation,
shielding your countenance from extraneous intrusions
under which she would sleep soundly
in the shroud of your incantation.

Your fallen angel wings beating back bad dreams
slain mercilessly
and falling at your feet.

Your lips slightly pouting, eyes dark,
obfuscating the madness and ***-crazed hallucinations
they harbor.

Hair purposefully unkempt,
disheveled sensuously atop your head,
tufts of hair brushed across your broad chest--

Bare muscles taut and taunting,
placed topographically on the poised temple--
those ready to worship bow their heads
in reverence to the sonic alchemist.

The modern adonis,
sculpted out of the Mississippi Delta Blues
and Dionysian wet dreams--
brought to life with the electric current pulsating through the microphone and its stand upon which you straddle with skin-tight leather pants--

Your left hand around its waist,
your right cupped over the phallus--
your lips part and your cataclysmal eyes
envelop the darkness before you--

Your image,
tormented and tantalizing
in an open invitation
to prostrate ourselves before you
and succumb to your hypnotic stare.

The door opens.

madness! madness! madness!

the mad ones are madness!
the minds are destroyed by madness!
ginsberg is madness!
kerouac is madness!
shakespeare is madness!
"perhaps" is madness!
duality is madness!
dichotomy is madness!
juxtaposition is madness!
oxymoron is madness!
paradox is madness!
love is merely a madness!
and it's all in my mind--

perhaps it isn't madness,
after all.

Twentysomething Emo
looks at teenage Emo
and laughs.

It was something purely aesthetic,
with brain chemicals churning
and wiry bodies yearning

under the guise of straightened bangs
and perched beanies,

skin tight black outfits
parading the dusty grounds of Warped Tour.

Twentysomething Emo is the real deal--
lamenting over high school salad days
because real life is so unsure,

college degrees and full-time jobs,
watching friends and lovers come and go in our lives.

After a long day of responsibility and groveling,
we drive home (or somewhere just as distant)
with our emo anthems blaring through the speakers.

We scream the songs back at them,
truly feeling the words for the first time.

I'm the same age as William Beckett, Adam Lazzara, and Pete Wentz
when they wrote these songs--
and though the bangs have receded
and the jeans have slackened,

I am perpetually Emo.

The unrequited love and the nearing distant future--
it's come too soon.

I hope thirtysomething Emo looks back
on my meandering twentysomething Emo
and laughs--

as he plays the melancholy tunes pouring out of the speakers
with some more of life fading away in his rearview mirror.

This town gets smaller every day.

On the days I hate music,
I entertain silence,
in a sense.

I stifle one music and greet another:
Silence accompanied by the soundscape.

In my car, windows rolled up.
The world outside my vessel becomes dulled.

The silence I sing ain't so quiet;
tempo'd to the turn signal's metronome,
the droning hum of the engine,
the screaming world seeping through cracks and crevices
within the assemblymen's exquisite craftsmanship.

I hear these songs.

I roll down the window;
I hear the staccato shrieks of impatient cars.
I hear the bombinations of the road worker and his jackhammer.
I hear the droll of the cement truck drudging down the highway.
I hear the light treading of the jogger
making her way down the eternal sidewalk.
I hear coffee poured and pondered over in the coffee shops.
I hear grocer boys bag absentmindedly in the supermarket
(where Allen and Walt linger).
I hear silverware jingle in the busboy's bustling trays.
I hear dog's elation leaning out their master's passenger window.
I hear tires groaning over the hot sticky pavement.
I hear the wind carry the sunny tune like the steady conductor
guiding their orchestra across the threshold to the enthralled audience.

The wind carries the tune to me,
and I hum along.

The days I hate music
are the days I remember
why we make it in the first place.

I escape to and from the soundscape.

I want the poetry to mean something tonight,
              as I pace in my bedroom for hours
                                      under jaundiced fluorescent light.

                     I want to write something profound and true,
something of solvence to rid the demons to which I'm glued.

Thomas, Tommy baby,
you are both hot,
and sweet.

Tom Cat you’re red hot--
when I catch you in your Tom Cat Strut,
sauntering across campus,
strolling like it ain’t no thing,

cuz it don’t meant a thing
if it ain’t got that swing baby.

So dig this, Tommy Gun,
you groove with the best of ‘em
when I spot you strollin’—

Your head, teetering left and right like a seesaw, boppin’ baby,
arms hangin’ loosely, swinging freely, wildly, go! go!
legs scooping forward in boisterous trombone slides--
Groooooove Tommy baby!

You’re Louis’s best blows--
ten feet from the mic and the Fives baby,
you’re hot, red hot,
any closer and I'll burn up!
Go!

But you’re cool, real cool,
and oh so sweet.
Super sweet--

in your beard like a pepper and salt shaker tossed across the table,
I look to see those rosy lips part,
and peep those pearly whites shinin' like the bell of Louis’s cornet
brandished in the air, under those ballroom lights--
you’re screamin’ Tommy!

Let me hear that laugh that shakes the room,
punches like Blakey’s bass drum,
thumps like Mingus--

T-Bird you’ve got that hard bop in your soul,
you’re gonna bop to the top TB,
into the third heaven where the angels fall in line to your swing,
that incessant strut that keeps the devil at bay,
Blow! Blow! Blow!

And I see you now Tom Cat,
up there in the clouds,
digging your way across eternity,
bopping and jiving, swinging and blowing,

in your faded khaki pants and worn tennis shoes,
loosely buttoned collared shirt,
tight rectangular glasses that glistened the bell of your eyes even more--
I gotta stand twenty feet away Tommy baby!

You glance down at me and wink,
rearing your head back to let loose that Mingus and Blakey
bottom-end laugh,
guffaw guffaw guffaw!!!

--so hearty and rich,
the backbone of every nervous first-year classroom,
and the sniggering seniors you continued to befuddle and dazzle
with your mysterious ways
and insatiable swing.

So blow, Tommy Gun, blow!
Go Tom Cat go!
Dig T-Bird dig!
Let loose Tommy boy!

Swing for us, swing swing swing--
Hot and Sweet, Tommy baby,
hot and sweet.

Vast, empty, midnight hour,
hunchbacked lampposts glaring over parasitic black earth
choking its host.

A parking lot,
an ecosystem’s blemish—
hot tar seeping into the pores of the earth
like a stubborn blackhead in a lip line.

When no cars burrow into the blackened hide
like lice
the great absence of life
is an atrocity.

I imagine myself skateboarding across the tier
as the small town cops
watch languidly with vague interest—

A skateboarder’s paradise
where wheels and accomplice minds roll across celestial barriers
blasting infinite pulses
into the microcosm.

What greasy punks have their mother’s van parked here,
huddling by the heat vents
and jerking off into a Pringle’s can?

Empty parking lot
looks like a cemetery
filled to the brim
where headstones meld
over a mass grave—

delineated by white lines,
the apparitions of vehicles and their hosts
haunt the frozen space.

Another horrible excuse
to waste land,
a wasteland in and of itself
where Tom Eliot saunters aimlessly
and buries the dead.

The saddest sight to behold,
this vacuous parking lot
littered with stray shopping carts,
phantasmal plastic bags,
gum splotches,
***** stains,
candy wrappers,
cigarette butts,
used condoms,
lonely cops
and patient drug dealers,
ambulant skaters,
tired punks,
bored teenagers,
somnambulists,
stumbling drunks,
hunchbacked ***** lights
prying for life beneath its sallow gaze—

The air encapsulated within the perdition
stifling,
the pavement below stifling,
a constriction only visible
when emptied of its contents.

A cop wakes from their choking nightmare gasping
to find themselves trapped,
****** in this parking lot
where the walkie-talkie buzzes
with the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The warehouse store
looming above the waiting room
lifeless, silent, dark countenance—
Big Brother sees all in the gaping maw.

Cascading before me,
stretching towards the highway passing by,
waiting for the panorama to finish scrolling,
the treadmill to cease its cycle—
all the while lamenting life’s absence
and reveling in the potentiality it possesses.

My friends and I
are forlorn fabrics
haphazardly stitched into a quilt.

Comprised of different textures and fabrics,
frayed at the ends,
rejected pieces meant for the trash,
not good enough for made-to-wear mall clothes.

My friends and I
fit like a puzzle
consisting of pieces from various other puzzles--
found under coffee tables,
between couch cushions,
tossed into the bowels of forlorn toy bins--
forming a collage of something
disoriented and ambiguous.

Crammed together,
smashing our appendages,
leaving crooked gaps,
wrinkled, torn, ****** up,
but feeling better here
than in our small contribution
to the bland image of our factory's design.

My friends and I,
outcasts, rejects, punks,
convening in the junkyard heap
where we dance and laugh among trash
that makes us feel clean.
Pure when we're filthy.

Quilts and puzzles,
to instill and befuddle;
****** treasures.

A tease, a tease,
oh how I am a tease,
for I write poems of which
you shall never ever read!

I eke, I eke,
these thoughts with blood as ink,
on gasping pages drowning
in the anguish that I bleed!

I speak, I speak,
of demons I've yet freed,
solely expelled for exorcise,
whose omens I must take heed!

I tease, I tease,
I do not aim to please,
for I write poems of which
you shall never ever read!

Take me to your *******
@cisgenderwhitemale
in salmon shorts sport polo
boat shoes and expensive cologne—

I, emissary of the InterPlanetary
Order of Eugenically-Minded Denizens (IPOEMD),
have come to rid the world
of this contagion—

who for too long has
beguiled us with their
wicked fashion sense
and appalling profile pictures

appearing on friends’ dad’s yachts
smiling behind a pair of Ray-Bans
with a glass of champagne
drunk underage.

Your valedictorian address
bored me,
your sexist racist homophobic xenophobic (etc. etc.)
inside jokes to your friends
on the lacrosse team
sickened me—

I’ve had to listen to you
brag about your ***** size
since puberty and your discovery
of Spike TV—

I watch you mock Black English
in tweets and hashtags
from locker rooms where
the talk can range from
racial slurs to ****-shaming spurs

(talk never to ****
upon its potential revelation
in a political campaign)—

I film your weddings
where you dance all night
in your Aryan enclave
to top 40 songs
screaming “This is my jam!!!”

I scroll through your #familyvaca2k17 posts,
the immaculate hotels and poolside views
concealing the succeeding flophouses crumbling adobes
and dog-ridden streets of dirt and infinite trash—

I see you engrave in bold
ALL LIVES MATTER
BLUE LIVES MATTER
AMERICAN LIVES MATTER
on every writable surface—

and as a meninist,
lament about the harrowing trials
as a victim of reverse racism.

[The white man’s burden
is to carry the weight
of their inability
to be anything
other than
incorrigible.]

I have come to rid the world of you
once and for all:

Taking the Gideon’s bible
from every hotel
and replacing it with
feminist literature,

burning down every
Banana Republic and
coinciding shopping mall,

cutting the brakes
to every Mercedes, Lexus,
and BMW with a
“Salt Life” sticker
on the back window—

You wear your ethnocentrism
like the sleeves of the cardigan
wrapped around your neck
swaying in the air conditioned wind
like a little cape—

[Behold, Cis-Man!

Whose superpowers include:

Getting away with ****
and perpetuating **** culture,

Minimal jail sentences (if at all),

Guaranteed college entry,

Speeding ticket immunity,

and impeccable draft dodgings.]—

I solemnly swear,
I make a pledge
to never procreate
if it will perpetuate
this vile sect of humankind—

I take a vow of celibacy,
I spill my ***** into the dirt—
not one egg will be fertilized,
not one will be conceived

to the soundtrack of Coldplay,
or Kid Rock, or whatever hair metal ballad
conceived you in the first place—

You are a logical phallicy.

You want to talk about eugenics,
you want to stop
breeding all the “retards
spittin’ on your kids”
at the amusement park—

Pledge chastity with me:
Interbreed,
undilute the strain—

and together,
we can end
the White Man’s True Burden:
Existence.






(p.s.
And it is with great irony
that I write this as one of you—
the Judas to your
Megachurch TV Caucasian Christ—

I write it because
if it were by one of
whom you’ve held
under your [jackboots to boat shoes]
since time immemorial—
they’d never stand
to read it—

for even mutiny
among these ranks
has its own
privileges.)

"That's it! I'll take it to the scissors myself!"
Mangled, wrangled, tangled mess,
meandering tendrils coil and cross, clump.

Split ends,
knots so impossibly tied the eagle scout is left bewildered,
sun damage: fried, frizzled, frazzled, frayed.

Broken teeth in a gasping comb,
choking brushes enveloped in the furling mess,
hairspray, fruitless, face it:
(Another) Bad Hair Day.

"That's it! Today's the day!"
The call is made, the appointment scheduled,
you sit and wait.

X's mark the calendar, the day is nigh,
your do's judgement day is at hand.
It's time to settle this.

The day before, you wake up,
absentmindedly getting dressed, drudging through routine,
mirror's the last thing you see.

Crusty eyes suddenly open wide,
as split ends seal and knots unfurl,
sun damage heals and combs sing ceaselessly.

The day is met with a new life,
and the dark days of yore seem like a past life,
as this sunny day seems like all there is.

You laugh at what now appears to be such trivialities,
"Twas a bad hair day! And merely so!"
You allow yourself such a shallow deception.

Your hand grabs the phone, your fingers make the call,
your voice makes the cancellation--
"How could I have been so foolish to resort to such measures?!"

You hang up and scoff at yourself,
a hearty laugh in jest at such hastiness,
tossing and swishing your luscious mane to and fro.

You allow it to slip through your fingers,
on the cusp of the cure,
as the bad hair days truly outnumber the good (you know it to be so).

For the next day will come--
You'll greet the mirror with that heart-wrenching sigh,
in visible anguish at the chaotic mess that encroaches upon your head.

          Don't let a good hair day fool you;
                                                        make the call.

I'm dreadfully afraid of silence,
so I play the music loud in my stereo--

falling asleep with the ringing in my ears,
like the distant echo of heaven.

This body is a map.
Run your fingers along my veins
Hum along to the steady beat
That worms into your brain
These lines run in many directions
But they all start in the same place
This highway won’t lead to Heaven
But it can give you a taste.

****** Bag in sunglasses
donned indoors where
fluorescent sunlight cannot justify
the obfuscation of haughty eyes
so the visage is one
of pure pretension
and cockiness,
dichotomized
as self-assuredness
and the colloquial term for the phallus,
a literal ****.

(I see him strongly in the memory of a high school field trip returning home school bus late night he sits sideways back to the window head leaning back sunglasses donned smug grin I rendered him the vessel and the scape goat bearing my burning hatred for the inflated ego wrapped in an undesirable chic I deem deplorable, hate hate hate)

Smug grin,
I wrote this poem from a bean bag
in the corner of the library third floor
whilst wearing sunglasses and
a taste of irony
on callous lips
twisted in an invisible sneer.

Ascent

The narrow passage arched over the gaping river
like a gymnast vaulting backwards,
gracing the ground with open palms.

I began to climb--
beleaguered on both sides
by insecure concrete obstructions;
I diverted my attention to the ascending road ahead.

I continued to climb,
like a slowly chugging roller coaster,
meekly scaling up the track
with subdued anticipation.

I sunk into the road;
the sky merged with my pseudo-perpetual path, forming the offing--
where it seemed the road ran eternally into the heavens.
I saw blue reach into black in the late afternoon's
fading visage.

Summit

Gliding over the mountainous ****,
I stared over the horizon
where the sun was neatly tucked
under the trees--
silhouetted against the dusky sky,
looking like fingers reaching up into the void,
accumulating like earthly pillows to a heavenly face glowing brightly.

I watched a murky blue dip into a wet grass'd green,
then a traffic cone orange,
followed by the passionate (infra)red of two lovers' entwined,
climaxing in a jaundiced yellow--
tucked neatly like a layer of film
atop the silhouetted landscape.

Descent**

I wished I had
descended the adret
of my ascension's perceived perpetual offing,
rather than this gritty one--
to dip into the horizon,
where I would metamorphose
into a dazzling array of colors;

feeling myself slowly fade away
into the impending night sky.

Tucked away for another day,
sleeping under the stars,
in the fingertipped forests
now obliquely reaching into their absent luminescence
but relishing the cool night air--
silently waiting for light
to soon again
breach their gloomy shells.

[Enlightenment lingered within the visions of my ascension--
I danced with its transient spirit at the summit--
to be decimated as the car lurched downward into mortality.

I saw what could be as I moaned into the
fading afternoon's dipping colors.

Who knew the descent was the hardest part of humanity?]

He said “Cult of Simultaneity”
in such a sultry way
it made we want to kiss him
in that “Gay guys are attracted to me”
sort of way.

An English major taking an
upper level history course
as an elective—

When he smiled at you
in one-on-one conversation
his Irish emerald eyes gleamed between
slits (as he squinted his eyes
in a merry, amiable way).

He wore silk dress shirts and vests
every day with pressed tapered
black dress pants and
gleaming black oxfords.

His well-trimmed red beard
enwreathing the doorway to his mouth
made his lips (full, lush;
I swear they were glossed)—
evermore tantalizing.

I gave him a cute nickname
that was just his name shortened
but with a y, like Jimmy
and Bobby and
I hope he liked it—

He spoke with such finesse
carefully enunciating every syllable
running his tongue smoothly
across his teeth lips and
the roof of his mouth
free of spit and stutter—

every phoneme imbued
with his placid charm,
I ate every crumb
with my eyes glued to him
across the classroom—

Vain and straight,
straight in vain.

The Comeback snapped the ball
and looked desperately for somebody open--

I stood in the endzone
franticallywaving my
handsjumping
sporadicallyyy

HEY! I'M OPEN!!!

With an eye-roll hardly concealed
within a muddy helmet,
he begrudgingly tossed me the ball--

The buzzer sounded
and the fourth quarter ended
just as the ball was in my sweaty clutch--

But the visiting team had already clapped
each other on the backs and
my team waited for me in the
locker room
smelly and defeated.

Alas, I was the most distressed,
standing on the field alone
with the winning boon
a moment
                                 too late.

History Repeats.
Regardless how many times
You may press delete.

I should have skeletons in my closet,
but they've yet been stripped of their flesh,
and I've let them loose in this small town
for a game of hide 'n' seek.

She returned a set of my pajamas, unwashed,
her intoxicating scent lingering on hooks in my closet
where her aroma constructs an illusion.

I bury my face in them,
feeling my damp cheeks pressed into her *******,
reaching down below where my hand grasps her posterior
where it takes a firm shape in the loose garments.

I dig into the scent until I go crazy;
I tell myself I'll wash them next week.

I should have skeletons in my closet,
but she's taken it on the road,
in a small town parading it down empty streets
where I can see it clearly,

her oblong sunglasses darkly obfuscating
what I perceive to be her pejorative gaze,
over a narrow ivory face,
sandy blonde hair flowing in the wind.

(I still feel, yes, that smooth pale face cupped within my trembling hands, that sandy hair tangled around my fingers reaching up the back of her neck, pressing her face more towards mine)

I look for the shallow dent
in her ubiquitous red minute two-door seater
on the passenger side, where she was gently T-*****
by a student driver practicing their three-point turn,
and the smiley-face lemon-scented air freshener
dangling from her rear-view mirror,
having lost its freshness years ago.

(I still see, yes, us in that hardware store parking lot,
in the closed evening hour,
sitting cramped in the passenger seat,
her knees on either side of me,
our shirts off and skin warm and sweaty, nervous,
trembling, trembling, lips aching and souls yearning--
where were we headed to again?)

I look for it so intensely,
I forgot my goal was to never see it again.

          Young love looking for little things in a small town.

For years I play this game of hide 'n' seek,
and part of me should realize
that at some point she got up from her hiding spot
and moved on with her life.

(and no, I won't look at her engagement photos,
nor the photos of her newborn child,
nor the Happy Anniversaries and the congratulatory sentiments--
I can see them without social media's derision)

I still scan the streets
like a vulture over roadkill,
yet I thought I was the one
engraved into the grainy streets
where she commutes over my remains.

I should have skeletons in my closet,
but I let them walk out of my life
so I can chase them all over town.

Pleasing primordial instincts: to blame
Odious constructed mores, or simply
Raptures dwelling within?
Numbing sensations cry out to
Omnipresent nicotine screens;
Gargoyles perch on the ridges
Retching earthly filth and heavenly blessings
Across my fragile conscience.
Paradox in the words I speak,
Harboring images I dare not peek; perpetually ashamed by
Yearnings to please the body and punish the mind.

The vultures swarmed above me,
and I wondered if it was I
who lay before their narrowing gaze.

If they were fallen angels,
Lucifer's harbingers,

they'd have harvested on the soul
I'd left to decay.

Soliloquy.
Entertaining
Ramblings.
Encapsulated
Nuptials
Disclosi­ng
Immortality
Present
In between
Temporary
Youth.

Traveling (with Frost) down the lightly trodden path,
with shoed soles sauntering over thawed earth,
twisting down the narrow trail,
away from the prying eyes of tour guides—

Encompassed by flowery heads who mirror the sun,
who burst forth with fluorescent green necks
craning from the dirt,
delineating our path in cascades of springing splendor.

Sensing the ostinato of ambulant waters crescendo,
we soon break from the budding foliage—
To be greeted by gentle winds
and the lapping of placid waves

who break onto the languid shore
onto shoed and socked feet,
who sense holy ground and immediately
kick off their bindings—

To sink into the earth,
and gritty sand reaching up between toes;
the water deceptively inviting,
is greeted with delightful shrieks in its refreshing chill.

Secluded in our cove,
we gaze over the waters where to our right
rests a breathing reconstruction of the Dove;
we stand awed before these waters
both the settler and the native.

What gods were praised on these lands,
and in these woods,
and in these skies,
and in these waters?

And on March 25, 1634,
in the promising onset of spring,
what had they to sing in the calm airs
as the settlers crossed the threshold of the Potomac?

She whispers,
“Funny how the water appears green on the shore,
and clear on the river.”

--St. Mary's City, March 10, 2016.

St. Mary's, I obligatorily board the biding vessel,
I drift from your shores in the midnight hour,
I sail home where I must lay my weary head;

but little do they know,
you are my bedfellow,
St. Mary's.