just a nervous swimmer
making threats to capsize
cross legged eaten alive
praying acoustically so you could hear
a ship that plunges
through disaster’s eye
the harrowing digestive pit of the sea
willingly swallowed
lying under the collapsed ceiling
of
the one that crashed all around us

snow heavy on headlights
blanketing windshields with sloppy mounds
the bitter Christmas
and a night ride, cold headlights
a spelunker’s lantern
watching the masturbator on stage
his back facing the crowd
black curls like a blindfold
he smiles like someone in church
but behind his teeth something
seethes

red lipped rosy aloof
(the beautiful drunk who
I’ll write many lines)
I called you the Ouija way
but it was disconnected
Athena poured the milk you made
down your slopes and poisoned the valleys
looking back and tracing photos
wondering if you really existed at
all

walked in the humidity and
only wished I had said
nothing
realized all the time
there was no one I wanted but you,
curious feeling of being
startled awake
boots making me heavy
spent the next few weeks
swimming tirelessly upstream
proud salmon ***** that I am

my sister is a room god leaves alone.  she hangs a sign on the door I cannot read.  by the time I can, I am watching my younger brother roll his ankle wearing high heels.  at night I hear him swallow repeatedly.  another tooth gone.  a boy with a stick is a boy with a wand.  kids die in their sleep because they are boring.  because they dream of things that can really happen.

Hello
this is a short message
written this Sunday morning
on March the first

the rain keeps coming from the west
non-stop for two days
risk of flooding
government says.

I miss you - had another dream
driving in sunshine.
It's the sun I miss
mostly - and then of course
there is your friendship
to treasure and to hold.

I hope you're having fun
on your quad.
They say four wheels
are better than two
I'm not so sure
how could you
have Zen and the art of
quad biking -
impossible?

I see you have given in
to peer pressure or whatever
and made your modest entry
in the ******* book
I had a quick look.
It looks
OK.

Now I suppose Twitter
and MySpace
where you can compose
even wittier
sayings.

You're a true master
of Wisdom
with a capital W
But it is not that
you struggle to say something
wise
it comes spontaneously
best when blurted out
immediate response
like:
"they throw babies in dumpsters
in your country too, Janet?"

She'd never forgotten it
as it
was such a strange and powerful thing to say

by the way
I googled your name
and you have loads of coverage
mostly under AHEC and Best.

This is just a few short lines
to say you are on my mind
and in my heart
as always
yours
me.

1.
it was my first cigarette
in weeks that i hadn’t found
half-smoked on the asphalt
and it still tasted like something
leftover from somewhere
i don’t belong;
its smoke drifted through
the evening city mist like
how our voices used to harmonize
but only when we weren’t trying.

2.
on the blue line through
south central i heard someone
say “i could’ve been president
of the whole world, could’ve
taught y’all something about
success” —
she wasn’t talking to nobody
but the whole train listened
and in that, she taught me
more than any textbook
ever could.

3.
when you stand on 5th
and san pedro you can’t see
nothing besides the cliff
at the end of the world,
but instead of clouds there’s
puddles of ****, instead of
waterfalls there’s shopping carts
filled with people’s whole lives
and everyone down there is
shaking their heads at you —
leave, leave unless you know
what falling feels like.

It is the jovial, gentle gradient of your first love
Transcending from the kind of blue that swims under a blanket of flesh on the topmost part of her wrist
Into an orange so pale it could just be pink;
Reminiscent of the peach of her cheeks
Dampered by the dreariness of a stormy Sunday noon
Light shrouded in the mysticism of "what if's" and "why"
It is the turbulence of heartbreak
Escaping with the breath you held in too long
Sighing a song of failed attempts and discarded hope
Dressed in the melancholy of grey-blue, exasperatingly clouding over in surrender;
The kind of dark that makes you wonder if it is pathetic fallacy
Or maybe just a coincidence that the sky can seem so sad.
All at once placid
Milky and cold and fresh as the first glass of Bessie's byproducts
It is the clarity accompanying self assurance
The comfort in the knowledge that blue is just a shade away from blue-grey
Cotton ***** on a sheet of glassy water
Just enough to get you through midday
Until scorching it sets, and your cat nap is marked with a rigid back and stood-up hairs
It is a blaze of passionate glory
The first crimson drop from the blood orange
Only to dilute before you into a tangerine so vivid you have to question if maybe your eyes are just over-dramatizing its hue.

News Flash:
                     Religious Science has created life!
                     With heat and pressure
                     and Sounds Sounds Sounds!

                     Watch their lead-boy
                     dance and sing
                     recordings placed in his
                                    chest
                   ­  by People Who Know.

                    Listen close
                    to his strictures about what
                    is abominable
                    you can hear their voices
                    in the crackling gray
                    noise:
                    
            ­        The buzzing of cieling fans
                     in offices far away, Oz
                     The humming chatter of
                     "The maid found a dove
                     drowned in the pool!"
                     "Oh, how unsanitary,
                      truely abominable."

                      You really should see
                       him dance
                       in the Starstudded Ballroom
                       where the wicked pace
                       in the side-halls
                       dreaming of childhood summers
                       at the lake
                       and kisses in the morning.

                       Holy Science has smithed life!
                       Holy bullets smelted a fine
                       man.
                       Wholy Holey Holy Bullets.