~            and she watched from the kitchen stool as he tore the heart from the artichoke while the onions stroked their invisible wet fingertips down his cheeks             ~

when time is a slowly emptied sigh
and winter grips tight to autumn's last leaf
then I'll hold my breath as I wonder why
the wind shakes the tree when it falls beneath

my jaw aches.

it comes out only at night
a gripping, torn dragging
                            and slowly splintering teeth
        my dentist tells me I've been at it again
        awareness month announced through a 3 ply mask.

it comes out at night only.
when my hand has swum down your riverbed spine
        I count each smooth stone
        try to forget the explosions beneath
        seam mining, undermining everything we create?

        at night my jaw aches.

by day I smile too much
collecting girls' numbers like sea-tossed glass
       once all dangerous cutting edges, now pocketable
       forgettable -
                    I don’t want to run.

        and so our monster under the bed
(the scans show this)
        burns its fires through your head

while mine growls through troubled teeth

       and I ache.

at high noon
at a small college near the beach
sober
the sweat running down my arms
a spot of sweat on the table
I flatten it with my finger
blood money blood money
my god they must think I love this like the others
but it's for bread and beer and rent
blood money
I'm tense lousy feel bad
poor people I'm failing I'm failing
a woman gets up
walks out
slams the door
a ***** poem
somebody told me not to read ***** poems
here
it's too late.
my eyes can't see some lines
I read it
out-
desperate trembling
lousy
they can't hear my voice
and I say,
I quit, that's it, I'm
finished.
and later in my room
there's scotch and beer:
the blood of a coward.
this then
will be my destiny:
scrabbling for pennies in tiny dark halls
reading poems I have long since beome tired
of.
and I used to think
that men who drove buses
or cleaned out latrines
or murdered men in alleys were
fools.

lovE is Evol
Just spell it backwards

i curl into your back and you wear me
like armor into your dreams.

under your hands i turn to water
or iron and then you bend me again.

you say you knew it from the first when
the space between us bit its tongue.

i didn't know it though i ground my teeth
down that night under your name

and spat out all others in my sleep.
i didn't know single-mindedness

til you packed your suitcase and placed
it against mine outside the door.

i didn't know that it could be like this.
a reflection caught by the tail

of you watching me and i see more.
for you i am more. i have to be.

I was raised by my
Fixes everything
Does it on his own
Came home smellin' like grease and gasoline
Hugging us before changing his uniform
Kind of dad

A do what you're told when you're told to do it
Listen to what I'm saying
Don't talk back to me
Or you'll get it
Kind of dad

A quiet talking
Loud thinking
Says what's on his mind
Doesn't take no *******
Kind of dad

The taught me how to drive
To always tell the truth
Tell someone when you love them
Be respectful and kind
Kind of dad

A don't talk to strangers
Be home before dark
Be careful climbing that tree
Don't hit your brother
Kind of dad

A you're my favorite daughter
We can talk about anything
I love you always
No matter what
Kind of dad

Naked, you are simple as one of your hands,
smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round:
you have moon-lines, apple-pathways:
naked, you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.

Naked, you are blue as a night in Cuba;
you have vines and stars in your hair;
naked you are spacious and yellow
as summer in a golden church.

Naked, you are tiny as one of your nails -
curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born
and you withdraw to the underground world,

as if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores:
your clear light dims, gets dressed - drops its leaves -
and becomes a naked hand again.

I once loved a woman so,
left my wife, my young baby children,
desperate desolate for a scrap of
a reason to exist.
her, the other woman,
welcome was unquestioning,
she was an answer.

you may judge me,
I've paid and pay on-

but this is not the taken tale,
verily, I have come to write.

Jennifer her name,
was my savior,
took me from the cross unbearable,
washed my feet, covered my wounds
rebirthed me a new man.

weak was me,
fell fallow to cries,
whimpers of the weak,
weakened me worse
and she said

go,
bewitched man,
magic enough to defeat
the wicked one,
but not
the weak ones,
I don't possess,
you have to have
metal in your mind,
rock steady,
maybe you do,
maybe you will,
but no crutch of steel
can I be forever.

but this is not the taken tale,
verily, I have come to write.

what I remember best,
the love I lost for
the lesser love I gave up
and took back
as a lessened and lessoned man
is this:

my chest, my heart,
for months, not weeks,
for months, not weaks
of words,
hurt so bad I
could not believe,
my life forfeit,
this heartache palpable,
was real beyond belief

when I went to the
emergency room, the doctors,
stethoscope-confirmed,
my tearing-warped, embodied mind,
had no prescription, no surgery,
for what ailed the failed man.

when in the street would see her,
in the elevator trap, smelled her smell,
for seconds I was triangulated,
until lost sight, and was ill-mis-positioned
once again in a shaft that could only go
down.

Shortly thereafter,
took up pen and paper
bad damage to repair
and began to write,
decades worn, pen nub'd
the writing,
never thereafter,
stopped or ceased.

now I ask you plain
straight from the
place of pain,
that is almost healed,
tho twenty years,
the damages are still
upon my persona claimed,

for this is the taken tale,
verily, I have come to write.

how do you like your poet's poet now?

not so much?