I came across a letter I never sent,
hidden somewhere I had forgotten.

I'm sorry I never gave it to you
I think it would have helped.

It read out all the memories
I'd forgotten we'd ever made.

But I'm glad I never sent it and
I'm glad you never read it.

I want to see you stripped
down to bare elements;
a deaf-blind entry
into knowing you,
because I am tired of words,
words, words,
and a lack of warmth
beneath my hands.

I want to see your hair
spread like a river delta
over the pillow;
content and raw
with exhaustion and red wine.
Drunk and torn
from the monotony
of long nights in an empty bed.

Never did I trust goldfish when I was typing away.
Those bulging eyes say spy and I will not have this
animal escape when I'm not looking and tell someone
in the wrong crowd about my secret writing projects.
This goldfish,
circling this crystal bowl,
he is mine,
a political prisoner.
Call Amnesty International if you want but
there's no existing manner to free him.
Except death.
Then he will be given a proper viking funeral
and his body burnt in the glistening sundown.
Secrets kept secret.

O you would clothe me in silken frocks
And house me from the cold,
And bind with bright bands my glossy locks,
And buy me chains of gold;

And give me--meekly to do my will--
The hapless sons of men:--
But the wild goat bounding on the barren hill
Droops in the grassy pen.

We survived progress
The three of us
Secluded high on Mt. Ararat
Safe from radioactive fog
We have all we need
More than we could ever want
We have everything

What kind of bees gather in such masses?
You're raining and then you're clear again
They'll pay to hear you babble such nonsense
You're surfing in near perfection
You're ruined by the pure maybe
After the loss, In the shadows
Fly fly fly fly fly
Float
I'll throw this to the ones watching
See just how hungry they are

On Ararat we long for a new language
To express the confusion of loneliness
Knowing that nothing will change a thing
But still, to talk
We must remind each other of who we are
Once in a while
It's not easy being the world

What did you come for?
A soliloquy?
A sonnet from a madman?
Madmen, true madmen don't do sonnets
They assault and jar
They resent being toyed with
In no uncertain terms will they tell you
What they think of you
In the guise of a poem
But chances are you won't get it

I sat in front of a wood burning stove
Feeding pages from a spiral notebook
To the fire
Leaves and more leaves sparsely scribbled on
Because there was a conciseness and brevity
To my poetry that conveyed the stark nature
The rudimentary nature of my state of mind
The flames ate it up

I apologize
I haven't smiled in such a long time
It's hurting my face

Drink the stars.*

Consume them and let them course through your bloodcurrent,
Carrying the fluorescence to your furthest capillaries.
You will see glowing veins scintillate beneath your skin,
As if a thousand cracks are forming on your body--
Allowing the pureness and beauty of your bright soul
To escape its host.

The words we don’t say
Fall to the ground like dead leaves.
To be trampled and stepped on
Barely making a sound over the wind
Of the lies we whisper;
Too afraid of the truth beneath our feet.
And when storms begin to build,
Lifting the leaves to dance around us;
Those words crawling across our tongues
Fighting to be heard.
The rain of our tears beats them back down,
And the leaves fall flat, soggy, and drenched  
To the cold, hard ground.
Beaten into silence,
To be trampled and stepped on,
Without even a crunch.
Those words we don’t say
Remain on the ground like dead leaves,
A reminder
Of dying souls we meet on these streets.

home has never been anything but this
dark eyes promising every inch of light to me
his fingertips tracing the dips between my ribs
bruises trailing from my neck to the inside of my thighs
but this love didn't hurt
his rough hands slipped in mine
the first time we kissed
he was nothing but soft
nothing but gentle
nothing but home