I told her I had shut down,
there was nothing there anymore,
then I kissed her again.
I lied.

I've been told
there's a place
called Heaven,
where the sea
meets the golden desert,
mountains rise up
& tall cedars kiss the sun.
And in this place,
anise-spirits flow
& pistachios grow
in abundance.
Angels exist there,
honey-flavors drip
from their pretty mouths.
One in particular,
has the sweetest lips,
like baklava,
I am intoxicated.
They sing to me
songs of hope
& I am swept away,
swept away to that place
along Mideastern
shores.

Driving,
Petty on the radio.
A refugee,
I am,
not living.

Sometimes,
it was so quiet
walking point
on patrol,
all you could hear
was the
occasional
shooting star,
guitars
screaming
in my head.

Chastity wore pretty tiny flowers
in her spiraling dreads,
a fragrance of patchouli
wafted from her lithe form,
she was genuine spirit.
Her sister Divinity
loved summer dresses
and had even tighter dreads,
butterflies twirled
around her regal head.
They were the coolest sisters
on Mother Earth
& every time
they visited a forest,
they practiced
a wonderful habit.
They'd sing & chant
& dance & hug
aspens & pines,
chestnuts & sumacs,
hickorys & walnuts,
cherries & birches.
No joke, they even
hugged mighty oaks.

I always knew Jimmy
was a bit of a strange duck,
but like
***,
in love with a blow-up doll,
that took the cake,
guess he was half-baked.

Haunted now,
I finally understand
what he meant
when he crooned
about the river.
For there,
I felt Louise’s breath,
just the way he described it.
I floated away &
holding her pretty face,
I learned about love,
the angst,
the pure sadness
of broken dreams.

From time to time,
on these short days,
during these long
lonely nights,
I return,
Drift
Back
Down
to the river,
our kissing-place
& I remember,
how I grew up
in her arms,
& she,
she  
lying under me,
trembling,
grinned
from rosy cheek to rosy cheek.

Thanks Bruce,
for taking me there
in song.

I see
slivers of light
between these bamboo shoots.
Alleluia.

I heard the trees crying this morning,
some whispered,
here comes the sun,
Dear Lord,
it's been too hot.

Inspired By Amanda Goodnesses 11 Things Poem*

Take nothing for granted.
Nothing.
For each & every star,
every single twinkle
in the brilliant sky above
is somebody,
once we loved.

So don't forget,
don't ever forget,
to kiss them today
& let them know
how much you care.
For tomorrow,
they may not be here,
they will be above us,
suspended in the universe,
somewhere
amongst
the millions
of galaxies
twirling.

And when you cry
alone at night,
wishing & thinking
of them
& how much you miss them
& how special
they truly were,
you'll kick yourself
in your *******
for an eternity,
until your own
star-rising,
for taking them
for granted.

So go ahead,
like I already said,
take nothing for granted,
before it's too late,
kiss them today.

The malachite eyes stunned,
I knew I was in trouble
& the marble skin mesmerized,
but it was the ruby lips
that did the most damage,
burst my bubble.

You are the prettiest piece of art,
a real masterpiece,
unforgettable,
I am sure.
So I think
I'm going to hang you,
hang you from
a forty-five degree angle,
make you a sweet classic.

She's complex,
not complicated.
She got her undergraduate degree at Yale,
doctorate at Harvard.
Her vocabulary is simple,
practices perfect diction
behind closed doors.
Her use of three & four-letter words,
telling me the things
she wants me to do to her,
is extraordinary,
actually quite lovely.

I saw the grins on burnt skeletons,
but let me tell you
it wasn't very funny,
downright spooky
and sad.

Though the bullfrogs sing
sweet soothing melody,
I cannot sleep.

Let the radicals go,
it's a bloodthirsty code
we can never understand,
an evil hatred,
masked-fanatics hijacking
Muhammed
will eventually
give them enough rope
to do themselves in.

Love
I  write about
& sensual things
to forget,
to forget about
the horror
of blood
& guts spilled
in the desert
by
hate.

Shot out like spit,
discarded,
carelessly
they cover
the sidewalks
of our broken hearts,
beaten down
by loveless rhetoric
into submission
we are,
we are gold
covered in spittle,
by the broken promises
of thier endless lies.

On a Pan American traverse,
we skirted across the Altiplano
somewhere near Titicaca,
worked our way
through the chicken bus line
up to the lone road stop.
A mere shack
with government thugs
hiding inside,
suits wearing ray bans
& checking tourist-bags,
as if they were
making a difference
with the war on drugs.

Like warm
Jello shots
covering all spaces,
traces of me
on your pretty face,
licorice
imaginations
so tasty,
you're smiling.

Reload,
tap tap
my magazine,
push up,
pull the bolt,
use the assist,
locked & loaded.
I'm fully awake.
Look out.

I am lost
in the recesses,
these rainbows
of my wanton mind
dreaming of you,
a warm arc
reflecting light
in the morning sun.

A dozen is not needed,
nor six.
One is what I seek,
her lovely petals,
so fragrant.

Go ahead doll face,
back up,
back up
just a bit.
Oooooooh,
that's right,
I won't fight you
made me bite my lip,
hip-mover,
you're moving
in the right place.

There us no Earthly way
to recapture,
to recapture the splendor
of times past.
So I'll play here,
play here on the astralplane.
And wish,
wish I could wake up,
wake up beside you.
So here,
here I am,
have come full circle,
I'm back to start,
repeating myself
again &
you disappear
one more time.

I have you on my hook
& you look marvelous,
the perfect bait,
so wiggle if you like,
I do too.

Ashen,
corpse-like
I am.

I have spilled endless words,
reconfigured them in different ways,
trying to explain this existence,
things like love
& heartbreak
& these raw
intense
moments
that never go away.
So I'll try
crying out your name,
play kissing you,
alone in the dark
& wonder
if you feel me,
yet again.

I wonder if it's really true,
this metallic thing,
I'm going to exercise?

There is still a million things to tell,
but it's always the same.
Blood,
guts,
nightmares
& political *******.
No matter how I slice it,
it will always be the same.
So I'm closing the book,
they're no more stories to tell,
no reason to spread any more horror.
And don't you worry about me,
the war is over,
I'll just die with the bad memories,
alone.

I hug the mound on all fours,
delving
every nook and cranny,
rapidly searching
your colony,
my tongue slurping,
the buzz of the Queen.

Like a red drippy stripe,
you twirl,
spin & gyrate,
gripping & kicking,
rubbing the y
for sheckles.
Rolled up like fat cigars,
you stretch elastic
listening to cat calls,
hearing your stage-name
as beer-smells waft,
mixed with sweat,
raw pheromones
& ****** tunes.

I unwrap myself for you,
my sweet little charmer,
who makes me uncoil,
undulate,
twist
& spit
copious,
my love venom.

Smitten with fierce desire,
I slither,
angle slowly,
deep,
wantonly,
comfortably
up,
into your dark moist-cavern,
a tender-place of warmth,
where a serpent
cannot resist
to play
in your ever-burning fire.

Come Eros,
come to me in my hour of need
my faithful God.

My heart is buried deep,
now is the time
for planting.

My weight is on her *****
& she floods,
she floods a tidal wave
& saves me,
throbbing seed,
flowing a warm cascade,
she is mine.

A crisscross breeze
nips
me
gently.

I can see the way,
clearly
they have come
for my resurrection.

Under twinkling stars,
the incense swirls,
its glow tip smoldering
into the heavens.

And here mortal,
I sing sacred songs
& spirit-drummers chant
while the ancients
ghost dance.

Sunlight
cut the blinds,
a switchblade-mimic
stabbing me,
where on the floor,
I lay,
barely asleep
with ***** breath.
I remember
the clock on the wall,
it read three.
A pet monkey on a leash
was dancing a jig
& a naked lady
was sprawled out
spread eagle
on the kitchen table.
It was surreal,
I swear
she may have looked young
but I know she was legal.
Then again,
the hallucinogenic effect
of whatever I was on,
may have distorted my vision.
I crawled to the door,
fully clothed,
found my key
& made it
back across the border
before the local law and order
sought a bribe.

Day to day activities
blend into the night ones
as we toil,
act as if
everything
will last forever
& the numbers
balance.

Time the equalizer,
waits in the shadows,
watching everybody,
all the people,
coming & going.

Have you ever wondered
what ever happened
to your first lover?

I transcended,
my eyes rolled back
into my head
as I reached nirvana,
dreaming of you,
covered in
a warm stream.

I had no choice,
my arrival was not wished for.
But I broke through the placenta
and all the choices are mine now.

They taught me crazy things.
Like how to use
the palm of my hand
to ram the splinters
of your nose
up into your brain.
I became an expert
& I'm sane,
I think.
But what about the others?
The ones they released back
into the general population
who are certifiable?
What about them
killer teachers?

There was a time,
a time when I drank
gallons of cheap whiskey,
swallowed lots of quaaludes
to drown my sickening
thoughts of you,
you getting it on
with my school mates.
And I survived the abyss on my own.
because you sure didn't help
putting me there.

My head's here
because of Kevlar,
this heart
was protected by ballistic nylon.
I carry a tiny steel scar
on my left cheek &
this small nick on my brow
just above my right eye,
are etched from
bits of schrapnel.
I still have my *****,
thank God.

Before all the groundpounders
rotated out,
Fort Carson rocked
once
& when they returned,
their numbers depleted,
things just never
seemed the same
again.
They still don't.

O sweet angel,
to visualize
the roundness of crimson,
your deepest jade,
is such a sweet delight.
I do not fight you,
to see,
to watch,
your animal magnetism,
this disappearance of granite,
the glistening
of your pearly-whites,
is romanticism
at it's very best,
totally,
undeniably
*******.

Skeletal,
she had laid comatose,
thirty-six hours,
morphine tubes &  cotton swabs,
so cold to the touch.
It wasn't supposed to end this way.
I remember her in her better days,
before the cancer
had ravaged her *******,
skydiving over the Rockies,
Montana whitewater,
sailing the sound
between St.Thomas & St. John,
margaritas in San Juan.
She was the most brilliant light,
a beautiful soul,
truest fighter to the end
& I miss her,
pray everyday,
"May our little sister
rest in peace.
Amen."

I am as cool as a fire,
calm like a rabbit,
mean as a dove,
angry like a priest,
loving as a terrorist,
square like a circle,
raging as a summer sprinkle.

We are broken,
do we cry
for broken people,
for ourselves broken,
for broken flowers,
do we cry,
how broken we are,
I cry.

The children are asleep
finally
you lie,
listening
to his heavy breathing
not on the same wavelength
& your fingers,
your wonderful
glistening-fingers
do your thinking
& you're dreaming of me.

You played yourself
'till I was red in the face
& those visions of you,
those cobwebs that you made,
tiny glistening strings,
linger still,
traces here,
in my wanton mind.

You played me like an instrument,
strummed my strings,
blew air into my lungs
just to hear the tune I made.
You got laid & took what you wanted,
then left me
lying in the shade,
playing with my instrument
all by myself
and dreaming of the sweet music
we once made.