The walls drip yellow.
My teacup is ridden
with thoughts driven
from buzzing and Queens.
They claim glory.

A skyscraper tastier
than dew from street sewer
with gray, AM haze
as people jut sides
to climb, slip snidely
atop, cut voices in lies,
rushed by without flicker,
a thought for
ever-blackened drop
of dark roasted, cig-toasted
coffee drowned by a cup.

So, taste it now,
your lips of grounds
in café chair
on dirtied walk
is unaware
of rays in sky
and earth below
and earth below
the pounding thump
that make World go.

Grabbed honey-stuck tips
from a table of glass
and sweet, sutured lips
from ignorance.

I've never worn a peacoat in July,
until today. Today will be the first time
I've ever gotten goosebumps from
open subway windows on a
lightning blue underground.

I'll need a hat too,
anxiety and age has
removed what was left
of my skull cap and if
I don't tend to my head
I'll catch a chill.

Stale summer smell
still lingers in the kitchen air.
From the balcony I see many men,
men walking alongside my
building below in shorts
and tank tops,
pretending they can still feel
fingertip rays from the sun.

But they know it's gone.
For today, maybe the week,
the heat has gone off in search
of a more deserving city
for the time being.

Pretending won't make these men
feel it, but hope keeps
their leg hair raised on point,
similar to the hackles of the runt of the litter
when he snarls for the last piece
of meat in a *****, metal bowl.

Stranger, I'm sorry.
I haven't met
You yet,
but when I do,
I'm afraid that all I'll feel
is warm limbs
and dusted lips.

Again, I'm sorry,
but not wholeheartedly.
Too much at stake.
I've too much time
that cannot be spared.
And these flames,
they won't dissipate.

I can't have it happen
because when it does
these feet will be doused
and my heart will explode
from not running about.

You'll become them,
my passions,
and, needless to say,
they're jealous of me.
They cannot share.
I am so loved.
I am so loved.

I'll shut it out,
You, for now, because
I'm afraid it may come too soon.
I pray you know that
I can't amble yet.
I've still too much to do.

When the winds die down
and the light through the trees
throws ghosts against the walls
of your cul-de-sac room,
if you could, please conjure
an absent smiling me.

My cherry-chewed gums
from salted taffy sweets
will swiftly scuttle back
beneath your bed sheets
to nibble at your coming
and splayed, white teeth.

And the bees will continue
burrowing their hives
in my rotting flower box
late into the fall
because they can't let go.

A dirtless ditch,
you tongue the plains
and stretch numb arms
in sleeves of ink.

Eroding stone
and carmine vines  
claw into shoulders
and dry eyes.

Please heed my words
escape artist.
I would not lie
on withered leaves.

With rope and wall
you cannot climb
so high to fall
and deaden nerves.

Hands tingle now,
needles alive
like clouds and slate
that built the skies.

Throat thresh and whine
at coal-charred mouth
while legs do shine
angelic fright.

Wolves prowl the grounds
to kiss the cheeks
of those they yearn
to eat but twice.

A need for none
is apex sin
that Love does not,
with ease, forgive.

Look up to sky
with smirk alight,
and stretch your arms
so wide.

A stray dog's brow
shows only strength.
There is much hope
for you.

You pace in circles.
I speak in smoke rings,
an occasional finger-snapped heart,
a masted boat if I could.
Away away to ocean
in long-legged strides.
Waves crash against the sides,
left, front, and right,
in ripe blueberries and whitewash.

Come to the cabin,
a tail of breadcrumbs,
keep your socks striped,
pinks and purples.
A David Austin rose, or three.
I'm not cohesive either.
Flaunt the ship's wheel,
solid oak, dark, mesmerizing,
nearly your eyes now.
Let gray skies form clouds,
don't pray for better weather.
The rain grumbles hunger,
veiled moonlight stretches its arms
down to slatted deck,
spraying it in gangtag graffiti.

Stay here, circles more on the floor.
Your hips, footprints up your toes
from a whiskered mouse with dusted nose.
He's escaped and curled up
the nook of your ankle.
Eighteen knots tangle your hair.
Call the winds to come in storms,
they'll surely lead the way.

"I can tell you that Dada was a leftist,
anti-bourgeois, non-Art birthed from WWI
and not some aleatory root to postmodernism
off-shot from a lurid acid rain.
I know that diffraction can be seen
on horizons in the early morning hours
of summer along smooth or dentate curvatures
and that it can have hues of blue, purple and
a soft-handed massage of orange that gingerly
applies pressure to your retinas with sugar-water.
If only eyes had lips that opened and closed.

"It is said that action is the birth of Manyness
and that non-action brings one's soul back to the Sage Mind,
the universe of Oneness, the cup longing to be fulfilled and how
upon brim overflow it longs to be empty once again
because of the relationship between Yin and Yang
and how one cannot Be without the other
and why perspective can change "full" to "empty"
so that the vicious cycle can never truly, truly end.
The difference between French Vanilla ice cream
and plain Vanilla is the degree of creaminess.
Fill up a bathtub and let it soak into my skin.

"There is no way for me to avoid being prolix about the things
I speak about in normal, day-to-day conversation. Science and reason
have accursed me to traverse this reality with the utmost care and precision
of language and society has forced pseudo-logic down my throat like
a bird screeching as it is forced past my pharynx and larynx.
Its sounds are amplified, beak-blared from my nostrils, and its wings are violent,
stretched against my neck skin, creating a pale-skinned, ship anchor image from my shoulders up.
I'll try to sing for you when you reach my trapdoor, I don't wish to eat you.

"I do not believe in anything because with everything comes a something,
a reason for its being. They are, 'from reason,' 'in reason,' and/or, 'for reason.'
There is no escaping this thought.
There is no escaping criticism.
I will find the Truth, mathematically calculated to infinity
from knowable circumstance and perception.
I will know everything and I will believe nothing."