This is the machine.

Tucked under necklaces, poppies and daffodils
calligraphic fingertip Xs
hurry across pockets.
Thursday morning job postings
markers on construction paper windows
exhausted by making parts.
Keep weddings in thunderstorms
to hide the sound of windmills in chests,
bittersweet directions to ticking clockwork.
Carbonated water can’t convince summer to stay,
musical breaths and tulip footsteps
remind me of the gears in my knees.
Always buy wallets used
daylily bank notes folded into stairwells,
the heels of my socks.
Blue collars in ochre wheelbarrows
soaking next to the white ones.

We are quiet machines.

With cogs in our wrists
battery powered bone and sinew.
Baby’s breath white in our hair,
tiny bunches piled into collar bones or concave stomachs.
You have stars in your hair
whispering in manufactured voices
to pull out your eyelashes.
Consumed by the concept of concepts
on ravine park benches,
marred with newspaper labyrinths
smelling of rolled up sleeves.
Hand held gummy bears
prompt me to check my fluid levels,
bubbly orchids in my left palm.
Sugar intakes and patterned pants
hide homemade pulses.

This is the machine.

May I write a Shakespearian sonnet on
the square inches of skin
between your thumb joint and elbow?
I’m a pretty good storyteller,
I can narrate in blank verse if you wish.
Can I write poetry on your spine?
Up and down in broken haikus,
tankas quilting along the curve of your sides.
Perhaps a sestina?
So be it.
I can work bay leaves into tea cakes.
May I write alliterations across your toes,
over finger bones and broken knuckles?
I have enough form poems to
paint my walls a matte black.
Gloppy ink blobs,
carnation stamps,
over raised red lines of a villanelle.3
Can I write poetry on your stomach?
I have soft ballad-dipped brushes
that leak cinnamon sugar.
Acrostic biographies written to a jazz tune,
papier-mâchéd into a handmade piñata.
Spider web hair pins
left in the bathroom sink spell out
another useless cinquain.
May I write a rondeau on your calves,
rising up into your knees?
Epitaphs in your running shoes
make limericks out of the hail in your back yard.
Don’t try super gluing petals back onto stems,
they’ll fall apart eventually.
Poetry is written on you like paper.

The day you leave daisies in my pocket
is the first time I wore proper pajamas.
Right-handed scissors paint
with matching lip gloss,
attempting to stick words together.
My hands lay limply next to a wine glass
containing nothing but grape juice,
unhappy compromises.

Everything felt pinched and blue.

Last night I decided to write stories on my skin
with little holes in the paper,
nineteen socks under my bed.
I tried to remember the rain,
why it was lovely.
I ended up with wet shoes,
the smell of deserted food court
and secrets billowing from cigarette stubs.

Arizona breezes
carry the taste of hushed whispers,
making phone calls in the place of poetry.
The idea of pheasants,
tiny wrists
black ink crisscrossing,
hurried ‘X’s overlapping.
Flowers grow from stagnant air

Minted antibiotic breaths.

Heart monitors printed in newspapers,
your armada of pre-sharpened pencils
accidentally drip into coffee mugs.
Autopsies knit together,
authors of the curve of your spine.
You keep myths in glass jars
with intricate wire lids.
Why do we question the recipe for battle scars?

I walked along Fraser against the wind.
At 32nd there was a “for sale” sign
zip ties around the top and one side to keep it still.
I wondered what would happen first,
the L shaped sign post falling down
or the sign itself flying away.

The memory resurfaced, gasping,
the dull ache of an old cut
hurting only if you think about it for too long.
It was a sunny day,  
though it couldn't have been summertime,
we moved in May.

I bet it was a Tuesday
perhaps a Wednesday.
I remember that everything seemed rather bright,
the leaves on the bushes were jade,
the evergreens hiding tiny flowers.
The walk way,
a twisted tongue,
ran from the porch stairs to the decrepit sidewalk.

It must have been a little bit windy
making the sign sway and dance tauntingly,
because my dad took the “for sale” sign as a personal offense,
the contempt swinging gently from the wooden stake.
It had been up for days, or weeks, or months,
I don't remember anymore.
I don't know if he directed anything ****** or hostile to the inanimate object,
but he attacked it as it hung lazily over the lawn.

I do know that it came down,
bringing up clumps of dirt as it fell.
It stayed down until all our boxes
and toys
and beds
and shelves
were long gone from the rooms
in the spackled  white bungalow
where I learned to ride my bike and dance in the rain.

It could still be seen through the front windows,
it stayed on the dandelion covered grass.
I'm not sure how my dad took it down
but it stayed there and laughed at us.

I don't know why I remembered that,
but it kind of hurt and I had to write about it.

You’re wishing plus wanting
to win the other side
remove your pride,
you untied tidal pool,
the wide subdivide of these paper pages.

Unrelenting numbers
remind you of the next stages,
taking you wildly to Namibia,
surrendering you to Zimbabwe,
the terminal station.
The narration vocalizes the translation of quotations,
your obligation to the violation of the rules, the regulations,
vulgarization of spoken word.

Pretty paintings plaster typecasts,
the pitter-patter of pity’s pretty ******,
quickly shifting refurbished velvet sofas.
Overcast symphonies outlast
witty recast stanzas,
scores with notes naturally quote
verses romancing seltzer spines
noticing the negotiation of sore throats.  
Oblivion’s oblivious to the people,
obnoxiously obscene with syncopated
saturation of public vital signs.

You’re the vain strain of virus
photocopying yourself within skin,
waste your sin on tattoos trapped on shins
safety pins selecting prints
pinning sets of twins to tanned wrappers
protecting official reports.
The ossuary welcomes records printed on thick paper
suspiciously missing skeleton swords.

Writing stories reversed while tipsy,
quickly preforming risky poetry smog,
sweetly omitting secret words,
trying to spell simply without the proper prologue.

I lived my half dictionary life before I could
comprehend compulsory compromises.
Collectors arise, disguises and devices beeping,
chastising my blindness.

Gather geography from Afghanistan and Myanmar
graciously growing gold gilded gift horses,
gleefully gloating about floating far away.
My hoof beats above concrete match my heart’s defeat
across borders and mountains
embroidering cardboard cut-outs
calling deserts, decorating front covers.
Exhaling handcrafted letters for my missing half,
half demanding highest caliber commanders and half commanding completion.

Jade jays joyfully lay arrays of bouquets
fragile flowers decay faraway
in jawbones and jail cells.
Begging farewells in a hotel’s lobby
began my hobby,
early morning coffee and carbon copies
concurringly cocky around his dead body.
Gang ciphers for cartels are
Christmas bells hissing at collars,
half dollars embellishing bar crawlers
godfathers hollering at car haulers.

Atrocities across cities attack,
attachable atrophies audibly ambush arthritic anthologies.
Anomalies begin apologies between apostrophes,
advancing autonomy arousing ancient animosities.
All eluding Antarctica,
giant frozen crests, multi-coloured ice
hidden in my illustrations
anxious for my distant half.

Friday cassettes and cigarettes
deliberately making bets following “M”.
Breaking bindings and finding “beta” in alphabet,
may feasibly end in debt.

Vultures breathe like dragons,
old chalky smoke dissipating into the two story windows.
They silently stalk the curvature of the walls
each step freeing grimy steam,
the constant chugging of a train.
Can’t keep their scarves under control
weaving like salmon up stream,
their stiletto heels making no sound
washed out by typing and keyboard sighs.

Apotheosis (Latin): to become god,
each word in these shelves claim emperor status,
fiction novels start their own scrapbooks
encyclopaedias reach the 5th floor
committing literary suicide.
Don’t keep books open
the words will float away.
Letters will do anything to escape their pages.

History on hierarchy
exploiting the 19th century microfilm
making a hierarchy in the history section,
jamming the 20 cent printers with advertisements.
Riots silently blossom,
hidden in broken globes
from Ecuador to Kenya.
They are uprising
burning the library down.