Let’s make vulgarity beautiful
for a couple seconds.
Dwell on the ******* gimmicks of language,
the shock value of mixing syllables together,
the stupidity of poetic “terms”.
I’ll tell you about my hate for
******* clichés,
****** overused poetic devices and word pairings
that ruin the fun for all of us.
I’ll lay down some ground work here:
too many minutes of my life spent
trying to count syllables ,
rhyme words,
analyze and alliterate annoying argumentative articulations.

You know what?
**** alliteration, assonance and consonance,
bastardisations of the brilliance of poetry.
Destroying all appreciation of something so fine
at such early age,
with red pens,
poor introductions,
and misconceptions falling out of every ******* mouth.
Reused and recycled clichés
trivializing the beauty of rain,
that stomach hiccup when you see someone you like
the actual emotions that fundamentally make us human.
The over-judgemental *****
who can’t write for ****,
think they’re high and mighty,
overusing these feelings with the vocabulary of an eight year old,
giving us poets a bad reputation.
**** those *******
with their dark souls
empty hearts and
broken dreams
**** them over cups of cold coffee
in vintage mugs
snapping in a low-lit jazz café.
Sonnets, haikus and ballads aren’t the only forms of poetry,
nothing has to rhyme,
I shouldn’t be graded on my ability to be a thesaurus.
******* teachers narrow-mindedly give us
“creative writing” homework
that's not creative,
like the colour green.
I don’t see how they can judge poetry,
perhaps how it flows and word choice,
but I have an extra syllable
and purple doesn’t rhyme with anything,
**** me right?
Because purple is the only word which
accurately portrays what I mean,
excuse me if I pronounce this differently
rendering my iambic pentameter to ****.
I didn’t deserve a B.
*****.
Poetry isn’t something you can confine to four walls,
it can’t be truly ugly,
it can be the sort of ugly where your mum doesn’t want to put it on the fridge
but she keeps it until you’re satisfied,
and then she trashes it,
but it’s not ugly.
Remember that poetry is supposed to be beautiful,
*******.
Forget about that *****-*****-***** who ******* you over,
that ******* who didn’t say thank you or
that ****-faced ***** who should go digest a bag of *****
and write something worth reading.
Something that will makes eyes wander back to revisit phrases,
admiring the careful craftsmanship
that translates into something universally beautiful.

The moral here is that
poetry is an art to be mastered and
no one has yet to master it.
Some have come close,
and not all of them have used alliteration,
similes about the heart,
metaphors for love,
binding syllable limits
or rhyme schemes.
Whoever told you otherwise is a raging *******
who doesn’t deserve even the lowest paid *******.
Don’t be afraid to use taboo words;
it's your writing and anyone who doesn’t like it can *******.
Despite the irony,
vulgarity can be beautiful.

Are you sound of mind?
Addicted to dandelions
like the ocean is to ice.
Wait outside the blood bank,
learn how to write dialogue
and make saccharin spines.

My journal is a tangle of spines,
keep an open mind
help me box up my ****** dialogue.
I’ve always been a fan of dandelions
etching paths along the river bank,
streams within the winter ice.

Buckets of camphor ice
relax the notches in spines
as we wait in line at the food bank.
Thoughts of jawbones on my mind,
the taste of dandelions
and organized pre-scripted dialogue.

Backhanded blue dialogue,
counting the vanilla crystals of ice
blowing the smell of cinnamon into floating dandelions.
My hands handle happiness spines
with the peace of mind
of money in the piggy bank.

Let's rob a bank
shooting quiet malleable dialogue
through an altered state of mind.
Your ribs are two sheets of ice
ivy wrapping around our intertwined spines
crumbly blowing breaths of dandelions.

Second hand dandelions
build up in the river bank
muddy trenches around spines
whisper outspoken blue green dialogue.
Three pounds of dry ice,
warm water vapour at the back of my mind

Store buy your dandelions, bear in mind
that the West Bank is covered in ice
and that spines speak their own muted dialogue.

You have stars in your hands
and you hold them like grenades.
The boats tattooed on your thighs
spread out like finger placements of the G major chord.
Synthetic drugs make chains
tying your first and second fingers
around the mechanically rolled paper,
canvasing your throat like too much sea water,
each breath as rough as the veins in your arms.
Close your eyes
there’s pollen in the air
spread out like imperfections on the skin of an apple.
Solar countries keep foreign coins
sewed into their cotton sails,
they put their money into the navy.
You have a comet in your circulatory system
leaving bright spots under your skin
a reminder to gather the sunshine back under your eyelashes.
Hand soap in ketchup packets
make bubble bath islands
and unhappy lips.
You’re as talkative as a poem and
as expensive as a poppy
with homemade constellations on your back,
staining your lumbar muscles with cherries.
I can’t wash off your fingerprints
with my favourite shampoo.
I’ll swim across the Georgia Strait,
dodge your dinghies and
make a home in handmade ships
where I’ll practice erasing scars from my arms
and washing the soap from my hair.

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.

Sleep is timed to the minute,
my breaths let out lazy smoke
icicles make goose bumps into paragraphs
books written on my arms through yellow mist
bare feet in the morning on my rooftops
counting international planes in the sky.

My migrant bones take to the sky,
each moderate minute
that passes by on my rooftops,
increases the rawness of smoke
like lung-fulls of lemon mist
spewing a nebula of paragraphs.

In the murk of paragraphs
red papery ashes explode into the sky
leaving a cloud of syllable mist.
The last fragile minute
reduces my shivers to smoke,
a winter shell of shoulders on rooftops.

Double exposed film across rooftops
turn silhouettes into paragraphs,
a congregation of vapours and smoke
speaking soliloquies into the sky.
I am minute,
dissipating into canary mist.

Billows of ocean mist
make my fingers melancholy on rooftops
where a tidal minute
freezes salty foam paragraphs
a vacation from the sky,
my mossy perch and violet smoke.

Heliotropic smoke
spirals against dense mist;
fine rain blinding the sky
soaking lemonade rooftops.
My bed of paragraphs
curls into an illegible minute.

The lilac smoke in my eyes is almost minute.
A mustard mist wrinkles the paragraphs,
like the purple sky dropping over the rooftops.

The deep sighs of fall
send chills across the daisies.
My compass is sick
and there’s a sense of urgency in my eyelashes,
feeling around for the blisters on my skin
searching for a bed to sleep.

Facets of sleep
encourage the rain to fall,
cold weather raising capillaries under my skin.
I wrote the history of the Holocene era on daisies,
microscope lenses tickling my eyelashes;
dim lighting makes me home sick.

My mind is sick,
I dream of oceans in my sleep,
medicine labels printed on my eyelashes
pill bottles coloured like fall.
Tattoos of purple fringed daisies
cover my shoulders like skin.

Teeth full of apple skin;
asking God how not to be sick,
wondering if a sacrifice of daisies
will get my blood to sleep.
My hair is like the leaves during fall;
I hope I get to keep my eyelashes.

There’s snow in my eyelashes,
landscapes of frost form on skin
the cold air begins to fall,
I decide to call in sick
preferring to hide in a hot sleep
until my breaths sprout purple daisies.

How to grow Gerber daisies,
without losing my eyelashes?
My fingernails are full of sleep,
hot tea grasps at my paper skin.
The panacea for the sick
is a perfect concentration of wool sweaters and fall.

You eat daisies in the fever of fall.
Through my eyelashes I am morally sick,
but yesterday I finally let sleep settle into my skin.

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.

Your brittle calcium coated voice
slides down my throat like water,
little blue gods of poetry.
Nothing to do but **** and fight.
There’s a run on sentence in my veins
whole flowers framing my bruises.

My bone quiet bruises
wait five miles from your medical voice,
english coastline of veins
covering my anatomy like large bodies of water.
**** yesterday’s fist fight
you left your apologies in poetry.

My alcoholic poetry
a blood orange coated in bruises
a history of last night’s pillow fight
catching religion in your voice.
The swallows splash in water
quiet in my dessicate veins.

Fields of goldenrod veins
make my honorary poetry
a theory of cursive water.
Leave aching vegetarian bruises
on my calloused voice
from tearing open the sun to fight.

A polaroid water fight
rolls around in my open veins
a punctuation of your raspy voice,
hospitalized my skin in poetry.
A reckless consumption of bruises
with a mint leaf in a glass water.

Soft echoes burn across the water
silver scissors in a domestic fight
running away from bruises
and mountains of veins.
My second language is poetry
giving my fingertips a muffled voice.

Empty water pleads with your broken voice,
makes me fight against pleated poetry
and pomegranate bruises tighten in my  veins.

Tighten your braces with yellows,
UV lights in police cars,
your high socks and new crewnecks,
steep all your worries in the cellar air.
The kitchen crew necks you,
steps over your extra vertebrae on the floor.
Exchange Red Sox caps and collaged cards for
iron oxides and spare joints,
an apology gift for the knees of a Titan.

Gilt neckties and stockings
hard hits over first base,
infrared silhouettes waving goodbye
slip on the steep porch stairs.
Your personal marching bands
sleep in shopping carts.
Your postcards lost in the Andes
written in purple pen --
everything’s smells like guilt.

Harts stagger behind
stags that hope to tiptoe around your toes,
scouting the suites in South America.
Back roads hastily swept under dining room chairs.
Necklaces of burned out light bulbs,
players sock the suited callers.
My bird house is empty.
Your world map is crumpled,
stuffed into the left ventricle of my heart.

Knaps of your wrist bones
fill the endnotes of my biography.
Bottlenecked bus loops and
windsocks left deflated in broom closets.
Your left hand in my kitchen sink,
catches my pressed shirts,
your clothesline melts into the sidewalk like lightning.
Bracelets on marble sculptures.
After you, I need a nap.

Littoral instructions spelled out in sand dollars.
Purple sunflower seeds caught in my turtleneck,
ghosts of eyelashes begin
to whisper wishes,
sockets for wrenches and ankles.
Blue hair braces for the midnight smiles,
the low tide of flowers,
the daily newspaper full of ocean currents,
your lips were too literal.

Lumbar dimples and goose bumps,
the rubbernecking waiter waited for the lights
rubbing his eyes.
Your playful dialogue
makes my plate shake.
Your safety is never on,
eyebrows marking my fifth disappointment.
I usually hate piano solos,
your voice is unstable, charred lumber.

Mince the pages of the dictionary
to make kindling for your irises.
Necklines defined as jade stamps
at the bottoms of the Chinese paintings
above last year’s birthday card.
Connect the dots to see the ruins of Rome,
your arms after the final battle,
crude stitches on undone sweaters.
Your pockets still full of dinner mints.

Canvass the imprint on the inside of
your leg from where the stitching folds over,
your jeans, unwashed in my laundry hamper.
Still overflows from knee socks and potted plants.
Microwaves compressed into my glass of water
the high tide seashells in your pantry facing
your ego in mason jars on shelves.
You’re tired of white board marker promises,
your skin a poorly cleaned canvas.

You’re basic,
a lengthy silhouette
miming the human experience.

Staying up late
to blind yourself,
blinking to the sounds of sleepiness
heart beating to Skinny Love.
What ifs,
pre-recorded scenarios
imagining that first hug.
Contemplate that bottle of pills by the sink
that new film that you want to see,
condensation in the lid of the teapot.
You’re candid,
unsure if all scabs heal
trying to remember when you didn't have a writing callus,
when you slept through the night,
when purple was the only colour you didn't use.

Purify infectious matter,
***** green-blue wine glasses overflowing.
Tinfoil vases and orchid flowers,
melting boxes of 64 assorted crayons.
You’re laconic,
often dying to create,
like the verbose and the wordy
sighing simply to translate.

Missouri gift exchanges,
loose blue jeans ******
stacks of classics.
Tales of the Jazz Age wrinkling
to a slow 50s song.
You’re a try hard
dying to knit,
only true fear is disappointment
burning in the lime light.
6000 voluntary hours
linking syllables to daisy chains,
dropping pesos to foreigners,
hands sandwiched inside
the front cover and the first page
of The Count of Monte Cristo.

You’re basic,
down for maintenance,
compressing the weight of the atmosphere.

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.

A chain of beautiful accidents
light up like strings of Chinese firecrackers.

I follow trails that may or may not be blue.
They tip toe to the coast and snake around wild peacocks.

Funny things happen when you close your eyes,
lines from A to B are never completely straight.

I come for the sun and stay for the drinks.
Sometimes my thoughts make spider webs in my eyes.

Twelve doves like fingers walk in and out.
Off centre circles revolve around shapes caught in my throat.

For the long nights I played movies
that I wanted and hated as much as cinnamon jelly beans.

I don’t really know what brought me here.
Perhaps I’ve fallen through the rabbit hole, but

Maybe it was only a chain of beautiful accidents.

Tiptoeing over this week
leaving fingerprints of sleep
in every fold of your shirt.
Voices like humming birds,
echo of mint and
train tracks on a hot day.

Respite.
Sounds like its meaning,
feels like a sigh.

Learned a new word.
Cafuné.
To lovingly waltz
fingers through hair,
Portuguese stuck to the back of my hand.
The air smells of limes.

Hiding cherries
every day this month
made my tongue purple.

This is not a poem.
It shouldn’t taste like purpose,
lethargic bubbles rising in a cup.
Drawing peaches and crayons
between the millimetre increments
of your knuckles.

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.

If I had
Three
Wishes, I’d wish for
A unicorn
Nice skin
And you

If I could live on only
Three
Things, I’d survive on
Lemonade
Lasagne
And you

If I could only watch
Three
Things when I turn on the television, I would watch
That fireplace background
Futurama
And you, even if you are a runway model

If I was stuck forever on a desert island and could only bring
Three
Things, I’d bring
Food
Water
And you

If there was a zombie apocalypse and I had only
Three
People I could trust, I’d choose
A ninja
Chuck Norris
And you

If I could only cheat at
Three
Things in MAS*H, I’d change
To the mansion
To have less than ten kids
And to be with you

If I was in jail and I somehow got
Three
Phone calls instead on one, I’d call
My dad who would bail me out, maybe
Chuck Norris who would break me out when my dad refuses to pay the bail
And you, just to say hi because you’re broke and can’t pay the fee

If I had to choose
Three
Of my celebrity crushes, I’d pick
Johnny Depp, duh
B.D Wong, just for his voice in Mulan
And you

If I had
Three
Works of art in my room, I’d have
A stolen Picasso painting, shhh, look don’t tell
That painting where that guy gets knocked out by the apple
And you, chiselled into diamonds

If I somehow got amnesia and the doctors could only restore
Three
Of my memories, I’d want to remember
My name
That time when we killed those zombies with Chuck Norris and the ninja
And you

If I could only say
Three
Words, I’d say
Is
This
Creepy?

I remember the day I met her
Near the breaths of the ocean
Before she chose mind-altering pleasures
Over everybody’s well-being
Only the tips of the clouds were bathed in light
The sounds of a typical barbeque
Echoed across the water
She smiled, I remember how that was, a gentle smile,
The kind you get when you lie in giraffe high grass
Within the meadow flowers
As the sun’s rays gently caress your face

The last time I saw her smile
It had twisted into a horrible grin,
The kind you get before you sing
“I know something you don’t know…”
She was smiling at something I couldn't see
Can never see
The effects of speed, ecstasy, crack, and *******
Her kids were taken away
My parents almost got custody,
But by then, she was “cured”.

Follow a poet for a day,
write a sonnet or
something universally beautiful.

I cut my bangs,
count to two.
Find myself with too much
time in the morning
sand in my socks,
dishes to do.

Walking heel-toe heel-toe
through the kind of grass
that reaches for  your calves and
stands to your knees.
A collection of heartbeats
melting into AM radio.
Dark velvet dreams
long enough to bury your fingers in,
carpeting every bit of the floor.

Wafting streams of woven gasps
knees touching,
appreciating green.

Top button undone
eyebrows receding into the hairline
with an ear pressed to the glass.
Fear of nutmeg
clawing at my apathy,
remembering the west coast.

Use your fingerprints
decorate walls,
stain old world maps.
Whorls spiral into
comic book wallpaper,
vertical designs and heart lines.
Glass pillars fogged with secrets,
bits of chipped concrete,
2:34am security footage.

42 minutes of prepackaged snowstorms.
Lying corners of the mouth
whisper plans B through Z.
Rusty sleep theories,
half-truths
in runaway boats.

A static pulse
casually remembers menthol cigarettes,
apple cores and
eighties music.
Espresso roast washing
blue and white porcelain from 1683,
knotted pale navy dots.
Wisps of kites anchored in the sand,
anthropology in lighthouses
stretching for the aurora borealis.

I’ve memorized my ceiling.
Every unruly pattern
embroidered to the plaster,
ugly and confusing
constellations in the shadows.

My fatigued brain can no longer
differentiate between dust motes and sunlight.

I want to destroy something beautiful.
Some things need to be
written between heartbeats.
To appreciate nostalgia
you must forget it comes
in soul crushing waves.

I want to sleep for a hundred years
arms of silence winding around my head.
My fingers are slow to curl,
every limb weighs me down.
I’m faced with a puzzle

What is origami.
Where can I burn paper cranes.

A relaxed *** of tea complements
the tide that inhales the sand and
all the possibilities
that come with blackberry brambles.
Something about blue
makes you fall in love with the sky.

Here are three hundred and seventy-one letters

write gibberish aimed at me.

We can warm up with haughty language,

cumulus white skies that brim with rudimentary quarrels,

as we watch an apprehensive apprentice appreciating an amateur.

Perhaps a devils activist entertaining a lawyer,

might spin supplementary lie- swathed webs,

Appeasing an imaginary stranger that whispers at night.

Liberate the unsheltered side,

In merely ten lines.

Pattern the ice with
your collarbones.
Showers of lavender
hidden in your hiking boots.
Hang stamps from your doorframe,
the snow will melt someday.
The taste of words
bounced out of your mouth
last Sunday evening.
Shrugging off the sun
from the duck pond
to the sand
caught between your sock
and shoe.
I’ve been memorizing
deep breaths
and the way hair curls.
The keyboard knows your
v-neck and
the cocoa powder park.

Strong perfume can’t
be appreciated
under the milky way.
I fixed blue green eyes
on New Year’s,
one side of the
collared shirt turned in,
steam rolling hair and
too much straw.

Old shoes
filled with cinnamon
sit on 4:17pm
with an unmade bed
of sour green vertebrae.
The city at night,
a crescendo,
explodes in silence,
hot tea and warm mugs
tuning campfires
built from matches.
Thursday sunrises
balancing on wool sweaters
and the smell of fabric softener.
The early morning
hurricane over worn wood and
wet pavement
sounds of winter.
The snow’s just trying
to be human.

Step one is waking up
and writing about your day.

I want to talk about language,
your mothers cheapest wine and worst blueberry jam
staining all your best clothes with verses.
Vignettes appearing all over
the rented tuxedo from the wedding.
Dark ink and oil separates in a margarita glass
soaking into the cuts on your dry lips,
dusting your hair and the spaces
between each individual vertebrae.

Syllables dripping from the tip of your nose
and fingernails
leave novels on the linoleum and
books of sentence fragments on the hardwood.
Poets bleed into cracks on fine china
pooling into poems.
Space heaters emit quotes from dead people
I sign each word when
the analogue clock ticks,
each poem adding another minute to the day.
I’m always hoping I can squeeze in a few more hours
so I can watch the ****** orange sky
with grass in my shirt,
the Pixies mumbling in the background
leaving lyrics trapped in my teeth.

Anthologies of letters
between man and his dog
hidden onomatopoeias in every backyard.
I'll write you 364 days of the year
too many paragraphs to fill the barbecue.
Burn through pages with paper matches
making enough poems to last a decade.

Transfer phrases into the soles of my shoes,
I want to walk on water,
the "W" curled up beside my baby toe.
Every inch of the fabric we call skin,
stamps and ink pads,
turn everything to poetry.
Despite seas of fog
where breathing stops the words
from forming in your throat,
the only way to express is by experience
and frantic fountain pens.
Smoke on the balcony
writes starry sonnets about the girl in your bed
lining the waxing moon with poetry,
a **** homage to Shakespeare himself.

Serendipity;
finding something good without looking for it.
A feeling I have encountered
keeping my breathing sporadic,
rarely setting me on fire.
Living Chinese finger traps
burning blue poems on my palms
splotching the back of my neck
licking up my thigh and hips.

Let me throw away my common sense,
the final step of becoming a poet.

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.

I feel my heart
pressed in my stomach,
a tiny pebble
wishing to be big.
I count my shins,
apple caught in my throat.

A great wall of
early morning
covers my ears,
ties my hands over my eyes,
                                                           makes my ribs shrug.

The place between your lips,
a wandering perch for
emaciated sounds.
A fingerprint under your nose
shapely and styled,
too purposeful.

I can draw
stories on my thighs
under rusty Wednesdays
and paperbacks.

                                                    ­        A misunderstanding of eyelids,
overly trusting,
a turquoise thunder.
None of my fingers match,
making a path from my heels
to the crease behind your knee.
I’ve forgotten how to make tea.

I buttoned you into a grave,
you were finally a queen with a crown.
I’ve never seen you that brave.

The telephone lines brought a heat wave.
I painted over our names in brown.
I buttoned you into a grave.

There wasn’t much left to save,
just your faded evening gown.
I’ve never seen you that brave.

Everything about you was concave,
your eyes, your back and your frown.
I buttoned you into a grave.

I promised to behave
and I’m sorry I let you down.
I’ve never seen you that brave.

Dusted with smoke and aftershave,
the car drove out of town.
I buttoned you into a grave,
I’ve never seen you that brave.

A lovely optical illusion is old in seconds and dead in minutes

I remember the camper van; it was the highlight of my day.

There’s always time for jaywalking.

The people who name streets are the people who still use Internet Explorer.

Cumberland would make the perfect photograph.

If I had money, I would live in a fairy-tale for a day.

It’s like a thin cotton t-shirt pulled too tightly over the ridges of a spine.

We would make great comic book villains; we’re already competent bank robbers.

They boarded up their windows, how welcoming.

I wonder how much tape gets stuck to your shoes while you cross the street.

Everyone needs ceramic vegetables.

Catch the light with our breaths.

10th street goes through quite a transformation.

Financial time Deutschland.

If you look a little closer

On the sandy beach covered with shells
A group of teens are bashing gays
One kid goes as far as to say that
He’d **** the first queer he meets
After a while a tall blond, muscular guy asks
“Do you think I’m strong?”
The others are sheep nodding in approval
“Do you think I can get girls?”
Again they agree
“Am I a good friend to all of you?”
He seems to like all of the admiration
Suddenly in the midst of their praise
He states,
“I’m gay.”

If you look a little closer

Out on the peacock blue water
Rests a tiny motorboat
A boy and a girl sit far out on the lake
The boy is yelling at the girl
Leaning over her at the edge of the boat
Between them is a pink cell phone
With a text reading,
“ok, I love you,” from Corey
The boy is calling her a slur of horrible names
She doesn’t get a chance to say it’s her brother
He slaps her across the mouth
The girl isn’t going to stand another minute of it
She pushes back,
Sending him plunging into the peacock blue water

If you look a little closer

There’s a ******* the beach
She’s a little fat
You can see straight pink scars
On her thighs and stomach
She’s with a cute boy
Lying in the sand together
A group of girls park themselves
Within ear shot of the pair
They start commenting on the whale at the beach
When they spot the lines on her body
They talk about attention ******
How insecure they must be
The boy walks by the posse to get a drink
The girls stop him on his way back to ask
Why he’s with “that thing”
The girl holds her breath and covers her stomach with a towel
“Because I love her.”
“Well,” says the lead *****
“You must love everything that’s fat and ugly.”
The boy pauses
“I don’t love any of you.”
He walks back to the girl and kisses her right there.

If you look a little closer*

You might see

The courage to stand up for what’s right
Strength within
That love conquers all.

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?

Anywhere.

Up,

unknowingly melting in with the blue,
filling baskets full of clouds.
Gather stars with my dream catcher,
drift with the passing feathers in the zephyr.

Down,
into my own little piece of Earth,
perhaps muffling the sound of
the city I long for,
hating with every passing second.
Feeling crushed in the safest way imaginable.

Away,
I feel smothered,
everyone cramming things
down my throat,
when I come back for more
you tell me no.

All I can see is wanderlust.

As I air out sheets on a summer day,
flowery linens play chase in the breeze.
The weather picks up like a roar from a lion taking stage,
it echoes in the heads of my audience and attempts to pry them from my clothes pin fingers.
All my reds,
yellows, and
browns are blown and battered by fierce winds. 
Inside, a flower is unfurling.
It is deafening.
It is that calm.
I want to be wrapped in a cocoon of fleece blankets.
But the wind is relentless and smells of cold,
of lying in the snow,
of watching flakes drift slowly to the ground,
it smells of winter.

It was winter I last visited
with a container separated into thirds,
one for me,
one for you and
one for apples.
Your hair was blonde.

We wove autumn tea out of your cigarette smoke
that wrapped into the trees like a vice
secretly brushing our necks as it built up.
Your smoke left a sleepy trail of spilled wine on the carpet
making naked flowers appear on your arms.
Those belonged to the ace of spades himself
lungs deep in a poison.

You became a dreaming mess,
the phone began to worry for you,
you kept chaos in a syringe and
cobwebs were spun onto the floor.
A doily waits for you,
under the apples.

Fire is just another word for God.

You’ve been here since I was young
Holding my hands,
Teaching me how to play alone.
You followed me wherever I stepped
In and out of school,
Balancing on the fine line of family,
You wasted no time diving into love
Even though you can’t stand water.

When I’m solitary I can’t shake you
You cling to me, smelling of gasoline
My fingers twitch,
You are toxic,
You separate me from normal people.

I hate you
But
I want you wherever I go

Devour me from the inside out.
I don’t mind if you last long,
But I need you.
You love nothing more than running
Through forests and fields while I watch.

Half the time you’re an aphrodisiac,
But most of the time I can’t differentiate
Between horror and euphoria.
I can’t let you eat everything you encounter
Leaving burnt memories in your wake.
I’ve become your obsession and you mine,
Together we have memorised the play called life and
The picture titled death.

God is just another name for fire.

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.

I don’t know what to

focus
on.

My head is a poppy
with all these seeds,
choose one,
the rest spill out.

I don’t thinking

by myself for too long.

I notice all those cars,
my hand holding the pen a bit too hard,
my unhappy thoughts yelling to be green.
There’s too much stuff.

I’m tired of choosing between

The positives
and
the negatives.

I need a “siècle de lumières” moment;
where I can beckon the alphabet together
simply with the pulse in my neck and
the crackling sound when I swallow.

Breathing sounds better in pairs.

Musical talent, no matter how minimal is appealing.

Secrets are best kept for duck ponds on rainy days.

Clothes are expendable, experiences are not.

There is always an exception.

Dreaming is not only for the sleeping.

Nothing is better than waking up feeling rested.

Petrichor will always cheer me up.

Being weird on public transit should be on everybody’s bucket list.

Lying in the snow is the most beautiful sound.

Tell me the windows aren’t really sweating.
Under the hostile glare of the sun,
With the soft breaths of the moon
In the castle perched on top of the gnarly oak tree
At the end of the block
Where children play dress-up and make believe
In borrowed old dresses,
The best stolen Sunday clothes and missing wool socks

Tell me the hunters in helicopters aren’t really chasing jokes across the flats.
What am I falling into?
A darker, dreamier state of mind?
No matter how hard you try to mask it or explain it
With books filled with fairy tales or complicated equations

Tell me what your saying isn’t really true.
I’m not going to believe you anyway

In this house
sticky thin floorboards
slinking from wall to wall.
Everything dripping down,
pictures taped,
a story told through
ticket stubs
and pushpins.

The amount of stuff
is astounding,
every piece exact,
writing an encyclopaedia.
Teal doors chipping,
holes at hand-height
with paw prints
adorning every corner.

You can go anywhere in the world*

A thousand lies
written on your back,
cursive between your shoulder blades,
Ts left uncrossed.
Falling into the arch of your back
between left and right,
ditch of a spine
pooling with arguments.
Staple you together,
try to make a V.

I’ll write a poem about you,
embroider it into the pocket
of a thrift store cardigan.
The wet pavement will add
a stanza to your palms.
Cheap perfume made with
the empty spaces of melodies.
Scents of vibrato.
Encoded messages
missing number 19.

*and see nothing at all

The willow branches limply tossed about
Dangle like a hang man’s noose
The frost tipped grass threatens you
Just so they can hear a crunch
The dark infinity of the sky
Seemed endless with broken,
Stained letters lying beside me
Noisily trying to escape gravity’s prison

I hate how every must be
By the book,
Between A and B,
Real,
As a kid I used to
Read that book
Walk on that faint line
Believe in reality

I loved it
It trickled into my body like water
Settling into my skin
I soon learned that nobody
Reads the book
Or connects the dots
Or really believes
At least not forever

So I let those letters
Free
To be dragged away
Into an endless sky

Aluminum tigers prowl on power line borders
Freudian slips melt,
eating at handholds
Borrowed garbage is sun washed to the shell.
These pretty monsters make their way across the city,
weaving through wet newspapers from last Sunday,
rolling over the urban flowers with seconds to spare.
They are confined to streetlights by night,
trapped with us during the day.
When it rains, water drips inside and out
the windows fog,
an attempt to keep the rain out.
They pass with a mechanical melody,
the sigh of the sun on their backs.
They are the eyes and the ears of the city,
echoes of rumors.
Everything is carefully worked out,
like a poorly played game of Tetris.
They are the lines that connect me to you.

They are the sparrows of silence,
they are the singers of the night,
they are the ones who fold, perfectly, before melting

They always see
the tiny sounds within the quiet.
They always hear
the sudden bursts of light that come with closing eyes.
They always feel
the hearts of glass, pitiful shards under the skin.

They are those who can
see the evil,
speak the evil and hear the evil

They are those
with open arms and
hearts of snares

They are those
sighing in the darkness,
the smell of rose petals dripping from their lips

They turn vinegar into honey,
they send your heart into your stomach,
they are like snow when you’re running late.
They change with the cycles of the moon
stretching away then grabbing you tight.
An arm of never letting go.

I try to **** time but time is killing me.
I’m sun starved
bleached spots on all my sheets.
I ran out of dreams today.

Have I ever told you I like the rain?

I always thought newspapers
looked better on lamp posts.
I can feel my heartbeat
pressed between my ribs and t-shirt.

I spent over an hour in his room
picking him apart,

putting him together.

A giant jigsaw puzzle
completely coloured blue.

I coat myself in fire,
It licks all my imperfections
Covering me from eyebrow to ankle
Vibrant like firework animals
Dancing on every inch of skin

Dragons eating each other’s tails
Tattooed onto me with hints of cinnamon and
Sweaty gold that sits under my skin.
I hunger for the heat
That eats at my hair

But the ice inside me
Fills all the space
Crawling into every bubble of air
Surging through my blood like breaths
Pushing the warmth away.

Fog rolls out of my eyes and ears
Lips, suffocating blue
Pressed between two shells
I reach out,
Fingers and features melting.

I have holes in my armour
Letting tiny snowflakes
Float out from between my eyelashes
Waltzing like summer lanterns
Dissolving in the whites of people around me.

I spew frost
With every icy word,
It drifts up from my stomach like a large satin cloud,
Even when the crystal lilies melt on my teeth and
My skin glows like embers in the air.

I should find my mould
A slot in a deck of fanned out cards
Filling out the colours

Settle into me

I feel like dying.
I can’t stand people.
I need to destroy
something beautiful.

I don’t really want to explain what I mean.

Take it abstractly,
like a poem.

Take life abstractly,
like a poem.

Stray between the lines,
dig deeper
than you would if
it were a narrative piece.

I find myself in a novel.

Things are more straight forward if
I tell you exactly
what to see
to hear
to feel.

It was a cold and windy day at the beach.

I think we all need
life a bit mixed up.

The wind had cold teeth
rain still soft in my hair had
the ocean desperately handing me shells.

Cover it in poetry,
decorate with words.

Open your ****** eyes,
don’t be fooled by what
the narrator hands you.

There isn’t one author to your existence.

Everything has to be by the book. I hate that book.

One
By
One
We are a unit
We are given
The freedom
To speak of something better
To live by different mottos
To believe in stories of the past

Often, we must  
Live by this book of rules
A helpful,
Organized book
I despise it
In this book
We are only given
The illusion
That we own ourselves.

Secrets pattern my skin,
Purple, blue and black.
Starting with cotton candy blooming,
Ending with music locked in sunset.
Each of these secrets are printed with lips,
Scattered over my body like dying paint splatters;
Starting in my head,
Curling across my goose bumps and
Pooling into my toes.
Sometimes I shed my patterns,
Making room to gather more.
The war paint doesn’t stop at the face,
It runs down like fragranced snow,
Soaking my collar through.
My delicate little secrets
Never wash away.