Come on, you say to me,
help to **** the soil dry of
deep, muddy clays made by
colonial lullabies and
forgo your selfish thoughts
of suicide in favor of a
dark grey summer salad coupled with
a nuclear fish fry.

Unleash a cosmic sigh, I
bleed to breed  my human seeds and
cultivate forests of ***** while
pulling up deliciously
edible weeds who sing
laughing limericks we
care not to listen to and
languishing warnings we
care not to heed.

Me and you, baby, let's
build a box made of
ticky-tacky in the back of
some skeletal, suburban
cul-de-sac, crafted over a
cesspool vat of human feces,
spicy DDT and industrial-grade
mercury.

Apathy towards the life source
breeds apathy towards corporate force
breeds disgust, killing the serpent and
reclaiming the horse, tossing the
apple, preparing for the worst.

Pile up pounds of gold and
crowns to assign money a meaning
and postmark letters filled with
plastics and post-its with
"PARADISE IN THE REACH OF ALL MEN"
scrawled in felt-tipped pen to
peoples perched on the edge
of the planet, to whom
time gave rhymes from learning to
lay their ears down in the
dirt and succumbing to the
the devil wearing a blood-stained,
starched, white shirt.

Dilute the base of me with
an acidic you, quick, pollute
the river so salmon scurry
downstream and the arduous algae
dries up, screaming.

I wonder if the taker can
become the giver.

is my emptiness
bleeding through, into
silent conversations
lying heavy in my mind.
laughter blanketing constant
lack of words
and blank stares.
stripped down to reality,
from a shared shelter of
vision, painted with
radioactive mist.

what once resided
in holy tabernacle,
dwells in the shadow of doubt,
projected back from an
insurmountable shattering of truth.
that which once appeared
to be covenant & sacrament,
heaven-sent righteous intent,
now only heavy sealed cement.

but a chance to reinvent
is beckoning you,
from the other side
of the torn holy veil.
step into a new color of light -
your eyes might squint,
but adjustment is processing,
slowly running through those veins.

but god knows how I love
to cling to old ghosts.
so I buried you in the
bedside table drawer
in a dogwood box.
& I may not believe anymore,
but your spirit still haunts me every night.

rigid steel creaking,
squeaking to announce
it's monumental motion,
defying once static devotion
hear ye! hear ye!
the rusted machine is
jolting back to life
like clockwork, completing
patterns encoded by
calloused fingertips, pressing,
pushing, prodding, pleading with
stiff, achey keys to
punch
the storyline
back
into
place.

naive program under illusion
of sentient choice,
springs open arms
to rejoice the repeated reinforcement
of recurrent information,
fed & regurgitated & re-ingested to be fermented
in crystalline form of mind,
tinkered into alignment
by sinister hands with crude cracks,
leaking oil.

discordant dance of metal,
twirling tango
wrought with perilous footwork
to outline the model of assumed complexity
that shrouds the simple harmony
of one-two one-two -
one step after the other, followed by another
steady rhythm of cause & effect.
go head, neglect, or reject, only to
crawl back in reflection to beg for
one more turn round the ferris wheel,
to glimpse the heights of insanity
that reach ultimate clarity
of infinite perspectives unfolding,
one into another, projected onto lovers
and strangers - all alike.

add your rambling writing
of realizations, remembrances, & rehearsals
onto my hard drive,
I want to reiterate - I am learning slowly.
rereading &
restructuring pages
of this minute history.
maybe one day I'll recall
that practice
precedes progress.

I can still feel flight
Of buoyant fleeting
Motion flowing through
These now weighted limbs.
And my heart still sputters
In 5, 6, 7, 8 time
To Balanchine's divine
Choreographies -- Oh,
Spinning in ecstasy,
Visions of ghosts in me,
Waltzing with ******* and,
Overworked tendencies,
Blink -----
And you'll miss
That moment when
Dreams became ash
Falling from rafters.
Dust glistening in afterglow
Appears to shimmer
Even when it lands in your eyes.

Excuse me,
Can I squeeze past your apathy?
Get to the heart of everything,
Where spikey pillows
Lay on gravel beds.
Do you want to paint the town red?
Or purple, most likely.
Won't press into
Reforming bruises,
But you'll be elsewhere anyway,
Too far for clinging
Fingers to wiggle out,
And grasp sturdy hands
For support on the balance beam.
The composed serenity,
Laughter and glee
A marvelous masquerade
Covering the demons in me
That you know well.
But I'll set down my baggage
To fit between stolen seconds,
To sit in hand in hand
Silence.
Our heartbeats meeting at the palms
Sewn to lovers
Beckoning you with magic
Tricks I can't replicate
When begging for morsels of reciprocation,
And chastising myself
For expectations.
Silly sullen child,
Waving toys at you,
Please play with me,
Drop a line,
Drop your excuses,
For dropping promises in the dirt.
Wish they'd turn to dust
Rather than sinking me
Through lightning sand,
Sprinkled with shards
Of broken glassy hands.
Can you feel my desperation?
Like when we were
Interwoven in ineffable stagnancy,
Stifled in sticky still summer air,
Muffling every sound
From this moldy mouth.
But it's an orchestra in my mind,
Dissonant dirge repeating it's chorus
Into infinite insanity.
Call it like you see it, darling
But I've already
Drawn my line in your sandy heart.
We're both treading water
In this tumultuous ocean,
Both been tossed
Headlong into tumbling waves,
And I tried to
Throw you my life vest,
But you floated by
On something else,
And here am I,
Drowning in disbelief.

My ***** worn feet
Retracing the same journey,
Many souls before me,
Many following behind.
I feel the steps realign,
I've made the same footprints
In the same soil, again & again.
Remembering recurrent realities,
Replay the drama, another reincarnation
Of my eternal soul, slowly
Lifting back the veil, peeking into
The same void of dichotomies,
I feel their resolution has once before
Resided within my understanding.
Now a forgotten fable, told in foreign tongue.

I am here, now.
But I am also a primordial memory,
I am also a vision of the future.
I am here, now with my preconceived predictions,
My view tinted the colors of my past,
But with each new sun rise,
I reach beyond to open myself, again & again.
The flowing current of energy,
Unfolding new perspective in front
Of my eternal awareness --
May my colored glasses be rainbow,
A kaleidoscope of amorphous patterns,
All turning with the rhythm of the universe.

Here we go, here we go,
Round and round again,
Same mile markers, same land mines,
Running like a mobius strip.
Have we not learned to jump ship?
Have we not seen the signs?
I always thought we'd never be here,
On the opposing sides of a think line,
When was it that I kept moving forward --
And left you behind.
I can feel your gaze on my neck,
It's boring down my spine.
Won't you see through my viewfinder,
See this upside down landscape
All the homes falling, falling, falling,
From your face rivers running
Fast and furious, ferocious forget-me-nots
Finding failing facets of faith --
Can I ever believe in us again?
I wish my mind would whip me into shape,
Searing lines of us into my truth,
Make a believer out of me,
Ever following your holy footsteps,
All the way across county line
Tracing into California, promised land.

But I am no herded sheep
Bah bah humbug, my little one
I will not flee from wolves with snarled teeth,
I will not be cuddled into a cage.
I am a moth in love with your flame,
Drawing me to my fiery grave.
Well, I'd love to crash and burn with you darling,
But I have dreams of kissing the sky,
And with my fragile wings I'll fly away
Oh glory, I'll fly away.
Do not reach for your butterfly net of guilty conscious,
You will not catch me this day.

But baby, baby, in my bones I'm breaking,
A bitterness -- I was born to love you.
But you so love your chains,
You prophesied they would choke your love,
You wrote the writing on the wall,
You foretold the end of everything,
But I saw it long ago,
Hidden in hazy half-truths,
And I tripped on the seed of doubt that was planted.
And oh, I've watched us fall apart in
Ten thousand different ways,
Each piece more jagged than the last,
Drawing pictures in my blood,
Sidewalk art for hopscotch and lost hope,
Held in the ground.
I'll build a shrine to this lost love of mine,
Candles, pictures, a vile of tears,
Surrounding our hearts buried below.
Dead flowers strewn across the floor,
I'm picking their petals with poisoned precision.
He loves me, he loves me not...

He loves me, and I love him,
But at this hour, in this place,
It didn't pass the test,
Our love must rest.
Let its grave be a wellspring of new growth,
Let us water it with compassion and understanding,
That it might rise a fresh garden,
Someday, somewhere, somehow.
I will diligently tend.
I will not lose sight of those soft, soulful eyes,
That first drew me closer, closer...

May you always feel my hand pressing into yours,
May you always feel my love surrounding you,
And may we meet as new spirits soon.