you didn’t want me

not when your fingers dug into

my hips or when they trailed 
their way up my thigh

and i don’t think 
i really wanted you, either

we wanted skin and we wanted flesh

touch without connection

we pressed our lips together

once or

twice but i think it was habit

more than anything

we were doing this

so we had to do this

touch me and i’ll touch 
you but really

i was touching him

and you were touching her

The feelings that I try
so hard to hide are always
able to escape in my poetry
and in those words
I am naked to the world
and  there I cannot lie.

I open my heart hoping
that readers will see the vastness
of  my own insignificance
hoping that my words
have the power to
change someone for
the better.

My poetry is usually written
single draft as a means
of expressing emotion-in-the-moment
and I allow the words to flow
watching where
they go.

Don't compare my life to others
because sometimes life isn't fair but
it is still good so make peace with your past
so it won't ***** up your present
and know that everything changes
in the blink of an eye.

However good or bad something is
know that it will change
and you will be loved not
because of something you did
or didn't do.

Come to realize that
growing old beats the alternative
-dying young and miracles are waiting
everywhere as the words
that I have to offer the world
always find their way
out of me.                            Jon York        2013

Sag my corpse
in 32 degree weather
through the city of God
where paraplegics dream of running.
“Oh Rhodesian mercenary,”
humble my soul again
like in C(hi)(ca)ongo.
But remember
The revolution starts
on my mama’s bed
at half past six.

So excuse me while I smoke my drink like a Brooklyn Leftist from the 40’s tramples
burning cigarettes on cold pavements where codeine and Sprite
make any Tuesday fabulous because we already suffered from (and for) the goods of mankind.
But before you read me the history of Hatchepsut;
I learned the art of man within the confines of FCC regulations after my ‘Pa threw ******* out the window and made life in the cell not mundane by telephoning philosophical-entendres    
that tomorrow never happened.

He too was from the blood of the ancestors whose bodies were charred on as goods—
whose children now char their bodies with the goods of the goddess of Victory—
the official trademark for the lost Exodus—the blood and blue moribund—
sagging pyrrhic victories in 32 degree weather as homage to their charred ghost (fore)fathers
who preyed to the city of God for bread

I made you my confession room and opened up my mouth
Without a second thought began to pour my story out
And at the end of every day I could not understand
Why it was that I would feel the weightiest of hands
In slowly passing over me and resting on my head
I knew that they were learning me but why - could not have said
Amalgamated perfectly, my tendencies a prose
They're written down, immutable, the words that I once chose
Oh listener, what have you heard and what can you recite?
Tell the world what I told you, you do remember, right?

Why does my soul feel hollow?
Why is it difficult to breathe?
Why is it bile that I swallow?
When it's only you I see

I want to fill my soul
With petals of pink and green
And have an aura of gold
Surrounding me, heaven-serene

But your eyes melt like wax
My warm and giving heart
My white flag stands at half-mast
You pull and tear me apart

I'm standing at a crossroads
If I stay, I'll wilt like a rose
Or, I can choose to run far away, down paths and unknown roads
And hope and pray that it all will end in lyrical, elegant prose

Born from fire and coal
You break bones with fists of stone
Your eyes are rubies
in a face of smoke
You visit
****** white daisies
and wither them to husks,
petals scattered among ash.
I was a flower once.
Delicate and small
White as innocence should be,
I stood tall.
Your fires came,
slowly at first,
the flames so warm-
I wanted to burn.
You became a forest fire in my vision,
blurring everything else.
Your flaming fingers
plucking my petals
one by one.
I was no different.
No one will be,
Because fire destroys,
And salvation was
lost
on
you.