High strung and shaking
Body? no, mind aching
Feet chasing,
Heart racing,
Memory making,
Love craving,
Soul.
               *restless, and
                               full of pain

I want a glass of bubbles
To warm my icy throat
And thaw my tongue,
Which always seems to be too frozen
To say anything right.
And I want to chase the fire down
With your kisses.
I want my heart to slow down,
Just a little,
Enough to keep in time with my
Lazy thoughts of you.

I want to hear your voice
Like a velvet dress,
Clinging to my body
In whispers of never letting go.
And I want to feel cold again
While you go out for a smoke.

And I just want to watch you
As you tug on those **** sticks,
Looking like a kind of mystery
I could ponder over for years.

I want to watch the smoke come off your lips,
I think I’m learning to like the smell
Of your smoky clothes.
And suddenly I’m as addicted to you,
As you are to them.
And I’m jealous
Because I want to be your addiction
And suddenly I’m like a cigarette
And that’s weird.

Deeming that I were better dead,
"How shall I **** myself?" I said.
Thus mooning by the river Seine
I sought extinction without pain,
When on a bridge I saw a flash
Of lingerie and heard a splash . . .
So as I am a swimmer stout
I plunged and pulled the poor wretch out.

The female that I saved? Ah yes,
To yield the Morgue of one corpse the less,
Apart from all heroic action,
Gave me a moral satisfaction.
was she an old and withered hag,
Too tired of life to long to lag?
Ah no, she was so young and fair
I fell in love with her right there.

And when she took me to her attic
Her gratitude was most emphatic.
A sweet and simple girl she proved,
Distraught because the man she loved
In battle his life-blood had shed . . .
So I, too, told her of my dead,
The girl who in a garret grey
Had coughed and coughed her life away.

Thus as we sought our griefs to smother,
With kisses we consoled each other . . .
And there's the ending of my story;
It wasn't grim, it wasn't gory.
For comforted were hearts forlorn,
And from black sorrow joy was born:
So may our dead dears be forgiving,
And bless the rapture of the living.

Where did the shyness go?
              I remember
hiding under
              women's skirts
red
              faced
counting freckles staring
              as the universe unwound
gazing
              at the birth of stars
and the aura
              left.
now
              I stare down.

Beneath the calm
Of moonlit leaves,
Lying lovers
Shoot the breeze.

When in the moment
Of the mode,
Between the rhythm
Of stride and strode,
Shoot off your mouth
And not your load.

Corner thugs
Will deal you drugs
To smoke or snort
Or mainline shoot.
It's a slippery *****
Of lost freewill,
The up is high,
The trip's downhill.
You're in the cross hairs;
Drugs shoot to ****.

The shooter feigns
Heeding advice,
So craps himself
On loaded dice.

The lawyers grin
Without remorse;
They shoot your savings
Throughout divorce.

The pool hall hustler
Cues his cool,
Looking for
A snookered fool.

Naively, when the children play,
Yell, “Ah shoot!” instead of say,
“Ah ****.”
We say that's okay.
Like saying, “****!”
When they can.
It's in the Bible, see?

Sports Illustrated
Puts out a shoot
Of photoshops
In skimpy suits.

When we say
We shoot meat,
Do we stalk roasts
On city streets;
From our hide
On city blocks,
Do we crossbow
Down our chops;
Do we rope *******,
Then use buckshot?
It's euphemistic,
A rich spadeful:
"We shoot 'em all,"
And that's no bull.