I wanna have lunch with Poe,
at Burger King,

because I'm sure he would appreciate how ghoulish that King in their commercial is

I don't want him to recite verse
while we fill our medium cups with corn syrup nectar--a giant leap
down from laudanum

I do want to ask about the Cask of Amontillado and being walled in slowly, for eternity

for to me that is creepier than all the crimson cream in the Masque of the Red Death

I want to know if he likes the fries--will he dare to dip them in scarlet paste we call catsup

mostly I want to know if he remembers the alley where he was found,

not yet a legend, consumed by consumption and delirium in equal measure

and if there were rodents privileged to hear his last whispered words--or even a gasp

I am buying, Ed, so grab that Whopper with both bony paws and tell me terrible tales, evermore

i ache to be beside you,
cat-like i stretch out,
i curve into your corners,
unravel your avenues like wool,

tender and surreal i carve
my name on your lips,

in the last of summer’s
indigos and fire, slumbering
in the now damp grass,
i feel your love, the shadows
and the softening golds, the
honeyed fever of your touch,

ripples of blue water,

tides of an impossible
sun,

you light me like a lamp
an electric blue-ink canvas,
tireless like the engines
of the wind that bid us melt.

She whispers in
I whisper out
the tree bends trying
to figure us out

Elm mother tree
drops little-jagged leaves
to touch the beings
caressing
in her shadow
and the sun dapples here and there
exposing a bit of grass
then flesh
and we all dance

right in the middle of the field
of nature of heaven there
Her and the tree and sun rays
and  me

knowing

you might need a wrinkle
walking down
Main Street
parallel parking
dry cleaners
the stove  pipe
cigar shop  
maybe a glass to
smoke your ice into a
head
he sells that now
rolling papers
a wicked meerschaum head pipe
looks like
Santa
imagine a rock there
rush
yeah
and the ***** cinema
with low life pimps
saying hey my sister
is the good dude
you saw too much in Vietnam
in Phnom Penh
sixty seven
never thought you'd see
third world back here
had a needle
in your vein
every second
broke that
habit
arrived back to crack and ice
seems like drugs evolve faster than we do
and pain
is always there
oh
how the world gets
smaller
tell me
why the hell
we were there