[allow] me to lick the Newness:

off your face,
                                                                     away from the yapping white noise in the distance,
out of the infant smile you shed.

Lets dance the color of welded [souls]

                                                       all you who fracture under [the heavy mass
of] my emerging grin, cast the [humanity]
from your leaden chins

lets [radiate beyond our stiff] elderly shells-

stretch to the most intricate composition
of every genre of pebble [person]

Don’t stop there!

                                                                     [pass] pockets of serendipity to the greyest nimbus,
the slightest twitch of grass,
the [breath] of soil.

why must we comfort Zones?

                                                          I will ****** your plush practiced demeanor
to [nurse] your pallid glimmers
of certified [You].

Dearest Abstract,
tell me-
what color you drip when you laugh?
how many languages do you tempest?
when you cry, who spills deeper
you, or the rain?
You abridge me into a litany of mysterious elations.
I asphyxiate inside your rapid joy
and you drive me past my fondest entropy.
I fawn at your luscious humor.
Dearest Abstract,
take me-
outside the realm of plastic men
into the hive of the eloquent-
will o’ the wisp denizens
who flaunts shafts of pickled delight
like isolated pilgrim adventure.
Dearest Abstract
Allow me to dive into the furrows of your didactic faith
and there consume me raw.

Life is the prattle of an old lady.

She squawks either too loudly
or makes you crane to hear.

as she sits rocking,
her senile nonsense numbs your intelligence
until you sit bleary-
gaping at the air
like the fattest fish in the aquarium.

your every comment drowns
in the mush
of her tapioca voice.

you sit uncomfortably in her fishbowl world of
cottage cheese,
faded floral print- lace doilies
and contemplate your deft superiority
as her denture clicks gnaw on your sanity.

as soon as you think
a vague plotline surfaces in her mumbling
a new great aunt’s third cousin’s baby
weaves its way into the conversation,
and you are hopelessly thrown
like a reused dryer sheet
back into the colored load.

occasionally you attempt to establish a connection
between you and the venerable wrinkled smile
but she mishears and begins another
disconnected strain
featuring Bobby, the lad turned soldier.

but
just
as soon as you gain confidence
that you know how to handle this doddery senior-
she slams you with a small token
of sage advice
that shatters your naïve sphere
with its mind-wrenching validity.

You stepped inside a pinhole
and found yourself in water                            
                                                   you and your floatings, prayers, gloatings

dripped listlessly through
others’ problems,                     funerals, bad jokes-
every persons puddle music
in a torrent of watery grievance

Welcome to [Big City,   Foreigner Country]—Traveler.

This ocean smells awfully polluted
and not just the grey in the air
but the blood in the streets from the
succulent meats.
and the way that the people stare.

but tread lightly,                  and don’t drown,
you fishes from other lands,
Chin up!
your gills open-- and you will find that you
swim as the culture demands.

bless you, watery wanderers,
with your blessings and cursings
and tears.
for this ocean of raging attitudes
is made human by all of your fears.

Tendonitis                                                       ­                                                                 ­                                        
is a small price to pay for euphoria.                                                        ­                                                          

he gasped at the brink of
                                    success
mouth agape and strained
like pulled taffy
This project
embraced him entirely
consumed like a long lost relative
Sometimes we don’t climb.                                                           ­                                                                 ­        
we dance.                                                           ­                                                                 ­                                      
It was no longer clear
whether he climbed more than
the earth climbed him: she clambered inside,
ascending further into his psyche
with every
stretched, pulsing
muscle grasp
happiness bleeds into our                                                              ­                                                                 ­     
contorted                                                       ­                                                                 ­                                          
torso-Grace.          ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                
like water running the                                                              ­                                                                 ­           
pigment lines of                                                               ­                                                                 ­                    
saturated paintings.                                                       ­                                                                 ­                      
He cried out
impassioned,
shedding the skin of his palms
again-
upturned and reaching
like a caustic supplication
endowed with
vibrating desire,
quaking faith.

This time
he fell hard.
and again,
slap mat against the grain
of success
flung downward
like a thrice worn shirt

But wait-
and watch.
She calls him weeping-
a contrite lover
and he will return
to her brutality
nursed with humility-
intoxicated with exhilaration.