I’ve got a little bird sleeping on my chest –

Breathing innocence,
Abandoned and prior pathos.

I’ve got a little bird sleeping on my chest –

Found, was her nest, but
Lost, was the feather who’d brought her.

I’ve got a little bird sleeping on my chest –

An ear nigh my heart,
And a heart I’d thought dead.

I’ve got a little bird sleeping on my chest –

And so, let the world be round,
And so let the world be perfect.

I’ve got a little bird sleeping on my chest.

An hour might as well be a year,
A life, a night lacking sleep,
Something sweet but just outta reach,
Or song, one line, that one line,
With memories sweeter than ice cream,
And crescendo akin to broken mirrors.

Long gone, would be the “clickety-clack,”
The coming and going of a train;
Meaning to stop, but only to pass you by,
Offering the slightest dust, hints to where
You should have been come ‘morrow;
Left would be an only, lonely to posit –

Why can the gulls go when I can’t?

I’d only been seconds,
But my son’s brow beat
Years.

I’d nearly cry come one –
Memory, “good-bye,”
Another memory –

Abandon and face never
Remembered, only buried,
My father’s back

That very day he’d left.
I’d only been seconds,
And my son smiled

The dividend away;
Tomorrow’d be there,
The mirror would be too

And what I’d actually seen
Was my reflection, the one,
He’d never know.

The fly on my finger says, “it’s gonna rain.”
So the spy ‘round the bend screams, “RUN!”

I try, but I step on a nail; therefore – I cease, I die,
And am born once more, Come the dead been before.

That’s when those days became a “pitter-patter,”
So let it sink, and I’m not so innocent anymore.

I’d blame the cat that crossed my path, it wasn’t black,
I’d blame the hat that drew her eye, but I wouldn’t;

I’d only run, flee, I’d heed the call of “Lawrence,”
So that bells could ring and wings be granted.

I feel oil burn my
Belly; If I could hug the
World, I'd never let go.

He’d only a shadow to dance with,
And this sundial of sorts
Could only count the loneliness;
Never once,
Could it cup the “empty.”

He’d known that momma was gone,
Daddy, only a sliver of the man ‘fore,
And his first steps were his own;
Never once,
Would the sky render sympathy.

He wanted the sea, to slouch, to sleep,
To wash upon shores, “away,”
But was awarded one sister and in abandon,
Never once,
Would he spot a star the same.

I’d always less than half a sense;
To my detriment, often doubling-down,
Ordering the same sorts of poison –
Warm beer, cold women, back alley-ed eyes
And other late night snacks simmered atop the oil
Salvaged the streets come previously devoured.
Bottled and poured, again and consecutively through me,
An anomaly now evolves average;
Cured only an alchemy wrought, "baijiu," (rice wine),
Crowd summed solitude’s paradox and hazy Chinese moons.

So when in Rome, do as the Romans do
And die as Romans die;
A slighter justification for what’d later trumpet –
Salivation’s sip, salvation’s second,
A tickle atop tongue, sour in stomach
And cancerous come the lesser years,
Deep, nether and beyond the once upon a time barren,
So I plead for seconds and corral but only
Three revelations in the expanses exhumed:

One – I want to die. Two – Tastes beat the years.
And three – The world’s a wonderful meal;
Home to another and common denominator,
The shared variable, viable and pliable,
Our simple ingestion, communal,
So that I may venture a path paved prior
And yet parallel something nearly precious – truly alive.
Either way, it’d satiated but one achy throb
And prevented me from washing the dishes;
A fair trade for someone who’d always assumed early ends.

In admittance,
In ecstasy,
In guilt and in anxiety,
In the gutters of Yuexiu,
The plains of Tamaulipas,
My precious mountain top
Near Calgary,
Or this flat, honeycombed and
High above Kyoto neon,
I’ve finally lost;

I surrender.

I surrender to –

Wave a white flag in comfort,
In defeat, and a first, when I warm,
Come this newer blanket,
Whilst we dance,
Come a first smile, decades, and
Finally to fathom,
“Embrace,” eternity, this
Hold opposed pierced when –
Swords eventually rust,
But fields forever bloom.

She caught the sun
for she’d already consumed
the night;

And she’d become the night,
so to eat the sun.

And when I, but a moon,
ventured lonely, she’d spend
the stars upon me.

Dandelion dreams wisped from
The lips of summers past,
Lips tasted
And gilded became the cage,
So to, ushered,
My sense of belonging.
I tried to move on,
An couldn’t
And she knew it;
She knew that I couldn’t
The moment –
I’d fallen upon her lap
As she grabbed one more
Dandelion
And took one more breath
And blew the dead petals
Whilst making the wind somehow
Dance, and I,
The fool once more –
In love and unable to flee.

Lenore, as gentle as the wind,
As light as a feather;

I wonder where it was
The breeze delivered her.

I imagine her smile
In the morning sun, and
Her son, playing in the yard.

I smile in reminiscence
Whilst pondering
This new shore
I've happened upon;

Guilty, come fear,
A remorse blanketed echoes of
Gallantry.

The world would never let me go.
She knew that when we’d sprout;

The world would never let me go,
“So go,” she’d whispered.

I’d imagined twilight
Dripping like gentle strokes
Atop a canvas we’d thrown out,
Out window hours ancient – a, “light’s off,”
And shadow’s play,
Bitten lips and muffled pant;
The secret that’d eat, masticate,
*****, gorge atop more
And add to the first eternity knowing "end."

So the stars fell, “twinkle-tap-tap,”
For planets break, dust and tear
Atop our pillow post-ecstasy,
An only accomplishment and still
Breathing this only and
Remaining lonely’d thought,
“The other’s still right;”
Could I be so very wrong?

And she leaves with part of me upon back,
An ink wrought celebration of years later,
And imagined, the pour, not poor,
But immortal retreat
Born my buying one ticket
And later romp awry Reynosa;
The rattle of tequila, pool-***** and pockets,
Sweet, sweet, “Lenore,”
And the home she’d promised,

The home we eventually abandoned.

When the “100” departed,
Four turned ‘round,
To carry on and away
From that bloodied dusk,
Sojourn and sought last Saturday.

It was a solemn evening, for even I,
Upon the scent of spent beer,
Soiled socks and job well done,
Albeit, half-assed, but good for me,
Since money’s the modern paradigm.

Beholden gallant, I returned to rebellion,
This satiated dish tantalizing the four,
And only four – painted traitors,
An opposition to the flock christened
“Listen” and assumed safer skies.

Souls atop intrepid –
The “4” would learn alone,
So whispered, “insurrection,”
Savoring a certain comfort in solitude,
A stiff chin come rules abundant others,
And freedoms never realized.

I’m sure they’ll fly, they’ll mate,
I’m sure they’ll die and fly once more
Whilst I smirk, smoke
And take note of the next fool
To forget the heavens and allowed,
Became the heathen’s promised.

It’s an epiphany’s echo as
The fall’s a salvation in and of itself
And the four’d that opted flounder,
Beyond an already withered earth,
Bet on fortunes unknown,
When they, themselves, were gems,
And certain paradises, lay in wait.

His toy split my toe nail.
My crimson flirted carpet.

and;

He’d the arm of a major.
Where I’d the skin of the solemn.

but;

He’d ever by my son.
I’d ever be his father.

and;

“Bravery’d” be our name,
“Bravery’d” be our name.

You and I aren’t quite so different,
We really aren’t.

With every feeding came life,
And with every wrinkle,
Death,
Notarized our finite parchment,
Parallel and ultimately mortal.

We’ve shared –
An experience, any experience
And epiphanies congruent pain,
The numerous, the humorous.

We’ve remembered upon
Paths we’ve taken,
Together, apart, and in –
Eras defined by how we
Walked, talked,
Slouched,
Or slowed to a crawl,
Huddled and bled a back.

So come the heave,
The finality in flame,
Make a face for the name,
Let the dead man dream
And take that memory to the grave,
The One, that’s never forgotten
Whilst eternal and reciting –

“I love you,”
I loved every single
One
Of
You.

The rain reluctantly sprinkles
If only in the shade,
And on the back of a hand,
An outstretched appendage;
My own, I think.

This taste of, “blue,”
With sweat mingled leaves,
Caressed knuckles,
That’d known no embrace;
You converge, to corner,
And later, to conquer.

I’d remain though,
And under my tree,
Understanding the water,
And how a flower’d grow;
Exited, your eyes,
And not the clouds,
The troubles that
Happen upon,
Or above, us.

I’d promised to pull,
To run the rain away,
But retract my hand instead.
I’m tired – It’s time to sleep,
And when I slumber,
Perhaps I rain as well;
Fear, my only friend,
Whilst my truest companion
Be forgotten.

With my hand held side,
As opposed to you who’d wish,
I know that I may wake,
Shake-off, and by chance
Without feeling, digest numb;
The easy-out for the idiot,
The lesser, and the lashed,
‘Ever’d in fear of what might be.

Cars,
Like coffee pots,
Break down,
And more so,
When you least want them to.

So imprisoned,
The frigid,
And with no power-windows,
We didn’t care about the heat,
Only the smoke
That now stung our eyes –

Two-fold
Atop already open wounds,
And the cancerous,
Lying in wait, most often,
Indiscriminately.

So enters the second urge,
And it controls me,
I don’t control “it;”

“It” being a mood frosted
Amnesia, free,
Like beer’s hiss,
At the crack of a can.

And like beer,
“It” runs out
When the money does;

All too quickly to be
Replaced by the
Haunts of –

Bill collectors, war
And the knife in the drawer.

Something beckons when
We spot a diner from within
The snowbound derelict
We reside.

Scraped change and reckonings,
We can afford a few,
Drinks.

Forgotten were the coats when
We abandon ship, abandon you,
Abandon me,
And more importantly,
The haunts;

Our chariot, a remain,
A wreck on shores unknown
With bodies, perhaps,
Left for the living come spring.

For each and every other,
There's something to be said.

There’s something to be said for –
The security guards
With coke nails.

There something to be said for –
The alcoholics
That moonlight as bartenders.

There’s something to be said for –
The huddled mother,
Cradled child and cusped copper.

There’s something to said for –
The recluse with word,
Broken atop a glass of wine.

For each and every other,
There’s something to be said,

But one knows not another word.

Spite contorted smiles
And lips
Drenched in green
Sought the satins that never
Satisfy – Sheets, fallen,
Wings, blistered,
And holes burnt through the
Bottoms of shoes.

So I pace myself parallel
The corner of one left
Eye, peripheral and
Gazing to the
Two-step-stumble
I now partake;
An answer to
Her dance with
Impending desire.

Me, being the reluctant,
Me, being the timid, the torrent
And soon to blow over.

I know I’ll leave,
She didn’t,
And more importantly,
I know she’d find home,
Discovered, empty
With little more than
Lint in pocket, abandoned,
Just one lonely shiver
And looking for warm.

So if my cold hadn’t taken over
Not quite yet,
I’d give her a
Blanket,
It’s the best I can do,
It’s all I can do,
But at least it’s
Something I can do.

My Mother was sad –
When I had walked, talked
And left the girl there,
All alone in her bed,
The bed I’d fled
And cushion not my own
As I’m now laying,
Sheets up to chin
And lying as well, at home,
My mother’s home,
But the home she said,
I’d "always have.”

     I roll over.

My bed, my very own,
Is hours away and if I were,
“There,”
I’d still hear her tears,
My mother’s
And those of the “others” I’d left
Behind, left before, abandoned
In that very bed that’s now
And hers, only hers,
Far from ours or ever will be;
An “Eden,” becoming exile;
Truth in prior trespass – an end.

     I roll over.

And as selfish as all this may sound,
I saunter to the smell pancakes,
Maple syrup,
And fresh coffee in sobbing’s stead;
Up until the grief of a mother –
Tears atop tabletops,
A stream quite displaced from mad,
Where my visits, become few, far
And even further,
Most importantly – Alone;
For her, for me and it pains her even more,
The solitude of, “I.”

     I roll over.

Alas, the clock’s ticking not only sorrow,
But something else awry. Awry or away,
Where mom’s finally tackled slumber again,
Snores intermitted renewed grin
Under dreamt up birthday cakes,
Sunlit orange juice and dandelions; Whisps
Breeding the only smile, her son’s come home.
So with light whimper, fried eggs come ‘morrow
And a small dog at her feet,
She’s in a moment, she’s satisfied.
The one left behind, probably not though,
As she’s atop a pool of tears and drapery boiled
Drink come reckless.

     I roll over.

And like her, I’m still awake,
Dreams taunt, but sheep can’t sleep,
Because I’m –
A little ashamed, a tad content,
Still tired though and as odd as this may
Sound, or not,
Hungry for breakfast
As pancakes overcome pillow-muffled
Cries
And burnt bacon mirrors souls and a
Sacred long gone;
Solace in only one of the two being happy,
But one more than the two that weren’t before.

     I roll over and will again and again
    And again.

The Crickets cackle “crisp,”
With an only interruption, being I,
Atop dust, whisper and
Desert highway.
I’d tell you if I were running,
But I’m not quite sure, not yet,
Leaving the Coyote to eat,
Respite, and devoured,
The singing Crickets,
A’howl later,
To deliver answers unimpeded.

I have a faint memory –
A snake’s grip promised, via hand and
Crystal contingency,
“Wiser,” once bestowed, the mystic;
An epic complete, atop 17 years of thunder,
Steel stained crimson,
Street stained whimper
And forever remaining,
“Under-construction.”

Symbolic a more relevant scaffold,
½ bamboo and the other steel, the tower,
Note ‘fore me, it’s only purpose –
Elsewhere, and anonymous,
While I tap my belly to some
Melody we’d once enjoyed;
Maybe something by, “Coltrane,”
Or maybe not; but music we’d both
Recognize and reminisce too.

It’s an awkward alchemy of sorts,
As the Crickets, post-mortem,
Persist if only to chirp, and the Coyote mulls.
When the dust continues to cake.
When the whisper finds newer ears.
When interrupt’s abrupt, erupts,
Pacifies and interrupts again;
My precious distraction –
An amnesia loyal in away from, “then.”
Somewhere beyond, “there,”
And onward, “anew.”

Severing fingernails, so to, chopped the
toe’s, ate some berries and snuck in a nip
or two. I assert myself, “this drink’s if only
to steal, or seal one last scream,” but,
“decadent’s,” quiet for once; A calm
christened, “collateral,” the parallel plight
and pale ear nigh, if only doors down.

Left to my own devices, I’d imagined
every bad, “thing,” and how they’d
happen; Exact and unlike random
aneurism. So I checked on the plants one
last time. I checked on the only flower,
once again, if only doors down, and one
last time. I abide impatient and remain to
question eternity; This twiddling of thumbs
and silent sliver of sun peeking upon one
and opposing, my alien, “East,” –

I long for my only, “West,” and if only
home, but its love, the other love that locks
my only gate.

And with that I’d lay awake and be, a
guarantee, malcontent, remnant come only
one reminder; A twitch under my right eye
and promised son but days later. So
continued my sequence, my defiance, my
only anything; Come one, “Oh!” and two,
yawped not for Walt, but for me,
“Onward!” awake and in an awkward
avoidance of complacent.

Ensued, were the acts of rebellion, the acts
of life, the acts of desperation in the face of
an already dead incarnation. One day to be
labeled, my suicide, at ends wrought
insurrection and beneath the twin flags,
insomnia added anticipation – Perhaps my
last, should the wolves cull come the hours
next when beds are made, supper’s sooner
cold and once more, the stars are allowed to
sing for someone, for something, else.

My first car was a Pontiac;
Winding down
County Road 577,
Hand atop wheel,
A boy and his machine,
Letting snow swoop by like
Hyperspace.
I miss those quiet rides.
But dreams dissolve, evolve,
And I’ve another tangent
Upon the tip of my
Tongue –
Something, somewhere,
Somewhen, fitting,

And prior another attempt at sleep.

I’ll do you like your
Eyes
Ask me to,
As relentlessly
As your
Smile’d
Wish, come every our
Encounter.

I’ll do you, like the –
Plastic, porcelain, and
Polymer
Scenery –
Holography and
Hidden drawers,
Once a sin and
Twice a cross.

I’ll do you, as
I’m, and a first,
If only an
“Object.”
I know it, but you don’t.
You love it, but I won’t,
Because you’d only burn,
Come knowing I’m, “taken.”

Part I*

It’s hot tonight,
Boiled tonight.
And I’m drunk tonight
So I scatter tonight
As opposed to
Sleeping tonight; so
Alone’d pave my way.
I speak to parchment,
And with dehydrated
Tongue.
So stack the syllables,
So ebb the songs,
And if words could be
Bricks,
I’d end the stares
And disallow
The gentle breeze,
My window;
Not quite frigid yet,
But like her breath
With a hint of ice,
If only enough,
To coerce my hair,
Specifically
The strands on the
Back of my neck.
And so, we’d shiver.

To be continued…

“Tap,” beckoned the door,
A, “knock,”
And signature I’d never forget –
Cross the “t’s, “dot the “i’s,”
An empty night’s forged check
And liquor paved path to be,
To bed, it’s her, it’s her.

It’s also 3:10 AM,
Better than PM,
Where I’m still awake,
Still at work,
And as always,
Annoyed by the nuisance of
Another.

I don’t say “hi,”
And far from reluctantly,
She grabs a beer,
The only cold one I’ve got,
Frail fingered, cry-stain eyed,
And fresh off the ultimate high,
Love, and again.

She hovers to my room,
A natural,
Where she walks with closed lids
Guided by music that’s
Remnant and
Leaking phantoms
From speakers spiting souls –

And it’s
The song she always played,
And it’s, “ours,”
Once a favorite of mine,
And it’s now if only a melody,
Destroyed by repetition and her
Obsession with “echoes.”

I endure.

Had a dream that
Bob De Niro
And
I
Stole a car.
We cruised the
California
Coastline.
It ended in L.A.
It ended abruptly.
And
Freud
Would have a
Field day.
I’d
Simply smile with
The sunrise.

She had the cat-like grace
Of an infatuation betrayed,
Love, but never forgotten.

She’d sneer promises today,
As she’d perfected prior,
With that same curl of the lip,

The smirk born Juarez,
Cacti and Rio, whilst
I’d only show my tummy;

Something tougher and
Catalyzed within a scar,
This chasm stained the,

“We” atop yesteryear
And the “me” I’d be
Tomorrow –

One more hour,
Wanting, wasted, waylaid,
And never to let go.

The first love’s an archetype,
This first kiss, an epitaph,
Did you ever let me go?

My mother misses me.
She called,
But I wouldn’t pick up.

Something feels safer,
And everything else, better,
When I’m away.

And yet, I see her,
Head in hands; crying,
“Will he ever come home?”

But with not one picture,
If only nothing, left behind,
It’d never be real again.

Emptied, would be home,
Lost, lacked a moment captured,
The effigy, smoldering, at best.

And still, she calls,
Answered, only my ringtone,
She’d never take my name away,

She’d said, “Son,” and
I’d pray for her to stop crying,
So that I may finally start.

She bestowed, “hero,”
Upon my broken brow,

Come the other hand that’d
caress my limp ivory ankle.

And I’d offer only tales,
The fables wrought one –

Someone, far away.

So to, the bedridden,
She’d drop a grape.

A majestic purple,
Incomparable, my tear;

And I’d offer only love,
Not to her,

But the one who’d spite.

He coughed in the corner,
With a mangled leg.

He smirked under stars,
With a bowl pocked rice.

They’d spit, they’d scoff,
With their children in tow.

I’d drop change,
With lint left a pocket.

But he’d buy beer knowing –
All’d be well tonight.

I like walking in the fog.
I like the cold.
I love being damp,
Because wet’s taken wrong,
Wrong’s ‘round the corner,
But one or two more steps,
And inches nigh, disfigured.

When the sun burns through,
And it does,
I feel like I’m on fire,
But happy with being bright,
Being light. “Light” being –
It’s been awhile
Since I’ve seen the sun.

So I fall in love with the sunrise,
The light and not the stranger.
“It’s the real deal,” I mumble,
But funny enough,
I miss the fog over time,
And the stranger even more,
And slightly later.

Kisses, killed, and mementos –
The years prior – remain as lipstick
Atop fossilized paper, archived eras,
And stuffed in drawers that
Still bedevil
Whilst I seek –

One last pluck, one last taste,
Or one more, "good night,"
From lips never more,
Never to be tender, nor tended,
Never to taunt again.
And it was “then,”
That something was stolen.

I stumble atop subliminal,
     One bourbon
     For – Her,
     One bourbon
     For – Me.
     Over and over,
     If only and later
To saunter before granite.

Sure, she’d have been my bride,
Someday –
Promised and carved in oak.
And sure, I’d have been her groom,
Someday –
But epochs come and go,
Papyrus fades and presses fail;

All and parallel the coma wished for –
Prisons beholden broken records
That make the memories hurt;
Agony, like a shard of something,
Not in my brain,
But in my everything.

PROLOGUE –

Silliness becomes a later suffering, if only tinkered by potion –

PART I –

A contractual moment whilst halos best remain hung on the hat rack since devils taste so much better. Bitter but belated, ritual yet related, so to in avoidance, fleeing anything that’d mimic life, “ideal;” perfect being a, “nine-five,” during which, “monkeyed with,” comes to a peak and a valley’s once more, a lack of control. A tailspin wherein one truth can become just a shy more intangible mere seconds later – We can see it, we can smell it and we can almost touch it – so allows the specter, the hand holding drink, and later, permitted, for our nakedness to play once more.

PART II –

Four more down and a few gin-fueled gestures later, we stumble upon but one edible truth, an apple and, “sin,” repeated thousand-fold – so succumbs you and a parallel I atop our empty and, “precious,” wants carnal. We masticate and learn to destroy the TV – naked, begrudged and bent over the boxes we worship. We annihilate the machines. We profane the dependencies; placation and participation wrought this artificial coercion, once a friend and now an object – a disdain, a thievery, a prison, vicarious and to be avoided by all costs.

PART III –

Human interaction and fluidic free choice soon become the new, “in,” the primal addiction amongst the bottles of tequila, *****, and plain-old beer. Our grinning, in the flesh and not in pixel, must and will rise like the places we’ve so very poisoned. Here and now, we care. We have to care, because if we don’t, it’s all for nothing. So we top the night twisted, simply breathing, where the smog isn’t seen, but it’s there. We top the night tethered, where the rain doesn’t burn, it believes. And we top the night innocent, and among stars, both in the sky and entangled the heart beating my right,

EPILOGUE –

For the time being, just being, where all seemed right, a little twisted, but wiser nonetheless.

Your hair –
twilight strands of, “now'd,”
gotten longer and were so silently dreamt of last Tuesday.

Your fingers –
finally allowed, followed to weave my own,
and all that'd been prior washed away;

Dirt, gizzards and blasphemy, along with the boils from my father’s dead hands.

Your hips –
whispered 'morrow and all the jubilance expelled,
so that the same morrow's sun'd show eminence once again.

Your eyes –
said, “baby,” if only, “baby,” and, “baby, it'll be ok,”
it'll always be, “A-OK.”

So when your heart –
let me and finally to cry, appendage etched eyes,
eyes etched the night and sure, summer'd be at end,

but autumn could taste oh so much better.

It’s not often I relish the sun,
But did so,
Come one almond eye’d glance –
And “awkward.”

It’s not often I gaze, the stranger,
But did so,
Come the little silk doll, snoring –
Curled upon her back.

It’s not often I hate, putrid,
But did so,
Come man, come companion –
And the trash she’d burrowed.

It’s not often I speak, I only write,
But did so,
Witnessed smug, and a
A smoke, cradled poignant, “husband.”

It’s not often I blush, nor often I fold,
But did so –
Come a mother and son,
Climbing mountains, cursed, and trash.

It’s not often I scamper, tail tucked leg,
But did so –
Come her freckled red ménage,
And the man who’d snapped his fingers.

It’s often, and ought I point a finger,
But to did so –
Never knowing love, never knowing angst,
And never knowing them.

I dined upon a firefly tonight;
So that my belly’d master,
“Warm.”
But the cold can in my hand
Led to – Pebbles in my feet;
And pebbles in my feet
Led to –
Solitary;
Loneliness and
Left behind, starved, and
In a way I’d never fathomed.

Our love argued, “child;”
My responsibility
Now renders me couch.

Come Moroccan blue,
Wrought a Tokyo twilight;
The tangled neon, Guangzhou,
Ought London fog or gloom –
Entity’d ‘ever end with me.

So when gods plays jokes
Come a second near and nigh,
I’d nearly utter, “amen,”
Atop a belly, soon and son’s first cry –
I am a father; above, eternity’d grin.

So my plane kisses pavement, tepid,
Wrought one mother waiting; and
All I’d ran from, all abandoned,
Is now the only that’d welcome.
I’d never thought to nest, and yet –

Arrived, with straw in mouth.

Hidalgo’d greeted me with my son’s first
rainbow and the “Grande’s” nearly drinkable,
but I don’t; I simply listen to its whisper.

So swept the moon and salt slightly right of
hand, whilst chasing tequila, and a haunt
avenged – hatred for the home I’ve fled and
harbored, a fury for those that’d now intend her
harm.

Sure, my son’s safe, and he smiles. But the
seconds make haste, when her feet pitter-patter
and a village’s only swell, for so long, so long
that swollen’s tempered.

Tomorrow, I venture back, and the day after, I’d
pray, pray that come Thursday, my baby and our
baby, inebriated womb, would ride atop my
back, free and never to fear again.

Never to run again, never to cry again, and so
birthed our smiles surrounded the table, echoed
were the tales of how we’d achieved, “here” –

Our promised land, “there,” upright, full,
content, we’d talk about it every night, and it’s
there. Come hell or high water, “it’s,” there, it
really is, and come hell or high water, soon we’d
make it, “here.”

I unraveled her kimono
As if it were a gift,
When hours earlier,
She’d bandaged my arm.

I traced her clavicle
With the only finger left,
And seconds later, would
Intimately grasp the music.

So I whimper within want,
And blame it on the pain,
Come an instant,
She’d pegged me a “liar.”

Then we’d love, we’d wed,
A naked knowing only moonlight,
And should the hours understand
“Later,” we’d know only dark.

So the sunrise ensued,
I folded her kimono, silk and
As if it were a letter, one
Parting gratitude and prior wander.

But the crimson and
‘Ever’d arrive later,  and later’d
Arrived atop a melancholy’s mount,
Eternal and seasoned  “regret,”

She’d passed, we’d passed,
And the night’s passed to know
Only “broken,” broken, the bow,
And how all and always unravels.

“One’s” ok, but “two’s” illegal come a night whispered,

“Run,”
Or so the grass spoke –

     Run like the wind.
     Run,
          But always look back.
     Run,
          So to liberate all you’ve loved.
          So too, awaits a home, only dreamt.

And she ran,
From village to village –

     Blankets wrought pollen.
     Carrots,
          For another’s eyes.
     Our baby,
          The outlaw prior even born;
          Hot on heal, the “department.”

And we ran,
Hopping continents –

     I, so to support.
     Our son,
          So to survive.
     My wife in wait,
          Our second miracle burrowed,
          Just beyond the world I’d promised,

A land, so help me, and shore we’d arrive one day.

Fireworks thunder like
Stars long gone,
And I’d remembered
Something Grandpa once said –

“The world’s a wonder,
But home will always be
Home.”

And the fireworks still thunder,
But I’m the star long gone,
As I’d remembered
Something my son once said –

Innocent and earlier mirror’d,
His eyes were all that’d speak,
“Please.”

So now, I knock, atop the “thunder”
Calloused oak ‘fore, “father,”
As I discover, come echo’d only answer –

Whispers brought the cold, and the scent
Orchids wrought, “tell him to hurry;”
Once and an only gasp I’d hear too late.

She had the moon atop palm,
and “righty” in her pocket,
leaving me to wonder which
heavenly body she’d present
next.

This goddess, “gravity,” if
she’d a name, played physics
with my parts, and persuaded
thrice an orbit, circles wherein
the same hopes quantized –

“We’re we born of the same
star? Please? And when again,
can we burn brightly?  Soon?”
She’d reply, and echo come
frigid a comet’s tail, leaving.

So you’d know tonight as
you’d twice before; I’d sip my
beer before you. I’d cry before
you. And a’parallel, tease your
moon atop my very own palm.

Under starless and sincerity, he’s missing
The Sun.
He’s learned to lick. He’s learned to kick.
He’s learned and leaned a little left, *****,
If only to obsess, ‘neath the neon.

Congruent pools of ***** and an empty
Arm, or two,
He taste time’s tick, but a lick atop arm,
And though his tongue’s somewhere south,
If only, he obsesses over neon.

Sure, the doors never close nor the sky’d ever
Know blue,
And ‘morrow’d be back. ‘Morrow’d relent.
‘Morrow’d release, ‘morrow’d excuse –
Smiling, he’d ‘ever obsess,

So quelled the neon.

She purrs on my couch,
     But she’s not my cat.
     She’s simply –
         Waiting; and
          a’Happy barbed anxious,
          Come the , “tap-tap-tap,”
          Of this something-sort-of
          “Poetry.”

She scratches her ankle,
     For even the mosquitos admire her.
     She’s entirely –
          And perfect;
          Ivory a’constellation freckles,
          Come the, “tap-tap-tap,”
          Persistent, patient in the face of
          this something-sort-of “Poetry.”

She smiles seconds and seconds again later,
     For the music, the words and I.
     She’s the one –
          The One;
          That makes me whole,
          That mothers our son,
          And is the sun, the star atop my
          “tap-tap-tap;”

She’s Poetry.

I’d ‘ever be your tree,
     Come the pull of your arm.
I’d ‘ever be your tree,
     Come the push, two gentle feet.
I’d ‘ever be your tree,
     Come the wind, come the rain.
And’d ‘ever be your tree,
     Come beginning, come the end.
Son, I promise, I’d ‘ever be your tree.
     So roots spoke, “the leaves never die.”

I grow tired of summer
When the festival lion rears head;
The bleeding, the beating,
Been on “E,” and seeming, since June.

I grow tired of the summer
As it’s somewhere to the left,
Maybe up and maybe down.
But never nigh or near.

So, let pale moon sleep.

I grow tired of the summer,
Fall, winter and spring
It makes no difference.
Still I tire.

I grow tired of you, wherein I listen,
I ache, I’m adrift, and the dreams,
Shared atop our first flower,
Seeds beaten snow, have died.

So, let the two stars still and weep.

I grow tired of the summer,
A death and decay,
So crucified, that first modest wind’s
Dragonfly.

I grow tired of the summer,
Sustenance and another,
Wherein I’m devoured, abandoned,
Limbless, and left to dream.

I mangled my tooth,
     Munching on the moon,
     Whilst the war raged forth.

I smirked something, “sinister,”
     Later Tuesday; lights on,
     And Ginny’d lay waiting.

I’d shower guilt,
     And a 2:00 AM excuse, now
     Wednesday, so clogged the drain.

I’d know defeat,
     Come morning, hair, every strand swept,
     Nigh and not a piece left for me.

The wind cried jasmine and “east,”
Past the muddied waters
Grande
And mass graves tortured
Tamaulipas;
Past the rasps, taunts, tortures,
And gasps bereaved,
So much so and so could I.

Set and to sail,
I could feel the tumbleweed
Sting my toes, with each and every
Bitter step; One more sojourn
And seeking the earliest unknown,
A celestial sort of gallant,
Faceless and opposed,
The awkward, “welcome home.”

Come earlier, come Mexico,
She’d scarred my stomach
With love, a newer sort of sear,
Notarized the scar I still carry
When I drown at five past four
With the deafening scent of
Mescal and torpor
Atop my tongue.

It’s upon hot nights,
Like this very one, that
I imagine the Melons of Reynosa,
Succulent, a summer night, with
Stars stained sorrow, strayed me,
Stayed you, and fled I did,
Taken to bamboo, and forever’d,
The newest resident, “away.”