If each and every grain were a
Year,
Than every knock would be an
Episode,
So came the story that is my
Door.

And,

One – was the loudest pound,
“Authority,”
When the P.D.’d nearly warped
Hinge,
So came my first night in the
Clink.

Two, three, and four – Love, only
Love,
And one of two later;
SLAM!
Or one silent escape, fled and
Sundered.

Five – was the knock that never came.

Six – “tap, tap, tap,”
Mom,
It must have been my mom, or rather,
Obligation
And she’d swear to my sisters, “he’s
Ok.”

Seven, eight, and nine – Deliveries,
Disguise,
Pizza, Chinese, pizza and not so
Famished
Anymore; fuel for the guts, guzzle for the
Words.

Ten – came a' “gamechanger,”
Tear-smeared-mascara,
And two hands atop your
Abdomen;
I knew atop the water your freckles,
You’d never need knock again.

So if each and every grain were a
Year,
Than every knock would be an
Episode,
And this would be the story, that’d ever
Be our door.

“Old-man” Cody,
Four years my elder,
And five younger than his mistress,
Makes his way before me,
The only, “known,” and only near.
He dips, trips and spits his way
Into the night and plight
Of my only company,
“Alone,”
And I’m happy with just that,
“Alone.”

We met four years, 22 days
And some-odd hours ago,
Culminated, a Hidalgo County jail,
2,200 miles and some odd feet
Away,
From here that is.
He was of origin, my home,
The when and
Where I was ten years prior –
Juxtaposed, the dusty Stockton shipyard,
Only minutes prior, “now.”

He laughed then
And laughs again
At our, “backwater,” roots
As he longed for the tumbleweed,
But I don’t and won’t
When we’d brawled after something
Mumbled, and congruent, “mother,”
Words tangled with knuckles in cheek,
If only syllables, that spew, drip,
And crawl from his mouth –
Unwanted, anomalous, and
As desirable as a spastic colon.

Coming back to the tumbleweed,
I’ll never forget how, “that,” night,
Our very first encounter had ended -
My face, in between his boot
And that wretched brush;
The scratching and the bleeding,
A creation, making me
The modern scarecrow of sorts;
Pinned and echoing something similar to –
“Uncle!” as my mouth failed to render,
But my body’d spoke more than enough,
And into the dark behind my eyes
I’d leave.

Tonight’d be different though.
Sure, this, “newest,” moment ended,
But an older one began again –
As we came “home,” to iron bars,
Blistered wrists, and guards playing “gods”
With two of the town’s poorest drunks;
One a writer with broken lip,
The other a’bleeding,
Both scarlet and pride, two ol’ boys,
Conjoined in only numb,
Courtesy the 5 o’clock whiskey,
With a chaser, my victory,
And the sweetest I’d ever had.

Luckily, Cody had a warrant,
A bonus prize of sorts, as I’d be rewarded,
A darker cell somewhere and away for him,
Leaving me fortunate and leaving slumber
To take what was rightfully hers, Me.
Yeah, I slept and slept with the wines of
Buttress parallel justified atop lip,
Despite – the desperation, my brothers in
Adjacent containment,
And deafening “roll-calls.”

In between the snores of those
That’d nowhere else to go,
Myself included, I tucked in,
Still smirking within this starless night,
And whispered, “goodnight Cody,
You took me last time,
But I’d had your *** this round.
Good night,
Good night,”
And, “goodnight,” again.

*He was my, "Finnegan," (bit of a Star Trek reference). Every time I bumped into this prankster (like clockwork, regardless location), we'd always drink and we'd always brawl. I hated him. I loved him. He was my friend. He was my enemy. I ought add, "sweet dreams Cody," as he slept some years ago and never woke up - he was driving. Bad call.

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.

I haven’t found, or fallen, for her yet;
     but then again, maybe I’d walked a block too far.
Maybe I’d crossed clay.
Maybe I’d sunk like a madman atop thin ice.
Maybe I’d forgotten as easily as I’d found,
     when the treasure’s a fickle little smear of red-lipstick
     and digits atop my mirror;
Mobius just a’gazin’ come mornin’
     to the tune of tequila slipping lip
     a mere moment and conundrum’s later,
     always remembered,
     always encountered and eternal,
     pursued atop the medium as fragile as I.
And speaking of pass or impasse,
     I still crawl from a tether towards tomorrow,
     approaching a promise,
     oh so fragile and soon to be broken like mother’s cookie jar
     amidst thievery;
A tall tale and titled,
     “one more enigma,”
      when she’s passed and parallel,
     “the,” way or beyond away,
      in the car that’s to the left and now left behind,
      or an image I’d once recalled –
Now masticated,
     the years,
     alone atop a mammoth pile and like an elephant’s carcass,
     ivory and soon to be rust.
So yearns the watering hole of youth and never to visit again;
An offered solution and her parting wave,
     a sincerity long gone over horizon.
I mull and move come this bravest venture,
     sooner to be,
     asp,
     dung,
     and maggot.
Futile when you call me,
     “Oblivion.”
I guess I’ve got a lot to explain.
I guess I’ve grown to use to the noose,
     aged,
     forgotten,
     and so very senile,
     the foolish.
And I guess, ******!
I guess, oh hell!
And guess I’m sorry for leaving when I had,
     where I had,
     how I had and more importantly who I had.
I guess,
     fleeing from forever atop epoch.
I guess,
     I guess,
     I guess I’m breaking far more than I’d ever been broken.
And I'd guess, never knowing.
I guess and I’d become the hammer I’d ‘ever agonized –
She guessed –
And the house yawped,
     “VICTORY!”
Again,
     as I rest twisted metal and in a state of parched,
     becoming the elephant seeking his first watering hole;
My dearest hope,
     you'd still be there.

*When the thirst of one kind destroys the thirst of another kind.

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 left the scent of bleach
To the palms of my father
And disavowed his residence,
A rock atop, “Mount Redeye.”
Let him keep the – sore back,
Torn ankle and manic boss too.

In adamancy, I mention this,
Special sort of, “resolute,”
While sipping nectar
Blanketed ether
Come the first minute
I ought be somewhere else.

And it’s when our sun greets,
The, “guilt,” the, “grief,”
Or tomorrow’s, “acquiesce,”
That I’d taste an awkward
Twitch of, “failure,”
Unbecoming last night’s plum;

Something lesser than sweet,
And a torture at tip of tongue –
An existence’s, “respect,”
Fermented, “20 years,” overdue,
Come peak, the admission of
My unrelenting weakness.

And though I’d never really
Known, “Him,”
I knew what he did,
I did what he did,
And’d lasted only days,
Having worked if only hours.

I’d left jobs before; he couldn’t.
I’d walked before; he wouldn’t,
And how my sweet amnesia failed;
But rather, scarred; burnt sacred,
Blunt, and brim of soul, prior
Sobriety and when I wept, “Father.”

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 take a
Gulp,
To wash the day
Down,
So very far down
And away from the
Hollow faces
And even paler
Words
That permeate the
Malls, halls
And roads that lead to a
Silent kind of slavery.

I take a
Gulp
To sink even further unto
Revolution, evolution
And nausea
As I witness
The knife
And once more into the
Back,
Our collective back,
Unnoticed, uncaring
And almost wished for.

I take a gulp, I take a gulp, I finish it off.

I grab another, I finish it off,
And another and another and another
So that I may succumb to a
Different kind of sickness.

It’s in this “state,”
No pun intended,
That I can finally see –
America’s
An illusion
And my noose is slightly
Looser
Than yours.

Flame-licked wantons chase
Skewered scorpions
And tofu-tossed blood
To the echoes of heroes howling
“Gambei!” (“cheers!”) and a
Smoke stained Huacheng Road.

Like a scribe before the oracle,
I tuck atop hydrant,
Squatting in an unfamiliar scene
And allow this ink to sink atop paper;

An artist, not so much, but a dreamer
With firecrackers for brains
And brains for the scene
And sense of it all –
I could get lost in this madness;
I could fall in love with this madness.

Agony becomes worn like a trophy,
When the first hero ventures forward
Breathing pandemonium, miasma,
Missed mothers and fathers,
Dreamt, dreams and dreaming;
Allowed, were the stars to explode.

And I’d have let the world die,
When we left, when she left,
When I left,
Walking to the left of the tall oak
Near 2nd street,
With not the mop of twilight hair
Buzzing about, in my path,
Off my path and vibrant.

But in her stead, boulevards break –
Soon she’d be in another’s arms,
Soon she’d be cradled,
Soon another’s song would sing her
To sleep, to dream,
And soon I’d be a-o-k with that.

“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.

I wish to live, but in turn, learn to die.
When she longs to laugh, and somehow,

I cry –

So brewed the complacent,
Floating-waking dreams,
Withering with the wind,
And against it my screams.

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.

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 blow dust off the book long forgotten;
It sprinkles like the stuff of faeries,
Gold and glittered across a mid-day sun,
A fraction of which allowed,
Through the only portal to me,
My one and only window.

The stars could twinkle somewhere south,
But I ply parallel a pale blue sky,
The trees, the birds, the oak and feather,
Simplicities from which I draw my breath.

It’s when my right eye twitches,
Ever so slightly, that this moment becomes
Ruined, reality and further ruined
By the projection of dead cells and mucus,
My reaction to the mites and memories within.

Soon after, tears from my left eye soothe
Parchment when empty entries persist,
And not from the moment I’ve found,
But upon the book that I’ve unearthed,
A tether yielding the child, “unworthy,”
And a life best to the orphaned,
Mothered by only the winds.

Thus I become the seconds where
The dust has since disappeared,
Moons offer placated grins,
And the magic’s all but exposed too,
Much like the my earlier sunlight –

Jokes behind omnipresent clouds, and so,
I slap the hand that yielded this treasure
And toss the jewels to the wolves below.
Leaving time, and myself, once more and
In ritual, to be forgotten.

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.

Salient pools swarmed upon
Seas
Of blackened
Amber,
Reflected
Neon gazes,
And
The love that could never be.

She knew it.

I knew it.

Hell, Even my luggage knew it.

All that remained were the footsteps
And in opposite directions.

She held a red rose
Atop her breast,
Skin and path towards
Motherhood; desires,
Nearly hidden,
But a tempt, attempt,
Shrouded in satin.

Contrary to nature,
I left and let be,
The rose,
But not so subtle skin
So that she could dream
And dream for the both of,
“Us.”

As I’m tired,
So very tired,
Ever present atop an
Even all-knowing that –
There’ll come a time when
My wings tire
And this flight may cease.

She’ll either hold me
Or walk away
And so I wait;
Betting once more on empty,
Once more on, “away,”
And yet another
Suicide without ever dying.

Fangcun tea spills the streets
Amid wild migration,
And intent to penetrate the,
“Pearl,”
An acrid and once ugliest river;
Boiled frogs wrought chemical baths,
But come the tea,
Its first and finest smell.

So begins the story –
Tales birthed backs earlier,
And greener the mounts of
Fujian;
With I, the “foreigner,” but learned
When the piano keys
Tremble tumors within the
Nose born a million miles west.

If I’d ventured, if I’d lived,
If she’d left, and she did,
I’d orbit again and again and
Again;
Barren but to tap with one finger
Atop purple clay and sip
On and on and on
For the jubilation and for the hours.

I’d ingest all the ether’s mystery,
I’d dodge yesterday’s bullet tomorrow,
I’d live and if to die lonely,
Simply,
I’d perish knowing,
With a tea cup in hand,
That I’d still taste the dominion over
Self and covenants long forgotten.

I have a secret, something sour, and something
deep, deep, and deeper that I try to keep from you –
The fury that I can’t rid nor come “real,”
real me, the “he,” who stands not more than an
arms-length your side.

I may smile, wink, and speak of sunny days,
but there are the hours, sometimes,
where I can taste the, “vicious,”
the blood of both survival,
and all that’d threatened prior –
the “red” that flows from the past and
meanders “now,” the “red” of a
thousand yesterdays wrought dust,
wrangled bruise,
the “red” born in back-alleys
and buried in whiskey,
the “red” that never seems to rest.

This war-drum, I can feel It” climbing up
and crawling out through my nostrils
singing songs for –
Split teeth on split knuckles, breathing,
steady and suddenly, uphill,
the flare of the maddened bull,
an eye for only anger and beyond tether –
Destructive.

I dare not tell my newest friends that a part of
“Him” is still in “Me.”
He’s always “there,” hunting, haunting,
and will always be.
They’d surely run if they knew,
and I’d run too, if I could, but wouldn’t get far,
as he’d be running right there and with me;
Like the shadow always yearned for
and the same that’d scare come the movement not my own.

Thorns tickle my throat
Come
The cranes that feed their
Children;
          My son’s already inventing.

The night’s my only staple
Come
The stars that sing for
Others;
          I list in endless insomnia.

Slowly glowed the river
Come
The golden sorts of
Dreams;
          I leave them for my progeny

          And surrender to what I’d sworn.

Sometime an umbrella’s just a rabbit
and sometimes horses are never to be rode upon.

Sometimes a mother’s tears are foolish
and sometimes sons don’t want to come home.

Sometimes pearly whites and smiles surround
and sometimes teeth detach and dagger backs.

But a dream is just that, “a dream is just that” –
but a wandering, but a dread, if only damnation;

and a “ta, tada, aha!” The wizard’s returned before
we realize we’re all magic, fooled and the foolish –

Incarnations, infestations, imaginations,
and messes come ends, damnations, the victims.

Heaping distress and all of our own accord,
your accord, our accord, notarized the

Nooses ‘round our necks.

The blood boiled
In the bottom of my shoe
And had it not been for the
Dream and requisite
Starvation,
A hunger born only yesterday,
I’d have simply walked,
Walked anywhere, walked away –
Leaving dignity to the whims of
Drink…never dumb, but numb;
The path of least resistance.

It’s within that second
And second swipe
Of burn to my ankle,
Alcohol unto a wound
And far from belly,
That I recognize Achilles
And the tendon
That now throbs –
Our brotherhood
Sealed in weakness, wanton suicide
And early grave
Should I break and break and
Break.

In desperation,
I open my wallet and look to her,
Two eyes atop gloss,
For the memories that fade
During these deadened hours -
Smiles lying in wait and simpler times
As I pull up my sock,
So that the cotton soaked with the
Sweat of others and their hours
Seals my very own crimson away.

I sigh.
I continue on;
You do too -
4 more hours to sleep
And one more payday to eat.

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…

She signs in the
Rain
So that I may see –
Drizzled words, despots and
Defiance, never defeat.

     And

She cries in the
Rain
So that I may never see –
What could never be cured, be
Culled; our calamity.

     And

I walk on in the
Rain
So that I may never learn how to –
Fix, never learn to forgive,
Most certainly, to forget.

     And

It’s just that simple in the
Rain,
Sign, cry or walk –
We become disposable,
And like chalk on sidewalks,

          We all wash away.

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.

Escapades avoid but the stars persist
When I saunter below the pale elm;
“That” pale elm with –
Whiskey in one hand, “wanting” reached the other.

We could drive this device every night,
And every night we nearly did,
Come every shot, every smirk, each and every –
Shooting star; wishes for naught, dreamt even deeper.

So the perfume would task, talk and mask
The other who could never be you
And therein lays the tale to the tree –
Our elm, “That pale elm where we’d learned,

We’d loved and at ends, opted to part ways.

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 felt the end of
Time inside her; fallen and
Knowing eternal.

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.

Cold when covers for
Others and anger come a
Door closed; vitriol.

He bounced atop my stomach to
Drums
Reverberated concrete chasms.

He beamed a’brilliant with each and
Every
SMASHED! Cymbal, the thunder!

He’d only giggle ‘morrow
Now;
So passed the tears of procession.

I’d hold him tightly, he’d warm, he’d
Hug,
And know no bereavement today.

With eyes wandering left, darting
Right,
Both body and beloved pass by.

I envy him. I worship him, I was
Him
The day before I’d ever know death.

She dreams,
I demise,

She spies,
I fly.

I fall,
She laughs,

I scowl,
She gaffs.

We’d thorn,
We’d born,

We’d bend,
We’d mend,

And the grass would grow,
And the moon would throw;

When she dreams,
When I dream,

We dream,
We dream,

And dream once more.

She sold flowers atop my cigarette’s sting,
And soiled steppe -
A path splattered someone,
Clocks kept prior and piano strings.

She’d be my last resort,
Parallels bottled – Two-tight braids,
Scarred upper lip and eyes deep,
Diggin’, diggin’ deep into me.

She’d **** if she could,
But money met is money spent,
And knifes in backs are bad for business,
So she’d always be mine.

That said, I’d always be hers,
Scampered, sleepy, and with one drunken
Right eye to wander east come
Sin under satin.

But the hour’d arrive, “One” becomes,
And the breeze would do what it does –
I’d see the sea, the sky, and lastly to hear,
She’d set up shop elsewhere;

She’d be happy, he’d be happy,
And I’d be somewhere sullen,
Somewhere awful, somewhere scribbled,
An echo and if only, a stain upon her altar.

She’d said, I, “looked good in black,” and
she did, she did, she did too; So much so
that sooner’d come a swift exit at,
“Martyr’s Park,” a tempt embedded
venture, conjoined, coerced and later
beholden to our ghosts; apparitions in an
ugly early morning, post – biology, words
whispered with only one intent and
eventual ****** under guise of the night
that’d ensue eternity. Blanketed our
beauty wrought twisted skin, it remained
an ugly never aware, whilst she discarded
my newest misfortune, the forgone
forlorn cloth of impasse. I reciprocate, so
much so that beyond her ulterior lace, a
pale yellow beckoned, “ever,” below -

“Kiss me,”
When I grin and I do ‘midst
Admiring the freckly upon

This desperately hidden scripture –
One scarred
Right shoulder,

This greatest discovery, if only a human
kind of crater and just under tear-smeared
mascara, forever danced, come the
lacking light or whatnot. Echoes etched
some prior author, some other lover, and
yet still to bleed, like sweat, like work,
and now, her nails stay to trace another
saga atop the, “bare” only I could offer.
Sacrament, the moments blemished,
“now,” and immortality’s, “future,”
promised, whispered, and guised a
matrimony that’d break hearts come
morning, come the moment when she’d
drip like the rain, bend like the leaf
kissing chaos and gently ask, “could you
be me?” “Would you be me?” “Could
you, please be me?”

*Her (English) name was, "Taylor."

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

I spy something
Murky red
And in the
Bottom of my cup.
I wash it down with
Something less than
Reluctant
While leaving the
Rust,
Or assumed iron,
To chance,
This one chance
And not to be
Repeated.

Tomorrow,
Now today,
I spy something
Murky red,
Once more tomorrow,
Tomorrow’s tomorrow,
Again and again
And day after days,
Rusty red
In the bottom of my
Cup –
I grow paranoid.

I empty the
“Keep,”
And creep into every
***,
Tea-***,
Pan and/or
Cooking tool
Seeking
Threatening material,
Foreign material,
And lodged in my brain
Material.

So too,
Amid my investigations,
I’d discovered
Alzheimer’s,
Dementia,
Blindness,
A stroke or two,
And in some cases
Death
Had you ingested enough
Ore,
Or so I’ve heard.

I spy
Metal flakes
Atop
Metal constructs,
Heavy,
Soft, caustic,
And broken post
Point-of-sale,
Broken
And now in me,
Circulating through my –
Spleen,
Kidney
And brain.

I’ve developed a
Phobia
For unwanted edible metal,
A curious
Cereal
Resulting from the
Cartoon
Of my
Dying grandfather,
Once an architect,
Now ten minutes to
Tie shoes –
A brain hemorrhaged
Iron, I’m sure of it.

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.

Butterflies spilled forth from her mouth,
Like the promises I’d only dreamt to ever desire,
          And just as heavily, entered the chains,
          Bags to promise scars atop soil, long walks.

So come the tilling, the cull and the harvest
When merchants meet maidens, ***** hands wave
          And having seen the second fracture,
          At least I could share in the shouldering.

But the butterflies, eventually to crisp and husk
Under sun, stench and eventual ends prior Eden,
          Dull blades and edges broken
          Like the backs of those that believed before;

She’d be granted her wings, her winds and pomp,
Like the nights in Matamoros had promised –
          Leaving me the luggage and at the least,
          A scent of what love could mean.

The neon green frog leaps
Unto it’s last bastion of
Sludge.

He thought it was water,
But I know full well
A ******’s been administered.

So ushers in, the acrid scent of
A life wrought nothing more than
It’s surrounding pestilence;

A chaos concocted,
And alchemy rendered man;
For we’ll break this world,

But at ends, the world will hold us,
For our crimes and
For our contempt.

When it all began,
There were two;

If only two, prior poor decisions and an even poorer
“port,” wine – precursory, I’m sure, to the sugar that’d
split my tooth. And I’d remember the palm of her hand
atop my own sweaty knuckle – SNAP! CRACKLE!
POP! Or so went the molar, only moments before and
come the lash of her tongue. There must’a been

something sprinkled avarice behind the blood nigh
corner of my lip. She’d liked it. She’d licked it. So much
so, that my eyes would gently drift, wander and close.
When next they’d open, skies would be bluer, the sun
would shine just a bit more than usual and my jaw’d be
fit for steel. For the first time in days, the pain was gone.

So when it all ended,
There’d be only one.

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.

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.

Worship is fingers
Awry offering baskets
And ventures 'morrow.

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 yearn for tea
Amongst the tales of Xinxian.
So came a flood teased
The scent of Maojian.
Puffs, over placid lake, and
Whispered crooked mountains,
Alone, the windswept pine cone,
And amiss, the plateau she wept;

Tears when I remember an uncle,
Old man “Magic,” long gone,
And his story of
Love led suicide; Aggregate,
One lonely island “now.”
So spoke two solid oaks,
The remains, and the hum
Atop tip and tongue,
Locals and love –

For each and every time a
Young man kisses
His fair maiden,
More pale, one chance,
Subtle, the future, in stone,
The frightful things that
Sometimes happen.

I’d watch that saga if I could,
But I can’t;
I’m an active participant
And tomorrow,
I’d be wrapped up in some
Other tale, tumult or tease?
A hero, or villain?
Either way, I’d be happy
And for some time –

I knew the danger in just,
“That,” and perhaps you will too,
When you stumble off the stone,
Or follow your own path,
Wary the map of course,
Where there be dragons,
There be treasures and tragedy,
I promise, and when you do,
I only hope you
Share your story with me.

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.”

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.

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?

I hope that the
Bread
Tastes good,
Because I’ve left my
Bones
In “it.”

I’ve left the bones born
Man
And bones born
Woman,
Bones once a baby
And bones now broken,
Bones bitter,
Bones bled,
And soon bits baked
Only by dust,
In “it.”

I hope that it
All
Tastes great,
Because we’ve all chained our
Souls
To “it;”

And “it” will continue to feast,
Come the hours we’d ‘ever starve,
“It” will continue to oppress
And until we say “no!”
So say, "NO!"