There was this grief of a
Permanent kind
Etched upon her face –
Light playing shadows
Christened, “Solitude,”
And a dark that’d dance before
The grace of those long gone.

And so, he’d grabbed her hand,
Nudged her cheek with a
Nose broken crooked,
Tender was the trust bent her back
And failed was the promise
As “tomorrow,” never was;
It’d never ever be.

Sure, tomorrow, the day after
And tomorrow once more
Happens for others,
But one more year, for her,
Would be carved upon brow
Come one more drink,
One kiss and the other, dead.

That door’d been destined to slam
And soon it did with tear drops
Abandoning the never delicate face;
Eyes like a reservoir missing fish,
Pupils with paddies depleted rice,
And once again, but one, “tomorrow,”
Shy an hour or twenty.

Crippled, she’d carried, crippled
And carried on, All the way
And with only pennies to show
With a back bent epochs and
Crooked to bury crook; Under dirt,
Under home and alongside
The love she’d never lost for him.

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.

She’d spread like clockwork,
Her words
And far from
Those
Ample
Black stockinged
Legs –

“I’m not going to sleep with you.”

She’d came to me,
Me and alone
With my return to home,
A bottle,
A thought or two
And
Solitude
Prior the her –

“I’m not going to sleep with you.”

And when three came to
Be,
And to “be” meant to
Close,
Followed soon,
Our kiss
Amid a mid-July
Parking lot,
She’d retreat –

“I’m not going to sleep with you,”

And retract

“Take me home,”

I did.
And when it came time,
That special moment,
Few and far for some,
Every other day for
Others,
I snuck away to the stars,
Slid beneath a pale green tree,
Took a swig from the swiped
Beer
And imagined myself having
Just dodged a bullet.

Swollen knee,
          Come the night I fell;
          Rail iron and blood wrought whiskey.

Swollen knee,
          When the light met me ‘fore the tunnel;
          Far from warm, but a frigid tucked.

Swollen knee,
          As the paper bag whispered the other’s wails;
          I’d imagine my mother crying come dawn.

And the once sullen autumn leaves,

Like my once swollen broken knee,
          Rush ahead for my wishes of spring,
          Bloodied, my palm, and in wait for something new.

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.

The world ended last night.

I’m sure it did.

And while I squeezed souls
From pillows,
Soiled stars
Wrought one tip of my brow
And bled every last liter,
For tomorrow’s star.
Atop melody,
I imagined a piano,
The nail-less fingers a’rapping,’
Opposed my battered knuckles,
Awry atop ivory
And concluding chorus,
A not so sad one, a not so bad one
But the last one;
Certitude and
Without encore in earshot.

The world ended last night;

I know now, beyond doubt, it really did.

Whispered were the stars
On the freckles ‘cross her face,
The chase, an orbit,
And sun,
Our son,
Not far behind.

Whispered were the stars,
Waning were the midnights,
Hours once assumed,
And cold,
The cold finger;
Mortality, ever to remind.

Whispered ‘ever, the stars,
Midnight’s come and go,
And sun,
Our son
Would love as we’d before,
Eternal, and long after we’ve gone.

Whispered was this order,
The path our parents once knew,
The songs they once sang;
Daughters, sons, our
Suns
Atop prior strings and

Whispered ideals that never diminish.
So let them dream, let them sing
Let them sing,
And let them
Shine,
Like before and never before.

So as the temple with now triple gods
Cracked an only manacle, left,
Further awry became her wrongful right gaze
And even sooner, her sense of self unraveled,
If just before “undone.”
I could smell it, I could smile it and I’d share it,
As I’d been there before, so I pitch her this –
Come next time, hold my hand like a lily atop water,
Bring fruit, lots of fruit,
And never forget our wish,
Never let our wish built atop fortune’s aroma
Hinder what tomorrow could never be.

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.

Olive suits born red-dripped sagas,
Sing Mao’s song atop an oracle, “state.”
So parade smiles smeared sneer
And the lips kissed only one night prior.
Thus enticed the lady-soldier, the, “enemy,”
Liminal and it leads me to revive
The one time I’d hollered,
The one time I’d vanished
And the last time I’d ever love.
You can’t forgive me, I understand;

But please know you’re the only one
Who’d ever made me pause,
If only to swelter amidst the swans of a pond’s
Serenity, unbeknownst the encircling chaos,
So waited, atop the altar with only one question,
The one I’d never answer;
“Could you leave it all for me?”
I think, I really think and still fail to solve,
The equation wrought, if only plus lonely,
And’d offer the only answer I’d ever known –

“No.”

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.

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.

I died the night my son became,
Come his cry,
And my promises wept;

     For the whiskey bottle’d pass,
     And now over one empty seat.

I died the night my son became,
Come his grin,
And a mother now exhausted;

     Held was her hand, held was his,
     Before the brothers who now hold spades.

I’d earn life the night my son became,
Come his whimper,
And our eternity now in wait;

     Such neon! Were the hours, so howl,
     Would and could –

          Minus I and newest day we’d become.

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.

Every time I see a
McDonnell-Douglas
80,
Or MD-80,
I sweat the deadened
Drop
Of a labor
I’d wish not
Remember.

We called it,
“The Oven,”
Name and noun
For the belly,
The belly of the
Beast –
Texas high noon
And no water,
While
Tossing luggage:
*******,
Prongs
And cadavers,
Hours on end
Under Spanish howl
And deafening
Jet engines.

I soon left,
The tarmac,
The turmoil
And clamor
Of airport operations areas.
I picked up,
Walked to the
Cantina
‘Cross the way,
Grabbed a beer,
Grabbed a U-haul
And grabbed my
Girl
On the way out.
I’m here now,
North
And of no end to
Mechanism,
My commodity
Food,
My machine,
Now a car,
Though admittedly,
When I look to the
Sky
And spot an MD-80,
I remember my
Toil
And sympathize for my
Sister,
A blonde and the
Youngest of the brood
Who continues to
Stomach that very
Hell
I’d freed myself from.

I had found,
Or stumbled upon
Where the love-birds –
Rock,
Lounge,
And pave the ways to
***.

My park
By day,
Becomes their park
By night
As they selfishly take away
All the seats
And sights,
Leaving me to drive on,
Drive home
And drive alone.

Accordingly,
I leave the seagulls to roam
And **** on them,
Hell,
Let them
**** on everything
For that matter.

When I gift
Them
The gulls,
I return to the crows
And vultures of
Solitaire –
Scavengers,
As I grow lost,
And maybe a
Little lonely
To the emptiness that I find,
In a one night love
And the run away soon
Afterward.

I don’t smirk,
Smile
Or laugh it away.
Rather,
I almost find a tear
Or a time to cry,
Not quite,
As I keep on driving
Past home,
City limits,
And state lines.

I
Cruise,
Accelerate
And arrive,
Hopeful,
Or reminded,
By the dreams,
Where I don’t die alone,
Or broken
But together,
And maybe with you,
The one I loved
And one I left
At that very same
Park
Atop a night not
Too far
Removed.

Lonely and only the left eye cries
For a past the “right” never knew.
I notice this itch mostly when it rains
Come the dogs that remain silent.
Being the ******* I am,
I welcome it, as somewhere
Not too far ago, I’d dropped a tear,
The last, I’d thought, but maybe,
Just maybe, it’d only been the

First.

The First –

To ***** miasma upon this once
****** dream, static to this once
Working TV, surreal to this forever
Overcast; Perchance and to breath,
To know, to understand, to kiss
“No tomorrow,” a gift only she’d offer.
It’s when the “left” drips parallel,
That I’ve now known life, death,
And how it can it end, mend and trend

A’second.

The Second –

And oh how eternity could endure.

Please let it endure.

I can’t feel around, “you,” anymore.
So to, the smiles only happen atop numb.

And I’d call it a, “kind of solace,” in knowing
Tomorrow wouldn’t matter either;

Not quite so much, so long as five, at least five
Of your, “sisters,” remain under ice and in the fridge.

This cure, “acquiesce and amnesia,”
At any given time,
Culls all but one, you –
My wife, and a third year’s scorn.

Nevertheless, I don’t want you to forgive me.
I truly don’t. I only want you to leave,

Pack and make good on your covenant so that this
Swim may end, for my toes should test elsewhere.

Just and walk away. Don’t look back, “please,” “PLEASE!”
Don’t look back so that I may finally look ahead!

Déjà vu’s dusk and certain glooms persist,
When I’m drunk,
A foul whiskey
And come closing, with a hand outstretched,
Scouting for safe or surface ,
Any guide or lane away from yearning.

But I do and I want;
I thirst for a tap atop pale palm
And not come my own claw;
But rather the benign I once remembered,
Now “retrievable,” in only dream,
Confined to only dream

It’s when I stub my most remote of toes,
That I realize –
Blood stains white carpets,
I’ve had too much to drink
And have once again forgotten
My way to rejection, ejection and the bathroom.

In desolation conglomerate lethargy
I make my way towards slumber,
Coma’d on my crimson carpet,
Curled into a little ball, afraid like abandoned cats
And lesser the enthusiastic for morning,
Quite the opposite a child and more so the escapist.

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.

Light’s out and star’s absent eyes –
Though I can see the alarm clock,
My blinking red pixels –
        12:00
12:01
Soon to be, 12:02.
.
The sound’s scampered away, leaving only an ear or two –
Debunking a tumble atop vinyl,
A second amongst hours skipping –
“Save me”
“Save me”
“Please save me?”
..
Something to touch is truant, from a once benign hand –
Abandoned so that the scars remain to itch,
And so I scratch –
This one’s from him,
That one’s from her,
But my favorite’s from you.
..
Tasteless pervades a fix, now abandoned, a wind somewhat vacant –
Memories; like our first dinner, tattered and tame,
        Forgotten moments, origins in eclipse
        And the such with no quarter for today,
Let alone something to show for tomorrow.
..
So my nose remains a vestige as I’ve already disemboweled my face –
Leaving all that was, to inhale upon a subtle cognizant;
That certain lucidity in between dreamt and dawn –
As I now divine not the vivid, never flowers,
Not you…but alone,
Finally, alone.
..
Alone, vulnerable and fixed in mistake,
At 12:02, come 12:03.
        …