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.

Her words fell
Like the limbs of a
Dandelion
Departed;
Once a breath per
Echoed meme
And come another dream
With every
Feather’s frolic.

The lips within this
Captured moment
Flutter and fall,
Dismal and drunk,
Like the butterfly prior winter;
An excuse,
And she deserved better.

So to, I’ve learned to meander
One
Simple
Breath,
Be it the gasp, “final,”
Parallel and the very same
She’d blow and blow and
Scatter seed with.

And I’d love her
Just as much,
If only years ago,
But now carry forth,
Lash atop knowing “flee,”
Merely inched
And adjusted winds.

It’s a “later”
Sort of tale atop tongue,
And idea coined “alive,”
Albeit moments before born,
So much closer to
“Never-end,”
Resonant, if only –

Her dandelion’s dream
And soon to be later patches
Green;
Come the grass,
Come the amnesia,
Come the cold,
Oh girl!
Come the day we both knew
I’d leave.

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 whimpers atop
Stairwell; I pass by, never
Even to wipe but one tear.

The ether’d suggested,
          “Say something.”
                    I didn’t.

The photos bombarded,
          “Say something.”
                    And I didn’t once more.

His widow plead, cried,
          “Say something”
                    I couldn’t.

One daughter begged,
          “Remember?
                    And I couldn’t once more.

But I bought a cake,
           “Daddy?”
                    Lit the candles,
                              “Daddy?”
                 ­                       And he didn’t;
                                                  And he wouldn’t
                                       Answer,
Because I never did.

“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.

Flame to be tasted,
A carnal sunrise devours;
Likewise, she weeps hate.

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.

Sinking in bed,
Can’t quite find the floor
And my right foot’s
Still covered sheet,
With lonely, “lefty,”
Somewhere south a star.

I’d swallowed my tooth,
Earlier, an added topping,
And down went the slice –
To ever remember the,
“CRUNCH!” of pepperoni, so
Reminded, a right hook’s sting.

And she’d left the ice bucket
Atop counter,
The tenth time this week,
But I’d only smelled her, “note,”
The last I guessed
And the last it ever’d be.

Tonight,
The mahjiang tables went silent.

Tonight,
The barbeque didn’t taste as swell.

Tonight,
Old mothers huddled and hugged their children.

And tonight,
Not a firework’d be heard.

Tonight,
He’d betrayed her.

Tonight,
She’d never let go.

Tonight,
Crimson could only answer.

Tonight,
She’d live.

And tonight,
He wouldn’t.

*There was a ****** just down the block tonight; guess I'm a tad guilty of gossip? You be the judge.

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.

The sands of El Dorado
Lash my tongue under tarp;
Wishes born something golden,
Fried eggs under beds
And homes, abodes in progress,
One peso at a time –
A tale and tear with every grain,
An allowance and granted only
Broken window.

The ragged lump of pillow
Where I now taste time,
Reeks of mescal with my
One white elbow
Tapping one bronze elbow;
Distant, under woven wanderings
And tattered dreams of parents
Wishing well – come subtle guilt,
Whilst the roofs of a prior Tibet
Tap atop my tether.

And while I ponder what strums –
Atriums, tempest and tubular,
I also reckon in what it means to be
Held and held alike
So that I can protect
And protect alike;
She’s waiting for me in “before”
And in Mexico, in the “now,”
So much sooner the past.
So to sooner, broken the future.

And so mothers will cry in kitchens,
Others laugh come the next fool
And yet others, abandon others
So that soon, recklessly soon, my feet
Make a wonderful twist toward away;
But at least I’d had this sunset –
Something to ride off into like the
Liquid dreams off a furrowed brow
And at least we’d had “we” on more time.

Just one more time.

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.

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.

I could still smell lavender, hinted
winds from the east I’d once caressed.
And I could still smell that Lavender
When I look down to watch the ants
scurry. Once more, I could still smell
Lavender come empty and my life In
a bubble atop the world. And at last,
the Lavender’s gone, when trees root

elsewhere.

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.

‘Round the world and pieces of me,
So speaks one body come a –
A bad night’s blood spatter in Sioux City,
Lonely little toenail clippings swept Dubai,
Whiskey scented stubble, London nigh Paris,
Oh! The calloused skin round bend,
Wrought broken, my lovely Kyoto,
And maybe, just maybe,
A heart or five elsewhere.

So when the tooth-clerk barricaded
Dusty Chinese counter-top asked,
“Do you want to keep them?”
I responded and with haste, “yes;”
And with a thieves hand,
Snatched my two molars removed.
For I’d already left one too many
Pieces of me here, and though
It was only a tooth, I hadn’t much left.

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

Atop her night ‘fore one more broken altar,

The oddity in #309, a special sort of
Pale beholden raccoon ******’d lids,
Was showering mascara’d mayhem
And naked come two windows down.
Shivered and if only by candlelight –
Just her, from cold to ever’d numb,
Her dog, (a lab and, “Sam,” I think),
Endeavor and smoldering wick
Amidst burnt flesh, timid
Added scent wrought a
Stainless steel’s earlier promise.

Alone, and the winds carried
Whimpers, tearless atop
A mixture – sweat, fear, relief,
And, “you’d once loved me.” She
Looks up, under starless and towards
Two wandering eyes, my own.
So much so, that even my
Beer-tainted tongue could taste,
“It,” – ***, cash, and solemn lies;
She knew, I’d taste, I’d waste, come
Her sojourn aimed desperate and pallet.

But I refuse, when she called,
She begged and she gently lullabied,
“Ravage,” as the nails trace spiders,
Seeping, “junk,” and down her leg,
“Come be with me.” Please?
But – the, “Wiser?” I closed my eyes.
The, “Weaker,” took my last swig,
And alone, shuttered my window;
So having dodged her bullet,
I remove my clothes, my ***** socks,
And imagined one wrist’s warmth

Atop her night ‘fore one more broken altar.

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!"

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.

She’s the same old
Country girl
When she settles back in
With plentiful rice in mouth;
Dry and yet fulfilling with
Words echoing
In between chopsticks,
A sentence upon,
And within,
Every other mouthful.

She has a way with
Talking while drinking tea
Wherein her hands,
Once left to grains of Mao,
Speak nearly as much as the
Sound of
Slurping mountainsides,
Leaves telling stories
And roots shaking rock –
A little something so very
Ancient, so very practiced
And so much so,
That the burden of “old”
Overwhelms her “new”
And 25-year old back.

She rattles and he’s a way,
Away, a way away,
With tinkered thoughts of
Mirages buried silk screens,
The gentle sweep of
Fingernails upon back,
Shooting stars,
Dodging cars
And failure.
He’s the man on the run,
On the road, wherein –
He never ate,
He only watched her
And he never drank,
He only watched her;

He’d watch
Until the faint dreams of a
Sunrise’d give birth,
The new day’d be promised sleep,
And twilight’d be labeled,
“Escapade” or “escape.”
When came the closed eye,
He be the same ol’ boy,
The “other” she’d never known.

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.

Mao’s on the wall.
Mao’s on the cat,
Mao’s the cat,
And Mao’s on the truck.
Mao’s tucked text.
Mao’s still the cat
Mao’s on the hat;
And Mao’s rendered stencil.
Mao draped in red,
Mao embalmed vacuum,
Mao smiling dirt
And Mao in slaughter;
The good, the bad,
The, “godly,” great
The ’89 slaughtered, ugly,
And as putrid as the scholars
Being spat upon.
So Mao’s tempered glass
And Mao’s tempered solemn,
Surrounded a spectacle,
When I, Mao and I,
Author and other, other and
Away, gaze eye-to-eye with,
“Before.”
His are closed,
Mine, unblinking.
I think of heroes,
I, “tinker,” butchers,
And ponder,
“Just,” and to the right of,
Right,” what is, “right?”
Would he have been?
Would she have been?
Would I have been?
“Right?”
Just what the hell is,” right?”

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.

Tapping scabs smolder my face; predictable
And prophecy, like owning a, “dead man’s hand,”
Parallel the pistol at your back.
It all began when the pen’s been dropped,
Somewhere untouchable; beyond claw,
Sooner the excuse as I’d long forgotten, “run.”
When drink’s not enough and, “escape’s,” the
Only to embrace oblivion, so it is and
So wrought, a solid right-hook.

Executed in pandemonium and
Scrambled eggs upstairs,
I scratch a different sort of stubborn
Come a morning in between graffiti,
An anxiety born an impatience for an already evening
And, “newborn,” as I look for the
Baby’s skin beneath battered lash;
But I’d killed that boy long ago.

It’s when I find the green in between cracks,
Concrete pervades and poisoned memories of mother,
Return; they’re scratched upon the stone,
Carved under cheek, knotted in lumber and heart.
I’ve hammered the point upon slab
And before and before and after;
Indenting the first letter to my name, remember me,
Whilst continuing to procure this numb
Nearing necropolis.

The fight’s last night, but the blister’s
Every day, every hour and every minute;
Eternity, as I trace my cheek with *******,
Once with a ring, and the other
A broken knuckle, swollen in a
Twenty-second attempt to never let go;
One more second or so and so,
Ticking, “21,” I fold, letting ropes conjure false hope
And only after the hands have grown frigid.

So much the longer after my heart had
And so much the better.

Mei Mei wears the same,
“Signature,” every week,
Silk atop a smell soiled – Mao,
Burnt wood boiling frogs,
And a mother crying alongside
Ditch;
Ancient and ever’ed, leather
Peddling vegetables,
Not so many sold,
And atop something slight,
Thinner than rice whittled wrists,
Her red-printed tender
Intended daughter, “away,”
Under pink bow tie
And dreams wrought a village’s
Wheat and desires ancient –
All they’d offer progeny.

Mei Mei’d been born
And Mei Mei’d be gone;
All a grin, all a stage,
Come left, those who’d know last,
Stone tiers tethered past,
And right,
Others that’d someday follow;
She’d only be the first to leave.
And sure, she’d been frightened,
And sure, she’d been homesick,
With phone, “home,” ‘ever palmed,
And dreams ‘ever determined.
She’d shiver leg, wax poetry
Big cities, and boys so that
Dreamt be dealt,
Demise, be ******, and
“Mei Mei’d,” take on the world!

*Note - Inspired by a wonderful student of mine who graduated but days ago; grab the world by the horns, girl! You've inspired me, that's for sure!

I don’t know what hurt worse,
The tick-tock
And clock in all –

Or the waiting,
Just one more second,
The wanting,
One last second
And be ******
The wine stained sand
And buzzards atop ear;

Always to remind of how I’d
Loved and ultimately
Failed.

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.

Went to the barber today,
          Just to feel a razor at my neck.
So to, skipped a crosswalk,
          Just to hear a horn.
I hopscotched the tracks,
          But the yard’s been empty years.
So then tried the bridge,
          When the wind’d never come.
Tomorrow’ll be lucky,
          That’s what I tell myself.

That’s what I tell myself.

Raindrops now sprinkle an earlier day’s
suicide, so too, lightning strikes my beer can.

And come the moment where I’d wished the
moon there, I’d yet to find the means to seize
it. It’s an unwelcome catharsis as our cratered
dream, along with the car, the keys, the
carnal, and caprice, are possessed, tucked a
deep blue jean pocket, and just above your
rear, perfection had I ever traced it; now
untouchable, rendered my choice.

Raindrops now sprinkle an earlier day’s
suicide, so too, lightning strikes my beer can.

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.

The last sip of bourbon;
And I miss my horse.

The last sip of bourbon;
And I stick to pine sap.

The last sip of bourbon;
And I change the channel.

The last sip of bourbon;
And I ask when she sleeps.

The last sip of bourbon;
"The sooner, the better."

The last sip of bourbon;
And I accept the answer.

The last sip of bourbon;
And I'd once heard an hour.

The last sip of bourbon;
And let the ice dance.

The last sip of bourbon;
And every poem has its end.

Let it end.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

My flights come and go,
But the bench records my slouch
As I’ve already grown wings.

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.

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.

I remember the restaurant,
The one Grandpa
Had brought us to –
Window panes in patriotism
And pancakes atop, “America,”
The world revolved,
“America,”
And how we’d made it
“Home” –
So came the syrup, destiny
And fervor caked powder plate.

He knew of my toil, ills, and tolls
Pandered atop horizons
Hindered Mao and red
As we sat near dawn over coffee
And something south of
Conspiracy – opposite my dream
And collusion to **** said
Destiny,
But it was still, “his
America,” not mine and he’d
Sleep when I wouldn’t.

So it pained me, resonant a twitch
Within this small inch of
Remnant family, to tell him,
“We’re going back,
We’re leaving tomorrow,”
And, “I don’t know when I’ll be
Home,” gramps,
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be home,”
And he’d say prior ever’d silent –
“Good luck sleeping on that one,
Son,” I just know he would.

I’d imagined her in the fields of
Tea; one, “she,” with hair born ink,
Perfectly-lined pearls,
A soon to be smile,
Wells for eyes, lost,
So very starved to be saved
And a'tic-tac-toe
Scarred the earth upon back,
So mimicked the sun.
So clucked the tribulation.

We, and after, “we,”
******. We trust
And two necks rocked backward
Under an unrelenting moon,
Could become, “we,”
With an already, “she,” and now the

“He,” a'wander before stars -
A wish and the only she’d wanted,
By name of, “touch;”
So one, the sun scorched rice,
And second, red stained the field,
And so on, the son missed home,
And once more, one son stood ground
And another sun held his hand,
So built, this newer home
Come allowed and growing old;

Together.

I’m
Paper-baggin’
It,
Paper,
Paper-baggin’
It,
“Oh lord!”
I’m paper-baggin’ it!

Alongside the rail come Neenah steel,
And foreboding, “Fox,” oh so tipsy,
Whispers, this meandering little missy.

I’m paper-baggin’ it!

And when Santa Fe’s now, near and
Her boyfriend’s whistle, prophecy’s clear,
So wills the way and away and away.

I’m
Paper-baggin’
It,
Paper,
Paper-baggin’
It,
“Oh lord!”
I’m paper-baggin’ it!

Worship is fingers
Awry offering baskets
And ventures 'morrow.

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

Strings sing blunder when
I'd wished you were there a cold,
Cold night years prior.

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

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