She tapped my
Shoulder,
I caught carpels.

The “heavy” caught
My breath,
I feared death.

But I’d sip like the
Wind,
I’d open my sails.

And She’d later smile,
A daughter,
And I’d live;

Eternal.

Hanging turtles and
Netted birds of amenity
Dangle from her
Left hip like jewels ‘neath a,
“Ming,” ear as she traverses
Mountains beholden kitchens
And one more rise come setting splendor.
Supper may be atop the right, pelvis,
But opposite and left,
Rests the flask, bitter in chase of sanity.

I’m sure the scant pebble
Rattling in between
Her stomach and sorrow
Was nothing more than
A desperate thirst opposed the
Blister born benevolence,
Thirst opposed execution
And a coin converted spirit opposed,
“Xie xie,” (thank you), a platitude,
As heads clip pavement,
Blood pales a gutter,
Or soon-to-be feast’s final throes,
A bleeding and breeding for other,
Leading jitter-beholden mice to flee,
For they may be next
So future’s victuals arrive
Unhindered.

All and assumptive, assistance and rendered,
She walks away with only this –
Everyone’s emaciated
And the butcher on the street is still a butcher,
A peddler, a savior, and butcher again;
A source, be it left, right or wrong,
In need of a drink, as we all are,
With only the means, “take me to the sip,”
And by dollar come pocket born you.

Morality isolates and fenders bend.
Circumference learns, “half-way” but fails to take the name
“Radius,”
And when she lay a meter nigh
With child, my child;
I still and will feel horribly alone.

Curse my iron fist and rusts the middle knuckle,
When another weeps, not for I, not for you but the gods assumed,
“Heaven,”
And 3 floors above my own;
Tucked lies the pain, regret fills fetal;
I still and will feel horribly alone.

So comes the autumn, the fire prior, “Styx,”
Upon borders that could only separate, “fatherhood,” so partitioned,
“Winter,”
And 3 floors below her own –
A pillar wrought persistence and abandoned, my hedonism;
I still and will feel horribly alone.

"Will you marry me?”
     whispered her sly slivers of purple,
          prestige and occasional lie five years later.

And had we not been asunder
     that very same altar we’d sought fallen stars on
          several days prior, I’d have said, “no.”

Sure, she’d brought a bounty oranges,
     but could he, if ever, answer with the hand
          that’d waived like the incense before?

He said “yes.”

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.

Hair down to shoulder,
Gray peppers my sideburns;
Where do the years go?

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.

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.

It was an early night –
1:00 AM early.
The police passed by
For the bigger problems
And the clubs roared
A little louder than usual.

Loud and aloud while I danced
And danced
The Saturday night stumble –
To the left, to the right
And twice back,
Destination: Home.

I continued too tripped,
Or ripped,
To have a friend,
A little lonely,
But feeling a little famous
All the same and all the while.

I strode with swagger,
Head held a little higher than usual,
Made my way home, slept
And started over tomorrow,
Or was it the day after; the, “numb,”
Could be such a nimble little feat.

It’s a good thing that a cold beer’s
Always just around the corner,
So to, the stumble may begin once more,
And the tip-tap, tip-tap,
Stammer, side-step, fall will
Lead me once more unto rest –

Fallen and without dreams.

Cellophane mounts,
Where the sacred forbids,
     And my ribs ache a little,
     And the sofa’s rotten,
Come the morning you weren’t here.

Laundry molds,
When the dishes welcome roach,
     And my tongue’s among dry,
     And my ankle’s gone numb,
Come the morning you weren’t here.

The music’s somewhere else,
Where the air’s more stale than before,
     And my finger’s twitch a’call,
     And my ears cry before the baby,
Come the morning you weren’t here.

Plaster cakes the floor,
When the door knocks certain death,
     And my bones start to bare,
     And my shoulder’s poking through,
Come the morning you weren’t here.

Green becomes a the fridge,
Where night’s now alter years,
     And my side starts to burn,
     And my lungs whimper when eased,
Come the morning you weren’t here.

But I am. Oh Lord! I am! And near ends
When the state sucker-punched,
     And I know you feel the same
     And our son feels the same,
Come the dawn prior day we’d fled.

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.

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.

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.

Her fingers cracked and bleeding,
Lead glued under brow, under hum,
And below the sweet Tian He smog,
So rests my grandmother.
She’s gently handing out hope,
Even more, stale and day old bread,

Hidden ‘neath twitch, ‘twixt grief;
Abandoned were the meals, the bed,
And bath, so that the others may eat.
It’s in the shadows I shuffle, dependent,
With a paper-bag to my left and
Other, my better, to the right,

Whilst we wish the silent skeleton,
Pale and fervent, my grandmother,
Some peace, some bread, two smiles,
And but one star, if only one
For her to wish upon, and one more,
If only to grant her ample and every desire.

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.

The landlady pounds, one door left,
And my “Momma’s” chopping chives in the kitchen;
So I wince when
My black hat’s conquered wrought wool.

Right, and right out the window, the workers break,
And my “Uncle’s” feet crack, crack come the chemical grass;
So I concentrate when
My chopsticks carve pork.

“Up,” cries the baby, starved are the mice,
And my “sister” bids farewell to her soldier;
So I grasp when
My feet twitch to understand the cold, cold concrete.

Diesel cooks, so down goes the neighbor,
And the “Missus” smiles with our son atop lap;
So I admit when
I try to smile, I really do.

Herein lies the endurance, the rice paddies ancient,
And we’d all bliss ignorant, come the table we surround;
So I reconcile when
Again, I try to smile, I really do.

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.

There’s something wrong
With the rain tonight,
Not quite right
And unattended –
Desolate little drops,
A plenty and falling,
Or leaping,
As suicide’s now stained –
The houses, the trees,
The tollbooths, the tires
And doldrums my feet now reside.
In angst over wet, these lesser and
Imagined crimson,
I encounter a wind,
Quite possibly a whisper,
But a chill to remind bone –
That we all end someday
And we’ll all be ended
Someday
As well.

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.

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.

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.

Old Mother’s hands shook,
When pouring my tea
And I’d
Savor the scent of hyacinth.

Old Mother’s hands shook,
When scribing time
And I’d
Wed her fatherless daughter.

Old Mother’s hands shook,
On cloud, under crevice,
And I’d
Lift her cup to lip;

Old Mother’d drink,
Her hands, like the trees,
And we’d
Both cry tears of ecstasy.

His brother’s on my arm;
Cursing the opposing appendage,
For I’d killed his only sibling.

And I’d lie.
And I’d die.
I’d admit to none other,
But come the beer-scented blood he’d know –

My sibling’d just been married.

My other sibling’d just cursed mom.

My other sibling’d kissed a girl.

And the other, more just than most,

Ventured nether; near and dying.

Leaving me ripe
And if only pursued, by all that’d ever odyssey;
Family, vengeance and nature.
So to, brother feeds.

And I’d lie.
And I’d die.
And I’d admit to none other –
His caress and how my arm’d gone lukewarm.

The only, “kiss,” in years and almost a first,
Come lonely soul to feed, in addition a few more.

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.

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.

That ******
Cicada.
She won’t let me sleep.
She won’t let me sleep!

Won’t let me sleep –
When I’ve worked my shift,
I’ve paid my rent,
I’ve fluffed my pillow.

Won’t let me sleep –
In between harassment,
In between the bill collectors,
The brawls and the *******.

Won’t let me sleep –
When people fail,
When bombs fall
And children perish elsewhere.

She won’t let me sleep.
She won’t let me sleep!
That ******
Cicada.

She won’t let me sleep.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

It’s “then” that I realize,
When my friends leave,
That half of me dies,
Not at the door,
But beyond the locks,
And delirious drives
Home.

Come the other half –
The side
That revels in the quiet;
It slowly bites my tongue,
After sleep,
When I slip outta bed,
Crazed from dreams,
And even further by work;
Let me reside, the floor.

There’s no respite, no hour,
I’m annoyed even by
My stubble,
And the duty to
Shave –
Name me “lazy?”
Or labeled the animal?

I open the shades –
The forecast calls for rain.
I close the shades –
It’d ‘ever be night.

And after I’ve chased them out,
Something still and falls.
It’s not water, but rather,
Silent apologies that drip
And drizzle
From the sky and
Corners of my mouth.

They’re the “wants” left unheard,
In the form of unanswered
Voicemails, texts,
Email intentionally marked “spam,”
And pebbles echoed window,
Attempts “disguised” behind
Melody and
Resonant retribution.

I’ve always known how to
Push,
And now,
More importantly,
When to pull back.
If only I could
Drag
Myself from bed,
As this feeling’s “today,”
And it may not be there
Tomorrow.

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.

I watch the moths bounce off,
And imagine every attempt
I’ve ever made to love.
I feel the night like they do,

I feel the flight like they do, futile,
And remaining drawn to the flames;
If only to pray upon altars ash.
And when the goddess leans

To burn once more,
When the mosquito licks my arm;
I scratch and scratch and scratch
To bleed;

I hope the one next to me,
I hope she slices when I sleep,
I hope she plants flowers,
I hope she was jubilant,

And if only for those few hours.

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.

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.

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.

Come the auroras and infinite landscapes –
     Tangents wrought outright constants,
     Parallels perched perpendicular outrights,

          So to call your ellipse,
          When the orbit’s outstretched
          Landing meetings where we’d at least
          Learn to alter tomorrow.

It’s stellar silly, and paths primordial,
     Leaving my layovers for the trials
     And abandoned, the moon’s to forever follow you;

          So to composed and formulae proofed
          Come the time you mother said,
          "He’s just a coma
          And dust best left forgotten."

Quit draggin’ me to space baby.

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.

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.

My head’s drenched,
I lack an umbrella.
My clothes are soaked,
I lack a jacket.
My chin’s to the puddles,
So my brow drags the oil
And I’d crack if I had to smile,
If I had to say, “thank you,”
Just one more time
Under rain, under shame, and the
Laughing gods above.

With a sliver of scorn,
I do muster one more
“Thank you,”
As I’ve got my pay;
Cashed my last inch of dignity
And quickly lost
When I do the math and see
That I’d spent more on gas
As opposed to what I line my
Pockets with –
Lint and little more.

With a dwindling fuel,
Both in belly and beast,
I leave for the ends of existence
Knowing full well,
I’d return, I’d come home,
And when I can’t have food
I steal this simple moment,
A special kind of sustenance wherein –
I don’t want to see my wife,
My brother, or my mother.
I don’t want to see anyone or anymore.

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.

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.

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.

Her teeth rotted tea,
But root and leaf tell tall tales
Where silence now sips.

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.”