For the same reasons that I stay hungry
for dinner and tired for bed, I keep my
heart a little lonely for poetry; that way,
I can imagine your weathered hands against
my pale thighs as clinging starfish – my
fingernails, bleached cockleshells washed up
on the barely evening beach of your back.

a laugh
a reckless smile
a chuckle

how hollow
how empty
how harrowing

eyes clicked shut
ears jammed close
limbs weighted

and air turns liquid
corrossive and thick as
fumes of consuming embers

the hunt
turns frenetic
goes frantic

still the screen remains shuttered
the space under the door
letting little monsters to trickle in

but no light comes with them
plugging close whatever's left
of illuminated space

and they shrieked their attendance
announcing their presence with
the aplomb of a fairy queen's coronation

i asked them
one simple question
'what? what made you come here?'

their gazes devoid of empathy
they looked at each other
and their still arriving mates

and voiced one answer

'because you are you'.

and i feel my lips tugging at the corners
and my tears building
in the dammed lake behind my retinas

and my feet grow roots
to seep and spread
beneath the barren ground

Every time you call I'm filled with joy
For it's one more time I get to hear your sweet voice.
I love to hear your laugh.
I swear I can see it through the phone.
It's what brightens my life
From dusk ti'l dawn and morning ti'l night.

As night starts to set
Butterflies crawl in my stomach and never seem to go away.
Then comes this awkward silence that so many like to break.
But this kind is different.
It's the kind of silence that you don't mind having around
The kind that lets you know
the person you love is just on the other side
Saying without words, I love you.

skin polished
with oils, salt and husks
i gleam
with perfumed butters and musk
silken smooth flesh
like living warm honey
i languish
in the golden light of dusk
limbs naked
under silks and plush
i wait

i wait for you

my cheeks are blushed in the glow of your midnight kiss
i stand blinking in the corner
i am a smokestack, i rise above roofs and water towers
the space above this city is never populated by heaven
fear of ****** in the streets
in a hotel room
or a bus
bombshell crawling over flesh flashes metal neon
i am a coffee mug gripped by puncture-marked knuckles
exuding white dreams and pursed lips
I went into the dripping door
I drank the yoke of an ostrich egg
I am a hog in sunlight, a dead rabbit on asphalt at dawn
I lift a palsied hand to beg a cigarette.

as the poems go into the thousands you
realize that you've created very
little.
it comes down to the rain, the sunlight,
the traffic, the nights and the days of the
years, the faces.
leaving this will be easier than living
it, typing one more line now as
a man plays a piano through the radio,
the best writers have said very
little
and the worst,
far too much.
from ONTHEBUS - 1992

Have you ever fallen for a girl, that takes your breath away?
I see her and my mind goes blank, I don't know what to say,
Is it those big brown eyes, or that beautiful smile?
I get drunk on this love and the days feel like hours,
they keep flying away and I beg for just one more moment,
"Baby you don't have to go, come back and just stay."
She plays on my emotions and tugs on my heart,
She knows that I would give her everything, I was
lost in her beauty from the very start. She knows that I am
crushing, and she has the feeling too. Every second is special
as we get lost in my bed, she rolls on over and she kisses my head.
"Promise you will never leave me and break my heart,"
just the thought of it gives me a start. Life without my angel would
no longer be a life at all. I kiss her back and I grab her hands "Baby, for a man to leave you he would have to be out of his head."
She looks back at my with that sweet little grin, I hold her body close to mine and never want to let it go again. I smell the sweet fragrance of her hair as I feel her soft skin, I slowly slip back into this dream praying that it never ends.

There was nothing plastic
About the way your smile showed
Or about the way your arms felt
But a voice in the back of my head told me so
And last weekend
I melted a carpet I thought was wool
You could have fooled me
Except now there is a hard, shiny, iron-shaped mark
Plastered into the carpet's soft mat
To be honest, I was a little disgusted
When I pulled the iron away and found
Strings of green and red clinging to it like bubblegum
And to be honest, I felt a little disgusted with myself
Not to mention you
When I left a handprint in your soft back
And strings of skin still sticking to my palm
Prove you, my little plastic boy, are just a doll
By all the tests that matter
A human illusion too easily destroyed
By an excess of warmth

I believe we met in heaven
or was it hell?

I was too drunk.
You, soft spoken and understanding,
didn't know me at all.
Yet helped me to my feet
and asked what I was doing
in the park
this late
on a Tuesday.
I told you that I was bad at lying,
then proceeded to ***** on your shoes.

I didn't know then that I'd marry you someday.

Daddy
woke up
one morning
to mommy puking.

The curly jet-black knots of hair
on his pink-white chest
shivered
under the slicing ceiling fan.

He scratched his *****, and cleared his throat in a metallic ****** of congealed beer and bile,
it sounded like he was cutting something in his mouth with his tongue.

Rolling over,
he fumbled for his golden Rolex
on the night table,
pushing off
mommy's bangles
and bracelets
jingling to the floor
in a golden mess
that seemed wet
with light.

Rolling over,
back again
to his back
he clicked on the Rolex.

He held up his wrist in
the sun,
and,
**** me,
the light
was coming off it so hard
and strong
that he had
to cover his eyes
just to keep from seeing
all that light
and talent.

"You all right in there?"

He asked,
slipping on his boxers,
working his ****
with his golden-wristed hand
into the fabric.

In the bathroom,
mommy heard daddy's wrist click,
she wiped her mouth
on an oversized shirt sleeve,
and held her stomach.

An accumulation
of cells
split
over and over again
floating and shaking
in mommy's ******,
and she didn't know
what beer and bile
could make.

She didn't know how hard it would be
to cut that thing out.