They gather on porches, in backyards filled
with the scent of lighter fluid and blood burning
on hot coals, smoke rises above swimming pools
and six-foot high fences, screams of innocence
ring through the streets, and blue grass wails
among old men's jokes and old wives' tales.

They gather for God and country in sailor suits,
dressed-blues and army-greens, the symbol
of freedom bellows from a Dogwood tree;
while bikers wear Old Glory on leather jackets
or tattooed across their shoulders, and beer
flows from cooler to hand to fist.

And they say this is what it's all about:
to live and die for the right to swear and drink,
be merry and dance in the streets, to praise
America and Democracy, while on the next block
a ****** is *****, a merchant is shot and a ******
jumps from a bridge in an attempt to fly.

Strangers,
encircled by a halo of smoke,
stems of nerves ablaze with habit.
I, lungs long filled,
focus on a fledgling:
shaky fingers lift
a stem to parched lips.
The puff, the cough,
the giddy laughter as she holds
smoke captive,
rolls it about in her mouth
only to exhale an opaque cloud.
The nerve-wrecked veteran:
sienna-stained fingers carelessly fling
ashes into an empty soda can.
One stem, two, three...
all burnt to the ****
with just enough fervor
to light the next: chains of valor.
The play-actor: superslims
puffed without purpose.
Tiny manicured fingers hide
the notstem, the habit,
the voidless desire.
The weakling: no will
to purchase the pack,
cowers with her borrowed stem, knows
her next must always be her last,
hopes tomorrow will bring deliverance.
And I, having lived their trials,
accept these strangers,
friends of a common crave.
I set afire my courage
and wave my flag of sweet rebellion:
Satisfied.

For Gertrude Stein

that vast land
a wanderer's dream
to wonder
to ponder
in awe
a~mazed

like spiderwebs
lineages of pearls
falling
cascading

a land of invisble boundries
boudaries unlimited
ideas limitless
exploring
branching

like a woman's thoughts
tree branches
no time no space
the melting of Dali's clocks

a land of no beginnings
no middle
endless
images endless

like the vortex
spiraling inward
downward
voidless

I
cannot remember
how friendly conversations
evolved into loving embraces.
It must have been the oriental
spice of your perfume,
exotic meshed with ******,
or the lullaby rhythm of your voice,
soft soaring syllables,
that lured me to you.
Or,perhaps it was our time,
past lovers long passed.
Nightly, I lay cradled
against your S-shaped curves,
******* touching *******,
intertwined into
oneness.

My friend tells me that each morning
she awakens with suicide and coffee
on her mind, then she has a smoke.
I want to tell her how my mind
entirely bypasses the coffee -
how suicide is the first thought,
second thought, all day and night thought.
I want to tell her that if I must stay,
a simple razor blade will do...
criss-crossing over old scars, gashes
just deep enough to bleed out the pain,
or awaken the senses and escape numbness.
I want to see my blood trickling down, down, down
my thighs or arms like red rivers creating their own pathway
through my white valleys of flesh.
But instead, I sit silently, coffee in hand,
swallowing her pain as I stifle my own.

I close my eyes and I am transported
to a rainforest during a deluge
where the steam rises and turns
everything misty and magical,
and in the distance, tribal drums
beat in cadence to the rain.
When reality draws me back to the now,
there is a chill to the February rain
and the tribal beat is merely the dancing
of rain upon an old rusted paint can.

watching lightening
rip through the tenebrous sky,
anger-filled thunder scorns
the midnight hour.
We only came here to watch...
to breathe in cool night air.

I couldn't distinguish the shock
of your touch
from the wave of currents striking
the window of this sundance
crossing the blackened sky.

A feather-touch:
my lips, your lips, ours;
soft, seductive shivers.
Touches so electric,
we were unaware
of the youth-filled
dodge gunning
towards the embankment...
teen kisses, too innocent.

(They see our mirror image.)

In excited jolts,
like those of lightening raging
through the mountains,
we seek refuge
to thrill-seek
the precarious union
we are.