the dilemma, if there is one,
which comes first
love or lust ?
  
i've always concentrated on my animal instincts of lust
but felt second skin in love
  
no neat stanzas with the answers here
  
just riding a wave
a good feeling here
a tug of desire there
  
lust has a certain texture
love is more velvety a feel
  
kinda rambling here
maybe rub up against me a little
let's see what that turns into ...

i've half a glass of wine
out of the previous ten
that i'd bet against all of your
empty promises
that you haven't thought of me yet
today

and the water that
fell from the skies
drowned the moon
cutting it in half
shooting it to Earth
and no one panicked
and no one cared-
the slice of the moon
lacerated the blues
and browns sending
one half forward
the other half back
and no one seemed to mind
and no one was alarmed-
you were on one side
and i was on the other
while you moved forward
and i jumped back.
eventually one of us
will be engulfed by
a black hole
and spat out on the
other end of time
and we’ll never know
what we missed
but the people don’t care and
they don’t seem to mind

my lady’s rockin; her eyes open wide.
she walks towards me, pulsing her body
my lady smiles like she’s got something to hide.

we kiss so long I forget which tongue is mine…
teasin me, she backs up and takes a swig.
drops the last word, smile cocked to the side.

she fronts tough, much too slow to confide.
she plays aloof, yet all her actions scream, LOVE
my lady smiles like she’s got something to hide.

pouring *** and juice, here comes the Jekyll and Hyde…
once her double Caribou Lou’s kicked in
she’ll drop that last word, **** her fist to the side.

starts ragin jealous, that’s how we came untied.

“baby, love is the opposite of control,” I say.
so then my lady smiles like she’s got something to hide
she drops the last word, ego cocked to the side

How could one not crave
the kind of truth that makes
trust skip a beat
and fall
amidst wisteria storms
when the rageful season
swarms
and sneers, shamelessly
infesting the senses?

i wish i knew
how you do
these things you do
that make my insides
turn to goo~

I find you in the strangest of places
in empty streets beneath the trees
in crowded rooms full of music and strangers
and sometimes I even find your eyes catch mine or your voice say my name
I find you when you’re not there at all
in the lines of songs and the pages of books
in the caress of my pillow and the formation of my smile
But the strangest place I find you, strangest of all
is on my mind
constantly and irrevocably

Reading a poem,
I am distracted by light
that dapples the page:
dots, splashes,
balloons, bubbles of white
sloping to cream, to shadow blue;
shimmering, pulsing
like soap bubbles in a sink,
lapping and overlapping the page
until they become a poem
I must write down.

Diffuse as soft spots
in a dramatic scene,
they flicker, perhaps alive—
do they dance and play
aware, joyous in their intermingling?
A branch tip intrudes as
silhouette, the one known form;
all else is embryonic,
almost there — light buds
about to bloom.

skirt hiked up
around my waist
wall against my face
your hand travels up my thigh
you push my thong aside
slip inside
i gasp and smile
strangers all around
but i don't care
you feel so good
inside of my love
i need you now
and i like to be naughty

exploratious exchange of the spirit and brain

happened on a windy, acid aftermath saturday.

like a breeze through a tree

we exchanged our deeper meanings

and you moved me~

i already feel the distance...

the absence of me in your space,

after only a few days.

for you it could take months

to see the holes in your life

where i used to reside.

my phone charger doesn't  share a socket

with yours, no extra shoes in the closet.

i've only left what could be lived without...

an extra toothbrush, various travel

size soaps and a razor…

disposable~

grip, bang, flash flood rains
i'm soaking wet electric
my hardware gets fried each and every time
you grab my face
metal and flesh, tangled hair, enmeshed
you worship at my altar,
on your knees, so gentle, discreet
head bowed in prayer to the comfort u find there
this moment’s fully submerged
waiting for the water to break so u can breathe
sound returns; the air cuts clean
back to crashing waters
a separate you and me~

my box of journals caught fire

memories hold heat, see
above the box spring and mattress
I lay lit by your memory
back to the sheets
head slightly off the bed
then I dropped a thought of you.
just a small mental snap;
the curve of your back…
that’s the only kindling our heat needed to sizzle
now I’m drenched in fire~

You say the heart just pumps blood in its natural lub dub, lub dub.
If that’s true, my blood rushes through each chamber to the rhythm of you.
If the moon pulls the tide, then the water in my body is pulled by your eyes.
Specifically what’s behind them.
Who you are and how you grind
--just the man you are has respect on my mind.

In the past I have canon balled into the pool with all the bravado of a romantic fool.
Now I’m standing by the edge nervous and hot.
Wanting to swim and feel the rushing cool,
but I’m not.

You sit on the edge, all smiles and ease. Legs in the water, splashing and free.
Yet you tell me it’s cold.
I’m being warned of the water.
While your arms reach up, pulling me closer~

i see a shadow on the wall
-mine-
it's beautiful
and alone
and that's
alright

i was trying to read a book
when you came along and insisted
that I read you instead
you were forceful in your persuasions
insinuating yourself between me
and the page, like a skin clad bookmark
*** in my face and the buzz of your voice
creeping through my head
as you ruffled thoughts and paper alike
to the point of distraction
how could i ignore you?
such a perfect edition and so responsive
beneath my fingers. you are better
than a story in braille
through you i can read of summer fields
the smelled taste of daisies and buttercups
knee-high grass and the heat of the sun
on day-warmed skin; the drowsiness
of a warm room and a comfortable lap
there is nothing better than
curling up on a good book.

i wanna discover Ironlak spray paint and bare brick, learn how to hold the can so my art doesn’t cry.  i wanna dress up and go to the Black Book Gallery.  sip chablis with folks whose Benz payment is more than my monthly expenses. throw up my hands and run out laughing, with tears in my eyes. some days i wanna pretend fleeting things will last forever; like your hand will always find its way to my waist.

i wanna pretend integrity doesn’t matter to me. pretend im a good daughter sister lover friend.  i wanna wake up and pretend that black felonious cloud isn’t funkin’ up my day.  i wanna discover parts of you i didn’t fathom existed and taste the skin of your wrist.  i wanna fall asleep in the grass from joyful exhaustion,  and be awakened by a gentle rain…roll into you and make love like it’s worth a stint in the pokie.

i wanna discover the hard and twisted insides of the caapi vine with you.  get inside out, while gazing into your endless insides. give me rain and heat and hallelujah.  i wanna discover a subculture i never knew existed and pretend i am a part of it.  somedays i wanna pretend forever things, eternal things, are fleeting. like i could call my dead mother tomorrow just to *******.

i wanna rail against the universe.  i wanna brawl with mother nature because it's dumb that ******* can’t create babies.  i wanna discover an afternoon with you, drunk, that bleeds into the evening, night and next morning.  filled with laughter, singing, fake british accents and *****. squishy lips, tongues, giggles and fits. let’s discover time.

i want a lover to take a full bodied swallow of me, roll it around in his mouth like a glass of a buttery merlot… just to prolong the inhalation of me~

the memory of his large, thin hand on my back brought me to the

ghost of his breath entering my mouth...

these realities kick start my heart so i roll out of bed.

longing is unsettled skin and a crossed leg that won't stop hopping.

looking for familiarity in different hands, different *****...

hoping to feel that same flame lick up my thighs.

searching for green in the bluest of eyes~

Drops of liking
spatter the roof,
oozing their way
through every  

crack to the room
littered with chipped
China teacups, frying
pans, and flower pots

scattered on nightstands,
mantels, and worn
Turkish rugs, desperate to

gather the bits of
affection that might
someday add up to love.

Connections are all that matter to me in this life.
Those I’ve loved are reeds that I weave into my bones
to hold me up on those days on which I spring holes.
Amazed! I’ve had the pleasure to intimately know
many beautiful souls~

on a ******
and I don't think
anyone minds-
this is when times are
most friendly-
my throat makes sounds of violins
so the room must listen to me
working the feelings
dreaming of a perfect time
*yesterday has yet to come

Consider the potential of poetry
To free men’s probing minds,
to spill their hearts so totally.
The power of the verse reminds
that the stringing of mere syllables
can transform lowly language
into something greater than itself.
I equate it to a miracle.
That despite time’s passage
poetry can give such a true sense of self.

a quiet evening
as i watch the curtains
blown by the winds
whispering
whispering their loud
thoughts
never
never were we
this vulnerable

you **** me
with the way you
come and go
in and out
of my life
you could always stay
stay for some tea
or a stiff drink
and maybe we'll remember
why we started this whole thing

minutes grow heavy
plump with promise
late spring blues packed in tight
weighted with white sands
burnished by winds
that drift from there,
just there, beyond that line
bursting now to color
then fading to night
momentary demarcation
where sight becomes vision
and longing drifts hungrily towards
the ever-desired elusive perfect summer

The moon will get more blurred, not less

and more and more i'll look in vain
for edges
and reasons

old errors lose their lines and shapes

leave flashes, not whole cycles
there are peaks
and troughs

i see how all is blending thick

mixing, slurring, soup-of-lifeing
is it done yet?
is it right?

i stir, i eat, i look, i sleep

i dream of moons that fill the sky
with brightness
with courage

everyone told me
just take it
one day at a time
one step at a time
you will find out
what you're worth
I guess I'm not that strong -
I've fallen apart since
you left

Rilke whispers to me…sedentary body of rush…heat pushes

out from the head…throat desires chianti and kalamata

open book, eyes look…words creating doorways

empty landscape. behind her mind prisoners break free, slam gates

mossy, tendril-vined romantic escapes. the time to absorb is over

the well is full…scribble, scrawl so fast...body relaxed

making music with the fast clack, clack of her old Olympia

chair thrown back, mad dash to each bookshelf and book stash

hunting for a line to feed her burning imagination…Nag Champa

flowery smoke signals inspire ancient thought…burns down slow

slower still...ashes rot…distant voices creep closer…the black ribbon is drying

words begin to resist the page…door opens...silence is crashed

beautiful stanzas fragment…slash...love enters and permeates every room~

my mother used to mow our lawn
in her bikini  -bandeau top-
black with pink polka dots,
and black shades.

her toned olive skin covered in sweat
that dripped down to her
lime green, grass stained mowin' shoes.

grass clippings stuck to her sweaty legs
that walked to the porch
so she could stand in the shade a second
and swig sweet tea.

maybe stare at the house across the street.

at least twice that i know of
mom gathered up some of my sister and i's
clothes and toys, then asked a friend for
some of the same from her two little boys.

she cinched all the gifts together one night
for that family across the street
who had a lot of kids and pets
and not enough to eat~

we’re all mysterious
by moonlight, so hush
now and sleep so I can
watch you.  

I love the way your eyelashes
flutter against your cheek,
eyes dancing behind eyelids
caked in mocha shadow and the
smeared eyeliner you
forgot to wash off again.  

I’d like to think that you’re
dreaming of me, but you don’t
even know I’m here.

She majored in English,
studying Chaucer and
breaking down Yeats.
Surrounding herself with
words, words, words-
Hers and everyone else’s.

Perhaps she should have
majored in something more
useful like “World Peace” or
“Apocalypse Evasion”?

I guess she’ll just
have to make do with those
words, words, words-
Hers and everyone else’s.

Lay me down,
get ready to play

Do you have the energy,
cause I got all day

Lead me where you
want us to go

I'm ready and willing
let's take it slow

I do not know your name,
only know that you are a
small drop of water bearing
an iota of life, and that we are
the same, our shoulders
momentarily blending into
each other as we flow

That knowledge is enough
to move a river.

That one where my head is being sawed off;

I can feel the teeth of the blade biting into my flesh

and I know I am going to be dead very soon.

Or the one where everyone

I’ve ever loved

is gone

and I know

I will

be alone

forever.

Then I’m at the top of the stairs

and falling

into

a black

infinity of nothing.

Or that time I remember

I have a baby

and that I’ve not fed it

or given it a drink for weeks

and now my hand is on the doorknob

opening the door where I remember it must be

and I’m dreading what I will find.

*Sweet dreams, nighty night, don’t let the bed bugs bite.

he's a man
confounding
sweet and luscious
says the most
without saying much
breaks me
and goes to sleep
while thinking of her

Knolls of clothing dot the rug, a
rainbow of empty plastic hangers
sway with every pass.  Hot rollers
get a little hotter, round and rectangle
compacts litter the counter, waiting to
give her a face to face the world. 
 
She picks up things and puts them down,
making decisions and easily changing her
mind.  A timid little queen of a tiny kingdom,
running her life within the walls of her
walk-in, avoiding the subjection that waits
outside the closet door.

i wake up in the middle of the night to syrupy thick thoughts of you. intense desire to feel your hands on me, gripping my skin like the pant leg of the warden who will set you free. i listen to your lustful pleas...now hear me. feel my flow as our root chakras explode, expanding out exponentially allowing me to taste what’s free, in this life, at least. we all have needs and right now mine is you. and you are me in this explosive fantasy...life is a cycle of destruction/creation. i want to feel your physical impatience under my skin, pulsing in time with the tune of my heart. making love is our art. you show me what skin is meant for and what honor means in this late night scene. so we turn off our heads and allow love in this bed, cradling body parts of this relationship we've created, this hook and line is baited, now let’s turn off the lights and get elated. your body gets mine high, when you simply brush by, so i toss out my hand and connect with you, grab my man...to slow down our day and enjoy the sensual play. it’s good to have no words sometimes and just let skin speak your rhymes…so i'll kiss and embrace, you look. hold my face...this is a connection on another plane, we like to exist there so we stay inside each other’s eyes and allow the love in our hearts to push out through our hands...and we lustfully dance, change rhythms, slow up the tempo. stop, then rewind, play it all back. to truly enjoy our time here on this planet. we exist in skin. the energy of this life will one day change form…so i respect the body and all the joyful lessons it has to teach about boundaries, love, and the blurring of all of these…

he cries out her eyes
shakes it til she sings
that's the way it goes
but it's the craziness
getting me down

the tick tocks roll swift these days,

200 plus day pages fly away

before i saw how dizzy intense this fall had come down on me,

...how high up i got laid.

my serpentine needs roll and heave

in search of fulfillment

until i reel backwards and stumbling just now noticing, maybe it ain't possible.

unreal needs and possible dreams fill my daytime.

sights set so high, yet i'm still wingless, so needless to say i can't yet fly.

i battle the crazy. i battle the ill

with my trusty tools: a bottle, a shot, a bowl and some pills.

out of my mind time, every night time is what i need to stay alive.

i need to stick around to see what goes down next.

see if this **** gets any better, or see if i can get her any wetter.

cuz, that’s what i really want.

her hot breath washing across my neck, turning on the ignition in my hips, to the tune of our engines we swell and dip.

supple belly...liquid thighs...lips all over my face...melting insides,

she's what i need to stay alive.

i've never had all my senses so high at the same time.

speaking of time, did i mention it's picking up speed?

a cause for celebration and my girl are all i need

to make my moments complete~

I hate it when you go to bed
and I'm still awake -
which is
every night.
I miss you
while you sleep.

there's a boy across a bridge

dwelling above a shop

who lights up the heart, dwelling

in the chest of a girl

who sees the boys smile

inside the eyelids she closes

whenever she catches a face full of

sunlight~

i know you're lying.
you're busted
when all I've ever asked for
is truth.
you're better than that.
aren't you?

punct.u.a.tion is
language,
all its own; words

form-
lessly formed
dripp-ing,

drop on the
page-- Images… Imagines… Imaginations
laced with

Sarcasm

and

rhythmy
rhymes and often-sometimes-maybe emjamb-

ment.

Clouds, flat-bottomed as an iron skillet
slapped down on the range-top of this broad sky,
speak bluntly of rain.
The ground cracks, mud-dry
from summer’s grinding hot whisper that yet
sows blankets of saffron dust and disquiet.
Thunder grumbles, snapping out lighting, wry-
necked and surly as an old dog, denied
his usual dark-cool-under-porch billet.


In just such weather I stand, face turned up.
Stupid as a sheep in the rain, eyes and mouth
full of water, ripped down from the fractured
black belly of the storm. Immobile and enraptured
by the grey drops’ wet weight of broken drought,
dead-end of August overflows my hands’ cup.

late night August moon
giant as a storm
frosts the yard,
the treetops, in light.
I mistake it for snow

everyday that passes now, reminds me of a future conversation
in which i'll say, “oh…just this guy I used to know.”
future sunny days when I’m laughing from something a friend said that’s funny days.
a day i'll wanna call and tell you what I just heard,

then remember i can’t talk to you cuz i gave myself my word-
to keep it self contained. not wildly share the insides of my brain
or the topography of my heart or the texture of my soul
to anyone who ain’t trying to do the same
for me, a lover who wants to flip it back on me. a lover burning to share of themselves
with me….wants to explain every track on their playlist so I can feel their moods from the inside.
a lover who notices the gold flecks in my eyes.
a lover who's all heart, no game.

honest fear happens.

I want a lover that knows they can share all that real **** with me, no blame~

See,
the thing is,
I don't believe you
anymore.
Maybe
you used to want to be mine
but that time is
gone.
Now you're just
being nice.

I want your daily, your casual.
I want your stubbed toe and to know if pain causes you to curse or punch.
I want your mornings - quiet, eyes soft, looking into mine~