I keep espresso in my milkshakes
For I need to stay fat and alive
No other way to tell my mother she’s been
Defeated by good wills and diet pill
And an inability to lie prostrate
In the bathtub, tucked
In the corner
Tucked up like a turnip.
I now rouge in the heat
The long chill has taken the sunlight
out of my skin.
When I’m dressed I feel naked
When I’m naked I feel large
Like a moving box or a plow horse
Or a Saturday celebrity news scandal
To fill in the lead banality of one
Lone white rhino ******* once more
Into sand and dust
And then dying quietly.

The breeze smells of saffron and cyprus shrubs,
Silent men with starved eyes and foreign tongues
Nap in shaded caves beneath Alhambra.
I pluck a kitten from the Inula,
Hold her body writhing, she’s hardly mine,
And when she leaps, she’s nobody’s again.
On the ascent, I’m worn, my calves are cakes
Powdered with fine silt.  The ascent, I am alone.
Running my hands along terra cotta,
This city, she’s had many proud lords
Robed in furs and silks. They’ve built their churches.
They’ve impregnated the land with herds of sheep.
They’ve sent strong men to dam the melting snow,
To watch it flood in spring and wet their castles.
I’m sorry I left you in the alley.
I find myself beconded by high places,
A mare unbroken or a restless child.
Called up by the great blue velvet curtain.
The taste of lavender and burning peat,
The rolling amber hills, inherited
By these princes or husbands or tyrants,
But owned by no one but her desires.

The breeze smells of saffron and cyprus shrubs,
Silent men with starved eyes and foreign tongues
Nap in shaded caves beneath Alhambra.
I pluck a kitten from the Inula,
Hold her body writhing, she’s hardly mine,
And when she leaps, she’s nobody’s again.
On the ascent, I’m worn, my calves are cakes
Powdered with fine silt.  The ascent, I am alone.
Running my hands along terra cotta,
This city, she’s had many proud lords
Robed in furs and silks. They’ve built their churches.
They’ve impregnated the land with herds of sheep.
They’ve sent strong men to dam the melting snow,
To watch it flood in spring and wet their castles.
I’m sorry I left you in the alley.
I find myself beconded by high places,
A mare unbroken or a restless child.
Called up by the great blue velvet curtain.
The taste of lavender and burning peat,
The rolling amber hills, inherited
By these princes or husbands or tyrants,
But owned by no one but her desires.

Explain to me, danger.
Ice too thin on the coldest day of the year.
Snakes posed in the chasms, formed by dark red earth.
Quick sand, el chupacabra, a malignant tumor.
Pills and pastries, needles left in the park,
Poor knife skills, and poison darts.
Explain to me who he is.
Death playing chess on a windy beach.
Body-less hands reaching beneath my sheets,
Like corn snakes.
An old man in a fishing hat on the train platform.
The train conductor drunk in the smoke, snow, and storm
You’re a hungry boy with a weak lactose gene.
Parallel tracks like tres leches and vanilla ice cream.
A little string attached to my belly button.
A curious marionette, a dead puppet.
Too cocky, checkmate, and the sound of waves.
Everyone dies, but not everyone saves.

Mary, plain name.  Mary, mother of God
Mary, Queen of the Strip Mall
Mary, daughter of a King and a *****
Divinity in her blood, conqueror of lands,
Monarch of her body, kingdom of junkies.
Nails inlaid with pearls, mink lashes and onyx eyes
Indigo polyester wraps her 36, 30, 41,
saltwater taffy legs, ****, and ***.
Mary wasn’t a tall boy, Mary is a funnel cloud queen
Obsidian brazilian in velcro, soda can curls.
Mary has no titles, Mary is a *******, Mary is an exile.
Queen of cream stucco and neon and parking lots.
Mary has disciples, all named Judas.
She has Roy Cohn, the judge’s son, and Louis XIV on their knees in prayer.
She has **** Cheney, Little Richard, and Freud their knees in the bathroom behind the Tesco.
Mary doesn’t confess, doesn’t beg, doesn’t buy.
Mary the conqueror, Alexander reincarnate, she survives.
Body bathed in ultraviolet, cocoa butter, vaseline, and newport menthols.
Mary talks to God in the mirrors at the salvation army.
Mary is scared of dying, she knows she is no ones martyr.
Mary never kneels, left the Bible in the motel nightstand.
A graceful end, a unceremonious departure.
Trade rose petals for needles and styrofoam slurpee cups.
Mary’s mistresses, lovers, and wives, gave her a few lead rounds,
Left her in the strip mall mausoleum.
Mary, queen of the carnal, saint of suburban perversions.
Mary never asked God for forgiveness or a fix.

Tell me there’s money in the bank.
Take the eyeliner from Prince’s vanity.
Behead the queen and take the city in a coup.
Give me prose, give me a riddle, give me a rouse.
Hide the bread, and eat the rich.
Tell me I’m a **** boy but don’t touch me or I’ll bite.
Take my hand, then let me step on your neck.
Give me money, give me beauty, give me power.
I want to fill myself up until the land runs wet
And the rice drowns in the fields,
And the peasants die in their beds.
Selfishness to self-preservation, feast to gluttony.
Are we still skinny dipping if my arms have run rotten with gangrene.
Fill me up with floodwater, fill me up with wine.
I want to be full and fat, fight vulnerability with consumption.
The barricades I’ve set are mean, they run hot with electricity.
I want a heavy velvet dress and a fast flowing river.
Give me lilies and paint me, Millais.
Paint me ****, paint me crazed.
All canvas turns to clothing, turns to rags, turns to ash.
Once the guillotine, then a cut, then a scab.

All the sad, dark parts of my life bleed together like blue ink
What was here before the stains in my memory?
Please look at me,
Please look at my empty swollen stomach,
Please look at my beating heart.
Look at each one of my toes hanging languidly off my bed,
Look at them dry and cracked and broken
Look at my and tell me you love me
Lick this ink from my body
I am your pup
Hold my shoulders and rock me
I am so full of cold, dark words
The sparks at each tale end try and illuminate, but god is the ink dark

I don't want to trip too hard for I
don't want to crawl out the other side changed
I must like myself for there,
why would I opt out of self-destruction if not for self-preservation.

I have to see my family today
and act like I am not full of words that are oozing out
like wails and echos

My hands on hard wood
on soft skin,
on your eyelids
as at three in the morning I put you to bed.
You are drunk and I am on acid.
The whole room is wheeling and the wallpaper peels itself,
I am sad and scared,
and the picture of you lying comfortably
Your hand in my hand
You head full of warm wine
Makes me feel small and alone
I am always caught rebuilding what you knock down
But you have a matches in your hands
and I am the carpinter

Before you fell asleep you looked at me and asked,
"Did you see how he kissed me?"
I wanted to ask you back,
"Did he walk you home, did he peel the clothes from your body?
Did he pull your blankets to your chin
and put a needle on the record?
Did he walk back to his friends alone, with car alarms screeming banshees and concrete littered with dirt and teethandorangepeels and my skin and facehaspores that arerough and large like orangepeels and did he put you in bed?
Where is my hand to hold?
Where is my carpinter

I hope one day I allow myself to fall apart
and I hope someone cares to nail me back together.
Sand down my splinters
and run their fingertips along my forearms
If I tipped over on the street, I don't believe I would wake up at home.
If I eyes grew like saucers and my head filled with echos
I still would walk home alone.

you can let your body be fragmented into one hundred bleeding pieces
and sewn back together.  
you can see the future,
the past
and humanity’s frenzied crusade through them.
you can grasp the infinite complexities in the world.
simplify them
you can make constellations from the stars.

Reading transcends time and space.
Langston Hughes wrote his poetry to the tempo of his own heartbeat;
the stars flicker,
the trees **** in water,
pulsing to the same collective heartbeat.  
The oral stories of ancient African and Native American tribes have been lost to time,
evaporated into thin air with the water vapor in
their ancient breath.  
If you are quiet,
you can hear
their impassioned voices whispering their stories in your sleep,
despite the fact
that their bodies have been crushed by colonization, corpses consumed by the earth,
miles and miles preventing their interaction.  
These stories exist in a place where
miles crunch into inches,
where whispers are louder than screams,
where even oil and water are in love.

My sister is reading Dracula
and I see her
batting her face against the pages
like a bird into a glass window
The writing is dense,
and it takes all her patience to pull wisdom from it  
She says that she read it so violently
that she expected it to howl in pain,
that she drove her sharp thumbs through its breast
and licked its inky blood from her fingers
You can watch her now,
with her nose in the book,
slurping in its words,
surrendering herself 2 it
Reading is nourishment
It is the third unacknowledged human necessity:
food, water and literature.

I tell my sister that reading makes you psychic  
I tell her that reading gives you the same clairvoyance that French Quarter fortune tellers get from reading tarot cards  
She asks me how
She is a skeptic and she demands to see the author
I tell her publishing dates are lies and that the past and the future consort like elusive lovers, and literature is their unfortunate paparazzi
That is the truth;
the past only the past in calendars and we are obliged to imitate it
again
and again
Books simplify by complicating,
convoluting their intent into distilled metaphors,
paradoxes
so you’re forced to read with your intuition
you’re forced to feel
Reading dissolves your physical body
it exposes the simple intricacy of humanity’s interactions:
conflicts
relationships
loves
hates
triumphs
failure
reading lets us hear the single pulse that ties humanity
past and present, far and near
into one body
Reading bestows upon us a profound sense of insight into ourselves and the world we inhabit

I learned to deal with you
Like I learned to deal with the ocean
Be still
Be relaxed
Be unmoving
Till the wave passes over me
But for that moment,
You are a Kanagawa force
And I am caught in your turmoil, underwater
You shout
Press
what else can I do for you?
It’s for you!!!
Slack body is tossed like ***** clothes in the wash
Pounding me deeper into spiraling dark water
Draws at my shivering limbs
Thrashes at my pride and response and resolve
But a retort is the instigator
That would turn your wave into a storm
And your storm into your hurricane
But god, my lungs, they vie for air
Coax me:
Say something to subdue him
Say anything
Run away
Breath
And you get right up, right close to my face
Convince me that you’re happy
Convince me that you’re fine
A fine and happy person doesn’t bend to the will of the waves
You can’t coax me out of expiry
And you walk away
Curse yourself
As I come up for air
Smooth the brine from my face and hair
One more time
And ask
Why are your eyes sore
You turn
The tides gone down
The ocean is stiller
Regardless
I still got salt in my eyes

Calcimine
My head is full of blood
Brain is a damp hot piece of meat
**** hot wet useless

Calcimine
My skull is calcium waste
Cranium cradling USDA grade A
****

Calcimine
My heart is knocking on my breastplate
Good, it knows that my body is tainted
It’s a-knock knock knocking at a coach whip pace

Calcimine
Irises flooded by curious pupils
Open wide swell
Absorbing dizzying light

Calcimine
Side lamp belongs on the floor
Shattered stacks smashing objects
At the mercy of my car wash arms

Calcimine
I can feel Satan waiting assured
Ready to accept my blood sack body
Liars and cheats all go to hell

Calcimine
My head is a feverish cardinal
Still my face, though hell awaits, guards the fact
And I do, I drench my febrile skull

Calcimine

Placate me
Sedate me
If you have to
I don’t trust myself
To be your steadfast girlfriend
That word is salted
It rolls around on my tongue
Love is happy Love is sound
Love is grappling hook
It cuts into my arms
Ripping spiderweb scars on my skin
I’m frail
I can’t be your rock
All my sonnets are but letters
I don’t want your responsibility
I can’t be responsible
I don’t know what love is
You’re right

Was I worth the risk?
You were worth the sleepless nights
But was I worth the risk?
Of having a shoestring tie
Latch you to the world

Cut me off.
If you need.
Cut me off.
It’ll hurt
Cut me off.

Because I need you to be sound
More than I need you to be

The cloud are reflecting off my computer screen
Moving at a rapid pace
They have somewhere to be
They have to move on
Fading into my shadow
They’re like daggers

My head is like daggers

And my smile is like a rifle
Loops one more time
Just picking the achy strings
I think he’s exhausted
Really just ******* tired
And the way he sings

Just wants to speak

And pour all of his heart
Thoughts
Emotions
Pain
Pain
Pain

These pitches, John, they aren’t real

They aren’t right
You aren’t right
I’m listening to this for you
Because last night was the night I took your life
I was tired too
I was tired and used your insecurities

As an excuse

To blow you off
Bryce come back please
I love you
I CAN’T SEE WHAT I’m typing anymore
It’s waterwashed
I love you I love you

I lov you please

Please trust me
My tears are ocean currents
My calves are the sand
Pull me to La Jolla please now
Hold my hand Bryce
You’ll be unconscience in 5 minutes

Fiberglass isn’t all that dependable

Fiberglass will float on
You’re heart is lead
Let it sink
Hold my hand
Let it sink
They’ll find our bodies

Eaten decayed by algae

You look just as fine with your
Skin pruned and ribcage exposed
I would kiss you all the same with your
Toes consumed by fishes
4 times over John
4 times you don’t sound anymore like an answer

The coffee machine filled my espresso right up to the lip
So much so that when I lifted it off the platform,
It spilled and dribbled down the side of my mug
And I though, wow
That reminds me of me

I set my jacket on the chair
But the sleeves were too deep
And it kept sliding off and falling to the ground
And I thought, wow
That reminds me of me

Galileo said that the sun was indeed the center of the universe
But no one would believe him
Wow
That sounds a lot like me

Once I put my pen to paper
And all the ink flooded and spilled out
Because it couldn’t wait to scribe down my
Own beautiful eloquent thoughts
And all know

My depth and wit
Swallows and overwhelms
Impresses and inspires
You and everyone I know

I like gazing into your still pool eyes
Because if I stare hard enough
I can see
Myself
In the reflection

And in conclusion
Me me me me
Me me
Me

I was told not to fight fire with fire

And so I fought you with apathy

And turned a polite cheek

To your aggression and volatile judgment

Where your eyes are aflame with indignation

Mine have resigned

Do you feel large?

You, sermon preaching the ills of my ways

Encased in your scripture

Lead a crusade on me

Try not to upset the emotional

They can stand so high on a soapbox

The devil beats his wife in Louisiana
Hot wet rain
Pounds on the glassy window
And you, my friend
You sit
Brunette and brutal
Heart pounding like hot rain
Who though metal could be so heavy
Who thought guns weren’t all that hard to find
Who thought you were twisted and planning and deep
I didn’t


Slipping little things into speech
I said it was hot
You said you legs were melting into the pavement
Bones brittle and burning
I fussed about the math exam
You said about the teacher
We should just **** her
And I thought:
That’s just dark humor
I can appreciate Aronofsky and black sarcasm


Now you stand up
I sit a wall apart
Drumming my pen
Tap tap tap tap tap
The rain comes down
Tap tap tap tap tap
A gun goes off
Tap tap tap tap tap
I cannot move
My feet have melted into the floor


Your head is a grenade
And I held the pin
Between my teeth
Like an apricot pit
I didn’t speak
I said nothing
Kept you trapped
****** and dangerous
Condemned to this world that fit you so ill


Bang bang
And the locks are feeble
The kids are quiet
Anticipation
Funny how nothing but mass ******
Could zip their ******* mouths
Like a start gun
The panic begins


You paint the walls red
Wounded scared kids run chaos to the door
And you
You are the eye in a hurricane
A cataract in the Nile
You are still
And my feet are cemented
To the ******* ground
And hold my eye contact
And hold it


I want to say this pretty
I want to give you some glorious macabre
I want to make you gruesome poetry
But I cannot
And you blow your ******* brains out
And my feet stay cemented
Until the police come to clean up
The mess you made


The television says you’re a monster
Papers argue teenage corruption
I don’t know
I don’t know
I don’t know
As I stand
White shoes toeing the lip
Contemplating the traffic below me
And the life you shattered and left

Even her heart beats brand name blood

Primped plastic ready for packing

I wonder how many packing peanuts I could shove down her throat

You told me you dreamt of stars
From before cave painters
And ice ages
Celestial


You said you came from the time
Before “Let there be light”
When light and dark pooled
And eddied together


You said we could exist
In an isolated state
When even oil and water were in love
And we are but atoms


And you said
We could run away from
The ills and the joys and
The businessmen clocking in on time


But I am a cynic
And a threw down your sonnets
And your romance
Because I’m not a dreamer

Feeling blue today
The truest blue and slew of good wishes
And feelings
And moods.
All is clear in my field of view.
Better than borrowed
I feel new.
It’s true
I’m blue.


She’s livid
A shiver of silver
Livings and fear of what mother will say
When she see slivers of shining silver
Shattered on solid floor.
She’s shaking
Scraping silver slivers
Into shaking, sweaty
Palms.


A rotund belly
Yellow sash orbiting
A loud yellow suit standing outside
A back door bordello.
A cello’s titillating echo
Feeling mellow
Look at that swinging yellow Othello
What a fellow
Those midnight secrets he’ll never tell, no.


He is orange
And no one much cares to rhyme about him

Teenagers write poems about sadness
And I diagnose
Drain false narcissistic depth
I choose to diagnose
Girls that moan about darkness
I can try emphasize
At a therapeutic distance
Walls rather a leather settee
Cry me your conjured problems
The attention that you desperately need
Hug into my
False intellectual façade


You want your name in lights
Rose-colored perception
Of a overused typecast
Your sadness poetic and bottomless
Caught in the flight
Spotlight
That you cannot bear
Insipid perpetuity
Whining and moaning and whining
Life in hard and it is not fair
I’ve seen it all before


But should I sit
Put myself high on a pedestal
Satisfied with my own scholarly ruse
What I lack in qualifications
I make up in apathy
You wear a different coat
You messy attention grabbing
Poetically distraught
Attracted to the next sparkly thing
That will make you more interesting
You magpie, you lemming, you
I will hold your hand if you hold mine