How can man create
by sight or thought or sound
the gentle Buddha's smile
but wear Christ's thorny crown?

For embrace or crucifixion
Do my arms spread wide
Do I live for peace,
or for peace, will I die?

Buddha smiles in agony
Christ suffers euphoric
And man himself then decides
What to **** and what to worship.

You are nothing
but cheap thrills
and a midnight laugh.
A half cigarette
and nothing new.

You make no promises
but a thousand excuses.

You can name all 50 states
and their capitols,
but you never learned how to love.

The water of your knowledge
is above a sieve of apathy
and I don't know if any
of the bits left are
worth anything at all.  

You are not who you say you are
but you are who I know you are,
and I am what I am
and that is an afterthought
after thoughts
not worth having.

somebody told me this kind of love
was alright.
it's just not the kind you make.
why burn cities down
when you can warm your hearth?
the winds of adventure gust
in the sails of a sinking ship
and do i pray for god to stop
or for a life raft
or do i drown either way?

When they ask me why I loved you,
I tell them I do not know.
How could I possibly tell them
Through word or thought or prose
The way your thumb grazed
The stitches of a leather steering wheel
The way it would graze over my breast
When we woke on foggy Saturday mornings.

What words would give merit
To the way I felt
When our eyes locked across a room.
Full of people we know very well
And people I don’t know at all.

It was in the moments
Your eyes opened for the first time each day
To a new beginning
And old problems.

It was the way you ran
Your hand through your hair
When you were angry
That I was angry
That you were angry.

It was the way you’d come
Strutting up the walk way
In the evening
Where I could barely see the silhouette
Of the man who would break my heart
A thousand times.

It was the way you put your shoes on
When you left me.
It was the way you buttoned your shirt
Before she would button it down.

I can’t tell them why I loved you.
They would never understand.

Calloused hands that give and take
Both to your detriment
That write and hold
Empty promises
I can’t tell whether
You’re grazing my cheek
Or wringing my neck.

The glass fogs cold from a muddy brew
Matching the sweat on your brow like morning dew

Falling into love and falling into routine
A waterlogged man seeking a mountain’s dream

Termites gnaw at the wood in my head
The chores, the anger, the existential dread.

A penny for your thoughts, a dime if you know me
A quarter for investment, a dollar for apathy.

A soul on fire
A-light,
A-glow.
Where fate tempts me
I dare not go.

A hand so warm,
Gentle,
Alive.
Tender embraces
welcome brisk goodbyes.

A skip in step,
flutter
in chest
I dare not hope
When I know best.

The air in the room is so palpable
I can sink my teeth in it
And roll it over my tongue
Like a cherry candy
Looking at the real world
Through yellow cellophane
That gives it just enough
of an unreal gloss to make me wonder.
And I realize I’m only older
When I’m not falling in love
Or having my heart broken
Because it feels the same after
5
10
20
23 years
And I wonder if I found the key
To eternal youth if not life
And if it’s any different
Then putting together a puzzle
And breaking it apart
Time after time for eternity.
I’ll live forever if I stay with you.
I feel each second on the spectrum
Of a wavelength
I feel us dip apart and pull right back
Closer and closer
As we feel each others’ frequency
Grow higher in pitch
My blood is turning to static
As we brush shoulders on the electron cloud
Only together in an instant, snapshot
Forever apart in the fluidity of time.
And I wonder if you’re making me better
Or if I found a new way to get sick.
You taste like lavender and ashes
And borrowed time
Subtle implications
And of the place I was yesteryear
And the places you’ll be when I’m gone.
And you’re fragrant with the scent
Of your old and future lovers.
And when your calloused finger
Taps my hip bone
Like the strum of an old bass
It is perfectly in tune
With the hum of my throat
And it’s vibration
Sad and sweet
and the most pleasant complication
I've ever encountered.

The words hang heavy
choking, a thick smog,
caught in our throats
while we stumble in fog.
the static is visual,
the answers are not.  
Uncertainty is clarity
when the soul starts to rot
The babble of birds
become songs of gods.
The creek still croaks
that man became fraud

We tried to meet
on a cosmic plane
and that is why I loved you.
Because we believed in
magic and conspiracies
yet you had the audacity
to believe soulmates,
were disingenuous
and phantoms were real.

Apollo always forces Diana to rest,
and she only shines with his permission.
Mistakes look brighter in the daylight
and in the rearview mirror.
The grass is wet as I dissipate into the night.
Guarded by the goddess
and discretion.
I sleepily drive back home,
because I'm no longer welcome
in yours.
Being a stranger
is all I wanted, after all.

trying to find the answer,
to the universe,
when it is not a question.

trying to find peace,
solace and purpose,
but finding distraction.

trying to love
the self-loathing
and bold narcissists

trying to find god
in the fine powder
of a street chemist.

trying to find comfort
in hard people,
but finding indifference.

trying to find words
out of turned backs
and stoic silence.

trying to find the way back
when I never
even departed.

trying to find courage
and finding only,
the faint-hearted.

trying to tell the truth
when someone only asked
for a dare.

trying to find a god,
who may or may not
even be there.

And although most days
I find myself deep
in sorrow and mourning,

I would not barter one second,
trade one moment,
for anything.

the day the keyboards came with no question marks
and grammar books grew one chapter shorter
and the 'w's dripped off language
and it all puddled to tar
to seal the cracks
of purpose
and of
man

Is this gossip or sweet nothings?
Our we sharing love or pleasantries?
A nickel for my aching soul,
a dime for who I pretend to be.

In armor so long stands the knight
there is no person underneath.
The looking glass and photographs
are who I pretend to be.

you are the ripple of a stream
you are a passing-by dream
you are the hum in my throat,
you are an after-**** smoke
you are the sweat in my bed
you are the noise in my head
you are the letters i write
you are the receding night
you are the smell of cologne
you are a king been dethroned.

I remember
Smoking a joint
On an abandoned road
At the end of August
Reading the map wrong
And getting lost with you.
The car never worked right
After taking the wrong road.
“I thought this was a freeway.”

I remember
Leaning back
For my first
Divine and mystical tour
And passing you the wand
That would take you there.

I remember
Shaking inside
When you first put
Your hand on my leg
Because it told me
Something was going on.

I remember reaching our destination
And never stopping.

I remember
The first time you used your key
To come home to me.

I remember
Conspiring
And perspiring
On summer evenings.

I remember
Dancing with you
At one in the morning
At a run-down club
And wondering in awe
Our natural rhythm
That was better than the music
And how glad I was
That you were mine.

I remember
The first time
I looked in your
Denim eyes
And my mind quietly whispered
“That’s my best friend.”

I  remember
When I was leaving
With tears in my eyes
Was the first time
You told me you loved me.

And I wonder if I was the only one there.

How dare you sing songs
When you don’t understand them?
And how dare you have dreams
That you never think of
And thoughts that you never plan for
And plans that you never dream about?
Where the mask ends and the skin begins
I’m not quite sure.
But have you ever felt as passionate
About anything
Or anyone,
As you do about your ******?
Have you ever put forth as much effort
Into your aspirations
As your ******?
Or is that all
There is
To you?

"If only, if only!"
The tired writer cries
"I was paid not in dollars,
but only in pride!
After all these years
I have come to find
That truly nothing is
as rare and finite
As the fickle currency
Of true, honest pride.
Some spend it quickly,
Some let it hide
Some people take it
From other folks' lives
You've watched it go
After believing a lie
You've seen it stolen
In the defeated man's sigh
Some people waste it,
And I don't know why.
I may not remember it,
But I'd rather die!
Than to do something as foolish
as to swallow my pride!"

I have found a reason to
Spite the freckles on his back
Like china speckled with mud
And I despise the way his
Eyes bore into me
Like an earthworm in loam
digging.
There’s nothing to find here.
His small mouth has a poignant humidity as
It makes its best attempt to consume me
Leaving slug-like trails in its wake
of devour
across my brittle shell.
I sling an arm across my eyes lazily
So I don’t have to see his hunger
But still smell his desperation
he pounds into me like
his sour *** will prove to me something.
His fingernails dig into my shoulders
And he’s trying to pull me inside of himself.
I cannot occupy you.
It is the only way he thinks
He can make me his
But I belong to nobody.
I endure encounters like
I endure watching clouds roll by
Softly on my back with no utterance.
You cannot rule me with your passion
Your wanting kisses and timid bites
Leave your mouth bitter
And alone.

The precipice of tense-held breaths
gives way to heated sighs and heaving chests
And long before dawn does break
the evening lingers, long in wait
A compass leads us, waterlogged
through obscure forest and cold damp fog
The needle spins with absurd grace
to each wobbling step and choice of fate
Every direction is pointed wrong
When you know the rhythm, heard the song.
And why use it on paths trodden well?
Seeking baubles and jewels and bridal veils.
Walking in circles, for hours it seems
over crushed velvet and heated dreams
The determination of a scholar, wild
Wasted on the ambitions of willful child
The crystal ball need not be
a window to the future foreseen
For one can simply turn around
to see the future, all lain out.

Your sleeping breath sounded
Like the whistling
Of a crisp and frigid wind
And it’s howls between
The narrow and somber buildings
In a slumbering winter city
Whose chatter is smothered
Beneath a gentle and bitter
January snow.

The newspaper read
"the war has been won"
The woman felt dead,
and told her ghost son.
Together they laughed,
And totaled the costs
The battle had passed,
but really, who lost?

wine spill on a carpet
cigarette burn on a car seat
rings on a coffee table
crumbs on a stove
jelly fingerprint
toothpaste spittle
sauce dribble
nicotine stain
**** pants

we are just
a little accident
someone is waiting to
clean up
insignificant yet
troublesome.

What we ******
Through tongue and teeth
Weaves the truth of reality
And what we say, comes to be
But never with any certainty.
If you change what you speak
What you are, will cease to be
What remains, a memory
Just the way, that you believe.

I quiver behind
a benzo escutcheon.
Sick of a delicate nature
and riddled with
gentle constitution.
I laugh at the cat that scatters
'til I see it's me.
I numb loud doubts
to soft murmurs
and partake in the marketing scheme
of the terminally unhappy
in grimy hollers of the ******.
Our awareness for sale
seeking happy days at happy hours.
Brown glass cuts my lip
and teeth
as I suckle like a newborn babe
at a maternal **** so I grow
big and strong and brave.
I hope it makes you as uncomfortable
as it makes me.
I chew my pen like a cigarette filter
and wonder which of my emotions
I will exploit for art today.
There are so many words for fear,
and how can I show you something
when I don't know anything
at all.

YOUR NAME IS IN MY HANDWRITING
I have made the image of you,
I took it and made it mine own.
Your essence filtered through my view
Your old scent, but not your cologne.
I never liked the way you wrote.
Heavy heathen handwriting
Hedonist mind through spoken quote,
That will leave the body writhing
And render the soul in shivers,
Out of fear or love I don’t know
My lip continues to quiver.
And then you strike the final blow.
I find myself brought to my knees,
Though my posture is of prayer,
The cross is barren and empty,
And I find you no longer there.