(Sometimes I crackle,
like the sound of a pencil
        that you wanted to break
        to prove to yourself
        that sometimes it's okay to break a pencil

and I wish I could see
beyond the horizon of my own mind
        that glows with the simplest doubt
        and with the simplest fear;
        and so some wrinkles hide under other ones

disease and psychosis
are the best kind of blanket
        like the forts you made as a kid
        where you could hide and they'd find you
        but you could still not listen; if you wanted to)

Somewhere between
the night i kissed you
                in my bathrobe
and the current
              moments we find
              ourselves
crawling around in,

I fell in love with you.

Lovely.
Absolutely Lovely.

I aspire
            you achieve

We work well together,
yes?

I wish I could breathe
in free poetry
It'd make it easier
for me
to pick locks with
diamond corkscrews
and drown my veins
in the sea

I never chose to be
a prophet
Lucky for me that
I'm not
and I'm too busy
shooting dynamite
in an overcrowded
lot.

I don't believe in
Angels' rib-bones
or self obsessive
killer whales
I only picture
sonic-boom clouds
and some lucky
monkey tails

Hey there, kid
look in the mirror
You've got some gerber
on your face
"wipe it off
with my corset"
said the Queen in
all her grace

The knights abandoned
all their fresh blood
and the courtesy
of blades
for the sake of a single ruby
to be run through
by four spades

I hid my eyes
from the man
who covered himself
in tattoos
like a demonic
kind of blanket
and twisted letters
in a noose

All of my books are committing suicide
dive off the ends of my shelves
fall into oncoming traffic
pages ripped away by tire rubber
just as if they were hair

from the head of a trichotillomaniac

bandages from a burn victim's
rice paper skin
still wet and half-grafted
to dull pink gauze.

the sky speaks to me
jet trails
say: its going to be
ok

the small wisp clouds say: what a
terrible
waste
of a mind

the heavy ones say: set your feet
lean towards lake shores

the overcast says: where is my head,
when I cannot sleep

the rain says: come here
the snow says: lay down
the sun says: hang your shoulders from your neck and
laugh with the enemies of your lovers

sunset pulls at ivory, the moon hums
picking up every piece to put it back in the box
chides: you might as well have said so
each star whispers the name of each day
I have lived
its own name is the period at the end of the line

the deep hue says: hello
bending along the line of infinity to
meet the light hue
an exposition of uneven symmetry
it writes on me
a hand gentle on the head of a child:
where are you looking for
it says:
I am not as transparent as I seem when
I am pushed down into the earth by the night
it says: no,
here am I again, born again, in the dew
inhaled once more into heaven

to prove the boast,
sunrise spills out in a violin voice
climbing through a thousand different beginnings
extending from tree tops,
pulling civilization upright
with a breath of wind
it clears its voice

and speaks to me

to harsh consequence
and anxious sundays
and the feeling you get
right after you watch
a movie that wasn't made
with the end in mind.

some people breathe in when i breathe out
some people don't do that
some people have wrinkled smiles
i don't mind. i like it. kind of.

sometimes magenta is the best color
in the crayola box

so we sat there
wondering things like
"what does ******* smell like?"
and "who ate my chocolate eggs?"
and "are zebras racist?"

i didn't mind. i only start wars over black piano keys.

dead skin flaking off
the neighbors are fighting again
I can't hear what they're saying
beneath the music I listen to
feeling the chant of addiction
like loops like fruit
like an animal
killing another animal.
or a woman, waiting to hear the
                                                      opening
of a door:
walking out.

the lights are off
"it's because they're broken"
                                             you say
"they're not"

wrapped up
                     in blankets
in sheets                            in water

cut off my arms
                  my legs
and watch me swim.

prelude
wake up into crystalline air
can feel
the swaying trees pull up the body
waiting for dreams to run
wash
off

no one can imagine what the waker has seen
the glow of love through a pure heart like light lost in honey

-

I'm sorry for interrupting. I just have
Too much to
Say:

I know

You understand the way salt tastes on my tongue
I understand the way you sit in the middle of the universe
Right next to me
Poking holes into my skin
with which
to fill with words
Painting pictures like drawing bridges
Over these mile high canyons
Standing at every side

these* these words spread like openings into the ice
pride as you asked to see a face I had never before shown

Towers of words and I say
See things simpler
To myself
but already I see them as they are
Like the moon behind the cloud three nights ago
pulling at the edge of the sea

I moved to your gait
To gravitate towards feeling
Like moths
shimmering
The incoming tide
reaching for humanity




your silence takes a shape into mine
How could something so much like light be possessed?
How could you clasp to your bones, a wave that pulls eternally at the shore?
you make me think, I was thinking

I think he would have said
don't you see it has to be this way?

one         small         point                in the dark

How would it be,
otherwise.
Those angel’s hands shaped perfectly (as always they were)
on your neck

and you would have said you’re saying
pointing into the dark,
your weapon words stand so small next to your mortality
and
I love you with nothing

A man without a heart is
a gentle threat
A man without a heart
Lacks only what you hold in your hands

A slip into abstraction
How young we were how young
Yet how young were we?

afterword
stutters stilettos
sick skin sick
beautiful
letters
left this morning
while you were away in
mourning
silhouettes
cigarette shadows straining
shadow eyes
in this dim light
old
grammar
makes me ache
in between every line and I wish
you were more human I wish you were
less

Something in the way shapes take tonight
The lilt of cello bones
tastes of far reaching

I think the trees moved
reaching into the road
light pools
to put things into my head

I want to lay each sentence into lines
in the way that heart beats
thick and heavy
only to pick them up into my lungs
little devil hands little devils hands

to
lead me off the road

your eyes and
the night that I forgot to drive on the wrong side of the road
drifted slowly to meet the mud bank
anyway
gaze intent at my hands in the half light
Wrapped around roots like a farewell embrace
that moment of elongated suspension

like the last time they spoke

pause and breath
pulled in and pushed out
and
lift
For the first time since I was five
The rush falls away
there sits the world

goodb

--
*ye