i skim the cautionary sign on the wall,
trace the worn, beige corners
of stained, manmade words
with the paint-stained pads
of my fingertips.

the words remind me of how
we want to imprint everything--
silent objects, the cold copper posts
on roadends
they tell you not to question
the autonomous compass
that borrows
inside the souls
of your feet.

who writes the manuscripts for walls?
the dramatic monologues of inanimate objects
my walls of celery speak for themselves:
*this house is powered by tacos.

seductive decay

on summer days we
rode down the river in our ripe age,
careless if the rapids swept us
into their deadly dustpans,
the black hole of water,
the possibility aroused us,
perhaps because it seemed so far away.

and next to the river,
the appalachian townsfolk wandered the deep grass, they
gathered here to see the circling folding-tables,
buy the spread of goods,
the goods are masks.
the masks are of old folks’ faces,
cartoon-like, goofy comic characters in the funny pages.
masks of rubbered wrinkles, permanent,
bulging eyes, whiskered ears that never stop growing, with
an elastic band, you can become an elder.

old age attracts the crowds,
i have a fascination with it myself,
picturing all the stories that have
taken elders to the present,
it’s hard to fake being wise
when you’re forced to think for years.

nightmare

in evening suburbia,
a ****-stained moon huddles overhead like a cautious mother
to guide rows & rows of carbon copy homes.
the moon’s glare stains the sky unsettling hues,
the air is like a blanket of bristles.

i am on the street, dry calloused soles
brush chrome cement.
i let my ponytail fall free, and feel hidden, pounding
streams of eyes, i’m uneasy like the moon.

as i pass an empty lot, the lot that is animated
with a rainbow of ripe fruits
on Saturday’s market, now grey and aching.
a soft murmur grows, closer,
i half-expect a wild fox to pass by,
but see Ania’s forested Suburu swarm
in to scoop me, her window lowers and i see her eyes,
held wide with fear settled in the irises, as if piranhas are secretly
gnawing her legs there, its not funny.
come quick, she squeals at me as I jump inside
onto the milky mildew upholstery, she
never stops driving,
(omit?: we are escaping some sort of madness.)

back on the street, a man expands, shapes
into a monstrous teradacytl like an Anamorphics novel
he chases us, I feel his pull from behind,
inside a dark matter,
as he rides atop a pickup truck and I am
latched to the back of the Suburu, surrendering.
the beast sprays this magical mist that
makes me feel like melting, like after a hit of a heavy ******,
that sweet, dark, ethereal pull,
like a lovestruck teen on an apathy ride,
i become a useless solider.

the next scene happens in the kitchen of an uninfected family,
their pink lips warn us of grandmothers that wander into homes
with five-dollar bills, they ask you to take them to the theater--
but if you even gently caress the bill, they will become monstrous,
their white hair dissipating into scaly skin, the demonic eyes
won’t leave your memory.


they are innocent masks, similar to the stray streetcats
who shift shapes, turn
to bloodthirsty pedestrians.

perhaps suburban ***** birth tiny monsters:
the after-effects of the danger, the distortion of
finding comfort in apathy.

renderings of love on a tuesday:

“the overall effect, the result of looking and looking into its brimming surface as long as I could look, is love, by which I mean a sense of tenderness toward experience, of being held within an intimacy with the things of the world”-mark doty

“love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within”-james baldwin

“my notion of love…is very closely related to the blues. there’s always somebody leaving somebody, and there’s never any vengeance, any bitterness…”-toni morrison


service without limits,
unforeseen respect

reaching in to seize my heart from my chest
handing it over to my daughter, sophia
absorbed through soft, gentle palms ‘til her womb plays the role of God,
and molds a new heart to this earth, births a new love

the picture of tangled, honeyed thighs,
skin crinkled and peppered with spots made of stories
soft cackles singing in an otherwise quiet room
they never will grow mold.

The Fall in Eden

I found Eden after treading water in the middle of a stream,
alone far, from my home,
Above me, unfamiliar willows frame the way, I almost
swam to the land, I almost
didn’t cross the rapids,
the high rapids that grooved at a lazy river’s pace, someone
painted the water a pale cerulean blue
with white foam trapped in slow circles
after the fall, like soda fizz or gurgled mouthwash
stranded in a washing machine.

On the other side of the rock drop,
a vast sea of still water waited for me,
with calm bodies of people celebrating the blue,
their arms dancing, their laughter silenced by the fall.
all our eyes ascended to see the mystic monster
who towered us by hundreds of feet,
with every inhale, a new stream was born.
its mist softened my skin as it touched my face,
the sun behind it gave golden light
to this hidden, hypnotizing bath
the bath that could wash away my thoughts.

I drink the blue and it is the first sip after a night of heavy drinking,
after that moment when you spot the top of the Sam’s **** after the climb,
after a fast dance with a new stranger,  
communion.

If I could go back to this place of wet wonder,
I would do anything just to die.

aesthetics

by the Pigeon River in Tennessee,
we pass the day wading in the water in blowup tubes
we are snakes who creep inside kayaks of foreigners
who paddle backwards, already wobbling back and forth, just
asking to be pushed.

in the night our bodies turn, our minds enter their fantastical realm
of distant narratives in our small wooden rooms
with creaky doors, walls with bold purple paint, once
with a putrid air of a dead rodent disguised as a bag of
rotten potatoes that summoned the love interest, aroused
pools of fast squealing maggots-- such
a delicious cleanup that was.

while we ride the river in our ripe age,
county people gather in our yard.
they came to view the spread, the looping tables
that hold masks, masks of old faces
like those elder cartoons in the funny pages,
their rubbered wrinkles and elastic earbands attract the crowds
who desire, who urge to look old
just to mask the appearance of being wise.

hops on the other side of the barbed wire
seizes the girl’s sad stare
         the girl who is watched by her mother
           dressed by her mother
           taught what to say by the mother
who stands thirty yards behind, in the empty field of sand
in a cherry-print dress, her black eyes scrunched like a squeeze-ball.

in the afternoon heat,
the kind of heat that makes a breath a marathon
the girl will stay with fists clamping the fence
with all the strength hidden behind her skeletal frame.
and she will wonder why
a feathered bird will travel farther than she.