Sagacity aside,
she scarcely suspected that
the strong, stimulating sillage
of her seductive scent
should stay since our sunset send-off,
sweeping me from stormy, sallow stress
into sunny, sanguine somnolence,
suddenly sundering the
strange, subconscious shell
that once surrounded this stray soul,
that once safely shielded it,
severed it.
Succumbing to the
sophisticated sorcery of her
svelte shape in the
sanctuary that is
supreme silence set under a
shimmering star-suffused sky,
I stared up
at the soaring silver sliver,
slowly sailing a serene sea of space,
shining shadows upon this
superbly secluded street scene,
where I
satisfyingly suffered
a symphony of sybaritic splendor:
the saturation of sweetly sung sounds
soldered to my psyche
by that superlative
(surely supernatural)
specimen.

The significance
of such a sensation was surprising:
some several seasons spent,
the setting still sneaks to the surface
of my spirit in settled solitude;
or sprouts spontaneously from the shallows
of stark, sensible, serious subjects;
or spills from my system storage
in those special stages
shortly before slipping into slumber.
Similar to a succulent,
sensitive scar whose scratch
shocks the senses
and swiftly steals sedulousness,
savoring the stretched span of those
several
spellbinding
seconds
last summer
shoots me into this
secret,
selfish
bliss,

to which I
sincerely
submit.

Apparently,
when someone else cleans your desk
they put your stuff in strange places
making it impossible to find anything.
   That sounds nice.
I need someone
to do that with
the part of me
that knows
   I'm going to die.
I'd be ok
not finding that
for a while.

why do people rely on
the word "love"
to describe complex
emotional states?
maybe it's because
they're in a rush
or have a
terrible vocabulary
or aren't capable of
paying attention
to how they
experience
things.

or maybe it's because a one-word
lie is easier to tell
themselves.

[Opening]
I play dark, she plays light
Her move toward me, a destined sign
I want her heart, I give her mine
But my gambit, she declines

[Middlegame]
Her pieces out, a closed defense
But I can tell, she means "yes"
My royal pin, she rejects
So I keep her, in constant check

[Endgame]
I had played the perfect game
My forcing moves she can't escape
But her hidden queen, comes into play
She stands her ground, stares me down, and states:

Checkmate

Looking down at terrestrial constellations
So many stories
So many beginnings, ends
So many people waiting for something to change, wishing they were somewhere else

I wish I could remember the sound of your voice

The night I struggled to understand
every line of "Ode to a Nightingale"

is the night I learned what poetry is,
is the night I learned what a human is,

is the night I wept for reasons
that are dif
ficult
to ar
tic
u
lat
e.

napping in the shade on a late summer afternoon;
noticing the breeze across my face;
listening as my ears intercept pulsing waves of lust bursting from the throats of my avian relatives;

dying, but my way.

the pieces that make up you
are going to spend most of their time
as something else.
does that make you jealous?

my heart
is a starving animal
throwing itself
at the bars
of my rib cage
aching to get a taste
of you

you spoke so highly of the
unique
charm
of your city. i went out tonight
to find it.

i didn’t find it.

your city is
the same
as all the others.

streetlamps,
licking
their yellow tongues
into every infected puddle
and street gutter
- the same.

the stench of homelessness,
pouncing
from blankets
huddled together in
bank doorways
- the same.

bus stop prostitutes,
scavenging
for a warm
place to
sleep
- the same.

vacuous chatter,
swarming
through the cracks of
another
bar
- the same.

hometown heroes,
snorting and grunting
over possession of a woman
in their own trojan war
alley brawl
- the same.

intoxicated lovers,
wooing each oth
er with there wooz
y may
ting dnace
- the same.

two a.m. loneliness,
limping
back
to
my
hotel
alone
- the same.

your city is
the same
as all the others.