I don’t like the smell of rain

but the dust pushed out of place into

the floating space between dirt and mud

is nostalgia to my nose the way

a candle is different lit and not

and when it’s gone

when I have to buy a new one

the name on the side’s smudged

I can’t find the light switches

harp and round edges of frames make

hard thumps

bumps in your chest that fall

into your stomach balling-up

as you might in a woman’s four-lettered

sphere of a gut

which opens my barren

heart to the other

the house I built on stilts in the shore still

sways in the evening tide and waves

in an eroding fray on even the brightest day

we will sink and be cast out in a dying

hand always dealt

a home becomes planks and pieces to

shards splinter through seasons and seasons

with my bones as flesh gives to the flaying blade of decay

dark is vast and free but to be lost in eternity

as my home in the sea is where a marked skeleton

with lost teeth wrote glory in the sands once

uncovered from burial in my plea

to the ocean

the twinkle in the eyes of pretty women on my walk

to class talk to me in screams  as they gleam

in the shining

Sun reflecting climbing home to

the dome of not-so-old poets with a deep longing

but will never show it for fear of convention

though that's pretty cynical because who gives a **** about it

anyway

I always felt inadequate around her

she tickled a piano like a child

composing a beautiful laughter in the winded chest

of a string instrument with no agenda

these are the times that I’m grateful for huge siblings that see everything

global surveillance

for these chance moments that are only ever recreated

in scripts mandated to what we wish for

reeling in net-fulls of the hopeless that

though have had their hopes tested are unmoved

their hearts caressed and back-rubbed out of

the misery of a reality that is only so if it an be seen on a screen

who’s Eden stands in the clay of a dream

we were all gathered

around lathered in nervous sweats

not of uncleanliness but distress from

the site of this girl passed out on the floor

of the front porch or stage to the parked cars

and pedestrians with deranged hands politely pointing

elbows bent and necks curled to their chests

otters with oysters the meat

of gossip hidden within a hard wall of backs

their ‘is she okay’ rocks rapping like gunshots

and I thought about how odd it was that I’s

find their way into statements of them and you

their slender bodies sliding in with the same quiet

that renders letters silent

the names of all the things here

were given post creation

a redaction full of contents unrelated

a conflated epithet

brightly shining atop screaming

gleaming

see me

understand what I'm trying to mean

in my leaning italics

referential and meaningful with research

as I lurch into your interest

ringing