My brow furrowed as she read my palm
and whispered of growing interest.
"What?" I asked; I had my qualms
about the foretelling of a future
I haven't decided to live.
But I smell the darkness in the incense.

I trace the tendrils of the incense
with forehead firmly within my palm.
The streets below are live
with persons of little interest,
hustling toward a fuller future.
Renew me, my qualms.

Not that I had qualms,
banana-flavored incense
replacing patois in my future.
The lurid waves slide over my palm.
instill a touch of colder interest.
With each sandy step, I live.

And as the water fills my shoes, I live.
When I quietly lose interest
the ocean shows it too has qualms.
The brine coalesces like incense
as my nails dig into the skin of my palm.
For I seek a better future

than the unforgiving future
that chose not to live.
The salt stings the holes in my palm
and instantly I have no qualms,
just a lingering fleck of incense
arousing mild interest.

The ocean betrayed not the slightest interest
being the shepherd of my future.
Rivulets of water became the incense
That I would breathe to live.
Instinct expressed fervent qualms,
as I pressed my mouth with my open palm.

It was the incense in which I held the most interest.
Her finger traced my palm, mumbling of a better future
ahead for me to live, free from petty qualms.

Too much to drink,
now you need a lawyer
or a wife to beat.

Now you're in it deep,
can't you adjust?
Just tolerate the heat.

It'll all soon be done,
then you won't need to worry
about not having any fun.

You woke up in the gutter,
thank god you did.
Your smile makes my heart flutter.

You came home late, it's early.
Don't tell me I fret too much
when I try to drive you to Hurley.

You'll never get older,
you'll never never change.
Sometimes it seems you'll only get colder.

That's why you wear the
silly fur hat with that
long plaid underwear.

Yes, it's cold in here.
Your feet are wet from snow
because you walked to the pier.

I don't know, why don't you just
jump in and sink into the inky
depths if you must?

One can save only so much of you
before the rest of you becomes
too empty to keep on.

I heard someone whisper "he's such an arrogant *****" as I entered.
Those crooked sons of ******* don't have any idea,
I'm the kind you hardly ever come across except in winters,
when all the street rats are begging for heat.
I command attention at the head of the table,
I am the head of the table,
and sever the head to **** the municipal body.
The wigs and robes and gavels I accessorize command it too.
When I sign things I do it haughtily,
I carefully etch each and every ******* letter onto writs of demand.

I stand!
A hush lingers,
I catch the eyes of Walter Weiss, he lies with every breath
and did you know he is unfaithful to his wife? I heard.
the shudders are shut, my druthers. Oh, Walter!
notarize my forms of annexation, please.
and take down this:
To whom it may concern:

You have 7 days to remove yourself from the premises
as you are aware of the edict that preexists
and preempts your residence
and your squalor misrepresents
your laziness.
Signed: The holding powers, in eminence.

Oh Walter Weiss, address it to yourself!
I pride myself on tact.
And package with the writ this evidence form
sent to my office following a secret examination
conducted by the Department of Residential Safety and Heath.

Do not bother me with demoralizations, Walter!
Due to discourse with the Act of Discontinuation,
(which of course is subject to broad generalizations)
the lien sector of the Savings and Loan Association
have concluded you are found in violation of, through reasoning by generalization,
failing to pay duties on your mortgage issued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Oh, Walter, how distressing!
Don't falter, acquiescing
is always the way.
Just never, ever forget to pay.

I.
My eyes are heavy in my head,
or more accurately, my lids,
but my mind is running figure-eights,
thoroughly, like fits,
and at the cross of the eight,
the little pinch, the skinny waist,
one point manifests itself to every sense,
sight, touch, smell, sound, and taste.

This one point dares consume me,
my skin condusive, tinder,
and my blood begins to boil,
and reason have I devouring to hinder?

I don't think so.
If not for the advancement of theory to fact,
for what does a man live?

Everything else is merely cobblestones
along a bridge, civility, politik, tact.
Ignore the brightened
neon agitprop I say,
and carry yourselves headlong.
Nothing else have we
on which to agree,
but on the idea to think,
this alone elevates us above
the throngs of simians,
gibbering like themselves.

Gideon himself believed in thought,
believed in product placement as well,
and with simple words this world
has onto it been wrought
with sorrow and beauty,
but of course, hell hath no fury
like an illiterate with a Bible.

II.
You might as well give her a brick,
one cannot force an entry with a book.
Nor will she, however,
understand that blatant libel,
but it's irrelevant,
as this is the last place
I'd expect her to look.

She, indubitably,
is she of good fortune,
or rather good misfortune,
or rather than rather she
of a wheel of fortune,
a wheel that seems to have
finally
stopped
spinning.

I fear now she is a victim
among victims,
perpetrated against by they
whom she had once before wronged,
and if they were arsonists,
they'd be ******' torchin',
and she certainly wouldn't be grinning.

If she has wounds,
and I'm sure she does,
or will soon get them,
she better get licking them,
because she's about to rub up
against those pillars of salt
she created looking back.

A funny thing about those pillars,
and I'm sure it's common knowledge,
they were once your friends.

Sure, I see a few tears aflowing,
but I'm **** sure its the salt in the eyes.

This carnal kernel of misogynistic
jibba-jabba came to my attention,
my attention, not because I cared too much,
but because of plain 'ol curiousity.
You see, want, and you shall recieve.
Ask, and you shall ******'
find the **** out.
Simple as that.
Now, following that logic,
and I try to do so with furiousity,
even a mental gimp'll
come to a reasonable conclusion eventually.

III.
Conflicting sides.
One can discover the truth sensually.
I believe that the ability to perceive
people's emotions is as great a gift as any.
And of course that means
one can decipher motive.
Who has motive?
Ah, to know that,
you know the perpetrator.
I discover motive sensually,
and the trail for the contractual
assailant has been had,
the jury has deliberated,
and they find GUILTY!
Oh dear lord!
Can it be true?
Yes,
and based on prior history,
it ought not come as much surprise.
One thing left to deside, of course.

The sentence.

There were two balloons
and a vinyl kite wedged
in the branches of the lemon tree
and I ate a sandwich
with cheddar cheese
and watched a little girl
cry.

She was sweet, weak, sad,
she had a lemon scented sigh.
I imagined how and why
and when she would stop
to dry her eyes.

But those tears that flowed
will wash away the tears
that flowed down yesterday.
It eased the weight of thought
off my mind and rent
the lemons from their
rinds.

And each new lemon seed
grew another lemon tree,
and each new lemon tree
grew fresh new lemons innumerable.
And each balloon and vinyl kite
that floated in the breeze were caught
and held for ransom for little girls' tears.

And each little girl with years
and years and years will be a little woman
that has no time for kites,
between the money spent
replacing them for
crying little girls.

An earthquake sev
ered the land from the
other land, disconn
ected the bridge from the
shore.

I felt the rumble in my glass,
saw the ripple in lady dacre's wine.
The quivers influenced the
nerve endings at the base of my spine,
and the dimmed lights flickered
almost imperceptibly.

I saw the faces of the lazybones
in the bar, the panic-

Most people survived.

Ha! and I had hopes
for a better ending.

Placing my hand on the window pane, I felt it knocking
outside, as the rain ****** buckets and washed my car.
Every few seconds, the sky was talking,
but I would never let it in.

I stepped down into a dour acceptance
and bought a moderately-priced raincoat.
The spitting sky would never cease
And I began to imagine which items I owned could float.

I wished I chose swimming lessons over piano,
but at least because of it I had one.
I figured it might become a useful raft
if indeed no one ever again sees the sun.

How much water can fit under the sky? I wondered,
and at what depth will my body finally rest?
I realized I hadn't the time to consider intangibles
or to issue to God any vague, indirect requests.

I pressed my forehead against the glass, just stop!
There was a moat between houses now,
with pets and telephone poles and trees as islands.
The chill of cataclysm began to freeze my brow.

Later on my roof wearing my raincoat I daydreamed
about the things I loved underneath the silvery-grey.
I waved to my neighbor and he sadly waved back,
and I held up my glass of wine and watched the world wash away.