They hang limply from the walls as
Old friend DECAY settles
Suburbia Mexicana neons and
Obscene jabs in raspberry
Demonizing the scalp of an 18th cake
The lipstick is not dark enough to
Carry a meaning here

No scent lingers as the calendar turns
Another year burnt to death as
We move further away from coincidence
And desperately memorize the lines of a
Modern work, every brushstroke an intellectual
Marvel so if we stare enough it will enfold on
Itself to glass

Guten morgen, Herr Schicksal!
Would you be so kind as to
Dissolve the peppermint stench
And leave the shower on?
I may see a reflection through the
Steam and like it more than yours
I never much liked chloroform or
Frosted roses

Settle on with
Delusions of Poland
And lazy eye tangos
With naked melodies re-vamped
By a 21st century greaser
Please don’t leave
Hail to Canon, brute of mine!

One day, I will be fortunate enough
To sing the body electric in my own notes
And wail for the best minds of my generation in my own alley
And feel a connection to Sylvia beyond a page
Without the pain of Poe
And the forest-mindedness of Thoreau
My path of syllables
Excerpt from a song
Will bombard the bestseller shelves
And leave twenty people
Huddled in candlelight to hear as
The Chosen One reads my manuscript
From a ribbon-bound mass
And my verses are muttered between “intellectuals”
The same way no one has ever read Howl
Leaving a thirsty one
Or two
Flipping through the aimless last pages
Taunting ad finem
And an early morning critic
Trepanned

Please, to whomever is holding this
Don’t be concerned
In angst-prime
I am spurred from deceit
Of hours spent under a fluorescent glow
And transcribed by way of indigo
Am I here to lament a fallen future that my producer is so keen on?
Here to recite a limerick, cheekily rhyming and miraculously
Drawing a purpose
Or a haiku from an oddly Western mind
Who has no more drank words than the bearer has put mind to metaphysics
And finds terza rima obscene
Latin is rotting and Greek in isolation
I feel I have little purpose on this page
Besides reaching out a naïve hand
And wishing with all my might
That someone will reach back

My Everything
I peer through
And over the ledge
To feel a world
That I cannot grasp
But I can feel just fine
I reach out
And extend my palm
To feel the delicateness
Of the atmosphere
And I greedily **** in
This new sweet air
I move over the ledge
Without exposing my covered eyes
Unmarred by my own delusions
Or apprehension
With a euphoria
Of an indescribable
Addicting feeling
That I am sure
Can only be known here
I feel weightless
And completely unbound
As I step off
The ledge to see a new
Existence below me
Enveloped in this sweetness
Somewhere between
This dimension
And the next
I welcome the foreign
Ticking? Tapping?
Feeling
On my pores
And savor the nectarous
Ringing sound of
Something not unlike bells
And only then do I
Know that it
Is safe to
Open my eyes and
Drink in my
True home
I do not know
Or care where
This world is
I only know
And care
That it is
My
Everything