My eyes are not celestial suns of light
But pools reflecting woods mossed green and brown.
The common lip not coral like by sight
But pale as mine, and pink-soft as a gown.
If ******* be white, no woman’s wheat compares.
And women who place roses in fair cheeks
Win heavenly false prize of golden hairs.
My breath, like all who path to heaven seek,
Resembles no scent floral nor my sound
An avian tune rather my words be sweet.
‘Tis true my feet do grace the common ground
Though none I know descended to our heat.
    I think my beauty worthy yet and rare
    To covet not mock by poets unfair.

What was her name?
****, I can’t remember.

It was a boy’s name
made feminine
with a little “i” at the end
like maybe hearing it would
make you think of
some fat guy making pizzas
until you see it
spelled out or
until it becomes attached
to her lips and hair and
skin.
The “i” was not dotted
with a little heart,
(not her style at all) but
I should have a picture
in a box some where with more pictures.
I don’t.

I’ve got little notes,
tiny thoughts scribbled
on empty match book covers,
on the backs of
pretentious
business cards,
in the borders of
the mutilated,
amputated flesh
of decrepit
used up yellow pages,  
ripped from a dead and
disjointed phone book.

I woke up from this dream
and groped for something
to scrawl on,
anything,
because it seemed significant
at 2:38 am.

In the desert somewhere,
(I’ve never even been)
you were
looking out the window
and the way the parched
dry light crackled
around you
you might have been an angel
or a sign
partially occluded by glass
advertising something
I could never afford
like family or god
when suddenly you were not
a silhouette,
not back lit,
but glowing.

You were so in love, with
who I don’t know, and you
went into free fall
back
onto the bed
pulled your knees up
to your chest and
kicked your legs giggling.
I was part dead, half ghost
and still happy that you
were so happy.
I said, “you’re pregnant?”
knowing the way you
know things without
really having a way
of knowing
in a dream.

You laughed again
grabbed your little dog up
in your arms,
(I’ve no idea where the pup
came from), and baby-whispered,
“You’re going to cut
the umbilical,
aren’t you?”

and I woke with
the image of that mongrel
chewing through
the cord.

I am
waiting at the pharmacy
and the…
technician,
is reading the
cryptic symbols
penned in
indiscernible Latin,
my prescription.
She is not beautiful
but very fuckable
And in my mind
I am constructing an
image of her ******,
likening  
the shape,
size, color, etc.,
to her mouth,
when I see
my own writing on
the back
through her precise
fingers.

The tech,  
she is holding a
snapshot of her.
It might as well be
a picture of me
vomiting or
******* or
defecating.
This
is what I have left,
my version of a photo,
my dream,
scrawled on the back
of my medicine.

**** getting better.  
I ****** it from her hand.

I leave fast.  I will
never go back.
This is no chemical imbalance.
This is not my inheritance.
The loss and pain, sometimes,
that's the pill we need to swallow.

Her long brown hair hung
occluding forty-seven percent of her face
and her one eye
looked a little manic.

It was slow and sweet
for a while
but she had been
gradually gaining momentum.

I am watching her
carefully and
waiting, really
for that moment.

Suddenly she stops.

She raises her hands up
clenched.
It looks like she is going to
pull her own hair
and then her right fist
slams into my ribs
followed by a left
and a right and a left.
A barrage of little hurts
pouring out
machine gun frenzied.

She digs her nails into my chest,
her mouth is twisted,
her teeth clenched,
I can see muscles
in one jaw line twitch.
More hair falls over her
Countenance.
Her hips move furious  

and then
Sensuous wails of red light,
screams of sumptuous green,
bright yellow trembling,
and electric blue rippling
like bright neon

She cools and dims
she collapses
into me
sobbing
and I can feel
salty wet
itchy dripping down my skin

I cry too
never having seen someone
this...



Michael L Sutter

If only


we could start off with

some horrific argument,

the emotion subsiding.

We would curse less and less.

Words would fall back into our mouths.



Nothing to be forgiven or

forgotten

because it never quite happen.

We would hold each other

comforting hurts that

would always undo themselves.



Each kiss would make us

a little more giddy and

every day

you really would look

a little more pretty.



The way we touch

would be a sort of

un-touching

that would redefine anticipation

Every ****** intensifying,

escalating into that first feel,

first taste,

first breath of breathing



and then

finally

we would

walk backwards,

away from us,

it would feel

like we were

approaching something though,

like we might

care for one another

one day.

We would go away dreaming

the parts

we hadn’t quite discovered

before losing sight of one another

without any of the hurt or

remorse.



We would still be perfect somehow.

Loving in reverse
instead of backwards.


Michael L Sutter

A spider in it's web,

is a mistress

of a myriad things:

for instance,

a five finger exercise,

or a full bare breast on which,

a hand is tenderly spread.

On canvas space,

spider forms evoke layers of

meanings.Imagine this:

from secret holes of

moonlit camphor trees,

come out love-lorn female spiders

wanderers of dark nooks,

enticing perfect mates.

The deceptive calm

in them is the most

dangerous precept,

if you know the spider

the way you should.


I watch her sitting on the floor

at the far end of

the poorly lit room where

a group is in it's

usual squabbling

she is bored, still aroused

no one else,  and she

looks at my lips

The spider web

is a sign language she

communicates:

she playfully points her finger

down between her legs.

Curious, I strain my eyes

in the oily yellow light,

see the phantom of a spider:

dark, sinister with a gleaming eye.
                    OOO