A child stooped low and picked up a stone
About yay big, with a rounded edge
He could find no reason to put it in his pocket
So he jumped to his feet instead.

The boy’s eyes narrowed as he thought of this stone
About yay big, with a soft smooth face
He could find no reason to keep it in his hand
So drew back his arm and aimed.

His thumb and forefinger curled around the stone
About yay big, and obsidian black
He could find no reason to wait any longer
And his arm sprung like a steel trap.

The youth caught his balance as on went the stone
About yay big, with a glistening sheen
It skipped once, twice, and it lost momentum
Disappearing in the ripples of the stream.

So are the thoughts of aging men
Holding dreams in the palms of their hands
They cast their stones along the surface of time
And spend their lives trying to find them again.

Last night your bedroom was tattoo-parlor-red…

You were a relentless *** machine
and your Alex Esguerra painting was knocked from the wall
during our rough housing. I found it
broken behind the bed
when I was looking for my second sock…
the other sock was still in my hand when I woke.

I love the way you always fall asleep diagonally
across the bed, so that
I lie awake, contorted and trying to figure out a way
to fit comfortably and proportionally
into your sprawling unconsciousness.

Yesterday, I loved your morning countenance;
void of expression
as you looked down your nose at the coffee press.
Your upper lip rested heavily on the lower, which seemed
immovable, that I’m not sure it will ever change.
It was too tired to be a pout and
I couldn’t look away –
so I must have loved it.

In the throws of passion last night,
you moaned that I made you sick to your stomach. I asked
if it was because I was too far inside you. You said,
“you’re always too far inside me.
That’s why you make me sick.”
And then you came and
rolled off of me.

I woke with only one leg in my jeans,
my mouth was coated with body paint,
and my chest was clawed into military ranks
by your flesh filled nails.

My other leg was propped on top
of an old pine blanket box at the foot of your bed
and my right arm was folded behind me
and numb. So I threw a sweatshirt over my shoulder –
I think it belonged to your old boyfriend, the one
you made the Esguerra painting with –
and I walked out of your flat leaving the door open.
Your cat slipped out behind me and
followed me downstairs to the sidewalk.
I didn’t care.

I sat blankly staring at Sweet’N Low packets
under a newspaper rack at the coffee shop on the corner,
holding my mug for what seemed like
an eternity of suspended animation –
the grip on it’s handle was the only thing
that connected me to the planet.

My eyes held that same lack of expression as yours did, but
my lips were parted so that air could
flow freely in and out if it
became necessary.

Sitting lost in state, it occurred me, that
I deeply and authentically affect you
and it has nothing to do with *******.

Your boyfriend’s sweatshirt was a size too big for me
and I could tell he wore Creed –
I saw a bottle of it on the toilet tank. It’s redolence
clashed with the aroma of roasting coffee and
I was startled from stasis.

So I left, walking out to a cacophonous city, where
the sun had just exploded over the horizon,
and I smiled into its blinding brilliance.
As the door squeaked closed behind me to a snap,
I looked to the right for a moment,
then turned left.
I had no idea where I was walking to and started
blithely swinging my arms
as I accelerated my gait.

I still had my sock in my hand.
And your cat is probably dead.

These days, the “sell by” date
dictates the menu for my morning meal.
The next torpedo through the torpor
will be the sound of last nights unfinished dinner
scraped into the centrifuge of my garbage disposal;
separating hardened gruel into densities of curiosity.

The absinthe must have done our cooking
as I’m not familiar with the remains
and I can’t even boil water.

Damning the torpedoes
I ponder my death
and my whirring mind,
as it spins apart the densities of a girl
still passed out in the crevices of my couch,
spun-out shards of cold, pungent, pulp.

I need something for the pain
... instructions on the label read,
               “take two pills on an empty soul and
                 call your publisher in the morning.”

Writing on an empty stomach
only exacerbates this unfulfilled addiction.
My motivation is a hope that one day
I’ll overdose on literary completion
and die quietly in the dawn
beside my “best use by” date.

Hopes we take into our sleep
Become the seeds of dreams to come;
Fears then, roots of nightmares.
Stir our hearts awake,
If you must
Wind gypsies crooning quixotic notes
Dappled like leopard in dandelion dust
Caught in the clatter of castanets
If poems were sheep, this one would be black
That one is black,
And that one is black.
Pupils leaping into pathos,
Without a splash,
That one is black, that one is black.
Somnolence, when ripples lull
Where all lambs go, when somnolent,
When somnolent.

A poem is a bird
in a gilded cage
a pining soul
on a weeping page.
Open the door
but still it stays
Close the door
and it flies away.

This love is going to **** me,
Each remembered kiss, a slice
to my heart, drawing rivers of words,
to exsanguinate on pages upon pages
of never-ending, ending.
Love bleeds like a sorrowful spring
and yet I keep defending, defending.

Tonight is a night to embrace the lover
to rattle our shells from our ocean's echo
and stir like soul winds wound
in contrapposto... An inhale cedes
In a sigh sweet staccato.

Within the offset sheets of folded rose skin
cured as parchment, pages to be opened
A torch cast shadows on the hearts wall
The rose is illuminated by and all
born from the light of creation.

Impregnated by dew, grape swells to a drop
to burst and roll down the blade
of the vintner's sword into the goblet
O tiny red ocean, O fermentation
release me now, the ransom is paid.

He said I've plucked many roses
from countless bushes
Placed them in fine crystal vases.
But you are a garden
and I, to die,
have been placed within you,
In placeless places.

This one catches flight on another's breeze
so many cross winds to the sea
This one leather, that one caramel
to be brindle, to be softened
Kun faya koon, kun faya koon
Be, so it is to be.

Oh God, I hate this distance,
that keeps my mouth watering.
Watering for Thee.

Some friends are like the leaves in fall.
From the verdant spring they unfurl
in their splendor and vibrancy.
In soft whisper and summer hiss,
they stage the hues of blossoms and ballads
and whistle birdsongs from hidden branches.

Elevating from their ecstatic state of equinox,
these satellites drift into the so-long’s of solstice,
and from hue to hubris, calling come hither,
lofty leaves dance and whirl and vault
in the Autumn air for new friends of fair,
who too will turn like bookish pages into pulp.

Fly from twig in twilight, oh friends,
fade to saffron, russet and rust
carmine to cobalt into forgotten pyres of time
Fall friends, fall into the dirt and dust,
For in the spring you shall route the roots
from which fresh leaves feed, unfold, and revel sublime.