I stalked into the brothel with
a cinnamon tongue
hot and ready to pierce.

The room tasted like child’s play
smooth banisters and
bunk beds and
upstairs, the double doors
locked where mom and dad slept.

Its not a love you feel
for the lump beneath the quilt
you just arrange it with your soles
kick it into place
until it no longer aches
or impedes your peaceful dream
until it no longer aches
or impedes your selfish, peaceful dream

assuaged and self-contained
without faces
without names
you can learn to share yourself
like a cactus shares its spines
you can stare right into cries for help
and tell yourself
you’re not powerful enough to do harm

And **** to hell the belle
that comes above the lace
looking as beautiful as she felt
but this time, with a face

eyes like submarine lights
uncovering this corner of deep id-rich sea
without which, otherwise,
I might be perfectly happy
To follow my hunger and
the little bright star
of some angler fish’s mottled lure
hungry like the man
into the monster’s
hungrier jaws

But empathy’s enough
a knowing glance
to give any monster pause
and to keep me from leaving there
without her on my arms.

I took this quilt lump
this time with a face
and told her in due time
I could learn to speak her name.

She clawed not to be stolen,
she had been once before
but in these rank and sweaty halls
between these ***** sheets
she knew what end she could expect
a luxury she would not have with me

Those double doors lay dormant
but soon they would erupt
and fury would fly out to find
like some low cattle thief
I had run off with a head of his herd

We slipped like stench out of the brothel, new gods within ourselves
picked a furnace of a day to hide and run
the sun was a lantern
to young old tourist moths
whose dead dust wings flipped like flora
into the Spanish fountains

we moved,
we found a hill that  stood alone
crowned with plastic turrets, that
someday would be sails in a landfill
but now they stood like great vats
for the mass to leave the masses
uncover their bare *****
and hide the fact that every
human tube takes the world
the living beauty
and turns it into truth

“Waste Not, Want Not”
“Waste None, Live None”


   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    .   .   .   .


Resting on this hill of waste
under the gorgeous sun
the brothel coughed out another face
this one with a gun

I knew him for the fear
that he put into my prize’s eyes
and the goat’s head grimace
the same that once convinced
my hot and cinnamon tongue
now flicking to pierce
the back of my teeth

And he chased after me

I know the love was true for it came second to self-preservation
When violence came upon me
I let the ***** go free
I did not see her as we ran
hunter and prey
through Mission walls
and old stone alleys

I couldn’t wish for better aim
not a bullet found my feet
nor did fatigue, but I turned to met him
in some lone canyon of a city
some conquistador’s old drag

And there was no exchange of eyes
No quick game of words
No businessman charade
No Humanity deserved

I flew upon him like a coyote
and danced with tooth and claw
and pulled out little threads of red from
his eyes and nose and jaw

till finally the apple bruised
a little flattened spot
just pushed upon his brain enough

and then I saw his face
as if it had been laid
at the bottom of a box
where some red soaked marbles
were thrown in and
shook and rolled across
like finger paints from little hands
if I could push mine into his skull
I’d bet his brain
his thoughts and plans
would feel just like Play-Doh

Then I called the elected gods of judgment
and told them that in the historic district
some boy lay dead at my hands

As I walked to my awaking
I saw her once again
blank with the eyes of a beaten retriever
back into the brothel
where she decides to stay
inside, where no one dies in plain sight