What do you call a broken fortune cookie? A misfortune

horns squawk
   rainforest avenues
  
  exoskeleton
of cars
   arteries clogged
with unlovely   taxi cabs

fat  green  fruit
for sale
     five languages
merge into a knot
hisses    kiss    vowels
   kiwis apples pears

   black guys   basketball
debt rises like      blood pressure
stocks tumble
    but we walk
brogues clop on concrete

count  brick after  brick
sun cascades
   over roof slates
mind cracks in slabs

   (you say
Monroe      stood here)

   heat quivers
men are dominoes
suits    for the office
   a funeral

designer sneakers
   daddy paid for
pigtails   cheap thrills
  violet octagons
  on a stranger’s neck
(behind the closed doors)

today
I drink purple water
     aubergine lips
remind me
of a Tuscany Superb

   list the names
Houston   Charlton
Leroy   Sullivan
Perry   Cornelia
Dominick and Jane

(ladders lead
                away from me
                close to
you)

and back again

All I can recall from my
Treasured years of lonesome youth
Are broken pieces from scattered memories
Horrifying battles from paralyzing trials
Harrowing episodes from despair to joy and back again
With the aide of who(m)?
My shallow relationships,
Who came by from time to time
And when I showed my disapproval
They liked to forget of my consciousness and aspirations
And perhaps for convenience as well as comfort
The null friendships were expired tranquilly
(Though never inherently)
Still it’s perfidious to imply I was pure benevolence
The loneliness amassed till I acted upon whim only
Catering my impulsive nature
And ill-treating whoever dared lie in my way,
I think that as grown people we are monstrous as our young and ignorant progeny,
Yet the children of our race
Are not yet enlightened
To fraudulent, despicable lies
Intended to preserve the worst—
All of us.

As he walks blindly, the somnambulist
deep in his subconscious is awareness why it happens;
loveless nights prompts wanderings in darkness
he can't willfully stop this wild goose chase

Tyger Tyger. burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile His work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Hours taken by sea
butter sunshine gone
to a chalky lavender smudge

our feet made prints
in piles of freckles
skin tickled by heat

are you in my head
pirouetting
between dreams

or real as diamonds
(so you’d know
about kisses)

you filled hollowness
with petals
cups of lust

played
my fragile xylophone
like an expert

swapped it
for a piano
made it sing

you’re the pearl
on my palm
in a thunderstorm

my sweet speck
of dark magic
at sunrise

I pull away
for you to tug me
right back in again