When his familiars’ pounced
a little too roughly on the davenport,
the mysteries of the cosmos
flailed about as his soft,
satin bag took a tumble…
Citrine and agate tap-danced
under the bed, as quartz
whizzed wildly through the air
like a shooting star. Opal spun about
like a fiery pirouette, and amethyst –
finding it’s way on the windowsill,
bloomed a kaleidoscope of larkspur
in the sun.

she

(her 2am moods
were monotone
dialogue
on the receiver)

is at her loudest
in sepia photographs;
fake smiles,
like shotgun blast;
her shrapnel days
fall silently
in-between
cheap perfume
bottles on the
night-stand.
in the drawer is
every memento
she seldom mentions

(empty, jejune...
hushed
frustrations).

with each exhale,
her pillow fills with
crumpled words

(embellishment,
a waking hour's only
comfort...
an insomniac's
internal monologue).

snuffed out;

on her breath,
a smoke as white as lilies.
i cannot stay here for long
in this charnel house…
the temple that was once her is
shifting,
buckling,
seizing,
burning….
there’s flames licking at the
roof of her mouth.
every vein
reduced to a
nasty, crackling rubber.
every fizzle, every pop!
my nostrils fill
with bile.

my bloated fingers claw
at the charring husk
in her diaphragm....
this time
i cannot escape society’s
witch trial.

but I’m just buckshot
caught in a sonnet,
and there’s just too many
shotgun shells
in my diction.

There’s gangrene
in my carrion verses;
each word, a gaping
wound of its own
shrapnel design,
****-filled and leaking

through wrinkled
notebook paper.



A putrid smell instead of
cheap perfume lingers
on sealed envelopes, —
dried blood
in lieu of a wax seal...

waiting to be opened,
and pressed to a numb chest,

where the infection
can spread again,
and again.

i didn’t want their
endless white
with their
cold rooms,
and cold coats,
and cold pen-tips

i didn't want their
sunken IV bags that
resembled
Jesus Christ, or
Mother Theresa

i didn’t want the
pale noise
hammering about
inside my head...
i didn’t want it’s sterile
sadness
humming a lobotomy

Remember the days
when our soldiers were
bloated stars,
and we collapsed under the
weight of their misdeeds?

When the eons were multitudes
of bullet holes in our backs?

Betrayal outshined
loyalty in light-years…

In anatomy class I took notes for you,
while 3am still had it’s way with your bones.
While labeling the patella on a diagram,
I remembered your skinned knees from last Friday
and the way you tricked everyone into forgetting
that you ever had a favorite pair of jeans.
As I jotted down the word ‘femur,’ I imagined
your own shadow straddled over you in
an endless edge of streetlight and crooked blinds.
The way you shuddered each time the teacher said
the word ‘coccyx’ reminded me of the night
you lost your virginity in the back of the library, and the
fact that your ***** stamp was the only thing
that your ******* ex ever loved. A car engine
from somewhere near-by muffled your moans.
Remember how the classics romanticized them
back there? Remember how they also lamented
over the fact that you bombed your midterms?

For G. H.*

The secondhand smoke on your old hoodie
is tendrils of disembodied electricity
mercilessly carving through my diaphragm.
Somehow, I envision ivy climbing the side of an
abandoned house in unkempt droves of static veins…
My throat is cruel in the way that it seeks you,
like in the way squatters seek warmth behind boarded
doors that won’t easily open up.
If we ever kissed, I imagine them dwelling both of
our atriums and airways simultaneously,
and zero degree weather would use our breath
to leave crudely written IOU’s on the only
window still intact. I’d think an angry ghost would appear,
and remind us why we’re there in the first place.
Even then, I’d still like to believe
you’d give me a light all the same.

This silent sentinel haunted by time,
Unearthly screams and violent crimes!
Abandoned; decrypted, this barren womb.
In darkling corners, a petrified tomb,
Where unbidden echoes hammer at the walls
As the wraiths creep on their hollow foot-falls.

on silver she flies
this delicate
mother-of-pearls

moon adrift
during the daylight

she's luminous
like snow atop
auburn branches

or like pale petals
from the sky

an ethereal
daydream

fluttering
on a
warm breeze

The parched night-blooming cereus
aches for la lune’s silvery caress,
the same as I ache for the words
etched in secret codes on your tongue.

There’s a nightly symphony in your touch;
chamber music inspired by the hints
of heavy crimson within your lips;
velvet petals spreading before a rapture...

How I long to crush them to mine
with a sweet, savage brutality!
How I long to hear the angelic aria
of your moan.

With my cold hands,
I wash the sepulcher,
As the flaxen widow
Crudely set aside her
Floral wares.

In all black, she saunters
Along. There’s a tiny bell
That snickers in her petticoats,
As well as a pocket watch,
Unfamiliar with the folds
Of a silk handkerchief.

The stones were oddly
Quiet that day, but I do recall
An uneasy sermon…
The Earth wailed to me
In the rain, and I became
Inebriated by petrichor, and a
Light sneeze…

Her bony hands fingered
The bell in her petticoats,
And the pocket watch fell
To her feet.
In silence, she knelt
To retrieve her late husband’s
True love; how he loathed
To waste his waking hours!

I set adrift a funeral pyre
once. There was blood
on the waves for days after that,
and the sun seemed to cringe
whenever their reds
touched…
The stories were once beautiful,
like old letters bound together
by a scarlet ribbon.
Faded pink stationary, –
a redolent salt and Clair de Lune
mingling in the folds of a
paper cut…
The sea burned with fury
around them.
They were wayward bottles
filled with pearls,
and love notes so envied
by the her; they’d just never seem
to grow old with her.
She hated that, I suppose.
I would have too…
“You’re too far inland,”
some would say…
"Not even a lake for miles
to skip stones – not even a river
to lose a wedding ring too!"
I suppose the sea was my
only true love after that,
then I remembered that ghost
on the shoreline, –
salt falling freely from
his palms.

Apparently she was a mermaid;
there wedding was
to be a plastic Malibu affair.
Her dress, a bedazzled, gaudy
sarong with leis for a train, and coral
bits for the rings…

She said she was addicted to pearls, –
ate them like candy,
until about a year ago when they plucked
her from the ocean,
and gave her pills instead.

“Entertain her for a bit,” the other nurse said.
So I picked up the Ken doll,
and let Barbie buy another pet dolphin.

the house was painted
a soft hue. an old tobacco trap;
discolored white where
pictures once hung.
in the kitchen, grease stains,
faded bluebird wallpaper —
long since ceased it's song,
and one cast-iron skillet off to the side.
pale and forgotten,
the fine china shrieks!
my barefoot innocence
is lost as the cold-colored
porcelain eats at the floor.
sometimes when I lay there covered in
turpentine, stars usually topple
out of the cabinet,
and my gas stove aspirations are botched.
the sink drain moans with the silent
invectives of an impure saint…
her rosary still atop the mantle.

just outside, a stone angel
that smells of lilies, —
savagely eats rosebuds over
an autumn bonfire.
from time to time
her face is one of lament…
it follows me from room to room,
and my hands shake for hours
while holding little antique figurines
in a basket full of milkweed…
they’d tuck at the curtain,
their little music box voices
complain about her eyes...
they'd scurry up the ivy on the side of
the house to avoid her
disappointed glance…
there was a sad wingbeat as
I stepped out on the balcony to collect
them one last time.

according to King Nothing,
father’s day phone calls
are restricted…
i live in a world where
foot-rest make better supports,
and broken beer bottles fight
the most perverts away.
i’ve been homeless
three times, and "abortion"
was crudely drawn
on my forehead.
my love for
Frankenstein’s monster
knows no bounds.

the whole apartment
was gutted of its copper
two years after that.
the ‘first woman on Mars’
dream he had was sold for scrap;
threw out half of my books,
called me the reject.
a childhood tomb, raided…
the Queen was pleased.
she doesn’t believe in aliens,
and most stars are dead
according to light-years anyway.

at the desk,
a Cytherean lover,
with tobacco stains on his
fingertips —

his affinity for
parchment paper
soaked in bergamot
and sandalwood
left me alone
with the cosmos.

on an eclipse,
a cigar graced his lips…
my favorite trick was
the halos he blew around
the moon.

the constellations were
yellowing notes
by antique tapers
(“years and years,” the
telescope hums),
and the Scientist paints me
another Jovian lullaby.
coffee lives in Starry Night
because of him...

That familiar redolence
as I browse the bookshelf.

those days;
just like old television shows
on a retro box.
black and white, silent pictures
that make my head hurt.
whimsical musings tarnished;
a damaged Charlie Chaplin film—
a lifetime burning
on the **** projector
4 hours away in an Ohio Autumn.

these days;
a blue wool hat i wear in
90 degree weather,
always misplaced the first of
November,
and Hypothermia is the name
of my favorite child.
i dropped everything
to cradle it because
it’s insane how heavy an
August shadow can be,

and yes! i’m the red gloves
found under the bed
several months too late,
the drunken mess that got
thrown in the leaf pile
by the curb last year,
the 3am snowfall that everyone
******* about on facebook…

spring just isn’t the
same anymore,
and people still *******
about that too.

They’ve woven veils out of my halo again!”
the moon bellowed though its own smoke.
For a long time, there it sat with a grimace...
Another nightfall wasted.

There was a sort of wheezing…
you know?
A toothy whistle, even.
Sardonicism of an angry crescent, it seemed.

And the trees outside were clearly snickering.

******* about something,
I lazily recalled as I slept;
another nightly poem; another silly cosmic backdrop
for someone’s soul.

“Brilliance in passing!” the moon
once said to itself, or rather of itself, I suppose.

No remedy for the stars tonight…
so I decided to write about it all over again.

i.

you were petals i once
submerged —a fistful i let
go of under a foggy sea
when i was succumbing
to myself

you were the surface tension
screaming my name;
a diaphragm’s lullaby —
old thunder in the rain…

i’ve been fond of storms
ever since


ii.

no one told me
how slow clouds would be —
i would have held my
breath a bit longer…

charted constellations
a bit better before
i spoke of love in light-years

and there you were
on a shoreline,
carrying salt in your palms


iii

how many times
will I walk here, —
a wreckage of bramble
in my side?

“the sea is much too old,”
i heard someone say…

and the wind was salt
on my brain

it left a hole;
a stain,
and i felt a burning
behind my soggy
ribcage

can stars erode
in the tide?


iv.

night adorns it’s veil —
scallops tug at the lace

and i toss inky petals
in the sea

nocturne’s dreamboat
a dead man’s float; —
how i’ve internalized
my hatred for romance

“the sea is much too old,”
i heard someone say…

and i realized my
lungs could speak
for days about sunken
ships returning home


v.

i ignore a
distant moon  — inertia
rocking my cradle

but she stays there
all the same…

there’s stardust
on her breath — whiskey
on mine

“you’ve grown much too old,”
i heard her say…

so i closed my eyes,
and felt sand between
my toes for the first time

it will be eons before
i swim here again

Of drifting stardust and waning moon,
A distant voice sings an ethereal tune;
A spell of nocturne this voice recites
From the knowledge of an archaic rune:

"Hath wandered about vast nebulas aglow,
In auroras of energy only she couldst bestow.
This omnipotent child born of thine dark;
A galaxy of radiance deep within thy soul!

Awaken! For the moon, who departs into flight
Commands the Cosmos before thine veil of night!
Gathered her gems in the heavens and strikes
This Goddesses’ wand with a pale, silver light!"

in sticky drops
ink runs down my
paper skin
blood-flowers grew
as I wrote by the
windowsill

a gloomy Sunday
more tainted verse
up and down
there was a stinging
as I wrote
and a drenched earth
peered through
the foggy windowsill

wind caught the
curtain
petrichor rests on my
tongue
as rusted pain
sat atop the windowsill

Shadows scream
abandonment,
menace,
neglect,
deceit…

I miss their mouths,
hitting walls instead.

In this cracked bower of dusted morn,
Under crinkled leaves of cankered scorn,
Thine promise hath ruptured in purulent bliss;
Innards devoured with one poisoned kiss!
In death’s cruel grasp, spring bid adieu,
Such an ill-fate bestowed upon thee so soon!
Writhing in the pain from this soiled vow,
Revenge is waiting, won’t thy surrender now?

each time i
traced over a vein
a blush-pink stain
blooming

like every blemish
kissed in a dull light

it’s as if
everything you’ve ever
touched now had a line
going right
through it

lines
that only i could
see

it’s as if everything
we were became
meaningless

like crinkled petals
on a windowsill

like
every vein
i’ve longed to kiss
goodbye

drying up inside

dying of thirst
in a cracked vase

and
before the incision is
made there

between dizzy spells
and tears

i only hope
red roses grow

and run

far
far away

from here

The art of embellishing our skeletal
wraiths has matured so much from
merely just locking them away
in the closet.

The true beauty of deception
is to painfully merge them with
your soul, because there's a certain
grace in using the truth to tell a lie

all while embracing our demons.

In the nights that follow a
thousand waning faces,
I still can’t help but to find
my gaze locked on her
shining smile.

And even when the clouds
conspire to hide her away
from me, I can still feel
her silvery gaze
and her unfaltering
brilliance!

if storms appeared,
blowing down your foundations
with frenzied tempests…

if shadows stalked,
molesting every ill-fated dream
with unbidden darkness…

if hell arose,
choking the air from your lungs
with sulfur hands…

I just want you to know
that I
warranted it all.

because even
I couldn’t
reach through death
to love again

Lilies wilted
On** the windowsill
Vase cracked from age
Every memory still anew

A good friend of mine once said:
“I hope you get revenge someday.”

And even as I smiled,
I still found pain in wishing
things turned out differently.

a candle’s small flame;
a quiet star, flickering,
dimming in my sky.

many light-years were wasted.
wax melted; beacons in-vain.

Claret-stained kiss from maiden impure,
Cruel, burning pain, she craved more!
Hath taken my life from heaven’s eye,
Thy cankered night, in which I’ve died!

where the sun ceases to expose
all of the cracks of our shells

and just before the night
slowly engulfs the embers
we have left.

meet me
here…

I.
My maiden voyage
on these waters, unbidden;
blood flows out to sea.

II.
Winds conquer my sails,
skin peels away in the waves,
my diaphragm floods.

III.
Marooned bag of bones
stripped by the sands of a tomb;
the ocean’s edge sleeps.

i will siphon you desolate
and leave a desert
inside your veins

and the oasis that was
once your heart
will become a tomb
sand-flailed
eroded
buried

the same you
did to me

Guide me;

in every breath you take,
there’s a nightfall waiting
for me on the inside.

Engulf me;

in every moonlit corner
of your soul, promise
me the stars you hide.

Lead me away;

I feel your pulse in the
darkness; my lips move
with the beat of your heart.

i’ve tried so many
times to throw away the key,  
but my heart pulled a Dillinger,
and it now hides out
in every single *******
thing you’ve ever wrote to me.

I.
We’re always waiting
for ghosts, even as
we hide from them.

We are stars
burning ourselves
out, wishing that
things turned
out a bit different.
.
II.
But now you’re so far
away;

like dawn from moon,
we sleep in different
lights, even as we
both live on the moon.

III.
We are mirrors at
midnight;

(Why are we so empty?)

I look into your eyes
and feel what
I’ve felt for eons.

IV.
Everything falls,
and I know you’re empty.
Let one more in before
you say “farewell.”

If all else fails,
and I’m still empty
I’d still fall in love,
even if it meant that you
might not be mine.

you were the veins
at my throat;

roots
protruding through
diaphonized
lungs;

pain on display
pickled, prodded,
left…

a hanger for dust
galvanized no more.

You grounded me in silent melody
like a rusted harp from yesteryear.

You gave me prideful ambition when
my other endeavors failed to bear fruit.

You made me feel alive when self-infliction
was only desecration to the living dead,

and showed me beauty in both anger
and sentiment when mixed; botched,
yet perfect in its own twisted way.

You still spilled from the ink of my
shadow even when the alcohol wasn't enough.

You still came to my mind when the
wraiths of my memories tormented
my waking hours.

You gave me clarity when the pills refused
to dissolve in my wreckage,

and when all else abandons me for the last time,
whatever you have to say in that moment
will feel like my first time.

what didn't ****
only gave the thrill
of dying

and when i couldn't
die in his arms, i let the
smoke, the *****, and
the night ******
the cancer inside

In my longing to
drown out your memory,
I choked on the *****
of my dreams,
and woke up feeling
empty inside...

In marble, like moon; encased and cold,
I linger where you sleep. Long shed of decadent
purulence, your pale caress holds me still,
and I dream of your bones atop my
bones; our veins dying of thirst; the
worms making love to our oblivious corpses.

In amour, like rose; blackened in rust,
I shiver where we kiss.

Our lust becomes the dirt; our soiled souls moan.
We’ve become immortal inside the wood-rot.

i wanna be a ******* superstar
on the late night news.
i want front page all to myself;
an old-fashioned penny-dreadful
surrounded by fairytales,
and auto-accidents!
i wanna pop up on that *******’s
newsfeed.

beauty is pain, not old-age like
the morgue extras. so lacerate my
ugly face, force lead wishes
into my skin like botox for prey,
and draw up my modeling contract
where i fall…

i wanna be the femme-fatale
that no-one wanted to save…
the star he couldn’t bare
to finish… the star he
meant to make me in to.

Butterflies dissolve like honey-colored lacquer
as I wander the insides of this bright amber moon.

I look for Mother behind a shaded glow-tree.
It is there that I find her folding clouds while bluebirds
dance in the hollow of her heart…

She’s redolent like star-oil from a night-blooming cereus,
With hair never-ending like shadows
sealed from the palest of light.
Her eyes are like tanzanite orbs set ablaze.
She wears robes made of koi scales, and silk from the sea.

As I gathered pearls for her from the mouth of lapis lazuli
shores, my feet touch the chilled sands as shells scurried
from my foot-falls.

As I fetched gossamer from a crystal spider
hiding in a nearby constellation, gold web danced through
my cramoisy hair.

With all of these things, I sat beneath a niveous dune,
out of sight from Mother as I made her a necklace that
resembled the remnants of a galaxy that she once lost.

When I presented my gift, she smiled, then gently
whispered:
"The bright galaxy standing before me is more than enough."

then i don’t mind not remembering my
name, or what year it is,
or what new ******* styles are in…
i don’t mind mumbling, cross-eyed
with **** running down my leg
for the rest of my life…
i don’t mind a dilapidated hospice,

because it’s like you’re some angry
******* god who demanded more
than a ****** sacrifice.

so take this mass of jumbled ****,
make angels cry,
make the devil envious,
and make the specters of yourself get
ghost as i demand ice-picks through
the eyes that you lied and said
were beautiful,

because i don’t know what to
do any longer with the botched
******* you’ve left me here with.

You weren’t willing enough,
so the job got botched.

Blood pooled at my toes,
and skin hung from my insides.
I felt like an abortion…
I still do.

The smeared fingerprints
you’ve left all over me
were shaky at best.
I looked at them in the mirror
for days.

I wanted to call you and say I’m alive,
but I would be lying…

This time, hindsight is skin-deep
and somehow, I think you knew
what you were doing all along.

Leafy loss born of the sunset;
The clinquant remains before the frosted evening
Encircled her form of jeweled pirouette,
As summer sighed with peaceful dreaming.

The fading firelight shimmers out again,
As she wades through the diaphanous aether.
She wanders slowly through the darkling glen,
As her feet pressed upon the crinkled embers.

The skeletal limbs of the trees welcome her.
Divine, yet earthly in grand rufescence.
She delights in their desire as harvest moon stirs,
Awakened and humbled by her elegance.

Antidepressants and gin
Made me feel like a fairy again;

Fragmented bottles protrude
Through my wings, off-color and crude!

My life to lose;
Ode to *****!