flip a coin and we’ll decide
my blood’s hot but the air isn’t
names engraved in snow just melt and go away forever
dulce, dulce bebé de verano
it’s winter now, don’t lose the warmth you get in your cheeks
in the summer

someone called my talking style different
she could tell i spoke with the diction of an artist
a writer, perhaps
but i always thought i was the same old kind of child searching mindlessly to be caught in an internal chirographic trap
i can’t write but i try,
and thank you for noticing.

someone’s talking love on a summer night
i sit and wonder why you were the only thought that came to mind
like cigarettes to a reminiscer of about 50 times ago, when they almost quit
i think october, when words came from my lips like diamonds—they were ugly in my mind, but i spit them out
and you called me pretty
when mixes from that year turn around and crackle softly i can’t help but miss the tears that lamented so long ago
when i could feel about you
i won’t pretend to understand those mindless fancies, but i see then that ocean which reflects the moon
and play clair de lune, which
i avow to do for you but it’s for me—
i’m playing to forget, or feel
that’s what we players do
money and music, it’s numbing or galvanizing; it’s up to selection
i’m losing the latter but it sometimes catches up with me
the hotness that rolls in waves or in a fast descant,
tears
and then i remember for one moment in the summer after two years
how it felt to cry and to be fettered by you

pretty american houses
pretty bays
and boys and happenings
hidden dreams fly out like smoke, in rings, in threes
candled wishes don’t go far—
but i don’t know about these dancing stars
twinkling, aren’t they?
the eyes of God
that bestow heavied wonders
on the shore
underneath the doors
of those pretty american
beach house floors
stars, wished on with this treasured heart
of yours
it’s ethereal, your existence
your words are like the sea
i hear them roar when i’m asleep
i love you still i love you

Magazine cutouts
I’m muddled
My favorite time of day is when there’s pink, gold, and violet
Setting light over a stratosphere
Cut out a picture of me and keep it, please
There’s more to life than what you think you see
There’s a rose-colored glass over life, but keep it, please
You don’t wanna think about the sad, the bare, the lonely
Just remember the radiance, sunsets, and me
There’s nothing but clouds and blue-rayed skies here
Blue, and violet now
Fading to black
You always make sure
To remember the color—stop at the roses
Look up or you just might miss it

writing drives me mad but i do it
for reasons i don't know, still
i'm mad at the world and art is the escape trail
like you sort of
used to be

cracked poets still shine
through lines—of hymns
and of smiling crow’s feet
clams look dull but I know what might be
and you do too

tanned thighs
perfect music and perfect laughs
your house sits on the hill where the bay lies
grassy and stretching down to where the water runs like a marathon medalist or a
tidal pool circling around to reach its tail
you tail me too, when we chase each other on these fine white sands
tail me, I dare you,
get me, adore me
like you do at 3 in the morning when you have me on the counter to sing to and look at me
fanned nights, palms in the sticky air of a summer evening
spread like cards on the low table
heat simmering like breakfast at 4, which we take with us
to have on cracking shells and blacked feathers along the shore
I see your skin, soft, pulling sand—your fingers—sifting beaches, straining them easily
warmer than the sun—your eyes
august nights that bring the fight into you
you’re talking nonsense, but it makes perfect sense because it’s you
rosy cloud matter hangs above ‘till I’m under glass surfacetops, at the bottom of the sea
but I wake up just above it
to be a floater—streaming boater girl, always
really, just watching you, down with another, passion firing your eyes, unlocked
I watch as I do butterflies
wild and free to fly
it’s okay, I told you
you’re suntanned and you’re mad
you’re talking, like you do
but it’s okay
because you’re free

cruiser-bike girl
he threw his chance with me
I thought I saw our names scored in sand—one lonely beach
one summer, one time
it’s a different time, I guess
a different scene, sea baby
maybe some time I’ll be swept away by you
you lovely, lonely current—
maybe in another sixteen.

you’d see her on a cruiser bike in your dreams
that girl, on rapt beaches
—that girl has more to her than perceived
guys elude me; each his
own but still the same
we delude—our name
is the one he’d sort of cry
in his sleep, or even say
i’m just that southern girl
not even—
i’m that other girl he keeps
to himself and no one else
but i was a girl
not your belonging
and not your world

put your eyes on them
skin and whiteness
and sheen
lovely hair, they
don’t see the lack-
luster life we fear
gucci on sight
yachts, mazdas
shots at midnight
hyatt in the plaza
to dream on roofs
but we sleep blanketed
they speed, shoes thrown way out—
at least our thrills are felt—
not ersatz,
not lost and dreamt
or counterfeit.

my blind eyes didn’t follow—
moments pass by in the rear-view
margalo, the happy years
life’s just a pool of draining shallows.

I was never vivacious;
Pétillant girls giggled
So did I
I was dissimulating,
Pretending at points;
In school, secondary—
Yet, after having chased reveries, flat dreams, insipid ends, and
having ruled all aims vain—
To them, I think,
I was, still, positively,
vivacious.

what an abysmal life
me, beveling down its side,
you not existing,
me searching.

our weariness is waxing from these
fiery, hellish universes—
these same sick, fiery, hellish verses
rendered out of vile fiends’ lips
liar, liar—the price required
is a mere soul’s harrowing worth
satan’s spires, hounding hell-fire—i wonder, does he cede the
cost of his hostile mirth?

Marigold, southern roses
in my backyard
there she poses
Camellia, there we dine
red lights, red wine
red tequila
Marigold, flat-pressed roses,
that memory, it’s the tenet
of my broken-ness.

I’m capable of disaster—
Godspeed to the mother of disaster
Carpe Diem, Beverly Hills is ready for you, faster,
our minds are rupturing from these rapturous months
it’s all a little much for us
Surreality, angular surreality
We’re two-faced, defacing reality’s ideals
Because it’s up to us, that’s the veridical deal
‘99 can’t party, no—
Not like the kids
who can no longer feel.

sugar-drunk,
i was looking at you
to remember when life was just slow dances, expanses
of time
when we laughed, when I didn’t eulogize forgotten guys,
then, I saw no one but you
super drunk,
i was looking at you
just looking at you

I’m trying not to love you
I’m laughing at the irony of that truest truth—
That we were the slightest unalignment of stars in a sky of caliginous blue
You say you’re hers—
That’s not true
You say you’re hers, but
you’re just you.

I’d love you violently if I had you
I’d watch your violets turn to dust and seem like new
(Until I had you)
The ones you left behind with your ever-seizing dialogue
This is a mere apocalyptic log in which
I tear apart those moments before turning crazy
I went crazy for
you,
your dead violets
and like petals—strewn, your
disconcertingly
violent mind.

milky way
provide a way to consign mischance behind to them who stray
earth is but a minor stain in lightyears’ expanse of stratospheric disarray

Look at you,
You’ve forgotten the solace of your mother’s warmth, the succor of your father’s love form
Look at you,
Begotten by one worthy pair and yet having failed to grant them an ample heir
Look at you,
Failure, you wayward daughter with eyes caught in the confines of dreams
And yet you’ve seen everything there is to see.

Wipe your eyes, my baby
Marlboro and shotgun casings
Pound piano keys and feel it in your bones, this fear you’re facing
Because Debussy can’t take away the sound through unsubstantial apartment wall spacing
Of neighbors screaming, growing skill in the use of debasing words
We’re growing sage to burn alongside the memory of heart-breaking firsts
That didn’t bring any fulfillment or remaining seconds and thirds
We are witches, searching for potions to provoke hard spells
To forget these troubles which were heard from the mouthpiece of hell
Our black cats and crooked hats don’t hide the fact
That these highs don’t last
And soon we will remember why we left yesterday’s December behind
Ice crackling softly in window panes becomes enough to remind us why—
These things don’t leave the solitary, unhinged mind
When there’s nothing else to replace what was once chased
On agonizing below-zero winter days
So wipe your eyes, my baby
Wipe your eyes
This won’t heal, not like the bullet wound and cigarette addiction
That you always lose
(And somehow manage to re-find).