Alcoholic drinker, had a brain like a thinker
Wasted it all on beer, in the headlights he was the deer
He once was a man, who could dream but ran
Abusive parents, broken records,
Bad education, he ran away westward
This is the story of a bird who once could fly
But decided to drink, his life became a lie.

My beating heart, torn to shreds
beats only for you.

Once you were,
the reason for its beat.
now you are the reason,
for its agonizing defeat.

How can one muscle,
hold on so long.
even when from my sight,
you have forever gone.

Tears have dried,
but my heart still bleeds.

Every moment from which
you are missing,
I feel myself tearing.

Falling, lost, wondering.
two as one we were,
connected in mind, heart,
essence.

Estranged my soul now is.
wondering forever it calls
to the half so brutally torn.

Its tattered arms wave,
reach, stretch,
attempt closure to the
immeasurable.

Seared, scorched, beaten
faithful to the end.

It will carry on.
My beating heart, torn to shreds.


*JCM 11/10/10

Two boys
and girls
unclothed each other
simply at a picnic
flush with wine
alongside
sun-flecked trees.

The girls,
easy as the
forest round,
burned,
delicious,
as the boys
eager and nervous
in unequal measure
partly gave up
concealing
their joys
at forgetting
or remembering
in flickers
their bare bodies.

It went on
over nettles
and half-hours
and clambered
trees and
photos taken
almost formally
(on film,
of course).

And boyish lust,
at first sinuous,
a darting tongue,
began to
soften against,
for instance,
the sheer,
unthinkable
texture
of the two
girls carved
now backward
over the bough
of a storm-felled elm.

And there
in the embers
of evening
they learned
to thrill originally
at the vast,
gorgeous
and astonishing
irrelevance
of what
might happen next.