Look closer...
the winding trail
is baked to perfection,
bearing the scars
of a caesarean section.

Only the snakes
dare travel along I-8,
one-by-one the seasons lie prone,
in heat this sun will castrate.

The burnt aspects on faces
don’t smile or frown,
they peer out as residue
to places perished in the wake of
a cityscape’s head trauma,
calling out to the heaven’s above
as they await her to rise
with wings from these ashes,
in anticipation for a day ne’er to draw nigh,
even the steady fall of acid rain
will fail to wash away such genocide.

A favorite haunt transmutes
into a ghost town,
burning into the ground
the heat seeps into the soul,
and the procession begins again
for whom the bell tolls.

Towers of steel melt
as popsicles on the pavement,
the sun’s punishment
is constantly transcendent,
the noise of sparks and hums
rattle the spine,
today’s forecast is a good chance
of saturnine.

Eerie colors at dawn
make for a spectral scenic view,
picnic lunch in the park
is categorically taboo,
the hunters of men
swoon in subjugation to this tyranny,
weather’s wrath was everyone’s destiny.

Live a little, die a little,
pretend it cannot happen,
but in the end we all windup
as peanut brittle...

you don't get me
+
I don't get you

A willing captive
gripped tight by her eyes,
steely, grey
and sparkling bright
in love
I watch her talk,
a loquacious fluence,
and study her lips like
a foreign language

"your attention is slipping."

"not at all."

"well," she begged
"haven't you ever been in love?"

I must have been
surely, I think
or something more akin
to time standing still,
the sands sculpting a moment
of a thousand lifetimes.

"of course I have."

"where is your love now?"

right here, I think
chronic and immutable,
boxed into lines,
safeguarded and sound
in dreams and reflections,
vicarious,
a farce of mimicry.

"well travelled,"
I would say.

"like blood from a stone.
well,
I'm glad you came,
will you come again?"

and she went,
leaving me
with a pocketful of sand.

of course I will.