Trouble has its own number.
This prank would be funnier
if you were by my side

It's taken me three years to grow.

It will take me three years to grow more.

I look to both with despair

and dried, thorny branches.

Save me.



Coat me in chocolate and sell me for a price

unlike most products,

Sell me to my soul so that she may taste

What I've become

(Or what I will be,

I do not know which.)



And let her know that the juice of this bruise-purple thing

was hatched from the eggs of

Hot

Blood,

burning as limes do.

Tell my soul to ready her buds for a special meeting.



Teach her to chew fire just so

when the two of us collide, soul and berry,

she won't burn to death

Starting at the gums. Ending with the heart.



We'll meet, finally, in three years long as a field,

at a warehouse store.

We'll come together on the way home.

Sea captain who brings with him an air of comfort,
first mate, confetti egg shell,
metal-framed reservoir.
Cradle my head, pull my hand,
Stand.
Solve the equation for me. Don't.
Be my carriage horse. Roam free.
Burn the papers. Lock them away.
Join the feast. Serve us, **** the beast.

Begot, begetter
A stain-glass window, more like a painting
wet with thinner.
Broken calculator, hard-to-getter.
Man the weather--man the ship. Don't, I can do it myself.
Hideous, antique bird-feeder
favoring the magpies above all and doves the least.
Join the feast. Let us leave the little
beast alone, they've done nothing truly bad! because
Just a little cut doesn't hurt.
As long as the blood doesn't spurt.
As long as Sylvia is my dead friend.

As long as you're an indescribable friend,
always there among the bramble
of the old flower field, abandoned long ago.
In the 30s.

Sea captain who brings sun, my
first mate of all singing first mates, of
all operatic dancers.
Dance with me.

Our cafe speaks in vowels and screams in consonants.
Hipsters sing asexual love music, or goodbyes
They claim the sun hurts their eyes

    And so, if chemistry's wet, shampooed hair
Breaks the cold, white-white windows
Musicians slam as if they know-know-know,
and know-it-all, up there, playing their songs.

    Old "Steward", highly-paid employee, on break
for a drink--says, "In the 30s we got none,
needed none."
He wants to mend the windows, send them home,
and get back to work.
But he is caught in sweltering heat

    Their heat.
rosing on every person's cheek
when they turn their heads,

    and observe chemical ties.
These mates speak better syllables

Fifteen minutes to
Tap my toes, speak a little ("write")
Give a little time

Of the piano man
I've never heard, and
am gracelessly missing out
on him. Cannot thank
him for inspiring me
because I refuse to listen. He's
playing in concert only blocks
away, or perhaps on YouTube, but
who needs him? I ask myself
this on the surface--
deep down I know that
I do.
Walking all over the town in
other directions, still
can't get away from the
violin accompaniment, the truthful
tones. I've
no hope, I won't hear him
I've no hope for relation, I
won't listen. Run
everywhere, find myself there

He says, "Welcome home my
lost dreamer."

Formulas? What formulas?
My angles are calculated
by kisses.

How many sides?
I have enough
to keep me entertained for a thousand years.
As for area, I don't have much

Because my insides drove off
into sunny blizzards
a long time ago.

I am missing a base
There's a gaping whole somewhere

Its perfection, in comparison to me,
releases the gilded blood
which melts my myriad of eyes,
those limestone rocks
I lean on whenever my shape is uneven,
the angles getting smaller

At a different pace each.
Lips & hugs are not always enough
to keep them standing;
When they
collapse, you are hardly forgiven.

Here is a face for
You, Mystery Man, colleague,
Strawberry farmer

Famous or known, wise
or grown, gone or just zero?
Grained or unraveled?

It is exhausting
to observe so much good in
so many people

Wine is dry at Contessa's party.

Liquor gives it a merciful taste.
                        A little salt
(draw it from her body; it hangs
from her lashes)  adds to the universal
bitterness.
                                   Her sadness.


8-11-14

Performing a storm
Is straining a chord, heart-string
Or a lightweight step.

If I grow weary
by the end, do not come back.
Forget about me.

There isn’t a cup of tea large enough
Or a book long enough
To suit me either

But you’re old and dead and religious
Like classic literature,
And your legacy reaches all like me,
But not me.
I’d follow a lion anywhere.
Just not where I’m supposed to be.

I give in... I give in...
I wear my sweaters thin
because nothing ever feels
hyper-real
I know kids who get raw experience
yet call me the wiser
for not getting any.

No one who sits at their dinner table,
pretending to have something to write,
deserves to be tired
and so I don't catnap
under the constipated clouds
waiting for the rain.

I grow old--I grow old
I don't like my trousers rolled
as I walk down the street
watching young people
who don't give themselves a break
from hyper-living
Just keep kicking.

Not to generalize,
but it must be said
that a barbarous youth doesn't give in
until their metal beams split
and their windows come down
and their doors can't open
because of the debris
and their admirees
stand before the pile still not knowing
who they are.

(It won't make them shiver
to think you've opened up
listening to their music
unless they open
their ears for you.)

After dusting themselves off
will all the newborn adults shake hands
look back on the skyscrapers that surrounded them
and be friends?

I give in
I relax over my comfortable,
blank lines
with nothing to write
because I'm the only one
with nothing to fight.

So this isn't the demon
you told me about

It's awfully common,
you say,
of a person my age
to feel hyper-reactive
once in a while
To walk a mile
in her own head,
painting it petty and sparkling

But maybe I should
at least know better
than to ride the flamboyant
hell
To make the day one
long yell
"Let's piece together
these undeserved rags,"
they make me think
as I glide from
one face to the next

I am not Cinderella
I am her
kin
If I were old enough
I would drink myself
down with a bottle of
gin
Of gin made from kin
and refused help

"Untalented", I claim
heresy to my personality
Thinking, "everyone looks better than me,
but no, I can be better than them"
And I hear you say,
"What a sin, tsk, tsk, tsk!"

And the other demons,
they say, "Let her
stay!
Let her
stay!"

The diva's not the demon
you speak of

Who is it really?
Introduce him or her
Has it ever occurred
to you that
we would make
a good pair
of masters, of narcissists,
of lovers

A team everywhere
in all the bad places
Performing an absurd show
Breaking hearts

Gone again Here again
Gone again Then back
Gone again Here again
Returned so out-of-whack
Gone again, again
Again Again
Again Again

Welcome home
Where you are madly
Brilliant

Because you're down again
Here again, up again
All around again again
Then you win
Every turn of phrase, all the days
Every phase beginning
Every morning
And ending every morning
You mourn for no particular
loss, you are lost only
a moment, but you hone it
Yes darling you cherish
that smile
The pleasant weather says
Please stay awhile and

You do because the weather is nothing new

Darling you
Grow again Shrink again
Gone again Then back
I disappear again
Again...
Again...

Yet it seems life is not repetitive

My breath goes to you
Not my dying breath, but the
bubbles from this sigh

The chair wheels are caught
On the carpet and I don't
Want to speak aloud.

There's a rainy state
State of mind
Mind not heart
Heart is too fickle
Fickle and amorous too
Too much so to contain
Contain the rainy state
State of mind
Mind not body
Body is too present
Present, not a gift
Gift is too shiny, glimmering
Glimmering like raindrops
Raindrops that never smile

I gave him the plate that I made--the clay that I
Smoothed wrong.
As the artist, I fired it like a master,
Painted it like a saint--but I got it wrong.
My biggest fan said
He could faint.
How disappointed was he--my type-writer-love
The white carnations of our wedding melted like snow
In the blasted coffee
In the aghasted coffee
That scorned it's very existence as much as he.
He who, give or take a few,
Blew many kisses my way--even so I fired that
Mischievous plate--and I gave it to him
And I made him disgusting coffee
As well
That day.

Our winter is brown grass
like the great plains,
the band with ice cold wind
for a lead singer

Our winter is a
barren land of detail,
Unlike the typical purity
of yours.

He has grown vines all
over his body from
old age and wisdom

I.
Strong people, sitting
on their cold porches, smoking
Hopeful calories.

II.
They know they throw their
calories away, but they
like what they do have.

III.
Consume what you like.
What do you want for your life?
Not wishes, nor guns.

Traveller, scuba-diver
Sailor swearing wherever she goes
But never in front of a crowd
No, if you want to
apologize for something
you've said,
better find out where she's hiding.

Look where it's darkest,
but bring a flashlight;
she wears black
to hide from spiders and snakes.

Expertly deprived of sleep,
the King slithers across a
safehouse living room, robes
tracing a circle.
His salutations are dead.
His peasants come apart from him.
They don't
understand, but they like to think
They do.
He is “working toward
Improving the lifestyle of many, and to
give the people the privilege of...”
Yet he is not,
But let us pay loyalty for his prize,
For it's a red apple
which pushes him forth on the blood-red Carpet
of Vain—he takes a bite,
and this is how he must live his life
In order to live.

The city is his sanctuary
A place to abscond
When he starts to wonder, “Does the
world deserve
to have my conscious body, the way
that they do?”
The King whispers this lamentably.

Don't wait for me
to come to the surface.
There is a lifetime of possibility
here on the ocean floor.
Let me be
the bottom-dweller
first discovered by submarine.
The darkness is not
as intimidating
as it may seem.

Don't feel around for my body
with your feet.
You won't find me in the shallow end
of the sea;
walk down the gradual *****,
where there is no air left to breath.
Over the mountains and hills
and great plains,  then you'll find me
Seven miles deep
in the Marianas Trench.

Then you'll understand my immense stress.

I could go on and on and on
But then I would stop.
Because I believe no one
Has the words,
Especially not I,
Not after the short time
I’ve been alive.

But what if I die?

I definitely wouldnt have
The words then.
Not a turn in my grave,
Not a thought in my brain.
I will have spent my
Living breath
Describing what I think
Death is like.
But by the time I am dead
I won’t know if I’m right.

I know what you’re thinking;
“She needs to unwind
No feelings lost
Yet no thoughts defined”

You’re right.

Please, don’t try and fix me
There’s a minute solution,
Bare with me,
Don’t bury me

with these beautiful complications,
Black flowers with white leaves
And red veins
Who says the sun
Can’t be neon-green?
The ocean will stay navy blue
And we will learn to appreciate
Ourselves, each other

Painting one another

Do you love it when I talk color?

The concrete walls
won't bind us
won’t speak to us
We have the will to kiss
But we don't.

Watch the glint in my eye
Become a glimmer.
In its reflection,
Watch yourself become an apple.
No, concrete walls
don't bind us to our fellow
**** sapiens sapiens,
and skyscrapers
don't portray the flora
and the fauna
of our generation,
yours and mine.

So if this comes down to nothing,
that's fine.
But take my hand.
Grab a paint brush,
carry this poem

with you or without you.
I no longer care about you
but for one last dance
I will cooperate.
I will find the words

for you.
I call myself nonchalant
yet I want more of you.

Brisk air can soothe you
Because warmth isn't enough to
Entertain your lungs

You deserve that new leopard print dress
you bought to straighten your figure.
You’re tired of A-line dresses that hide your broad hips.
Your new dress has no form, but it clings to you
Like an ex-boyfriend whom you deserve better than.
Your new life is doesn’t replace the old one; they are co-dominant traits.
The fact that it feels new has nothing to do with
The new threads hanging on your shoulders, weightless but slightly burdensome.
Your face is older but it looks better to you.
You sweat less in these drafty spaghetti straps, and when you do
The beads don’t reach the edge of the armholes;
They just keep sliding down to your hips.
This is natural for you and if you would just let your hips dance
You would find the sweat cools their pink-hot heat.
You may be sore afterward, but your mind is usually sore anyway
From recalculating and budgeting your love.

That is a lot of gold,
Missy.
Everything is metal,
it attracts me like the
reflection.
That is a unique thing,
Darling.
It brings me to
introspection;
is life vast? is there more,
for instance, than
that shiny--?
The word jumps from my lips
but you,
Sweetheart,
are bought for a high price.
The bidder is my heart.
Please try not to  object
to my being so objective.

She says her boyfriend
is looking gray, not from age,
but from handsomeness

Are we ***** of thought
or shapes of mass hoping to
hold on to something

beautiful and
ever-growing, heart-stealing,
even all-knowing

Morning to me is watching the boy eat
while I impatiently tap my book
with a pencil.

Singing,
"Excess ain't rebellion
Your drinkin' what they're sellin'..."
while he painstakingly tries
to play air guitar and grab strawberries
at the same time.

My favorite time of day
is when it's too early to lie to myself
in small ways,
or even in positive ways.

Makes the dew damper felt,
though the coffee more disgusting,
sunlight brighter,
though shadows darker,
secrets less loud,
though truth remains quiet and tired

Air crushes ice crush--
--ing people, stabbing careless
Thoughts building madness

Paint my lips
Scorch my soul, bring
Me ointment for the burn

Don't mind the gradient--
Colored heart swooning on
My shirt sleeve

It is supposed to be in
My breast pocket. It leaves
Quite frequently--
This is a woeful truth

I wish it were not so
But bear with me, dear, and
Don't forget the flowers.

I like flowers.

Last night the sun didn’t set--
it fell.
It fell into the depths
of the ocean,
it fell into an abyss of stars.
No light is shed on your eyes
anymore, I am not
distracted by their
understanding hue.
The light fell from your smile,
and now every time
it feels new,
almost unfamiliar.
The sun fell from an era


Of longing, of ailment,
of competition, of pseudo-romance.
The room I made for you
in my heart
has no windows and the lightbulbs are out.
The future I made for you
in my mind
is dark.