Warm water turned cold

by winter's flair, And the memory

is still there

folding like its own waves. Hear blood rushing in your ear,

the memory speaks

to you through conch shell. Its sussurus

sounds blue, warm black,

hues of a silvery orange, gold green. And when you step

in the water you think of

the way it had reflected your gleeful posture. The way everyone

advanced on the

translucent blue with texture like crumpled paper. When ice

did not threaten your toes

but instead gave all limbs flight. All this

undefinable like jazz...

Mirrors, paintings
Mirrors, paintings
of me.
Cut fingertips bandaged nicely
Always asked for, always acknowledged,
always gifting the best
each holiday season.
People are so modest, people are so kind,
People created the devil
called Wine.
That's what makes people oh-so
Divine.

Can I sing
Can I float upon his guitar string
Do I dare to grow
When will I know

to leave
and will the angels grieve
at thought of me
being gone? On my own?
Am I on my own?

I am not a work of art
nor will I ever be
as long as we assume that
a very human Human
is shattered at every thought,
everyone tells me
Let it die
and stop the crying
We are more than death’s travesty rhyming


(What future is this here in my hands?
What is there to touch unless one
Thrusts their arm
Forward?

Show me
that people can really break,
for I believe that
if this were true
being in love would have done so already)

A rule of acting:
"Real people lose."
They don't cross everything off the list.
Trophies, good days, and money
require a sacrifice of comfort
somehow already deceased.
It's a slow, steady process.
A long and sometimes plotless movie.
(By the way,
you know who will be talking to themselves
at the end.)

What if I never
Come to terms with
Your
Cockiness?
In another life we
Could be friends
But you prefer
to play poker
Instead of doing
the math
Prefer to play games
Instead of making amends

The story of how
We first met
Goes a little like this;
I was looking forward
To this particular
Class
Until I saw you
Walk in--
I was caught off guard
And on a whim
I refused to push away
The first thought
Which came to my head,
And it was that
Your haircut made me
Want to punch you
In the face.

Love, mostly hate.
Things would be much
Easier
If your brain was
In the right place
It is much too low
For my taste
Stop trying to impress me,
Don't test me
I only have one face

So to thine own self
Be true
And perhaps I'll actually
Like the things you do--
You're quite the hunk
After all
Though you're not
Quite as tall as
I previously thought
You shrank with
Impertinence
The gossip fits you
Like a glove

What are you so afraid of?
Did I scare you
When I said "No"?

How can a shallow
girl giggle so much? Maybe
her jokes are witty.

A pair of black shoes
draw a dollar bill from your hand
with their coal-dusted paws
But rumor has it
they prefer hundreds--because they're blue.
            Blue gets their wings trimmed
just right.

I was a tap dancer once
back in the day
I enjoyed myself rather much
until I fell down a hill
broke both my legs
awoke to much blood. Things
became quite unclear
So I had a couple of beers,
thought I'd make a couple of
friends.

People in this city
they leave you mid-conversation
Before you even get started
Look at your paralyzed talent,
see that you are not
well-guarded, and you fall on
your face.
You embrace their words.

When I was a kid
I became a tap dancer
for love. Those were the days
I could still feel
My skull fresh, new ideas
peeling out
Twirlings, stomping, toe-trappings, beats
poetries.
Tries and fails straight from
a bleeding heart--
Don't get me started on my legs
Once upon
they were there now they're gone
along with souls of shows of
audiences of happiness of
life of
everything I had known.

People in bustling cities
they leave you on your way
before they let you stay
Look at you paralyzed talent,
see that you are not
well-guarded, you lose a
good pace.
You embrace their eyes on your face.

Once upon I was a tap dancer now I'm gone
Meanwhile you better miss me
One of us is too blind to see
these artist's legs heal
Back in the day, I'd been a real steal
Now, lying here,
does it matter?
No, I still bled on the snow
I'm still very sorry
for what I've done to myself,
what I let them do to me
People are so kind
but they want so much
I climbed high, for them.
And I fell in spite of them.
Their cackles and Ahs had
stunted my growth
Limbs not strong enough to
make the voyage

By then
the love which marked my youth
had gone.

People of the lighted cities
they want you looking oh-so pretty
before you are fully renewed
Paralysis is going away,
so bring me back well-guarded, ready to fall on
my face only to rise again.
I embrace their participation in the routine.

You don't know
what's going for you.

This is good.

Give it a chance.

Get your hands out of your pants
There is no need
to feel a little more
at home
Get a **** hatchet for
Pete's sake
open that melon of a face
Watered-down?
Add sugar
"Home isn't what's up"
Even ask the rice cooker
It broke eighteen years ago
so now it just burns everything
the way the mom
burns the dad's bacon
And doesn't it just make your head spin
how meat passes through
without making you
any stronger
than the day before when
the neighbors
got everyone drunk on their
very own cyanide?
But give it a chance
Hell,
any new place is an adventure.
Please.
You don't know
what will happen you're not
a freaking oracle, a job left
for debate
in the same category as
freaking poppies
and whether or not they
should even be flowers.

Smell them.

Fraud.

I.
He doesn't have a
harmonious voice but he
does know what soul is

II.
She hated his song.
But, secretly in love, she
forgave him for it

They’ll end up calling me
“The one with all the paint samples?”
If they ask, they won’t
know my favorite color
because I won’t know
my favorite color either
And so my soul, too,
would remain unknown

Scarlet, come to me
shine on me, want me, drag me
to a white altar

They call him Captain
because although his old girl
is a row boat
he goes where
he orders himself to go,
and tends to his love
with the same effort
and care
as a full crew of
the descendants
of gods.

They call him Crazy
because he uses the moon
instead of a compass,
and reads poetry
instead of treasure maps.
Though a hermit he is,
he scrapes together
enough money to travel
and dream.
Otherwise he knows
how to survive
on intense, amorous affairs
and treats his women
like queens
using only a quill
and their bodies
for paper.
But he sails alone as if
more loyal to his boat than
a man to his wife.

They call him Spirit
because he comes and he goes,
pulling the high tide with him.
He writes on beaches
where the moon is brightest,
under clear skies and never
after sunrise.
He shrinks with the waves
and is never seen again
by the same individual.

Most often they call him Myth
and on desolate nights
he tells himself
that those who don't know the sea
intimately
lack faith.
Then he paints portraits
of the old, exhausted faces
of the stars
and speaks epic poems
to crustaceans as he boils
them alive
(if he isn't human
then he's cruel just like one).


All who know him forget his name,
and he tells them to
as they wave goodbye
and the sea ***** him
back into her arms,
against her beating breast.
Yet his is not a lonely existence,
not another soul is necessary
to keep him rowing.
It is as satisfying
as it is solitary,

because he calls himself poet,
and a poem is all he needs.

I prefer watching
movies on my own, despite
being so helpless

Tell mother I found my way
and this time I'll stay

Tell insegnante I've got something to say
and it all still sounds the same
but I'm saying it my way

Tell my favorite songs
I think they're too long
because they contain
more than what I've seen

Yell at the devil for being too loud,
leaving me deaf, though I hear
well enough, and tell him I've heard,
well, enough of his cliche,
heavy metal crowd

Yell at the band wagon
Tell it to stop for an oil change,
and make sure it never rides again
Its passengers have something to say,
though they don't want to stay
but they don't want to go away,
though their noses are too long,
and there's no fire in their song

Tell them to say it their way
though they want to runaway
from their minds and from their hearts
while never growing apart
They can't have the best of both worlds
My mind curls

to the beat of its own bongos
and shades of pink and red and black
I find I don't lack

firm ground,
but am more abundant in frowns
sometimes more abundant in smiles.
Depends on the weather.

After  the people leave, that's when
I know where I've come,
how far I've come back to them

So tell my best friend I'm still intact
Tell the crowd I'm not out-of-whack
Tell my favorite songs I've turned them into facts
Tell all poets their words aren't to blame
Tell mother that I'm okay

Ten years sat on her
with all the weight
of a century
But the things she
saw
prodded her brain like a
dull scalpel
looking for
love to salvage
There was plenty

"You're a doctor, right?"
he said as he lifted his shirt
"Tell me, is this normal?"

Across his torso were threads
of red, rose, gold
coinciding with black
They circled, they swirled, they turned,
They stretched upward
from his ribs, and from his gut
and became the shape
of a heart

I said, "I knew you were
hiding something."

The globe on top of
the cabinet wants to fall
Has a world of woes

Every snow day she leaves stains
falling from her broken leg.
Then her wound dries into a coffee-stain,
it's warmth wishing for spring.
A long feud--becoming crusted from the wind--
ruined her day's nymph purity.

     The spirits grow weak
while prematurely birthed
and about as far-gone as Future.
That's the woe if the kingdom.

     Her doctors BLAZE
"It will stay," prescribe a
cup of gin
for those who think they rule Sundays.
Weather, whether bronze or silver, will always
give fate a gentle PUSH.

"Write with blood upon the snow," she says
to herself and for herself.
Flitting across a brightened lawn, a girl painting
the window. Then wiping it with an old cloth.
Thought the fairy, "If it must go--if we must move--
best it be to the rhythm of her
father's blues, her mother's industrial, funeral
porch-garden.

But
Yells of travesty aren't nearly as
stagnant as the physicians say--
because their rouge, fruitful words are sign
of another day.
Seemingly still--not"

I always forget
Just how heavy
Water really is

I tend to

Hope something can be done

as if nothing will ever be done

Wishing

I could've gotten something done

as if I've hibernated for the 15th year in a row.

I'm wishing

Wishing

Wishing

I would just die

as if believing that I may as well.

Wasteland--the people don't belong.
They must leave
so that the singular human
can be in its natural habitat.
Ice doesn't begin to describe
the summertime, the holidays,
spring,
every **** season.

This planet can trek around its star a thousand times
And this will always be true:
I didn’t ask for you, I didn’t pray
I’m not asking for anybody else to save the day,
But I may have to settle for somebody else.
I’m not asking as a favor, I’m not asking the universe,
“Can I have this one thing? This is all I ask.”
One doesn’t ask for something that’s a given.
It’s more productive to say,
“Where are they?
Can I have a clue?”

I wasn’t expecting to find you.
Likewise, I wasn’t expecting to find
so many of you, and I wasn’t expecting
to throw one of you away.
I’m not expecting to find somebody else,
Nor do I think I never will.
Mother Earth will complete her journey
at least fifty times more in my lifetime,
and I may never be able to steal
that profoundly steady heart
from your high-security prison.
I’m not predicting our fate--
the stars are just gas,
the universe just organized chaos--
I’m just saying I might have to find somebody else.

Someday I hope somebody
Finds the missing page and says,
"She's the murderer!
Didn't I say so? Didn't I tell you all?"

She is organized in a way that is unfathomable,
An alluring contradiction with the eyes of a madwoman
On the body of a laid-back cat.
You try to ****** her but she is everywhere above you
And every night when you meet her
She already has you trapped inside with everyone else
who is propelled by her many solar systems.

You watch her when she appears dormant.
You can try to calculate her patterns,
But since you met her she has worn nine different faces,
And she dresses as too many species to name
Yet you may think she is tame.
This is true, she does less damage than she is capable of,
So test her limits but remember that
The universe has no edge.

She is curved and always expanding.
You can’t decide if she is too fat or just the right size
Because she is shapeless and swimming before your eyes.
Her stars are many but her constellations are uneventful.
She bursts her stars like whiteheads
And swallows herself up in the muddy, black potholes left behind.

Her galaxies overlap too much to be teased apart.
Each sun has its own ideas about gravity
And claims each others’ planets as their own.
This is not a harem though for she is not polyamorous.
Worse, they are tessellating love triangles.

Love for her is like politics only there is only one wing, one branch
And all parts are just a sum of her.
She couldn’t love you even if she wanted to.
There is already too much for her to maintain,
Too much to spread evenly across your small body
And too much for even God to see.

You’re not an astronomer, a telescope is a peep show to you
You lie in your hammock seeking instant gratification, all of her all at once.
Even if she were simply one of those stars
She wouldn’t travel light-years for you.

You think you know her, the brightest star above you,
The one you stare at thinking she is staring at you,
The one who flips her hair like the other girls you like,
Who all share the burden of giving you
The satisfaction of having something to flirt at,
Something glorious to form into feeble prey
With your small, shallow eyes, and which you use to glorify
Your own simple machine of a body.

I'm supposed to be in school
yet we bring ourselves here
Friend, we bring ourselves
here to write
They call me irresponsible
yet I felt sick this
morning, throat and mind red
And so I grabbed you out
of there, in need of a
little help to make this day
worthwhile
Let's make this day
worthwhile
I pulled you out of the
burning house up there
to write

Today
my head is a garden
and I am keeping the flowers
from rotting, the peppers,
pears, peaches, and co.
from ripening.
And though I wish I could
clip these producers
the way a China Doll
clips her nails
I vow not to do so
wholeheartedly,
For soon these musings will
choose to die.

By lunch
the weeds will come up.
And they will have work to do
they will have work--
We have work to do!
The green lush fills me
too full,
Whatever words they make
I can't even tell,
but at least I have enough
Common Sense
not to shoot [them out of]
myself.

What a pleasure;
a woodland drive on the edge
of a cliff
with James Dean,
glamour by the sea
A star at work,
fawning over me
We will be
in the gossip magazines,
you and me
and evening chatter
about how things
are supposed to be.

Little kernels converse
with my hot, oily blood when I
think about what you did

Guidelines:
1. Free-association must be preceded with the phrase, “I love you.”
2. Furthermore, approach writing with passion. Note: do not approach aggressively.
3. Continue until physically unable.

                                             **Recite the following:
        I, Aula Tullius Sulla, will never forget how I felt writing this. I do solemnly swear, for once and for real, to fully appreciate every word. I will think of the tear shed before and after “letting it out” whenever I am obligated to “let it out”.
     I will never be a plumber or an entrepreneur nor anything else “more stable” than writing, because living a comfortable life does not cure my unstable heart. I recognize the monster painted white and covered with straight lines has no authority.
       All senses are hereby owned by the heart, which retains authority over the mind. I promise to work in close collaboration with both. The following piece of literature is mine, all rights reserved, and will not be touched without permission. I recognize that giving permission may result in excess exposure, failure, or fame. All works constitute as chaotic beauty, but consequential wounds may be mended regardless.
    [Repeat x 100] I love to write.

Science can pluck as many heart-strings
as poetry, and it can break as many too.
Maybe I didn't want your body,
but I wanted to comprehend your laws
and I needed your laws to apply to me--
I need to be explained
No, I can't explain myself to you
I need you to explain me to me
But would it make a difference in your field?
This imbalanced psyche isn't a new technology
I am ancient, the fate of my health is sealed
You must choose
Only two options, etc., etc., etc.,
Doomed to insanity or sanity
After the last glacier melts into ambiguity

will your understanding of me matter?
The fact is, no, it will not.
So don't sit there and examine
the pulse and pull of my heart-strings.

The milky way doesn’t know
of its own existence,
a cat doesn’t know of the sentience
we’ve given it. In almost the same way,
we don’t know who we are.
We are opinion, and opinion is relative
My magnificence isn’t relevant to you.
I’m something to admire from a distance--
apparently too chaotic
to see all the details up close.

I don’t remember what I thought of you
when we first met; all I know is
I like holding your hand
whether I want to or not.
Interpret that you want.

Your eyes are like supernovas
When certain lights hit them
Once they caught my attention.
I was a photographer for the National Geographic
capturing a solar eclipse, a comet, a meteor shower
every time you talked about something you loved.
An ash cloud from an excited volcano,
your eyes made a natural disaster of my heart.
Except, well,
it turns out everybody’s eyes are like that.

If beds of flowers
Rise from concrete for the sun,
There is magic here.

I'll follow you
(You seem to know
    where you're going)

I'll chase you
(You've got speed)

As long as I'm not forced to
(play this
     game with you)

And later
I might even get loose with you
(You know
    where to park)

By the time I get home from rehearsal,
The world has stopped.
I'm watching the movie
You've Got Mail,
and earlier the director said
our cast had finally achieved art.
Tom Hanks is a businessman
with the heart of a philosopher.
Kathleen saw a butterfly
on the subway
She thinks it went to
Bloomingdale's to buy a hat--
I envision monarchs
preferring kimonos.