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.

I have written this day
Which I will call
Last Flowers of Spring

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.

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.

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

Always on a dark, rainy morning
I’m waiting for release
Want to go outside,
Scream to be taken out for a walk,
Bark at my leash
Want real release
Because my chin is up now
And I’m quiet
Ready to see some terrible
Work getting done
Waiting for something to happen
I’m tired of outer peace
I long for a close encounter
Or a thousand fights
Blood released
Sweat released
Tears released
Not just internally

Don't leave me loving you
Here alone
***** my finger, at least,
and lull me to sleep
before you go.

Alexander Hamilton could write
like nobody's business,
while I'm sitting in lamplight
in the dim city,
and I can't even use
the resources I've been given,
nor take advantage of the
time I have
like he did.
And I have plenty of time,
I'm not running out of it,
just running out on life.

She says she has an opening
At 9:15 a.m. Thursday morning.
Whose permission do I need
To respond to what is essentially
My own request, my own persistence,
My own action. Do I regret it
Or don’t I?
Do I dare to eat this peach?
Do I dare to bring this moment--
At 9:15 Thursday morning--
To its crisis?
Will the mermaids still not sing to me
When I become less willing to drown,
Or will they sing louder than for
Anyone else, for want of that
Which they cannot have?
I will arrive at 9:15 a.m.
On Thursday morning
With the bottoms of my trousers rolled,
Not to dip my feet into the
Misleadingly temperate waters,
But to show a counselor
The over-worn, many-colored
And many-patterned
Socks that I wear
Much too often,
And she will tell me
It’s warm enough outside
To just wear sandals.

like to see what they see
I'd like to be what I'm going to be
right now, not then, not later,
not someday.
Just when I thought I was going to be a bad picture,
they bet their money on me,
have so much hope for me,
know me, believe in me
think of me as some great thing.

I disagree
They insist.
They spend their money to see me.
I tell them beauty is relative,
but they make way
for me
and I indulge
in my fame.

This isn't the love I want,
but they love me anyway.

I just want you to
lay your head on my shoulder
while I write these words

Blossoms look better in the rain;
reaching into black mist and white wind,
singing like a deaf woman

I'll marry any man who agrees

I.
Swinging blonde hair goes
Out onto the balcony,
A tangible breeze

II.
Beige coat swaying to
Get home late, never mind a
Lecture.  She's a youth.

III.
Red lips bleeding more,
Orange dripping down her shirt,
Almond eyes who give,

IV.
Sprouted white skies are
Where she gets those thighs, giving
A prolonged heart  'til...



End

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.

She is organized in a way that’s unfathomable,
An alluring contradiction,
Both still as untouched water
And expanding outward, reaching new spaces
With her fingertips.
You can’t see this because you’re too small.
You claim to be down-to-earth;
Just admit that you’re short for a man.
There’s no shame in that.

She has the eyes of a madwoman
And the body of someone more laid-back.
You can try to ****** her but she is everywhere
Above you and too far in-between.
You meet a different part of her every night.
You call her a different name,
Yet every woman is the “same.”

Except for that one.
She’s not like other girls.
You discovered a new celestial body
And now you have the right to name her
After one of your favorite gods.
Pick it out from a list,
And tape it over her mouth.

You try to calculate her patterns,
But since you met her it seems
She has worn nine different faces,
And in your sphere she dresses
As too many species to name,
So you think she should be tamed.

It’s true that she does less damage
Than she is capable of,
So test her limits, but remember
That a galaxy doesn’t truly have an edge.
She’s not a body you can lasso
And pull towards you,
Uncomfortably close.
Like you, she is made of dust and ash
And she breezes past you
And goes her own merry way.

Fratellino's rock collection
turned into flower petals.
      Madre has a portrait of him
putting them in his hair, turning into Sorellina instead.

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.

Don’t leave me loving you
Here alone.
Stab my finger, at least,
And lull me to sleep
Before you go.

If I dream of you tonight,
Don’t be flattered.
I care too much
And dream of everything that matters.

Don’t leave me loving you
Here alone
In my imagination
Where it will feel too right.

If I’m looking ill,
Leave me to die.
Otherwise, stay the night.

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.

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

My love,
         take your time
It's all yours,
         take it off my hands
         (which bleed with it)
And if you prefer to steal it,
         that is not a crime,
         but peel your affection
         (layer by layer)
         from my heart
         (slowly)
         See how I've given you
A head start?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Do I know myself?
This girl with her doe eyes
And blonde hair;
She might have a lot going on.
Otherwise, she might be a liar--
After all this time,
Still convinced she’s never committed
A crime against another person’s heart.
Who really knows
What damage a girl has done?
She doesn’t even remember.
She takes everyone’s word for it,
And the whole world says
There’s nothing wrong.

Those eyes,
They are baby blues
That sing the blues.
Boy, does she look sad.
Not a week goes by
That she doesn’t waste by counting
The number of eyelashes
That fall out of her little head--
Two at a time
Yet as gradually as running out of time.
At night she pleads for excitement
That doesn’t entail
That deer-in-the-headlights feeling.

Repulsion
Has a funny way of creeping up.
It’s like there are two magnets,
And she is both.
The “wrong” side of one magnet
Yearns for the “wrong” side
Of the other magnet,
Yet they push each other away.
Likewise, she pushes herself apart.

She’s also learned that
Stuff you’re afraid to do
Happens anyway,
Like the “right” side of the magnet
Sticking to the aforementioned “wrong” side
Of the other magnet.
Things come together
When you do as you please--
It feels so wrong to let opposites attract,
But it is oh-so-right.
She needs to realize
she is not Jekyll and Hyde.

Wrongness is relative anyway--
Those eyes may seem too dark
Or too green
Or too gray
To a different person--
As for me, how I love them so.

When she bats her lashes
I can only imagine
They sound like a bat’s wings;
A rush of air beneath
Every rise and fall,
Heard only by the keenest ears.
But this memory doesn’t have
the same power as an act of self-loathing
Nor that deer-in-the-headlights feeling.
In my reflection,
She bats her lashes
but I still drown in hatred
For those stupid, doe eyes.

My heart has built a factory
Whose main exports are
Fallacies that have a dreadful way
Of creeping up
Behind my every thought and word,
Their paws locked in the snow,
Poised for a one-on-one battle
With Sanity.

I look in the mirror and think,
Boy, does she look angry.
Not a year goes by
Without some sort of inner vandalism.
She joins a stampede,
Runs without stopping
By the river to drink.
It tramples every blade of love left in her.
It crashes every flower she grows
So that she will never see
The beauty she bestows upon the world.
When she finally does stop by the river to drink,
And the bucks continue to run through it,
Her reflection is distorted.
The doe doesn’t wait for the water to
Become still again.

I call her Jane Doe
Because she doesn’t remember who she is,
And because her doe eyes
Are the only thing about her
That isn’t like a blank canvas.
Sometimes when she looks at me
I can only see my reflection;
We become one as we are meant to be.
I paint my body with compliments.
I can see myself
Draw lines across my skin.
There was a time when I pressed too hard
And the lines scabbed over.

But I am forgiven,
Because wrongness is relative
And when I envision myself,
This is what I wish I could see:
A mix of positive and negative,
Both sides of the magnet--
Never repelling each other,
Attracting one another--
A field of anger, of blues
Of lashes and bats’ wings
Of one-on-one battles
Of scabs, of humor,
Of crime against the heart,
Of no more time left to restart
Of irregular rhyme-schemes
And unfamiliarity

I don’t know myself,
This girl with her doe eyes--
This girl with her green eyes--
Or are they blue?
Or gray?
Or black?
Or brown?
I bat my lashes and I drown.

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

This door leads you right
where you are.
Scents and sights arriving
here are affirmation
of dying chemistry
between you and the world;
Therefore you sense them
stronger than man ever
has. Prophecies melt for
this inhuman moment, not
Unfamiliar to your spirit.

The Barista cooks you a
liquid meal, a brat hums
your favorite tune, but the
aftermath is they all leave.

Through a door which leads
them back again.

Daughter, son
Whatever  sensation
keeps them here with me
keeps you standing
stagnant
Ungasping, in need of
Gasping. A goner,
secret front-runner
This door leads you right
to yourself.
Scents and sensations
locked in our fish-eyes
Relinquish blindness, as is
your job.

Before I go to
bed, let me say, we belong
in dreams anyway

Describe It accurately

Once

And give It a twirl of hair and boho skirt

Describe It once

with love full of hatred or

strife

Until your arms & legs

Shiver, until your gemmed rings

SNAP!

to pieces

Until, when your glossy

fingernails melt, a monster's

heart burns with sympathy.

Call It on the phone, don't

apologize if you hadn't

used

the right

Words.

Sometimes your face is
a little blurred, but then you
have a little fun

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'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)

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

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.