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

You have no reason to destroy yourself, girl
This isn't the calm before the storm,
the qualm before everything is torn
It's a wave which hasn't yet
reached the shore
You are more than this

And for a moment I'm a gazelle
who hasn't yet fallen
to a lion's teeth
For the night I give in
to the stampede
and--this time for good--keep going

Going, going,
wind beaten as a sailor,
though I may be
flying the way a peacock does
(It's only a feeling, like peace is to a dove)

Let me say something
about the animals--
they keep going, too
They keep going for us
(I am no vegetarian, but sometimes,
instead of meat, I only need
to eat dust.)

For the same reason, I go on
until fed to something larger
than this small person inside
And, like an animal, I don't ever
feel the need to cry

Went to the grave
this past Memorial Day
and saw it was covered
with mud.

With but a dish rag,
maintenance
didn't exactly leave a shine
behind them, walking
away as they massaged
their own aching backs.
Otherwise they could,
I don't know,
massage the backs that
are already broken.

"Don't graveyards have
maintenance-people for that?"

They are humble.
They like not to be known.

This is my poem
It is good enough for me
Out of things to write

I will change your life,
your pensive rendezvous, and
that poppy-seed lean.

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.

He writes poems
the way he chooses what to wear in the morning
He does these two things like a child
learning Spanish, and he loves the language
very much, so why does it matter?
He feels at home
because Summer is eternal, being
the onions he hides under his floorboards
under his bed
He says, "They smell like shastas."

He
nearly died today
because his 30 second-old love
couldn't stay,
The ruby red
bird winged
Merman of His Dream.

His heart attacked
his very own watered lungs,
The tears
which stopped his heart
like a sneeze.

He prayed, "Please."

The hospital bed Lord didn't reply,  and
He felt the plump nurses were
telling him
lies.

It's alienation across the nation.


End of the break
the whistle's blowing
The sailors going only a short way
to heavens
Subterranean souls, yet
extraterrestrial minds
(I want to have a magnificent, celestial time)
Someone is dead
True, someone might be
curled in dread, somewhere
But the staff chooses not to
voice these concerns
to their guests

They-are-all
transported
to a place where their veins
don't show up blue
under that black light, yellow
dans-le-ciel
It's a dalliance for souls
(They are all lost.)
A denouement for souls
(How much does it cost?)

Better question,
who sends them here
(Every zephyr is cold)
who sends them here
to die and behold?
If I had a friend
they would ask,
"Why so alone?"
Because I move with the

Tintinnabulation across the nation.
People saying the most
cringe-worthy---
Like the nation
I fear I have become
an *imbrication
repeating myself in every
application
Working on that steamboat
the-band-wagon
isn't as good as it gets
Saccharine, summery lake
Do we, perhaps, need to escape?

And, perhaps, we can.

Dominated as we are
by Society, who is crying in need
Believes we must be a
panoply!

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

You are steam, a romantic thing--
Silent, hot, always moving,
Ever-present where there is heat,
Life-giving substance and abundance,
Where there is tension and congestion.

But you are the kind of steam
That comes out of a humidifier
Your healing powers come from
A store-bought jug,
Worth less than a dollar.

Distilled--lacking in others’
Emotional impurities,
The little minerals that give the rest
Of us compassion and soul

Children try to play with you--
They engulf your furls in their mouths
Then open them and let you go, like dragons.
You linger in the air for winter.

I don’t know about her,
But I’m not sick anymore
Thank you for clearing this mucus
From my lungs.

What am I?
Mother, father, (ladies first)
Can I be pretty?
It's warm in here, a green-
house of orchids. The ladies
& gentlemen come in to
have a look, woman's always
first.
At least,
give me the benefit of doubt;
Will I ever be pretty?
Doesn't matter much to me,
only, ladies first,
describe what it means to be
...human-god.
Human-god, human-god.
Jesus, and
I can carry my doubt like
a knapsack
through the cloud of eye-ful
bodies,  (fellow gods)

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

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?"

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

A flower bending
in the wind doesn't actually
yield, though it seems so

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.

Jack Kerouac give
me your mind so that I may
live your legacy

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

After what feels like
a plethora of years
I've fallen in a hole
that may be love, but I'm not really sure about it
because once in a while
after a plethora of days
or hours
I am pulled apart by emotion.

No, not emotion--
the repercussions
thereof

The repercussions,
the repercussions of those repercussions,
and the repercussions of those--
A plethora of consequences

Have you ever been so stressed out
that you actually vomited?
Me... neither?
Instead I sway
from side-to-side
like a swing pushed
in the wrong direction
and as the sky turns
I make corrections
only hoping my wisdom is
"grammatically",
structurally sound--
unlike a skyscraper
pushed in the wrong direction--
As my eyes begin to burn
I wish the sky
would just stay dark
and that morning would never come
so I wouldn't have to meet
my daily migraine
nor the time of day
when I have to stop
wait
listen
learn
work
negotiate, speak, drum, impress,
produce, create, multiply
add and subtract
all in one sitting
all in one hour
every **** hour

Nor the time of day

when I start

to think

about

you.

That's when my mind
finds my heart.

They don't speak--
They just listen to one another
smiling sweet as Tupelo honey
I can almost imagine it
through the blood rushing
in my ears when I close them--
But it just feels
like a fist fight in my chest,
and the rage of it burns in my throat
and the spectators cheer them on
which resonates in my hands
which are then unable to write
which is a sad fact
that keeps my eyes from shutting at night,
at least not as soon as I want them to--

You don't have to tell me I'm crazy--

It screams at the back of my head when
you stare at me like that
thinking a plethora of
things that I can't keep in
a jar so that I can spread it
on my toast in the morning--
Saying a plethora
of things I misinterpret
to silence this
plethora of thoughts
that fall from my eyes
without ever reaching the ground
and the plethora
of grass-roots
who wouldn't know how to drink them
if they did
The plethora of times
I passed opportunities
without saying a word,
disguised them as reasons
not to say a plethora of phrases
in reply--
The plethora of plethoras
that communicate through an alphabet
of more than twenty-six letters
so that, in the middle of the night--
when I don't know what to dream about
and therefore must think instead--
it can irritate me
in more words than belong
in a dictionary.

But sometimes there's just one word
and the word that haunts me tonight is:

Plethora...
Plethora...
Plethora...
That's the flat sound of Pl-,
a soft, tender eth-
and the gasp of an -a
Plethora--
Plethora--
A hundred things yet to be said
Plethora--
So many crises
so much time
Plethora--
Not quite enough to make you mine
Plethora--
Plethora--
Plethora--

Plethora...


Ple­thora...




Plethora...




Plethora...







*Plethora...­

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.

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

Rekindling of spirit
(folding in, billowing out)
with which we end the
day,
I dare you to
leave me.
The sun begs you to stay--
Give him the week off!
He needs a dozen
drinks!
Whiskey, gin, Pinot Grigio,
the whole lot!
He deserves a
feast!

And so the London Fog
stayed.
Coat and tea in hand,
thrown onto the mesh ground
despite,
tea arriving on cue--
Shallowed issues gone
askew,
Heart-screams louder
than the heart-worms
awash across the sidewalk

Day
dark like
Night

The
London Fog
Holds me tight

I know of a girl who dreads the New Year
Because it steals her away
from poodle-skirts and telephones
And all that is long gone
Drags her across the floor by her ankles
while she sobs
as though she'd known the era's
dead.

Boys play football in my heart
Their ball falls in a canal in
Venezia.
It's lost in
Venezia because I closed my eyes,
Guidebook in hand--
Phrasebook at my side--
Dictionary omnipresent somehow--

Mother calls them inside, it's time to learn again.

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)

I love these lines
I hate their stops
I love these words
I hate their last letters,
pirouetting like French kisses

They say, "So now it's done. Goodnight,
I love you.
Break that pencil in half,
now throw it away.
See you next time
The Demon
wants to stay.
You look so neat dressed in jewels
that complete you."

Drop the rocks
Full-grown pop in the jaw
Bleeding gold
Won't save your soul
Moving again and again and again and again
Until the pacific
Closes behind your back
because criticism smacks
kids out of whack
Morphemes-phonemes again
and again
Given the knowledge
of a recycling bin of
letters

Use them again and again
Won't save your soul
Atom smash logic replaying
and playing before your eyes
Some days it's too much
coal to mine
Mouth covered when you
step in time
Won't make your life
I'm a goner if I can't
stand on the rocks
and if the laundry doesn't burn
If the grim reaper doesn't speak
nonsense words from one
state of consciousness
to the other

Drop the bomb
Call the mob
Stock our shelves
Grow the letters
Feed all those starving
tongues

Let me tell you a story
Once the grim reaper
dressed like an old woman
and bought denture cream
just to know how it feels to
grow old
A human is an animal
Some think an olive is a fruit
A dog is a wolf on the inside
Begging to learn the trick
Speak

Next in line most wait
for straight prose
pinch their noses misguided
Want blood to bleed red
Don't want ideas to smash
their bread
Won't save their minds
from a punch in the gut
Mine closing in their faces
and their Atlantic drowns
shattered glass
encasing words upon words
owned by streams of

Consciousness running
all around
Those nonsense words
running aground
can't swim though all
the world's frowns.

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.

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.

All you are doing
is telling death how to die
I already know

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.)