when Today comes
with long legs and red lipstick
smack her on the ***
and buy her a drink.
let one thing
lead to another
and forget Yesterday
because no matter what-
she can never exist.
quit bankrupting life's currency  
by squandering ticks on the clock
trying to figure how many
tomorrows remain
(i promise,
there's just the right amount).
rather, have your way with Today-
take her back to your place
ravage her body in search of asylum.
let your animal free
as you how at the moon
and let the bedsprings screech with strain,
as they sing the day's song.
when she finishes her cigarette
tell her to leave the money
on the nightstand
where Yesterday left hers.

Magdalene watched Mary
bend down to put on the LP.
The Beatles. They’d saved

up and bought it together.
She took in Mary’s stockinged
thigh showing through the slit

in the side of the school skirt.
Mary placed the LP carefully
onto the turntable, with her finger

put the needle arm down onto
the vinyl. The music started up,
Mary stood up and sat next to

Magdalene on the single bed.
Magdalene sensed her there,
her thigh next to hers, her

warmth, their knees almost
touching. What did your Ma
say when you said you bought

the Beatles? Magdalene asked.
She said nowt, Mary replied,
but Da said it was a load of

***** and where did I get
the money from to buy it?
John Lennon's voice sang

over the twanging guitars.
Magdalene said, did you
tell him we bought it together?

Mary nodded. Her hands
pushed between her thighs,
her young face lit up by

the room's light. Don't you
think Paul's a dish? Mary asked.
Magdalene shrugged her

shoulders, studied Mary’s
knee where a spot of flesh
showed through a hole in

the black school stockings.
She wanted to move closer,
kiss the cheek, place her

lips on the skin. She breathed
in the borrowed scent that
Mary wore. Said she'd liberated

it from her Ma's room. Mary
talked of the boy they'd met
in the woods above the school.

Tried it on so he did, she said,
over the guitars and Lennon's
loud voice. Magdalene wished

she could put her hands where
the boy had tried. I put him
straight, Mary said, kneed him

where his fatherhood might flow.
Mary moved up and down on
the bed in response to the music.

The bedsprings complained.
Magdalene sensed the movement,
took in Mary’s behind going up

and down on the bed cover.
Glory be. She wanted to kiss.
Needed the hand to touch Mary’s,

the skin to join up with hers.
Downstairs a voice bellowed
to keep the ****** noise down.

Mary sighed and bent down
to turn the **** the thigh
revealed in the skirt's slit,

the spot of flesh through
the hole in the bended knee.
Magdalene captured the image.

Hid it in her memory bank for
later, for bedtime, for the cosy
pretend hold, maybe more if in
her dream she was lucky and bold.

pencil-thin shoulders
mess of dyed blonde hair and fake
strawberry grins
lost in movie ticket stubs stuck
to crowded multi-coloured walls stuffed
bears hidden under bedsprings, pent-up
energy like carbonation in sugary soft drinks
unsteady hands on composed aged shoulders,
unsure feet find their way on moving
slabs cleaning out bright blue backpacks
filled with words forgotten on
pages dried up like pens or discarded acquaintances
discovering heart-shaped cardboard tokens of February
infatuation pure unlike clandestine Friday nights,
pounding nervous with blood in pink seashell ears

it's a slow burn, easy to ignore
you're slowly sinking into
the teeth of your bedsprings.
you don't hate the sun but you
don't remember asking it to rise.
you enjoyed last night but tonight
it might not be so easy to fall asleep.
and if it is then you've not left your bed
for the best part of a week,
it's been one of the worst weeks in
your life.
you don't hate the night but you
don't remember asking the sun to set,
your eyes have just become
accustomed to the light.
you're slowly sinking into
the teeth of your bedsprings.
you're not even eating, you'll lose
all strength in your arms
and when you want to get up
and you want to shower
and you want to eat
and you want to feel clean
and you want to breathe fresh air
you'll be trapped in your mattress
with the bedsprings wrapped around
your spinal chord.
it's a slow burn, it's easy to ignore.

Lacking of life now
I lol on my fine divan
Laziness often
lacks the power of rapture
as in sofa or bedsprings

Labour of love her
for large obese lobster me
Mermaids capture me
a symphony of sea-sick
rasping tongues lick our lumps

Little old lady
typing the language of love
A real cyber date
computer romance limits
operational life's love

Laughing over lines
of disco ****- pure *******
Lewd obscene language
grasping lemon or lime highs
to count Hollywood star shootings

A full length of life
the longing off, lay proceeds
Lady of the Lake
lunging our lisps sound depths
we are - breathing harmony

The land of Lincoln
legion of Lucifer's Lord
landscaping of lawns,
losing our liberty's law,
leaving on lights, blinding

Lots of Laughs or 'lol'
populist abbreviation*
language often less,
leftovers of literate
gone to libraries of late

Aloft, the mattresses on which she sits
Are facades that shield much more troubling things.
Their roots are grounded deep inside the pits
That stop solutions; soon, the bars will bring
Another pea to which the mounds will mold.
Bedsprings try to push parasites from her,
But soon tendrils will render her stone cold.
Naught can stop progression, if I concur.
As for things besides, that pea rots, growing,
Into another monster without rest,
And till the truth emancipates, the sting
Can melt the layers entirely in jest.
Though, when that day comes for longer sleeping,
Peace is felt by her who’s longed for keeping.

Are only the tools of the trade
To swinging ***** and easy Janes
Like these now attempting to muffle their shouts
In the purple suburban evening where God knows
Only all the neighbors are striving to listen;
A couple of loveless friends *******
Each other out of breath and full of big plans—

And now I’m sure that we can,
Just listen to her moan!
A man once told me I’ve got to give it to her
To stick a son in there.
I might ask, but there’s no need now to beg
Because we deserve it too much.
Our dry spell is all wet tonight;
Are those the cries of a baby I hear,
Or our bedsprings squeaking?—

It only hurts a little when he gets this excited
But instances are excusable
*** folds in memory
And ****** success caresses forms into forms
I know she will be beautiful
Her beauty will come to her as easily as it passed me by
I am not sad, neither
And the sweat, his sweat drips from his naked chin onto mine—

I tell mom and dad that’s fine,
I want another brother.
They make noises in their room
Which are so loud they keep me awake.
So they decided to make them after dinner,
When I am trying to read.
Sometimes I listen to them very carefully, but
Then I have nightmares of
Them hurting each other.
They are making noises now;
Something not good is happening.

there is nothing quite like being with you ...

sitting cross-legged on your warm crumpled comforter in dim amber light
with hunched backs against the white stone wall,
silently working to piece each other together,
merging thoughts and shoulders,
falling into each other's gravity and orbiting like stars–
we couldn't figure out
how to get any closer ...

we lived in shoeboxes then,
in ***** laundry and ramen-flavored freedom,
the soundtrack in our background
shuffled steps and muffled laughter through thin walls,
pencil scratches and elevator dings,
wooden doors and heavy coats,
cars in the snow rushing by our open windows,
hot cocoa, creaking bedsprings, and
singing–

I have been listening for the music in the things here–
I have searched in comforters, in stone walls,
in laundry and ramen,
in slippers and open mouths and pencils and elevators and doors and coats and cars and snow and windows and chocolate and bedsprings and everyday I try to remember something else I can dissect:
some texture, some melody, some pattern, some rhythm
where you might exist too,
but your music
is nowhere else.

we live in big empty houses now,
in hardwood floors and toothpaste-flavored loneliness.
I can still hear our shoeboxes
and feel the pull of our gravity
somewhere
fading ...

We stood on the shores of forever.
The transient waves
lapping at the Cliffside
Grinding granite
to bare sand and
granting mysticism to
           Perception.

Grand piano typebars snicking
to the roar of bonfires
burning the taste buds off our fingers
            Our tongues busy in rituals
          gifting freedom from base function
              to commune with Passion.

Newfound Oldschoolism
        stuttering confidence
                and alcohol imbibed clarity
screaming Ginsberg at Apathy so that sand might best stone

                  Spinning dizzily
in Rockland in Moloch in Purgatory
Dying vicariously under the table
while illiterate Jazz read
our right accusatory
                                 for falsifying veracity

Sitting in jail cells in
San Francisco for setting
         the sky aflame.
        And it is aflame.

Inmates burning with
unspoken tomes spoken
Who in madness spun truth
        in whipped tongues, begging
        for something worthy of Censure.
Who Rapture took under wing
        and proclaimed “Child!”
Who ripped open the sky
        to play with father time
        while mother earth ran green
                   in envy.
Who were acquitted on appeal
        to dance in the moonlight on the
        shore once more together,

        Who found lust skipping stones alone
and welcomed her to join us
Hedonists wearing it like a
badge on bare underbellies
rubbing orgied in reverence
       Running fingers through coarse
hair windblown and sparking
with electric sensation.
       Exploring, pioneering
quivering legs and chests
beneath and atop us.
       Inventing love while sinking
quickly in slow sands
while smooth hands grasped
for the fleeting finite
      Whispering sweet everythings
without words for they
would be wasted here.
      Pulling needy lips away
to idealize Communism
as Bourgeois swine wallowing
in prosperity and sweat
of our nightly deeds.
      Complaining of lost chances
and brevity of copulation
when we’ve defeated the bedsprings
      and Fantasizing of the bed, car,
floor, park, studio, and once
on the hood for good measure
      Forsaking sleep to defy
the mandate of the setting moon
      Praising the glinting ******
of Adonis and Aphrodite
in mutual longing
as the sun blinked into
existence through the window
until in merry acquiescence we
     dozed, dreaming
we had set San Francisco aflame
and lit our cigarettes on its
                embers,
While we slipped little squares
under our tongues and GoldenGatePark
turned alive and welcoming;
Gleeful mourning at the loss of self
        at the University
Rambling on about enlightenment
        full of pretentious humility
Establishing Anarchy in our veins
        so we might be closer to god

               And god lives right there
               in the shack atop that
               hill, handing out nature
               to the masses
sitting on benches, fried to comprehension.
       Proclaiming that the world
was bleeding glory to bewildered
               passers-by.
       Breathing in fog and smoke
to join oblivion quickly
       Bumping Kerouac’s ashes in
the selfsame alley
       Piling intoxicants to run sleepless
through the streets
                                       wild-eyed

Dragged out of gutters
        covered in nothing
               the morning after
                     finding our clothes
                          draping streetlamps
                     and leaving them
               in testament.

Yearning for that heavenly connection
         and finding it
             together.
Scaling the walls of
        the mind to
find mountains at
        the summit and
        climbed those too
and clamored past
        the clouds
and the stars until
       We found worth at the edge
of the universe.

                                             20 September 2010

Sunday I met you
and now it's Thursday
haven't left your bed
since

Spring weather so riotous
and erratic
love so dangerous it breaks
hearts and bedsprings
bent blankets and electric
tingles hands scraping
each other's bodies