Off that landspit of stony mouth-plugs,
Eyes rolled by white sticks,
Ears cupping the sea's incoherences,
You house your unnerving head -- God-ball,
Lens of mercies,
Your stooges
Plying their wild cells in my keel's shadow,
Pushing by like hearts,
Red stigmata at the very center,
Riding the rip tide to the nearest point of
departure,

Dragging their Jesus hair.
Did I escape, I wonder?
My mind winds to you
Old barnacled umbilicus, Atlantic cable,
Keeping itself, it seems, in a state of miraculous
repair.

In any case, you are always there,
Tremulous breath at the end of my line,
Curve of water upleaping
To my water rod, dazzling and grateful,
Touching and *******.
I didn't call you.
I didn't call you at all.
Nevertheless, nevertheless
You steamed to me over the sea,
Fat and red, a placenta

Paralyzing the kicking lovers.
Cobra light
Squeezing the breath from the blood bells
Of the fuchsia. I could draw no breath,
Dead and moneyless,

Overexposed, like an X-ray.
Who do you think you are?
A Communion wafer? Blubbery Mary?
I shall take no bite of your body,
Bottle in which I live,

Ghastly Vatican.
I am sick to death of hot salt.
Green as eunuchs, your wishes
Hiss at my sins.
Off, off, eely tentacle!

There is nothing between us.

MY people are gray,
  pigeon gray, dawn gray, storm gray.
I call them beautiful,
  and I wonder where they are going.

If I was dead,
And my bones adrift
Like dropped oars
In the deep, turning earth;

Or drowned,
And my skull
A listening shell
On the dark ocean bed;

If I was dead,
And my heart
Soft mulch
For a red, red rose;

Or burned,
And my body
A fistful of grit, thrown
In the face of the wind;

If I was dead,
And my eyes,
Blind at the roots of flowers
Wept into nothing,

I swear your love
Would raise me
Out of my grave,
In my flesh and blood,

Like Lazarus;
Hungry for this,
And this, and this,
Your living kiss.

i am tired.
not for a lack of rest --
no, i slept quite well last night
and I've had my coffee.

its something deeper, something
inherently present, in the
fibers of my skin,
in my tendons, in my eyes.

i am exhausted,
fatigued by life
by the noise and the silence,
the people, and
the empty rooms,
the light and the dark;
by hope and
despair.

so worn down by the world
that nothing in it can
refresh my mind from the
constant buzzing.

i am tired, and there are not
enough hours in the night
for the type of rest i need.


-U.K. & m.g.

you were the greatest catch of my life
but i am no fisherman
i was never meant to reel you in
i was always meant to throw you back

I am desperate to find that sense of normality
I grasp for it
as if it is water
and I haven't had a drink for months.

I am desperate to find comfort in my life now
Rather than later
I am tired of waiting and feeling
as if I am an alien
in my own skin.

I am desperate to start living
I am stressed out
and tired of watching life
pass me by
as if I am invisible.

(a.d)