I thought,
I was impervious, armor
in place, attached to detachment
my pesky synapses
melted away in
a gray soup

protected,
pain exempt...
but ****, you  
come to me
in dreams

in Morpheus grip
you slip in, those menacing faces
I managed to block, return
to mock me

the jeers to which
I made myself deaf, are now soprano, alto, bass
in my nocturnal symphony

those who malign me
are free to walk on my grave:
to them and all others I am
but slumbering slave

I can not choose
when to wake, to end your reign
but if I could, you would then skulk  
a bit in my skull's dark den
waiting for my weary eyes
to close again

He told me my scars weren't beautiful
And I told him that no one could ever really admire a masterpiece
Without taking a few steps back

Shall I bind you with cords of kinship,
Instead of ties of flagrant love?
Shall I catch you with family kindness,
Instead of arrows from above?
Am I a coward,
or a faithful friend,
who longs to keep you to the end,
A fool
a liar
a lover unrequite
dangerously chaining you
to a rose I claim is white?

2nd to rise, she enquires
you ready for coffee?

it's only 6:22am

if you're having, I'm having...

she quiet disappears

thinking coffee's coming,
when to this layabout,
it occurs,
she's making
coffee in the ****?

get up, make myself presentable,
track her,
the coffee aroma pulsating,
radar signal emitting

sure enough,
coffee in the ****,
grinding, dripping...percolating

but what I see is
contrast and
definition

appliance white
stainless
steel chrome gleaming,
walnut wood cabinetry warming in
Vermeer sunlight window in-streaming,
a Chagall and Botticelli duet,
freshly filtered
thru a Manhattan sky
and flesh,
freshly filtered

flesh
is not a Crayola color,
or
if it is,
it's more a spectrum,
than a single shade

but this moment morning
flesh is more realized,
as if recognized for the first time,
by a newborn old timer,
who senses the
comprehension tension of circumspection
circumcised differentiation,
flesh knowledge gradation gained

this poem,
a first attempt at
painting a ****
in words

appreciating  task enormity,
for there are currently
insufficient words,
too many striations,
all cannot be straitjacketed to the
vocabulary palette

this then,
but my first definition of many,
of
flesh

so many canvasses,
so many undiscovered shadings
awaiting
****** recognition definition,
composition