Stand close to me
I want to remember us
right here
right now
in that dress you’re wearing
in this light
or with a filter
ya, probably with a filter
we will immortalize this moment
in digital eternity
put ourselves in the back pockets
of all our friends
let them see us
we will become stars tonight
and though the skies are full these days
of lite-brite impersonations
I’m certain we will burn into forevers
I haven’t really noticed where we are
let the world fit itself into the top two corners
of our rectangular existence
like it matters anyway
I need to remember us
tomorrow you won’t be here
we won’t be here
wherever here happens to be
tomorrow I will hear myself again
with those lonely songs and cold hands
of an all-too-present reality
I need you to stand close to me
if I look back and see the world in between us
it will look too much like the truth I’m avoiding
tomorrow I will need to convince myself I’m living
and this will be my arm-length testament
there was a time and a place when we were smiling
pushed close together behind nostalgia inducing filters
if we can look convincing tonight
dress ourselves in starlight
block out the world behind us
maybe tomorrow I’ll believe it
shout your picture into my hollows
before the lonesome deepens
I need you in my back pocket
for those days my lonely soul gets wordy

I locked eyes with the street last night
and it dared me to turn away
turn from the injustice
inequalities
ignorance
move on to some romantic scene
that lives outside the grey

I wrapped its cold wet skin
around my neck and began to shiver
as the rocks began to scrape
scratch
slither in my veins
as one hundred unknown faces
paddled their way down river

I tasted grief and empathy
and the mix was all too vile
more bitter than any sympathy
symbiotic
synergy
gears were painting machinery
cranking out disquiet and bile

It was then I found its corner
and the music it seemed to breathe
and despite my hesitation
hysteria
hellish intent on fiction
The asphalt smile began to grow
and pave my mind at ease

I thought that stars were for the sky
Muted lights beyond my reach
Until your galaxy flew by

I sang to them with no reply
Hollow nights and there in each
I thought that stars were for the sky

I could not find an answer why
And so rejection I did preach
Until your galaxy flew by

A mystery that dares defy
The laws of nature wise men teach
I thought that stars were for the sky

My sense of love in short supply
I was a lonesome owl’s screech
Until your galaxy flew by

Your nebula no gold can buy
Your gravity implodes my speech
I thought that stars were for the sky
Until your galaxy flew by

On April 26th, 372 B.C. Plato was the first man to inflict injury upon his own dreams.
Not the forms casting shadows in his cave, his literal dreams.
At 6:35 a.m. the impish snarl of a water ***** crept into his Utopia of an
all-you-can-eat gyro cart overturned at the corner of his street and roused him
back to consciousness. The ingenious design of his Clepsydra quite obviously complete,
Aristotle came running with the awkward stride of a sleepwalking adolescent
to see what his master had done. When he arrived he saw flying,
two pots of water, an air-compressing submersible chamber and one water ***** reed.
Aristotle quickly collected the shattered pieces and noted
that this broken pottery was more real than time itself.

On September 21st, 712 A.D. a small village just outside the boundaries of
Chang'an, China came dangerously close to taking the life of the palace
astronomer/inventor/sleepyhead. Crowding around the door of Yi Xing, the
townspeople tore their robes and wailed for him to put a stop to the
incessant clanging. Xing, who had apparently overslept and was still
clinging to morsels of fading dreams about his young mistress, stuffed his
face into his pillow, muttering eureka, after first having chucked the
two clay pots, handful of stones and plate-sized gong out the front door,
much to the amusement of the assembly of drooping eyelids and torn pajamas.

In the year 1235 A.D. tortured residents of Baghdad began associating their
daily and nightly times for prayer with the ringing of their eardrums from
uninvited chimes.

In 1493 St. Mark's Clock-tower polluted the once-pure Venetian air with
hourly reminders that we are all yet one hour closer to our inevitable death
and the priests of the day called it humility.

Levi Hutchins of New Hampshire turned to a pine cabinet, brass clock and
mechanical gears in 1787, and for the first time gave himself the ability to
choose when he would hate the morning.

In 1847, French inventor Antoine Redier began making money off of people's
early morning auditory masochism.

Lew Wallace, the morning after completing his masterpiece novel "Ben Hur,"
awoke with a fiendish beeping in his ear and proceeded to invent the paradox
of the snooze button.

In Spring of 1942 the war in Europe raged and all U.S. alarm clock production ceased.

In the Spring of 1943 well-rested factory men, confronted by their foreman
upon arrival at 9:15, erupted the words "my alarm clock is broken,"
forever placing the excuse in the deep pockets of slackers
world-wide.

To all of these respected men of our history
Who have thought with their hands to create
The foundation of a society drowning in Starbucks,
I wish to express my sincerest ingratitude.

I lie awake in bed at night,
Licking the bitter taste of reality from my cheeks,
In the company of Plato, Lew Wallace and Yi Xing,
Wondering what dreams will be stolen from me.

A stripper does not command the same feelings
when there is no music
when there is rain
when there is **** beneath their feet
when there is no stage
when they are
naked.

Step off stage,
peel their eyes from your skin.
Layer after layer
of pervert,
of bloodshot,
wipe the trails of loathing
they leave behind.
Take a cotton swab to your navel
to dry your mother's tears.
These are nothing you haven't seen.

Find glass where it is not broken,
Break it.
Pull on your face until you can see your cracks
echoed in kaleidoscope reflections.
Let your tongue swipe your teeth
and slurp down the dollar bill smile.
Chase it with the cat that was
swimming in your eyes.
Imagine what you would look like dead.
Make silly faces in broken mirrors.
Turn away before they fade.

Shake your head in your hands
until music flies from your ears.
Shake harder.
Spill the hypnotic equilibrium they sold you
Watch the room start to sway.
Sit down.
Stand up.
Find your legs.
*****.
Heave,
feeling there is much more poison
than will ever come out.
Cough into the air,
knowing your hands are sacred.
Wipe your memory on someone else's sleeve.

Walk to the door.
Let your profession slip from your shoulders.
Become human.
Become blending into the crowd.
Become busy with something in your hands.
Open the door, then your umbrella.
Do not breathe.
Take five steps forward and wait to exhale
until your hear the door slam behind you.
It isn't healthy to mix the sight of rain
with the smell of broken pianos.

Walk forward.
Out of your shoes.
Wince as the concrete speaks to your heel.
Bathe your toes in the nearest puddle.
Let your umbrella slide from the warmth of your hand.
Watch it fly.
Notice the people.
Move your sight from the ground
and rest it on their chins.
Realize you're wearing no clothes.
Pull the confidence down and off of your walk
and turn to the closest alley.

Step off stage.
Peel their eyes from your soul.
Become an individual.
Forget "the people."
Notice the persons
wrapped to their noses in professions and smiles,
confidence and ignorance pouring from their eyes,
heads tucked low beneath charcoal umbrellas.
Smile.
Without trying when you hear the clouds roar.

Stop when you find there are more walls than bodies
and the smell of ***** is stronger than your own.
Forget your smell.
Open your mouth.
Forget your taste.
Bend your knees and raise your head.
Close your eyes and feel it rain.
Scream.
Strip the religion from your prayers.
Scream the ineffable confession.
Forget your body.
Drink the rain.

there is no music
there is rain
there is **** beneath your feet
there is no stage
you are
naked.

weighing options like avocados
firm in the palm of my hand
is the moment just ripe?
or does it belong under the cupboard
another day to breathe

I pull the present into my nose
and search it for signs of future
pull it over my tongue
wrap tonight in a paper bag
another day to breathe

If this poem had a life before I wrote it,
this poem was a penguin.
This poem waddled,
not just because it was a penguin,
also because this poem was fat.
This poem was a fat penguin.
And not just the black and white kind;
this poem was an electric blue fat penguin
who never really understood it was different
until its parents let it out to play with the other little penguins
and they started teasing it and calling it blue bird.
Until that moment,
this poem had no idea that it was a bird.
All this poem knew was that its heartbeat was like a simile
and it had metaphors for feet
and they did not dance.
This poem embraced its electric blue nature
and never saw itself as the underdog
because it was a penguin who lived in Antarctica
and it had no concept of what a dog was
or what it might be under.
Penguins just don’t think like that.
This poem smacked a seal with a couplet underwater.
None of the other penguins believed it,
but it did.
This poem waddled with a lazy swag
and leaned a little to the right
so sometimes it walked in circles.
This poem had 360 degrees of perspective
and -50 degree wind chills.
This poem had more than 50 words for snow
and no words for poetry.
It just lived
and didn't even listen to what other people wrote about it
because it's windy in Antarctica
and you can't really hear much.

For each word that never made it past my teeth
-harsh critics-
I am sorry
I told you I loved you last night in bed
and all you heard was my breathing
-waves on your shore-
I am sorry

For each step I should have taken that was frozen in my legs
-stone pillars-
I am sorry
I ran to the edge of the earth for you
where I heard the lilies were blooming
-empty vase-
I am sorry

For each song that suffocated in my hollows
-white noise-
I am sorry
I scored you a serenade for clarinet and bassoon
and your shutters heard nothing
-white noise-
I am sorry

For each quiver of my hands that has held me
chained to the anvils of fear
For the confidence I lack and the love I have not given
-myself-
I am sorry
For times I held truth by the throat underwater
and prayed you wouldn't notice the splashing
For those days I went sleep walking
-through prayers-
I am sorry
For the stability I cradle while sitting on dreams
singing songs we all know the words to
the song we've each written verses to
12 bars on each wall of this blue cage that we sing through
For the times we don't fight
For the times that we mean to
For the injustices that steal the peace from our silent nights
For the riotless streets
For thriving inequalities
For microphones and stages still wet with my ego
For the silence I keep
-when the world is listening-
I am sorry

Shake me
from these paralytic dreams
from the cloud of ideas and fantasy
-what is art but a landing?-

Shake me
make me rise up and face the music
climb out of myself and breathe
-what is prayer but respiration?-

Shake me
until my apologies are gone
and your house is full of flowers
and your ears are full of songs
and your heart is filled with this love of mine
your quivering hands shook free

Shake me
until I see beauty in truth
and truth in what we are made to be

The air is charged with eminence.
Red-bellied birds lose their song in the wind.
Just when will the sky crack open?
When will the screaming turn to tears?
Send the drummers running
and, before their sticks hit the ground,
give face to wide-eyed fears.

I can smell you from my window:
Amalgamation of mushrooms and clover.
Just when will you crack me open?
When will my primal state lie bare?
Strip me of city sophistication
and, before the drummers come running,
wash me well beyond my years.

Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Mata los timbales
Go Tito

Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Mata los timbales
Go Tito

Oye como va...

the neighbors voices climbing out of windows left and right.

Is that you Tito?
Put down those pots and pans.
Make better use of those hands.
Don't you know those hands were made for working?
Follow your father to his factory grave shift,
Make razorblades to sell.
We'll always have hair on our faces.

Is that you Tito?
Knock off that racket.
Here I am trying to sleep
And you've got my feet to moving.
The night was made for dancing Tito,
And dancing was made for Harlem,
But that's bastante on a Wednesday mijo.

The young king packs up his studio,
Whistling dixie like she's never been whistled before.
Twirling the melody from royal lips,
Showing her how to use those God given hips.
Where did you find that groove you in your neck?
And do the words Puerto Rico still give you the chills?

You have walked on too many streets in New York City
And the Afro-beat is shacking up with the Cuban.
You can hear their children playing in the barrio allá,
And aquí they're blowing horns of imagination.
Make those wooden sticks tap your telegram, Tito.
Let the world know about this message brewing inside you.
They hate.
They yell.
They love to see you dancing,
But your ankles told you that wasn't right for you.
Your hands never have been able to keep still.
Maybe it's because they feel the future.
Do you realize where your bridge will lead?

You are the future Tito.
Do what you got to do to be where you got to be.
Play in Uncle Sam's band but don't you go to Normandy.
Follow your hands back to the big apple,
Take a bite out of this place they call Juliard.
When you sleep at night are they still screaming…
Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Go somewhere where the floor is on fire
With the fusion of jazz and samba.
Make it bigger Tito until it looks like it did in your dreams.
Pick up those sticks and mata los timbales.
Have the decency to wink when they name you king.

What is it that you mixed in that ***?
Your alchemy giving birth to new species.
Have mercy Tito.
Your music is feasting on the ears of the public,
Your hands are drumming on the ecosystem.
They call it salsa, and you laugh
Because they can't taste the carne.
Shine those pots and pans.
Tip your hat to Spanish Harlem,
Where windows stay open to let the dreamers dream big
And the red brick walls are soaked with memories.
Babarabatiri Tito,
Teach the world how to dance.

Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Go Tito, Go Tito
Mata los timbales
Go Tito

Oye como va...

a legend.

Your lips were made for Hallelujahs.
Nothing less will do them justice,
and nothing more exists.

When granted the joy of life's creation,
their Maker sang into the heavens
and choreographed their dance.

The breath that passes between their mountains
carries with it the secret signature
of death-defeating hands.

Your lips were made to form sweet praises
with all the spirit and humbled passions
your heart and soul enlist.

It takes courage to be born in a grave
where the earthworms caress
and the night is like day.
But where two or three are gathered
they will burrow deeper yet,
pressing the earth to their faces.

It takes gall to bite the mouth that eats you,
little rocket ships
who never left the ground.
Launch your cultured pungent taste,
for if you must go,
go loudly.

Daikon, Cherry Belle, Easter Egg,
Black Spanish, Red King,
you are conquerers.
Digging away until the sun comes to find you,
blushing in myriad shades
of fearless ambition.

It takes integrity to never leave your roots.
Break bold and crisp,
candied keg of gunpowder.

I watch you in stop motion.

Love-
ly
dress,
I
must
con-
fess,
I probably
won’t
remember it
at all.

They’ve been trying for a while now
to anchor you down
tie you to the anvils of atoms and silk

I’ve been telling them for a while now
you’re extra-planetary
you won’t fit into their egg cartons

your first appearance
was marked by a fire
engulfing any earthly
binding or chains

You’ve been burning for a while now
with unlikely alchemy
with flames that repeat my exhaling

We’ve been missing for a while now
lost in each other
away from the world of atoms and silk

ambient glances
transpiring from ashes
and airborne oceans
my senses surfing
the evening glow

honeycomb lights spinning
restless with bees
and could-have-beens
and what-I-might-do-
if-you-were-downs

it is April
in every sense
of the word
incense swirls around a
strange foreshadowing

Don't call it silver
It is so utterly grey
Your banner waving
To humdrum anthems
Of countries upset
By the way you say
Patriotism
Loyalty
Words that are never
To be written in grey
Whose fibers cannot
Be found in your atrophy
You will die quietly
Not as a martyr dies
Never as red as the
Blood-stained uniforms
That blanket so many hills
There are none that you would die on
It is a shame you share
The color of stone
One might mistakenly
Paint you trustworthy

It's as if someone has stopped the music
and no one has noticed but me.
This quiet is ugly, inside and out,
and smells of rotting orchestras.

That is a theatrical lie,
and an attempt to make you miss me.

The truth is, everything looks the same.
I hear the familiar jaded hum of living
and it smells like coffee and cinnamon.
I am hating the thought
of fading into a life without you.
Break my heart quickly
or love me 'til death
brings that quiet I lied about hearing.

Crawling,
nimble fingers curl,
green tongues speaking,
the prairie grass buckles
under weight of the fickle wind.
Cool weather and farm dust
thrown from its right hand.
A solid left hook
burning holes in its pocket.

Don't get me wrong;
I count it all blessing,
This one track mind,
The endless company.
I always deliver what they come seeking:
That sharp taste of thrill in the ceiling of their mouths.

I suppose every life has its ups and downs.
Each person their silver,
Each person their cloud.
But I have inhaled the heavens deep into my lungs
And they have made me sick.
They drift, seemingly, wherever they please.
I can tell you this:
I have never tasted the same cloud twice.
Each second they grow.
With each gust they float
Away from the moment's cares and all its trivialities.

I can still hear them,
Well-meaning enough to make me doubt my sanity,
'You are built for speed' -now go where we tell you.
'You are full of surprises' -that we planned meticulously.
I am stuck in this groove and it is nothing I can dance to.
The DJ has fallen asleep
And I am slowly blending into the wallpaper.

The first time I heard them screaming
It was like wedding cake and cannons,
Like listening to your son speak his first word
And recognizing it as your name.
They love what I do.
I hate how I do it.

I dream of stretching my long body across the sky,
Taking flight like a paper dragon,
Chasing rooftops and mountains,
Rolling down hills as soft as a mother's cheek.
There are words I long to write on the horizon
In script as wide as it is deep.
There is so much more i have seen than i have smelled.
There are screams I can give you
That wave their arms like white flags,
Waiting to be plucked from gardens
Just outside my reach.

I have been burying my anguish in the hearts of wooden trusses.
They push back against me when I am feeling down.
'Chin up, there go those screams again.'
They taste nothing like cake.
One more 3 minute episode.
I have been showing you reruns of smiles for the past two years,
Have you noticed?
But who is the servant to question the master?
I will keep my head down,
Drive the track I've been given,
And pretend I still enjoy the sunrise.

I wish I could keep from sleeping.
The dissonance of waking to the same routine
Is Schoenberg to my ears.
Every night it's the same thing:
My eyelids kiss this day goodbye
And it is some glorious tomorrow,
When I will finally get my chance
To scream.

at first bite
lavender blossoms
perfume the air
on soft sugar hills
under lemon suns
always one step above
the crumbling earth

and after
such presence
as to inspire memories
of the just now
of the longing
reminiscent
before I should be

frozen in time he was quite the spectacle
thick rimmed frames traced rigid lines
projected from kaleidoscope eyes
sharp with the corners of unknown dimensions
caught hot handed
both in expectation and reminisce
so awkwardly present

most nights
he spins fairytales
double-dipping moons in molten watches
skewered with his arms
      these wooden poles
stirring the coals buried in ashes
he steps lightly.stomps
dances with the rings of saturn
then rolls like thunder
chasing Zeus's sore words
zig-zagging down to earth
ooohhhh…..
he may not melt hearts with that shoodoop
  that bebop
but they break for his habit of
making promises

he who holds time in the cave below his tongue
which now juts left off the reef of his lip
slip into
trip - - - skip
fall.into.this.
go mad for the pitch of his sweat
glaring at the spotlight
Dalí
painting worlds in the moments
between your ears and soul
he is god to their populations
and their hymns excite
rhythms ignite
visions of hard candy
tumbling your teeth smooth as river stones

he does not belong in a gallery
no high tipping wine sipping city slicker big wig
should ever feel comfortable in his blast radius
he makes bombs from tribal instruments
wigwam concoctions
set to test resting souls for pulses
paradiddle defibrillator
triplet stent for arteries
he is tall
and now thin
pressed against the wall as if under interrogation

splitting breath from its carbon
asphyxiated by the frame
he spells his words with motion
I find him
mute

Sing.
Mama's voice chimes bells.
Daddy's words raise hell.
The spell of music speaks doors into the night.
She steps onto the moonlight highway.
The melodies frozen in her ears from before
thaw and play their instruments
bringing life to dream-singers.
It's no coincidence
she was born premature.
It seems everything in her life has come early,
so she set her clocks ahead
and listened to the bells chime,
something like mama's voice.
Her home is a choice,
but not hers.
Instead she stirs the *** of muses
mixing salve for all the bruises,
not to her skin, he's not that stupid,
but for her bleeding heart
and broken mind.
Sing.
Purse your lips and cover your ears.
Conjure a tune from down in your belly
and make **** sure you guard all the exits.
Close your eyes and let the medicine
of cello strings and cymbals
back up the voice of your bones.
Don't let the melody presume to take words.
Your mind is caught up, trapped by the pain.
Just let soul **** tumble and fall
and rise, and climb and stall
and leave it all behind.
Let mama's screams blend in with crescendos.
Let go of this world.
Dip your toes in the timbre of streams.
Hands over your ears, don't forget!
Don't forget your form.
Forget the violent storms.
And if you're spun,
spin into helices.
Your DNA twisting into treble clefs,
hug the transformation close.
Who knows? You may sprout wings.
Sing;
If only a half-hearted whisper.
Sing yourself to sleep tonight.
And hope mama's voice still chimes in the morning.

Walked in like B flat
Slow music playing
Heels clicked like staccato
Dress cello imitating
Blue notes sunken
Drunken with the motion
Of the left right sway
Spin, dip, heads floating
River more than ocean
She never stands still
She don't shoot the breeze
Heart-breaker, shoot to ****
Then she transposed the thrill
B harmonic minor
Tango, stomp, clap
Somebody shot the dress designer.
Violence in the night
Gasoline on the floor
Swift step matchstick heels
She adores the
White
Light
Like coconut cream
Musicians bathe with the moon
Sleep with its beams
Play until the world
Seems to burst at the seams
Set fire to the rivers
Inhale the steam
Descend with the fifths
Never rest on a trill
Cut the drums, spotlight
Let her transpose the thrill

I was angry when I saw her dancing.
She had no right.

Just last night she danced with me,
turning blues to pomegranates
and stepping on the seeds.

She walked through my corridors
(dim lights, bright-eyed)
painting the walls with broken expectations.

She whispered like a secret
she was now laying bare
at the tongues of anxious barbarians.

This morning her hips repulsed me,
churning smiles from grizzle
and burning coffee beans.

She had no right.

Strange pirates, we, who burry our treasure
In the land-locked hollow of a frozen November.
And the preacher's voice, thick with that solemn charm,
Is dizzying in our ears.

Strange pirates, we, who sail without anchor,
Wind-whipped and weary of the salty flavor.
And each swell that beckons with open arms
Is a reckoning to our years.

Strange pirates, we, without pillage or plunder,
Surround ourselves with natural wonders.
Each smile, each laugh, each body warm,
Is a borrowed blessing held dear.

Strange pirates, we, who, when our bodies grow cold,
Call out to all our kindred souls
And ask nothing more than to be remembered
As our memories turn to gold.

And each bell that tolls in a land-locked whenever
Will remind us of treasure for all our years.

I met a man who sells boxes
Big boxes, small boxes,
dark boxes, boxes with a hole in the top.
right there on the street corner.
selling boxes to whomever he meets.
The man was sharp with a Colgate smile
and eyes that searched your pockets discretely.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,
especially you boys and girls,
toothy wink
Now is your chance,
don’t miss the opportunity.
These boxes sell faster than a free lunch at noon
100% certified to the industry standard
and they come complete with a lifetime guarantee!
I see you second guessing the decision sir.
Let me just tell you, I’ve lived without a box.
It’s not a pretty place to be.
The elements of this world are cruel
and you can’t get back what they take away.
I tell you what, I’m feeling generous today!
I’m declaring that for the next 2 hours
With any purchases of a full size box
I’ll include a child sized box for no additional fee!
But wait, there’s more!
You don’t want a box without a secure lid do you?
Act now and I’ll throw in our patented dual-use lock
Lockable from both the inside and out.
Yes, you ma’am, and one for your daughter as well?”

I watched in horror as the gathering crowd
meandered through his maze of assorted boxes
crouching down and stepping gingerly
inside each one that caught their eye.
Nothing like that new box smell.
Some looked for boxes with head room,
some felt safer with walls to their noses.
A father was helping his son
pull his dreams from a big yellow backpack
filing down the odd edges,
pruning the extrusions,
so they would fit neatly inside
calling his son’s tears the fruit of naiveté
speaking with a voice he assured himself was reason.
The shiny suited man approached me cautiously,
his salesman polish dimmed,
“Have we met?”
He asked with incredulity.
“It’s been about 20 years, I’m surprised you remember”
“Oh, I never forget a face,” he said.
“But what are you doing HERE?
Was there a problem with the box I gave you?
You know there’s a lifetime guarantee.”

“I met a man who collects boxes
in a waterproof warehouse
down at the bottom of the sea.
He knocked on my box and asked the simplest of questions
‘Would you be free?’
My eyes began swimming and my heart shook to its core
as I sadly admitted I had somehow lost the key.
‘Would you be free?’
He repeated, and I answered.
and at once the lid was lifted
and I was lifted
and I was free.
And he set straight the lies that others had told me
And asked if I would give him my fear
my pride, and all the other strings that tethered me to the box
I had sealed myself in for protection.
And then, of all things,
he whispered to me a poem
and it’s that poem that I am here to speak.”

There is honor in this death
I know many who have left on hooks
lesser things for their lesser looks
somewhere I'm sure their music is canned

and what had I planned to do anyway
another season of the same old spawning
taking pride in my dorsals
and endlessly running from teeth

but this is Jiro
and I am tired of running
the last taste of salt passes through my gills
I have lost my fear of teeth

I only hope I can fill him
and his insatiable craving
for perfection


*Jiro, famous sushi chef in Japan

Keep your hands to yourself!
     If I have to tell you one more time to stop touching her
     I will duct tape those fingers to your knees so help me God.

Fresh from the womb I felt her.
My hands clawed the air and found her smile,
Before my eyes opened, before my ears could discern,
I felt her love, palpable and near.
After the synesthesia, when her finger no longer sang,
I felt the warmth of her neck as she swayed,
Dancing to the honey her lips spilled in the cool night air,
Her touch was more music to me than rhythm,
More primal an instinct than survival,
I would die holding my mother’s hand.

Bubbles were so much more fun before they became personal.
I spent hours chasing invisible globes
My father created from a mixture of heat and lawn chairs.
I have spent years chasing invisible globes
My peers have created from a mixture of insecurities and histories of cold.

When I am gone my heart misses you.
When I return and you extend your hand
I begin the conversation I have had with myself too many times to remember.
     They don’t mean that they don’t love you.
     But doesn’t their heart feel it too?
This magnetic pull of our celestial bodies
Gravity drawing them together until they would join in the enigma of unity
Nebulous at best I would call your reaction
It seems you would rather keep me in orbit,
Just close enough to peek at on cloudless nights,
Just far enough to let me take the asteroids on my own.

I want your hands all over me.
Since birth the world has removed itself from me,
Carving borders and barriers, walls and fences,
And the immutable space that is between you and me.
Deep in my heart waves the flag of rebellion
Held in the hand a young boy thrusts high in the air
Forever kept in the age of innocence,
The age without fences,
When it still seemed right to embrace the ones you love.
He is wearing a baseball cap and cowboy boots
And wants to know why you feel so cold.

So here we are, floating.
And I’m asking you to fall.
I am asking you split your bubble at the seems
And leap into my arms full of fear and free of expectations.
I will catch you and press you close to my heart
Where the children of the rebellion meet.
We are not falling, we are jumping.
And the heart of the earth has missed us so.

Please keep talking.
Bring me home.
Each brush stroke inflection
Stokes fires of resurrection
Bringing back memories of
Baseball diamonds,
Karate lessons,
One-room school houses and
Overlooked blessings,
Of hills so high that we
Named ourselves kings
And of our fathers' shadows
That reminded us
We were yet princes.
The sound of your voice
Is unearthing ruins of me,
Of blueberry fields
Where we stained our clothes,
Of the sulfur we often
Held in our noses.
In your ebb,
In your flow,
It echoes more clearly
Than my heartbeat:
Will a tree forget its roots?

Chase my voice through clouds of sulfur
convince it to let me burn it alive
parade it down broadway to light up the corners
starved of recognition

Tie anvils to the tips of my fingers
light them also on fire
it wasn't really the cigarettes
so much as the flames of sacrifice

Ignore their judging eyes
invite them into my home
whip my back until it bleeds for their religion
go to sleep with the smell of incense in my throat

let us then digress into the earliest of pleasures
let us cover ourselves in dirt and grime
may we throw our tantrums well

let us then digress into the earliest of horrors
let us come to the edge of that tranquil pool
may we refrain from weeping at our reflection



it is so strange
this brilliance covering itself in mud
this gift bestowed to the broken
these blessed who break themselves at the sternum
these free and bleeding souls
those much too lost to ask for directions
those helpless meandering
beautiful minds

Pray.
Fold your hands or raise them empty.
True worship is in the sand.
It's knowing your coasts.
Knowing where you stop and where the Mystery begins.
Setting invisible standards on scales
you will never step foot on yourself
and being completely ok with that.
Empty hands are easy to hold on with,
so he squeezes with all his might.
Tighter with each missed meal,
tighter still with each cold night.
He holds on to the stories of Sundays,
of Lion's dens and wooden boats.
So that in the darkness of poverty's grave,
He prays.
Staying true to that thing with feathers in his soul,
he finds laughter amid storms
and wrestles smiles through the pain.
He grows.
From some invisible seed planted some time ago.
Grandmama's kitchen was a regular glass-walled greenhouse
And there wasn't anybody around
that could look themselves in the mirror
should one day they take to throwing stones.
Pray,
Mama told him.
So he closed his eyes and spoke.
Truth to remove the cold,
bread of spirit to fill his hunger.
But when he opened his eyes he felt pain in his side,
so he prayed again.
Knees on the ground,
he expected the earth to sprout cheerio trees,
the clouds to rain blankets,
and Grandmama to come around the next corner.
Such was the mustard seed.
Often times he slept after prayer.
Not always of peace.
Sometimes he was afraid his eyes
would see the same world when he opened them.
So he held them shut and saw Grandmama in dreams.
Pray,
Mama told him,
for patience and peace.
His empty hands still raised,
Still empty,
he gazed into the rafters of the one place he felt safe.
Singing songs of Sundays
and praying like Friday nights.
He felt light wrap around him,
rainbows he thought,
because he liked the colors,
and he learned while he was hungry
to pray.

I wish we could be genuine.
Touch our hearts with our fingers and hold them up to the light.
Paint murals where the shadows once dreamt.

I wish we could be bold again.
Scream with the intensity we did when we were born.
Find what we desire, and pursue at all cost.

I wish I could be broken.
Set fire to this barrier wrapping my limbs and chisel into the bone.
Mine what I know lies deep within.

I wish we could be genuine.
Flush our faces with insecurities and hold more than each other's skin.
Let our tears and our laughter mean what they meant.

Sweet intoxication
flowing through my eyes.
Don't let me down,
don't let me down
until the other side.

I know you hide the best of you
just beyond my reach.
Sweet intoxication,
tell me your name is peace.

Cover the lies with blankets of morphine,
ecstasy and bliss.
Surely if there was a heaven to have
it would taste something like this.

Plunge down like you did again,
fill my veins with the rush.
Sweet intoxication,
you are never enough.

she was born to bend this way
her muscles sing through the air
wrapping physics round her finger
handspring, handspring, tuck,
plant
her equilibrium ponders life and its meaning
every twitch intentional
every smile framed
if life were more like summersaults
and less like crashing planes
if the truth were always inside your ears
and the applause came only when you landed safe
if, when you fell, there were always a dozen friends waiting
to lie to you about gravity
maybe she would tumble beyond the mat
into rumors of spiraling fates

Shells wash up on shallow shores
Sure and unashamed

Ancient treasures shed by shadows
The ocean ricochets

Patiently musicians wish
To share imaginations

Champagne fish and visions of the
Starfish constellations

They shout their cache of consciousness
Shivering vibrations

Sugaring the fishermen
With ocean incantations

1.
Because you are lonely too. And you know what it's like to spend hours waiting for a notification that someone values what you say. Verification that some of the people in your box of friends still walk through your forests waiting for trees to fall.

2.
Because you didn't understand the metaphor and so it must be deeper than your reach. Because people who appreciate poets are more approachable than poets themselves, and are far less likely to spend Saturday nights alone.

3.
Because the words look like family. Because when they pass your teeth it's as if your heart joins in chorus, and their syntax wraps cozy round your shivering bones. Because their eyes look like yours and because they know how to cut you, but don't.

4.
Because you are in love. And if a raccoon tore a hole in your garbage bag, ate last week's green chocolate cake, and returned it to your porch shortly after, you would see poetry in it. Because poems look like pies through rose colored glasses and it's really hard to find a bad pie.

5.
Because you hate this poem but won't tell me. Because our relationship hangs on your approval, and you know I'll expect you to make me feel ok about writing this. To tell me people don't appreciate real art anymore, and that's why no one else has responded.

6.
Because it doesn't rhyme, and there are numbers separating the stanzas that force you to read the last line slowly. Because it references Facebook and so it's something you can relate to. Because it's cliché enough to be memorable, and a little out of the box but still inside mine.

7.
Because you know why I wrote it. And you know that seeing your name beside it will be all the consolation I need. Because their is loyalty in a signature that even our forefathers acknowledged, and because it's the best way you know to take sides.

8.
Because the last thing you liked was McDonald's French Fries and you're looking to diversify your portfolio.

9.
Because you want me to remember you. Because we haven't spoken in years outside of birthday wishes and silence is a hard habit to break. Because neither of us is sure who the apology belongs to but because you're willing to take a step on faith.

10.
Because you know the impact an echo can have on its target. Because we all scream from stages built with fearful hands. We carry microphones in our pockets on nights too quiet to sleep and purge our lungs of their angst. Because this cave can not be empty. Because words are not like family unless they are spoken by someone we love. Because some nights all I need is a name to believe I still have my own.

she wails
estranged
my unknown mother
tears on the Kenyan graves
i feel her from my corners
a thread pulled taut
from the web
of my citizen soul

I have a heavy taste in my mouth.
cinnamon sticks and sage
broken wisdom in sound words
I have the earth on my tongue.
cloves and winger squash
thirsty for sweetened rain

She laughs.
With a smile and a sound
She paints the walls with sunshine.

When she laughs,
There is no tomorrow,
Her voice giving life to hallowed now.

She laughs when
The smell of love and music
Is stitching its kiss in the sky.

She laughs.
With eyes like no others I've found,
And leaves it all behind.

Inspired by Caravaggio's Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness

Repent!
in my dreams
Repent!
in my waking
Repent!
in the crunch of every locust I eat
Repent!
in the sands of my resting place
Repent!
in the dust on my feet

I asked
What shall I cry
in this wilderness so vast?
What shall I sing
to Jordan’s banks?
Repent!
The voice answered,
and it rang in my ears,
and it rolled through my bones,
and at once I understood my father’s fear.
The voice of the LORD
is not a dessert rose,
but a knife
cutting ego from its sinew.
The voice left my father dumbfounded.
The same gave me words to speak.

Repent!
in my step
Repent!
in my breathing
Repent!
swimming in my tired eyes
Repent!
in the water I bury them in
Repent!
resonating each fiber of life

Would you be angry if I howled?
You awaken sleeping fires inside me
more primal than modern words can express.
You look as if you are dressed in the moon
with Orion around your wrist and Leo on your neck.
Such pendants chase the pedantry of speech from my mind.
There are no steps in your stride.
You move about teasing laws of inertia,
kissing gravity on the cheek
as if to acknowledge his feeble attempt.
I have searched all of time and space for you
and you have found me speechless.

Would you be angry if I howled?
Threw my head back and let loose my lungs?
There is a wind in your eyes that stirs my soul.
Sentences that made sense not two minutes ago read:
is the moon you pretty as not as... what?
letters strewn across my tongue fall into my throat
you are a category 5 lunar storm
coating my eyes in moon dust and shine.
There is no man in me so eloquent
as to answer the ancient beauty I have seen in you.
All I have found is a cartoon wolf
with his heart popping out of his overalls
and his eyes on fire with the moon.

Fear
Distrust
Bad blood
More blood
Bitten dust
Angry eyes
Lots of eyes
Story fires
History bleeds
Baltimore streets
Burn in madness
When asked how we should mourn him
Freddie didn’t speak

When I speak,
It is not so much for you
As it is for me.
Every word,
Echoing in the ballroom
Between my teeth,
Sets my jaw to dancing.
Sibilant whispers
Tickle the tip of my tongue,
Kissing the hiss
Of sunlight on daisies.
The hum drum of mountains
Growling at the ceiling,
Like a kitten purring
Against my nose.
Oohs and Ahs,
Medicine for my cheekbones.
Such ointment as vowels
No doctor has seen.
When I speak,
At times when no ear is listening,
It is not so much for what
As it is for how.
Every word
Stretching time,
Composite peace.

orange like beeeee
careful beeeeee
cautious beeeeeee
irrationally aware
of the world around you

red like tooooo
night toooooo
stop tooooooo
hesitant when the moment
calls for action

blue like weeeee
were weeeeee
aren't weeeeeee
are drowning
in oceanic air

Engage
Ignite
the blood needs stirring
the legs have fallen dumb
stupor of monotony
has nestled into hips
wake these automatons
shake the dust from their harps
break beds and shred pillows
it’s possible that the very sight of feathers
might spark a memory of flight
these lifeless were not stillborn
these were once vivid
there is an epic in each of their wrinkles
each one of their tongues
once rang like bell towers
from hilltop carnal cathedrals
there are mountains they have stood on
that you have yet to reach
be careful not to judge a valley
without first considering
why it’s not called a plateau
these are atoms waiting to be split
waiting to rupture
to quake
to rip through the popular tapestry
waiting for their chance to be contagious
be contagious
these are already on death row
unaware of their slumber
ritual has rocked them gentle and slow
and habit is a cozy cradle
Engage
Ignite
spark passion in dried up timbers
gathered like kindling in foxholes
these have been lovers
for a forgotten number of years
these once meant ‘I do’
there is a sedative nostalgia
glazing their smiles
these are not now, but then
break hourglasses
and storm the new beach
raise flags in the motherland
bearing family crests
speak warpaint
sing fire
compose your battle cry
from their fragmented vitality
arouse in these
a memory of their first love
awaken the giants
that have fallen asleep
pull the plug
let them die or breathe
but let us see
who is and who isn’t
a sepulcher

1
Eggshells cannot be
the foundation of trusting
I’ve tried it before

2
eyes that mirror earth
hands that reflect the heavens
you are everywhere

3
You sing silently
I have been known to deafen
our song is the same

4
If I paint my body
colors of sincerity
would you believe me?

5
Look into the woods
and tell me you don’t see it
looking back at you

6
reaching into me
you may find gold or garbage
accept both or none

7
The clouds are empty
the ground is already wet
stop praying for rain

8
then she wants ice cream
I’ve never before tasted
a woman so sweet

9
There are seldom nights
when sleep will trump poetry
tonight is seldom

10
count the syllables
in the God-forsaken screams
of empty poets

11
distance makes the heart
double its normal volume
love is broken ribs

12
Up jump the boogie,
blood dazzler, piano farm,
what will I call it?

13
wind through the branches
spinning its propaganda
trees will always bow

14
brevity, my friend
is grossly overrated
buy low and sell high

15
When clouds are singing
the melody is raindrops
falling on my head

16
Carbon has big shoes
Standing on earth’s jugular
Cause of death well known

17
People always say
the news sounds funny. It’s just
rock and roll to me.

18
A question rises
amid the revolution
Where are the poets?

19
if the sunset tried
to be something beautiful
it would cease to be

20
They found him floating
on the screen of an i-phone
Poor young Narcissus

21
Sleepy hills yawning
Under a needlepoint sky
Just a stitch in time

22
Our hearts and our hands
Are far too often strangers
Unite with passion

23
Dandelion girl
Dancing, amused by the wind
Never taking root

24
Rain on my eyelids
Spring’s pocket always carries
A panacea

25
spinning in the queue
are we escaping the tea
you poured for Venus?

26
Parmesan crusted
cauliflower bites served with
garlic aioli

27
surround sound crickets
each with its electric voice
serenade the dark

28
I will always have
more things in common with a
mirror than with you

29
there is very little
a properly placed sunset
cannot remedy

30
cocksure and wanting
we are blind and we’re leading
this dichotomy

AT ONCE!
And a just-forgotten moon
Splintered the frozen time sky
Airplane sewing machines
Pistol rock candy
Violent as birth
What is this night?
Chrome wheeled interjection
Sparkle studded sister
If there are clouds they are whispers
In the euphony of sights
Nebula rising
The horizon drowns
Settle it to say
Red eyes are waking
The forest burns with appetite
The fields are full of fire seeds
The shadow houses wink and beckon
The smile of thieves is on the cusp
Swimming the Black Nile
Hoping to be enough
The fiddler is spellbound
As the candid universe
Sings a Martian sailor’s tune

I left the seat
in the front row
of the place
with too many lights
for it to have been
that dim
dripping in music from head to toe,
from hip to soul,
listening to my ears and their lobes
ramble on incantations of unknown songs,
enchanting nuances strung throughout their chatter
like puddles strewn across concrete,
like grey matter,
like static
but much more in tune with nature
and far less understandable,
weaving my thoughts through new-found looms
stitching patterns of fumes,
gasses,
smoke and the solemn ashes
of melodies burned alive
under a nearly full moon,
under skies that humm
with the clanging arrival
of moments to be counted,
marked,
measured,
treasured for their value
though it elude all reason
because seasons do not lie
except for early spring evenings
when the lights are fading
and the music you heard playing
is quick to
leave your tongue.
It was all said and done.

One more highway home

among the trees and stargazers,

convincing my eyes

of what my ears have undone.

Love is green
Life to spark life
From rooms unseen

Ever wide eyed
Song of our children
Strong as the tide

Hope for the risen
Making all new
Accepting the given

Color of youth
Branches to vine
Green is the truth

Truth is divine

We the people,
floodwaters rising over Kansas City banks
and marketplace levies,
are channeled into rooms
the size and shape of shadows
to be given direction,
to give direction;
waiting our turn to be
churned through turbines.
Our mass is growing stagnant
by this massive
****; This feels like surrogate thinking.
Our water is wasted on greco-roman men
chopping up districts into blues and reds
dividing and conquering the ocean.