1.

we all know versions
of people
we all know blips-
flickering tv screens
with constantly changing channels
on to the next, one after another
maybe this show will feel right
maybe this genre will fit

unsatisfied by the plot
in this episode
unfamiliar with the characters
on the screen
the lighting in this room isn't
quite right
eyes flickering in candlelight
skipping over the horror channel
very quickly
trying to move on to the love scene

2.

you talk about my body
like it is a puzzle we have to finish
i'm waiting for you to realize
it is actually a dress that
will never fit anyone

but being a puzzle gives me
some time, so i let you
piece together the edges
you create a faceless outline and
call it a beautiful frame
for a piece of art you
don't quite understand

3.

but i will never be the basillica
and i am not an augustine
it's impossible to drink
the wine from my insides
without being poisoned by it's strength
we have been fermenting for a long time

and the bread does not break because
it had already been broken
into too many small crumbs
i wonder if you're still hungry

4.

and i think about our houses
both scattered with wooden bits
of the eiffel tower and taj mahal
big ben in the bureau by the wall
the colosseum in the middle
of the kitchen table
sydney opera house suspended
from the ceiling of the bedroom

monuments to so many bodies
we sure like putting them together
but it's hard to find storage space
when you're done

5.

you take pictures to remember
how proud you once were
or sometimes just to seal them in a frame
frozen in time so that the next time
you see them standing in the doorway
like a degenerate masterpiece
you can touch the photograph in your wallet

how the **** can i be angry when
you help yourself to what's left
after all love is
always the closest thing
to death

bethlehem is restless
terrorist holograms of mary teary unblessed when
death is living every day of your life forever breathless
breathing is all that is left in your chest when the stress hits
regresses to compressing aggressive obsessiveness
******* in pages to confess unspoken messages
the lightening and quiet screams promise me
they'll light my step through this
green grass in it's morning dress
uncaressed by pestilence
beth/rest
you're possessed by this

and the ghosts flitting between the trees
direct me to the places i must have seen in dreams
before i lost the connection to the earth long since
to the directionlessness of adolescence
every vibration left a crack
enough tremor to slide a pin in
and erzebet would visit my skin every night with rumplestilstkin
and they'd spin another needle through the muscle soft as linen,
they promised it would turn to gold, so long
as i stayed hidden at the loom in this prison

shoulders tightening as they thread it away
i look at the money in my minnie wallet and pray
everything safe always seems to go away in a flash
so perhaps it was just that nothing was ever safe
maybe they will leave if i say that i don't
believe in any of these ******* fairies anymore
but maybe i am older than the world is different
and they were just never fairies at all

it seemed to be such a small small place back then
when you could always cheat at LIFE
and run away and play pretend
in your imagination
didn't have to listen to anyone
now cops and parents hate you
and everyone wants to know
what college you've been in cause
surviving is neither irony nor blessing today
just simple catastrophe and endless dissarray

Cut the forget-me-knots.
Dot the t's and cross your eyes;
My balance is a flight-risk.

I knew swindlers of used expressions,
Their attempts: relentless!:
Plucking and picking at taunt silouettes.
Close calls splintered by tall tales.

I held on by the skin of my teeth.

Swindlers with twisted policies
Racked on the broken back burner.
They got scare tactics
Slipping fast from mal-practice.

We we're born to withstand such turbulance
But just in case- i fasten my seatbelt.
Knees bent and heartfelt,
I render these empty spaces moldable.
Heavy minutes move mountains.

Little boy blue beat the big bad wolf
And balance is always a flight-risk.

(Written 4/12)

Discarded loincloths adorn the table.
No one pays attention to the spilled milk,
catching the fever, we turn the other cheek
our hastiness turn upbeat over prevalence

it is hard; juxtapositions lie at your fingertips.

I scattered my wife
in an array of bedside ashtrays.

I wore my shoes out
trying to find a pure form of love.

When love found me,
it arrived late and carried a fee.

The ashes of my former life,
crawled, cradled and spliced.

Until the wife I burned through,
became bright, became beacon.

It didn't hit me until the third month
of "freedom".

I laughed while laying beside Miranda's
milky twin.

As the copy sputtered with barnacle conversation,
I walked free. I walked home.

I felt washed clean in a gleaming sea
of finding the past me.

the words never seem to touch the tone
i am meaning to say i want to
weigh them with my tongue like pebbles
clattering under my teeth
i was never as lonely as when
i couldn’t speak
you must have felt that loneliness
you couldn’t swallow
we all have days when we get in our car
and think about what we could really do
if we wanted to
drive to the store or off a cliff
you choose the first
never let your brain teach your hands
to slip around the other one
possibilities are dangerous
when there are so many ways
to play in traffic
let me count the limbs
in this car wreck
let us count the ways
we have all been wrecked
by a promise or a minute
with a weapon in your hands
that you never thought about
until you were going to fast you wanted
to stop