I remember naps with you
God, your arm
         my arm
         your leg
         my leg.
Can we go back there?
Even if just for one day?

You see
my heart was bursting then
and I can still feel it now,
in the same way that I can still smell the salt
on your skin.

reading his work always puts me in a good mood  

reminds me  
of how simple words  
can bear  
complex meanings  

how insignificant  
ambitions  
in the grand  
yet not  
scheme of things  
mean nothing  

the endless cycle  
repeating  
mistake after mistake  
until the lesson  
eradicates itself  

making excuses  
telling lies  
self medicating  
as though  
vitality depends on it  
/it doesn’t/

leaving
infectious afterthoughts  
before you can draw conclusions  
but not after  
you have already submitted  
to the beautiful mind  
that made you wonder  
why nobody listened  
not enough, anyway.

Zodiac signs have failed to tell
of an epoch of limerence waiting ahead
neither could a compass navigate
a homesick constellation to its rightful cell
and yet I travel, swim, and tread
on a glimpse of you
on a foreign thread
on a beacon of fury to accommodate

Epiphany emerged
the world’s ablaze
mnemonic particles floated again
Astral projection took its toll
your skin reached out and took the fall

I oft hear sounds; my sonorous wails
my sword-of-a-body
and my serrated edges
drove them away
but there you were
a scabbard of steel
to engulf and congeal
to hold and to heal

Alpha Cephei has got nothing on you
you became the star that ruled the Earth
the right hand of the northern pole
the right hand I chant my paean for
you were 49 light years away
until you adhered to my directions

My roots will cease to loosen their grip
on your light rays and elysian touch
on what I crave, yearn, and long
for you are the home that got me stuck
and you are the space where I belong

Death is stalking me.
It watches me play cards,
smoke cigarettes, and
drink beer.
It took my parents, two
brothers, and all my friends.
It got Chris last week.
20 bottles of whiskey in
seven days, I suppose that
would **** anyone.
They found him on the
railroad tracks.
Death is stalking me.
I won't cheat it.
I won't escape it;
but before it gets me,
I bet I finish
this poem.

Hook him up to the machine.
Shock his brain into
mediocrity.
Death stalks him;
he is aware.
There is too much
flash in his eyes.
His brain needs a reboot;
he needs to forget,
like a goldfish, like
a monkey in the zoo.
Hook him up to the machine.
He is too sentimental.
Salmon swim in his blood;
he has a paisley heart,
and a tie-dye soul.
He can smell colors.
Hook him up to the machine.
He has Van Gogh eyes, and
a Bukowski gut; he walks
like he's lost in a maze;
hunchback sadness,
butcher knife nerves,
Hook him up to the machine.
He believes in love,
and has too much trust.
His vivid green memory
is a curse, we need to
crash it, **** the eternal spring.
Hook him up to
the machine.

Drinking has been an exercise in
lunacy and sorrow,
like jumping off a cliff,
for tomorrow's dead dreams.
The fruit of the vine should
be sweet and sentimental,
like mamas and moonlight.
With a fistful of memories and
a soul full of pain,
I try it all again;
I chase the phantom.

The shallow words you offer now
will never begin
to fill the deep chasms
you've eroded into me.
Me.
My person.
Into the heart, soul, bones, brain, sinew of
Me.
When we were still new
you had already begun
to chip away at
Me.
But you said
with each raise of your maul
“I love you
and I would never
do anything to hurt
you.”
No one
but NO ONE
had ever loved
Me.
before.
I opened myself wide
and you crawled inside
to make yourself a home in
Me.
I was empty before then
and still I am empty.
According to Bukowski
I should have let you ****
Me.