my brain doesn’t understand
that we have no right to exist.
and still, it conjures her —
lips burning from the kiss
where I forget
where I end
and she begins.

Candy perfume
Cotton candy clouds
Unicorns drinking tea
With an umbrella made for three
Teddybears in suits
Ladybugs weave glitter
Blades and chocolate
Butter and veal
Soft and sweet
Timid and mild
Golden tipped chipped china
Eggs on goblets stand
A tap
A knick
A spank
A kick
And all you add is pepper
Until you sneeze
Baby candy bears
Minty chocolates
Melting fudge away
Breathing in peppermint tea bark tea
Basking in the muddled blend
Of pink and blue and stars and diamonds
The nighttime dreams to begin
Nonsensical tantrum of sleep
Of unnatural restlessness prevades
Another place awaits you
Deeply packed in salt
A well taken care of spot
Renewing the smell of steak, medium rare
Reds and white galore

excited I got
looking forward
wouldn't stop
could almost touch
the dream I saw
behave I will
follow the drill

two months to wait
turned with one call
no faith
three years -it changed
older I get
let's see what's left
in 3 years
no drafts
a sketchbook full
of practice deep
sketches weep
still I will follow free
the path
for me

a dream that broke
so much to choke

discrimination it is
but I won't miss
they made a choice
but I have a voice
write it down
with rhyme, not frown
the truth I speak
without a leak

I loved a star that never knew my name,
a silent flame,
fixed in the wreck of night.
Her stillness fooled me
into believing she sang.

She blinked once
in some long-dead century,
and I’ve lived ever since
by ghost light.

They say she's gone,
burned out or broken,
but I keep whispering psalms
to her afterglow,
drinking to the shape she made
in my sky.

I don't need the truth,
just the dream
of her burning.

Like something that waited for me,
not knowing I was too late
the moment I began.

I slept beneath a murmuring tree,
the breath of wind like whispered song
when from the dusky thicket near
a dove broke forth in sorrowed tongue.
Its coo, a tremble made of light,
a flame of grief in feathered white,
did pierce the veil of slumber’s shroud
and stir my heart to waking loud.
O! Sweet-winged ghost of aching skies,
you summoned tears from sealed eyes,
and sang of loves I once had known,
and all the souls I’d called my own.
How far I’d strayed from spirit’s call,
how deep the hush, how slow the fall
but in your cry, celestial dove,
I heard again the voice of love.
So let me weep and wake anew,
beneath the sky’s immortal blue,
and bless the winds, the wings, the morn,
where grief and beauty are reborn.

My precious velvet donkey,
my dreamt plush toy, pure poetry,
a  cotton skin, so soft.
As tender as a warm cloud,
that dreamlike Platero, pure jet black,
as sweet as an angel's sky.
Oh, to have a Platero in my life,
to walk beside me in green meadows,
to mingle among wildflowers,
to lie down with me, to be my friend.
Oh, to have such a sweet little donkey in paradise,
all beauty and tenderness, love in its purest form,
to caress you and feed you,
ambrosia for my friend.
Together through the world of perfumed earth,
trotting in nature's heaven.
How I wish I could have held you
in my lap,
my little donkey,
together
in that world.
A gentle world,
where all is good,
in the world of my dreams,
where we are all so happy,
where that other Platero and I reside.

---
Mi precioso burrito de terciopelo,
mi peluche soñado, pura poesía,
piel de algodón, tan suave.
Tan tierno como una nube cálida,
ese soñado Platero, puro azabache,
tan dulce como el cielo de ángeles.
Quién tuviera un Platero en mi vida,
que me acompañara en verdes prados,
que se confundiera con flores silvestres,
que se recostara conmigo, que fuera mi amigo.
Quién tuviera un burrito, tan dulce, en el paraíso,
todo bello y tierno, el amor en estado puro,
para acariciarte, y darte de comer,
ambrosía para mi amigo.
Juntos por el mundo de la tierra perfumada,
trotando en ese cielo de la naturaleza.
Ojalá te hubiera podido recostar
conmigo en mi regazo,
con mi burrito,
juntos
en ese mundo.
Un mundo amable,
donde todo es bueno,
en el mundo de mis sueños,
donde todos somos tan felices,
donde vive ese otro Platero y yo.

you made me miss the train in my dream: my fault for staring so long
i walked home alone that day, in the rain
singing some stupid tune to myself

did you think of me?
sitting there in contemplation, aside those ever-clear windows
did you look for me?
like i look for you in the morning commute and math before recess and anywhere everywhere in that sprawling liar we call memory

i know you didn't
but truly, it's fine
you will someday
when i muster up my courage and take that big leap

yes, w.

i would leap in front of a train if it meant you looked at me for just one second

or at least i would in the dream

but really, i'm so scared
scared of your acknowledgement, scared of your indifference
scared of your love, scared of your hatred
most of all scared that i might die without you ever having cared

so i wait and ponder and rot away
and course toward that cruel fate i so dread
such is reality

but not my fantasy:

w., i hope i get hit by a train in your dream

will you, won't you
will you, won't you
will you, won't you xchange

reality, we believe, we take agency
we agree aggressive will to cohere,

be here,
on point, first respondent, codefendant,

mental, pause and reflect, what can matter,
what remains unexplained, mere must be there,

dark materials essential for the data we share,
all knowing humans never in history have known,

just, what,
justice, instantiated, on the cross,

wait, face reality, what one man doubts,
another testifies, was what we all must just

believe, like tov ra means nothing more than
good, and evil

and any child can tell the difference,

as if, in reality as made aware we are, among stars,
incredibly arranged in patterns appearing, to us,

as more than any before us could imagine, and we,
first live Earthian sapient writing species, wrote we
lieve be the faith of the ruling majority among us,
as the good books makes many believe, we do, too,
believe that whatsoever and whosover are general
artfully designated pre posed ever what or who
may once upon this very time feel drawn into

the greatest story ever told, on earth, unbeknownst
to any mind let be in Jesus, the fixer of Judaic flaws,

mostly along exceptionalist matters of archeological

reasonings remains from the prophets sawn asunder,
for reasons all Pharisee degrees deny worth under
standing

as if the actual lines attested
to as literal interpretations,
of genuine wisdom manifestations, sought
by the loser, found
by the browser
in ancient cesspits, pearls shat
and left un re discovered
for someday,
someday,
some
day

but likely not this one, this is sleep, not death,
I shut my eyes and think a thanks, truth prevails.

...
You see them hazily dancing,
like in a fever dream
shades turning to dust
in dimmed neon lights
ghosts of a past, wieghtless in flight
you watch them dancing in the haze of the night,

Engine sounds cut the dew Of the dawn
You are too young to sleep
tangled up in roadside oleanders
All trying to live a dream