Her fennel failed, so it was off to market-
where local lemon squares cartwheel
with kettle corn
as free samples dissipate...
and the business-
of honing in on
a needful thing
becomes the
sepia tone
on a wharf of
gathering.

with the fog that threatened
the forecast, abated.
the air was gray-yellow
with a new sun cracking mist
as veterans
meander like elk in hoodies
between the fresh catch
of the day
and the venison heart
on ice.

under glass.

been giving rainbows jumpstarts in grey areas
ever since point blank range became the metric
of a total *****.

And yeah, that **** hurt.

But you can go now and be the perpetual **** mist
on a black fob in a wishing Hell.
And I hope
you do.

but i must account for my many wounds
by giving fewer ***** about you
and Jupiter will always be the bully
your Mercury sleeps with…
unless the hole in your actual argument
is also the enemy of the Point.
but you sand
witch…

i clock blind rubies by their dozens,
spinning up red ogres and margarine-
in a sheer toast to our fallen comrades
that had other souls to bargain with
but only our fondest hopes
to herald… even as our slumlord daffodils
deign to embark upon new meadows
where cave ravens steep sunshine mead
in preposterous bogotas.

the faucet of every lake dreamt is a drain,

nothing drags a frame of reference out of bed
like a fresh start on a pike.
you strap your business-end to a playful lark
and stave off the broken moons
as you Tetris the Possible
like an unknown god.

I hoist my genre by rote;
my tropes charmed and dangerous…
for the pen is mightier than the fjord
of our most opulent shadows.

My Etch-a-Sketch memories diverge
like Christmas geese
flocking to a pagan potluck
as cellular as a private moment with
a Neilson rating of zero.
I tune in when a gadfly lands on the nose of a spite,
and make a poet’s face.
I sleep like a baby on
the Titanic-
but my average epiphany
bobs for apples
in a bucket
of Northern Stars
too keen on wisdom
for a dullard’s
petard.

at first glance, every blank stare
like a horde of eyes
with pitchforks
and torch songs
made of
why?

as if light had a fist, her eyes were bruised. stormy lipids.
marooned in vitreous witness, forsworn to a buoy
on a blind wave. she had the far away inside her
like an ectopic pregnant pause.
too many Almosts in
the Coulda’ Bins.

where she stashed her hammers, the woodpeckers never say.
but time chips away at the verve of her established implosion
like a verb suffocating a Stop Sign.
and No Exit seems an offramp-
somehow.

as if darkness had a twin
with the navel of a pin
to hide an angel
from a stitch
in a Prayer.

she had the gravity that floats
because the bottom
wept.

And I very nearly spoke.

even when i lived in barrels i was stung by pre-Euclidean geometries

aping right angles, askew of a laminar flow of Time.
even when i stutter like butter on a lightning bolt
my collisions resolve dormancy
wherever i evict a conspicuous
ascetic tenet.

i twist The End where The Beginning buds;
and watch for spontaneous eruptions-

for Origins, mapped to a powder keg
with a damp fuse.

[ it’s steam engines now… ]

AND
the moon’s belly
is a bright eclipse
clamor-locked in the beastly
barrage of our tuneless
arias…
coping with despotic realities
with aplomb; birthing sunshine
from a myth mirror
emblazoned where harm refracts
exact moments-
tumbling magnetic…

as your eyes
Yahtzee the Forbidden
like a rogue.

with
blunt force
Rama.
as Fore-
​​​​​​​told.

II

infinity pools are finite if you swim like a rock.
or fall asleep when a lullabies’ on fire.


just so you Know.

when the constancy of our denouement extends the brevity of our insight
then by trade, our revelations remain on pause.
hint-riddles parlay
between actual dilemmas.. foggy as breakfast
on Venus.

simple as that.

a slow notch in a providence.
a bespoke omen, trumping
a tarot deck-
with a block party hookup
made of glad gardens
of actual touch-
where the emptiness
has no skin,
per say-

but everything
your heart desires
flays a shadow
with a wet
kiss

and **** the heathens.

ripples
in flat ponds-
are gathering ladybugs
as countermeasures
befitting-
such espionage,
at the forefront of
every facade.

a feckless
supplicant with a
tootsie roll
begging an owl
to count
a licka’ sense
as the center
of Love’s
madness.

to “...bury me with my courage!” I quote a spoon.

Tucked away in my thermal eclipse, the party raves without my flamboyant
inner monologue. tampering with the DJ on some esoteric frequency..
Everyone is safe to assume the Ecstasy is pure…. but no ones the wiser.
My wallflowers blossom on irrigated stilts, leaning into the background-
of my fraudulent approach from a shy Port of Call.
I Rehearse the Unrehearsable, as throngs cavort in laser spawn shadows
anointed in Eurythmic debauch…
as I spurn my teeming
collapse
with a positively gauche
Panic…

the champion of introverts.


a ton of thunder in a quiet place, where the Dubstep ruffles
the fringes of my agile anonymity…
swiving with soot ravens as liquid
as a Pause in a drop of Time.

I Almost Noticed You despite my Private Life


Then i woke up
In your arms.

Astonished.

Your tattoos like golden calligraphy
galloping across the serrated horizon
improbable...
where a woman’s heart is the width
of a manly surrender
to a Fantastic… Suspense.

As all my demented departures
Gather Where I Go-
From Zero to Hit Me
In Wine Seconds

We remembered each other when we met.
Amen.