i never got the hang
of a million stings
all the bees and not to bees... their honey venom
churling the rut of my hive-mind
the smoke of my tremulous eye
coursing through tomorrow's detention
like a world of hurt
that's just a place to lose
my precious things.

then you said me.

you said
my hands were not grenades..
you swore fealty to my blunders
and stripped the dark
from my stars... to better shine.
you  brought me kismet
and blue lemons...
and i never dared
to love so much
but never had a chance
to not believe
you.

from here i know your name.
and your ******* are like the moon in my pocket.
a jewel of medication
that bites the hand of a jealous god
to favor the mundane heavens of a boy
in complete love
with You.

how have you been? we seldom pass the other by
but here I have you self contained
in the raiment of your randomness, something tweed.
I must say the feathers in your shadow are remarkable
and they remind me of my own...
though mine are on fire.
are you in haste to a Bacchanal of unparalleled dismay?
or do you always look like that these days?
I would love to have a chat on your island
if you are so inclined.
I would even dream of stealing your moon

captain kirk ate kittens. the azaleas
marched in the dark
and no moon wept snow.
it was that
dark.

all quiet rot, healing now...
we clay inside but dis-urn
we have no kiln. no kin.
we move
like a dreaming fetus
in the womb of all prisms.
like lightning on
a pin.

we have ever been  
the king's
vassal.

star chattel in the manger .

happy mad
hatters.

we took the long way
to Hadley and MacFadden, goin' about twenty-five in twenty-six ways...
twelve sheets to the wind at a cosmic chili banquet. we wove through the tambourines and headlights -
cruising through the pinch in the grid, on the Eastside. where Margret hustles feathers from very still pigeons, and Mosley, that little runt Mosley conquered Connie Haskel's Willow Tree in the backyard.
we were coming up on something special in our Hometown
but we were low on gas, and had just bought Beer.

this scenario was on repeat. night after night in the sultry debauch of a languid stroll in a couch rocket.
glaring at the skirts on Perkins and 5th, that eat seaweed and cough drops.
they're so hot you just wanna drive a better car.
we used to park -
at Todd's Mom's and walk to the Slaughtered Hog and order a rack O' ribs and drink moonshine, smokin' that **** and sitting next to ****** jockeys in jogging suits and headbands that say " i sweat profusely, when I want too. "
And Carmen What'sHerName? used to get our table 'cause i figured out the location of her section.
she would smile and bring pecan pie
and flash those eyes that said " i'm off in an hour " . we sang to Muzak - and
left our To-Go Boxes at the table; stumbling through the lot
fumbling for the keys to the TARDIS.

and thinking about Carmen.

down by a rough choke of cattails and locusts
black toads tumble from the cobwebs, croakin'...
a lost dog laps at a stale pool of rain
full of stars he can't catch
and clouds he
can't chase.

there used to be a church back off in those trees
but the road never came
and now the ghosts
never leave*.

tell me how the earth
shakes when my lips clinch.
the blunt quake of my evasive disassembly.
how the world is less ours, as long as
our hours pass
unrecounted, in the annals of my unimpending
confessions.
tell me how nothing is right till my wrong is voiced
and how my shivering frozen tongue
is to a beating heart, where a love
has done a great work to demand
a spoken word
from a stiff
quill.

paint me
as a mute with an affliction.
i say things that cannot save you from wasting your time
but my effort is the slumber we dream riots about.
and the nothing i say fills the volume
of a ruse.

let that be our epitaph
on a tombstone
of ribbons

let that be me telling you
something for
once.

then love will be a beacon
for shy boys  in bold
times

with girls that have sense enough
to love enough
to hurt too.

but at least, let it be said...

I Never Meant
To Hurt
You.

cleave to the up lump of ecstasy. cling to your yesterdays
like a bright hag to a bone.
like a north to your south dakota.
be the one thing you live for
and the last thing to die.
watch the stars go out

with your mouth.
right now.

that's
what I get. a clump of just you
and an adorable
hell.

against the grain no other love but mine, it seems
all anguish will march into Nothing and suffer the fools that love it.
GIVE ME THE BRIDGE.
give me the unbearable conclusion to an Endless.
give me Mars.
give me. me
and the stale bread of our broken Promise.

come fall,
this will all be overgrown.
a wild plot of earth and flushed skin
by then... this will be not like it was
a bramble of hemispheres, moist
in direct light, glistening entangled
in free reign. a ***** display of alien
thought. a monster of perfect joy
an overcome acre of hostile sea
seething annihilation with tendrils
of unfettered need; you'll see
from here
a new kingdom of red leaves
and undulating corridors, throbbing
utopian, come fall, a Saturnalia
on all fronts. a battalion of fireflies
lending a pale glow to a rampage
of silk knots and earthquakes
a teeming fractal of unchecked
ambition. the fission of new stars
but a small spark, come fall...
and come fall, you'll be mine.

back home in the dire hope where the lens is unclean
but the sky is ****. where the numb trust is broken
mostly from the rainfall lately
and the meager tools
are as useless
as a wink.

there. there i toil in the afterbirth
of a previous misadventure. censored and reduced to a miracle
that has no reason. There i plod the chaste road to wanton Elsewhere
and arrive most gone
from my seldom
yes.

If Love is shorthand
for Fool...
I have no
hands.

spoon fed my keepsakes as nothing blots the sun so much
you teach me how to cringe in spun sugar. the nape of your
neck.
gleefully, we usurp the thicket of our mild dementia. sullen
joy equipped. a sumptuous dirge curdles the myth, your fins
***.
as troubadours, we malinger in the pith of our blunt fruit. crust
removed from our daily bread. our basket of basilisks, bathe
in stone.
duel wielding our gazebos... we bivouac in our ambivalence, by
turns we move. you tip toadstools as i milk maidens for their
candelabras.
our palominos run. we do
violence to timpani and click mice.
pc
drifting in the cyberwocky. we transit the binary auto-bond
and paste
whats
clip.

blue thumbs thread cranberry noose. our ***** nods off. fronds
of juniper and cannabis slap the window pane. throughwhich
a *** mouse pounced on frond’s sway.
startled, we move the furniture of our eastern proclivities.
for thine is the kingdom
of our discontent !
swing-shift lap-dogs, trundle west of the east village. smell
of ****** and nag champa. idiots sting.
idiots braid zodiacs with greasy fingers. [ indeed ]
and
you
preach from your gut...
( your left breast     marvelous with taint) and saltwater taffy.
we
laugh again-
at things     we have
and now
only
harbor ghosts
where the rain
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.


this is the new
intimacy.