My memories are
like dissonant wind chimes-
they shriek every time
my mind's winds blow.
Those familiar tunes still haunt me
and to this day they remain
stuck in my head.

spring has taken
the shape of a wounded coyote...

forcing a layered film
of something very dangerous
to hide in the bulb of each joss flower…

a brutal coercion made pure
by the ghost of the ending winter...

each day has forced warmth
upon me as if it were a ritual,

the annual harvest of my sanity.

she walks prospect avenue in the rain.
dead eyes, sore feet
the flowers have wilted into
the shadows of acceptance.

she finds the corner
and the last light lit,
wants a match for her cigarette.

a ****** that has found her god.
a needle and a bed of thorns.


the beep from a car's horn,
so a customer waits,
swings open a rusty gate.

and when that door

slams

shut

the prisoner of light asks,

"where have all the flowers gone?

there is a lovely green lotus

unfolding from the center of his eye,

as if the iris that looks upon my desperate body

is the darkened water from which it sprouts...

he looks upon every
disturbing part of me
with faith,

as if I were never dangerous; forever delicate...

when we stare into
one another, the thousand
ghosts of everything
I am ashamed of become pacified...

if I told you I died 5 times today,
would you believe me?

now,
in the horizon there,
my passion hangs on
a weak branch
stained of copper.

oh,
so timeless is the upset of ruin...
feeding the crows who leave
their feathers upon me,
making me black...