I want to plant my seed of love

in your heart like soil

and watch it bloom in your sunny windowsill gaze

and drink your flaws like nectar

to be the hummingbird who dances nimbly on your finger tips

who puts your tenderness in the spotlight

who no longer needs to beat its wings one thousand times a minute

and to show off its bright feathers

my grandparents lived on the side of a mountain
to the west a coast and in-between a railroad track
in the mornings, I would lay
stationed in my grandfather war cot
it is soaked the tears and blood he shed for this country
I was too young to understand this
I am only waiting for the train
my dog barks and growls at the rattling picture frames
of the locomotives clackety warble
I crept upstairs to find my grandparents having coffee
my grandmother a white plump cigarette
my grandfather a gentle grey bear
a toy carousel waiting for me
I sat under a dim table lamp
moving the carousel around with my fingers
watching the horses twirl and my dizzy boyish gaze
sparkle at the wonder of my grandparents
who finally want me around
who finally asked me to sit with them
as they have their quiet morning
I was not always so quiet
when my brother was awake we would throw rocks
and sneak into my grandfather shop to peek at his gun collection
he did not like this
my grandmother never had the patients for rambunctious adolescent men
waking the dead with the television
and screeching for us to play outside
I never knew my grandmothers love or never felt it
unwelcome on her stage
always playing the role of nuisance
not until this morning
this significantly raw occasion
just maybe I wasn't such a burden
but after that morning when night swiftly moves in
and tired eyes feel like old college roommates
I still wait for the melody of trains
I still creep upstairs to find my grandparents drinking coffee
and they tell me to go back to sleep

o sweet irony!

your voice
like ***** melting on skin
has cold-clocked and castrated
me into a submission
and I'm losing pieces of my heart and lungs
the only things that seem to be
keeping me
alive

to fill these voids with love and cigarettes
is to fill with joy and destruction

if death is the answer to life
aren't these things keeping me alive?

o sweet irony!

I saw you pass me by in your lonely-star state
and I thought if I ever had time to say anything to anyone
now would be the time to tell you

why you would ever want to collect dust in a place like this where all things
and dreams are swept out the door at night in place of the lies and hostilities
we all feel during our shift to keep watch of strangers and best friends,
why you would think of responding to me still baffles the shy kid inside my
oddly shaking heart while he's standing next to you asking
if you would please just dance with this broken toy and you did without
question or reason, you just took me and shook me and reminded you
of someone you still think about on the days when you feel lonely
and the people here just don't sing the way I can or meet your eyes
in the hallway where I'm trying so hard for you to not touch me
yet you are trying to graze my chest ever so subtly that everyone seemed
to notice the smile on your face or how quickly it left you
when that criminal came waltzing in, holding your emotions hostage,
knife to your throat, heart knocked out of wind when all you had to do
was ask me how to breathe again, why you would ever want that
still makes me wonder.

I didn't notice you coming towards me
or looked your way when you sat two inches too close
but my heart exploded like a fire *******
when it felt that electric pulse you gave off
I lit up a smoke so fast
purple zippo
red heat
you grabbed my hand and lit your own
and with a cloud of smoke
you said
*I've dreamt about you
I had a flower in my hair
you had on these yellow sneakers
ain't life funny stranger?

we swam in fields of melancholy
that shimmered like amethyst
the wind caught a fistful of your hair
and it lingered the smell of orchids
I can feel
melting into your softness
I can hear
a heart beat so clear
it was tangible
makes me want to rip out every tooth and every nail
for not holding you
as long as I could
as tight as I could

I have this broken faucet
and it seems to drip. . . On my heart. . .
and when I open my mouth
the echoes of emptiness
paint the walls with sorrow
in the room where we once laid
and those naked shadows
stood up from the floor

in your heart
a midlife storm
echoed of love and lies

I believed in your passion
and twisted myself inside it
gorged myself on you
naked flesh and naked fears

needed you
like you wanted me to
and filled your emptiness with my own
but when those storm clouds cleared
and you removed my hand
from that heart
I could see your body was a coat of razor's

I walked outside
hand's covered in blood
washed them in the rain
and only the stains are left to remind me
that if I don't fix this broken faucet
I just might drowned in a flood. . . Without you. . .

I haven't felt in days.

Forgetting to set fire to hoops I jump through.

Thoughts of you like clouds of smoke on the horizon.

Never catching that sunset.

And you Night, so feeble.

Your womb is the only comforting thing I remember.

you gentle beauty
with eyes of piercing amber
cut through the night like a knife
you quite gem
with no need for backdoor dusk bathed sun dresses
your naked skin shattered windows
to let in the rain
so hard you came falling
like to touch you would brake me
would you organize my organs?
or the thoughts I never spoke?

dream with me
and dig those nails into my spine
draw a sliver line
between me and that dreamlike warmth
spread that rib cage wide
and let me inside
that o so feeble heart
beat beat beat my head in two
until I find no use for the words I speak
or this body that quakes
when you're so near mine

1.
your body was a canvas
I swallowed paint brushes
of reds and blues
I have purple skin
I try to draw the things inside of me
my quite heart
and jagged bones
cutting their way from out of me
your body was a canvas
I tired to paint its beauty

2.**
I kissed your rain
as we watched the colors drip from our skin
and fill the cracks of the sidewalks
quietly smoothing out the edges of our souls
with every slip and every drip of tongue
GOD! I want to know if your breast plate can scream like Kurt Cobain
or if your fingers are piano keys
and every time you hold me I swear I can hear Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata

3.
in that rain
we tried to wash the color off our skin
and shutter amidst the pale
but the color was too bright
and this love
too warm.

I handed you a flower
told you
this is my whole body

you planted it in the garden
around your lungs

and pretend like it didn't have the same name
or sang the same songs
the same ones I use to sing

on the nights you try not to hear them
it still makes you ponder
on how much
those flowers still haunt you

or how little
you wish you would sing
out loud...

outside were ghosts
and a city made of sand
I sat
under a dark tree
listening to the way the dusk breathes
and how the light from the city
is slowly bleeding inbetween the trees
I can hear
that drunk chatter of those
city dwelling bar patrons
I can still remember that girl
with her scarlet red dress
and the way the fabric was stitched from sky

and on those nights
I find myself stumbling home
the city walls seem to crumble
but I can still hear their laughter
caught in the whisper of rain

******* it felt good on the days you were happy to see me. Once I thought I heard you sing me a love song, and meant it, but I guess I was mistaken. I've been trying to fill these empty spots, so my heart would no longer have to hear you leave me. For all the ghosts that waltz in my bedroom, this is for the time we tried to break our walls. If you ever want to know what it felt like when you left, just ask. I'll try to hold back my pain like a shotgun shell, but don't hold it against my love when his finger slips, he just gets so nervous every time you're around him. And I didn't mean to explain myself, but I've been having knife fights with my emotions, and cutting out wind instruments since the moment you left. If you've ever wanted to know how it felt when you left, just look at my eyes. That's not holy water you see but a man letting his emotions free.

I'm constructing boxes made from your beauty.
Inside them placing broken music boxes. Inside them
im placing feathers. You opened my heart,
like it was a locket. There is nothing inside it.
There's a hole in my heart, and nothing inside it.
You dug a hole to bury it.
When you dropped it into blackness.
There was only wonder--and no thud.

In the night she walks like thunder. Bleeds like orchestra.
I was a bowl of fruit. With trembling lips. Waiting for
the taste of plums. I was eating knives by the spoonful.
My belly was full of dust. I was collecting veins
with my arms as round as blood. I am placing them
in a vase fashioned out of planets. I tied bottle rockets to stars.
You caught my hands as red as oceans.
But your eyes. They are smooth diamonds.

the sky is a spiral stair case to heaven
im in love with the way your body bleeds into the wind
like dark rain clouds
let the thunder be another orchestra for our fears
panic attack in a minor

I was a tree made of bones
my veins are branches
with finger tips of leafs
I have tears as sweet as apples
you are a beautiful girl
with a summer dress made of flowers
come and sit beside me
i'll read you fairytales
like the ones your mother would to let you dream

I only want the same

I thought when I watched you the clocked stop
I was only breathing too hard
your bony fingers are around my heart
if feels so good to feel them there
they are cold
but I will make them warm again
I wear my skeleton like a spider
or an ant
touch my back
my body is an electric fence
the ghosts of the sparrows that flew out of your mouth
only know where sunsets grow
we fallowed them to the trees
where they are skinny and bare
and their roots are as cracked as ours
I was holding your hand so gentle
I thought that I was going to lose you
I was whispering to your ears
telling them not to worry
you thought I spoke in madness
it was only my smile
that magically tricked you into loving me
my magic tricks are a musical garden I tried to grow you
but the sun never came
neither did the rain
one night you tried to not let me see you crying
but I knew you did
cause your heart stung me like a jellyfish
my hands
are still raw and numb from the sorrow
but I know that you had forgiven me
when the bleeding finally stopped
I still haven't shown you the scars
but I was only speaking in madness

your eyes
cut me in two
split
just below
the rib cage
all that I am
spills
on to the floor
like scattered sheets of paper
written in
my terrible
half-child
half-god
gibberish

he held the sun
cupped in his hands
peers into a hole
made for gazing upon it
its heat
is burning
blister on his hands
all of his life
now smells
of burning flesh

the thinker
thinks away his time
pondering his oblivion
now covered
in sliver hairs
running rapid like sliver foxes

wishing he held
in his hands
something
a little more smoother
more soothing

now that his eyes can no longer see
and his hands can no longer feel

I did not stop to stare at the angles  
didn't need to, my mother did. She waits slowly  
like they can hear her, praying louder  
screaming like god was on fire  
that he was, I was too. He knows me  
like a son, like a ghost  
I was on fire  
my belly full of water  
I'd drink glass after glass not spilling a drop  
not wasting any on my cheeks
fat with the gulps  

my father watched over my mother  
she was a flower  
a soft dandelion amongst roses  

when I was young I would seek out the night  
and count the stars
as far away as they were  
at ten seems so close
too close to touch
until my farther yelled for me to come home
either it was too late
or he loved me too much

when I was older
no one told me to play it safe  
I played with lions  
we ate dreams like they were apples  
pluck another from the tree  
god isn't looking

he sits at a wooden desk
with a candle
and a thought between his teeth
he has no room for
the pictures
caught in the wrinkles of his bed sheets

outside
he can hear the howl of the moon
and the creatures
that dwell
underneath its sliver skin

he opens the window
to let in the rain
that holds
between its fingers
damp cloths

and the pain of her
is carved
in the side of his desk

he climbed outside
to be
another
black figure

in the rain he howled
and ran like an animal
scaring the forest
the trees

bites his tongue
as hard as he could

wipes the blood off in the grass

peels back the sorrow
from his dark skin
as the rain
clean his bones

he climbs back though the window

in his room
where he is cold
and wooden

lets take a drive
to the country
read stories to the wind
find a tree
and take a nap

let go of our egos
close our eyes
throw ghosts like stones
write a book
about every mistake we've ever made
and sell it to a blind man

kiss under the backs of a myth
hold me close to your heart
and somewhere between the bed sheets
lose ourselves

find me in the fabric of sky
in the arch of night
I am the back bone of dusk

lets ferment
in the country
growing bitter
and sweeter
in the long months

harvest my songs
my poems are birds
and I have a mouth full of seeds

run your fingers through me like a river
you are a tall tall tree

I am just a man
looking for his beautiful bed
to one day be buried in

and you are a sliver line
in black clouds

take a ride with me
to a country
and grow our hair between the seasons

I could feel the pulse of daylight  
becoming louder and louder

not knowing which way to look

her burning field
reminds me of my childhood

and how I would sneak out of the house
to live like the foxes

my father did not like this

I still stay up late
and pretend to hear the shadows

they are cold and quiet
and dance across my walls

I am cutting out pieces of my brain
to grow you an orchard of pomegranates

when the seasons come
eat the words that I have given to you

plant the wisdom in your belly
grow fields around your heart

and take away all these headaches

your breast plate is beautiful

your eyes a poem

your fingers are tall cigarettes

your belly omnipotent

your skin is a holy place

of all holy places
that are locked without a key
and like most holy places are
still shake me when I walk across them

bare feet
fist clenched

my soul is heavy

he is carrying an anvil on his back
stretches over it

on the vibrating night street
we take my car to a dance
called everyone and their souls to the dance floor
shake these electric spines
heavy

pretend like they don't know what's happening
fill the room on sweat
and heat
open the doors
let the water fill these streets
cleanse them

let people see what we are doing tonight
pushing our egos on sweat
out from our purple and blue skin
breaking the walls
shattering the bones

dance until there is no such thing as dancing
only us
the black clouds and soft stars

read all that I am
I was nineteen years of broken glass
careful not to touch me

be careful not to let the night know
you are scared of her

careful not to let go for too long
you might not find your way back to your bedroom

know that all we ever had was ourselves
and the people who are not watching the way we move
but the way we hold our rhythm
the way we let our souls be light

of nights beating heart
and eyes that peek through the shadows

of world and people to love it
just to feel the sun

the days gorge themselves on water
and hold back black rain clouds

to breath the warm sky of life
and days that make hands time couldn't read

to look away naps
as we escape them from our dreams

like black
like sorrow
she comes twisting like a grape vine
up legs
to the edge of my finger tips
she is dressed
in a jacket made of skeletons
peering through the rib cage
was a heart
glowing like the tips of so many knives
like so many violent ways
to caress me
drink my blood like holy water
twist my guts like a wet towel
I am staring at her shape
made a hand
opened her jacket like a coffin
so I myself could see
that she has flesh
and blood
and weakness

her heart smelt of rain
I was standing in a forest
letting it pile on top of me
trying to understand its dream like posture
all I did was get wet
all I did was plant flowers
plucked a peach from its tree
it has the same curvature of your back
tried to drink its honey
a bee stung my tongue
it swelled to the size of a tangerine
I couldn't speak
spoke in body language
saw the way your body spoke
articulated its nature
my soul was trying to squeeze its way
into every inch and every corner
just to smell the way your heart smelt
like fresh rain
and flowers

I have a back porch made of sunset's
when the sun sets he leaves behind golden traces
I tired to draw pictures with them
hold its small life
breath its warmth like nothing ever before it
sigh in the relief that there's so much to look forward to
lay in the grass
let the moon wash over me
fill me with its beat
its rhythm
I will dance with it
cry into it like my pillow
she is soft and wet
I have long fingers gentle enough to touch you
I am afraid
still feel like the body of a ghost
let it hold me
show me where god was
dawn creeps over the horizon smiling
its smile was sacred
mother earth knew what she was doing when she made you
just another child
I will stand on my tip-toes and try and touch you
but im scared of what you might think of me when I do
so I won't
if this makes you sad then im sorry
sorry for all the aching hearts
for all the dreams ever planted in the hands of life that never grew
I am sorry for this
if your heart can scream loud enough
maybe theirs will begin to open
close your mouth with me
gently push our egos back into the nights they were created in
find the sleeping giants to tell this to
if god can't hear us
let our hearts beat louder
walk into my bedroom with me
lay upon my bed and place your head on my vibrating rib cage
know that the night loves this
I choked on the songs I tired to sing you
couldn't breath
but I was only ever standing in a hallway
to scared to walk down it

god spoke to me in a dream
he told me
I was a burning tree
a feather in the wind that whispered  
and mumbled
of truth and bewilderment
a sleeping dog
and a black hot sun to scratch his belly

Paige was a story
she has black ink over her arms
drawn there by her little brother
who does not know what permanent marker is
who has no questions about life
Paige was not only a story
but a book
that she writes in every night
spills her heart
like a cup full of water
she has small thoughts
she thinks
never wonder  
what it's liked to be hugged
but always got the same question in return
where will I go
when I no longer have this story
no longer have this poet in my heart
who keeps me up at night
in this soft soft night
where she dreamt of you asleep
dying quietly
in your bed
crawl back to it
in the drunk afternoon
catch the floor
before it lifts itself from under you
when it does
buried in the soil
is a book you've never read
with a question you've never asked

we walked into a book store
eating mangos
I read history
you read fantasy
a chuckle caught my grinning lips
you smiled towards me
juice dripped
from your cheeks
you never look more
beautiful

we bought our imaginations
tickets to the carnival
road the carousel
over and over and over again
laughing like careless adolescents
both sick off the mangos

we ate corn dogs
road the ferris wheel
kissed the stars
and brought them home to play with us
we dressed them
in my mother's old cloths
she no longer needs them
neither do I
I still hold on to them
one day
I will burn them in a field
along with everything I own
and place the ashes in my mother's grave

on that night
we shall let the stars go
make the long journey back
to whatever imaginary place
we call home

my nights are spent alone
I find myself more at peace
when I speak quietly to it
some nights
sleep finds ways to elude me
other times
my pillow can hold me like my mother
I can dream four dreams a night
and remember them as one
I like to pretend my guitar is a diary
and the stings my pen
I imagine pictures of you dancing on clouds
so far away from my bedroom
it is small
you are just a crush
and I now know why they call it that
I now know why I sleep alone
and why I no longer talk out loud

their movements were blurry
children on the playground
on far away islands
they're still taking boat rides there
on their wings
and dreams
through fields and seas
to be with them
I dreamt of the flower
and a handful of rain to water it
their smiles were endless
their laughter still full with wonder
and their cheeks rose colored and full of grapes
I dreamt of this place
so strange
like gold
like sun never heard of night
I'm still trying to hold on to it
this childlike wonder
slips so easily through my fingers
dances like fire
like passion in the writer
and the water that fills his eyes
every time he understands little by little what love means
I dreamt of this place  
and did not know where to find it
where the flowers still grow
and so does my imagination
maybe it still is
and I can one day find my way back to it
if I ever do
I hope it will teach me something
about beauty
then I can teach that something to you

I have nothing but a heart

and a jacket to keep me warm

the wood was too wet

and all we had were books

we read them

under burning candles

huddling close

enough to make us wanna kiss

all we did was read

I did not ask you to forgive me
only sit with me in a field

sit with me and pray

watch the black grass turn green
morning sleeps on the other side of the river

you notice the soft feathers
of the swallows

you fallowed them alone
found fields more fit for prayer

my hands are bleeding
I shall leave you messages
on the white rocks
so you may find your way back to me

I hope one day you'll read them
and know

I still have not forgiven myself

come with me tonight
to the lake filled with tears
we have nothing to fear tonight
god rests his head on the moon
he watches us
we can sit and stare and be alone
it's ok tonight
because she is as heavy as we are
I've been heavy
still trying to find what it means to be light
I have nothing to give
all I've ever had was lost
and we can be everything tonight
it's ok to be alone
as long as night still hangs on us like a coat of sorrow
like empty water glasses
and we carry the tears back and forth
not spilling one drop
carry your tears like bestfriends
they do not care
nether does god nor moon
nor the black or the stars
be lost my friends
and come with me this morning
under dawn filled hilltops
like oceans of blue flowers
let go of all you know
let the bees not find ways to sting us
shake us like ghosts
shake our rib cages filled with beating hearts
shake our teeth like spilling library books
all we've ever known were colors
let us count them
I bet you I know what blue looks like
I bet you I can show you
just close your eyes
tell me what you see
tell me the sky was bluer then the one last week
I'll tell you what my hands say
they can play music and cut vegetables
on good days they can hold other hands
not always their own
but these last few months I haven't had some good days
we're still friends but we haven't talked
haven't carried my tears in water glasses in years
I'd still like to
maybe I'll fallow you tonight
as long as you will still call me a man in the morning
well... maybe another time
maybe another time

I am holding on to something
strange and bright
heavy yet dark
I cannot recall what it is
or if I can
let it break me
clean my dusty bones
my broken ribs my shallow smile
I close my eyes
as tight as seeds
grow a field with my dreams
my fears are crows perched upon a fence
she was my scarecrow
at night
I let her hold my heart
it is small
but too big for my body
she sings to it
songs I know but my mother never sang me
never held me and never told me
son, one day you will be a big man
one who can lift city's and people  
one who shall write poems
and love a girl like it was the last thing you ever do
cause it is
cause all you've never had is love
when it was all you've ever wanted
and was all you've ever gave
and this heart is small
but he hands away his beat by big handfuls
never wanted it anyway
never wanted the dreams
but they do come
come by threes
by the backs of dead star dust
like billows of black smoke
swallows me whole
buries me alive
the sky was a graveyard
and the stars were the tombstones
she wakes me from the nightmares
my palms like rivers
I cannot hold her
she puts my hands to her chest
the beat was ever so bright
heavy yet dark
*my body is not a coat of razor's  
you can hold me
just try

the grass was wet that night
it shimmers
beneath the soft glow
and a faint echo
from far across the field
calls out to me
reminds me of a poem

I cannot remember if I read it or heard it
all I know is that it is familiar
like the taste of water
a gust of oxygen
and the smell of night

the voices grew louder
something is in the orchard tonight

the creek still sleeps
so do the dogs
I grab my flashlight
headed towards the noise
under the wet hot night
even I still shiver

when I see the glow of eyes

she sleeps
the moon was her mother
telling her bedtime stories
and I
was a night light

let the monsters slip
back into the imaginations
and we shall sleep

tonight
god holds us like blanket

the white sheets warp you like a ghost
I was her ghost
her light

shining only to love her
only so she can sleep
again and again and again
peaceful

that she was

her dreams
they cry
but she still breaths

undisturbed
though she maybe

the world was a pop-up book
and I was a child
sleeping in the sun

these shadows still hold me
but somedays
I can still hum out loud to myself

I can not tell you or show you these dreams
only sing them
so loud
that on good days
I lose all thats left of my voice

I still am struggling
to hear what my insides say
and pretend that these ghosts don't shake me
so I can learn to talk to people again

and as the music comes
to rip these ghosts from my body
I still remember how I could once talk to you

tell you my dreams
my fears
let them speak and scream and breath

find their way
from out of these shadows
and into the sun
so bright

I sat at the table  
with a bottle of liquor
and a poetry book

outside were the wolves
dancing around a fire
I went to join them

bottle in one hand
book in the other

reading these poems amongst the fire

the wolves are speaking
strange tongues
I cannot understand them
tried to speak
nothing comes out

I read on

the poems twisted
spun hugh circles in my arms
they spoke to me
I understood them

it started to rain

when the wolves left
they leave behind the ****** bones of mice
scattered like a message

I was still there
legs burning
back cold

bottle in one hand
book in the other
eyes closed

the hunter carried me back home
set me on my couch

drunk and confused
through my book
dropped my liquor

took a knife from the drawer
cut the words from out of my belly
you drowned in the slurs
so did I

swallowed the knife
spoke of god
and went to bed

awoke at dawn
cold
and naked
and amnesic

I was a country dreaming of grass
you laid down next to me

gas can in one hand
lighter in the other
wanting to show me what violence looks like

gathered my thoughts
walked deeper into to the trees

you burnt my image in the grass
screamed out my name
burned through your throat
consistent with shards of glass

in the forest I met a spider

there is a man walking
carrying an Axe

destroys his home
the spider is crying

I would too
but I did not want to show him
I am more afraid of him
then he is of me

he laid in a gutter of sorrow
sorrow feels like dirt

covers him
keeps him sheltered
feels likes home

home was a place of silence

the night it rained
water poured down these broken streets
in the midst of the gutter
he found burnt up library books

read the Egdar Allen Poe's
out loud to himself

the ink ran form the pages
covered his hands
in the black the soft whisper of poets

the sky was empty
so were his eyes

under the willow trees
he sleeps next to these books
covers them from rain
keeps them sheltered
feels at home

on strange days I wish I smoked cigarettes
I feel particularly weird on strange days
like my skin wants to vacation
on strange days I take the music box out of my pocket
then play it for my nostalgic neighborhood children
as they run through summer time sprinklers
feasting on cheeseburgers and french fries
humming to the key of my music box
drugged by this warm summer afternoon
on strange days I stare at blank sheets of paper and empty ashtrays
morning knocks on my window telling me it's time for bed
time for bed I say on this particularly strange day