Apple seeds,
Apple seeds,
I want to put them in your mouth.
Pop them past those parted lips,
instead of put them in the ground.
Pretty, dark red beads,
nestled in their hollows,
I'll feed them to you everyday,
through all your highs and lows.
Despite the fate I've wished on you,
you're still feeling fine,
so stick out your little tongue, my dear,
because it's time to dine.

The sticky grogginess of the morning
often wanes as the day lengthens.
Your body begins to crave entertainment,
nourishment,
all sorts of things that are unrelated to sleep.
But after exerting oneself,
you are reminded again of the luxurious feel
of your mattress.
You drag yourself home,
leaving your belongings at the door,
shedding the garb of work and monotony,
and scrub away the grittiness
of the thin film you develop
from a day of human interaction.
Perhaps there is a delicious refreshment
awaiting your empty, tumbling stomach.
You soothe the anxiety rolling in your insides
with each sweet, pillow-y bite
of a chewy sugar cookie,
quenching your thirst with fresh, cold milk,
or a perfect, steaming cup of hot tea.
Finally,
clean,
warm,
and satisfied,
you seek reprieve
in the cool, crisp sheets,
freshly turned down.
The pillows are perfectly placed,
cradling your head,
and the mattress beneath you
is like a cloud
gently lifting you,
carrying you high and rocking you,
as you lay beneath the pleasantly slight weight
of your sheets.
There is a specific moment,
just before you succumb to sleep,
when your body is in such a state of peace and comfort
that you can think of nothing
but giving in to it.
Such a satisfaction can only be described as
bliss.
Your body has no complaints
for the first time all day.
It is perfect,
delectable,
almost guilt-inducing,
like your tea, right between too hot and too cold,
or a bite of chocolate that's neither too bitter nor too sweet.
That moment,
were I to capture it,
and bottle the feeling,
is precisely what it feels like,
to embrace you.

How do I put this
For the hearing folk?
A shout in the ear,
A jab, or a poke.
What once was a whisper,
A tame, gentle brush,
Distant and soft,
And ever so hush,
Now it’s a SHOUT
From whisper to bang,
From dull, mild thud,
To a clamouring clang.
And it’s not just the volume,
God, if only…
I’d go back to the confusion,
Go back to the lonely…
But there’s the little noises,
Things that I’ve missed,
Like tinkling bells,
A click, or a hiss.
Now there’s more,
A whole colony of sound,
Like an anthill, you see,
From a hole to a mound.
A hell of an acquisition,
As my eardrums burn,
I must accept that I have
A new language to learn.
But in the privacy of solitude,
I switch off the pain,
And retreat into peace,
My silent domain.

Late fifties, early sixties,
Maybe somewhere in between,
I died.
Can’t explain how it happened,
I don’t think it was a big deal,
It certainly didn’t feel like it.
Besides, if it was a tragedy, shouldn’t I remember it?
It doesn’t matter anyhow,
It’s all over. The point is that I lived,
And now I can’t remember enough to sustain myself on memories.
I’m left with that itch you can’t scratch until you put your finger on that word,
That face you forgot,
The name of that restaurant,
Figure out what it is you’re hungry for,
Bring that specific thought to the front of your mind and picture it,
Feel it,
Recall what you need to…
Instead I’m left with half-thoughts,
Words and figures I can’t finish
Because it was long ago,
Looking with a different set of eyes.
Here I am now,
Out of place,
Uncomfortable in my own skin,
People noticing that I’m not quite right,
I don’t quite fit into the landscape,
And there’s nowhere for me to be.
Because it’s not a where,
It’s a when,
And you can’t take a plane to a when.
You can’t drive your car or bike or even take the bus
To 1958,
Because wherever you go,
It’s still going to be a place in Now.
Everything Now is a bitter reminder that I’m a foreigner,
An intruder on a new place that deserves new souls that love new things.
Even the good things are a slap in the face,
A kick to the shin,
A bright light in my old eyes,
That bring my attention to the calendar,
The clock,
The dress on the streets,
The technology in the hands of every man, woman, and child with two thumbs and a pocket to stow it away.
I want late nights listening to those smooth notes pouring off the stage like mist on a cool morning,
Everyone on the dancefloor losing themselves in it,
Instead of losing themselves in brightly lit screens in their laps,
Fingers shaking with anticipation for the next tap and scroll.
Where’s the addiction to long drives and the yearning for a simple joy?
It’s disappeared into an addiction to little black boxes and all the noises they make and information they stole from books and brains and the tongues of real, live people that died with less attendees to their funerals than attendees to the opening of the new Apple store.
No one listens to the old folks,
Too busy resenting the things they left behind for us,
Even though they couldn’t control it either.
Good things that last take more effort to destroy
Than the flimsy new things take to create,
But we destroy them anyway,
Instead of honoring the way they earned their place in our world.
Artists with the ability to remember and record are distracted by politics and ugly things,
And forget their responsibility.
Fifty years from now,
We won’t have anything beautiful to offer our children and their’s.
Is it too late for me?
Am I destined for misery?
I’m an old thing, too, does that mean I’m fated for a dusty closet or decaying garbage bin?
I couldn’t have been made alone.
I couldn’t have been left on my own in this new place,
There has to be someone else,
Maybe even more than one someone,
Because anything less is too cruel.
And if there is,
Where do we go?
Can we make a new place out of Then?
Or is it too late?
Is it impossible…
Impossible to make a where out of a when?

Tip tap, tip tap
Tapping, tapping, tapping
With that incessant sound,
That pleasurable pressure on the nail beds as the fingernails press down,
Down on the keys until the words come out,
Lifting momentarily to snap, pop, and crack those knuckles
To relieve that stiffness
Loosen them up enough to lift the bottle,
Fingers grasped tightly around the slender, delicate neck,
Swing it up,
Get enough leverage to do it with one hand,
Because you can't spare the other,
It's typing,
Still typing,
Typing nothing,
Nothing Important.
Bottle up, up in the air,
Hard swallows of that sweet, sweet poison that tastes better when there's more,
Dim lamplight casting dark green from the bottle onto the walls,
Like a mockery of a dappling light through tree branches in a forest.
The jagged thoughts that don't make sentences,
Only angry snarling,
Smooth over as the poison drips down,
Sinks in,
Melts those granite thoughts down to a rich,
Decadent
Oil
That slips off the fingertips into the keys,
And bedews each word,
Dripping that life into them,
Satisfying, satiating, saturating,
Until they are plump and vital,
And fingers are falling on the keys like knees to the floor in prayer,
And those words are being worshiped,
Exalted and revered,
And instead of the words being creations,
The words are the gods of the fingers,
The fingers the creations,
Throwing themselves down in ritual,
The raw, chafing flesh of the tips pounding against the keyboard like the mutilated backs of the self-flagellating worshipers of other gods,
And they go down and down and down
Until they can't do it anymore and the poison is gone and the words are dried up again,
And the gods don't seem real anymore
And the hands fall dead in the lap
Only stirring to lift that last swig of the poison
One last sip
And that's it
Death to the hands.

Take me,
Human,
Take me where I am,
Or take me home.
Have me on your couch,
On your bed,
At the table,
Do it with your elbows on the counter,
Or sitting in a chair.
Take me,
Human,
Like you’ve never had another before.
Hidden behind the shelves in the library,
Parked in your car,
Somewhere in the dark,
In the bathroom,
In a closet,
Anywhere,
Everywhere,
Open me,
Take me,
Have me,
Read me,
You deserve,
The company
Of a good book.

Tap, tap, tap,
Go the keys,
Tap, tap, tap,
Furiously nailing the letters to the page,
Like nails to wood,
One at a time.
Tap, tap, tap,
Words about heartbreak and love,
His eyes and her eyes,
The way his coat smells,
The way flowers grow,
The way music touches your soul.
Tap, tap, tap,
Spinning sugar-sweet rhymes about “womanly” things,
While my womanly thoughts lie burning in the deep,
Dark,
Cavities of my chest.
Tap, tap, tap,
Deep down,
Beneath a waterfall of Earl Grey,
Beneath the flutter of a feminine heart,
My womanly words crackle like a fire suppressed.
Tap, tap, tap
I can hear them rumble like thunder,
So close to being spoke,
Being written,
Being typed,
Tap, tap, tap,
Tap, tap, tap,
The fire and the thunder stay in my chest,
Rolling and seething,
Tap, tap, tap,
I continue to write,
Tap, tap, tap,
Someone else’s words.