I’ve spent the whole of this evening
drinking bug repellant and
wrapping my brain in gauze

because small shifts of her feet are registered on the richter scale
and my chest
is crowded with stalactites.

there are paintings inside of me;
a maudlin girl with porcelain skin unfolding onto velvet,
bleeding into other men.

her crying gave me tinnitus,
now my ears leak silver-

their canals are comprised of melted
nickels forgotten  
in the center console of her car.

come winter I’ll cast a ring,
though I’m terrified of snow.

It’s always sedatives during hangovers,
until every blink feels like pouring dust on a patch of dry grass in the sun-
bleached white.

I'm not a seasoned poet
As standards go
I have neither the will nor wit
To assemble words that exhale
Sensuous truths of beauty
I have been tossed in poetry's net
To serve and protect its fate
I'm not sharp enough
To detect Moon's climb
For I'm not Archibald MacLeish
I'm no master metaphorician
To equate yellow fog to a cat
For I'm not T.S. Eliot
I'm just here to release the waves
That load my pen to barrage
Their organic ammunition
I cannot delve into the dark show
As smooth as Edgar Allen Poe
I'm not one to sing of love, of wine
For I'm no Rumi nor khayyam
I can't settle music's dust
For I'm not Robert Frost
I can only write what I'm taught
By the shadow rulers of Art
If Yeats is awake
And Shakespeare watching
If Whitman, Dickinson, Keats
And the rest of the sublime ones
Happen to be espying
They would regard me
As an underling
And that would be a win
For I shall never reach
Their poetic spin.

Golden trees with sun-kissed leaves
Wings of midnight cotton
Floating high in cedar hills
Are dreams inside a coffin

****** rose with sappy petals
Warrior wings with fewer scales
Coasting into deeper woodland
Are the graves of the lost and frail

My pen wrote of loss
And with an evasive tongue, it spoke
My quivering lips succumbed to terror
And so on the truth, I choked

Azure sea reflected me
Singing wading tunes
As I dipped the toe of fear
My fear hid in the dunes

Golden rays throw blinding flames
As the setting sun burst color
Broken shells still pierce my heart
As it yearns to rid this dolor

My pen wrote of drowning
And with an evasive tongue, it spoke
My quivering lips succumbed to terror
And so on the truth, I choked

My pen then wrote the face of cowardice
And with a change of tongue, I spoke
My lips would brave the words of reason
And the birds would fly in happy notes.

I don’t want to be your
sunshine
I want to be your
moonlight
I don’t want to spit morning in your face
and remind you that it’s time to go to work
I want to be that spirit
that lets you know that it’s time to relax
I don’t want to burn your eyes or your skin
I never want to be capable of hurting you
I want to illuminate your soul
I may be under appreciated
eclipsed in the shadows
but I accept that
because I know that I’ll always be that small
light
guiding you in all of the
darkness.

- Moonlight

Her titillating tattoo
tantalizes me deeply,
to the tenth degree. I see
it as I slip her silk dress
slowly down her left shoulder.
A lizard lying on a
boulder, contrasting with her
silky smooth soft snowy skin.

I kiss her shoulder, and she
shudders and sighs a deep sigh.
Goosebumps rise up her body
as a sturdy gust seizes
the moment. The forest we
make love in quakes and shakes
as she shivers and quivers
under the touch of my hands.

My left hand holds her upper
arm, while my right grips her hips.
She closes her eyes, smiling,
giggling in amusement.
I spin her slowly ‘round, and
look into her hazel eyes,
her soft ******* and thighs against
mine for warmth and gentle touch.

I kiss her lips. Strawberry.
And we slide down to the ground.
The scariness we have found
slips away in our grace. We
sinners share our shame, our lust,
and come to a conclusion,
and bust each others doors down,
sweet ****** on this cold ground.