So poised she is sitting there in the arbor of the Palestinian Café in this oh so cosmopolitan New England city. Small by city standards, but close enough to a city that it labels itself so. As she sits there preparing to write in her journal she is reminded of an earlier work of hers that was published in an online zine in Santa Cruz. She makes a mental note to return to that piece and post it on her own website. She has so much to do... but time runs… no… time doesn’t run… it doesn’t even exist. Life runs out the clock and thus by the end of evening there is only the lying of the head on the pillow and then the rollover and then the slow sink into semi-unconsciousness—then oblivion. "Oh, unblemished oblivion! How seldom we visit. I love your featurelessness, your lack of glitter and lights, your abundance of nothing. It’s what I love about you—the emptiness."

Breakups rhymes with makeups
because the two go hand in hand.
Love straps you in for a loop-de-loop
it slams you from side to side
and just when you think you're safe,
that you've finally reached your peak
you p
       l
       u
       m
       m    
       e
       t
       .
And just like a roller coaster,
it can either be fun or scary
depending on the person.
And though I enjoy roller coasters,
love terrifies me.

Daddy Daddy, it appears
that all you care about is beer.
How come when I'm near
it's always like I'm not even here?

My life is one of the China teacups
my grandmother collects,
pretty and perfectly in place
on the outside,
but on the inside
I'm just one push off the table from
s
   h
a
   t
t
   e
r
   i
n
   g

style is the answer to everything --
a fresh way to approach a dull or a
dangerous thing.
to do a dull thing with style
is preferable to doing a dangerous thing
without it.

Joan of Arc had style
John the Baptist
Christ
Socrates
Caesar,
Garcia Lorca.

style is the difference,
a way of doing,
a way of being done.

6 herons standing quietly in a pool of water
or you walking out of the bathroom naked
without seeing
me.

against the wall, the firing squad ready.
then he got a reprieve.
suppose they had shot Dostoevsky?
before he wrote all that?
I suppose it wouldn't have
mattered
not directly.
there are billions of people who have
never read him and never
will.
but as a young man I know that he
got me through the factories,
past the ******,
lifted me high through the night
and put me down
in a better
place.
even while in the bar
drinking with the other
derelicts,
I was glad they gave Dostoevsky a
reprieve,
it gave me one,
allowed me to look directly at those
rancid faces
in my world,
death pointing its finger,
I held fast,
an immaculate drunk
sharing the stinking dark with
my
brothers.

When you fall,
you learn to rise alone.

When you fall,
you learn to overcome alone.

When you fall,
you learn about yourself.

When you fall,
you learn about the people around
you.

When you fall,
you learn more lessons.

Tepid water
between
my toes,
I know
life.