it is my line to walk. You can
chalk it up to rebelliousness. I'm not
the next Eliot Ness. It'll strike a chord
in you for branding my own new. I've tried

to go straight; but it's overrated. In fact,
it left me constipated. I have more room
off to the sides. I'm like a rubber plant. I bounced
up to the light/not a tin soldier with arms

and chest sewn on tight. Like an adventitious root
I spread and sprawl. But as a creeper I find myself
climbing up the walls. Some say I'm a mess of
tangledness. I'm just a **** growing in the cracks/ a train
jumping the tracks.

any more than the leaves
in autumn. As they turn gold
crimson and orange they break off
from the tree and fall.

I can’t hold on
any more than the emerging
butterfly from the safety of
the chrysalis. My budding wings
have spurred me to fly. If I hold on
I'll only die.

I can't hold on
any more than a snake shedding
his old skin. No longer can it stretch
to fit this body. It's thin and worn. And I
can't grow under a cloak with holes. It’d rot
the fibers of my soul.

that hang by a thread and
whistle. They punch through
the ceiling and swim in the sky,
spraying the clouds with red

dye. Looked on as losers
and frivolous folk they use
their reverie to poke holes in
the sidewalk till it sprouts beans

and Christmas trees with lavender,
the kind that makes those mortal men
slur. Be drunk on innocence of
a star that fell from above.

in my part of town. The sky is
black, wearing a frown. It spits
its venom of acid rain leaving
a rusty stain of brick red, streaking
the temples of my head.

The sun doesn’t shine
through my window. It billows
a silhouette of horror and
regret, looming over my restless bed.

The sun doesn't shine
on me. I travel by land and sea. But
I'm squashed by an elephant cloud
that trumpets its trunk like a big bass
horn till my spirit's the size of kernels of corn.

a burn out of control
a flame shooting out a hundred stories high
scorching every passerby
all the men I have passed struck the match
some poured the gas
I’m a combustion of dead love

born from a rotten egg
that cracked as it left the tube
smelled of grandpa's *****
curdled as it fertilized with a bent *****
strapped to a straitjacket
an asphyxiated germ

paddled as a ping pong ball
welts the size of Symphony Hall lit the stage
at the ripe old age of thirty-four dad left
to go to a room of painted white walls
and all the women wearing uniforms
and sterile alcohol as perfume
no skin-to-skin touch
the women don latex gloves

men in offices sit in leather chairs
papers in frames hung up
stale coffee in their cup
hand you a slip with scribble on it
tell you it'll fix it quick
the only thing fixed
is the branded mark
smoking black ink chalk

can you sell me
the same lines? They sound
like music as you say
them. But the music stops,
as I play them back to you.

How many times
can I weep
over a cold, hard stone
I thought once a
pillow? But I lay my head on
a heaving billow.

How many times
can I say you'll turnaround? Only to
the stillness of dead air and the weight
of a fiery glare.

stout moths. Like
lint they’re flat and fall
off. The fuzzies float in
the air. Man can’t hear them. They’re
dust on the chair.

I weep in silence
black satin rain that pools
in the cracks of my face, leaving
a stain of questions to wear. Man
can’t see them. They’re fog in the square.

I break in silence
pieces of plaster, that chip from
the ceiling creating a bust of alabaster
frozen in expression, that over the years
has not freshen. Man can't touch
the stone. It's dyed to blind their eyes
and cut through bone.