forgotten longing
deep custard days gone by
my morning trip: the pool, always
then, to stay swimming in the ocean
favorite lifeguards who never stared me back
boardwalk seagulls, seafood season
shops with time like windy cobwebs
the hotel, our melancholy Ferris smell
that last painful sunburn pizza and
sadder September funnel cakes

vacation

where I now walk alone
crying for dreams past
not just things

difficult letters remain
a packed drawer overflowing
not with photography, but
kept in place by written
words, keen right through your chest;
oh, once we exchanged enjoyment
but now these treasures twist our hearts
like the blessed will of God

Definitely a trouble spot
I don't usually mind sharing myself
     with others, but it is mostly in a
     superficial way

I can't say I've tried all that hard
     to improve my ability at it

I think most of my problem is
     lack of trust in most people
     I communicate with

Self-disclosure isn't easy, even
     with people I trust, but it's not
     quite as bad

Needless to say, there's a lot of room
    for improvement

goodbyes—
there were always goodbyes
and silence
more silence
but always more goodbyes

goodbyes—
ended without an hello
just started
we began again
but always more goodbyes

goodbyes—
ended in our reunions
maybe virtually
perhaps personally
but always more goodbyes

goodbyes—
this time it's goodbye
that just could—
that just might—
that just may—
stick.

Why?

My, my.

Isn't that
a pertinent
philosophical
question?

I hedge, contemplating—
a sweating sky appeared to will us on
heating our loyalty, ensuring friendship
after my departure, remembering
our effort, given dearly
pruning

in the future, plant the dead
there; plant passed sections of
time, and the complications that came
of any blend of love in which I fell
wondering, myself, deeply
pruning

toiling without reluctance
once envelopes saw to my habit
cold days, old fears, and limp problems
all the mistakes of upcoming years
have hastened this day
pruning

drifting issues, written away
the fitting demise of a period spent
waiting angrily earnestly suddenly guiltily;
summers, memories from a younger start,
some still halfway in sunshine
pruning

consider, therefore, this case
something finished: the perfect mistake
feeling like the wind swept in unashamed
entangled relationships, waiting afresh;
however, I hedge, suddenly
pruning

the nasty bleeding
half-written
bloodstained ******* lines
unfinished
verses

ear-piercing weeping
mournful
failed prose scribbled
pathetically
broken

to touch people’s hearts
wishing—
tears wait in shadows
stories still
unspoken

fantasies and the heavens
gathered in fragile moonlight
promises brightly eager
embraced beautifully
with trembling softness

now our starving swings
creak in complicated harmonies
of misunderstood goodbyes
no final tenderness
only a teacher’s regret

Assertiveness: standing up
for your own rights;
Don't infringe upon or ignore
anyone else's rights, though

It is not aggressiveness

Start with an "I" statement;
It should be descriptive, not
evaluative or condemnatory

Tuesday wanders
misunderstood
its only tangible virtue:
It isn’t Monday

filthy whiskey
smoking asphalt alleyways
roaring ******* windowsills
shuddering stoops

midnight money
shaking subway traffic
neon red hotels
battered archangel blues

starving madness
sweet ecstatic ***
naked eyes lounging
******* harlequin ******

blemished evenings
hopeless
humorless
concrete amnesia
blind hungry dreams

jukebox consciousness
bald drunken incantations
suicide waitresses
the holy pavement angel

tenement jazz
weeping
dreaming
scribbling *****
screaming delight

sirens
sunrise
disgorged rivers
tender moans
pure unshaven salvation

these perpetual winters end
in stark February glimmers
bringing incomplete spring gardens
moss, violets and waterfall spray
bathed in deafening indifference to me
here I find a calming refuge
Lord, grant me tender isolation

lost ardor, long hidden beneath these initial wastes
pinpointing the mines and matters, estimations and worth
your excavation operating on the surface of my bereavement
without any evaluation of its dolorous costs or the extent
of these ductile veins, rivers through our subterranean natures
your shadow requirements, eroded and befouled

now, neither my eyes nor I much love your dark
epicardial secrets, projecting deposits of debris, the chloride fragrance
of our secrets, hidden fires underground; your love, all and away
digging, mining proposed new lovers out of us both; gravels and
pain and gas; ferrous exploration; uranium reclamation anew via
caustic layers of ore and deposits of once-flowing love

alloys of dead flowers and waste form my rocks
seething into scabrous life like bantling cacti after a lover has risen
such risks always require a proportion of love be livid, recoverable;
threads of passion dissolved in the complexities of the body
grains of unconsolidated minerals evoking love and potash
yes, secret metallurgists like you pose acidic dangers
to my soft endocardial things

incense, fidelity and friendship
energy burnt to keep evil at bay
cleansing unwanted illness away
spells for ritual baths, hospitals
houses and graves

sacred memory, luck of the eye
oft hung to purify jealousy and love,
protecting the water of cradles and
unwanted infants, blessing your
dreams and nightmares

where are your words
where are your words
where are your words now
poet?

Boredom sits
heavily on our
heads.  I've never
seen so many blank
faces in my life.
He goes on and on
and on and on,
gesticulating,
describing, hopping
from one example
to the next:
"I died in a
complex society!"

you lie sleeping as I watch
waiting for you to awaken
gazing upon your skin, your hair
as you gently wet your lips
with just the tip of your tongue

bedclothes slowly rise and fall
as you draw sleep's shallow breaths
and send them softly whispering
through the dim morning light
your fingers gently flex

subtle movements drift across your face
I want you to return to me
to see you react upon awakening
finding me so near
your eyelids quickly flutter

My lips brush lightly against your hair
I linger lazily on its scent
as your eyes begin to open, I wonder
what will I see in them
and what will you see in mine?

Name the feeling
but first you must recognize it
for what it is, and
realize what it is

Do it fairly specifically

Even when you use
a concrete term to describe
your feeling (ex. anger)
there is a gamut, or range:
annoyed
or raging mad?

This should be identified
clearly

sun and demons pour into morning
as I exhale the embers of slumber
my heart's rusted boundaries
trembling, eagerly whispering,
confessing once again a sharp thirst
for the ***** taste of violence

buildings, sidewalks
kitchens, gardens
cigarettes and souls
glorious rage and innocent flesh;
this scarred logic of mine simply
wants to lash out, to harm
and it stinks of insanity

toast and a crisp suit: my disguise
imaginary fantasies, secret and angry
form in this melancholy, useless routine
something is missing— constantly —
but tomorrow may deal me
a more hopeful hand

a tough emptiness
reflecting yesterday
and a bedroom display

fallen rhymes,
fashions drenched
in a shock season

trapped and choking
bright pop feathers
shattered *******

biting sister voices
of candy compassion
and loving destruction

surrounding skin with
exact negative cuts
and positive kills

destroying warm daddy,
yearning for mommy
privately bruised

jaws smiling forgiveness
spreading ****** tales of
powerful emotion

and still we touch
like a sensual guess
surprisingly harmful fingers
far too heavy a closeness
anxieties unspoken

uncomfortable night out
street signs and cold burns
a drunk riddled with
people’s cigarettes
and unknown prayers

chemicals and friends
now objectively drinking
our wet suicidal research
every cold sparkling dash
made someone squish

intimacy, desensitized
remembering closeness
we shrug, nickname photos
lonely breaths interacting
no longer dreaming

hoarding paper coffee
cups and dusty trust

tangled affection in
foolish bluish knots

hungry wandering and
pale-cut bittersweet tea

shadow mazes, vines and
winter's milky weeds

Somehow people could grow and go

and move happily among inspiring college friends

Literature, professors, winter love, everyone’s camaraderie—

sometimes wondering to myself if I really belonged


Now I'm feeling like becoming

the same person I was on campus, being the same again

Would that be a fine change to close out my life?

Then would I have to think anymore?

don’t hide from love — go outside and touch its face
don’t lock yourself — inside this raw and heartless place
and when you’ve healed — and all our blood has washed away
take your broken dreams outside — into the light of day

you love the light — yet darkness choked your soul
don’t dread the night — go walk your grievous, lonesome road
and when you’ve healed — and the scars all fade away
walk outside and feel — sunlight comforting your face

you’ll find someone — who’ll share your point of view
then you’ll walk far — along the lanes that we once knew
and when you’ve healed — the vicious pain kept finally at bay
you’ll feel our time dissolve — into the light of day

mock the jealous night
and show me new joys
bind this truth together with me
you know faith far better, my sweet love,
than I, this blessed slave possessed

so calm my fiery heart
and feed my lips your scent
while the evening plays its tepid song—
hold me trembling against this ancient darkness
even as you devise your inexorable pursuit

empty, obsessive longing
              profound

faded, naked pain
              glorious

benevolent ashes
              surrender

an ineffably flawed fool
              still

trembling, once-shattered bones
              rise

yesterday’s hungry smiles
carry divine ripened comfort
perfect lines—always—perfect
where those familiar sounds
merely whisper

draw locks onto memories
embrace soft autumn-worn help
racing then beside bruise-sore dawns
seen in everlasting looking-glasses
a chance to cry

the same daydreams pass
and sleepy overlooked hearts
ebb among overly scabrous breezes
borrowed labors lost
bitterly calling

unlit golden trees
rent, fallen away from warmth
shaped by these crimson hungers
lifting our fine new hearts
and rising desires

Be like me and then I’ll be like you
You could do all the things that I do
Who gives a **** what you could be
when I’m giving you a chance to be like me?
A chance to be like me!

So, come on get in this cage, little girl
Come on get in this cage, little girl
Be more like me…
It’s all the rage

Her echoing screams don’t convince her
until she feels her fists and forearms splinter
Oh, she’ll soon give up all the struggle
when she finally realizes being like me
is so much less trouble
so much less trouble

So, stop pounding on that cage, little girl
Stop pounding on that cage, little girl
Be more like me…
It’s all the rage

Ha! Bite you lip until it bleeds
Scratch until your nails break
My whispers are as soft and moist
as a pillow on your face
Stop that muffled wailing
so I can tell you who you are
Yes, you can finally fit in, girl
when you’re gone without a trace
Be more like me…
I’ll set you free

You face and body look so thin
I don’t really want to lock you in
You’d be so refreshed, you’d feel so new
if you would just stop being so much like you
so very much like you

So, swallow all that rage, little girl
Stop rattling your cage, little girl
There’s no more battle to be waged, little girl
You’re just going through a stage, little girl
You really should act your age, little girl
Now be quiet in that cage, little girl
Be more like me…
It’s all the rage
oh, yes, it’s all the rage!

you exist as my essential delight
our desires felt according to our instinct
already just inside

every favorite imprisoned minute
became free momentous lost hours alone
within our moans

our bodies exchanging naked positions
what speed!  you, freely obey my coming
that pleasurable feel

awakened bodies, insomniac, seizing dawn
together, seduction deep in the long morning
our duvets intertwining
in sweaty satisfaction

I wish I understood what's going on

[no reply]

I wish I understood the meaning behind what you write

[no reply]

I wish I understood what you're not writing

[no reply]

I wish... never mind

now I get it

sensational dark eyes
and your smooth scent
behind cool, twisted silk
palpably warm pressures
struggling hypnotically across
bedroom walls and blurred wrists
lips glow silently, close in the dark
ridges flicker across edges of umber
shadows test the viscous, paraffin light
against my throat, your smooth scent and
sensational dark eyes

shouldn’t a graveyard,
awaiting our most fearful memories, embalm
all that may necessarily bloom?

in that cemetery, never spoken
all becomes flawed and slippery memory
with hope poisoning the vines

find these buried roses waiting
necessarily venomous, always waiting
reckoning with the chaos

buried wholly, suspended perfectly
seldom deemed worthy, seldom betaken
now signifying nothing

bound, dark birds cannot speak
or move, but are mated together,
wounded, yet glowing still within;
memory finds forgiveness, child,
in each cherished haven lost

only the blessed have been lovers;
without someone to listen, unheard,
real shelter and warmth, yet ungiven;
relentless endings and losses beget
new voices rich in mourning

Oh, listen —
and forget forever
we’ll wink at wonders
giggle near hopeful windows
carrying falling light and
in recovery, devouring the air

Oh, listen —
papers so lean at midnight
messages of delight without strokes
open and trying insatiably
soaring—with courageous flex—they break!
now behind us, burning water

cocoons as windows
disguised as tea, disguised as silk
that protective solid, a one-way order
no outside touch

outside, morning
organs *****, larval, the sticky crevice
recalled from leafy fluids
making sin from sin

corroded sins
untouched, unwatched, remain concealed
remain in another forgotten cocoon
yet they still yield silk

another silk
of morning sweaters, coarctate, twig solid
offering cocoons of another casing
another skin, another order

resisting order, reminiscent
hard, evolving, exarate, growing teeth
to touch and tear at exoskeletons
another fluid appetite

cocoons and fluids
the remains of caterpillars and wings
every secret allowed, accumulating effort
and one-way mourning

morning as a window
mesh-like, yet opaque, and exquisitely final
morning: everything to the cocoon!
I facilitate my order

It seems to me we lived a dream
and like any dream, I feared we would awake
I wonder if we ever would have learned to love
if only we’d known just what we had at stake

It seems to me we had it all
and foolishly we let it slip away
but there’s never any guarantee that love,
when it appears, is ever really here to stay

     Sometimes I hear you in the distance crying
     —howling and calling out my name
     and with such a raging storm upon your lips
     I wonder if they’re tears
     or is it rain?

     Lord, let it wash away these memories
     no matter if they’re tears
     or if it’s rain

It seems to me I always find
your beauty rests securely in my mind
and the love we shared still clings to me
and memories we tried to leave behind

It seems to me that we might find
our paths may cross somewhere down the line
When your eyes meet mine will I still see
feelings that still linger after all this time?

     Sometimes I hear you in the distance crying
     —howling and calling out my name
     and with such a raging storm upon your lips
     I wonder if they’re tears
     or is it rain?

     Lord, let it wash away these memories
     no matter if they’re tears
     or if it’s rain

3/12.
Fiddles with ring --
Taking notes underneath
her notebook today
like crazy --
Is not in her
standard body position --
Not watching speakers today --
Waves her hands when she speaks --
Rolls her finger --
Not staring today --
She smiled.

drunks and women, napkins and pencils
remote bartenders unscrewing rivers of cheap grape
blue moonlight cafés, bars and broken windows

a pretty waitress and coffee, ashes and fear
aging liquor, layers of dust, and a little ***** beer
lonely shifting curtains and my own used bed

crackling radio and comfortless poetic ***
these naked fingernails sneaking into dry pockets
cigarettes, sadness, and a cold wet towel

she suddenly died last night
her clothes are still there
her purse
her toiletries
all her things left upstairs
those the things that make a home
fixed in my memory

she suddenly died last night
nothing reminds me more
our dreams
our experiences
all those unsettled times
maybe she should have left a note
or one more memory