scraping
lead against the
    paper, rough
    sounds
  of natural
        peace
                &
        moving along
                    together
  but feel
        heartily
                amongst
    seaside drapes
            and the
  immaculate
            carpet of
              night.

He needs no introductions
the man behind the mask
in the indifference of the
glass. Enraptured &
alone, he does indeed
wait for the miracle
of the night. Impetuous,
glaring, still.

When I meditate
listening to the
words that pop up
and glimmer in the
front of my mind
everything my eyelids
behold begins to
quiver & I can look
straight through
& see nothing

the sky is gray
over naked gray trees
all seems gray
sidewalk & building
& all is a dream
& a pretty little dream
& the mind is the dreamer
sleeping in the gray
& i am glad for it
my dream is gray
the rainy day is gray
the rain in spain is gray
the eyes of pretty ladies
are gray just look
at all of this gray
sea of dreaming
just look at the dream
it is all gray
it is all
tathagata

when i die
i want to be
buried
not burned
certainly not
sunk i want to
be in the nice
cool ground
with the worms
at least six feet
beneath our
own six feet

I have a shaggy mess
of brown hair that
stays tangled & rankled
to fall over my glasses
like a flag. Smoke from my
cigarette trails behind
me when I walk,
in the direction of the
breeze. I have short legs
and long fingernails that
break often. I wear an old
sandalwood Buddhist
mala rosary on my thin
and bony right wrist.
I've never made a necklace
of flowers--

maybe I'll start
making those tomorrow.

It doesn't take long for me
        to write a poem like it
        used to.
No, I see a stream & think
        not of rhyme or of
        rhythm--words spew
        out like blood
        and venom.
There's no secret to it, no
        golden key, it just
        comes.
It bubbles out of me.
I am a word-faucet.

a tribe of swans
flying forward forever in a
perfect V--
squawking against the wind,
with wings laughing
like little old ladies,
rhythmically & white
feathers falling to the
gentle earth...

black vultures the color
of 3 AM in a
pitiful wretched circle
fly over the
valley, worshipping
the dead and the bones
and the ashes.

life is a blood-red
rust-red roadmap
of cracked paper
that soaks up suffering
like soapy water
and burns up
slowly when set
on fire

On a plateau
        by the seashore
sits a naked goddess,

a dryad or a naiad--
       she laments a soft
song of mechanical

love. Bathing in the
        quiet night, the
light, the

diamond-bright
        stillness. She looks
at me with sad eyes.

On a conch-shell loveboat
        together we sail
through snaky canals

of the heart.
        Cool, lapping
water drips

from her long
        seaweed hair as she
sings for me--

we go beneath
        the sea &
look up at

intangible starfish
        that mirror
the stars of the

surface.

So now you've left me
nothing but quiet bones.

You have pulled out
my unreal teeth.

You have taken off
my unlaughable clothes.

I **** the bitter
night. I **** all its

kisses; they bring
me no joy. You have

trimmed my unabashed
hair, my unyielding

nails.
I am quiet bones.

There is a nativity scene in my backyard every morning.
I can look out the window and observe,
With tired eyes, the birth of Christ
And the treachery of Cain
And the flood of Noah
And the sacrifice of Abraham
And even Moses’ burning bush.

The sun rises above the forest every morning.
It smiles on the grass and makes it grow;
The dewdrops on the trampoline
Cast tiny rainbows on the black rubber surface;
A tiny autumn breeze sways the trees
And they dance with a mysterious genius
That man cannot know.

I can hear the music of the birds in the morning.
There are tiny red berries and honeysuckle flowers
On the trees at the edge of the woods;
There is no serpent, though,
And there is no Eve to pick them and eat them,
And there is no Adam, naked and ribless,
And there is certainly no angel swinging a flaming
Sword in my Garden of Eden.

Pick it up with your delicate fingers;
The tiny oval, purple and bruised,
And in it is contained a life, and cold juice.

Nurtured by the sun, surrounded by
Fresh air in a vineyard; now
Bathed in the sterile light

Of a public school cafeteria.
If grapes have a religion, I’m
Sure the sun is the Son of God

And wine tasters are the dogs of Hell.
If grapes could talk, would they mention
How ugly you look

As you raise grape after grape into your
Grape-colored mouth? I want to speak to the
Grapes; I want to know what they are
Knowing.

The leaves form a shade (a dead mobile)
Hanging over the heads
Of the pedestrians,
Who don’t even notice
That summer’s beauty has been
Stiffened; summer’s leaves
Are falling as if they were
Birds soaring too close to the sun
And so fall down in loneliness.
It is as if orchards are dying high up
In space; as if star orchards have
Lost their weight, and so fall resignedly
On the head of the earth. But
Something is holding all of this falling up,
Isn’t it?

The lights of passing cars dance
On the darkened ceiling—
The only light in a pitch-black room
Is periodical and flickers away
Like a monarch butterfly
On honeymoon with a new lover.

The sickly smell of lilacs hangs
In the still air—
A remnant from the incense,
A reminder of previous activities,
The scent sticking to the walls
Like cobwebs, to the ceiling like ice sickles.

The sound of the television in the other room
Intrudes through the cracked door—
It is a ghost that talks hurriedly
Of things that no one should care about;
It finds its way into my ears
Where it holes itself up like a chipmunk in hibernation.

The hours pass away like relatives or lilac bushes
At the start of the new winter—
I lie awake haunted by the television,
The rancid smell of dead flowers,
The light of busy cars,
And this horrible poem.

This poem bleeds out of my pen as though it
Had a heart, and I stabbed the heart—
As though its blue pulsing ink veins like vines
Had been cut; the ghost of the words won’t
Let me sleep, so I may as well
Stay up.

The sun peeks over the horizon like a newborn baby
Peeking out of the womb—
She spreads her rosy fingers and her rosy lips
And her grin creeps into the dark room,
I can hear the rooster crow; I can feel the moon find his way back
Into the cave.

Silence—
It blossoms like tumors
On our lips; the face
Of the moon looks into the
Window and sniffs you;
His lips crawl up and down
Your flesh, a maddened desirous
Spider.

Country music—
It plays on the radio, a testament
To human boredom; it is a lullaby
And we sift through the static to find
It with our ears;
It fades, we keep the beat,
Then the voice croons back,
Almost asleep.

Angels—
They chant in a choir high
Above us; the noise is golden
And it pours down like honey
Dripping into our eyes;
It tastes good, we scrape it like
Sleep from tired eyelids, or
Leaves from the gutter.

Flowers—
They are blooming outside like
Tumors on our lips; they are different colors,
We follow the rainbow and then
Return to the quiet room;
We can only lie simply beneath a canopy
Of Chinese drywall that stares
Down like a lost lover.

Silence—
It blossoms as I hold
Up the mirror we have built;
It is made of sand
And crumbles in my fingers;
The tumors on our lips leap out
And crash through the red rag
Of an alcoholic day.

When I see you,
I see a choir of doves
As white as the cliffs of Dover;
Your cheeks are the upturned
Bellies of fallen sparrows.

Every part of you sings in time
With the music that gravity makes
Between the spheres.

I am speechless;
It is amazing that you have
Fallen gently beside me,
Graceful, pretty, pretty as
A Basho haiku.



Your eyelashes are the spines
Of tiny fallen hummingbirds;
They cannot flutter anymore—
        Your gravity has stolen
        All of their vitality.

When you move,
All I hear is the sound of
Wings closing and opening
Again.

When you call me near to you
To say that your body is not
Beautiful, I want to
Call near to me the ancient mouths
Of every man and every beast
And every waterfall
To tell you differently.

I want to testify against you;
I want to change your mind;
But I surrender before you
So I can hear your voice
Even if it is wrong.

God in the window
God in the door
God in the staircase
God all over the floor;
        We went out tonight,
        Wondering, weeping,
        Dreary down city lanes
        And lonely in the street.
The trees line the sidewalk
The trees are staring at us
God is in the majesty of the trees
God is in the wisdom of the air;
        There is grime in the cracks,
        The cracks of the ***** street,
        And it springs up like April showers
        And it licks the air like May flowers.
The puddles rest at the edge
The puddles are still and shallow
God is in the naivety of the puddles
God is in the exultance of the moonlight;
        We are home now to rest and dine,
        Comfortable in the warmth of the fire,
        At ease with the taste of the house
        And God is in the house.

Desperation is the language
Of men in gray suits and women in
Gray dresses who count digital money
As if it mattered;
The language of the men with the
Combovers and the women with the
Horn-rimmed glasses with shining
Clear fingernails constantly
Glancing at the expensive watch
On their thin wrists that pulse
With fast food, caffeine,
And a million multicolored pills.
There is a computer in his back pocket
And he has never heard the angels.
Her purse is made of leather
And she has never ridden on a horse
Or even been on a farm
Encased in the stench of manure
And hay as opposed to the familiar wonderful
Fragrance of the gaseous air
That lurks in the alleys and the white
Smell of processed food
In the offices and the campuses.
They will laugh and cry about it all again
In Limbo and hold one another
Like a crucifix at the end of a row
Of pretty rosary beads, at the end
Of a row of pews, at the edge of the feet
Of marble Jesus, who stands and cries tears
As heavy and beautiful as the Brooklyn Bridge
And is powerless to adjust his crown
Of thorns, for his wrists are bleeding
Drops of blood as big and beatific
As the stock exchange.

She is the lady of the harvest--
                 I travel blindly to her garden
                 to smell the flowers and bask
                 in the remnants of what is left
                 of dead October;
                 she shows me how to look
                 into the garbage, into the flowers
                 to see the heroes in the weeds,
                 the ladies in the morning;
                 they lean out towards love,
                 they will lean that way forever
                 and ever.

Not even the vultures
will touch your rotten
meat, so why should I?

You who know how to dance
& do so very bravely
(smashingly even)
come out of your hovels
& little Zen cabins,
drink wine with the bums
& learn how to live
like a dharma lunatic
in the here & in the now
with clothes & perceptions
cast off into the
darkness of the stillness
of the brain

cast off that mortal coil
& come with me to the garden
& learn how to be royal
& let your soft soul harden
in the gemlike flame
of compassion
in the diamondlike frame
of Buddha fashion
& throw away your clothes
& bring all of your books

Say a prayer
for the little brown kids
in Syria
dressed in rags &
paying for
the crimes of
a few idiot dissidents.

I love you
because
when I spontaneously
spout Robert Frost
you know exactly
where
to pick up with
the next line.

I love you
because
you read The Bell Jar
& felt it
in your womanly bones
before those
other girls tried
to grab my attention.

I love you
because
the studs in your
nose are like stars
between
the sun & moon
of your marble
green-flecked eyes.

I love you
because
you tell me how
you feel & don't
try to claw out
my eyes
but claw my back
instead.

I love you
because
the air in your room
is just cool enough
for love
& the light just
dim enough
for love.

I love you
because
you regard the scene
with cool intellectual
librarian eyes
& step on the tiles
with ballet fairy
feet.

I love you
because
you have known
false love &
the Colossus of
false piety &
you know that I worship
you,

above all the pagan gods.

woo
woo
woo

solid solitary
crying out into
the night

around the fire
our emerald eyes
bleed

to inhabit the
stars

shamans dancing
wooping
hollering
shouting
roaring into the
invisible

air
invisible
snakes wrapping
themselves

around
our limbs

phantom elves
shaking
in the embers
of a dream

There is a vast, cool intelligence out there
watching & searching in the blackness of space
& reaching out into the vertices of time
to pluck our minutes from under our chins
& to steal our seconds from under our upturned
noses. They take our time & give us nothing
in return, unsympathetic to our four-dimensional
existence & our tiny ideas & our meaningless
ideals. They strike at the moment of ******
when we stare into the gateless gate &
all of life is white & drips like yolk from a
fallen egg, drips like snow onto the branches of
enormous trees, drips like ***** out of the
**** of a blushing *****, drips like milk
into a cylindrical glass, all the way to the brim,
& then filleth over to cover the wood of
a well-polished table.

I threw away the years
that I spent kissing you &
holding you in the gloom
of damp basements &
on leather couches; I had
to do it, because I have
grown immense & cold
like the spaces between the
twinkling stars.

I stand on the porch
& it overlooks the road
& it is painted white.

I smoke a cigarette
with my left hand
in my pocket.

I exhale & enter
a daydream
where I am yours.

I close my eyes
& I taste your lips
& I touch your thigh.

I open my eyes
to peer into the desire
lounging on my tongue.

You're a flower-child,
spread on the bed with
flowers stuck to your little
head,

with Ginsberg & Whitman on
the shelf & feminine mystique
dripping from the
ceiling.

Moon-lady,
Venus,
tides rising & crushing
the shore,

while I snuggle
my flannel for warmth,
trying
not to be a bore.

Framed pictures as you
reminisce on when we
were younger &
untamed.

"We can still be untamed,
we've been framed
for uninsanity!"

But you call me a fool
& put your
porcelain head in my neck
& I feel foolish.

In the damp light of a cloudy day,
muscles aching, waves
crashing,
uncontrollable urges.

Stranded in the pregnant
belly of a ***** secret city
drawing
the red rose of secret union

& we are sheltered
in the ****** warmth of the
blankets,
cocooned like little monsters.

The calming ocean
& the calming whispers
& the tiny kisses
surround me, blot out my thoughts.

You sing me to
sleep &  run little
fingers
through my knotted hair.

Your tiny dollar store
Buddhas belch incense
over
the backdrop of your perfume.

The wind chimes
twinkle & whimper on the
porch where the swingset
rocks in the rain.

"I wish you weren't
engaged but I don't mind
breaking a few taboos."

You laugh like a soft mad fairy
& look down
at your phone & I turn over
on my naked side.

You laugh a funeral
giggle & I know I should have
worshipped you sooner
at the pillow-altar.

Show me Heaven without
death &
the Garden of Earthly Delights
devoid of sin,

show me your sharpened fox
grin &
the way sunset ripples
at your breath,

I will show you sacrifice
& the hidden light
of our lives
in the damp of the night.

All these silly stupid
little trees
dripping wet with
awkward leaves,

while I drip with
smoke & write my
loneliness with
eyebrow pencils,

idle in my idiocy
& thinking of nothing
else but thee,

a banquet for the bony
dancing boldly in the
silence,

made up with
pale make-up &
trafficking in tall
tales,

all these stupid
ugly little people,

they taste like disease,

but even in a crowd
all I see is thee.

flayed unto deaf ignorance,
leave me here
in my opensky sepulchre,
skyclad & open,
arms spread upon an iron
cross, feet drenched in
blood (it pools on the ground
like rust) to die in the
pregnant sun, to turn to ash,
to be reborn in dust,
to leap across the earth
carried by a stranger's wind,
into unknown territories--
beyond here lies nothing.

I don't like the way
you criticize
the Smiths, or your
gentleman callers,
or that I will never
be good enough, but I
don't mind the way you
look at me,
or the way butterflies
infest my stomach
and then my throat when
I try to speak to you.

I don't like the way
you skirt around the issue--
you beat around the bush,
but I'd rather
burn it down.

I don't like the way
you live right down
the street, as if we were
put here for a reason,
and I lie awake at
night, thinking of
you, talking to
you, knowing that
you might just be
listening to the same
breeze that I'm listening to.

I don't like the way
you might be using me,
manipulating me,
opening me up and looking
at my bare soul
like a roadmap, and then
you use it as a welcome
mat.

We hear the same trains
at night, we see the same
cars passing
by our houses, the same
leaves fall in our yards.

I've torn my heart out,
opened up my rib cage,
and let the blood
spill out, and now I've given
it to you.

You can do what you
wish with it--

but I would appreciate it
if you would lock it away
and throw away the key,
and please
please
please just don't step
on it.

My head swims with
confusion (so does yours,
but you're so afraid
of your emotions that
you can't bear to see it,
so you say)
and you make me feel
stupid.

So look at me again
and open your lips
again and speak to me,
that's all I need.

I'll try not to think
about you, while you
go off in your confusion,
and try to sort out your
emotions.

Fear is the heart
of love.

In the end,
you will accept the
love that you deserve,
and the only love
is mine.

There are those little
odd moments when I
would catch your eyes
staring at me
from across the room,

like you knew me.
You didn't know, dear;
not then. But you would
& we both knew
it, even then, locking
eyes like circling
buzzards.

I've got my love
on the tip of my finger
& I'm holding a drop
just above your
halo,

waiting on it
to soak through to
your clothing.

There's purity
in the streetlights,

innocence in the dull
sheen of the water
still wet on the streets,

and love in your
breaths.

Your chest beats
slowly in the thickening
fog,

slowly and heavily,

you shouldn't have smoked
that cigarette,

you desolation angel.

And we pass the
gas stations and the
cornerstores and the
neon OPEN signs
flash and blink at us,

telling us something
gravely important,

inviting us
into their jeweled
corridors,

their zoo.

There is a light
in your eyes that
never goes out,

looking up at me
in the meager light
of the urban decay
(lights are still on in the
highrises and the section 8
houses & they burn &
we wonder)
trying to find
an answer trickling
from my lips,

like saltwater--
but I can't say
anything.

I've been too stricken.

Stricken by the sudden
sound of pealing bells
in the distance,

stricken by the lightning
quick flash of silver
from when our hands
lazily touch,

like a hard tap on the
spine & a hard tug
on the tail.

My insides roll,

my throat is dry,

can't stop fidgeting,

what price cigarettes?

I feel faded like my
old blue jeans,

& speckled in baby
blue paint,

walking sideways
down a dank alley
where a bicycle sits
propped against
old mossbricks.

The smell of the rain
clings heavy on
our clothes, the taste
of the rain seeps
between my cracked
lips.

& you clutch my
hand in yours (I
can feel the heat, I
can smell your
butterflies & taste
the sewage from
rusted vents) and kiss
me ******* the mouth.

Left hand meets your
waist,

right hand holds yours,

just below eye level
& I can feel you smile
as my kisses deepen you
& open you,

I can feel your teeth
brush my lips soft
like a paintbrush,

I can feel your nails
like chalk
on the smooth
back of my neck,

& then we step out
into the nightlife,
smelling like cigar smoke
and a drunken day.

It is
12:47 P.M.
and I am drunk
as a dog.

The gin tastes
like the forest,
the beer like
the alley.

But I can feel
your pretty gray eyes
right down the street
staring at me,

wondering why I've
done this to myself.
In high school I
seemed so clean,

so pure. I guess I
fooled you, though.

These are colors unseen
& fires unhidden
but you have to look
to discern.

In the darkness
of these corridors
we crouched
amidst low-hanging
ferns and sterile white
lights.

Wild animals crept
outside the windows,
birds perched on the
windowsills,
there were fish in the
streaming brown
sewage.

Beyond the wide wooden
doors, in the auditorium,
there are fires burning
that no one has seen.

There are plays
going on constantly,
embittered actors on
the stage, tightrope walkers
bedecked in merriment,
never looking at the sun,
pale like a polar bear's
fur.

They usher us in one
by one, taking our tickets,
and send us in
over & over
to burn in their
eternal furnaces.

I am not your enemy.
I want to give you a colossal domain.
I want to bottle up the seas for you.
I want to paint you a picture with the sun's rays.
I want to pull down the moon with a chain & tie it to your pretty waist.

I am not your enemy.
I would give you a palace if I could,
or a distant farmland if your tender soul required.
I would found for you a university,
so that the world's young lovers could learn your
proper caresses.

I am not your enemy.
I would catch for you, if I could,
the world's brightest birds, the world's fairest fishes.
I would build you a zoo, then, with an aquarium,
so that you could watch at your leisure
the creatures of your creation.

I am not your enemy.
I will build you a mausoleum, so that I can entomb
you somewhere where only I can visit you,
with flowers in my hand,
and a pretty pearl necklace,
and tears hanging from my
rounded chin.

says the old portly man.

He has a mustache and his face
is red like a beet and his stomach
is swollen like a tumor and his chest
is covered in coarse fur.

"Edit sober!"
says the young muscular man.

His hair is neatly combed.
His hands are calloused.
He has seen war.
He has known love.
And he will know
the barrel
of his gun.

I was outside
beneath the gray sky
this morning
smoking a cigarette
and my kitten's head
poked through the space
in the rotten fence

and I sipped my glass
of morning time ***
and went on with my bad
habits, and when my kitten
walked on by, feet
padding softly on the
wet concrete, I nodded
at him imperceptibly
and he looked up at me

and I guess he understood
where I was coming from,
because he looked as though
he really knew me, really knew
in these Scorpio eyes what
I was thinking about

and then he just kept on
walking in his utter silence
until he had reached the back
door, and then he mewled
softly, as is his way,
to let me know that it was
time to come back in

and I finished my cigarette
and downed the last sip of Bacardi
and went inside
to escape my bad habits.

"You're always so right about everything," she says.

Yes, dear, but it comes at a price.
I am hardly ever surprised.

Tender fruit, grapevine,
fleshy pulp waiting
inside,

marry me, be my bride.

I just wanted to be
your tugboat captain,
your name engraved
on the hull, my name
enmeshed with your
skull.

Dance around in your tutu,
yes, suspended on one toe,
yes, now slip it off &
crawl into the bath.

I just wanted to be
your tugboat captain,
your skin wrapped
around the mast, your
skeleton draped upon
the shaft.

Look up at me with blue eyes, yes,
open up your pink mouth, yes,
now steer with your feet &
take us to the mainland.

Diaper-smell, sweet rosewater--
out here, far from the sea,
in a church where the sailors
never go,

(the flies buzz on the altar,
they land on the sacrifice,
they feast)

she dances with scarves &
swords, she gyrates &
stares with ceramic eyes.
Lady of the cloth,
pale of skin & dark of
hair, golden choker about
her neck, red letter upon
her breast,

(the flies baptize themselves
against the meager sunlight)

she dances.

Madness?
Nay, gnosis--
remembering how to kiss
the waters, remembering
how to embrace the flames.

She is the goddess,
all-receptive and coagulating
eternally to shift with
our rhythms, our wants,
our needs.

She is as old
as all the dark rivers
that coalesce into the
perfection of the sea.

She is the lady
who opens herself
and ushers us onto
our golden throne,
and urges us to drink
from her ******
chalice.

She was alive in the Way,
and in the Water,
and in the Moon,
and in the Blood
of the Ages that flows
still in the veins of a
hidden world.

She is the perfect wife,
the wise crone,
the impetuous harlot,
ill of temper and all-forgiving.

Ah,
but where are my friends?

I envy those who
sleep beneath the ground
as I toss and turn
beneath my sheets.

The rain coats the windows,
the clear paint on the wooden walls,
sheets of gray steel on the sidewalk,
blank faces in the windows--

the quietude, the quaintness, the
quilt of rain in the forests
and dripping from the roofs.

And where are my friends?

Away, miles away,
far from my wet eyes.

There is the tree--
it juts out of the earth,
a sword in the stone.

Alone in a field
of green grass, alone
amongst the flowers,
the emboldened
plumage.

The leaves, greeny finery,
ancient and reborn
age after age,
sag beneath the weight
of the breeze
and the clouds.

It is the wild wine
(not your whiskey,
nor your beer)
that sets me to singing
in the sullen afternoon.

The bottle
(heavy in my bony hand,
full of blushing ambrosia)
tilts back to feed
my gullet
swollen and red
as a fat, over-ripe leech.

O but this,
my Sermon on the Mount,
is one of dulled ecstasy
and ****** craving,
craving the touch of skin,
the ecstasy of the hunt.

Beautiful nectar,
bounty of the grove,
wellspring of violent
visions,
I drink and am drunk
on you,
elegant muse-water,
portentous deluge.

We all have something to give
and you have given me your all.

This room, sunlight streaming
through dusty windows,
has become the seat of the soul,
the altar to ambiguity.

Do your bones creak?
Do your muscles ache
in the afterglow?

Gather up your things,
everything you brought here,
and disperse--
your gentle face stabs my
heart.

You were such a masterpiece,
such a beautiful work of art,
stinking of forests and ***** water.

I find you ugly now,
a wasted bag of bones,
and I must commit these
words to paper
to make a monument
to my own periodic
misogyny.