when Today comes
with long legs and red lipstick
smack her on the ***
and buy her a drink.
let one thing
lead to another
and forget Yesterday
because no matter what-
she can never exist.
quit bankrupting life's currency  
by squandering ticks on the clock
trying to figure how many
tomorrows remain
(i promise,
there's just the right amount).
rather, have your way with Today-
take her back to your place
ravage her body in search of asylum.
let your animal free
as you how at the moon
and let the bedsprings screech with strain,
as they sing the day's song.
when she finishes her cigarette
tell her to leave the money
on the nightstand
where Yesterday left hers.

pencil-thin shoulders
mess of dyed blonde hair and fake
strawberry grins
lost in movie ticket stubs stuck
to crowded multi-coloured walls stuffed
bears hidden under bedsprings, pent-up
energy like carbonation in sugary soft drinks
unsteady hands on composed aged shoulders,
unsure feet find their way on moving
slabs cleaning out bright blue backpacks
filled with words forgotten on
pages dried up like pens or discarded acquaintances
discovering heart-shaped cardboard tokens of February
infatuation pure unlike clandestine Friday nights,
pounding nervous with blood in pink seashell ears

Magdalene watched Mary
bend down to put on the LP.
The Beatles. They’d saved

up and bought it together.
She took in Mary’s stockinged
thigh showing through the slit

in the side of the school skirt.
Mary placed the LP carefully
onto the turntable, with her finger

put the needle arm down onto
the vinyl. The music started up,
Mary stood up and sat next to

Magdalene on the single bed.
Magdalene sensed her there,
her thigh next to hers, her

warmth, their knees almost
touching. What did your Ma
say when you said you bought

the Beatles? Magdalene asked.
She said nowt, Mary replied,
but Da said it was a load of

***** and where did I get
the money from to buy it?
John Lennon's voice sang

over the twanging guitars.
Magdalene said, did you
tell him we bought it together?

Mary nodded. Her hands
pushed between her thighs,
her young face lit up by

the room's light. Don't you
think Paul's a dish? Mary asked.
Magdalene shrugged her

shoulders, studied Mary’s
knee where a spot of flesh
showed through a hole in

the black school stockings.
She wanted to move closer,
kiss the cheek, place her

lips on the skin. She breathed
in the borrowed scent that
Mary wore. Said she'd liberated

it from her Ma's room. Mary
talked of the boy they'd met
in the woods above the school.

Tried it on so he did, she said,
over the guitars and Lennon's
loud voice. Magdalene wished

she could put her hands where
the boy had tried. I put him
straight, Mary said, kneed him

where his fatherhood might flow.
Mary moved up and down on
the bed in response to the music.

The bedsprings complained.
Magdalene sensed the movement,
took in Mary’s behind going up

and down on the bed cover.
Glory be. She wanted to kiss.
Needed the hand to touch Mary’s,

the skin to join up with hers.
Downstairs a voice bellowed
to keep the ****** noise down.

Mary sighed and bent down
to turn the **** the thigh
revealed in the skirt's slit,

the spot of flesh through
the hole in the bended knee.
Magdalene captured the image.

Hid it in her memory bank for
later, for bedtime, for the cosy
pretend hold, maybe more if in
her dream she was lucky and bold.

it's a slow burn, easy to ignore
you're slowly sinking into
the teeth of your bedsprings.
you don't hate the sun but you
don't remember asking it to rise.
you enjoyed last night but tonight
it might not be so easy to fall asleep.
and if it is then you've not left your bed
for the best part of a week,
it's been one of the worst weeks in
your life.
you don't hate the night but you
don't remember asking the sun to set,
your eyes have just become
accustomed to the light.
you're slowly sinking into
the teeth of your bedsprings.
you're not even eating, you'll lose
all strength in your arms
and when you want to get up
and you want to shower
and you want to eat
and you want to feel clean
and you want to breathe fresh air
you'll be trapped in your mattress
with the bedsprings wrapped around
your spinal chord.
it's a slow burn, it's easy to ignore.

Lacking of life now
I lol on my fine divan
Laziness often
lacks the power of rapture
as in sofa or bedsprings

Labour of love her
for large obese lobster me
Mermaids capture me
a symphony of sea-sick
rasping tongues lick our lumps

Little old lady
typing the language of love
A real cyber date
computer romance limits
operational life's love

Laughing over lines
of disco ****- pure *******
Lewd obscene language
grasping lemon or lime highs
to count Hollywood star shootings

A full length of life
the longing off, lay proceeds
Lady of the Lake
lunging our lisps sound depths
we are - breathing harmony

The land of Lincoln
legion of Lucifer's Lord
landscaping of lawns,
losing our liberty's law,
leaving on lights, blinding

Lots of Laughs or 'lol'
populist abbreviation*
language often less,
leftovers of literate
gone to libraries of late

Aloft, the mattresses on which she sits
Are facades that shield much more troubling things.
Their roots are grounded deep inside the pits
That stop solutions; soon, the bars will bring
Another pea to which the mounds will mold.
Bedsprings try to push parasites from her,
But soon tendrils will render her stone cold.
Naught can stop progression, if I concur.
As for things besides, that pea rots, growing,
Into another monster without rest,
And till the truth emancipates, the sting
Can melt the layers entirely in jest.
Though, when that day comes for longer sleeping,
Peace is felt by her who’s longed for keeping.

Are only the tools of the trade
To swinging ***** and easy Janes
Like these now attempting to muffle their shouts
In the purple suburban evening where God knows
Only all the neighbors are striving to listen;
A couple of loveless friends *******
Each other out of breath and full of big plans—

And now I’m sure that we can,
Just listen to her moan!
A man once told me I’ve got to give it to her
To stick a son in there.
I might ask, but there’s no need now to beg
Because we deserve it too much.
Our dry spell is all wet tonight;
Are those the cries of a baby I hear,
Or our bedsprings squeaking?—

It only hurts a little when he gets this excited
But instances are excusable
*** folds in memory
And ****** success caresses forms into forms
I know she will be beautiful
Her beauty will come to her as easily as it passed me by
I am not sad, neither
And the sweat, his sweat drips from his naked chin onto mine—

I tell mom and dad that’s fine,
I want another brother.
They make noises in their room
Which are so loud they keep me awake.
So they decided to make them after dinner,
When I am trying to read.
Sometimes I listen to them very carefully, but
Then I have nightmares of
Them hurting each other.
They are making noises now;
Something not good is happening.

We stood on the shores of forever.
The transient waves
lapping at the Cliffside
Grinding granite
to bare sand and
granting mysticism to
           Perception.

Grand piano typebars snicking
to the roar of bonfires
burning the taste buds off our fingers
            Our tongues busy in rituals
          gifting freedom from base function
              to commune with Passion.

Newfound Oldschoolism
        stuttering confidence
                and alcohol imbibed clarity
screaming Ginsberg at Apathy so that sand might best stone

                  Spinning dizzily
in Rockland in Moloch in Purgatory
Dying vicariously under the table
while illiterate Jazz read
our right accusatory
                                 for falsifying veracity

Sitting in jail cells in
San Francisco for setting
         the sky aflame.
        And it is aflame.

Inmates burning with
unspoken tomes spoken
Who in madness spun truth
        in whipped tongues, begging
        for something worthy of Censure.
Who Rapture took under wing
        and proclaimed “Child!”
Who ripped open the sky
        to play with father time
        while mother earth ran green
                   in envy.
Who were acquitted on appeal
        to dance in the moonlight on the
        shore once more together,

        Who found lust skipping stones alone
and welcomed her to join us
Hedonists wearing it like a
badge on bare underbellies
rubbing orgied in reverence
       Running fingers through coarse
hair windblown and sparking
with electric sensation.
       Exploring, pioneering
quivering legs and chests
beneath and atop us.
       Inventing love while sinking
quickly in slow sands
while smooth hands grasped
for the fleeting finite
      Whispering sweet everythings
without words for they
would be wasted here.
      Pulling needy lips away
to idealize Communism
as Bourgeois swine wallowing
in prosperity and sweat
of our nightly deeds.
      Complaining of lost chances
and brevity of copulation
when we’ve defeated the bedsprings
      and Fantasizing of the bed, car,
floor, park, studio, and once
on the hood for good measure
      Forsaking sleep to defy
the mandate of the setting moon
      Praising the glinting ******
of Adonis and Aphrodite
in mutual longing
as the sun blinked into
existence through the window
until in merry acquiescence we
     dozed, dreaming
we had set San Francisco aflame
and lit our cigarettes on its
                embers,
While we slipped little squares
under our tongues and GoldenGatePark
turned alive and welcoming;
Gleeful mourning at the loss of self
        at the University
Rambling on about enlightenment
        full of pretentious humility
Establishing Anarchy in our veins
        so we might be closer to god

               And god lives right there
               in the shack atop that
               hill, handing out nature
               to the masses
sitting on benches, fried to comprehension.
       Proclaiming that the world
was bleeding glory to bewildered
               passers-by.
       Breathing in fog and smoke
to join oblivion quickly
       Bumping Kerouac’s ashes in
the selfsame alley
       Piling intoxicants to run sleepless
through the streets
                                       wild-eyed

Dragged out of gutters
        covered in nothing
               the morning after
                     finding our clothes
                          draping streetlamps
                     and leaving them
               in testament.

Yearning for that heavenly connection
         and finding it
             together.
Scaling the walls of
        the mind to
find mountains at
        the summit and
        climbed those too
and clamored past
        the clouds
and the stars until
       We found worth at the edge
of the universe.

                                             20 September 2010

there is nothing quite like being with you ...

sitting cross-legged on your warm crumpled comforter in dim amber light
with hunched backs against the white stone wall,
silently working to piece each other together,
merging thoughts and shoulders,
falling into each other's gravity and orbiting like stars–
we couldn't figure out
how to get any closer ...

we lived in shoeboxes then,
in ***** laundry and ramen-flavored freedom,
the soundtrack in our background
shuffled steps and muffled laughter through thin walls,
pencil scratches and elevator dings,
wooden doors and heavy coats,
cars in the snow rushing by our open windows,
hot cocoa, creaking bedsprings, and
singing–

I have been listening for the music in the things here–
I have searched in comforters, in stone walls,
in laundry and ramen,
in slippers and open mouths and pencils and elevators and doors and coats and cars and snow and windows and chocolate and bedsprings and everyday I try to remember something else I can dissect:
some texture, some melody, some pattern, some rhythm
where you might exist too,
but your music
is nowhere else.

we live in big empty houses now,
in hardwood floors and toothpaste-flavored loneliness.
I can still hear our shoeboxes
and feel the pull of our gravity
somewhere
fading ...

Sunday I met you
and now it's Thursday
haven't left your bed
since

Spring weather so riotous
and erratic
love so dangerous it breaks
hearts and bedsprings
bent blankets and electric
tingles hands scraping
each other's bodies

Sometimes I want to ask
if we'll ever get back
to normal. If the hospital bed
will disappear from the main
level, if the endless stream of
doctors and nurses and physical therapists and reflexologists and acupuncturists
will ever pass us by, if maybe
a night without the squeaking
of bedsprings and the helpless shaking
and gasping of another seizure being
broadcast throughout the house
will finally come, if just maybe
when I say goodnight, you
will have time to look up
and see me standing there.
But then I remember that
the word "normal"
has never been heard in our house
without the harsh sting of comparison, and
this is our life, now, as
we have changed so many
other times. Who knows
what "normal" is, anyways.
If I ever did, I have forgotten.

There's something uneasy and unwritten in the texts you send
The subtext feels like the taste in your mouth when you go to bed
Next to someone that you said you love in your head
Wake up in reality to be sleeping next to someone you might
Call just a friend-
But the *** talk laughs at you
In all your stupid fun you
Been together much stranger
Still can't call her number one
Yeah she's just another *****, press send, turn your phone off
Nothing like these feelings to bother you when you're getting off
High like the helium
Ceiling can't hold you down
Standing on a mountain of broken hearts that you said you found
Leaving an ominous trail of notches behind you
Got your big-*** ego dripping in your eyes to blind you
Not like she needed to repeat it when she found you
Broken like a record from the scratches you collected all around you
Held you up until you felt that she belonged banged up, too
When she leaned in for a kiss, her lips met the closed door
Did it make you feel the buzz to take her like a cheap score
Sitting on the edge of her bed with her stomach turning
Thought you were a "something more" but ****, boy, now she's learning
Telling herself she wouldn't rather be dead
From all the wheels turning rotten in the sour of her head
Like the breath in her ear telling her that she can do this
Pounding on the bedsprings is her mantra, she's a Buddhist
Taking all your ******* like a cigarette drag
All of those years and you're still convinced that
She's still kicking it to be close to the one thing you'll never let her have?
Yeah you're a *****- but she loves you, and she's got it bad.

on the impracticality of
impracticality
of the
wings of dragonflies made of
cellophane in which
i wrap myself in the hopes that one day i will
suffocate on the impracticality of
shoulders moulded to fit
the leaning heads of our lovers on the
impracticality of
bedsprings
creaking to wake up the neighbors at three forty-
six a.m. or
clouds, even
bursting at the seams to drench us with our own
tears
why can’t we just
**** each other from the
outside instead

Sleep visits me again, a man
in a grey overcoat, smiling, beckoning.
It's easier than you think, he tells me
just like they say, counting sheep
and stars. There are somnambulists
and the creak of bedsprings, some nights
silence, but more often the clock ticks back
and forth. I sit beside the bed
with its sagging dust ruffle and watch over
the sleep of the living. It's funny,
he says, stifling the lamplight,
especially when they talk, and when they dream.

The hotel bedsprings sag to our weight,
we can hear the builders singing
down the fire escape.
They're singing for their winnings
and to drown out future losses,
and I think of how I came to be here,
over time, and the paths that it crosses.

And Tom is singing Hold On over the speakers,
whilst we're smoking a joint and
hiding from seekers.
I kiss you ******* the mouth,
and remove the need for words;
for polluting this moment
with a clumsy rhyme or verse.

You see me for the first time in sunlight,
the sunlight of a cloud canopy;
I whisper to you the secret of poetry:
in the simplicity of you and me.

You return my words with a silence,
but with a symphony of soft eye-gaze;
and forevermore I sleep in your witness,
forevermore, in your light, I will laze.

Your shoulders look so heavy
as you carry them back upstairs
and even your feet are tired
as you trudge one. step. at a time.
You say to call you only
if three or four minutes pass
and there is no respite.
I understand, you know. Everyone
needs to rest sometime
and now is your turn.
I will always admire the stoic way
you face rigid limbs
and bleeding mouths, the way you
can remain calm
as bedsprings and bodies shake as one
the acceptance of life as you
have come to know it. Yes,
I admire, eternally unable to emulate. You
know what to do. I, on
the other clenched hand,
am constantly terrified. Please
don't leave me on guard-
I will never be ready to face the monster
eating my little sister from within.

New York City is where people who are
disappearing go. It is very quiet
here, silent. A man and woman
made love below me. I could hear
the bedsprings ringing and the
woman singing in sensual pain.
My thoughts sped up as they ******
faster. Everything is dead in my room
except me and my plants. If I keep
on identifying my feelings with the
feelings of things, I too will be dead.
They are talking and laughing now. His deep
voice vibrates the air. Her laugh
is like water.

wine straight to belly
warm, plunging.
what a tragedy.
i want to feel you because i never got to
now tell me
you want your love to come and heal this damage, scarring
you want your love needed because you want me
like this wine, straight to the gut, drowning me.
ive despised and adored this meshed life, never knowing how to surveille love
how to portray it how to embody it.
ive given and taken yet somewhere i fear ive never loved, only thirsted over voidal instincts, over sentimental lacks.
dust these lids for the lights
frame these hips, arch my back keeping my basin
sawed through these bedsprings, i fear my own pain interests me
i fear this is all that life could ever be
exhilarating breath to soundless screech to foster me.
you say sometimes i belong a little too much to my thoughts and i tell everyone i live in my head- what a pair
if i can't figure me out why would you even  dare?
what's worse?
knowing your love is poured, another stain in this emptiness or not loving at all?
knowing you love a flowering corpse or searching for its rebirth?
is this love?
the one you tell me i so generously deserve?

She walks out on me
like mud
spattered through her days

And my colourless sun,
mudded in desire
Lay, crumpled in the maraches of expelled memories.
my outcasts little thoughts
They been friends of mine for long
I wish them the pangs of the island
Lonesome at *****,
like madman in farandoles.
And blind beasts
running amok.
A last time or so
please...

free ill be or so i hope
And hope for sunrise
is still a light

Broken-hearted at dawn full of smiles and hellos
sobbing silence in the early hours
spluttered stain on shattered day

Love-curdling dance at midnight
The vultures were always around
w a slice of meat in the beck
and two under their wings
If only the troubled bridge did not go over spirituous flow
and the redhead mermaids...
oh lemme go, lemme go to them
little love in the blur
lemme see if sinews break before bedsprings
if flesh melt before lust
Or is that your flighty temptress, old bearded fool,
to keep time w time,
mind with stich,
and spike w grime,
and recline over
disecrated limbs?

Catalina headlights crawl up the wall. You lay in bed as
Momma and her new boyfriend spill drinks on the table, Slurring of love on Sunday. I watch for headlights sliding up the street. Probably to one of
The ***** bars with the watered down 7's and no
Luck at all, and bad breaks,
Strung out sad lunches
And a whole lot of lurching
At the moon.
Down by the bog with
With willow the wisp
And old black men with half pints of whiskey fishing
Carp from the ***** river.
And I mix concoctions, libations thrown to the sun,
Blind reasons cast to the moon. As I fill these memories to a bitter cup
Filled with clown tears and
Black roots of beggars and bums.
An effigy dug to the dirt.
While you dream of painted sails and sunshine buried
Beneath the rails.
Pink moon, pink moon,
What harbinger you bring me? Dead leaves and Black beetle dirt beneath your
Pinkish light.
As I cinch my my tall boots
For a walk in the muck.
I've got to scream yet I have no mouth. Though I can't let on, it may take me to darker water, As my mind turms
To gray cinema, Shadows and streets wet in the rain.
And I worry for a moment
Of waking on the sun,
As black clouds lead you deeper in movie,
Where Starlets sail off the canyons to the California surf
As I lie on broken bedsprings
And ruminant in saucer shaped thoughts spinning
Into orbits and Black hole stars.
A thousand lights on the river, These bright and
Dark sun devils spin
The stratosphere.
Waking to shadow,
The headlights run up the wall, I follow them
To the top of the ceiling.