I stroke your skin like a leaf
and hold it up to the light,
allowing fingertips

           to go slow from root to tip.
           to sew the lining where two unlike materials meet.
           to code this friction into tactile intuition...

And yet--

                                                      I am afraid.

With this and all acts of temptress divination.

                                                I, I...am afraid.

I want to read our intersection.

I want
            to see               in your life-line.
                        myself.


First, I will find the highways of your pulse-

watch as they
                           give way to country roads.

Dissecting life-ways into bi-ways

where I can go slow from

root                         to                             tip.

                                rise
Feel the land
                                                       and fall.

from grass
to hallowed knoll-

Throw me dirt and blow out your windows.
                           
Take me slow
                                        down the side roads.

Next, I consult
the creases of your open fist.

Gone are the fine blue lines
                                                         -the tomographic
Heat, and its rhizomatic
                                              beat.

Instead, you hold me in this underpass

[the clamminess and opposite-land of passion and speed]
                                          where
                             [shadows cling and relationships keep].

You hold my hand.

To leave, and blast!
                                                 - to stay, I will need a map.

Hide me here long enough to find beauty
in the fine etched lines
that paint the walls in broad swoops of graffiti:
those cryptic tag-lines that advertise your witty, poetic celebrity.

from finger to wrist

                   arc
             the      to the thumb

the pulse that could run
on and on.

[our] distant reflection
                            -a mirage in the rising sun.
where

the earth line cuts off the air line

to fuse the heart-              and the head
                                                            ­                    -line.

hands
clasp
grasp
yours, mine or a stranger's
line of life, line of head, line of heart
it is said that the hand is the map, and the heart is the guide
but how come whenever it is that you hold my hand you also hold my heart?
(in your hands)
feeling the strength of your hold
on my heart
and my hands
letting go
of my heart
but please,
not my hands
I need to keep that clasp
and grasp
and hold I have on you
I need to feel your roughness
and clamminess
and softness
between my fingers
yours fit so perfectly
what if I never find another fit?
what if the next fingers are too short, too long, too bristly, too smooth?
I only remember yours
and what if their lines tell too different a story?
what if they crossed an ocean to find me,
or have never picked up a knife,
or have never lost themselves in another?
and I am left holding my own hands
too familiar
when all I yearn for are yours
I should have never let go of yours
even that one morning when you said it was too cold to hold mine
I should have locked yours between mine and assured you that I would make you warm
now I am grabbing for something in the dark,
a phantom limb; your hands
I wish I had clawed up your wrist to your elbow to your shoulder to your neck
and held on
because my hands are empty
nothing I hold bears weight
nothing I touch, feels
nothing I stroke shudders
nothing I scrape bleeds
my hands hold nothing
my lines of mind, head and heart have blurred
I can feel the reverb of my heart's beat as it left my hands and fell into yours
they are bony and frail and stained and drained of colour
what do I do with my hands?

Silence will not do, but does.
Datura are in bloom below
equatorial divide,
or is it above?
Nevertheless, I smell them
just as moon rises.
That is how I know.
"No understanding of this,"
says an upside down bat,
who I've named Plato.
We enjoy our cave dwelling,
clamminess included.
Visitors suchlike the snake and mosquito down here, get eaten
by he and I.
Venturing out isn't required.
Distinction between shadows
and puppets to us are visible.
Our senses are keen.
We can turn our heads around.
Still, we stay in the cave.
For all our nutrition comes to us.

chain lightning blows across the sky like a radiant touch;

strikes the same tree in my hometown every time i fall in love.

what breed is it, this ruinous love? striking,

the white caustic light of it irradiating

the surrounding cornfields.



were you ever there to see it? from your bedroom window?

the arc and crackle? this tuning fork of astral flame resonating

between cloud and timber? this crippled elm where

my skinny suicidal teenage love bid me scale limbs?

where each time, like a surgeon, my shaky fingers stitched bark

with the corded sinew of raccoons and my fluids held it all glued?

in the dark? how so like an heirloom it seems now;

this lone tree, cordoned in scars,

all gnarl and char.



i turn to the map of my circulatory system in these moments,

follow the red army over a causeway of capillaries,

watch them fattened on oxygen.

how else to know that amongst all this,

there remains

a richness deep

down things?



make a supple leather from the hides

of the nights I knuckled crabapples down your roof.

It will be the color of a bruise; of a secret. all you do

is carve, slicing carefully to cut out my

silhouette projected against your bedroom wall –

all this, time and memory, just arts and crafts. molding

the vectors of us, hurtling through space

like coins drifting

to the bottom

of a well.



memory, the fashion and fashioning of it:

the way we wear our existence. our skeleton

to cobble and clothe. so while we’re at it…

let us forget the moments of trepidation.

Obliterate the clamminess of our palms clenched together,

the schoolyard drama of it all. pasted in layers

until it’s just a mess of glue. until the moments that matter

are traced with dotted lines

and lusted over

by the appetites

of scissors.

Sitting in the passenger seat of your car at 3 AM with your hand resting on my knee had always felt more like home than any other place ever did.
Summer brought you to me and it when it ended it dragged you right along with it, and just as easily and quickly that you came, you left.
Remember the day before you left for college? We were sitting in that cafe drinking milkshakes and you made me pinky promise that i wouldn't let the distance bring us apart and you told me we were stronger than any amount of miles, but 100 miles is pretty far and it didn't take long to drive us apart.
Its been 2 years and whenever i think about you i swear my hands can still feel the clamminess of your palms the first time we held hands.
Its been months since we've talked and your new life has changed you completely. Occasionally your false drunken declarations of love ring out in the back of my mind. My intentions with you were pure gold and yours happened to only lay between my thighs.

A good way to feel lonely
is to drive the highways at night.
Fall in love like the headlights
that never touch,
only pass by,
feel like writing poetry
about the margins
that define missed connections.

Go home and make
as little noise as possible,
turn the lights off behind you.
You know how to make it look like
you were never here.
You think this
is a sad thing to be good at.

A good way to breathe
is to wake before the sun
and swim in the chlorinated pool,
partitioned and glassy,
think about brushing elbows
with the body in the lane next to
yours just to
see if you’re still solid.
You know you are less dense
than water. These days it feels
as if someone could pass a hand straight
through you.

Pull yourself out of the lane
and pad to the showers,
scour away the clamminess
with steam and liquid soap,
think about all the lives that intersect
in locker rooms and sit
in silence for a few minutes
just to listen.
You like the way the words echo,
just in case you missed them
the first time.
You always miss
them the first time.

A good way to escape
is to order packages from stores
you’ve never heard of,
diagrammed and backlit, fall in love
with the mystery of receiving.
Feel the calendar days
like empty spaces, hollow and aching,
missing parts of your body that can only
be filled by the miracles about to arrive
in the mail.

The postman crunches steadily
up the driveway, gravel
buried in the treads of his
boots. You think this is beautiful, to
carry pieces of where you’ve been
like last night’s spinach
in your teeth. Shameful and secret. Dark
and delightful. Something not everyone
is capable of loving. Lock
eyes like hands,
thank him as he turns away.

Think about
asking him to shake out his
boots, so all the roads
he’s seen can stay
even after he leaves.
You need
less things to leave.

A good way to mourn
is to write poetry at night,
chasing a tail that tastes like
mixed metaphors and
melancholia,
you have told your story
so many different ways
and none of them
have ever made him love you.  

Think about memorizing
his handwriting
and using it as your own.
Write grocery lists that could be his
and taper your signature to lines
so sharp they pierce and wound.
If you’re going to use his hand,  
make it hurt.

The curves of these letters
do not belong to you.
Your hands are so broken
they can do nothing but miss him,
and there are suddenly too many
teeth in the sickle of your smile.
This may be one fight you never seem
to stop losing and I know most nights
the lines of his shoulders cut like knives
but believe me,
this is the most exquisite
way to bleed.
If you’re going to hurt,
make it poetry.

If I could hold a word,
I'd have quite a few in my palms.
The clamminess of my hands
would dissolve them,
And they might imprint themselves
deep into my skin.
I live with these words,
I live with these women,
I dwell with this strange
reptile that can't
seem to behave.
The grains of time
continue to sift through
me.
My head is strained.
I'm breaking my wrists over the
hopeful bend
of space,
And my fingers won't stop twiddling
And now I'm driving 90 down the freeway
screaming at myself and the road.
I have a rage inside of me that's barreling its ugly face
Straight into the jaw of some unlucky recipient.
And I envy everything now,
And you're going to wish
you had seized me
right as the flower
curls over,
and smoothes out in subtle death.

But maybe you'll catch me
on a day like today
when the world is languid, when
the very air hangs around us, stifling all
words but mine. You see, today
I am glorious. I am filled with fire
and purpose. Oh, you
who I have not yet forgotten
or know, wait till you catch up
on a day like today. My laughter
is bright and my eyes are clear
and I am so full of energy you will
ignore the one off note
in my symphony, the one aftertaste
you can't quite place.
Dearest
on days like these I am
effulgent, magnetic, insanely, wildly tempting,
I am the siren call in the storm, promising
a safe harbor from the tempest you have
failed to notice I am creating.
On days like these I will beckon
and you will come, ignoring the bitterness
I leave on your tongue
and the clamminess I leave on your hands and
the dead look in my sparkling eyes.
On days like these I am running headlong
blind, willingly unseeing, heady with unspoken promise
to my distruction. If you want
you can come along for the ride.

as dawn turns to noon into dusk
and the day truly begins
in the winter, anyway
where most of your time is spent in poor lighting
and frost

but the moon hangs high in the sky
if only briefly, as a contrast
and i've always wondered
as the clouds pass in front of the moon

if they begin to miss each other
even just for a moment
despite the fact that they know that they'll encounter each other tomorrow
if the routine is so comfortable
that they get nervous just thinking about it changing at all

that one day
they may never experience that comfort again
the one consistency in this crazy world
yearning for the clamminess of each other's hands
if only for a brief moment
just to relive those cool nights once again
pushing for more and more
but when you feel like the potential is gone
mirrors cracked, hearts sinking, warmth gone
even an unpleasant sensation
becomes good enough
to die for

It charms the blackness in my heart
Wading through the depths of the despair
Emerging for air then plunges deeper
It seeks out the weaknesses then clings like a cancer
Squeezing and squeezing
Rests then squeezes again
I’m convinced of my faults as I’m cross examined every minute
Because time is measured in pounds here
Autumn gives way to cooler winds but this
This is a season of endless clamminess and emotion
I’m reminded to bury this thing that I’ve created
It’s a construct of my making, as if I’m a God
And if I were God, I would end this reality and blanket it in blackness
Like my heart

There's good reason to forget infant memory.
Too many colours, sounds, and faces back then.
My upsets were soothed with a soft hand and a healing kiss.
It wouldn't be fair to compare,
I would feel weak to compete
With those faded images and feelings.
It's bad enough with my adult recall,
Stories and pictures that bring on palpitations, clamminess and racing.
My school is an empty lot, beside an empty rectory, and an empty church.
My childhood avenue is derelict, like Mockingbird Lane.
My Triumph Herald is still baby blue in some photo.
With each memory, I feel the nausea.
Look at this one. All ten of us.
Five still.
I'm already beginning to feel queasy.
If I were five still, I'd forget.

i'm awake.
i shouldn't be, but here i am,
floating in condensed night, wondering
where my body went,
and why i'm awake at all,
when i hear it again -- the herald of my awakening:
a voice softly whispering my name
my entire name
me
without a choice, i am pulled into the speaker's presence
and i swallow
because, if it was anyone, it would be him, wouldn't it?
he's clutching his pillow and he shudders and if i were able to speak,
i'd joke that he should really learn to be quieter when he does this
i'd tease him about the clamminess of his skin
i'd say his full name slowly, roll it around my mouth, part my lips and say it huskily
like i wanted nothing else but him
                                                  (it's not hard to act out the truth)
these are the things i would do if i could speak; as a silent spectator,
i'm forced into sobriety,
into knowing he's not jackin' off at all
he's crying
desperate, disgusting sobs
every shudder spikes through me and i have to leave
i'd rather stay asleep for a millennium then to be the object of his
broken affection

Flowers like you attract some bee's
That ***** out and moves to the next one
For the honey, they please
I'm locked up with my insecurities
Help me to find the right keys

I'm walking through hell
Ever since I fell for our rebel
My lungs have turned into a tar well
As I'm smoking cigarettes
Craving for your smell
Do you think of me when you feel yourself?
Cause I'm waiting for you to ring my doorbell

I can sense the presence of happiness
In shots of sunrise and clamminess
No lights in the city sky
While you talk about the secrets
Hiding behind the moonlight

And I am okay with the fact that you're trying to
Save yourself for someone else
Someone named Hercules
Adventurer of seven seas
As I'm sure of this
Pretty soon even he will fall on his knees
When you'll introduce him to a disease
With your magical breeze
The same heart disease called ecstasy
That made me mentally unease
The same heart disease called love
That made my senses freeze
You considered me just another bee
Sadly you missed a butterfly
Passing by, kiss you goodbye
Miss Poison Ivy...

despite being prescribed glycopyrrolate.

Though the angst riddled psyche of mine crafted youth, long since receded, ebbed in the past, infringement, impingement, and indecent wracking wrath of mental illness, that even as a middle aged mwm of lxiv bold faced roam min times, I can acclimatize, characterize, empathize, harmonize, italicize, and massage sympathy for prevailing physiological symptoms of  =>

Sweaty Palms
an ur...bane curse
worse than mega death
aggravating enough fo' me
to resort *** take or ****
speed dilly, and then not
getting ticked off watching Seth
Thomas - thee clock man
ewe fact chore er, and his hands
incrementally inch to...
regarding the aforementioned
relentless frenzied state.

No idea when the chronic onset
of sweaty palms first burst forth
upon thy totally tubular
handsome grooves that criss cross
the flat skin surface of my hands.

These lines called 'palmar flexion creases'
develop before birth.

This modern day bipedal hominid i.e. human
primate attests (like the average person)
two main lines across the palm,
but some have a single 'Simian crease'.

Profuse outpouring of perspiration
(as if Biblical Flood gates opened)
oft times directly related to adrenaline
coursing through every pore
sans the underside of my hands)
reflexively followed by swiping
said clamminess (in vein)
on clothing or woolen pocket size cloth
brought along with me everywhere I go
(cuz a lamb might not part ways with mother
Mary (of story book fame),
and this chap would shear lee feel sheepish
toting extremely cumbersome
to tote in the event this intimation
predicated on decades worth of experience,

when in the throes potential
such ordinary action strongly shaking,
grasping or holding hands took place
occurred sopping wet
clangorous human clapper,
(which frenzied trickling akin
to a vicious feedback loop),
my psyche feels under staccato
rat-a-tat siege from an
unknown invisible enemy),
the natural inclination
to withdraw myself
from bad company of others helps
stave of self-consciousness.

This avoidance of socialization
subsequently impedes any promotion
of a hankering viz genuine friendship,
employment and desiring carefree
bona fide affectionate
bonding with family of origin and/or
thy two precious progeny.

Understandable per the human reaction
to shrink away and recoil quickly
when pressed to touch
what feels like a wet noodle.

Ah…courtesy of Google
I now know sweaty palms sports
a dignified name known as palmar
Hyperhidrosis.

Here all along (meaning the majority
of my LXIV chronological
hash tagged buzz feeding
orbitz around the sun)
this plague constitutes
a bona fide medical condition.

Also reassuring to realize,
this generic guy need not
count himself alone
in the sopping wet wilderness re: this plague.

Such problematic health condition
impacts, comprises, and affects
one to two percent of the world’s population.

One Doctor Rafael Riesfeld
purportedly knuckles down
and makes hand over fist handsome income.

Will power alone seems
a dauntlessly futile endeavor
to rid oneself of this disruptive condition.

Try as one might to put a lockdown
on the propensity for sweat glands
(synonymous with the term eccrine)
are pack within sub surfaces of
hands, forehead and feet.

As linkedin to the sympathetic  
nervous system, the body electric
under stress activates said glands.

Profuse moisture dripping
like a faulty faucet
severely affected everyday activities
of my existence since a young adult.

Frustration to complete a simple task
such as opening a doorknob,
using the laptop, and even writing
concomitantly associated
with droplets of water soiling  
green sleeves to appear near saturated.

Without fail interpersonal ambitions
hi-jacked when wet as a dishrag hands
found me disinclined
to experience social rejection.

Though sprung from overactive
predisposition to anxiety, these secret
tory organs get exacerbated
with the honorable privilege of
being gifted with panic attacks,
offers little consolation.

your prospective clammy handy dandy
blues clues budding friend
where chocolate candy
melts in my hands not my mouth.