A Jersey girl came along
and I started to think about angles of yaw
needed to take flight,
how the force of a kick skirts
the delicate line between winning and losing.
I’ve seen it all before, but not like this. Besides, seeing
has nothing to do with believing.
Corneas can't capture the vibrations of molecules or excitations
of electrons. Champions defy biology,
overcome gravity and I believe what goes up
does not always come down.
I want to know the point where focus takes control
of epinephrine, who’s cascade is initiated by the roar of a crowd,
but negatively regulated by doubt,
when to take a long shot or build up slowly.
I want to live the difference between accuracy and precision,
taste the dirt, become painted with bruises and scorch my heart.
A flag is heaviest when you carry it,
lightest when it’s raised,
worn as a cape and allowed to wave in the wind.
Countries aren't build, they're created created
denying muscles oxygen but allowing them to taste gold.
It's ability to conduct electricity astounds me.
It’s not about alchemy
but transforming sweat into tears,
fixing nitrogen, reducing triglycerides.
Not all reactions need light, some create it.
It’s only over when there’s not enough energy for activation.

For you sweetheart I would....

...writhe in the ecstasy of the tragic
or behave violently,
enmeshed in ******,
heroic havoc

I would stalk the thing that hurt you and stab-it.
or quickly tie it up and drag it,
as I whisper as a crazed maverick ; click, click, son!
and swallow back the drip, drip, umm....
of the vial of acid...….as I sip, sip, yum-
Facing the truth of the mirror I find myself presently hung

For you sweetheart....!
I would sacrifice the self
relegate my identity to the bottom shelf

I would Focus on  opposites...
and pervert the lost truth of buddhists; preaching and installing the sinful cysts...

of consumerism & material wealth, I hope you get the gist.
I would Climb to the monastery & maliciously yell
“Come on you drunk monk Its for your helllth!”

Doing what you always wanted
by changing the state of truth
from overwhelming presence
...to an unseen, veiled stealth

for you I would jump out of the highest helicopter sans parachute
!ha! writing and dying, but for you,  its such a hoot

For you Sweet love,
I would divide by zero,
March up to physics and blackholes say “hey F-yourself” unceremoniously killing the hero
remembering so vividly
how we intoxicatedly emptied oil on the baby-seals relaxing on the soil of the now empty sea shelf

but for you oh dear, I would empty myself of fear
and empathize with a jellyfish
GAH!  
I hate Jellyfish.

Please Imagine sweet- love,
how we would get married,
and go through all the steps to have a sweet- baby
and in the birthing room while you’re extra weary,
I would ask the simple question to hold and carry
this special
special
little baby

I would look you in the eyes, smile widely and drop it
While you pleaded, choked eyes pleading for some God to stop it

But thats a little extreme so lets take time and rewind the scene
So that you wouldn’t think of little ol’ loving ego me as being so especially mean

Then, amidst candles start smoothly & sweeten the deal with cannibalistic clipart
Preparing to Dine on the sweet meal of a sweetheart’s sweet heart.

For you I would
I would **** a man and smoke salvia at his funeral
Then desperately plead my case,  
so surreal while I Appeal deliriously and unable
to the divine
or the courtroom of an esoteric, alien race

Oh love.
I would bury myself in venomous spiders
submit myself to mysterious haitian-zombie rituals
To keep you pure and far from pitiful
I would Self-immolate to distance you from pain and the sinful

Then
I would put the world to sleep
so that they won’t stir, wake,
or open their eyes to peep
the pain of the sun,
burning the Sea-t
of their corneas
with its brilliant and all-encompassing,
luminous heat



Oh for you bella, I would put down three 1/5ths of law and turn the key
Oh beautiful, now the mothers against drunk driving are sooo MADD at me
Because for YOU
I Crashed into their headquarters traveling erratically and so haphazardly

For you I would do everything
not just anything
but
everything.

I would chill with monks that do all the ****** up things
Go to a girls house, burn the family, burn the home
have ******* with the survivor hopefully alone
and afterwards take a long time to gnaw viciously through my bones.

for you I would discuss that maybe this voice Isn’t fit for the world
So i just wink out of existence
to protect everything from my impact, characterized as it is, so spun and twirled

For you sweetheart, I would even let this poem go unwritten.
Just so the world would not be smitten
With the space between the righteous and the wrong
the difference, is what we feel,
For you truth I write this song.

Ostensibly and indefinitely, I would infinitely
remember thee
and it all planning to never do it again.
...because my Circuitry is charged with the pain to amend me.

For your own amusement
I would help possibility incarnate
fulfill itself A-moral and without hate
the good the bad and the ugly because …..remember
When it comes to poetic possibility  
The U-and-I-verse doesn’t discriminate

I would free the slaves from freedom
I would emulate pagans and heathens
I’ll be all you don’t need when you seek to amend the world of men

For you sweetheart I would publish this as a children’s night time book

You told me I was a pan of hot water and
sometimes it hurt to touch me
but you never thought to turn the temperature down

you just left me boiling

its april 7th and you are still a joke
but somehow you are the only one laughing anymore

I once told you I saw fire in your eyes
and you said it was just the reflection of the
ever burning in mine

I've only now realized that was nothing but a lie

The devil is not red or pointed with hooves
The devil is of flesh
He arrives as the very thing you want most

His name is Lucifer
And he is tall and handsome

He keeps you blind to the raging hellfire
He does not mention you are floating on the river Styx

When he finally pulls the curtain and
gives you back your corneas and irises
You are like Persephone-

you've already eaten seven pomegranate seeds

My Sunglasses

I’ve got all of Tucson trapped behind my sunglasses
I’ve framed mountain ranges in the frames of my Raybands
I’ve got reflections of saguaro’s stranding still in front of my eyes
I have sunny days taking refuge underneath my shades
I’ve domesticated the giant star that rides blues skies into walking the edge of my brow
I use black plastic as onyx shields
So Tucson, I see you.
There’s an art revolution beating at your horizon
I’ve seen it skirting around these wastelands
They tell us we’re wasting our time
Telling the roadrunner to run back home
When its nest was here since the beginning of time
Tucson.
I’ve seen folklorico and mariachi pay tribute to your origins on the hottest of days
I’ve seen in the shadows in underground art forms
Graffetti. There’s a protest in there somewhere.
I’ve even witnessed it in pen to paper
In lips to mics. In cafés in your desert nights for your desert nighttime audiences.
Tucson, your culture and artistic value shines too bright for others to see.
Your artistic worth shines too bright for others to broadcast
They tend to only record your overdoses and murders
Seems like our televised story tellers prefer to paint us in immoral reds
The only time they pay the south side attention is when the south side is aching
It doesn’t help that schools force you to choose business
Give you chance to study law all the while cut out your art programs
Fine art is required by universities but they don’t always expect you to get that far.
Tucson’s fine art is too fine and infinite to be recognized by those undeserving
Society wants to capture our southern brethren as outlaws not poets
We’re called the misfit of the desert. As if every spray can, paint stroke, choreographed twist,
Slam poem wasn’t something to take pride in.
I’m sorry they only pay your schools attention when ambulances are parked in your driveways
And administrators get caught in doing ***** deeds.
I see your talent wasted. Your talent shown.
To remind myself of your artistic significance, I’ve framed you
On walks home I photograph your murals.
Listen to the poets in the hallways.
Observe the dancers compose and the musicians choreograph
I’ve caught your reflection in my corneas’.
I’ve dilated my pupils thoughts behind my sunglasses.
Framed your mountain ranges in my frames.
Took cover in your shades.
Trained the artistic freedom and right to walk on my brow
Tucson
I see you.

You are sitting with your family for lunch. They
Are talking, passing food, laughing and you are watching them
Through the glass of your corneas. You watch them while you are
Busy keeping yourself afloat; you are floating and wondering why
There’s no jellyfish all around your head, and it amazes you that oceans
Are not silent as you thought they’d be. It amazes you that you are able to
Smile and nod and breathe and pretend you are paying attention when all you
Are thinking is how to keep your feet still, your hands from shaking, your legs
From leaving the room, so you cross your arms and smile again.
When you watched Pacific Rim you thought it was about the way you inhabit
Your own body, like wearing a dress you don’t fit in, like having so much room
Inside your empty spaces that you take a lot of time just to say
Hello, because it’s a long way just to reach your mouth and speak up.
You think nobody could ever understand what all of this means.
In fact, for a very long time, nobody will know.
Let me tell you what’s going to happen to you: someone will hold you like you
Mattered; they will hold you like you are precious, and they will kiss your cheek
Firmly. They will press their lips on your cheek and make it last for two seconds.
When you two will part, you will start to shake. Now, listen to me carefully:
You won’t shake because they matter. You will do it because
This is more affection than what you had in a lifetime. You will be
Overwhelmed because you are not used to be held like that
And you are desperately hungry.
You will shake because it hurts.
You will question the extent of your damage
And think it’s worrying but there’s a detail you’ll fail to
Notice: for two whole seconds you haven’t thought of the oceans.

Substantial quadrants of hate



Throughout these veins circulate



Spiraling in frenzied states



Adrift an ailing coma





Infinite corruption clawed my corneas



Birthing the erasure of euphoria



Imprinting trademarks of memoria



Leaving in wake vile aromas





All confidence dissolved to solvents



Due to definitive involvement



Susceptible to gaunt installments



Marring my skin with melanoma





Mother Earth serves as a mime



Humanity must be refined









© 2012 (All rights reserved)

You wander down the hallway
Feeling something shiver inside of you
You wonder what this feeling might be
And suddenly an image of his face
Pierce your corneas
A second later
He is there
And when you pass in the hallway
He looks at you sideways
Widens his eyes.
You furrow your brow
Lift the corners of your lips
Tilt your head
You mention how you always see him in this hallway
He considers you. Then.
He says it is God’s will
You get the wind knocked out of you
You know that it shows on your face
He dismisses you
But not before you say that you agree
That it is God’s will
You take your casual leave
Calling him by his nickname
Stepping into the elevator
You remember he calls himself a liberal
You hug yourself
You wonder if he sees his God in you
You remember he was born on Palm Sunday
You chuckle to yourself
You walk past your roommates
You feel their eyes on your back
You sit down and eat your dinner
You stand at the window
You watch the buildings bleed onto the streets
Manhattan swirls underneath you
There are points of light on little moving objects
The cars and the people
The colors and the lights
The smoke and the sky
The city pulsates, the city snarls
Eager for you to take the streets
You gaze out your window
And so, you decide, it is
It is God’s will and just exactly who
Are you
To deny it?

The girl’s corneas expand over the small black abyss of pupil
Tides of blue and hazel rising over onyx isles
An unhinged eyelash balances precariously on its neighbor
It evaporates with her quick blink

Directly beneath her right eye
Below the mottled eggplant shadows
The corpse of a capillary drains among the freckles
Subterranean rivers of vein
Pulse under thin skin

Her nose is spherical
Etched by soft papery scars
Pores round and gazing
Culminating in a uniform valley

Lips are soft and pink and unkissed
A source for a  small steady trickle of pride
Her mother’s lips
But behind the outer façade
The seamed surface is rough with nervous nibbles
Ribboned with scars of worries and troubles

She lacks fourteen teeth
Absent since the womb
Those she has are either sickly infants or filled with grainy mystery metallics
Some entirely fabricated with spatulas of amalgam
Yellowed and cracking
Rough and worn
Spongy inner marrow screaming with pain
She hides the stony incisors from view

The hair
Curling and waving
Kissing with reptilian tongues at her cheeks
Neck
Forehead
Framing her face in brambles and cowlicks
Indecisive of its true form
Fuzzy with moisture
Unwilling to obey
The strands of a gorgon
A monstrous tangle of personality
Instantly recognizable
Her hands attempt to soothe the undulating tendrils
But they anger
As stubborn as her
Refuse treatment
She gives up
Rinses her hands
And turns away from the mirror
Sighing

You're a strange breed.
You look out past my street
         (when I'm fast asleep)
With the moon reflecting in the puddles
in the corner of the street,
Or, the corners of your corneas.
                             (tear puddles)
Until your vision is mottled and
your sobs muffled. Continue
to stare out your window (forever)
Keep looking until you find something
better.

unwrap my ribs. carefully,
like a present you've been waiting for
since october.
smooth out the wrinkles
along my forehead, sip
the lines from my palms.
write letters to constellations
along my marked calves, and
stain my upraised mouth with
new words that don't
belong to me. sketch
characters inside my
elbows and draw their faces
down my stomach.

take a microscope to the pores
between my vertebrae, set
original sentiments and
grow them carefully. look through
my corneas like window-panes
shattered by heat from
a church fire. clean
the bridge of my nose of
headaches and bottles and bottles
of asprin, vicodin and something
nameless and strong.

snap my tibiae over your knee,
assemble a tired face,
put it over a mask, tie the
words to my lips and send
me out into the world a refreshed,
taken individual.

There is nothing we can do at all
to indemnify our weary souls and hearts
against the first love of a reconstructed us.

That one speck in trillions becomes the universe
and we can ignore the burning warning
in our scared skin and strained corneas.

Shelters built for bruised bodies
refuge for split, shattered souls
tires in its use like veins sick of medicine.

Still we are falling again and again
into ragging red and yellow fury
into endless gaping oblivion.

Until deepest depths no longer crush
and sky haven heights no longer suffocate
we shall risk the ravages of hope.

Aborigines in the Australian outback  
Among starving dingoes

A drug deal going on behind the bowling alley
And a butterfly knife waiting to be put into someones gut

Show some skin
Then maybe you will get somewhere at the customer service desk
Buyer beware, consumer keep cautious
Lay waste to that place and get your money back

They sold you an amphibian and told you it was a marsupial
The clerk wrote your inconvenience off as null

Off in Puerto Rico there's a cockfight
Pass the bug replant
Dos cervezas por favor
It's a steel cage grudge match
Brought to you by the courtesy of some man who's name I cannot pronounce
I got my invitation to this thing in a basket of tropical fruit
Someplace near substructure homes

I see a man in a bandanna looking at me
He turned out to be a free lance astronomer who has a thesis on starry quadrilaterals in the sky
He thought by betting on the bigger rooster he would hit pay dirt
But it was I who met pay day when I bet on the smaller, faster one

The astronomer had so much hate in his eyes I thought his corneas were going to burst
Be pulled out a blade and chased after me and all my winnings with the intent to puncture my torso and pillage my pockets

But had to go see a man about a horse named "Nunya"
Luckily I got away clean to tall the tale

Early hours; the
parts of sleep
     recalled;
          a fly opening
        it's silk cocoon,
   a foetus moving
in a jelly womb,
   irises and corneas
         assembling into eyes
                    eager to explore
                a world outside;
      those first times
when regrets are
               abstract concepts
                             not feelings
                        growing roots
       in subconscious pools;
all the things I'd redo,
              my deepest desire
                              to be anew

My raybans still covered
my swollen  eyes as I stepped
inside the Rite Aid,
in my pathetic attempt to
hide from the neighborhood how much
I had been crying.
Tears of anger and
some of despair and
others of sheer exhaustion
had coated my cheeks
and worn the edges of my eyelids
raw and reddened my
corneas.
I had stumbled out of my apartment
in an effort to rid my body of
feelings, assuming the brisk spring breeze
could somehow sweep up everything
I felt and whisk it away as
quick as it had come.
I squeaked past a couple
******* clad women with
sunken eyes that bore holes
into the glass of the cooler
as they stared longingly at the
rather large variety of
malt liquors, the selection of soft drinks
lesser than the collection of
40s I passed on my way to the
back of the store.
I distracted myself imagining
the taste of the various soda pops,
a wild cherry Pepsi dissolving into my
daydream tongue right before it
turned to Big Red Cream Soda.
Diet Sunkist in hand,
I stared at the ingredients on the orange soda bottle and reread the same words
over and over as he interjected himself again and again.
I made my way to the counter,
feeling ever grateful for my sunglasses
as more tears welled,
and I cleared my throat before mumbling a way-too-weak-for-an-outgoing-girl hello.
Before I knew it my distraction faded
from view, and I turned left down Oak
as his face peeked out in my
rear view mirror in the majesty of
the sunset.
I shook off a feeling of admiration and
reminded myself that even after all this time
he still manages to disappoint me as
he always has.
I murmured something about how,
"He ain't ****" like I'm some bad
***** that doesn't give a **** about a dude.
But then I remembered how deeply I had loved
a man who never loved me back and
never failed to prove it.
My stomach began to drop,
leaving me feeling as empty as the
messages he had sent me in his pathetic
attempts to convince me of ******* masked as
the rhetoric he knew I wanted to hear,
just enough to keep me around for his
(admittedly) selfish reasons.
I loved him and hated him all at once
as I realized 4 months ago when
I told myself (and him) that I was moving on,
it was only my head that had,
my heart still staggering, like a
drunk stumbling off a belly full
of cheap whiskey,
And as I later drowned my sorrows in
TV dramas and artificial sweeteners,
I vowed to get that last piece back and really let go...
I'll start tomorrow
when I sober up.

Dwelling is a razor
regret, drip-fed poison
guilt, a creaking chain as it tightens around my neck.

Stockholm syndrome has me
in that
        lovelifedeath
grip.

And as my own jailer
I rail against myself
Caught in a purgatory-
safe
drawing blood
then consoling.                                

I can't see........
My corneas tear in the wind
there's some metaphysical connection, I know it
I don't want to look at my life as it is
The guilt twists my guts
I'm pathetic in my failures
and grasping at a fading light.

Ah perfectionism,  my abusive lover;
you endow me such power, then beat me senseless
I'm goddess, then mortal-
panicking
      frail
with nowhere but elusive horizons to go.

Phosphenes
those  bright spots of colour
as I rub my eyes-
Once again I wake too early
and that too-familiar cyanide starts to leak through my veins
and anxiety grips me
How'll I ever get it right
             make it out
             fix it all
             come out from under
             breathesucceedrelaxenjoybeworthsomething
  in short

has my bright patch of colour had its day?

I can't
face it.

Is that a frown I put upon your face child?
As I tried to soothe the sadness that smiled on your inside
That festered like pathogens inside your heart
Is that your index finger?
Sitting inquisitively on your lip?
I see the distraction in your whirlpools of corneas
Your hair lays insecurely on your shoulder blades
Let me console you with a joke
Pacify your placidity with these sad bars
You pick up your phone.
You read your texts.
Oh?
Is that a smile I put upon your face, child?
-zaba

Patterns form across convex corneas
Geometric portraits of tangram animals
Hexagonal-faced lions
Triangular-trunked elephants
etc.
Tessellations of
anagrams
Draped over rods like Batik fabric smoothed over king-sized beds
Calculating Bayesian probability on fingertips
rote
styles
Whispering, "Carry the 1!" to columns of 100s
with a remainder? Try again.
Plot Cartesian coordinates with mechanical pencils
click! click! click!
Crying, "Awwwww.....
                                  you
                                        sunk
                                                my
                                                     battleship!"

I always make things harder than it needs to be, I run in circles and complain when I'm dizzy, walk up a steeper route only to slide all the way down to the bottom, push everyone far enough for them to leave then say I'm lonely. It's funny what I can ruin – everything.

I'm like a chemical, the only one known to corrode friendships and rust nothing but itself. Not approved by the FDA and definitely not fit for human consumption. I reek of such acidity that I hurt fragile corneas and sting delicate noses. It's kind of ironic because I'm supposed to only react with this peculiar clear liquid called self-sabotage and only that, but somehow I have managed to slip and ruin everything that comes in contact with me.

Maybe one day I'll find someone that doesn't mind damaged corneas and sharp smells up their nose. Maybe one day I myself won't mind it.

Glance in,
peer out

Not even sufficient for a thought
to be worked out
another day, another damage

Acrylic may as well be water color
for all the gravity held
the mark, made by stroke
good intentions turned poor attempts

Corneas, retinas, pupils
eyes referred to as windows  to the soul
while the body isn't treated
like a temple

not just anyone can attend mass

Stained glass into a ruined mirror
stared at
as unhinging as
seen through
if only the reflection
left the pane
to the window

Memories past
displayed in a museum
populace none
                        a   b r o k e n  exhibit,
for blinded eyes

The day we fell in love, the world stood still for the first time.
No movement other than the midsummer air humming electric,
the warmth of our words rising up into dense clouds
and gray atmospheres of sticky potential.
I remember thinking, as our dewy skin melted into the grass,
how strange it was that the world kept turning constantly.
Cars speeding on hazy interstates, babies being born in porcelain bathtubs.
Screen doors slamming in distant houses, ivy crawling across
the windowpanes of writers who will never see their name sprawled
across musky paper spines. Houses torched, brakes cut, hair trimmed.
Somewhere, an arthritic old man sets his newspaper down. It is raining.
He dances, flood water cascading around his ankles. He only thinks of her.
City lights paint taxi exhaust bright green. It is nighttime in the city
and teenagers drive recklessly through underground tunnels,
hands raised through the sunroof of their father’s cars
as the yellow light bleeds into their corneas.
Everything is set in motion, the day’s suffocating inertia of color,
a spinning top cacophony of mindless rebirth.


It is different today. You kiss me softly, velvet-lipped and eager,
and the world stops turning. The streets of Mumbai are silent.
There are no babies screeching in the quiet rooms
of church services, no hearts in the midst of being shattered.
The old man stops dancing.
His eyes are closed, her face still sketched on the backs of his eyelids.


The sky sees nothing but us.

A swarm of horses sailed toward the sky
half in reverse of the ocean,
a heart that questioned the reflection of seaside.
Back in the south she melted bicycle gears to liquor
Quenching a million budding buoys becoming boys.
Inside her smile, a compartment of spit
beside the blinds sealed off to the color red.
In a room full of eardrums
a name like a knife,
rooting and sewing the ground of your yearning.
The moon shook you
As fast as headache turns to dust.
It hits harder then your hands,
softer then tears of antelope sliding down sails;
A reminder how you looked 
when you first caught my eye
Plastered on the tree of a chandelier
Hanging as high as suicide pastries
Under emerald flavored corneas.

Darling, I am not here to write about your eyes and the stars in them. I tried to count too many times and I got too lost in the dreams imbedded in your corneas. I'm not here to talk about how the sun only rises because you give it a reason to, because it still sets every evening so it doesn't have to hear your steady breathing while you sleep. I'm here to tell you about how you have words that cut me like a saw cuts bone and how my ribs are held together with cheap twine and my spine is duct taped together. Here to say that you make my heart race at a pace that my body cannot keep up with. I didn't come to tell you that the tides are kissing the shore every time you laugh, because that's not what your laugh is like. No, if the rusting of iron made a sound, it would be your laugh. There are no flowers woven in your hair - instead, there are hornets and their nests lay settled in your throat and your intention is to sting me every time you open your mouth to say something that isn't my name. This isn't about poetry I've read about the moon and the sun and the cosmic loneliness of every star despite the presence trillions of them in the same sky. This is about how some stars find your presence so alluring that they begin to tumble from the sky and this is what we wish upon. This is about bruised lips mumbling words carved into coffee tables and ****** fingers tracing the rim of your favorite coffee cup. This isn't about love. This is about you.

As lead pathologist
I witness my own work daily,
I caress thoughts of interest,
And bring them here after their demise.
My latest case, my last victim
Witnessed me lead her body astray,
And now in death, ironic yet,
As to whom her murderer now portrays.
I cover my own work,
Though honesty is the best defense,
I can tell them what the killer did first hand
And give no recompense.
-
They found her body where I left it,
Like I hoped and knew they would
I'd seen her the night before last,
And thought they rightly should.
Admiring my moonlight work
In my routine A.M. garb,
What obscenities now here lurk,
On my table unperturbed.
-
I begin the autopsy
Of my latest thirst to "Be"
I consider cryptically
Of acting empathetically
-
I locate the Toe-Tag first
"Good morning, Miss Who-Gives-A-****,"
She had thought sweet Death had saved her then,
But I am far from finished yet.
Familiar adhesions from tightened rope,
Emblazoned on her skinless wrist,
"What a monster," I laughed to myself,
Up and down, I check my list.
-
Five-foot-five makes a short short bride,
Though marriage is laughable at best.
White female, dark hair, black eyes,
Dilated from light's detest.
Ears were cut, and teeth were filed,
Apparently so she couldn't bite,
Nose, bullhooked, extremities slashed,
The little dove lost the hope of flight.
-
I removed her eyes again,
I had cut them out before and replaced
But twisted around upside down,
The corneas now front faced.
I placed them in the chemical solution,
That they would not rot until,
Donated to some poor *******
That I would again cut into
-
Putting a block under her back,
Her chest ready for the famous cut,
Down the throat and to the stem,
I perfect it without much luck.
Science dictates to remove the organs,
An examination of internals in effect,
Rationally and with much vigor,
I notice her spine so stiff and *****.
I staple her ***** of skin aside,
And begin to break her sternum,
I would speak now maybe a poet's words,
But I neglected to learn them.
A gruesome crack echoes throughout
The vastly supplied room herein,
I look up, am lost for a moment,
"Ah...", I begin again.
-
Testing the leverage of her ribcage,
I separate both sides until,
I feel the pressured solemn rage,
Of her bones snapping in two.
Full access now, I gaze within
At her lungs, her viscera,
I gently lay scalpel to heart,
And mutilate her parenchyma.
I'm carried away, I flick blade across
Her heart over and again,
Until a matrix of slashes on it
Does appear within,
A wretched mistake, my first,
"Not everyone's perfect," I laugh,
No time to quench the thirst,
I must fix it before seen by the staff,
I stitch carefully with translucent thread,
Perhaps this ploy may avail,
I believe I've just made my death-bed
My days now numbered and frail.
-
Quickly, I bag and tag her insides,
And rest them aside my table,
I stitch her chest back together,
And leave when I am able,
I plan to run as far along,
As my time can take me,
Perhaps I will find some more dissections,
Perhaps just to sustain me.

I've noticed that I've stopped noticing;
The way I look at the forbidden face
And the way it looks at me
No longer stirs the heavens.
No sailboat turns on its heaving sea
When our corneas connect in a brazen
Fire, nor do any fidgeting mourners
Swallow graves over our crashing pink hands.
The tin-suited band piece has long ago
Replaced any emotion that could inflame
My cheek with a khaki cigarette smoke
And spun out days like empty bags.
     Still for the rainwater of his laugh alone
     Might I swim the Earth's crooked orbit.

Reminding, rewinding, removing, regretting
Tears blind eyes in corneas, splintering spliced sight
There is no world where I can't stop forgetting.
I have a picture of you, watching the sunrise
stratus clouds stretched along the gold blanket of sky
the waves before you striking the dock gently.
I can't find myself behind the camera,
Remembering my thoughts as I snapped
the shutter. I forget.
I go through my own ocean
where I am tossed between wanting to be shipwrecked for good
or rescued by you. I want to either let you go entirely,
or keep hanging on. But I am gripping a rope on its last thread.
I know you have already let go. I haven't. I don't think I will.

Summer is gone and winter has set it, along with the frigid breeze. The air crisp and clear, making it easier to think. The gusts of air strike my face like pins and needles. As I walk the leaves fold and crumble under my feet leaving small traces of where I have set foot. The sun covered by white clouds magnifying the brightness and intensity of the light. The light, as I look at its reflection in the left over snow, seems to pierce my eyes directly to the corneas. The snow slowly melting from the storm, leaves small gusts of cool breeze my my ankles that leave me cool and refreshed.

Like glorious autumn follows carefree summer
You make me want to love again
At this moment I am on the upward arc of my heavy sine wave,
And all troughs, crests, and in between coexist
To predict would be to build a separate reality
An alternate timeline where logic follows the limited patterns of human rationale
But the sun's fingers on the treetops write minute programs into the corneas
And I watch them roll around my field of vision, shifting back and forth in unease
I smell old times that never were
How could that have been me?
How do I forget everything?

I'll live forever in this instant
For past and future emanate infinitely from now
And every ounce of effort I spend anticipating
Draws me down the arc to suffering
The impermanence of bliss, death's painful degradation
Even now it festers sharply in my right *******
Despite my calm certainty that I'm
Staring out into the infinite synesthetic landscapes of jazz and poetry

But the forces of control over us do not blind us
We ride fleeting waves of glory because in their brief moment they are all
Rising above the moon in the ecstasy mere words grasp impotently after
Mere human me never gets the satisfaction of disintegration for he fears his death
But powerful energy me
Eternal and all pervasive
Shall know for certain the bliss of abyss
Even in the mortal kiss of a few seconds' carnal joy it is death which ties us together

When our dichotomies are satisfied is victory true or do we in fact separate ourselves further from the ultimate reality?
Oneness can never be desired for to wish for it is to destroy it
The implication that there is something there to wish for oneness
Contradicts the very idea
But these differences are mere illusions
Contained within the singular presence of all that which there is nothing without
Nor even existence at all
For it encompasses the totality
It is the mere fact that anything ever existed
And it is the void into which shines no light
Enters no soul
It is the ground on which our entire dramaturgy stands
WHAT IS IT?
Will there ever be an answer?
It can't be God, though it is what is meant by "God"
It can't be defined because it is the substance of definition
It isn't the place we go when we die for it is all places
It is place

I can cast out my net into the whirlwinds of conscience and substance
And feel that I've latched onto it
And it can never slip away for it is all I've ever been
But I stir the ocean of love and the sediments are suspended till I can no longer see it
Like a fish can't see the ocean

In metaphor, in narrative, all is truth

late May, “sheltering in place,”
the perfection of the day, a descendant
of thousands of years of predecessors,
the elements in concert, expert-wise in the ways
of coordination of sky, wind and ocean caressing
to make poems come so easy, just breeze pluck ‘em

but this heart lies heavy in the noisy stillness,
for one intercept repeats itself,
all ready already, wrote of that, many times prior,
all the parimutuel betting/writing combinations
user exhausted, each one shouting, too late,
you wrote that in such and such a place, in a time,
vague recalled under a name since forgotten

eyes are the poem title generator random,
but all asterisked, seen that, done that,
wrote that, passages that are passengers
trying to hop aboard without paying,
the fare is no fair, and the style gone quaint,
no one wants to read the regurgitated,
my rapacious pen^^^ has stolen them back anyway

my pen now, flat on desk, good only for grocery & scratching off
my countless to-write, to-do lists,
but poem writing conspicuously absent,
this my last until, my corneas transplanted, my heart-ticking
to the beat of someone else’s drumming, but, no wisdom confession,
not what I expected from my retiring “freedom days”

did my share, and periodically one of you reminds me,
of the oldies, and the semi-smile that whispers across my drying lips
says did I write that, see the place + time denoted,
saying yes, here is proof of the when and where, and hints even
of the why, but the whys and wherefores, all crossed off,
the run is over, was a good one, but this time pride will not go
before the fall, for here it is springtime and the spring in the step,
does not launch more than an inch, ground bound, and when,
you no longer can soar, it’s time to say no more

and my old friends come to sing me to rest,
Joni reminds me I have no river to skate away on,^
my feet can no longer fly, lyrics like old honey, stuck no pouring,
Bobby closes my shop, with a young man’s prophecy,
knowing it is the hour that my ship has come in...
and though my moment is in this second, perfection, thinking,
peace to you all, remembering that peace is an unceasing changeling,
my piece is spoken, been trying to leave but this is it,
“it’s all over now baby blue”^^



“Oh, the time will come up
When the winds will stop
And the breeze will cease to be breathin'
Like the stillness in the wind
Before the hurricane begins
The hour that the ship comes in”^^

Shelter Island
Memorial Day Weekend 2019

You were there before I ever wrote
Long before I ever smoked
You knew me before they did
All of em
You saw me change
As a stranger
Far away from all my mishaps and danger
You saw the side effects of pills too hard to swallow
You knew me before I had ever had my heart broken
Before I had my thoughts stolen by harsh words spoken

Before the scars


I remember breaking a window.
All I did was knock.
You were inside with the lock engaged
A boxed in cage
I could not just stay out of

Not too long after that night the seven or more blocked the door and I applied more than an appropriate amount of lotion that his corneas adorned
Immature?
Maybe but it may be I was scared

Scared enough to knock so hard
I obtained my first scar in the front yard of a Heritage Pointe apartment


You knew me when your world got tossed into a cold wind
My sole friend in an inconsolable state
The thirteenth the date, at least I think, my birthday was late
The drive home was too long in the stone cold silence in the wake of unfathomable violence
I loved you enough to feel empathy for the first time
My sister just not in blood usually just said she was fine like some corny degrassi line with true emotions deep in holding in the circus of your mind
But here you were crying
A sign of a signing away of youth
I watched as you grew

Our lives are a sitcom and we've lost the remote
And pretty much all hope of ever calling it quits
We're as stuck as it gets
Family runs thick

We knew each other before we became moms and dads
Back when we we're all we had
You were Daddy Yankee, I was  more Kanye West
But we always went well together, Sister you're the best