break me on the wheel
while the wheel spins
argentia road
and all i see are crows
gorging in the open field
and severed cornstalks everywhere

this night
i burned your clothes
beneath the palest stars
to cherry embers for my bed
love, i dreamed of empty graves
and the undivided moon

such a fragile thing
to sigh for the sake of breathing
no more, no more
i am claimed by blood-soaked hands
and my resolve is dead

There was an elegant *****, from New York City
Or maybe Rome or New Orleans.
He was a spectacular ***, but didn't do drag at all;
Falling somewhere in between that category
Of glorious ladies and men of the day.
A queen with no throne nor entourage scene,
Camouflaging himself in skin-tight trousers,
Spectacular coats and jackets,
Packets of sachet in his pockets
To give him a scent of an unusual gent.
As if he had a choice in the matter.

He had a delicate way with his manner,
His hands and his eyes touching gracefully
As if not to disturb the dust on the mind,
Often very unkind, he used his tongue slicing
And dicing those who offended his senses
When such dared to step on his train
Invisibly dragging behind him, around him
Keeping his visitors at bay, a few feet away
Like proper subjects, courtiers to his grace
His face locked in a grin; hiding all within
The secrets protected by laden witticisms
Criticisms if you misbehave, saving smiles;
Handing out compliments like cookies.

There was always a waving of hands,
The arms caught in the wind like cornstalks.
For a moment. Then catching, ending like feathers
Settling together, resting as if cradling a baby
One hip thrown out, the head to one side
As if listening; hearing a devil's good joke,
Smoking a constant cigarette, the ends never wet
Laying the tip on the lip like a kiss
His face slightly lifted so the smoke will drift
Away from his half-lidded cynical eyes.

The talk could be varied, of Tom, **** or Harry
He would call women men and vice versa
Saying, Robert is a ***** woman is she.
He then waiting your laughter, hesitating
Seldom laughing himself, having said it all
Heard it all, done it all, had them all

No fertile male soil left unspoiled by his touch
Just entirely too much for one man to handle,
No woman to compare, he lived alone somewhere
Coming to the bars each night, a familiar sight
Drinking, but not seeming drunk,
Never sunk so low that he staggered,
Still swaggered after hours at the trough
Not so much as a slur or a cough.

He knew all the jokes that could be made
From a seemingly innocent mistake
Taking a word here and there and trading
Raising a regal eyebrow, somehow changing
Restating the meaning leaning it toward the crotch
Watching the listener's face, sensing the disgrace;
Granting himself the luxury of the infrequent howl
His majesty could keen like an un-oiled machine
Setting his victim's nerves and gooseflesh to snap
Giving his udderless chest a slap, he would go on
Make more of the jest, leave his victim no rest
And the mourners to offer their apologies.
Words such as that are not for ladies
Such as this infamous old queen.

The old spirit held on after the body was near gone
Propelling it nightly to appear on the scene.
Mean children would taunt him, just as he taught them
And waving their arms like cornstalks, cackle like hens
And tease him again, then resume cruising the men
Hurting the once regal spirit more with their disdain
Than beating him, or cheating him; ignoring him,
They dealt him a blow he never could abide
That fear he kept inside, all those years, the tears,
Still left un-cried, after he died, in his room somewhere.
He has left to be shared, the way he fluffed his hair,
The off-color joke, spoken in a strange lady's voice
Something like a boy's, not like a man's;
That flutter of the hands and the stance
Still copied today, by the splinter-group gays
That straight people think we all are
Is all that remains of a star once seen;
The seldom lamented, well-imitated, eternal queen.

Under a big tent
Topped with stars and
Smelling of elephants
A couple of daredevils
Toss in their trailer
Restless in the Midwest

Their golden suits shimmer
In the Iowa half light
The cornstalks talk in
The breezes passing by
At night the daredevils whisper
About what it would be like to really fly
And not just on the trapeze
They kiss goodnight and dream of impossibilities

Times are changing
Since the war it's been mostly women
In the crowds the circus draws
They scream at the lions
Roar at the strongman
Gasp and applaud the two daredevils
Enthusiastically
Happily
Making love in the sky

Times are changing
Since his number came up
She's been lonely
Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri
Her gold suit is covered in farm dust
Growing nothing much
Her husband is on a bombing raid over Nazis
He's finally flying
Helped by an airplane
B52s and bloodshot eyes
No longer dreaming of impossibilities but
Missing his safety net

Since he left she's been thinking about cannons
Popcorn, scrap metal
and hoping against solo acts
She's been dreaming of
What it's like to be shot at
Really take risks
Really feel out of breath
And her husband's been writing her letters
About white picket fences

"The daredevil life that we wanted is so much worse than we thought it would be. Let that sweet silent net catch you and lie quietly thinking of me."

Times are changing
And so is he
Times are changing
And she feels like world shaking
She can hear the wolves blowing it down

But she keeps up her stunts
And keeps up her spirits
Till one day the bearded lady is screaming
Her name from the floor of the tent
Up on that tightrope she pauses
A second
There's two grim faced servicemen
Her daredevil husband is dead
Flying a mission over Dresden
Just another casualty of a world at war
Another daredevil in a dogfight and
Now one less mouth for the circus to feed

Suddenly she's high up in the stratosphere
Breathing fumes
And from the tightrope she faints
I've given him my heart, given him my onliness
She rests in her gold suit
Cradled by the safety net he warned her to hang on to
And in her dreams she can't help thinking
Maybe she dodged a suburban bullet

Times have changed
And since the war's end
The leftover men
Have gotten married
And she's been doing nothing
But lying awake in her bed
Thinking
Picturing cannons mauling
White picket fences
Her body in a gold suit
Broken on the green grass
She needs distance and airtime
To cull this restlessness
Get out of the Midwest
**** his conspicuous missingness
And come up with a solo act
To keep her fed

In the morning she finds the ringmaster
Hungover in the hay of the elephant stalls
In the morning she's made a decision
To fly like a cannonball
Through a dreamland
Times are changing
And since she woke up
She's dressed in her gold suit
Setting fire to the average
Dreaming of impossibilities

The cornstalks vanished overnight
Shaven fields once flowing, green and gold
Like Dad’s evening whisker stubble
Ghost limbs of the cornfield

Flocks of nomadic Ravens
Feast on the invisible
And scowl with those empty black eyes
Impervious to man’s judgment

And I think,

There is nothing as beautiful
Than the first snow on a barren field
Shadows playing with the evening light
And dance among the vacant mounds

you are birdsong
you are moonlight
you are white snow
you are rippling cornstalks
you are rolling hills
you are the sun setting behind the mountains
you are morning air, and dew
you are a ripple in a quiet lake
you are refracted light in a flowing stream
you are a bed of lilacs warmed by the sun

you are beauty
beauty is you

Ice blue eyes
Sharp as the serrated edges of a chainsaw blade
Carving my frozen heart
To conform to your fringerprints

Feather soft lips
Rose colored by nature
Speak words of silk
To dress my **** perception
Of what happiness could be

Golden straw hair
The farmer of flowing cornstalks
They bloom the scent of revival
A harvest moon illuminates their beauty

Wine bubbles burst
Pops replaced with giggling
A drunken serenade
To pull whiskey breathed sailors
Near their soon sunken imagination
Premonitions showing their fantasy

A toast to the woman
Who shall teach bronze haired children
With her brilliance
Coupled with cunning of their father
May she be happy in my dreams
Where she has yet to emerge
From it's dreary depths

Wouldn't it be crazy wonderful
To see in person some of
The most noted Wordsworth's
And personalities that
Hello Poetry has to offer?
August 15th would be good
Here in Clayhatchee Bamalama
In the south with nothing else to offer but the woods and cornstalks the peanut dust air.
It would be a festival. A face to face to finally meet the poets I admire and describe in my head by their words and their profile.
I'm about to start a gofundme page to make the wildest dreams come true. Imagine Eliot greeting you in person.
Its gonna be tie-dye only and sandals dress. (Weeds illegal here and the price high as hell, so bring your own)
Load up the vw van with all your poet friends.
Entrance fees waved to those
Bringing their own soap and toiletries. Oh, and beer....or ***....whisky....tequila.... Etc.

Talent is a mime on a mountaintop* said he who gave me each morning a fork and a spoon.  He had said previously other things but this was the first to which my mother caught me listening.  She took my ear and me with it outside and shoved two cigarettes she’d been smoking in my mouth and told me to chew.  When I did not she worked my jaw herself until the tip of my tongue bled enough to give her pause.  Neither one of us cried and the cigarettes were salvageable.  The morning speaker then joined us obviously hoping for a drag.  The moment my mother hated him passed and she told him what hope was.  

He who gave me each morning a fork and a spoon would not often be seen by my mother.  He and I were late in our waking and she’d be out gathering types of dead bird from the bases of cornstalks.  I’d sit in my highchair and watch him shirtless as he prepared the tools of my art.  The hairs on his back would grow before my eyes and need bitten at the follicle.  He would turn and put his finger in the garbage disposal and pretend it was on.  On was something he never turned it because he said a mantis lived there and what would bite his follicles.  I wouldn’t be hungry then which was good for my show.  He would laugh at the misery of my scooping arms and be full of it and tired and he would ask me to rub his belly while he went to the couch on his back.  His belly the single most reason to keep him said mother.  I’d put my ear to it to feel myself kick and never did stir him from sleep.  Pretty early in this routine some of his belly hair started to grow in my ear and my dreams from then always had a banquet in their midsection.

Careful with my dreams.  Mother said they are kittens and one can bite too hard.  It is like her being stubborn and only calling me boy when most called me boy and girl in equal measure.  Sometimes when boy got the lion’s share I’d long to nurse and have to slap the ******* sound out of my teeth.  For saner things I’d walk the dog with a dog in it.  I had names for both and both were names I would’ve called my brother had I been born.  I once found a sipped at wine glass on the roof of the pharmacy mother later burned with lit stalks.  When the turkey buzzards skittered themselves nightly across the horizontal track of my looking for god I’d imagine my brother skinny enough to fit in the parched tube of his swallow.

Now that I am returning to Shudderkin, the welt left by my larger than life father whipping his belt across the tailbone of Ohio, it is clear to me that what we called a dog was correct only on certain days.  The mongrel keeping pace with my bike, the second name I have for my brother, is not the physical dog a city knows and not country loyal as country wants to, and so makes others, believe.  It is instead more like the talking when one is sped up and words get put together and then are stuck there.  Dog of Shudderkin.  Its tongue does not droop or even wag outside the mouth.  A pinkness has always gone on without me.

I lived a childhood of dirt:
my beginning and end, my friend, my
frontier. Dirt was the reason why
when other kids were always sick, my antibodies
made me a demigoddess, a mud-pie,
sand-cookie, dirt gourmet
crunching lightly-rinsed carrots wiggled
straight from the ground.
It never hurt, never hurt at all.

Warm dirt under my knees and hands,
my nails blackened, feet buried like I
could root myself in the soil -- I was lettuce
with dirt at the center of each lacy skirt.
Horseradish, deep in the ground and bitter,
wanting to become something sweeter, a new
tree or rosebush or better yet a veggie,
like the wild dirt-skinned potatoes
I dug up in the yard.

But tubers don’t have moms who give
***** looks and shake their heads,
examine your hair and your nails.
She sighs at the dark stain of your
feet, and banishes you
to a white tub, where she scrubs
the back of your neck, muttering
“Dirt, dirt, dirt,” as if
she doesn’t know what you are made of.

So give me the dirt, because I know my onions.
Always digging for gossip, flipping up
the neighborhood skirt, curious whispers
the way cornstalks share their childhood
tales before being tilled down,
becoming rich, dark dirt.
Ashes to ashes, I recognize some
for what they are, just fertilizer
for the imaginations and vibrations of others.

I may be half dirt but don’t
treat me like it, full of grit and
covered in sand from my hands to
my elbows. But what I am won’t
put up with your *******. Dirt is
a mother, to feed and flourish, dirt
is a woman much like me, and you
will never know the dirt under my
fingernails the same way I do.

A Cerulean precipice grows  
wrinkles. Blouses scatter into oblivion.
Rusty chain, in the room with no time.
Tea-kettles antagonize moonlit lovers.
Shotglasses chase, through ghastly cornstalks.
Cascading lights speak incantation.
Flash dance to late night serenades.
Phoenix plumes in Sunday hats.
Laying poolside, argyle splashes.
A magnetic lioness creeps.
Daring glances spread gossamer lies.
Alabaster halls consume infant minds, while
Dusty caps unlock elusive touches.
Black widows drink white wine.
Anise waters drown lycra mermaids.

It is so very cold outside
Freezing my core, even my pride
When I try to walk
My legs are rigid cornstalks
And tears freeze to my cheek when I cry

Flying over whitecaps
and the uncertainty of opaque depths,
suddenly the blue dropped away
and I was speeding through the sterile mud
between the cornstalks, where wheat once grew.
You had said that you knew a place
and we stumbled back through the woods,
falling and thwacking our way through tangles of branches.
When we got to the river, all we found
were junk tires, a tree, and a ******.
Stalking off with a cigarette in my mouth
and one behind my ear,
I found myself back alongside the cornfield
and staring in
I discovered that the green of the corn was as cloudy and evasive
as the blue of the ocean
and guarded as many mysteries,
but they are quiet mysteries
and the pain that they hold
is a quiet pain.

my mind is at the boarder of two places at once.
one half twists and writhes like smoke in a glass,
the other is still and rigid and heavy.
i walk alone under a canopy of cornstalks
smelling my childhood,
bewildered by the way i've changed.
it feels as though i've been shifted to the left, just a few inches.
nothing looks the same
even though it's just like i remember it.
all i seem to do is wish for things the way they were.
i can't remember how to love anything other than dreams and faux realities.
i can never have my only desire
as long as i keep killing my own ambition.
i can't figure out how to feel anymore,
still just learning how to hide from the connection.

Traffic noise and the scent of an approaching thunderstorm
drifts in through the door,
naively left open,
igniting reflections of simpler days spent
smoking cigars behind rusted machinery
and fallen trees in
Grandma's field, 
and how we would take picnic lunches
and bottles of ***** 
to the riverbank,
laughing before the fire
smearing silt onto our faces and bodies,
keeping the sun away 
as we walk
across the waterfall,
wading in the stagnant flows of August, 
when the water was so hot
it felt like the whole world was on holiday,
all bonfires and suntans
laying us in respite from the heartache
of the winter prairie. 
Whiskey and pickup-truck beds
yielding sanctuary 
from chores or the chaos 
of family. 
The same song I'm listening to now 
lilting from the truck's cab
so new
and full to the brim with meaning,
while the dashboard lights 
illuminated sweetheart dreams 
of the city,

averted eyes 
revealing the dark 
of lies 
hidden in the soil,

and how we would leave this place,
surrendering the anonymity
of shooting tin cans off log fence posts,
grass stains and muddy flip-flops
to brick tower exhaust fumes
and a cheap pack of cigarettes
smoked in a dingey bar
over a whiskey sour
and a notebook
covered in country flowers,
painted fingerprints writing
homesick sonnets to lovers 
abandoned amongst the cornstalks and glass bottles,
40-proof promises 
concocted in homemade stills 
and disassembled beneath the city skyline
that obscures those stars
On which we pleaded 
and wished for 
our emancipation.

town crier

poems March 2014
99 pages
pocketbook style publication
8.50

preview of book is book entire on lulu site. the spine of said book has title. front cover, back cover, are purposely blank.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/town-crier/paperback/product-21548368.html

---

Talent is a mime on a mountaintop said he who gave me each morning a fork and a spoon.  He had said previously other things but this was the first to which my mother caught me listening.  She took my ear and me with it outside and shoved two cigarettes she’d been smoking in my mouth and told me to chew.  When I did not she worked my jaw herself until the tip of my tongue bled enough to give her pause.  Neither one of us cried and the cigarettes were salvageable.  The morning speaker then joined us obviously hoping for a drag.  The moment my mother hated him passed and she told him what hope was.  

He who gave me each morning a fork and a spoon would not often be seen by my mother.  He and I were late in our waking and she’d be out gathering types of dead bird from the bases of cornstalks.  I’d sit in my highchair and watch him shirtless as he prepared the tools of my art.  The hairs on his back would grow before my eyes and need bitten at the follicle.  He would turn and put his finger in the garbage disposal and pretend it was on.  On was something he never turned it because he said a mantis lived there and what would bite his follicles.  I wouldn’t be hungry then which was good for my show.  He would laugh at the misery of my scooping arms and be full of it and tired and he would ask me to rub his belly while he went to the couch on his back.  His belly the single most reason to keep him said mother.  I’d put my ear to it to feel myself kick and never did stir him from sleep.  Pretty early in this routine some of his belly hair started to grow in my ear and my dreams from then always had a banquet in their midsection.

Careful with my dreams.  Mother said they are kittens and one can bite too hard.  It is like her being stubborn and only calling me boy when most called me boy and girl in equal measure.  Sometimes when boy got the lion’s share I’d long to nurse and have to slap the ******* sound out of my teeth.  For saner things I’d walk the dog with a dog in it.  I had names for both and both were names I would’ve called my brother had I been born.  I once found a sipped at wine glass on the roof of the pharmacy mother later burned with lit stalks.  When the turkey buzzards skittered themselves nightly across the horizontal track of my looking for god I’d imagine my brother skinny enough to fit in the parched tube of his swallow.

Now that I am returning to Shudderkin, the welt left by my larger than life father whipping his belt across the tailbone of Ohio, it is clear to me that what we called a dog was correct only on certain days.  The mongrel keeping pace with my bike, the second name I have for my brother, is not the physical dog a city knows and not country loyal as country wants to, and so makes others, believe.  It is instead more like the talking when one is sped up and words get put together and then are stuck there.  Dog of Shudderkin.  Its tongue does not droop or even wag outside the mouth.  A pinkness has always gone on without me.

i want to hold that golden evening glow
that sits on shedding cornsilk
of budding cornstalks in a far off field
while we lay watching the sky
endlessly open our universe
and laugh until we die...

….I don't want that to happen soon,
I just want to do die with you forever.

I need a restart from the womb.
Fresh years to remember less awkward things.
I won't find my awareness when this happens
So I'm stuck here in this existence and need to find acceptance.
My past is on the other side and
I can be born each day, as long as I wake.

To tell you the truth i'm drowning,
Even though I was born in the sea.

I don't hear music like when I used to listen
It doesn't dance like wind on-top your skin
but when its toes begin to preen my mind becomes a hive
that speaks through communal action
where words find no ground to stand on
but float above the nest, patiently waiting to reside.

I ain't heavy but I carry weight
don't try to save me, i've learned to be alright in the  wake.

I can't ask sacrifice from the living;
Their duty to praise the passed.
Ask the dead to answer impossible prayers,
So why should the living aide the living?
Suffering is solely meant for those that suffer
Not thy loving neighbor, nor thy clan.

Watch me side step from the place you've set me
Now; try to meet me in my eyes, please.

Don't help me feel misused
Don't wash your fingers clean
As if I were unwanted and wasted glue
You said "I hope you know I'm stuck with you"
I promise I won't complain
I'll tell you how it is, but I swear to do it sweetly

Now watch me walk ahead
Praying to God you're not far behind.

for William Dougherty

Water downhill flowing
      washing away soil and flora -
            downward, always down.

Torrents across California,
      hillsides crumble - tumbling down,
            enshrouding streets and stoops below.

Rivulets merge with rivers
      meandering, spilling into the sea -
            down again, always downward.

But eagles lift and sail the skies
      as cornstalks pierce the earth
            growing ever boldly upward

and **** sapiens stands *****
      water in our veins soaring up
            against the crush of gravity's pull.

Obstinate life, the defiant force
      flowing upstream, ever upward -
            entropy's worthy and immortal foe!

January, 2007

there ain't no "Howl" in me.
Just the need of a fix.
       Love of peace and Jazz.
I still roam intrigued
   his passages, and mine here in Daleville,
among the cornstalks, my head can't ever stick out above the yellow
         fringed hayseeds.
I read of angel-headed dark Blake-like tragedy
the again coming wars, and I suspend,
        the beliefs,
that mine could transcend the dark of war,
or make a poem so right.
Or ever make a difference as the head banging
just keeps on.

Grass cuttings savor an essence, if it were not for the flavor of gasoline added to it. Chores multiply in the garden as days snug up to summer. Warming theory of companion planting goes further than marigolds with tomatoes. Nasturtiums nuzzling cornstalks nicely agree. However, it is the editing of more combative creepers that keep this gardener flustered among the mustard greens. I'm inclined to let it all go, but the peanut grass gets so thuggish, someone needs to teach it a lesson. Yet, full eradication seems too vicious as hummingbirds do adore its frosting of bells. It's a nectar aggrandizement they throb upon in throngs. So, who am I to commit holocaust? After all, with the loosening of soil it provides when pulled, aeration is a welcome aftermath.

So it is continuous, and outright perfection in the pull and push of entirety. Now if I might trade that gas mower in for a push one, a transcendence of impeccability may occur. I might even breathe better.

Remember our moments as children. A time when innocence veiled us from the tears of the outside.

Now but a fainting cloud.
Burrowing through the shadows of doubt.

And we lived such wonderful lives as children.
We shared our colors.. we smelled the flowers..

Running through sheening cornfields in the summerdusk.

All is gone.

And i could never forget you..

So let me take you for a walk..

I expect nothing of it..

Just hoping to go with you on a treasure hunt..

To dig through time...

Would that be fine?

In this mind of mine.. i paint these lives.. all the universes i made with you.

So let me talk you for a walk.

Between the cornstalks we can talk...

I will always remember those days.

But joy never stays..


You made me shiver and quiver...

Now i only dwell in the deepest caves..

And i cannot forget you.


My affection deviates into obsession..

Since that day you died...

I smeared your blood upon my face

I felt purified...

My heart used to beat...

now it only weeps...


My decayed fingers caress the rotten corn with whom I was buried.

searched for her it all on city streets
behind the tall buildings in the alleys
in late neon lights the boulevards haunting
searching for her  meaning
in a country town
in row after row of cornstalks
red clay worn out towns
beaten down red barns
freshly tilled dirt off to the horizons where the
windbreaks give respite to nature
wild grows still, now,
snakes inhabit the cities as well
as the scrub oak overgrowth
critters hide behind fallen trees here
a dumpster there
salvation seems everywhere
I haven't looked yet
so I gather my sack of
pictures , the arrow on a chain,
silver given me years ago by
her, my ghost whisperer
my boots
and try again to
seek her out

somewhere there beyond the night
behind the bright sunshine
in the middle of  the field
where the cornstalks stood and the wheat waves still
stand in the blue light the red night
the white
clouds is a dream
of America
and no man not one
can
take away the fastness
the strength the two hundred years
of welcoming
of free speech
of immigrants awaking in a land free
to her hand above
holding that
torch for
we are America,
let us remember that.

The maple trees turning to amber and bronze,
cool, brisk winds running through my hair;
Skies of blue changing to purple and gold,
as Autumn brings us her loving care.

Summer is gone now--we can't go back,
to the lazy sounds and warmth of the sea;
Standing near the beach on the eve of Fall,
ocean waves start to crash with ferocity.

Children skip off to school in sweaters,
and can soon see their breath in the air;
Pumpkins grow round and full in the garden,
ripe and ready for this year's County Fair.

Cornstalks emerge, tall and graceful are they,
the new harvest is about to begin;
With its honeyed apples, pears, and walnuts,
filling straw baskets to carry within.

There's never a time when Autumn fails,
its storms bring refreshing rains;
And the moon is golden and frosty at night,
after a crimson sunset of fiery flames.

This transition time between seasons,
is something we can all taste and touch;
It brings with it great hopes for tomorrow,
which we'll welcome and cherish so much.

Nothing left,
Spilling over into the tank,
Running on fumes since Denver.
Man, I figure it's a trick,
Some play off the light,
Like sunrays blurring off an eyelash.
And I pass endless cornfields,
Lost in the Holy Bliss of isolation, Not even a woman
Can take that from you.

None taken,
I'll let you off by the Junction,
Down by the hallows
The poor region,
Where nothin good happens for lifetimes. Thinking of
Redemption and Original Sin,
The even draw that turns
Men Saint or Sinner
Since way back when.
While Sunday evening darkens quicker in late summer. Before the
North wind rustles the dry cornstalks.

Out here, it's only crickets
And a man's thoughts.
While I dream of warm woman, all leg and blue smoke,
And the cool wind carries
The harbinger of night.
A lone set of headlights
Sweep up the highway.
And the cornstalks whisper,
Calling out a dry fate
You'd rather not hear.

I tried to write a love poem, but all I saw was the bleak fog of forgotten dreams,
an endless list of broken promises; I walked circles in corn fields, flattening ***** cornstalks until they spelled out “love me.”

The brokenhearted are the first to sacrifice True Love for a
scientific deconstruction of a lover’s kiss,
rationalizations coded in clinical language,
“oxytocin this” and “dopamine that,”
it can all be explained,
there is no magic.

Scorned lovers dwell in limbo,
swiping right on the first piece of ***
who reminds them of the past,
whose photoshopped photo promises them Heaven;
True Love is now a simulation,
a cold affair with a blue light beaming back cute girls,
any one could be your Pam.

I fall in love with a screen over and over, until,
all that’s left is a bleak fog of forgotten dreams,
an endless list of broken promises;
all I feel is emptiness,
all I see is desperation.

I “Super Like” you, but I don’t even know you;
the dissonance hurts unconsciously,
poisoning a deeply dug well of romance,
the poetic truth serum secreted from the center of my heart is spoiled--
I hate how easy it is to lie,
to delete
to erase
to become a ghost.

I say, “I’ll talk to you later,”
but I never do,
you never even cared if I did,
or at least,
that’s what I tell myself in a bleak fog of forgotten dreams,
that’s what I write on my endless list of broken promises;
the sentiment is returned,
and love, True Love,
continues to hide in art, music, poetry, and film,
the last refuge for a romantic heart.

Repetition everywhere
in bookshelves and tiled walls
and the yellow striped down the street.
Repetition everywhere
in staircases and stitches
and cornstalks.
Repetition everywhere
in tree-rings and theater seats
and blinds and whitened teeth,

Repetition everywhere.