to my daughter who thinks me moral

I keep only
the animal
that has bitten
at the legs
not jawed
by the trap

to my sons who wish me home**

    the bread crumbs
were eaten
not by birds
but by a starving
boy
with a lost voice
who’d wandered
from his home
in a delirium
brought on
by a toothache

Your voice,
It echoes through my head
like a broken recorder,
banging the insides with,
"change,
change,
change..."

I,
did not fit.

So,
I twisted my limbs and
squashed my head
to fit into your little mould.

Umpteenth effort;
days of churning and weeks of wringing.

I,
winced in pain and groaned in despair.

The crucifixion happened as,
I,
heard me snap.

Now it chews on my skin
and clings onto my flesh,
as if it was all tailor-made beforehand.

I stride towards you with assurance
that now,
I am perfect.
That now,
maybe you'll love me more.

But,
you looked at me
with a gaze so familiar
that it pierces my heart
into crumbs that resemble oatmeals and dust.
You said,
"you've changed".

I have basked in another beauty,
a sharp jasmine needle
that has pricked the corner
of the so-called snazzy ones.
A bright torch
in a dark blue drowned room,
crumbs on a blood napkin
and the one-tone words
drop out our ears
like heptagonal coins out of pockets
or tears,
tears onto pages
in a teenager’s diary.

And then we advance
into October air
where leaves tick and tack
as typewriter keys do
across soggy ground.
Ride, walk
and now a story begins.

What a silence
Gagged by all my swallowed pride
A man with two minds
Sitting at an empty breakfast table
Crumbs caked in dust
Sleep hangs from my eyes
Like four fingers gripping a ledge
Hoping to be pulled in through an open window, but
Content with dangling forever
Those that I love are my strangers
Overcast in August
Sedated on the bank of a lake
Sifting through rocks
Hair hiding her face, from my memory
Silently, I can write down her name
Yet moments most important
Are just the pages where I fill in the blanks
How many tears have I replaced
With forced smiles and sundresses
Swaying with grace
As you run through the wind and into my arms
How far have I waded
Into deep waters of fiction
What lies sunken and drowned
Beneath the calm surface I have created
What will be found
When the depths are dragged
Will this lake give up my dead?

I want a man whose heart is so full -
Rainwater dripping from the pitcher on the drizzled grey of yesterday,
A soft sound in the great symphony of the wet garden,
Bejeweled and glistening,
Pianoforte drops
Upon the wet leaves
Falling.

I will know him by the way he writes, the kindness in his eyes -
Flashes of him in my professor,
In myself, caught laughing like a child,
In the quiet teenager who is becoming an
Unlikely philosopher, frontal cortex in heat,
With the implications of existence
(He’s awake in the early dawn, a furious Jacob,
wrestling with his God)

And he will be a Seeker of Beauty:
“There is no medium unworthy”
He will tell me, but never in words,
Crouching for perfection’s grace among leaves and dirt
Like a widow beneath rainbow fractals
At early morning’s mass.

He will be effortless, like the unspoken love
Between two old friends, bookends
Scattering crumbs of baguettes in the park
To clicking beaks, and dancing pigeon feet.

Burying himself in pages, when he thinks no one sees
(Was that you there, on the subway?
Dark eyes, fixated on the lines,
Crinkling with understanding?)

Both of us adventurous spirits -
“Let’s run away, you and me” and we will
Melt with ease into cityscapes, so transparent, adaptive,
Young and free,
Like the wood moths becoming one
With the aspen in its serenity,
We light upon
France, Spain… Italy.

I know I will find him
In my own verse.
Will discover him
In pages that I’ve turned.
Will recite his thoughts back to him, and will
Love him like poetry.
I will know him by heart.

I sit at a two-top by myself
by the bar. I draw on the back
of a bill with a cheap pen I found
clicked in a foam cup upstairs.
I draw flat cars, flat poles,
flat humans. I give them swirl
hair and no fists.
They are all alike.
The bartender comes over and tells
me that the bar is closed. I hold
my left hand up to him and draw
the sky. I fill it with carbon pink stars
and coffee nebulae. Saturn's rings
are made of cornbread crumbs.

I blow a straw paper comet across the galaxy.

Look in the mirror
What do you see?

Imperfection
As you reach left for
The tan crumbs to cover your uneven skin
And reaching right for
The black
Toxic
Goo
To give the impression that your stubby eyelashes
Aren't incapable of growing

You step back and look at yourself once more
Its not enough

You rummage for the crayon to
Smear across your eyelids
In hopes that it will make your
Dull
Brown eyes
Pop

Your face feels pounds heavier
Yet, are you really done so soon?
Aren't you forgetting something

You dig deep into the drawer
To find a
Burning
Red paint to drown your thin pale lips in
Longing for the look of that
Photoshopped
Supermodel you saw in that magazine

You come downstairs
Dad says you look like a clown
Mom says you're still a kid
Society says its not enough

What do you say

Bitter shouting remedies
Wailing in the streets
Beggars wanting more than just
The crumbs off royal seats
Fancy ******* lunatics
Brainwashing people like twits
So ******* what
If I'm female
And want to ***** her ****?

I can't satisfy my desire
to touch and to hold and to caress your body
with my hands,
for my eyes
capture
every detail of your silhouette.
With these palms and fingers,
I want your alter-ego
to part from this paper torso of lead, charcoal, and bread crumbs.
Transcend to this medium so that my pencil may stop.

Say what you want and do what you say
Forget what the naysayers are saying.
Baby you were born to shine
Don't believe anyone
Who tells you any differently.
Remember
Not everyone will be comfortable
With your sunrise
some people will misunderstand it,
Some people may mock it,
Some people will envy it…
But whatever you do
Baby shine anyway
You were not meant to shrink away
From the glory and grace
intended just for you.
Embrace each sparkle
Embrace every crumbs of the light
Please do not runaway from it
Because others failed to see you through
Soon you’ll realize that
By shining, you'll inspire others
To do the same.
Soon, the world will be brightened
And taken out of darkness
As they begin to realize
And understand their purpose as well
Because of You
Baby please do shine
Travel inside yourself,
You may be surprised how bright
You’re burning inside
Baby let the world feel your heat
Baby, Would you please do shine ?

In my big old double bed this fine Saturday morning.....
...one husband ....still blissfully snoring...
...one small child starfish....
...one cat kneading and pawing....
one paperback..... in want of restoring.....
one small wet patch.... we are all ignoring...
one headache slowly brewing.....regret for the loss of an early morning lay... frustrated desire at aforementioned lay.... physical evidence the big boy was ready to play....
chips crumbs..from a midnight snack......
...furtive guilt..at the thoughts .....i'm harbouring of.... running away ..just for the day
...a pair of jocks.. just one sock a small dinosuar ....and the picture book he's reading.......
for god's sakes cat stop your kneading.. i will feed you soon
a mental list..... way too long of things in need of doing........
years of love and family building......
....one early middle aged mother
.... one starfish child....
.... one husband blissfully snoring ...
....one little grey cat still kneading and pawing ......

falling asleep to the tune
of amy singing to me
that i will wake up alone.
the trash is piling up,
and there is no more room in the sink.
i have not left this spot,
on my bed.
i cannot lift this weight over my head.

sometimes i see a flash of a memory
when i am riding on the 8PM train.
i nod off,
smile at a stranger
give up my seat and pretend like these people
need me.

i fall asleep on the couch,
there are crumbs piling up
on the floors of my house.
i can not get out.
i can’t
get
out.

Is that death?
coming through my open window
gasping on my coffee breath and cigarette eye *****
blue to the touch of Chicago days
Michigan waits on an owl head
the perched up body of subconscious me
I grasp onto November
and eat the birds
that have gone south
follow destiny by her hair
long long road highway legs
Love is nothing to be proud of
clocks lay willingly
***** by times palm and ****** fingernails
I am a wolf
I am the candle sitting at your tombstone
money and a job waits
the tie the belt the tucked in shirt
gravel and oil in your mouth
you dribble my words
like a baby
not so ready for earth
the orchestra explodes with human emotions
yet is mute to the tongue with words
and the outside city blue man lighten lights that shimmer like gold in Nevada creeks that end up in California gold rush ****** by pistols and machetes and guitar songs sung by the not so ready boys of the world singing french songs
and love
songs
and songs that replicate the Greek goddess' that we once prayed too
but now we
sit alone on rooftops
and gargoyles
mock us
as we stone taxi cabs and young men for being
gay
for being true
for being life
but what is life?
Doesn’t it hang by a fingernails that god chews on when a man is born with 12 fingers?
I say we are all destined to live
everyone  is destined to die in a hospital room
watching cable television
and the songs of Christmas leak into the bathroom walls
and cockroaches leech onto food molding like the blinding eyes of Beethoven
but the angels
of alligator city still sing and curse my name for loving them in night showers
of Kansas toxic snow rain melting at the cognitive touch of my ashtray fingers
I lay down and sink into the bottom of the cities ocean bed
I look for fish
I look for tombstones with my name
I look for Neruda's last word
maybe its
in the rain somewhere
encoded in the ****** markings of a lover
that I once kissed
and danced with
with wine
as the birds and bears were away in the dark forest eating berries that rhyme with colors
and we are all dancing to the same song of deaths tune
and gods  choreographed workings
the coffin business is high
the  gravel stocks are up
we are all burying something in the backyard
whether it be
useless crystals
great grandmothers necklace
turquoise eyes that shimmer like native American destiny
walking in deep snows
coughing in up down out diseases
**** the cowboys
**** the office
**** the temper
**** the Christians
**** the rifle owners
**** the politicians of Washington city

my mind is made up
I will sit drunkenly
in a apartment room
with a wine glass
filled with
piano keys
half off sold for a 30 cents each
and my cigarette and my mind
will be left alone
for the spiders
and the cable television
to devour
like a poor boy
eating a peach that he found
after it rained
for 3 days
oh how it glimmered purple
in the grayed city vision.
Like a painting
perched up in a home
a cabinet with nothing to eat but bread crumbs
and a sip of
expensive
whiskey
left out for the fruit flies
and the insects
that gave way
to human emotions
oh how we all
dream of nothing
and sit on bar stools
drinking beer
drinking ourselves
drinking women
drinking ******
drinking ****
drinking me
drinking Beethoven's last dream gasping for a another song but the defining ear sound of
deaths call is too loud
and even the fire flies
hide beneath the shadowy light of my palm
looking for ideas
too give
to their mothers
instead
they
got to pawn shops
and sell their golden necklace
for a pack of red
cigarettes.

silence and sunflower seeds
a salt-encrusted SUV
mid-afternoon-winter-sun.
she ties her fists in slender knots,
and i fiddle with the **** on the radio.

we talk about burns and
the sick scent of nostalgia mixed
with wine in a cardboard box mixed
with empty pockets,
the way crumbs and lint on fingertips can induce such ache.

as she speaks a part of me wonders at the complexity of human relationships, at how meaning between people muddles and
how moments like these right here right now separate whole centuries of time.
i think about walking through forests made of paper trees and having a knack for noticing what could have been.
i imagine her lying in bed late at night,
her mind a metronome measuring out notes of deprecation,
sandpapering all her holed up bits of pride.
i bet sometimes during those barely-awake moments
she feels like an orphan.

but now, right now
right now.
beneath a ***** windshield and
surrounded by bundled up, brick facades
she hides behind glossy brown hair
and faded skinny jeans.
she has pink keys in her lap
but nowhere to go,
and she tells me about emptiness in words she knows i barely understand.

her tired eyes throw salty fists into space.

As my father lay,
passed out in his chair
with whiskey nursing his dead heart
and healing his origami wrists

My sister and I's stomaches ache with hunger
I sacrifice my last piece of poptart to her
and pray to make it till my mother comes home

She crashes into the door
An alarm for my father harmonizes in a disastrous symphony
He dashes out the door for the next shift
Leaving my mother, crying after seeing the mess and her children passed out by the empty fridge

Her grease burnt arms scrub the wine covered coffee table
Until red stains turn pink and empty cigarette packs fill the trash

She picks up a glass and fills it with wine
and drinks away the memories until everything is warm

Thus continues the cycle

Money sparse, bills unpaid, cupboards nearly bare
Two parents whose love had been infested with addiction and depression
stemming from broken, abusive homes and even more abusive past relatioships

Leaving two children in the destruction of constant fighting which led to divorce

The eldest following her mother's footsteps of constant abuse and taking on her father's pain with origami wrists to match

The youngest never bounced back, a brick wall built from years of silence left her permanently mute. Every day she drifts further and further away from reality and lives in her fantasy world.

smudged into the soil
rooted amongst the oaks
Your life echoes through their depths
shines through linden arms
resounds within silent windows
through which You illuminate my spirit
sylvan winds sway my mind
one day isolated, only to see
reminders that You are here
and the crescent You carved
and fixed in night's sleep;
she glows over fragile souls
evening is peppered with freckled light
soft gleams of vanilla
still lies night's heart
black sheets washed in the crumbs
of a celestial banquet
You hold this world in love
and touch the hills with dawn's shining face
wiping away fear
pooling our tears
and watering the earth

There's a room somewhere,
locked fast behind an unassuming door
looming grey-brown at the end of a
misshapen corridor.

Inside, the relics of a time lost in time
to time.

A mitt, engraved with the counterfeit signature
of a ballplayer whose name once rang a bell,
smelling of adolescent sweat,
still dusted with sandlot crumbs,
a reminder of those ground *****
that sped by too fast to field,
those fly ***** just out of reach,
suspended in a June twilight
lost to time.

Ribbons and awards and certificates,
signed by leaders of puny regimes
paved and repaved over,
proof of a world before this,
an era of (now) perceived achievement,
legitimized, glorified by Old English type
printed on recyclable stock paper.

Ticket stubs from blockbuster flops,
receipts of a linear plotline:
Drama, comedy, a budding romance -
Temporarily amusing on such a spacious screen
but ultimately unfulfilling;
the plot peters towards the end.

Lost in time the boy cries out
with no one left to answer but the man
who, as quietly as he entered it,
exits the room,
as always, leaving the door just ajar,
enough to muffle the shrieks of a little boy
chasing an invisible horizon.

Since beginning of century
man has had this covert destiny
to be like God
how? when he is carnal minded
instead of being lead by the heart
his soul is blinded
catastrophe drivin' by wild instincts
Open your eyes dont blink
Let the wisdom sink
deep into your mind body and soul
Mother nature knows
time is limitless
Since good is limited
evil is restless
people out in the city
Scrapin' crumbs just to barely get by
as the committee of 300 wealths multiply
the only way to make it
in this cold world
is *** sells ,money for fame,
drugs for your brain
Lose your identity and your name
you end up huggin' the sky for the flames
But realize you justanother number
to there game
go against them and your character
is slain

It’s no surprise
that kindness feels so sweet
when you’ve been starving ,
even crumbs are a treat.

It’s easy to miss,
but the truth is this:
a little kindness
can feel like bliss

You were like breadcrumbs
left unpurposely by my digestion during breakfast

You stayed on the kitchen table 'til noon,
'til Mama swiped away the remaining crumbs,
and I have lunch
with another dish--a different meal.

Something else, but not
you.

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea);
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a Springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with ****,

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

glitter touch my cheeks,
glitter spiders make webs of my veins.
i turn streetlights upside down
and drink up the neon —
i want my belly to spark and sweat
and glow.
i love you when you're the moon
and less when you're the sun —
i can only stare so
when you have darkness
we can't share with them.

a body is a temple, a body is a church,
a body is leather, black,
is curling fingers into sand,
is a bra tossed across the headboard,
as a lace crucifix.
a body is chewed gum sitting like a pebble
under the roof of my mouth;
is worthless when not in a bed,
when not trying to inhale another one
as crumbs.

confliction is the only line I've ever known to tread upon.

the place where resolution sits ive never found.

I guess its at the end of this not so taught string beneath my feet

and as I look down the at the chasms below the line

secured God knows where,

the scene of my possible death changes.

but the fall is inconsequential.



death happened years ago.

this is a fight for absolution.

only Im too afraid to fall into the often rushing waters below

and too afraid to stop tredding the line

for fear of being swallowed up on hallowed ground.

I am a prisoner of my own love

a consideration long expired.

and in my one young and foolish deed I destroyed myself

and my hopes for a new and fulfilled future.

the emptyness can never be filled.

that part of hell can not be washed from me

and niether can the fool who follows my love

in fallen crumbs,

do anything but **** me further.

such is the nature of my life,

a short burst of hope and large dose of consternation.


I am afraid.

afraid of the end.

when my string runs out,

or is cut,

it is the end

and I must face

the inevitable wrath,

the karmic sin.



and the sadness of it all is that I have passed it all on

to those I have loved the most

before I even knew them

and I have just noticed the twine

wrapped around my neck.

its too tangled a knot to release

and all I can do is keep it loosened

oh if only I knew what I would be

running from and where I was running to

and the significance of the string.

I would have chosen so differently

now I choose nothing whole heartedly at all.

you were
                uoy
       erew f
                  i
                 r
                  s
                 tl
                    y an unbroken softness. of tight soil. and was i was
a seed first pushing into the smart crevice of your light
by which guided the water of my soul
            and nurtured the second flower of my heat. burning in the
snarling rapture of your trembling thighs
           between they
spouting a tyrant of imperfect friction
                   and i laid in the velour of your heaving
            breaths

                              and tickled

the slight arch of your spine
with errant lashings of my foolish mortal hand
           passive and boiling
under the searing fire
           of the delicious sensual crumbs
of your






                           ey  e   ,    s

Oh the girl in the sun
Withered in the rain
All the thoughts that we shared
Moved me to cry
And though I know
That I still love her;
All we said of honesty was
Really just a lie.
I won't eat the crumbs
From your lover's table
I won't sit by
and watch them fall

The noblemen control the pen, indeed they own the farm,
but nonetheless exude finesse (and need I mention charm?)
with revenue to sate the few, exulting arm in arm;
for all the rest, they wish the best and certainly mean no harm.

The fourth estate stands proud and straight, emplaced upon a peak,
beside a birch where parrots perch and claim the truth to speak;
while hatching schemes, they’re hawking dreams to keep us mild and meek,
promoted by the gods on high, that clever reigning clique.

They spread their lies throughout the sties to keep the truth at bay
and horoscopes are filled with hopes for those with faith to pray;
the other few wait in the queue, with faces made of clay,
collecting crumbs which have become their dreams of yesterday.

The tube embeds the talking heads (you know the ones, the tools)
who on the screens won’t spill the beans, lest mighty might unspools,
so bend the news reflecting views of those who set the rules
to obfuscate and fabricate their pabulum for fools.

With pyrite smiles and other wiles, they thrive concocting tales
that lead to wars on foreign shores, which help improve the sales
of missile tips and battleships, discounting death that pales
and broken hearts for body parts a graveled grave regales.

You wouldn’t guess, the yellow press, when out to make a ****,
will sell their soul (to dodge the dole) and feed the swine some swill –
a trenchant trope with inside dope that gives the crowds a thrill
(when mixed with tripe, they call it hype) and masks a bitter pill.

The tabloids reek of doublespeak – when did the stench begin?
In olden times, with paradigms, no doubt with but a grin;
but nowadays, in subtle ways, there’s far more discipline:
they scrawl their screeds neath headline ledes that give the tales a spin.

A clever dunce tried hard just once to read between the lies
and thereby found that facts are drowned within a newspeak guise.
Yeah, all that stuff reflects the slough they hide behind their eyes,
although absurd it fuels the herd like  sustaining flies.

Within the fort a special court is hidden from our view
where sits a judge who’ll never budge, called Captain Kangaroo;
as justice bleeds, those evil deeds (like leaking what is true)
will be convicted as pre-scripted by the hangman’s crew.

A blue-eyed wight uncloaks the night and when (by chance, perhaps)
his whistle blows, the airwaves close, high crime stays under wraps,
and those that sin prevail again with feathers in their caps;
the price instead’s the leaker’s head, precluding a relapse.

Upon the table in their bowl
in violent disarray
of yellow sprays, green spikes
of leaves, red pointed petals
and curled heads of blue
and white among the litter
of the forks and crumbs and plates
the flowers remain composed.
Coolly their colloquy continues
above the coffee and loud talk
grown frail as vaudeville.

I will make this clear, I will make it vividly so.
I want to get away from you.
From you, from them, from the whole sorry affair.
For a reason so simple I cannot possibly make it clearer.
Have the words of a man named Desmond Tutu:

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

I believe those words. I stand by them dearly.
While the situation involved neither an elephant nor mouse,
It was a situation in which a stand was there to take.
You chose to take it in silence, in lies.
As the mouse, I could not and cannot appreciate neutrality.

I believe there were no sides to take, simply a stand.
You are able to appreciate the side of both parties, without taking sides.
Rather than speak publicly, as is expected of your position, you
Remained silent. You spoke, possibly in my defence, behind closed doors.
I knew not your opinion, I merely knew the crumbs you threw my way.

The crumbs of friendship you felt would fill in the cracks.
Crumbs are just that, crumbs. They merely distract for a short while.
I was foolish, I took it in my stride, and believed to see the best in you.
I haven't heard from you since. From any of you since. Silence speaks.
You are weak and I am sorry for you. I cannot offer you a fifth chance.

I will forget you one day, though you won't believe it yet.
You won't believe it or you will not wish to. Not you, surely?
I appreciate the time we had but I realise the friendship was empty.
It served its purpose and it has long since diminished. Long since.
I offered countless opportunities, I waited and I waited, but no more.

I am numb
Numb am i
Numb we are all
Numb nuns
Numb nuts
**** nuts
*******
****
****
****
**** my ****
**** my ****
Until it is numb
Crumbs
****
Drum
Hum
Numb
Stuck in gum
Or ***
Or drool, ****, wine and glue
Like me stuck to you
*******
**** me
I’ll watch
And use both hands
To tell the time
A crime
Committed
Omitted from books
Like cooks and crooks
****
Numb
I am numb
None
Nom nom nom
Numb
Succumb to my ***
On a street corner
Begging for change
It can’t stay the same
Someone might notice
Notice Otis?
They’re *******
**** *******
They must be numb
We’re all numb
Numb nuns
With guns
And **** puns
To **** tons
Ones and sons
Under one sun
A numb sun
Like god
God is numb
Dumb founded and *** pounded
Until it is numb
No feeling
No ceiling
Just sky
High
****, smack, *****, and ***
Up my nose
**** my nose
With a hose
Like one ***** hoes
No one knows
They’re all dumb
Numb…