We did really well this time.
It was the longest we'd gone
without one of us messing it up—
I was proud.
But now I've decided
these record-breaking few months
should really be the nice note
that we end on.
Cause both of us are performers,
not composers,
and we can play the parts just fine,
but as soon as the background music falters
and it's our turn to take charge,
and use the opportunity to shine,
we falter, too, and back out of
the spotlight that's begging us to take a chance.
So it's the last time
that I'm running backstage.
I'm seizing this chance
to conduct for once,
and I'm getting the feeling
you're just waiting for the song to end too.
................................................................­...................
Don't worry.
The decrescendo will be as fast as possible.

Do you remember the melody
of a sweetly sang blue silk symphony?
of my sharp breaths and moaning singing?
of cracks in my ****** expressions?
the ones typically tempered to turn my passion into passivity?

Do you remember when the accompanying
string snapped?
I went quiet, cold
couldn't sing for my stranglehold on my
selfishness and...lust? Yes. Lust.
Do you remember the difference?
The dissonance?
I feel like a **** and it's
so far from ridiculous
I don't feel like i deserve your forgiveness
guess what i'm trying to say is
I'm sorry and
though i don't know if it will happen again
because i'm new at singing this song
I don't want it ti

I need to know
all i need to know
is the harmony of the first night of the blue silk symphony
still echoes strong
(in the background, in the background)
and i just can't hear it because
lack of forgiveness ...whether my own for myself, or yours for me right now
( is such a loud sound)
( loud sound)

I was told to never fall in love with a writer.
But, a writer that recites his work with his hands is ten times more dangerous.
Eventually, you'll find yourself immensely fascinated by the veins that can play keys oh-so softly; soft enough to cradle an infant,
or even the aggressive way he fills your entire childhood bedroom with such impossible power and passion
in a single chord.
But, these hands are dangerous.
Just as they can hammer into the piano, his hands can rip through your heart. His hands will never just play your body simply black and white, oh no.
His hands will destroy you; each and every muscle movement will have you on edge and by the time the decrescendo drains the flood in your mind, it will be too late.

Fresh after the rain
I hike in the woods.
The leaves are turning to
yellow yams, auburn brick, pumpkin pie.
The ground is wet and the wood is damp.
The leaves lay vibrant on their death bed.
I turn around.
I see through the spaces
fallen flowers,
departed shrubs,
vanished birds,
the trees that once protected my eyes from the placid lake.
The air is bright with mist.
The grey sky surrounds me.
The cold breeze comforts my skin,
and forgives my lungs.
I take it all in.
But the cold air can never forgive
the dying trees and life dissolved.
Others will pass by.
Leaves will crunch and crumble
under feet that won’t realize the forest decline.
The music to their ears will return each year.
But the crunch will fade.
Less trees, less leaves.
A Decrescendo,
A whisper.
Silence.

my condolence to my heart for witnessing
the pain of a broken desire
where was i when the shot rang out
those years ago?

distance, lover
you have played the part so well
i feel so sick to discover
you don't care
that every word from my heart
decodes into your name
with a decrescendo
by your reaction

was all of me wasted
when my life will dedicate
to honoring your name?
i just lost all feeling to logistics
example: i look up to you
but when i was lost
where were you?
you didn't even post a sign
return my love with none but empty words
and seduction furthering...

distance, lover
you have played the part so well
i feel so sick to discover
you don't care
that every word from my heart
decodes into your name
with a decrescendo
by your reaction

persistance on my part has shown me
i've wasted yet another breath
insistance to be yours has brought me
yet another wasted breath
but it's okay
i've got more cool
to focus all my energy
into something i can hold
after all... it's just the loss of a love

Imagine this:
Me, who only speaks English
Me, who is moving to Japan
Me, with the Puerto Rican father and the Italian mother
being called a terrorist
for scrawling Arabic in the corners of my notebook.
"It's nothing personal," you say
"I'm just calling it like it is."
I sit in silence and wait for the teacher to stop this,
Say something, Say anything
Say No, Sofia would never hurt another soul
Her silence is a gag over my mouth
handcuffs on a chair
a knot in my belly plummeting out of control
If you had asked, I would gladly have shown you how to write your name
You start with the crooked smile of the letter "ba"
the calculated decrescendo of "ra"
"ya"'s sensual arc
I could show you how to write the guardian "alif"
or the embryonic "noon"
nestled safely inside of her calligrapher's womb
But somehow, between my pen and your eyes, the phrase

I miss you

written in near flawless script
turned into a threat resembling

someone is going to die

If you had asked, I would have told you of how I met an Arab
(you spell that: lam ba noon alif noon ya )
who loved music
(meem waw seen ya qaf alif-maqsura)
and Poptarts
(there's no P in Arabic)
and me.
Let me teach you how to write my name
so the next time you decide to throw around the word "terrorist"
you'll remember that those letters spell a name that represents
a living breathing person
and your prey whose name is spelled with the same alphabet as mine is
a living breathing person
Come here
Unclench your fists and take my pen
You are smart
I will teach you
Trace the shapes like me
and I will show you where you went wrong
be it in life or just now with these ancient ABCs
"Seen" is like a W except she's proud of her curves
and has a left hook that would make any man jealous
"Waw" is an air-headed guy whose body is an afterthought
with hair that billows in the wind and is never far behind
"Fa"
Treat it like a cobra
***** and proud
but dot it, mind you
That's the serpent's crown jewel
"Ya"
The singe-winged bird nesting on two tiny eggs
and "Ta marbuta"
There's no clever way to teach you ta
You just have to learn it
Now
use your two good eyes that are so good at judging and tell me that my name is not alive
The queen and the mother
The feminist and the prideful lover
And the misfit
I can be all of those
You will be all of those
Come here
There's enough space in my margin for you
Practice celebrating your secondary identity
now that you know I am not a terrorist
I won't hold a grudge because you misunderstood
I can't blame you
You just didn't know how to see

My lizard died today.
With sunken eyes,
He's relaxed.

Now I conceptualize:
His perception,
If one-

Of me.

Flowing blue and
Majestic purple flecked with a
Staccato of yellow, marked by the
Adagio of green and
Accented silver

Caesura.

Dolce is the rosa and lapis that
Crescendo into
Fortissimo red and a
Vivace of cerulean --

Sforzando of orange!

Decrescendo into emerald, a
Morendo into the dark
Grazioso, where rests a
Fermata of rainbow.

At least this is what I see
On the black and white
Sheet of paper.

I like driving at night


indigo nights in the odd hours of the morning
my tired eyes adjust to the rhythm of the traffic
a slow fluid, tempo, melting into soft orange lights
cars slip in and out of my consciousness

the street illuminated in artificial glows
and manufactured air fills my lungs
forming goosebumps on my skin
my eyes are growing weary

the radio static, constant
tuned to 91.3
plays liquid jazz
dewdrops on my weary mind
and my pulse fills the empty spaces in the bassline

the music melts into the rhythm
the soft lull of the engine humming
the crescendo and decrescendo of tires on pavement
a lullaby

the reflectors twinkle on street
like artificial stars
and the highway-- a tangle of progress
unravels before me

my eyes slip into a dream

I like driving at night
but one day I won't

Down the lawn's decrescendo,
on the curb, a blocky Mercedes,
older than sound. I pull behind it, drop my things
like kick drums to the ground. The door
opens: a chorus of
can I help, what can I take?
And the quarter-rests of a fight
interrupted. The whole affair like
a sore wrist.

He has a violinist's chin, soft but
pallid, pocked, from losing
a battle with teenage skin, and
here is the ochre noise of his voice
a can on rocks; my father's was a stone in
a guitar.

So this is the new arrangement.
A leitmotif that trails at her heel, that tears at
every quiet measure; the whole hall
hears her uneasy with the next note.
This is no melody, I know,
but it is the new arrangement.

When she is old and failed,
her conductor's elbow fallen mutely to her side,
what will she think of
the first song she ever made?

One moment.

Her eyes were closed and the sparks danced behind them and down through her body, a beautiful, uncontrollable choreography. The smell of leather and summer intoxicated her, left her knees wobbling. One moment, one memory, lips parted and together, spinning her round and round until she fell down.

Blue eyes begged and fingers scraped noncommittally against every pore, but she was locked. The wood would not budge, and her silent tears collapsed as he danced from afar. A bittersweet tango as another woman reflected in his eyes, fingers dancing with his as hers once did.

Cheap motels and motor oil were all they had needed that summer. He had smiled and left kissing promises in the naked morning, waking her daily with their future, fantasy, and love. One moment, every stalling second was one moment, one moment before he could kiss her, one moment before he could touch her, one moment before he could love her.

She would wait moment, she would wait forever.

Together their hearts had melded into a rhythm unlike any she had known, music without sound that had them dancing from the moment they met until the moment she had to leave.

One moment. They said that moment would ruin his life. Every leaping dream and twirling hope would be crushed by her little mistake. His dance would end. Each hand hung onto a different love, and she had to choose.

Long moments, on one long night, she wished sorrowful goodbyes to her growing love. In the shadows she crawled to clinics cold and heartless. Her fingers dropped money in their pockets to tear her heart open, rip it to shreds, take it way and make her cold, clinical, incomplete. She could no longer dance, her fingers could no longer move with his as they once did. Yet their hearts stayed tied, and with each misstep her love took three. Clueless, he let her ****** his music, his rhythm, his dance with love.

They told her she was killing him. They insisted she was no good for him. They blamed her when he could no longer dance.

She listened.

One moment, arms clasped onto one another, water fell in a remorseful decrescendo, marking the end of a love. The cavity of her heart was filled with rainwater, flooded with the pain of their loss. He begged her not to go, but he was blind to the blood on her hands. She had to be strong to save him.

One final moment, lips crashed into the final dance, the beautiful memory that haunted her into her dreams, into her days, unto her end.

He smiled, she smiled, and his dance finally began again in the arms of his bride. All that was left for her was a silent solo, the walk away from the love she would never replace. They had locked her out. They had broken her heart.

But they had been right, and without her he would dance again.

Let me disappear in your mind.
Next to you I’m so small,
there’s no need to make room.
Let me paint with your wild ideas.
Feel how I fit among your racing thoughts?
Let’s set them all free.

Hold my whispers deep in your heart.
They tremble the way your soul rumbles.
Let me sing melodies atop this fearsome beat.
Wait for the decrescendo.
Do you hear how quiet I can be?
Let’s make noise.

Rest your tired eyes on me.
I try not to shrink under your gaze.
We’re walking down parallel roads,
with matching stones in our pockets
to hold us down to the Earth.
Can’t you see that I understand?
Let’s be weightless.

For Dr. Harry Braeuer

The day is mercifully warm when we come to visit you on Christmas.
All is calm o’er the city by the gulf; the salt in the air is sweetly gleaming.
All is bright with glowing hearts by his cradle we stand.

I play with a kitten that looks like Lily because I cower from the realities of your dying mind:
Of silent and holy nights;
Of sins and errors pining;
Of falling on your knees;
Of demanding to know what you’ve done to deserve the larghissimo dying from a disease that makes you forget the intricacies of Chopin’s Nocturnes or your daughters’ names.

You hold your face in your hand and study the eggshell white tile while Michael plays Clair De Lune.
Oh, hear the angel voices!
As if every flowing wave of moonlight of Debussy would cease the decrescendo of life or bring the lucid dawn of redeeming grace.

And after the final note pianissimo, you try so hard to rise from your wheelchair to give your grandson a loving ovation.
You clap your wrinkled and meticulous hands that cannot forget what it is like to cut open the mortal
—to bury the dead.

But please don’t get up, Dr. Braeuer.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices.
Stay warm in your bed.
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Bravo, my sweet grandfather!
Oh, night divine!
Lay down your sweet head.
Oh, night! Oh, holy night!*
Enjoy the tender music instead.

There is always pain in her. 
Between her bones and skin;
separate from her blood. 

She has only known 
how to cast everything out
from the dinners she's barely keeping down
to the "are you alright"s and "are you eating properly"s

She is so used to 
never keeping anything for herself 
never holding onto to something she can call her own,
long enough for her to know

how to cherish, how to treasure, how to love. 

She is smothered and mothered and suffocated
by the numbers that rise and fall, push and pull
engulfing overwhelming drowning
all that she is. 

less is more/ less is more/ less is more

The girl's self worth is 
inversely proportional to 
how much of her 
there is in this world. 

That is why she must
refuse refute reject 
until she becomes so much closer to nothing 
until there is none of her left. 

Until she fades out of existence. 
Slowly, quietly but surely-
a decrescendo to her swan song

"The world will end with not a bang, but a whimper"

Instant gratification
for an instance of a girl.

Nobody opened the path out of darkness.

Scientists assembled - in a clean room in
New Mexico working tuition time -
a three-thousand megapixel sword
in the reflection of whose blade
we saw the bleeding comet
and, flipping the hilt in our hands,
saw it spark as it traversed the edge,
and from its position knew our place.

The universe instructed us to sing
and we refused. Instead we watched
its jaunty hand tick time away
and call for decrescendo.
We played with bombs.

If it all feels perilous, it is.

Watching the white face of the moon
for mushroom clouds
we rutted, and learned new recipes
and held out forks to one another saying
“taste”.

And when the fear has passed -
  which it will
  for the world is perpetual
  because we live in it -
it will be locked untouchable in the past
where fear cannot go.
The fear instead will be:
of the million flavours we have made
and fed each other, is any a part of us still?

The Prelude begins with:

The vibrations,
     Of a cell phone alarm put on snooze.
          Creating a slow start.
The buzz,
     Of a hair dryer.
          Making me speed up.
The deep thump,
     Of feet .
          The accompanying cadence,
               Of creaky floors.
The reeds squeaking,
     Of my bed,
          and the door.
The cymbals slap-slap,
     Of feet
         hitting the floor.

And now the song get’s going with:

The roar,
     Of students on the way to class.
The bright melody,
     Of laughter.
The slow harmony,
     Of inside jokes.
The percussion,
     Of pencils tapping
          and pages turning.
The brass line,
     Of teacher’s voices.
The bass drum,
     Of snores
          In math class.

Now for variations on the theme:

The triple forte,
     Of lunch,
          And final bells.
The frenzied trills,
     Of finishing homework.
The rushed bridge,
     Of practices,
          With the same melody.

And finally the finale:

The decrescendo,
     Of the ride home.
The ritardando,
     Of the walk inside.
The final burst,
     Of sound
          As the day is retold.
The squeak,
     Of the bed
          As I lay down.
The yell,
     Of good night.
The cut-off,
     Of my eyes finally closing.

oh!
ohhh thank you,
thank you great body,
great god! s~h-e's got my soul
embodied in earthflesh earthflesh
grown from warm soil sacred soilflesh
and redriver lifeblood's lifemud is flowing!
flowing through treelike neural pathways
dendritically branching
branching out into my
starflesh vessel
and there's no sense
in wrestlin' with myself!
My vessel vessel is
embraced worldwide
from the inside
from the inside with mycelium!

Mycelium!!
and I am a mushroom!
I am a spore!
I'm a planet!
I'm a particle! and
I'm pumping away like
waves crashing on a shoreline! and
I'm breathing inward turnaround
outward turnaround chillin'!
maxin', waxin' and wanin'!
pushin' and
pullin' it through my sails
as I sing sweet songs of sunfalls
and moonrises floating and falling
over the horizon like a
crescendo-decrescendo and
I've got roots!

I've got roots that stretch
to the ocean floor and I've got
a thousand pound ethereal steel toe boots
and I am Drinking in the ocean and
I am drinking in heaven's Reflection.

I close my eyes to see and
I remember to breathe! to
breathe slow and I can see!
I can see the keys as
buzzing bees in the leaves
of the trees dancing with great breeze
oh great breeze!
sway swing sway sing
sing a song singsong, please!

breathe it with ease,
breathe it with eeease!

mmm

Trembling as it sounds,
Every time the keys play down low,
My life tones & pounds
In its own decrescendo.

Things become shallow,
As blurry as fogged glass.
Can I pull myself out of this hollow
Or wait for time to pass?

Let your encompassing melody
Lift me off my hollow.
I wish to be free
So I can hear your sweet crescendo.

This old man in a bar
told jokes and reveled in reflections of all his youthful moments
there were three nuns
the last of which wound up spread out
it was great fun
in between pity laughs were shocking laughs
the old man mumbled
but i could hear him speaking from behind his curtain
of shimmering inebriation
i answered questions
and his worn off ear made the answers
Paul and Chan
they were young enough to learn what he had to teach about his great life
it was a great life
three sparkles in his eye lead to a decrescendo
that was a hint to look left and up
for life or the light that gilded like it
this old man made his friends
tipped well
had a son who just followed and laughed
and old alchy
he shook my hand in an old fashioned way
so very sincere
have a good life
so i will

Waves crash like this,
Building force of water
Grinding in pattern-like motion
Pushing bodies up towards the surface
Gasping for air
Crashing into reality
Where the ocean meets the sky
Feeling the surroundings
then
Settling
Like a decrescendo
Shaking out evenly
Leaving with a fear
Of what comes next
But we all know
It will be a wave that crashes
Differently,
But like this.

IV

Pizzicato pianissimo
its sound gestured into resonance
a slight plosive of winds sustained
Arco – a lament in falling thirds
whispering towards an upward leap and a hold
crescendo  decrescendo
Imagine his imagining in nature’s realm
(that patient catalyst for the solitary maker’s mind)
now guarding here its assembly in a sounding out
Adagio – in a three-fold telling
A measured preliminary to the music’s soon-to-dance theme
before rising scales and emphatic chords – Allegro Vivace

V

Words on the rise
bricks on the going
then in the hall on the wall
A poem you simply have to read so
crouch close to the Suffolk brick
don’t mind those  descending shoes
The verse is laced with words of sound
breaker march cry rumble clap
cueing memory into remembrance
And why why here
where formal musicking lives and rules
are we noised down steps by a boiling kettle?

VI

As the water holds its breath
so a dense cloudscape
forms and floats
Inverted
mirrored
wholly still
it replaces the water
with horizonless sky
and extended reflections of grass
But as water exhales
clouds coalesce
a right perspective restores

On the outside I see everything I've ever wanted and need
I can see the hardship and times you've wasted on others
I see through your eyes of pain as you bleed

Your eyes tell a story and your mouth the background music
Creating a symphony of destruction you slowly decrescendo
Telling me I might be better off because you tell me you're SICK

I'm bound to you like misery loving company
Tears of blood rain down your face like bad make-up
Through those eyes of pain can you see me?

Can we self-destruct together I'll never let go
You think crazy is bad then look at me
Sin with me and nobody has to know

Call me foolish shame on me
For seeing something passed your eyes of pain
Just think of how much less it would hurt
Take a chance on me with nothing to lose and everything to gain

Silver hazy starlight, dripping from the velvet moon
As a cloud floats by, the Lunar Corona appears
It's a bright night, the eclipse is starting soon
An event that creates and dissolves people's fears

Up in the void of the night the light brown circle dances in the cloak of shadows
Then the eclipse comes, dark as a decrescendo
As I sit and watch from a furry meadow

Then the moon returns
And so does my **heartbeat

A decrescendo.
The rainbow appears; red, orange and yellow leaves,
Green bushes and blue skies.
But, where is the purple?
Oh, I forgot, it's in your eyes.

The leaves dartling down,
Turning the soil into a lighter brown.
A crunchy carpet of decay,
A tree preparing for a winter's day.

we sit at the edge of
vespertide
listening to the chorale
of evensong
this day's opus almost done
now tapering off in
slow melodious decrescendo..
it is the gloaming
and the final flurry of light
glimmers on the horizon

now the night becomes
the diva,
the first star has been wished upon,
the first sattelite too.
and the bass note of the cicadas
builds to a *****, needful hum...

lights go on in little square
patches, and the smell
of barbeque fragrances
the summer night air

under the streetlights
the moths come to dance
a dare each other to touch
the midnight sun...

and in our garden
the rustle of the
tame gone feral
rabbit "bellamy"
has begun...

a hulking grey white
shadow now he lollops
toward the tasty green
carrot-tops...
until the sound of pounding
feet causes him to freeze
considering his position
bellamy chooses discretion
over valour and departs with haste

the wind now has a coolness to it
and the grass grows damp about us
by still we sit enamoured of the changing
slow and quiet about us
the seas whisper secrets
and the birds settle in for the night
excepting those who hunt on silent wings

the stars begin to pop
bright white on the darkening sky
and the crescent moon smile with
a sideways grin...

it is now the darker things come
owls on the wing
spiders to reknit there webs
the big bass frog to sing his song
and the small blood seeker
come with whinging wings

now we must give the night
it's privacy, as we walk inside,
from the pond a series of sounds
means the frog has found dinner
hopefuuly a mosiquito buffet

the vesper tide hath turned
the night is now come.....

lightning paints the ceiling in the dark
feelings like dancing trees in the wind
my heart whispers into the rainfall
until the sound of water drowns my thoughts
into thunder
cracks the sky in half and my universe falls through
my bedroom window
when it storms I think of you

grumbling far away but close
I know the storm is outside but
it shakes the foundation nonetheless

the window panes rattle against the stress
the floorboards feel the strain
the crescendo of the rain meets the cresendo of our game
you decrescendo into oblivion

the storm leaves behind only a cool breeze
relief blows through
my bedroom window
when it storms I think of you

c.d.

Your shoulder blades are butterflies,
swathed and bursting from

Your back a decrescendo
where my lips devour

Your spine that drifts as
lullabies--undulating choruses
that roam along

Your rolling hills of buttocks
that smooth paths amid
the reeds toward the valley of

Your knees, two tender treasure
chests of golden setting sunlight--
kaleidoscopic rays that glimmer gently on

Your toes, those several heirs of
ten ecstatic kisses from

My mouth that hunts and giggles at
the flesh between your thighs and to

Your stomach where I sit so I can
look into

Your eyes where the sunlight's growing
cold and the moon glows vast and clear--
but frosted over slightly by the haze that is

Your lashes splashing spider legs
and shadows 'cross your starry eve of

Lips that I would kiss
until the sun ran dry of magic
and the earth disdained its spin.