In the absence of everything,
I felt a sheer yet painful bliss.
I longed for stimulation.
A soft breeze from a drafty window,
the whizzing of a broken furnace,
the shriek of the floor as it was pranced upon.
But all of these things would not be enough.
I am lonely because the hour is lonely.
But maybe we're not so lonely, because we're both here together.
The hour and I are not alone
because we both are lonely.

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

Shrouded in secrets
The men from F-Branch
Recite the techniques
Undiscussed in advance
Of Democracy's dance
Democracy's dance
Democracy's Dance with Terror.

Outside the port of Umm-Qasr
Hundreds of men
Hooded in the dark
Of the midday sun
Kneeling on the run
From Democracy's Dance with Terror.

Suspected by students
Back home and online
Theories get conspired
Petitions get signed
"Stop Democracy's Dance!
Stop Democracy's Dance!
Stop Democracy's Dance with Terror!"

The attorney general
Is called for advice.
A solemn exchange
Top down bottom line.
His argument is
"If it's nice it's all right."

Ministers from Ministries
Are detained and questioned
By the goggles of a press
Suffering sleep deprivation.
It's like a game of touch rugby
Outside downing street
With a twist on the rules of 'Just a minute'.

And outside the port of Umm-Qasr
Democracy doggedly dances her dance.

But the rhythms of the dance
The stress of white noise
Peaked
And escaped on the wind
Blowing through the forgotten kindness
Of confused hearts and minds
Escaping through the drafty guilt
Of hung up uniforms
Dancing on the mumbling lips
Of sleeping soldiers
With wives, partners, families, friends
Back home
Who don't know what it's like
They don't understand the drill
They can't do the moves
They don't know what it's like.

But the dance did not stop
It did what every bad vibration does
And moved elsewhere
And was henceforth known
By an unpronounceable acronym:
JFIT!

And now we join James
Young musclebound man
With a drink in hand
Back from tour of duty
It's a Saturday night
And the Weston women like a soldier,
A real man.
The fact that he
Has been doing his duty.
"Do you mind if I ask..." Asked Deborah
Showing more than necessary of her bra
"Where was you based, your base in Iraq-
Your third base, in particular?"
"I'll tell you," Said James
And the ladies came quick
Putty in his hands
Just like a joystick.
Said James, with the gravitas
Or some silverscreen star,
"While out in Iraq,
I was stationed
At a British logistics base in Shaiba.
It's outside Basra.
Basra in Iraq.
Iraq?
You have heard of Iraq?"
But by then,
Deborah and her bra and her friends
Were talking to another group of men
Who worked in property development
And apparently, Deborah, they're neighbours
Or something, because that one said
They've got seventeen houses between them.

But what James hadn't told them is this
The exact meaning of words in English
Like British Logistics camp is
Not always what you think that it is.

Oh did I say camp?
I meant base.
Please delete any mention of camp
From the record.

It was not long before
That James' routine
Had been... very different
To say the least.

Indeed soon after crossing the border
And re-invading his parents' home again
He'd been watching Jeremy Vine when
He spotted a pattern of systematic abuse
On the curtains
Whenever he muted the telly.

James decided to get out of the house
And to help him get a grip
He decided to go shopping
But when he looked down at his list
It said:

59 hoodies
11 Electric plugs
52 Alarm clocks
122 pairs of earmuffs
160 torches
117 blackened goggles
132 stress positions
39 enforced nakednesses

And by this stage he realised
That perhaps he ought to see someone.
But instead of seeing a journalist
Or the Swedish King of wikileaks
He went and saw a military psychiatrist
Who charged him a lot to let him speak
On a one-off profit plus! contract
James ended asking the same question
Week after week -
Do you think I'm crazy?
What does all this mean?
The doctor replied:
"Of course you're not crazy,
It's just your mind is very ill,
I'll tell one part of it to ignore another part -
Here - take one of these little pills
They're only one pound ten each
And if you take one
Every three hours
Every day
For the rest of your life
(Or until you die,
Whichever is longer)
You'll be fine.

Meanwhile,
The dance continued to be taught
Like capoeira on a foreign-office team-building course
On the art of interrogation
The alpha-tango
Aimed at prisoners of war.
But the footsteps of karma
Where circling once more
And the base back at Shaiba
(Near Basra. In Iraq?)
Was once more withdrawn
This time to the airport
Along with other UK forces.

Now relatives of the victims
Both at home and abroad
And those most susceptible
To empathy's ill-considered force
Were planning to divert the dance -
Divert the Dance!
Divert the Dance
with Demo Dances,
Demo Dances!
Demo Dances!

Then it was the turn of the politicians
To work their magic of popular logisticians
By answering the questions no one has asked
Like are we human or are we just dancers?
We are just humans
Doing democracy's dance
Democracy's Dance
Democracy's dance with
(cough, cough).

And the news reporters
With their sleep-deprived goggles
Reported in such detail
As to make one's mind boggle
Each step, each move and each deliberate error
Of democracy's dance
Democracy's dance
Democracy's dance
With Terror.

(To be Continued... on the BBC)

In the dour ages
Of drafty cells and draftier castles,
Of dragons breathing without the frame of fables,
Saint and king unfisted obstruction's knuckles
By no miracle or majestic means,

But by such abuses
As smack of spite and the overscrupulous
Twisting of thumbscrews: one soul tied in sinews,
One white horse drowned, and all the unconquered pinnacles
Of God's city and Babylon's

Must wait, while here Suso's
Hand hones his tack and needles,
Scouraging to sores his own red sluices
For the relish of heaven, relentless, dousing with prickles
Of horsehair and lice his ***** *****;
While there irate Cyrus
Squanders a summer and the brawn of his heroes
To rebuke the horse-swallowing River Gyndes:
He split it into three hundred and sixty trickles
A girl could wade without wetting her shins.

Still, latter-day sages,
Smiling at this behavior, subjugating their enemies
Neatly, nicely, by disbelief or bridges,
Never grip, as the grandsires did, that devil who chuckles
From grain of the marrow and the river-bed grains.

shirelles
monday night
alone in a big house
light the candles
another one of my rituals
born one hour,
dead the next
to make room
for other
prayers
postures
pen tips
but the way candles
flicker in the sweet
soul
is not another ritual
warm life
to the tune of golden
notes
swimming through
once bleak
     once empty
once impure
       air
and suddenly, I am baptized
more than I ever was
in that sterile, dead
chlorine
    more than spent hymns
in drafty cathedrals
       so, the sound lives.


my bed would tilt
           at twelve years old
I'd wake
               startled of the
                       psychic death
spread like bodies after
            a paid for war
I'd scream like the cats
              fighting by the window
at my aunts house
               I would huddle with
my childhood
                     hiding from the puberty
that stalked me
like a jungle cat
               the mind reeled with
my spent pulse and
                 at night
                        under shamed
                   covers
                                 bitten fingertips
the white light
           on the street
                              looking on

Quiet crickets.

Quiet light of moon

Quiet cars along the road
--Go'n be home soon

Quiet AC on too late
Quiet humming charger in the outlet
Quiet bathroom 'cross the hall, water dripping from the faucet

Quiet floors while set'ling in
You're too old for all that whinin'
Quiet creatures awake before the sun
The signals when it's shinin'

Quiet indistinguishable shadow still yet so foreboding
Oh, you're just a pile of clothes that I never got to folding

Quiet drafty window singing with such vigor and such soul
Catch a chill from that night air
Might catch a runny nose

Quiet thoughts-that handsome stranger, worries, deadlines, dreams, 'n stuff
Quiet bedtime playlist streaming
Clearly you were'nt good enough

Quiet poem bursting from me my
Admonition of defeat

quiet quiet.

too much quiet-

quiet, would you let me sleep?

2:46am 8.30.18

The doorbell rang sharply
I threw off my blanket by the door
I answered to two high school kids
"Could you donate to the poor?"
"We're taking cans, and money"
" clothing, gloves and jackets too"
"Is it in your heart to help us"
"can we get something from you?"
I said "Come back tomorrow"
"I'm a little short you see"
"I'll be home from work directly"
"You can come here after three"
They smiled, "see you later"
said the tall one with the hat
"We'll be back again tomorrow"
And I thought, that was that
I closed the door behind them
Went back and I sat down
I was reading by the fireside
Wrapped in an old dressing gown
The heat was off in most rooms
The house was small, and drafty too
I had to heat it with the fire
Or lose my heat all up the flue
I had no cash for cable
A computer? not a chance
I could barely pay the mortgage
I was in bad circumstance
The job I'd had forever
At least since I left school
Was gone now, plant was shuttered
They closed the old Majestic Tool
Three hundred sixty workers
Most had been there all their life
As had been their fathers
It's where I met my wife
She left me when they closed up
Got an offer to head west
I told her take the offer
I told her "I think it's for the best"
She hasn't called in eighteen months
I got the papers for divorce
I figured, I can't afford to call her
So, it's just par for the course
I trip around the town by day
Getting meals where they are free
In a town as poor as we are
It's not a real strange sight to see
There is no work around here
I'll have to move within a year
If things don't soon get better
I'll try to stay real close to here
The morning after last night
You know, the one I spoke about
Where the kids came out collecting
And I pretended I was out
of food and cash and clothing
didn't have a dime to spare
I would have loved to help a little
But I didn't really dare
A can of food would last two days
Spaghetti, maybe three
Although I  wanted to contribute
I need these things for me
I went into the foodbank
The morning after the night before
I would get my Christmas hamper
Along with others, walking poor
I'd take it home, unpack it
And when the kids came by at three
I would give them, at least something
My word meant a lot to me
I didn't have a lot of things
Not much was left at all
But, my word, was worth a fortune
I'd be there when they called
In the back, out of my vision
While I signed and took my box
Was one of the two students
Sorting through some coats and socks
I took off with my treasure
Set to donate when they came
I was robbing Peter to pay Paul
It was such a silly game
The boy went to the counter
He checked my address in the book
He then went to see the head man
He wanted him to take a look
He told him of their visit
How he recognized my face
He realized how much it hurt me
To be reliant on this place
They talked about my visit
And they saw my need was real
And they talked amongst the others
with elvish, Christmas zeal
I was waiting for the doorbell
Had two cans, and a small coat
When the doobell rang, I answered
There was four boxes and a note
Vacant space, they must have run
They had to be close by
What I saw there boxed before me
Well, it made this grown man cry
Instead of coming for donations
They knew how hard it was for me
They had brought along some blankets
And lots of food, for free
I picked the note up gingerly
I was still shaking from the tears
It said "Merry Christmas Mr. Watson"
"and Have a Happy, Safe New Year".

mooshed up stubs of cigarettes swell in flooded ashtrays,
like fishies who gave up swimming to skim the surface,
belly first.
everything looks ancient when the sunlight is a muted grey.
this is not my home.
clouds part momentarily,
and a slice of off-white jet stream gets enveloped by a crying sky;
someone said, "you won't grow if you don't weep."
well, don't weep for me.
the smell of wet dirt,
wet leaves,
and wet concrete
waltz in through the drafty windows,
leading the parade of nostalgia breaking me down.
why in the **** did i ever grow up.
now it's rent checks,
passed-due notices,
and borrowing money so that the dogs can finally eat.
this isn't the 'me' i once loved.
i was a fearless leader of the rain-coat regime,
leading a fleet of one-thousand wax-paper sail boats to victory
over the tyranny of the rain gutter.
i was brave then.
a renegade cowgirl of the final frontier,
adorned in costume jewelry and mud stained over-alls.
i built ships to shred the sky,
and bring home my mother all of saturn's hula-hoop rings,
and every bouncy-ball on mars.
she always said my treasures were worth millions;
but i didn't want the money, then.
i wanted adventures.
with dirt roads and ***** toads and sandwiches smashed to ****
by rouge apples set in the cooler.
i wanted to hold the map,
and the compass,
and feel like the captain of our red-desert sea.
i wanted to see for myself everything that the horizon had to give me.
see,
at that age,
i knew i'd live forever.
but at this age,
i know i'm bound to slowly die.
i'd give every penny to my name
to get back to the days
where even the rain didn't stop me from playing.
to when "dressing like a princess" entailed mom's red apron,
dad's harley davidson cap,
and little brother's rain boots.
i haven't felt like a princess since.
i just feel like a failure,
and it hurts.
i don't even know where i learned the word,
but i promise,
i regret it.
so i'll wish on this cheap bottle of whiskey,
and the glass that i'll drink from,
to go back.
to be five again.
to be set next to my mother's type writer,
whispering the words to the newest tall-tale i'd woven,
and watching her type out my dreams for me with her perfectly slender fingers,
one sticky key at a time.
it always sounded just like rain drops.

Here come those drafty air follicles of madness
That makes me want you again
Like a drug seduced elixir
Oh tie me up with your insanity
So we can do it all again
Unwrap me from this loneliness
To melt in peace sustained
Like a drug seduced elixir
Won’t you tie me up again?
I want love to be a seed of invisibility
To wash me dry and clean
Like glistening oil on suntan skin
Let it heat me up and soak all in
Oh tie me up with your insanity
So we can do it all again
Unwrap me from this loneliness
To melt in peace sustained
Like a drug seduced elixir
Won’t you tie me up again?

The long bleak halls that bear surprise,
of mirrored shadows' invisible eyes;
Cast visions that will soon repent,
from illusive dreams' opaque fragments.

The drafty corridors in frigid cold,
where icy shards loom large and bold;
A mansion where no one knows his place,
exuding its echoes from time and space.

Perhaps the wayward hours will appear,
holding to account these walls of fear;
While they search for evil's antidote,
the complexity of answers remain remote.

Yet hopeful images still seem at play,
as smiles overshadow those paths of gray;
Conquered souls are willed to start anew,
when destiny's light shines into view.

As witness to evolving notions here,
once the winding road becomes so clear;
Are glorified by heaven's pearly gate,
from captivated souls consumed with faith.

You left nothing, only the Stevens book
That read:  There is not nothing, no, no never…

Nothing and a yellow bicycle:
Two tires on a rickety frame.

When I do pick up a poem,
It’s to hear the gravel cadence of you,

Softer, informed by everything that spins:
A world, a bicycle, a chestnut tumbling

Downhill the city’s painted a roadside path,
My collarbone’s begun to mend.

The house gets drafty late afternoons
So I learn to cook:

Turmeric, cayenne. Hing & coriander.  
cardamom. Cumin & mustard seeds.

Hing’s a pungent flower called asafetida
And corriander’s just cilantro.

Icy fingers spindle wheels on window panes.
I leave the teakettle to boil.

Spokes of trees shiver in the silverish dusk
Taking lessons from everything bare,

I let in the cold to hear
No stones turned in the drive.

Some people prefer
to be frozen.

Ignore the whispers
of the warmth.

I have escaped.

Release the tensions
of your denials
Into your awkward smile.

Should my anticipation run and hide when the air so cold runs dry. My mind is a wonder in this ponder your hand feeds me. Some reason my heart says you're not a least bit overwhelmed, as I set myself up, but this I can't help to rely on free will and dwell. As I relate to the sun spots that reflect the conscious of hell we rebel, I sit back, trying to relax, staring through the tinted lens for time to pass. I reveal through the condensation, the eye of the drafty wind.

My mind wonders as I see the inevitable piercing reason for life bleed through the trees, quickly catch my eye. My heart races mystically to the beat of epilepsy as the hours surpass behind this sun glass. As I get to thinking, you remind me of the constellations breading, metaphorically speaking. The halo is gorgeous as your amber glows the Tuesday moon, bringing in a Wednesday revenge. I listen for a perfect circle to a perfect gratitude of the lust we all share in a wanted haunting spiraling into a Fibonacci themed sea.

Your strawberry kiss gathers a thesaurus of mood swings. It's heart carries a stone the size of the moon. Pity from far but a sight to see as the circle of life surrounds the familiar meaning of how much you mean to me. Only somehow, I find myself feeling like a LCD movie scene, Incomplete and all alone or like a childhood never ending story of love. Boring and make believe.

Some days I can't remember, some days I would like to forget. Like when lovers split into million's of pieces, we deal with it. I pirate about as my mates call me out as I blacken into fading out. A cool breeze to cold chill spinal tap heart attack buried deep in my bones like a diamond in the ruff, protected damaged goods. Keep me in mind, my fractal eye, frame this sight, picture it twice, what you see is what you find. (needs work)

Finding myself blind I'm reminded all the time, I'm bloodshot dry trying not to show you why the need to express my feelings. My reasons why are believed lies. With just one look, no second guess. You'll see my regret. You'll see me die a little in sight. The half heart you shared the day I felt it would matter, I felt I would care...

I would reside my life just to keep you near of a grateful insight. Standing in line waiting to see you see my side. I found my peace in between the daisies and the trees. You had fit the dream of being complete embraced me, to let it be. Hesitation aside I would rewind my life just to keep you close by, but the patterns we can't hide from this manifested tide. A rush of love a loss of touch. We reach for the sky but the stars just keep pushing high as we keep stretching our time here, it's all we have, is space.

Upon waking yesterday morn, the temperature was 8 degrees;
cancellation of events and slippery icy roads, disliking winter!
T'was out driving and dealing with the limited visibility; freezing.
Wasn't fun maneuvering usually two lane streets; turned one.

I'm sitting here wide awake and staring at ice crystal windows,
went to bed last night, temperature was frigid sub zero; No joke!
The furnace had a busy night keeping this old drafty house warm.
My cute little budgie who "was" chirping, is now sleeping on perch.  

Giving a memory of yesterday brief thought and still find it funny.
Went shopping after losing the debate of exiting a warm vehicle.
Over heard a conversation regarding me, based on the "assumed".
The two ladies(without a doubt) read what's posted on net sites.

Standing in the next aisle, ears slightly alert, hearing my full name.  
Should I walk up to say, "hello!" or tell them to mind own business?
Found it amusing and a bit flattering, despite negative words used.
Did they see me enter the store or did they even care that I heard?

If I were indeed the "rumored" witch, I'd melt every inch of snow.
Why did these villagers "presume" I'm holder of necromancer's card?
Defective reasoning of me practicing "voodoo" and casting many spells.
A bit of food for thought; It's one-dimensional and illogical thinking.

halfway home from
that concrete-bowl arena
teeming (heaving) with
stinky-sweat-soaked rednecks
layered in sawdust and grease

      a messy blackface mob
      spreading spit tobacco
      over their naked bones,
      they sneak around
      through the drafty back hallways
      casually scattering
      dad’s old shotgun shells
      fresh cigarette ash
      mamma’s whiskey labels
      and let-this-be-broken pregnancy tests.

      rusty dogtags clink together
      sliding between camouflaged denim
      mocking quick African rhythms

      circular saws scream over
      the echoing footfalls of
      steel-toed boots padded with
      suspicious glances

and my lonely power lines
are laying lazy across the
sweet, forgiven sky

honeysuckle weep
as they hug the barbed-wire  

the sunset smells something like grace

Like sugar from a shaker, snow falls on Saul the baker
delivering steamy biscuits from the shop he calls his home
to a drafty run down mansion where the princess on her pension
can be testy with her tension, hence she's living on her own.

Today he took her order, "One fresh bagel, for a quarter
'cause I haven't seen the likes of one since I left my childhood home".
Well he'd never baked a bagel, but he's not one to finagle
and wanting just to please her, finds a recipe from Rome.

And he's thinking to himself, "I must be way out of mind~
no woman's gonna want a baker's life"
but he carries deep inside his heart, the will to be a friend
hoping someday she will come around and one day be his wife.

So to win her deep affection he packs up his best confection
takes his chances on the back roads, now iced over in the storm.
Finds her waiting in the foyer with her thrifty 5 cent lawyer
complaining 'bout the day old bread and... "this bagel isn't warm!"
So..... he heats it on the fire, 'cause her heart is his desire
but she won't accept the bagel for it's not quite the right form

And he's thinking to himself, "I must be way out of mind
no woman gonna want a baker's life"
but he carries deep inside his heart, the will to be a friend
hoping someday she will come around and one day be his wife.

So he runs back to his bagel board and pounds the dough and rolls a cord
and shapes the perfect circle to a bagel lovers dream,
He boils and then he bakes it and to her mansion then he takes it
piping hot but now she wants it with churned butter from fresh cream!

Well he's starting to get antsy but he knows the farmer, Clancy
whose butter is fresh-churned and known by counties far and wide.
He heads out to the pasture and he buys what he is after
and returns to find, 'tis so unkind, the princess, she had died.

The baker in his stricken state swallows the bagel off the plate
he calls the cops, pulls out the stops and serves the day old bread.
He gives the details more than once of how he ate the evidence
and though he thought his story bought, they arrested him instead.

"Tis a likely story", was the only thing he heard
although they'd bought his baked goods, they could not buy his word.
"The Baker is a Butcher", is what the tabloid said,
"better to take your bagel cold than take it in the head."

But all was not as it appears, she owed the butcher in arrears
and when they went to check her craw they found a hunk of mutton.
It ended all without a trial, the butcher he did reconcile
and posted "Pay the butcher now and do not to be a glutton."

And Saul was thinking to himself, " I must be way out of mind",
no woman's gonna want a baker's life",
but he carried deep inside his heart the will to be a friend
and it turned rather nicely as she willed him in the end.

Should my anticipation run behind, when the air so cold runs dry? My mind is a wonder in this ponder ahead of me. For some reason my heart says you're a bit overwhelmed but I can't help but rely on will dwell.
Some of the sun spots reflect the conscious of hell we rebel. The eye of the drafty wind. My mind wonders as I see the sun bleed, my heart sinks as the hours pass. You remind me of the constellations breading. The halo is gorgeous as your amber glows the Tuesday moon bringing in the Wednesday revenge, a perfect circle to a perfect gratitude of the lust we shared in a wanted haunting. Your strawberry kiss gathers my mood swings. It's heart carries a stone the size of the moon. Pity from far but a sight to see the circle of life surrounds the familiar meaning of how much you mean to me. Some days I can't remember some days I would like to forget. When lovers split into million pieces call me out as I blacken into fading out the cool breeze cold chill spinal tap heart attack buried deep in my bones a diamond in the ruff. My fractal eye frame this sight picture it twice keep me in mind what you see is what you find. Finding myself blind I'm reminded all the time. I'm bloodshot dry Trying not to cry. My reasons why are believed lies. with just one look no second guess. You'll see my regret. You'll see me die a little in my sight. the half heart you shared the day I felt I would care... I would reside my life just to keep you near of a grateful insight. Standing in line waiting to see you see my side. I found my peace you had fit the feeling of being complete embraced me. to let it be. hesitation aside I would rewind my life just to keep you close by, but the patterns we can't hide from this manifested tide. A rush of love a loss of touch we reach for the sky but the stars just keep pushing high as we keep stretching our time is space.

rain drips from the dead limbs of trees & i think about those old monsoons. the road trip was dead silent this time. those two years were a storm. he said we're going back home, i said my body's tired of making homes out of empty houses. my final house with him was drafty & small. i'm moving out but i'm done trying to find home. all i remember was how his chokehold blossomed into warm embrace.

i was 15 when Kokopele knocked me up
and i was ripe, though unready --
every day i visited my spot
at first to relieve, but then to sate allure --
invisibly appeared,
mysterious pleasure day and night
throbbing at the thought
of that strange spot.
i clawed to sate in dream
what goddess women understand
in noontide reveries,
sultry swells of swoon
i don't know how my belly grew
was it at that drafty wall
or by the reeds..
there were several spots it seems.
i am ashamed
i was told to be ashamed
of this belly i love, and body
cravings carved into my soul,
covert sudden lusts
set in stone at 50,
children grown and making music of their own,
in tents along the streams'
comingled murmur moans,
he visits each in turns
to teach the spiral dance
and finish in the seeded womb.
flowers glow to settle racing heart with truth
infant recognition of an origin's choiceless birth
and now, i am in force --
become katcina cougar, proud Kokopelmana:
the role is taken by the horn --
eat my cornmeal cakes
with crooked somiviki smile while i make you mine
you can scatter but i will find you hiding
purring soft to catch you firm --
every boy and man will learn







.

I shiver
here
in this foreign, drafty room -
so sleepy -
feeling hollow,
alone and empty,
my thoughts drift to you.

Inside this ballroom,
off in the corner,
I feel my face start to
flush and flame,
and from my heart,
warmth start to radiate.
No longer cold but smiling.

All from
the simple thought
of you.

Our bed is the prayer rug where I found God.

Yeah, THE God –

Not circumnavigating morality
Or bones of old saints
Lonely illusions of the sad and middle-aged
All Fat Tuesday freakshows in comparison

Our bed is the altar of sacred rites –

Marked with the devil’s ******* Sharpie
And the intricately crocheted lace of sin
Nightly baptized in warm, honey-coated nothing
Pink patterns of iron and salt on linen

Painted idols on the shrine –

Absolution pours through drafty windows
Older than our bodies
Glass frosted by years without suds
Only rain

A holy city of yours and mine –

With gentle pyro ways
Stone and mortar become flame
The balustrades collapse
You light candlewicks with your fingertips

you blew a hole through my chest
with your shotgun smile
as i sipped from a cup
of ruin and destruction.
maybe that's how i contracted pneumonia
on the seventeenth of september
and maybe that's why my lungs are corroding
and my voice is gone.
because there's a hole in my chest
the size of you
and it's drafty today
as the wind whistles through me
singing a song
that sounds like crying.

*(a.m.c.)

“Your flowers are blooming!”
“Really?”
Yes

You may think you’re a wildflower
Left to rot
Die
Be eviscerated
But i know your worth
I can show you the world
Of love, and diamonds, and rubies, my love
Tear your heart just to build it back up
This is how you learn
Continuous improvement is the name of the game
Everything shallow you hold has a price to pay
My girls not angry, shes not upset
Shes just looking for a metaphor to channel her emotions into
Something that makes sense
I could dig up the entire graveyard to find bones for you
Your necrophilia would still not cease to be satiated
Seethe, grin, master
Thats the name of the game you are after
I love you, dont you know that
Why cant you see how much you mean to me
Every time you say my name, i feel raw to the bone
The nakedness feels alert, on edge, on spice
But you deal with chicken and rice
Did you get that meal for free?
Im just worried ill be too hung up over you to know what went wrong
What could have gone right, what could have stayed strong
DOMS, that is whats happening right now
But who cares about the love stories of a girl from a gritty old city
One day i will turn to dust, but im a fool to think my words will remain
It doesnt make sense, no, it never will
Why we give our hearts to the ones who will never love us back

I remember the slamming screen doors,
the rattle of the stained glass monster,
and the drafty shadowed nights beneath chenille bedspreads.
 
I remember the sun soaked cloak room with its reek of wet woolen mittens,
the un-impeded flight down stairs in tomato basket bobsleds,
and the bouncing at the bottom in a frenzy of strawberry carpet burns.

I remember church bingo basements smoky on Friday nights,
Saturday morning sounds from her kitchen,
and a mile of sulfur dusted sidewalk in between.
 
I remember the damp musty smell of the low lit basement,
the passing of Black Label beer through semi-circle windows,
and the nauseating hangover from Mogen David wine kept in the cellar.
 
I remember hearing how they kicked in the door while she slept and beat her
and took her things, her rings, the gifts from my grandfather,
and how she stubbornly refused to leave the home my mother was born in.

A half century book ended on one end by the great depression,
which she survived,
on the other end the kicked in door
which she did not.
 
I remember my mother’s wavering voice when she told me she was dead,
how Uncle Ed found her sitting in her chair, rosary beads wrapped
around arthritic hands.
 
I remember hot on the left and cold on the right,
the smell of her sweat,
the breeze off the lake,
the creak of the old steam radiator,
and the way she slept in her chair with her mouth wide-open.
 
The way Uncle Ed found her.

I.
Please give me shelter
from the rain and snow
Give me a place
where I may grow.
I'll mend you up,
make you look new.
Strike a fire in your hearth
and make those coals really glow.
All I need is some solace,
and a place of sanctuary.
I dearly need to get out
of the rain and snow.

II.
Grant me to watch the roses
creep along your stoney walls;
you look so ravishing
sitting abandoned in these feilds.
There is Perfection in your windows,
Triumph in your thatched roof,
Wisdom in the worn walkway
leading to your door.
I see love in your sturdy structure,
And as those roses grow up you,
you grow more upon me....

III.
The seed of my affection
becomes a burning infatuation.
I've plummeted into a
great sea of flames
contorting and licking and biting and twisting
pulling at me like the waves
caressing your near by shores.
I long only to stroke the stones
of your existance, to run my hands through your dirt
and through your grass.
I long only to exemplify you, worship you
To me- this home, this shrine, this temple,
you are omnipotent.
To be held above all else,
a treasure to be beheld by only myself.

IV.
As time creeps along
your walls commence to crack.
Your straw turns soggy and brown.
You are leaky and drafty.
and your door hangs crooked
as you begin to slouch and decay.
Yet, I shall stay.
I wrinkle and become stiff and grey.
I will not leave you, I refuse to stray.
For you've given me shelter,
you protected me from the snow and rain.
So for you, my love shall never wane.

This dream of consciousness will not end alarmingly,
though it leaves lines on Billo's face
smushed against pillows placed
strategically

The strategy?
To look tragically well put-together
to get her to lie in the bed I made hastily
Well - I say this, but the presentation's done tastefully:
Big blanket tucked
IN with style
OUT of luck since I've not been...
...touched in a while

I grinningly smile - it'll all be ok
(I'm not much for physical lovin' anyway)
...beyond hugging and kissing and getting to stay
for the night curled up close whispering "sweetie, sleep tight"

I've not got these dreams, but I've some aspirations
No sweetie, I'm not sweaty,
- I've no *** persperation
My room is too cold with the wind's drafty laughter
My bed is too cold since I've not quite yet asked her
to lie with me and lie to me that she is the one
and I will be won over,
over-nighting done right
...
Left to the imagination, day-dreaming's my vision
Pigeon-holing my gamboling gambling rambling
Not quite in shambles, see?
I get it: regretting is letting me settle into misery
"Mysterio the (not-so) great" is dutifully bound to wait
Patience is love doctors' medication - "Just wait!" they prescribe
and in time their patients' trepidation will end.

Inner peace outer space and I pace.
(without her face to grin at)
synapse fired
for nodding off on the job

**** awake, up for work
Woken, spurred
on toward spoken word
March forwards - four words
Reverse reverie never hurt
"But I don't dream!" I think
Does it stop me from trying?
From lying to and by myself,
in doubt in a drought
Good - buy myself a drink:
rootbeer, two shots of espresso
let's go, caffeine-Billo tag team
on the rocks, off the clock
(talk about self-deprecation, why don't you)
Chew on the cubes with contextual frustration
The drink's gone, I think long and hard at long last
ARRRG I yell in a fit mentally I'll
sleep on it.

my bed became a sanctuary of nothingness.   But I fear emptiness.  Its close.  A paralysis of indecision permeates like frigid winter through drafty walls.  I decide to sleep in.  

Occasionally turning to see the clock- minutes, hours pile up like ***** dishes.

During broad daylight, the distant noise of a cessna impedes into my room, defining a vast separation.  One, maybe two people up there have an interesting life, an important destination.  Listening to their flight gives me something to do.  When they are gone, I have nothing left but a fingerprint stained glass of water.

By late afternoon, the lost day vaguely disturbs like seeing one shoe on a highway.  
Either painful or a waste, nothing good about it.  

Finally light dims.  A broken clock is right twice in a day, but since I'm the one who stopped, the clock catches up with my uselessness in bed.
The period on the sentence that I have, truly, accomplished nothing.  

Darkness justifies my nap.  A relief as I can finally end the day with some sleep.

I dream of being infinite, traversing the universe a narrow beam of light.  You pass me by a little faster, but turn around so we can create time together, to become here.

I dream of when we camped by a river's waterfall.  Half awake my eyes can see the tent filled with soft green light.  No light source but bright enough to see by, everything in the tent and you sleeping peacefully. Logic corrects me, says it a New Moon and I shouldn't be able to see anything.  My eyes agree and slowly darken, blind to the color of love's aura that I can still feel.

I wake.  Pour one bowl of cereal instead of two, remembering when you looked up from breakfast and said, "let’s ride our bikes across the country," just like that.  And just like that we did, halfway anyway.  1500 miles was just the beginning.  I love the places you take me.

I call you up.  "Let's not call them dealbreakers, ok?"

inhale
exhale
skin breathes
your scent envelopes me
i'm choking on every word that
i've never said and i begin
to spit shattered shards
of thoughts into the
palms of my
hands
and this is
when you notice
me heaving and you
roll over onto your other
side facing the steady walls
so you can be a 33 year old man with no
attachment to an 18 year old who mistakenly
emptied herself into your salivating, ravenous
mouth and you inhaled me with such
pleasure it almost had me thinking
that perhaps i mistook your
distance for sadness
as soon our time
holed up in the
nostalgia
of your home town
would come to an end
and maybe your feelings grew
much taller than even our abhorring of
love and strings being tied to you and
anyone else but i think now i understand
that inside of you is a tragic, drafty cavern
filling it all the way up with every thing you're
not has become such a habit that when your wolf-like
eyes rested upon something youthful and impressionable
it was simply second nature for you to devour all of me and
then leave me with a cavern of my own, you know i've seen
a mirror since we had to part ways and if i hadn't known
any better i would've said that i've started to grey
around the edges and my teeth looked rather
sharp, if i looked a little closer i may have
even said there was a canine-like
resemblance that now suits me
beautifully, naivety is dead.

her name was Grace
daughter of the school's nurse
but in the sophomore locker room
after phys ed the boys called her Tubesock
because she was
known to take a foot or more into
her superhuman mouth from time to time
& my time was a quiet wednesday afternoon
when school let out early
for a faculty meeting & no one
was left in the administrative wing
except their children

"I want you to possess me"
she led me a trembling ape
into a medical supplies closet
full of gauze & the scent of latex
(the latter curiously adding girth to my ******* for years since)
i must've been dreaming or
i'd found the ideal mixture
of breakfast
vitamin capsules
& perfect stride during my daily phys ed mile
because good god she was down on her little red knees
incredible mouth already on **** through pants
unbuttoning them swiftly with one hand
actual tongue
actual girl
actual sweet lips
actual ****
which she then quickly released
from a too-small sports bra
during the hardening of the meat slug
slipping it smiling in/out of her mouth-soul
in my head i could only hear
synths
screaming saxophones
bass drums
maracas
permeating percussion rhythm
the closet a dark conch shell
resonating shifting vibrating
like the uncarpeted floor of a dance hall

proud, brave Tubesock taking my pink *****
in as far as it would go
radiating like a sun
teeth to tonsil
cheek to collarbone
with a deep southern-gospel choral hum
vertical as a sword-swallower
performing under a streetlamp horizon
my legs silent & stiff as she sang into it
glancing up at me at the base
making the smallest choking sound/lady like
fumes of her own ****** arousal blooming/flower like
into my nostrils from her scarlet tights
her left hand
holding my coin purse/doorknob like
gently pulling twisting kneading
her right hand
inside her own self
seeking a fire or some source of heat
in the drafty dark closet

when i came too quickly
(still a victory in my mind)
shooting my cannon smoke
into the midnight of her mouth
adrenalin shivering in my shoulders and throat
my hand locked around a lock
of her crimson hair
she unplugged herself & without wasting a drop
smiled back up at me
returned the unstiffened dagger to the
cold nest of my boxer briefs
but kept kneeling in the dark closet
split in half by the thin crack of light i created
as i emerged among the sound of seven hundred bells
to kiss the soul of revolution
a brand new too-tall man holding a lamb
bigger than god himself
standing on steel pistols for legs
shouting cursing beating my breast
under the sharp fluorescent light of a high school highway

I step outside

just in time, Father

for the leaf to fall from the tree

and the air is much too nipping, and biting,
and apple-pie
for me to hide from it

please, tell me a story,
all about it
about how the world ends and Your foot goes a

"stomp!"

over on the olive mount

and no more doors ever close like
sesame
sesame
sesame
ses—

I go along with things
just as if they are meant to be

and when autumn's chill catches
I hope to have You sewn onto my sleeve

not that I'd ask You to shrink for me
though I know that You would dare to do so,
and have
and prob'ly will again

and I can walk the earth like You
with intention in my feet and it will be so

meant
to
be

when the sun is just an augur
I hope to be sewn onto Your sleeve

and I can drop and fall like an autumn leaf,
and spring up again in the next wind You breathe

You bend down to hear
a calm in the torrential,
praying me a good prayer
unproved to me yet, but I know it

it's inclemence and drafty doors
and hot cinnamon in apple-pie

4/30/17

A cheetah speckled woman
With long curly red hair
Invited me to a bean shaped cushion
In her studio apartment.
her keys jingled in the closing door
Sealing us, a hot red room.

"Love is creepy"
She says, sinking into
Her candy apple bean shaped cushion

I am a watcher.
When We met, She was in her natual habitat.
A coat tail of men,
I admired how oblivious they were
to being faceless goons.
watched her direct them
like an ***** desperate orchestra.
My back against a wall,
Smoking a cigarette.

Now, I'm in this studio apartment
Again, I am a ******.
She tells me stories
Of bad tinder dates
as I survey the strung up Christmas lights
Posters of Marilyn monroe.
Teenage quotes of aspiration.
"Be unapologeticly you"

She smiles at my ignorance to her body.
I am not ignorant by any means
Only respectful
I notice her smirk at me swing around
Leaning into shelves of pottery and art supplies.
flying around with a clipped wing.

"Will I be a poem?" She asks.
"You're right. Love is creepy."

I pull wine out of my bag and place it on the counter, put Chicken and vegetables in the fridge.
She turns on Netflix and asks
"whaddaya wanna watch?"
"bird documentaries"
i say,
an effort to incite her own decision.
domestically,
A bird documentary starts to play.
I gloss over a smirk at my failure
We share wine meditating to the sounds of
Bad Voiceovers and chirping

We are the card dealers of moments
hourglass columns
sand falling where art should be carved.
fractures of timelessness stacked like
Jenga blocks
each sip of wine a ritualistic dymensia
blackjack tables with no dealer
just a bartender

We watch an owl puke up mouse bones
"Owls are Creepy."
We agree.
witness to me, is indulgence
silk strings pull my heart towards exhibitionists
When she changes to A pink robe
Textured to compliment my heart strings
the singsong of birds chirping.
provides an exotic baseline for her sway.

I stare at her body.
"My love is creepy" I say
pressing thumbs to divets in her hips
I am slave on her shadows
My hands trace contours
follow my worship eyes
"I like the attention" she says

In the morning
drafty eyes part

whisper From swirling pink elephant dazes
smiling at me.
the soft moans of her night
the reason I started dealing cards.
an addiction to that moment.
the reason I turn the hourglass.
the wide green foggy eyes
Watching me stare back.
stretching like a cat
who plays with the bird
brings it to it's master as a gift
limp and submissive,
Perhaps she is the bird.
Sunken to the curves of the bed.
a limp beautiful body
the most honest and intentionless fracture
love is creepy.
I am a watcher
ask only that you exist.
Existing is equally as creepy.
we have fingers
thoughts
consequences.
So why not stare at a part you want to keep?
Why not write it down for others to fly?
so many beautiful things are never seen
Oppurtunity wasted for fear of being creepy
Fear of love.
fear of cats
Fear of birds
when I stare I capture
When I write, you stare
love is creepy.
we are creepy.
birds are creepy
be my creepy love bird.
peace dove
fly with me, if for a moment.
and stare down at everything while we can see it
I want to see everything with you
For now I see you in everything.
Photoshop you into my dreams
Imaginary
Love is for the birds anyway.

harvest hearth softly glowing
stone cold beneath weary feet
to winter between drafty walls
to recall what it is to feel

diminished window of light
door shut against inclemency
to slumber and dream without
to lose and find self within

time is ripe for apparitions
so unexpectedly haunting
cloaked in familiarity
heartflutteringly intrusive

daydreams are her elixir
scent of tea, turf, baked porter
dusted in peat ash patina
awakening dormant senses

...an invitation to a nice, soft night

A brokenness is in us
Like a window
Never closed;
Drafty and meddlesome
When it rains,
But at least the sun
Always finds its way in
And least we remember
That we are more
Than our flaws -
We are also the light
That shines through them.