He’s not how I remembered him
All charming, tall and handsome
He’s podgy, dull and boring
His cockiness has left him

I nearly started snoring
When he told a story
He’s also going baldy
He’s lost his crowning glory.

I’m not saying he’s not charming
He’s sort of…in a way
But not the man I dreamt of
He’s definitely away!

He’s jaded, tired and bitter
There was no spark or flutter
He asked me if we’d meet again?
“Not sure?” I think I muttered.

Who is that? Oh just another dreamboat sailing away...
The third time isn't always charming

I need to know something. I don’t know if you want to tell me or not, but I really don’t care. You’re gonna tell me or you’re gonna find yourself in a world of trouble. I’m already ****** and it won’t take much to push me over the edge into dangerously angry territory.

No, **** it. Never mind. I’m ALREADY in “dangerously angry territory”. No, it wasn’t your fault. I was already close enough I could see the other side of reason before you came along.

But it would still be nice to know, if you’re willing to tell me. I mean, I’m not going to force it from you. That was the plan just a moment ago, but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided that my bitterness is not your fault. I won’t make you pay for it.

Yet I do feel as if it would do me a world of good to know.

Where were you when I was falling in love?

Were you sitting in a back seat of a crowded subway train with a cup of Starbucks coffee in one hand and a copy of “The Catcher in the Rye” in the other, holding it in front of your face as if it’s pages were a fascinating mirror? Was there an old man sitting near who turned to look at you every so often to the point where it creeped you out? Maybe you eventually said something to him, like “Excuse me, but is there something you wanted to say to me?"

“Why would you get that idea?” he would ask, as if he were totally oblivious to his invasive nature.

“I don’t know…you just keep looking at me and I wondered if there were a reason for it.”

“Nope. Not that I can think of.”

Did you smack him real good right then? Did you draw blood? I hope you did. I hope the driver had to stop the train to come back and drag you off of him. It would have been a real drag if the police had to be summoned, but on the other hand, wow, how ****** the thought of you resisting arrest.

Or did you cower into your corner, turn a page in your book and let the lecherous ******* carry on? I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. I don’t think that’s the kind of girl you are. I think you’re a firecracker.

And I think that wherever you were when I was falling in love is not where I wanted you to be. Not where you should have been.

Because I fell in love with a robot. Who knows why I fell in love with an ottoman? I didn’t know she was one at the time. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to fall in love with a machine? No, she was flesh and bones when I met her. She seemed normal, like all the other women I’ve ever seen or known.

But then she started smoking cigarettes. She carried them around in a little soft leather pouch that could be mistaken for nothing else but a case for holding the little *******.

God I hate cigarettes. I hate the smell of them, whether they’re lit or not. I hate the dark tan color of their filters with the little white dots speckled randomly. I hate the cotton that stuffs their filters. I hate the white paper with the almost imperceptible stripes banding around their length. I hate how the brand is stamped close to the base of the filter. I hate the packages that they come in and the cellophane that wraps them. I hate how stray flecks of tobacco gather in the bottom of the boxes and the wrappers, too. I hate how they make a person’s breath stink. I hate how they make a person’s clothes reek. I hate the way they look in a shirt pocket. I hate the way they look between people’s fingers and in their mouths. I hate the way they burn down to the nub and the ash that they leave behind. I hate pitch black nicotine stains on ******* smokers’ hands. I hate the way some people put one between their ear and noggin and actually think it makes them look cool. I hate how smokers seem to have some code of sharing, how it’s always “Hey, can I *** a smoke from you?” and 99 times out of 100 the answer is “sure”. It’s never, “Okay, but you gotta pay me back.” Oh no, Smoker’s Karma is at work here. I hate the way too many people call ‘em “smokes”. “I’m off to get a pack of smokes.” Good God, I think that’s lame. “Smokes”. Ha. I hate the way smokers ***** about laws that prohibit them from smoking in public and how so many of them have absolutely no regard for non-smokers who not only can’t stand the smell of the ******* but would just as soon not chance even the most remote possibility of getting lung cancer caused by second hand smoke. I hate how smokers would tell that person, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The chances of that happening are one in a million.” So what? *******. ******* with your nasty cancer sticks and **** your tar-lined wheezing lungs, too. **** the death bed you will lie on when emphysema steals your last breath. **** the oxygen tanks that cost almost as much as all the cartons of cigarettes you have wasted your money on during the last who-knows-how-many years of your life. **** all your attempts to quit. **** the feeling of disappointment that overwhelms when you fail once again, as Mighty God Tobacco hugs you, strokes your wet hair, wipes the sweat from your forehead and the tears from your eyes. Sweet summer sweat. The tears of a clown.

You know what? She never smoked before. I never would have thought she would pick up that disgusting habit, but she sure as hell did. Picked it up like it was a twenty dollar bill someone lost that she found on the side of the road as she walked to the smoke shop to buy another pack of Marlboro Lights.

There’s another thing I hate about cigarettes. “Smoke Shops”. Where the value-minded smokers purchase their wares. Not “Cigarette Store”. Not “Tobacco Warehouse"…oh, no. It’s a SMOKE SHOP. You’re going to buy some smoke, brother Jim. You’re gonna spend too much money at the 7-11 and it’s all gonna go up in smoke, but by the grace of God you are gonna save a couple of bucks by purchasing them at the “Smoke Shop” instead of the convenience store. You complain until you’re blue in the face about how ridiculously high the ciggy prices are at normal retail outlets, but when you run out of ‘em and the God-blessed “Smoke Shop” is closed ‘cuz it’s Sunday you’ll drive like a madman to Love’s and blow ten bucks because there’s a “Buy Two Get One Free” special going on. What a ******* good deal that is, eh, mister?

Furthermore…CIGGYS??? I hate how people call ‘em “ciggys”. But not nearly as much as I hate the word “cigarette”. I cannot stand to speak the word. I hate the way it rolls of my tongue. I hate the way the word sounds like it means “little cigars”.

I hate the way some smokers empty out their car ashtrays in the parking lot. I hate the way all the butts look lying there in a heap, a pile of paper soaked with the spittle of a hundred different mouths. And yet the nicotine python grips some desperate smokers so tightly that they will pick them up and try to smoke the last tiny flecks of tobacco from their crushed and blackened ends. I’ve even seen people extract the remaining **** from several discarded butts, roll it all up in a Zig Zag paper and smoke it. Don’t these people even know what Zig Zag papers are for? They sure ain't for tobacco, Charter.

“Butts”. There’s another word in the smokers lexicon that just sounds silly. “Smoke ‘er down to the ****, Jack, we’ve got more!” “I don’t have an ash tray, Terry, so just put your BUTTS in that half empty soda can over there on the table”…never thinking that there might be someone else at the party who could very likely mistake that particular pop can for his own and take a mighty swig from it. Oh my God, the thought, it gags me. How nauseating it would be to feel one of those wretched things fall against your lips and…Egad…the flavor…and yet the cruel smoker will laugh at such misfortune.

****.

God help me.

She was not a robot when I met her. Oh, no, she was a beautiful, exciting, passionate loving woman with a heart of gold and a desire that was practically insatiable. Here…take a look, I have a photograph in my wallet. See what I mean? That’s right, daddy-O, she was a real dreamboat. I used to carry this picture with me wherever I went…I guess I still do, huh? But I don’t know why. I don’t know why I torture myself looking at it, remembering what was, all we had, our bright and glorious future wrecked and deserted by her newfound proclivity for smoking cigarettes. Yeah, my friend, she was a real keeper. But you know what? **** her now, y’know? Just turn her over and **** her.

But hey…perhaps I’ve been too harsh on the smoker in general (if not to her…no, not to her). Perhaps I have exaggerated a bit. After all, some of my best friends smoke. It’s their business, not mine. Never has been mine. I know that. If they knew how I felt about the whole thing, whose to say they wouldn’t tell me to ****** off and never come back? Then again, if they are so shallow as to take any of this as a personal insult, then maybe, just maybe they aren’t my friends after all. I doubt the robot would want anything more to do with me if she knew what a stalwart anti-smoker I am. But I thought she felt the same. She DID feel the same. She told me as much. Before she lost her soul. Before she started smoking cigarettes. Before she started bumming ciggys.

I got no time for changes in her life so now I ask you again…where were you when I was falling in love?

Were you sitting in a Pentecostal Holiness church on a hard pew early Sunday morning before the service began, thumbing through the hymnal, looking for one that best expressed your feelings of devotion at that point in your spiritual journey? And what would that hymn have been? “Onward Christian Soldiers”? “Peace in the Valley”? “In the Garden”? “Smoke on the Water”? “Hotel California”? Maybe some obscure Black Sabbath song tucked in at the end of the book, next to the Doxology?

Did your hair shimmer, reflected in the light that poured through the stained glass window directly behind you? Did you feel it’s heat on your neck? Did it draw out beads of perspiration there, glistening? Would you have let me lick them and taste their saltiness even in the sanctuary of the church building? Probably not. But I don’t think the idea would repulse you like it would some other bonnet headed midi-skirt wearing holy rollin’ *****.

Maybe I would have asked you outside so that you might feel a little more comfortable with what I’d had in mind.

And maybe you would have told me “no”. I couldn’t blame you for that. No, I wouldn’t. It’s only natural for a real woman to guard her integrity in situations such as this one. I could not hold that against you.

Is that where you were? I need to know. Where the hell were you when I was falling in love?

caramel macchiato flavored coffee with mint cigarette flavored kisses with your dreamboat lover is the quintessence of what i call "perfection".  if there was a way to describe the way your lips feel against mine, i could only describe it as "cigarettes and coffee".  cigarettes and coffee isn't simply consuming caffeine or inhaling tobacco in your lungs, it's sitting on the roof at 1 am looking at the stars with a blanket around the both of you.  it's laying in the grass with a slight breeze blowing making smoke rings between the arduous kisses.  it's simply sipping a vanilla latte on the corner of a new york city street with a cigarette in your hand, making swirls of smoke as more ash forms above the filter,  looking like some sort of bohemian gods. it's walking along a deserted sidewalk in your black jeans and doc martens with a big t-shirt and coke bottle sunglasses on with your lover on your hip and your menthol in one hand and philter in another.  "cigarettes and coffee" is whatever you can interpret as pure bliss; it's simply whatever makes you happy and whatever makes you want to sit in the grass all night and talk about anything and everything.  there's a lot of people that would argue there's no beauty to the feel of tobacco in your lungs and arabica in your mouth, but evidently, they've never tried cigarettes and coffee.

Each moment so meant
Each particle tickles
Soothing, yet chilling
Humbling, yet exhilarating
In this bliss I find contentment
And once again bask in my ability to understand that it is all so meant
Minty and cool
The breeze blows you this way and that way
Sway each day just to end up the same
Why do we make this some sort of a game we play?
Some sort of dream we convey
In the sea of what could be
I found you
You found me
The joy to be in this see
Oh the significance
The sign if I can see
Through all the in betweens that cloud my mind
I begin to want to fall behind
But truly I am getting ahead
I am falling into each thought, each sense, and each interaction
It is a contraction
A fraction of all, a piece to this maze that leads you to peace
To beneath your own skin, your own life, to him
To her and to us
It is all we, can’t you see
We get up and we go
Just to fold into no
We breathe in through our knows
And let go of our holds
No we can be free
Without gages, or wages, or ages
We just are
It is not far
It is right here, right now
If only you will let it
No more excuses, abuses, reuses, and unsureness
Just let it go
You reap what you sow
Think of your actions, your thoughts, and your words
They are all you have got to express how you feel
To make it all real
You are thought
You are dreams
You are sunbeams
You are infinite love and light
You are feel
It is surreal, this dreamboat we float on
It tips over and we scatter, it wrecks and we shatter
All this matter is not what matters
It comes and it goes
No need to attach or latch, it will all go, just as it came
It’s the same
This cycle is recycled and trialed
Only leading us to denial
It is time to take responsibility for what we emit
And admit and just quit the deceit
The scurrying and worrying
Just stop
Do it now
Breathe and perceive in your own way and just play
It’s okay
Do it now
Don’t put it off because you are too busy or too tired
Tomorrow I will stop
What if there is no tomorrow
Living just to borrow, existing in your own sorrow
Free yourself from yourself
You are beautiful
If you cannot believe that, then you know you are youtifull
So be youtifull, beyoutifull
It is all you have to do, is be you, exactly as you are
We are all just apiece to this puzzle
All completing each other
We are all of all
All love all!

Escapism Dream
Escapism dream
Heart crushed symphony
Strings of sound tied together by hope
This expression our only weapon to expose
All this oppression when we don’t even know the root
Our only savior each others’ demise
Oh my eyes to my soul cannot take this any longer
Spending our daze
In an oblivion maze
This haze
It pulls me into the unknown
A pool of uncertainty
All luring we
This wave
We came in on and shattered on the sure
Always needing more
Our hearts pour out of places unknown
Separation overgrown
Fumbling forward we gracefully gasp
As they take off their masks
Feeled up to our seal, time to reveal and re-feel
This ever-living ghost of what once was
Creeps through my new and leaves only fuzz
This dream quilt unraveling
The patches detaching
Yet the thread remains, it was love all along
Always sing our dream song

Union and Grand

I moved into this house less than a year ago
and already three gun related murders have occurred
within a three block radius; two of them involving children.
I'm not making this **** up.
Those numbers wouldn't be anything exciting for a population
hitting upwards of the millions,
but this is not a big city.
This is the heartland.
-
The city paid for a series of strategically placed dead ends,
forced turns, and surveillance equipment to be installed
in the area of about a mile surrounding my house.
No wonder they call this place "The Trap".
They keep changing the maze,
and studying us like rats.
-
They had a make-do memorial for the little girl who got shot.
They attached her stuffed animals, cards, and photos to a utility pole
on the corner of Union and Grand. The city had it taken down.
Some kind of city ordinance
from some dusty tome at the town hall.
Kids killing kids, and the shots keep firing.
-
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not what'd you call an activist.
But when bloodshed occurs within eye shot of where you sleep,
you start to get a little irked.
These kids have as much potential as me, and twice as much grit.
Their teachers barely even know their names,
let alone what it's like to be deprived of privilege.
-
I'll stomp this concrete until my feet break.
This labyrinth is my constant reminder and reality check.
I am here, and you are there.
This connection is suspended on silver threads and I am your puppet.
Mold me into your angst driven dreamboat.
Because tomorrow, I'm just going to wake up here. **Tyler.
-
This soul has been folded seven times
and I grow tired of this reality.
There was a time when I could scream loud enough to wake the dead.
I guess I'm showing the symptoms
of an accidental child
with a tongue that only tastes art as bitter protest.
-
I'd tear my face off
to know if this is really getting through to you.
The face in the photo is that of the goat; the false idol and deceiver.
A Knight of Pentacles, selling you gold plated garbage.
Odin-kin.
You always feel like I have a secret to keep; my fist is in the air.

I stood there patiently,  
To see the idol in red
Along with me waited a thousand
Until their feet bled…
Wishes and dreams they never have an end,
To get one granted I waited there myself.

Folks from everywhere came to see,
The deity, that blesses selflessly.
Adults, children, infants and old
Delayed my visit to the divine soul.

Among this crowd, a voice I heard.
Sweet and melodious like the cuckoo bird.
I tried to get a glimpse, of that sound
When what I saw got me astound.

An angel in pink, with eyes so brown.
Hair like midnight and face serene
Giggling and laughing she stood with her mom,
Playing with her shadow, she moved round and round.

Her innocence so delicate, just like snow.
Her smile, so cheerful she would make a dreamboat.
Anyone who seemed erupt and raged,
Would get a glance and feel calm like a sage.
.
Like the scales of a rattle snake we lined.
Slowly yet steadily towards the sacred shrine
Long and restless, like the wind we moved.
The doll came closer to where I stood.

Infants were crying and the old got tired.
Mothers were trying their best to keep calm
We were in a temple, I wondered why the alarm?
Men perspired and their phones kept ringing
Impatient they became as the wind stopped ruffling.

All this happened around that princess
She was still calm and smiling instead.
She looked around to see other kids cry
Then she saw me and waved hi.

I wanted to carry her; that little child
Her face was imprinted on my mind,
I was sure she would be lighter than air,
I admired her for the way she stared.


Wonder if she knew where she was,
Wonder where she got her patience from
Wonder when my time would come
When suddenly I realized the temple bells rung.

The queue moved faster as people barged in
The crowd got disorganized and broke the line
I pushed too and stood on my toes
With my hands joined, and my neck stretched
I tried hard to see; the divinity.

Just then next to me I felt
Something; a gentle touch I guess
I turned to see who it was
To my enchantment, there she was…

That darling stood just beside me
Carried by her mother facing the lord.
I forgot for that moment where I was
For next to me was the angel from above.

Her sparkling brown eyes kept me stunned
Her exquisite smile, oh lord I wish I was a guy!
He face so beautifully crafted not a single flaw…
She was best work of the heavens that I ever saw.

I touched her tiny hands so pink.
She smiled; I tried to get her to speak
Just when, her mother turned to me and said
“My baby; she is unsounded from birth.”

Startled I stared at that mother’s face
I could see droplets flood her almond eyes
“I heard her voice so sweet just now” (I mumbled)
“She only, just makes noise” (and passed by…)
I leered again at that child
Wondered; how could the lord be so unkind…?

Just then it struck me why I was there
I ogled again at the idol in red
With so many questions that ran in my head.
I realized then my wish was lame.
I shut my eyes and prayed with faith,

“Dear lord; take away this cruel bane
And give her a life that she would want to live,
again… and again… “

Wrought-wide eyes from catching clouds on the safety of our backs
Who's lifting who dried-up with the fossils, tucked away at Jack's
Can you capture the oily maze of Perla, Gary, Glen AND Dee?
We should cap the treasure trove. Just one shell. Alright... three.

Passenger mats drowned long ago in quartets of sandy shoes
They're coming around to dukkah, but beetroot's an ongoing feud.
We'll find our way back to purple-brown after art class in year nine
Until then just squeeze my hand when they see "****" every time.

Curse words stowed beneath our necks, cellared with the red wine.
Pull binoculars out in twenty years to seek parrots in sun spines.
Trick them into dusking walks, the promise of ice cream at Kateri
Squealing across Eileen's golden grain, I hope they pick Rasberry.

He swirls the sand beneath him and burrows his sweet brow.
She builds bridges for fairies and writes names in stick-crayon.
I'll say they're just like us, one day when they can stand it least
Until then their just like you dreamboat, floating down my east.

Neener, neener, neener
Your daddy is a wiener
A peener, a geener
A ***** magaziner.

Nanny, nanny boo boo
Stick your head in doo doo
Your granny has got put in jail
For practicing at voodoo.

Olly Olly Oxen Fee
I see you, you can’t see me.
I am smart, you are not.
Just how stupid can you be?

Waka, waka, waka
You look like an alpaca
Your mama should have taken you
And stuffed you in a locker.

Zimmy, zimmy, zim
Your luck is getting slim.
Bad Luck Billy says you’re
You’re almost bad as him.

Hardy hardy har
You think you are a star
But an extra in a walk-on role
Is what you really are.

Clunkety clunk clunk
Your dreamboat has sunk
You think you smell like roses
But it’s more like a skunk.

Sniggley, sniggley snurt
The truth is bound to hurt
You invested in yourself
And then you lost your shirt.

My heart is red, the meadow is green;
you are standing there in your silk dress
and looking at me longingly, with your eyes
your eyes of feline longing, Mon amour.

I wish to soothe that longing, wishing
to souls above, let me take you on my dreamboat,
my dreamboat of love,

Soothe the ache, from the punch I did not deliver.  

Protect and shelter you in my arms, so that I may be one
with you, in bed, forever and ever
until I'm dead, severed from you.
But I will find my way back to you,
even if it comes to that.

Soon... We will meet in the flesh.
and this ache will subside.

Soon I will hold you, and soothe your sadness at mankind's ways.
Soon I will be the man you deserve too

A wind cold and bitter blows in from the west
and stirs up old storms in you.  May we suggest
one cure for the lonely most highly regard -
a tour of the local relation-shipyard.

Our newer relation-ships being built daily
can catch the wind nicely, their sails snapping gaily.
But others we've built have met rougher sailing;
our flagship line shows up a few of our failings.

The first liner christened, the R.S. Obsession,
sank during a storm in the Sea of Depression.
The Intimate's hull you'll see later today
aground on the shoals of Old Fantasy Bay.

The pilot of Dreamboat just plain lost his sense;
ran full speed ahead through the Reef of Defense.
Only one came back whole, the relation-ship Reason;
she's in dry-dock now after only one season.

We're taking the trouble to change her design
and model her after our new Friendship line.
Our new Friendships are (if you'll pardon the gloating)
the match of any relation-ship floating.

We've shaken her down and worked her way up
to running through trials for the Real Lover's Cup.
Though she'll take on a gale yet be pushed by a breeze,
we're not really sure how she'll handle those seas.

Whatever the outcome, we'll learn even more
and strive to build better than ever before.
Cleaner, more streamlined, a true thoroughbred;
let form follow function, with no figurehead.

The storms are subsiding, the wind's dying down;
you're welcome whenever you're this side of town.
And what's more, you're welcome whenever you're ready
to work on this Friendship we've started already.

I met a man with lifts in his shoes
Watery eyes and a clicking tongue
As I washed my hands, disbanded
He gave me some dreamboat advice
And a house to go with it
He said to follow the money trail
Up an up an up you go
And freedom means never
Having to go to trial
And don't forget to stay
Underestimated
And always **** them with kindness
He lives in a pre-war clock tower
It's a family building
But he loves the twentieth century
His associates are beautiful
But in my dream they were made of cardboard
Cause he made my girlfriend cut her curly locks
And paint one wall yellow
But now my plain Jane has delusions
She can't stand mirrors
And claims he shot the angels on her shoulders
With an invisible gun
He said vanity is a perfect eight
As he rubbed his pinky ring
He knows the root of every game tree
Still he loves to test me
It gives him a shiny glow

Love left my soul thirsty
And I was so tasty
And nasty
Even why lips feel thirsty

I crave for a touch
I thirst for your love  

Give me a glass of your heart
i would love you day and night
Looking into your eyes
I saw the bright blossom light
I couldn’t listen to any lady's ‘Hi’
For you are my heart, my life

Give me a joy of your love
I bet you, you will feel it too from above

Give me a room to stay
It's cold out there
My love isn't here to play
I don’t need those dears

My love needs a place to grow
One heart can’t build a home

You know I wouldn’t break you
My love is here to stay, It awaits you

I had a vision about the dreamboat
My heart is injured with a hole
And you went ahead to tighten the bolt
Free me from this ***** that does not want you to be my own

Remember !
I will Keep you safe and warm
With my kiss and hugs
I taste for all of you my love

I catalog events with a subtle, ulterior pretense
Describing the notorious infamy in all the events
And anything characterized, inspiring, and bold
Makes a story unfold in the real time it's told
I am snowblind and need defibrillation to wake up
Either my heart turned cold or has simply had enough

The ferry fan dreamboat has only so inadequately found
That as I feel my orienting response record the time down
It is not truly me who was looking around
Though I can pinpoint the exact moment that I drowned
The only lingering product of me absolutely remaining
Is the aftermath of my angina so ever restraining
Never complaining until the sound of the trigger
Then I'll be adamant to describe that noise with vigor
Though rigorous it may be, I will try, I might even with some tact
And let you in one last time presenting only fact.
I stepped away and left this place while presently in line
The sentence was one more time for the last time
And then you said goodbye

I was watching all the while a vapor on the scene
And I felt myself lose oxygen with no production in my spleen
My blood does not perfuse in that bilateral moment of blame
How can I let asystole clamp and constrict my cowed red vein?
How could I dilate the cause of my shame?
How could I love my life in the rain?

The simple reason I was experiencing tinitus...
I found out all connections were lies
Like a manufactured virus
Love was a prescription with doses written in ink
With no distinction and no response I could not think
With no recompense or recognition I felt my larynx shrink

I was only dumbfounded so I took to my reflexes
Handpicking a numb tendency to fill my recesses
But it only drains you and me and leaves a hole behind
I'm nowhere near magical so it's power cannot rewind
If so inclined I'll tap my spine and steer it all back
But I don't feel you anymore
*Only this heart attack

my heart is airy as a feather in flight
I have now striven what I wished to write...
tender words of joyous fun
a path so pleasantly traversed, is now done

recounting perceptions of your wondrous ways
robustly enchants all my days
no matter for now, I can't squeeze you tight
or whisper a sweet kiss and say good night

your smiles ****** and voices resound
for you are all here... so easily found
Hayden's sharp wit,  Klyan’s elegant surprise
Thalia's wiggly walk, mommies deep, opal eyes

inscribed here is my love with fervent sigh
permanent as sun in the morning sky
let’s dream on together... it's already fall
in a time soon to come, I will embrace you all

For Hayden Enan...
smartness resides in his vibrant smile
when he speaks always linger awhile
soundly imagined... so brightly lit
beguiling in his engaging wit

of cosmos and wonders so very bold
far from his years, distanced from old
eyes aglow... filled with challenging delight
entranced and sparked by ideas so bright

happily witnessed, abundant with joy
his father’s dreamboat, our big, big boy
with his mind and days complex and laden
one is always in awe, here comes... Hayden

For Kylan Kafu...
words with aplomb and consummate wit
wondrous imaginations, so readily fit
of galaxies, action heroes, his peachy sis
tendered and nuanced he's never remiss

stay still, listen up and hear him well
ready with buoyant laughter to tell
sit glorified in his iridescent smile
a charm, a goose, a country mile

face, a visage of handsome gone wild
our daily amazement, this extraordinary child
knowing and caring, what right to do
a joy to behold, our precious Kylu

For Tahlia Lehsan...
sleeping like an angel, she awakes a princess
with crystalline eyes and smiling caress
now off with her brothers, her day to whirl
my joyously strong, bounding big girl

“it’s my way or the highway”, she’ll give you the choice  
with directness and surety in powerful voice
running to claim another best place to be
comfy chair, mommy's lap... under that tree

calling out “Hayden”, “Kylan” “time to play”
pantomime, dance, and songs fill her day...  
wonder and delight, her name ends in “ahhh”
ablaze in curls, our beautiful Tahlia

For  Elvire...
here's mother, mom, earth, morning and all
guiding strength and total recall
beautiful, erudite... smiles that ignite
seeking, spinning to all our delight

a gaggle of yes, nos, dancing and song
packed bags, hot plates... “let's move along”
an heiress of style and eminent grace
wrapped so deftly in burgundy and lace

voluptuously tall flowing gait...
hurried and dabbled, she’s worth the wait
how fortunate am I sharing one so near
a symphony of bests... my dearest Elvire

i.

you were petals i once
submerged —a fistful i let
go of under a foggy sea
when i was succumbing
to myself

you were the surface tension
screaming my name;
a diaphragm’s lullaby —
old thunder in the rain…

i’ve been fond of storms
ever since


ii.

no one told me
how slow clouds would be —
i would have held my
breath a bit longer…

charted constellations
a bit better before
i spoke of love in light-years

and there you were
on a shoreline,
carrying salt in your palms


iii

how many times
will I walk here, —
a wreckage of bramble
in my side?

“the sea is much too old,”
i heard someone say…

and the wind was salt
on my brain

it left a hole;
a stain,
and i felt a burning
behind my soggy
ribcage

can stars erode
in the tide?


iv.

night adorns it’s veil —
scallops tug at the lace

and i toss inky petals
in the sea

nocturne’s dreamboat
a dead man’s float; —
how i’ve internalized
my hatred for romance

“the sea is much too old,”
i heard someone say…

and i realized my
lungs could speak
for days about sunken
ships returning home


v.

i ignore a
distant moon  — inertia
rocking my cradle

but she stays there
all the same…

there’s stardust
on her breath — whiskey
on mine

“you’ve grown much too old,”
i heard her say…

so i closed my eyes,
and felt sand between
my toes for the first time

it will be eons before
i swim here again

I think the hardest thing
About being an artist
Is all about inspiration.

It doesn’t matter how determined
Or desperate
An artist is.

She sits and she tries to come up
With something worthwhile to say,
Or to draw or to paint.

But all she sees in her head
Is a ticking clock, ***** snow,
An oak tree, and a brick building.

One of the issues
Of the common artist
Is as follows:

Nothing she says or thinks is important,
Or valued,
Or necessary.

She knows this.
But yet something
Pulls her to the keyboard or to the easel.

She could apologize for pretending like
She knows what or why or how to
Say dreamboat words.

But for now she’s content with
Pretending like she knows
What she’s doing.

And right now everyone else
Is content
With playing along.

I want to give you the whole world
even if that doesn't make sense to you, it makes sense to me but probably will never, ever make sense to you
I want you to have the sun, the moon and the spring bloom
I want you to love.. but I want you to sigh and I want you to stop and I want you to cry
I want you to know just what you've done
when you turn your back and you run
from me and from us and you go back to them
the one you call a perfect ten
the one with the electric eyes and cut throat hair
the one that forces you forget air
she isn't me and I will never will be she
the one with the electric eyes and cut throat hair
those electric eyes don't care
those electric eyes see your face but not your dreams
they see your beauty, but fail to look past beyond the seams
they see your eyes, your perfectly perfect, dreamboat eyes but they never sail away with you just like I do
you patronise with your mind
and your lies
and your love
and your despise
you are in control of me and please, keep the wheel
because I know you're being unfair but I will never seize to feel
the thud in my chest and the thrill in my veins even when you cause me the most violent pain
I want to give you everything
but everything is not what I've got
I've got my heart, with which you call the shots

~ T.T

mouth pain.

dreamboat.

screen door
as hyphen.

god
as no
contact

with the inside
world.

beware the dreamboat
the end is a trainwreck

Keep it a hundred, Prefer you trust me than love me.
Let me touch the curves and your hips’
your whole demeanor, cos you snazzy,
You my soul my body,
You my blues my Rhythms,
You my own kind of music,
But I don’t want you get old for my babies.
You don’t know what you mean to me
My dreamboat looking classic not a ***** looking ***’ Can't get wit' a deadbolt trash hanging out with different guys’ having fun, oh he got a ride
A scrub is a girl that can't get no love from me But you ain’t that Esther.
And that's for sure, 'cause I never been the type to break up a happy home,
There's something 'bout my baby girl I just can't leave alone.
She said tell me babe, what's it gonna be?
I said You don't know what you mean to me, all I think about is you alone. Now I know’
Why I love you to the down south’
I need you to the west coast’
My swinging babe leaving me to Mid south town.  
I saw a lot, and I never say a word,
I know how ****** actin' trippin' out here and there for you to talk.
And there's no way, i gon' fight over this.
I cried heart breaks,  for no one pitied and wait. But it is well’ ..

in my plainness a seesaw

in her dream jaw her dreamboat’s jawbone

in our daily belly

in the church of rolling our own
a film
ghosting
a film

in a rug made of bread a tooth made of bread

in mannequins where small things kneel that are living

in claw-marks and in jigsaws of the crucifixion

in

crows balloons of the strangled