The cello sings Ave Maria.
Distilled calm; blister packs
In a wet July.

There is peace in every grain,
So fine. Wore away the stone,
Three drownings in the sea.
Annihilation

To build a monument
We settle upon:
Our paradise recovery.

There is warmth after the rain.
Ukulele played on the
Gran Cervantes balcony.
Off-white scars;
Pyramids with no eyes.

Every stoner sleeps.
Every kind heart cries.

The Arc of Life sings a lullaby,
Still I cannot get calm.
In a wet July

A comfort to staying inside.
We tried, wore away our lungs,
Three renewals in the sea.
A leap of faith,

An old keepsake
We contrived upon:
Our lunatic discovery.

There is movement in death.
Pollen falls to the ground;
Exhale of recovery.
Dead-end joy,
Statuettes with no eyes.

Every criminal weeps,
Every kind heart lies.

The cello sings Ave Maria.
The strings that heal
In a wet July.

at a pool party to celebrate no drownings
one hundred lifeguards, laughing and gloating
water was splashing, music was pounding
until they noticed jerome moody floating

Another, another! My fine-feathered brother
Tie me to the post and set me alight
I read the many poems you wrote
Please gag me with a spoon

I expect around 6 inches. Hoagie rolls of Garlic and cheese
Subway to the nearest, newest country
Let’s build nuclear weapons
Burn this mother down

I tore my shirt open when I looked at your mouth
The **** that I saw was more than I could handle
Let’s get crazy, baby
Let’s play schizophrenia

Foreplay, moreplay, doorplay, whoreplay
Rhyming is the second cutest thing you can do
With your mouth
Start yelling, I will, I will!
Champagne drownings

My skin left pierced;
From the gripping bite of your cold voice
Over top your cigarette breath you words still stunk

A lion-heart with a lying heart

You promised the waves of our love would never reach shore;
Instead you dumped me into shallow waters
Lying face down and still not standing...
My feet can't lock onto the drifting sands of your comfortability
so I stay there, trying to swim to my next lover
trying over and over;
...but drownings much easier

The more I turn blue, I cant seem to tell if my emotions are bursting through my skin
or the hypothermia from within.
My mind starts ticking;
My insanity seeps through but I believe it true
That once this clock strikes 12 that you'll be attached by another mouth

The boat we were once on together is drifting away
a simple memorial of true lovers lost
can't find the directions to each others heart
but hope for the best while were apart

*One day, I pray you'll float back here in my dieing last breath
and save me from my misery that you cause since.

describe to me the setting sea against the tidal suns
tell me bitter lies of why it is how you used to be
and how again it was no pain for wave to break
shore leave fantasy incredible relations between
***** muck cracked claws on diamond webbings
sin first to be last to win thirst against troubled
these times are horrid ticks against the nature
of the beast of the man un nat ural ural ural the sea
it'll be better, he said he said to me once on a sunday
hell is plane that ever plain never lands upon the shores
never leaves absent mothers mothered bothered by
and never never never ever always contradicts
by nature it is it is unatural unnatured beast of wild
a forsaken tool to best be bit by other claim in sin
the thirst is taken by the moon, a tidal blood
in throat the catchings diamond webs of spiricals
of the sunday bishop movements, ever always after
before before the time it was again begun
and and in somewhat strange obtuse pear trees
strange fruit from cocoons hatched sideways
until pear time fruitlets dropped in spheres
into the open casket boiling cracking crab like muck
of breaking waves in boiling oceans, horrid licks
you find you dunce that chasing shadows much like days
pass far too quick to grasp the nettle and be stung
and be thirsty for a placement upon the mantle up
where higher drownings laugh all about the smoke
all in shade of biscuit trees all in fade of tin echoes
empty Christmas biscuit tins sound like themselves
the hollow noise of prophecy against september
again the bland misunderstandings recalled
no pain, never ever always was in hell in heaven peace
that breaks the ocean belts the cliffs produces shame
in fingertips in felt like cat skin rugs and wigs cat hair
counterparts to breeze it is the summer storms the
bleak monsoons of rain that's ****** from mothers ****
that seen to rise in single breath of sky and fall in
grey obtuse sleets to earth made sea made mirrored sky
sage test by broken widowed insect feelers pert to thunder
hunger by the hundred lightening strikes to mass in
bleak grey ember skies, silent spiracles of sun in
shade take refuse out from heap and pile again
beneath the skins of elder hills of somewhat tainted
trousers made up of younger weeds and roots and
****** thirsting up against the garage door that opens
fast too quick too soon too much and **** dirt up
again ever never after seeing hell far too often break
up break up and smile that ocean going smile
wave goodbye with breaking helm with crack of pearls
and peal of thunder late reminder of the blinding
light against the grey now november skies
again, again, it ever never is always maybe somewhat
breaking on the steps on the path away towards
under bleak stained crab carcass shores away towards

I am still trying my best.
Stretching my legs to the coastline,
lactic shackles of inertia
are cast off.

I remember the ease
of animating these young limbs-
concrete strut, woodland walk;

it is hard to think of you much these days,
even in the confines
of unread books and filter coffee.
I have forgotten you, your blue dress,
your punting on the Thames.

There are harder habits
than caffeine and rich women.
As Ol' Tom Waits says,
“you don't meet nice girls in coffee shops.”

The glass roof of the arcade
offers translucent sunlight,
a high-street retreat from the nature of the sea,
all mankind's institutionalisation,
all these walls and closing times,
bigger names over bigger signs.

I am still a rare sight of youth
amongst the patient, ringed eyes
of those book-shop loyalists;
a choir of silver on their heads,
acquired wisdom of faded routines,
old laughter etched like the Nazca Lines
in their faces, lips eroded and pale;
sexless in the fluorescent lighting.

Breathing spaces where life exists
are always held closest to the fear of death.
I am still finding a clean way of living,
a way to accept my place, my face
in the mirror of my self-hate, anxious words
and half-conscious recollections;
the remnants and scars from asphyxiation – old drownings:

the sorrow that separated myself from others,
the sorrow that separated you and I,
you and I.
Your pursuit of a well-ticked time-sheet,
my love for sentiments that rhyme.

I have learned the patterns of the waves,
the way money is exchanged.

Oh, my dearest depression,
my ache for acceptance.
My endless, endless ocean of blue
can be sad, so sad,
but it can be beautiful too.

give me love: not later, not tomorrow, not yesterday but today
i'm tired of hiding away to revise myself for you
there is no revising left,this is it
this is the conclusion
i know dear you liked the intro a whole lot more
im sorry, ive been chain smoking
constant painful inhales, to feel less drownings of anxiety
let my blood fill with toxins of alcoholic infatuations
another girl; kissing cheek and staring into pale blue eyes
the pale blue eyes i got stuck in for six months
on a break for revising, isolation from everyone
i changed
i changed
i changed
i faked happiness because i was not allowed to be sad
i changed
i changed
i changed
i got rid of the addictions all on my own
i changed
i changed
i changed
i am doing what makes me happy to impress you
i revised it for you, i rewrote myself for you
i changed
i changed
i changed
but i did not revise enough, so you found  a new one
my size
my height
my hair color
my eyes
my ******* name; the same name
and you took her
and left me here
with my revisions
giving  love, later, tomorrow, yesterday, and today to her

On 28 March 1941, Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones
and walked into the River Ouse,
which together with its main tributary,
the River Uck,
drain over 250 square miles of Sussex
via streams,
rivers
and various other dendritic tributaries.

While the water temperatures were surely harsh,
historical weather patterns suggest
relatively calm surface tension,
and relaxed yet steady currents,
allowing for swift submersion

Taking into account,
the chilled morning winds,
her quickened, shivering breaths
likely led to hyperventilation.

In turn delaying the breath-hold
break point, and allowing blackout to occur
without warning
due to hypocapnia.
While unconscious, water can more easily enter the lungs
to induce a wet drowning,
as it is no longer inhibited by laryngospasm
or coughing.

The Missouri River,
by contrast,
rises in western Montana,
flows east and south for 2,341 miles
before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri
taking drainage from parts of ten U.S. states
and two Canadian provinces
to form the fourth largest river
system on Earth.

At some locations throughout its course
the current surges so fiercely
that old-growth trees are felled,
steam ships are consumed beneath white caps,
and swaths have continued to go undeveloped well into the 21st century.

When lowered into water cooler than about 70 °F,
the diving reflex is triggered and protects the body
by putting it into energy saving mode
to maximize the possible time spent under water.

This reflex action is automatic
occurs in all humans,
and is likely a result of brain cooling similar
to the protective effects
of deep hypothermia.

Of those who die after submersion in freezing waters,
around 20% die within 2 minutes from cold shock.
Uncontrolled rapid breathing and gasping causing
water inhalation, panic,
massive increase in blood pressure and cardiac
strain leading to cardiac arrest.

As this occurs while submerged
rather than the hyperventilation seen in panic attacks,
crying, or shivering on land
any additional survivability that may be gained,
becomes almost immediately fatal.

In order to combat the effects of
instinctual survival mechanisms
once bare skin breaks iced surfaces
such as panicked clawing back to shore,
rescue attempts from passersby,
and even simple reconsideration,
cold water drownings,
despite representing only 2 percent of suicides,
reveal a visible trend regarding near mandatory use
of bricks,
stones,
or other weights,
in order to overcome
buoyancy,
the names of pets,
canceled brunch dates,
birthdays,
and the forced finality
of questions left unanswered
or perhaps answered too clearly.

The bumblejunk doorhinge,
The greets labeled orange,
The smart-flats and bungalow'd keens.

I want you for waiting.
My trip-stick is failing.
We settle for high in-betweens.

I know not this purpose,
My heart fakes for circus.
My napsack is packed full of liens.

I fluster the roundings,
And muse over drownings. I
Limp on my confusiest things.

a baby screams because it doesn’t know that anything is wrong.  

the wind has no past.  

when my brother kicks, my mother says

hands off
he’s getting
a haircut.

Troubles,
Oh, I got troubles.

I double down
I clown a round

I got a lot
A lot of troubles

I dare myself
I hope for wealth

And still am here
With all my troubles

I read my books
I payed my bills

And think my mountains
Think them, hills

I had a friend
I had a few
I had so many
None like you

I gave them pass
I closed my doors

I gave them mine
But never yours

I hope one day
That we can meet
In a bar
In a street
You and I digress, discreet
You and I who met one day
Passing torches on our way

Times did change
Lives we lived

You moved on
And Still I hid

Though the distance
And the years
All the drownings of our tears
And the oughts
The things we did
Things of nought
The things we hid

Small the world

Made of trouble

Made
of waiting

Made
to rubble.

At thirteen years old,
I learn that
not all mermaids are like Ariel--
some mermaids are sirens,
femme fatales of the seven sea
who lure sailors to their drownings
with sweet, nectared voices.

Still, I wish to don the life of a siren,  
whose danger appears
dizzyingly seductive to me.
I have become fascinated
with the dark and the peculiar,
you know,
and, as a result, I too
have undergone a dark, peculiar
evolution--
and, as literature has dictated,
such a character as myself
is to be scrutinized
under an omniscient perspective:

She wears thick, purple eyeliner
and dresses only in
heavy blacks and deep blues,
an abrupt transition
from her previous adoration for
pastels and ruffled sleeves.
But it is not only her countenance
that is indicative of this disturbed youth--
there are the books she reads,
tales of death, gore, and
other macabre eccentricities.
Her favourite titles
are those by Edgar Allan Poe.

How suiting then,
that she should be an
Anabel Lee in the making--
"her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away...
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.-- "
she just doesn't realize it  yet--
that she is a drowning girl impending,
that she was never to be the siren, after all,
but the poor fool
who succumbed to the siren's
dreadful tides.

There is a certain apprehension
upon learning
that one must sink before
being able to float. And swim.
It calls to mind previous drownings,
in and out of the water.
Of being pulled under
of thrashings
of water coming in and threatening
to overpower one's self.

But one plunges in
and acclimates
to the cold water,
remembering that even the
greatest among us must face
the unknown.

It’s easy for them to slip into the ice,
the big crack of nonjudgmental water,
absorbed entirely in the joy of now.

First winter blankets them, then the frost,  
the quiet, until the last of their woolens,
the black and red squares of their scarves,
their blue and pink pompoms trailing down
become the final gender reveal, the last
memory of their life that skates grief circles
in the frozen lake of their parents’ memory.

The water will lift their lost children
back into their parents arms,
the only mercy the lake will grant them.

Some will replace the weight of
their grief with other newborns.
They will watch them put on weight,
watch them weigh them down,
always keeping their new ones
from the cold weight of water.

The rest will dream every night
of the white cloth that covered
their small and silent bodies.
They will leave a light on hoping
their children will open the door
and come home again—

not lost
in the dark water,
come home again,
not lost
in the eternity
of their blue life.

Lay down
With the summer slowly rising
And the sun finding horizon
It is only
That the seasons change too quickly

Rest your weary head
My love
Rest
And be assured
That I will love you
With veins that cause the rivers
When the drownings all in vain

Lay down
It was only the longest night
It was only the hardest fight
It is only
That these fleeting dreams escape you

Rest your weary head
My sweet
Rest
And know it true
That I will love you

a truism, an overused, abused entrée to the first poem of the day,
they always are night-born, from a slow passage of dark to a light-triggering recording event, a 6 hr. poem period, gestation, incantation

and a sort of relief, temporary

many the miles voyeured, a mentaller feasting sated,
simple rhymes to covet, rephrasing the complexities of
our other lives, where our sub-selfs exclaim, out loud!
this is me unchained, this is me chained, this is...someone

besotted by the rottenness of honesty, once air-exposed,
eyes fixed, no away-turntable, all that well hidden spoilage
in dreams reverent, forsaken, my ashamed-ness, is willing
taken to the scaffold, and by daylight first, perceived, conceived

we may examine the half of me, nay, the all of me, open-face
secrets secreted in my nighttime travelogue, of crimes, revelations,
insects, drownings, strawberry moons, all the fraying edges of a
linen covering, my cadaver pouch of well used words

inscribed thus:

”human born from a sac, and to earth returned, in sackcloth

A fat *****
Sitting in the seat, in the row in front of me.
His suitcase takes up another seat, left across from me.
This **** takes up four seats and it’s too much wasted space.

There’s so much space in the classroom,
I made myself quite the spectacle when I walked out
Ran into the teacher right behind the door, waiting
To see if the screening went well.
I’d seen it three weeks ago,
I told him so.

Made myself quite popular in one go.
Seems like it is my ego, (but the truth is, I really don’t know)
That prevents others from sitting close,
It’s fine, I don’t talk to them,
I couldn’t stand to.

Less than thirty minutes till Hoorn
A few more hours until bed,
And then all of the routine can start again,
I dream of a future, but when I’m awake
I’d rather not be a part of it.

Don’t want to participate.
I have nothing useful left in me,
There’s nothing I could say,
That would sway/ persuade the world
To turn the other way.

I’m no earthquake, no rain or thunder
Lightning strikes me, not I the sky,
And it’s in the dark that I cry.

Days have grown shorter,
Nights longer,
And the sun doesn’t set early yet.

There’s ten of me
Sitting down on my chest
Steamrolling down my back
And flattening me into the grains
Of the ordinary, common experience.
(Perhaps I’d like that best)

In the wee hours of the morning
I close my eyes and plan and plot
I stew until I’m blue in the face
And I’m itching to leave this place,
It’s then that the cuts and ropes
The drownings and falling downs
Lull me to sleep, and I breathe out
Sweet death, and when I wake again,
I live and take another breath.

Your eyes like falling stars, cascade
down, chasing Summer's drifting flowers,
their crescendo, with the breeze will fade
upon a wind-swept dance in this final hour.

And I saw myself in their somber drift.
Surrounded by the blooming scorpion grass,
I sank into the deep sea beyond the cliff
as each wave hammered a nail in my casket.

The briefest of drownings broken by a song
as a nightjar cooed from the dying laurel
in a perfect nest where his melody belong.
While my heart lapsed: yours felt immortal.

It's halt dismissed at the winding of vines
as your fingers are mine lastly intertwined.

Alone all day with my thoughts,
The seed of hardwork left untouched.
So I put out the light,
Hoping only to see what's right.
But all I saw was wailing,
Faces of children killed by drownings.

The truth as we know it to be as changed
We can't do what's right since we're no saint.
We do against what we preach, we slain,
We steal even from God but call it gain.

How do you buy what was never sold?
The devil didn't buy us, we chose.
Money comes first, no humanity bestowed
Creation of wealth, enormous regrets.