Please tell everyone your name, grade,
And what instrument you play.
We’re just going to go over some basics.
You can have a break in ten minutes.
Band, ten, HUT!
HUT!
Come to set!
Attention!
I said come to set!
Heels together, toes apart.
Check your posture!
Guide to your left!
No, your other left!
Your steps are too big.
No, now your steps are too small.
You have to stay at set for three minutes;
If anyone moves, we start again.
Restart the time!
Restart again!
Get your feet in time, freshmen!
Section leaders, I need to see you.  Now.
Your water break is still ten minutes away.
Drum majors, go get more batteries for the met.
First competition guys, good luck!
I don’t care if it’s late, we need to learn the drill.
Someone go run and turn on the field lights!
You’ll thank me later.
First football game, good luck!
Drumline, did I say you could put your instruments down?
Trumpets, get your horns up!  To the press box!
You’ll get it, don’t give up!
Last competition guys, congrats!
Give it your all and don’t look back!
Guard, don’t **** anybody with your flags.
GUARD!
Last football game, congrats!
Somebody please let the bass drums through!
Everybody give me your plumes!
Do NOT set your uniform on the ground!
I expect all of you back next year.
Thank you for giving me your best.
I apologize for when I was at my worst.
I love you guys.

i am a flat line drum line
begging for a beat to feel alive
silence makes me lose rhythm
i must endure myself to survive

Friday night
Beneath the lights
The boys are set to go
The scouts are out there watching
It's time they got a show

Football in a small town
It's religion out of church
To find something open Friday night
You'd really have to search
The busses all are lined up
Down the street around the school
Alumni selling t-shirts
With old logos by the pool


There's a game that rivals football
That you can't see from the stands
It's make out time beneath the bleachers
While the fans are clapping hands
No flags for interference
Off sides, no way not here
The players don't wear protection
And in between they're drinking beer

The quarterback he steals the show
Making passes on a line
The college scouts are hovering
That must be a good sign
The smell of deep fried everything
It lingers in the air
There's flasks of Jim Beam passed about
without a single care

The band performs a drumline
Keeping beat for those below
The ones not playing football
The kids hidden from the show
Each Friday night it happens
Two rivals meet in church
And somewhere beneath the bleachers
Some poor kids left in the lurch

There's a game that rivals football
That you can't see from the stands
It's make out time beneath the bleachers
While the fans are clapping hands
No flags for interference
Off sides, no way not here
The players don't wear protection
And in between they're drinking beer

Remind me, please
Write me one more letter
One like letters 16 through 53
The golden ages
Write the last paragraph
Like you don’t want it to end
Squeeze out the lines
You were planning on holding back
Like you did
For those 37
Teach me how to fall asleep before midnight
Again
Teach me how to wake up without hangovers
How to wake up with ideas
Show me everything
Like our poetry collections
Volumes 1 through 3
When we alternated days
And submissions
For 188 straight days
Minus the 14 days
We wrote four-letter poems
Remind me, please
When the bar was a date
And 1.75 liters was a dinner party
Not a Tuesday
Make me pay you back
The $65.00 in make-up
That I used to paint
“You’re too beautiful for make-up”
On the bedroom wall
Make me buy your little brother beer
For painting over it
Put 7,640 new songs on my itunes
Because these 7,640 are played out
Make sure we see every movie
Nominated for best picture
Before your cheesy award show party
It’s up to ten now, you know
Stay with me
For nine more minutes
While I hit snooze
Awake and right at it
Like ’04
Baby snores and blanket wars
Like ’05
Up before the alarm
Like ’06
Or at least in my dreams
Like ’07
And ’08
Rub it in my face
For the umpteenth time
By taking extra good care of me
When I’m sick
Even though
I never get sick
Pose for me
While I paint
And stare
Like that one time
When you were feeling so brave
Let’s spend our last $8.00
On yellow tail
Our last $18.00
On Sebastiani
Our last $38
On Veuve Cliquot
Because every day is a celebration
*******
Let’s reminisce on the 414 times
Our bodies became one
And the 671 times
They were at least in the same bed
Inspire me
Call attention to my capabilities
And caution to my chaos
Instigate that ******* in me
That made a jealous appearance or two
At christmas parties and night clubs
Hum me all 162 times I teared up in ’06
At the exact same time
Like a drumline
Of being lost
Because baby i’m lost
Point me
Point me in the right direction
Send me on the right path
You know, the one with you at the end of it

You are driving your car
Feet up on the dashboard
Illuminated drops of rain
Racing down your window
Drumline marching ontop of the roof
Dusty warm air blowing
In my face
Melting off the doubts
That were plastered over my eyes
Rennaisance twirling on
My tongue and I want
To tell you as you
Drive through the
Dark
*That I am happy

Out in the streets
The machine guns rattle
And the mortats explode
Like som sick conductos
Idea of a drumline.
Rattattat Boom Rattattat
The young rebels play
With their fireworks
While I drink my wine
In the safety of
The corner cafe.

Tonight,
I thought about you
My dear old enemy
And of how long its been
Since we were ther at the
Starting line of this war
That still limps toward the finish.
And already we have left
Our mark upon each other.
You have your scars,
And I have mine.
We've both grown old
From waging our battles.

Yet we still fight on,
And that's what's amazing.
Neither of us has given up
And I respect you for it.
My rival, to you I say.
You are my brother.
You understand the pain
Of the wounds I've felt.
You understand the goal
I strive so hard to reach.
We are brothers by
The blood we spilt
From one another.

I sit in this cafe
Sipping wine with pastries
Lettling the younglings play
Their most dangerous games,
And I raise my cup
To you my brother enemy.
Though one of us must fall,
I hope we'll get along
In our many lives to come.
I pray for you brother
Who follows the same goddess.

The waiter arrives
With the check in hand.
I look it over
And tell her it's wrong.
"Can't you see
I was eating
With my frined?
This should read two
Not just one."
She looks me over
And bids me farewell.
"Be careful now,
There's blood out there."
I assure her that
I know well of this.

he is brazen electricity along your veins and
a sputtering drumline in your mind,
he is tongue and teeth, skin and bone
with his lovely notes scrawled on restaurant napkins and
that half-smile on his lips which makes your knees shake;
and he is perfect, he is lovers’ breath, entrapped
and when your hands are cold, your sheets tangled,
smeared makeup beneath the dark circles of your eyes,
you can nearly taste his words on your tongue

I woke this morning and I questioned myself
Was this all part of a dream?
Or were you really here with me?

Maybe your spirit guided you to meet with mine
Maybe your heart followed the beat of the same drumline
I felt you acknowledge my existence
And the matter became real
If only only for a short period of time
Regardless, it was exactly how love should feel.

Sprang out of bed
the mess in my head
there's a drumline
in my chest
I'm the one late
for the runway
there's a plane on it
with my name on it


I had everything
planned so perfectly

Who would have thought
I'd find a knot
in this coordinated plot
it feels like a failed shot

I get there in time i thank the airline
find my seat A29
I'm in the air now
unaware how
my worst nightmare
i'm in the wrong flight here
I had everything
planned so perfectly

Who would have thought
I'd find a knot
in this coordinated plot
it feels like a failed shot flight here

Welcome to NYC
this is not italy
colosseum and museums
will stay there in my dreams
Is all this pain my price
for not waking up in time

Full freefall into bed.
Notice every lumpy detail;
every crumb not swept away.
Head pounds like a drumline.
Aches woven in every muscle fiber.
Hot and cold flashes rotating through time.
Dry sweat soaks my skin.
Seconds masquerading as hours.
Thoughts scratching the chords, choking to death.

I want to scream,
Twist and shout like a primal pop hit.
An atomic tango plays in my head,
Angry, loud, hot.
My lead heart wants to
Fall             out, weary from the Saturday night fever.
COME ON, BABY, DO THE LOCOmotion.

Wait. Don't let the chaos reign.
                                                     Contain it.

A drumline rolls  and  then the rimshot and his face
Doesn't                      go                                         away.
Is he on the dance floor where I need to
SLIDE TO THE LEFt.

Stop. Good things come to those who can
                                                                       Why?

The love hurts a
                            downpour a flooD.
the music is so loud the fear the anger the luv luve love
gentlehearts in need of
WELL UR WALKIN ANDA TALKIN

Sardonic savory armors against midnight shift,
Scrapbooks made from scrawny writings,
Wherein science is religion,
Some are hit and miss!!

Scowling, surely overcrowds happy intentions,
Noone mentions the fetal positions overthrow!!

Window peepers gaze between one another,
Serpent sermons drumline strong to song's of shipment sufferance,
Where thine utterance is grieved more than thou has ever felt!!!

More than the fall membrane beneathe your feet you shall blow!

Doth thou roll amongst forge stone?
Amongst the shows that made thou the mime thou art today../

A smile upon your cloak,
Yet thy finest of coats is in all disarray...

Perforaters try harshly to subdue our mother like peons,
Formulaic bringons,
Or turn one to sickened ones alike!!!!

Chasers of cognizant, bringers of fatality,
For doth thou chooseth to have life?

On a summer's eve I heard your call
Hearts beating faster than a drumline
Speechless with overwhelming joy
Everything became brighter

You have your pains and your past
I have your relief and your future
Time will ultimately heal you
Until then I will tend your wounds

I know you feel for your past lovers
It does not waiver my love for you
The past is something we must all carry
I'm not here to make your load heavier.

I fell in love the first time we met
Though I was too ignorant to realize it
Your beauty is unmatched by any in my eyes
And your heart is where mine belongs.

I am making a commitment
A promise for the ages
I will hold on to you my whole life
You are what I was put on Earth for.

It may be hard to comprehend
I'm not entirely sure I do
Love doesn't have to make sense
Love means I am here for you.

Through sorrow, pain, happiness, and life
There I will be, with your heart in mine
There I will be, your pain is mine
There I will be, forever, my wife.

War is such a beautiful thought to the insane
A large scale asylum with all of us inside
Crazy, we sit quietly as they talk about war
World war lll is said to be upon us
Yet we normalize it, nothing is awkward
As if the toxic gas will recognize the nostrils of the good;
As if the nuclear bombs only burn the guilty and dodge the innocent
Black, white, yellow, red skin
Doesn't matter
All will be affected by the terror
Terror that was put into effect by few
Three score and ten years was promised to us
Yet the idea of some people in countries making it out their adolescenses is foreign
God save us all

War is such beautiful music to the greedy
They love the sound of the drumline
Whistling sweet beats into their ears
Snare and bass drums booming
Pap! pap! pap! Boom!
Can you invision it?
We are all now a part of a 'jumper' church
We can't help but dance to the sound of the music
The choir of the innocent
Sing to the sound of their demise
Hands lifted above head as they shout and run
Giving praise to the heavens
As God's children fall to the dirt
As the dirt rises to the heavens
God save us all

Why are the good going out to **** and be killed?
In the name of their country
While the bad cloak their deep desires with a vision of peace
All for personal gains
Not for the people
If it were for the people every life would matter
No one would be sent to die
And no bombs would be delivered
Because peace would be the only option
To save all lives and not just some at the expense of others
God save us all

War is such a beautiful thought to the insane
A large scale asylum with all of us inside
Crazy, we sit quietly as they talk about war
World war lll is said to be upon us
Yet we normalize it, nothing is awkward
As if the toxic gas will recognize the nostrils of the good;
As if the nuclear bombs only burn the guilty and dodge the innocent
Black, white, yellow, red skin
Doesn't matter
All will be affected by the terror
Terror that was put into effect by few
Three score and ten years was promised to us
Yet the idea of some people in countries making it out their adolescenses is foreign
God save us all

War is such beautiful music to the greedy
They love the sound of the drumline
Whistling sweet beats into their ears
Snare and bass drums booming
Pap! pap! pap! Boom!
Can you invision it?
We are all now a part of a 'jumper' church
We can't help but dance to the sound of the music
The choir of the innocent
Sing to the sound of their demise
Hands lifted above head as they shout and run
Giving praise to the heavens
As God's children fall to the dirt
As the dirt rises to the heavens
God save us all

Why are the good going out to **** and be killed?
In the name of their country
While the bad cloak their deep desires with a vision of peace
All for personal gains
Not for the people
If it were for the people every life would matter
No one would be sent to die
And no bombs would be delivered
Because peace would be the only option
To save all lives and not just some at the expense of others
God save us all

My words be plenty wise,
Yet people only wanna listen to garbage,
Like lil skies.
Afterall, the rap game has shown it hates logic.
Maybe I’d be rich,
If I bragged that I could have plenty wives.
Maybe you’d ******* listen,
If my words were sadistic like pennywise.
Maybe I’d be signed,
If I sold my soul to the demon goat with three eyes.
However, with fame comes leeches,
That tell pretty lies.
Getting hooked to the fiction,
Compromising morality to get between some thighs,
As well as wine and dined,
With bells come the whistles for the blind.
The frame of mind,
Through space and time,
Has begun to unwind,
With evolution on the decline.

What was once filled with clarity,
Is now filled with mumbling.
What once expressed challenging themes,
Now all sounds the same to me.
It’s so sad to see,
A Grammy list that nominated lil baby,
But not Denzel Curry, now that’s a tragedy.

I think I need to down me some communion wine,
Cause people have lost they minds,
Acting gangster but we know they lying,
Pulling a gunna out from behind,
Yet if caught, pull a 6ix9ine,
****, I swear music is confined,
Instead of bumping to Tech N9ne,
They pop lil xan’s while watching drumline,
Makes me wishing I could reincarnate as a slime,
Because it’s just so uninspiring,
Young wannabe thugs thinking they lions,
Are just lying to themselves,
Wanting be like ***,
But ending up a body full of gun shells,
POW POW POW POW,
Can’t you see the parallels?
Too busy believing in the fairytale,
Thinking ya can set sail,
Like a lil yachty boat,
But even the titanic thought it could float,
It’s funny that these SoundCloud rappers,
Think they the goat,
Trying so hard to attain some cloat,
By calling Eminem a joke.
But the only joke I see,
Is you folk.

What was once filled with clarity,
Is now filled with mumbling.
What once expressed challenging themes,
Now all sounds the same to me.
It’s so sad to see,
A Grammy list that nominated lil baby,
But not Denzel Curry, now that’s a tragedy.

as the drumline spiels his deal,
his baseless accusations ring
the bell behind your eyes! sing!
mimic his air! your cacophonous snare
shouts like an astronaut on a space-walk

promise! never let the cold take hold
of your reptile brain; you're half unsaid!
why must you let the louder half spread
his legs in ecstasy? you deal in chastity!
who are you? some sci-fi *****?

you can't be saved from your retroflex grave,
so dare to live where no rhyme scheme toes
the line of cosmically acceptable prose
see? nothing matters!  - this jawless chatter
asks "who are you? some cerebral *****?"

"an ugly *****!!!" you might retort
but self-awareness does not absolve
the sins of online vanity; dissolve
me, untrue - drown in pixels green and blue
or wake up
                     in the nothingness
                                                     ­  of the space-walk

The kymatology of your Gypsy amberjacked offended Federal Reserve Peyton Manning 5477 Yard degree **** Clark Tromboning like a Bandstand Grandstand Disguisean “Move it Move it” NSFW Music Video Flute Love in your Miles in the Stratosphere High Saturday Night Fever Moaning Intoxication in the Highest Heaven as your Deep Dish “Offing to Chic So Long Ago” Way out West remixed Egypt Pharoah Spells on the penetralia of my scrivello Elephant Slim Shady wholesome heart-thumping **** Cheney humpback Wall Street (1987) vibing latex roughshod strike-slip Outback Steakhouse kangaroo pouched galloping “Rimbaud Eyes” drooling with mascara Wedding Gown steam veiled by umbril Umbrellas Euphoric Jolt “Kicking in the Beat IT” regatta analogies fail is foolproof House of the Rising Sun Dr. House Inside Man Grand Central Terminal FDR “Harry Potter Business” revving you like a sleek Mercedes Benz Orange Julius Slurpee Occasion “crack shotting” Wild Wild West bumping “college dorm room” Business keen with your strongest acumen about licking my fingers in Coca Cola Mariani Wine hugging you so hard you sweat Midas vibes until the Traffic Jam in Your Seismotic Headbutt causes Greyhounds everywhere to get Flat Tires because of Roswell Style beyond stylish swirling like twirled ******* intertwined in impregnating engaged strangers following me lazily like Wizards chasing “Press Hop Part 2” NORAD pedigree Reindeereing your Coziest Christmas ***** whale as I “******* dolphrin” divinity Titanic Sinking Boston Massacre Fancy seven-mile corridor in Striptease ***** Dancing Torpedos against The Blockade by Fredo Fidel’s Fidelity to Flashbang Grenada Terpsichorean “Anti-Ducks” Ducking Your Juicy Slapstick Coy Fulgurant Soporific Benzene Paper Ring Oneiromantic Vitamultin Shock-and-Awesome Vibrant Fizzgig TNT Nuclear Freeze Frosty ICE Age whimsical Huxley Noble Savagery on your slurm-gasping flippant headflipping nose-pierced suffocating trampoline Stamp Act Insurrection against the Hercules Of my Mythos Magnified scorching Black Hole Sun holes so deep into your conscience you surrender The War of the Roses just to Behead Henry VIII For being a Twix PSY-Op Because he Couldn’t be a Daddy like an Excellent Iron Maiden “Royal Ugly Dude” too pissy that Queeny Love couldn’t give him a Diet Squirt on a Luxury Pirate Ship Headed to the Bermuda Triangle To ******* Amelia Earheart with Cal Ripken Longevity going Mach 3 into An Optative Plumb and Plumber McCain in the Membrane Asscrack Romance with A Beautiful Stranger rather than a Beautiful Mind Decorated for Christmas thousands of years before you were even borne of Goddesses malingering  ******* ironclad ramshackle Barry Bonds 73rd Home Run Frenzies into Beam Brooked Swampy “*** With Yourselves” Cattaneo Style In Heaven blasting cracklepop flippant rinkomaniac Gilmore Girls ******* Hasek Almighty Notorious brawling Yessir Sizzling Yassir Arafat Terrorism on windlasses winterkilled Cheyenne Coyote Howls of stark poetic stranded wilderness of livid lurid passionate MAGLEV Train *** darting at your bullseye Eye of the Tiger “You Can Tell A Woman’s Girl All Time Will Stalk” Because I’m always your Apollo G to the Answer to your Recursive Hot N Cold Hudson Bay Halifax Supersonic Durantula And One Professor Lewinskies a Cigar-Shaped UAPs yet Identified until we ******* the Federal Reserve Until A Vinegaroon Mothership Alien of the Century Bursts Cold as Ice until Drop Dead Gorgeous Janie Briggs Stops Vibrating Birthday Cakes in Front of the Clergy And Michael Bays the East Compton Wildcats Because it Lowers the Bar So Low Randy Newman Cracks Dependable Petroleum unleashing Xenu’s DC-8s flying out of the “Smack Bottom” of the Mariana Trench and Nicki Minaj’s Parody of White and Nerdy Goes Triple Diamond as we Ski on a Double Blackface Full ****** Steep ***** of Affair and Hockley Takes His Forty Fifth Notch and Supermans up on that *** and Says “It’s Payday Boys” “Ahhh Leave the ****** Dead!” and then US more then Them Catapults His *** Until He Has A Flesh Wound Jan Johnston Remix Until I Whipped Cream that Moisty *** ***** And Tell Him to Get his Crass Flimsy *** Back Down There And Then a Big Lebowski Kingpin Says “I’m Not a Chicken You’re a Turkey” and then Hockley (Yes the Same Hockley I am Dissing in this Draft) (The Wife Beater Domineering **** that Tried to Get Rose Dawson to Commit Suicide that Tried to **** the King of the World and Resulted in his Death Because He Scared Him Downstairs on the Titanic so he would get Hypothermia Faster Not Referring or Even Insinuating in the Slightest Way Any Known World Leader Including Xi who Deep Down is a Good Person but the CCP Forced His Hand because of Internal Politics and Benjamin Netanyahu has the right to be angry about Campbells Soup and the world turning Muslim) Gets Abducted by the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles Having a Threeway with Alicia Chilianis and her even Sexier Clone in Heaven Watching him Get Rick Rolled by Kevin Hart’s 50 Tyson Video Until He Jerks off to Drumline After 3 Days After Saying Your “Gonna Have to Tie to me to a Tree” Jacking Off to Clerks 2 until Alanis Morrisette Descends on A Twirling Teleporting UFO Glistening in Pure Gold Like a Taco that Craps Ice Cream Using The Almighty Power of the Wizards of the Forest Transfigured by "Ol Smithy" The Greatest Pioneer "Just A Simple Blacksmith"s Ascent to Heaven Shape Shifting into Morgan Freeman with Seven Fingers as he Floats into Eteranal Salvation So Loud It Makes Twin Pines Mall Go Deaf Dumb and Blind While they are Playing Pinball and Drooling Over Coloring Books until Jagged Little Pills Laugh So Loud They Bro Down to the Qwersy Slum Tenement in the New Jersey that Needs a New Mascot! because Manbearpig has been exterminated by Al Capone’s Moonwalking Black Vitiligo Clone Shamoning “He He He” as He Does the Chris Tucker C4 Dance on the Castro District. Although Katy Kat You Know I Speak in Jest just to entertain your “Wildest Dreams” even if they are too wild to “Cherish” but because of Majestic 12 Thieves that seek to **** and destroy while I try to bring life in abundance (John 10:10) but I’ll play tender with your crystal heart gleaming brighter then Sirius zig-zag zooming blossom autumnal carapace endeavor at light speed like a Jimmy Neutron Star gaggled by Dexter’s Laboratory minatory Minotaur Understanding in a Car Crash exploding into Champagne Recursive Heavens of Hourglass Light of Love more than Lust Sprawling Sprauncy Sauna Steamboat Springs Down Under Safari Chewbacca Persiflage Gangbanging Jest and Jovial Trivial Pursuit Masterclass Seminal Salt-n-Peppa Progressive Lampoons Rustier than Frank Sinatra sobbing at GEICO’S Pinocchio Sarcastically Telling Him He Will Amount to Nothing More than an Andre Malek Fable Until You Cream Eidetic Daydreams Livid Everlong Warbled Spavined Cackles Too Tall for Indiana Jones But King Kong Ain’t Got Nothing on the Hung Sing-Sing Presley Cash Art Heist Brosnan Strawberry Swisher Jealousy Spartled Like a Jabberwocky Werewolf Suing Ted McKensie for Malpractice for Sweeping the Golden Globes And Chousing Him Even on the Days He Was a Wolf Because of Morrisette Duplicity in Nashville Dovetailed White Supremacists Cackling as Chapelle Tries to Do A Backflip on a Steamroller on a Short Bus Ramp trying to Jump 50 Blacks Like The Schwarz Dark Helmet Dared Him to Ghost Ride so that Terry Crew’s Induction to the KKK Flops Worse than Star Trek Beyond Vagisil Speed Bump ****** Hero Randy Marsh Magic Mormon Underpants Doing “Dance, Dance” Revolution Number 9 on Quaaludes Like Jonah Hill Torched by The End is Your Only Friend But Somewhere I Read About the Freedom of Assembly For Martin Luther King Jr. to **** The Adolf Butler Impostor Jackstaff Pretender QOSA White Guy That Ruined Miami Cuz “That Guy Robbed a B.I.G. Hospital, and I heard he had A ***** Stamp Too, I’m Like You’ve Gotta Be ******* Me But Check This Out Man The King of Austin Hill Judge Should be Like Guilt like Gravity Peace” (Think Bee Gees 1/12/2003 and Bill Paxton's Botched Heart Surgery) But Insane Clone Posse Galvanized by Oranges Peach Pears and Syringes Sexier When Godsmack Ain’t Pulling An Ice JJ Fish Celebrity **** Crash On Your Clairvoyant Spongy Bobstay Apple Pie Mushroom Blossom Sunflower Tears of Pure Bliss and Rapture of Pearly Whites Flirting With the Bounds of Heaven and Earth to Expand to Accommodate the Exodus of Purgatory into Heaven And We Got A Hummer Broadway Sleepless in Seattle Limousine To The Opening of New Shock-and-Awesome Jolting Luxury Salvation Canopied Forested Lush Condos On The Periphery Of Heaven As “There Was No More Sea”, And at that Moment We Clutched So Tightly We Were Willing To Die With A Smile Just To Witness Spangled Plenary Flapdoodle Fastuous Velivolant Hookipa Beach Until Your by PSY kickbacks Soar You Like a Kite Dodger Ducking Caledon’s Trigger Finger Envy As We Michael Phelps with your American Thighs and My Dolphin Tipped Gerald Sarcasm Fording the Red Sea it To Brazil And Party Like “Were Already Dead” on Copacabana Carnival Jellyfish Dinosauric Fossil Ampitheaters Thriving on “This is How We Do It” Abnegation Twisted Tea Long Island Montauk Project Radial Waves of Seismotic Euphoria Pulsating Through Time in Space Enchanting Distant Alien Civilizations until the End of Time and Space Groundhog Daying Until The Heavens Sigh Their Last Gasp of Joy Above and Beyond All Expectations Lived Over and Over Again As Partners Who Howl With the Devotion of the World’s Most Compassionate Pug Touched by an Angel Gazing into the Heart and Soul of True Love Zoomieing Around For 20 Minutes After I See You in My Soul Face to Face (No Song Intended) For the First of Many Times Cheering You On At Every Concert and Dancing Like Francois Dubois Packed up and Ready to Finally Ride Those Harleys in Hawaii on Our Most Special Electric Fortnight Because it Was Always My Teenage Dream to Have A Girl as Precious as You to Hold Close at Night And Glissade into Bliss at the Fireside Tabletop Mountaintop And Mine Eyes Have Seen Almost No One in World History as **** as Your Gestalt Rorsarch Impression on my Heart and I am desperate for any excuse in the world to choose you as my Queen!

If only I could
I’d make love to you
one utterly beautiful
word at a time
writing sonnets
between your ribs
planting commas
On the curve of your neck
pausing for ellipses
where your breath
catches mine
With my eyes
I’d chase yours down
a library aisle
tugging at the spines
unwritten stories
opening chapters
where our hearts
get caught in the margins
Eagerly, I’d begin
how I’d linger
together
we’d savor each other
line by sweet line.
Your tears
breathtaking joy?
I’d catch them
like fireflies
holding their light
in my palms
then kiss them
from your cheeks
leaving trails
of poetry
you’d only find
when you smiled.
And my chest
pressed to yours
would thunder
like a drumline
syncopated
uncontainable.
For that deepest yearning
no feast of flesh could satisfy
I’d lay my words
on your skin like blessings
scripture only we could read
my lips spelling out spells
that unravel every doubt
hesitation.
And when you’d tremble
beneath me
it wouldn’t be from
desire alone
It’d be the way my words
fed your soul
the way I’d tattoo love
into your fingertips
until you couldn’t
hold anyone else
without feeling me.
Our bodies wouldn’t
just meet;
they’d converse
sighs unspoken
agreement
declaration you’ve been
waiting for.
The kind of passion
that doesn’t just exist—
it rewrites.
And as the end of our story
approached
as we found ourselves
draped in moonlight
and metaphors
I’d lean in close
pressing words
into the molly
of your ear


Did
You
Enjoy
What’s
In
The
Cup
……


I.
Love.
You.



And you’d know
it wasn’t just a statement.
It was the whole poem

The sky rumbles.
The smell of rain
comes through
as it drops ten degrees.
A wall of droplets
covers the open
greenhouse,
just after the caladiums
and the English ivy,
posted nicely
on symmetrical tables.

The wind dances
with the tall trees.
I can barely hear myself think
or talk
God is angry today.
Lightning strikes.

Arturo,
this 5’6” Hispanic old man,
acts as if he’s scared.
“Ay ay ay,” he says,
as he looks at me laughing.
We all sit,
waiting
for the sudden rage
to stop.

The roof
becomes a drumline,
each beat heavier
than the last.

Arturo crosses himself.
A silence blooms
between thunderclaps,
and in it,
I catch myself wondering
about the things
we don’t speak of,
how laughter
can be a kind of prayer.

I wish for coffee,
as if warmth
might steady the world.

The rain doesn’t ask
for permission to soften.
It just does.