The smell of a spring rain
settling on the earth
is the smell of life anew.

At the window, I sit with a book,
both cracked,
cooled by the alfresco air seeping through,
and tiny droplets glissando down the pane.

The pitter-patter of a soft rain
falling to the parched earth
is the sound of life replenished.

At the rain's offset, I leap from my chair,
exiting the front door,
to saunter through the lush green pastures
that linger outside the library's confines.

How green the trees appear, and the grass--
how rich the stalks of the trees,
their boughs with budding leaves quenched,
glistening in the sun.

I even enjoy the scent coming off the once arid pavement--
it is the smell of the earth,
freed from its impedance,
rising above the stifling asphalt.  

I smell the life that lingers beneath,
and the dull metallic tinfoil taste of the pavement
fills my open nostrils--

It is pleasant, though a little less so, than the ambrosial landscape.

I inhale ever so deeply,
relishing my favorite part of spring,
in the offset of a warm afternoon rain on a brisk day,
sauntering through the wood-laden trails on worn brick paths,

to the paved parking lot where my car awaits--
delineated in a filmy layer of mired pollen residue.
It needed a wash anyways.

Hugging you,
My hand making a glissando
along your hair.

Oh, hello there.
I managed to slip away from my previous adventure,
With the knight and his beloved.
My beloved, too;
I suppose.

I've stumbled upon a peculiar thing, though.
An olive tree,
In the midst of this lush underbrush.
It's quite twee,
If I do say so myself.
Although I'm more interested in the treasure below.

A pristine white glows beneath.
I twiddle with the branches a little to find a lovely treasure.
I sit down,
Outstretched my fingers towards the snow,
And carefully pluck at it,
Delicately brushing along the olives in the midst
Of my glissando.

Yohan Heineken, I believe.
A baroque composer.
My thoughts fluidly sailing as the leaves of the tree rustle,
And the snow echos as more olives fall upon it.

Like...an orchestra.
The olives falling unto the porcelain, I mean.
What a beautiful melody it creates,
And my fingers magically gloss along the porcelain,
Carefully molding the remaining olives into the crevices my fingers have made.
Oh dear, I've become too passionate for this!

I carry on anyways, 3rd Movement and all.
The Tempest...
A lovely play by Shakespeare & a dazzling story told by Beethoven.

Or simply a way to express my current emotions.
The wind carried the melody...

*...to the ears of the waking princess.

They snore in turn: a soft antiphony
of hoarse vibrations, left, a dull Darth Vader,
and right, though sometimes slipping off the radar,
a tremolando shudder. Stiff, uneven,
a third threads in a slow polyphony,
divisions on a ground that swell or fade, or
pause, then unexpectedly cascade, a
purred glissando, an epiphany
of coarse cadenzas. Soon an overwhelming
sadness percolates from other realms
where yellow stains an ocean’s perfect white
and who can say how many hours to go
till, rallentando, pianissimo,
the music is dissolved into the night.

Wind blows.  Snow falls.  The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.

We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.
What do you whisper, brother?  What do you tell me? . . .
We pass each other, are lost, and do not care.

One mounts up to beauty, serenely singing,
Forgetful of the steps that cry behind him;
One drifts slowly down from a waking dream.
One, foreseeing, lingers forever unmoving . . .
Upward and downward, past him there, we stream.

One has death in his eyes: and walks more slowly.
Death, among jonquils, told him a freezing secret.
A cloud blows over his eyes, he ponders earth.
He sees in the world a forest of sunlit jonquils:
A slow black poison huddles beneath that mirth.

Death, from street to alley, from door to window,
Cries out his news,--of unplumbed worlds approaching,
Of a cloud of darkness soon to destroy the tower.
But why comes death,--he asks,--in a world so perfect?
Or why the minute's grey in the golden hour?

Music, a sudden glissando, sinister, troubled,
A drift of wind-torn petals, before him passes
Down jangled streets, and dies.
The bodies of old and young, of maimed and lovely,
Are slowly borne to earth, with a dirge of cries.

Down cobbled streets they come; down huddled stairways;
Through silent halls; through carven golden doorways;
From freezing rooms as bare as rock.
The curtains are closed across deserted windows.
Earth streams out of the shovel; the pebbles knock.

Mary, whose hands rejoiced to move in sunlight;
Silent Elaine; grave Anne, who sang so clearly;
Fugitive Helen, who loved and walked alone;
Miriam too soon dead, darkly remembered;
Childless Ruth, who sorrowed, but could not atone;

Jean, whose laughter flashed over depths of terror,
And Eloise, who desired to love but dared not;
Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried,--
They are blown away like windflung chords of music,
They drift away; the sudden music has died.

And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowly
And sees the shadow of death in many faces,
And thinks the world is strange.
He desires immortal music and spring forever,
And beauty that knows no change.

I beg you,
Do not make this out to be a love note;
Do not romanticise my words
     until a list of all that is wrong with you
          becomes a letter in a bottle, washed up on an island’s shore.
Do not teach the child I will never have
     that the locked wooden box of dated but unsent letters hidden beneath her bed
          will one day become a novel.
They are all addressed to you--
   just as every thought I think echoes with your name
              every song is about you
              every tear burns my skin with the acidity of your touch
         the smoke from
              every cigarette tastes of you.
It is you.
It is you
             who is the black mist enveloping my lungs from the inside out,
It is you
             swirling in my hollow veins
                as they wrap themselves like chains
                   around my organs, screaming for night,
and you capture my beating heart.


And it is you
     who tells us to teach our children
                         to make sure to say their pleases and their thank-yous,
And we taught them not to talk to strangers,
  but we never taught them to say
                                                      ‘no’. --
Now I don’t speak to the kids hanging out on the corner
And I don’t speak to the man when he pulls up his van,
And now I don’t speak
                                  when I'm lying in bed
you never taught me to say no
I don’t speak when your hand runs down my body
          like I am something you own
          like my bones are the ivory keys of a grand piano
               and you must hit every note on your glissando
descending
   to
hell.



I don’t speak as you wrap yourself around me
metal chains on a summer’s day
I close my eyes
            and listen to my organs screaming for night
                   like a child who just wants her bedtime story,
                                                          ­   her mummy to come home,
                   like a child who is not afraid
                               of monsters in her head,
                          or of monsters under the bed,
                          or of you,
Lying
     beside her.


And we scream for night
   And we close our eyes
      And we float up into a moonless sky.
The definition of a black hole is
               ‘a region of space having a gravitational field so intense that no matter or radiation can
                escape’.
If it is the matter that creates the pull that traps the matter,
   then you are not so much in me
         and I am not so much in you
               as we are trapped inside each other.
The world made up of people and
      people made up of world,
                                          like Romeo and Juliet,
      we do not exist without the other,
                                          you and I.


For the words
           immorality and immortality
                                            may be frighteningly similar, but there is a difference between
                 apathy and anaesthesia;
I do not close my eyes to shut you out,
           I close my eyes because it is only darkness that can make the space between my bedroom walls appear infinite;
           It is only music that lets me hear your screams as you suffocate mine;
                  only smoke that lets me taste your toxicity as my ashes spread like a virus through your veins.


I want to die.
And I'm taking you down with me,
   So don’t you dare tell me to teach the child I will never have
      that her scars seek attention,
         or that she needs them as proof of what you have done to her mind;
   Don’t you dare teach us that the rope from which we hang is a diamond necklace;
          that corpses are more beautiful when drained of blood,
             that we are more beautiful when broken.


Dear world,
   I beg you,
Do not make this out to be a love note;
Do not romanticise my words
     until a list of all that is wrong with you
          becomes a letter in a bottle, washed up on an island’s shore.
Do not teach me that my suicide note is poetry
     when our existence is intertwined
          and my death is yours,
          and you are too cowardly to do it for the both of us,
  but, darling,
                    so am I.
So please,
   I beg you,
You can make this out to be a love note,
                                             a letter in a bottle,
   just close your eyes;
      float up into a moonless sky;
         dissolve into infinity.
                                            Die with me--.
                                                           ­                                                       *j.s.

Piano, piano, soft as moonlight
silken fingers on ivory skin. Glissando --
run your hand up my thigh
plucking every string. Arco, arco.
Softly, softly, the clarinets breath in, breath out
arms envelop me in the tune up,
four notes each fifths apart. Your voice
chimes lovely, the conductor flicks start.

A symphony, a symphony, a whole opera
house inside this bed. Observe me through
small binoculars, roll back your eyes into your head.
Violins slow crescendo, your sigh
an answering phrase from the cello,
listen to the tuba and the piccolo
and the mounting tension. Crescendo, crescendo,
forte, forte. Presto boy, presto. Ritornello.
Fin. Dream with me. Belissimo.

Take a look at all of you down there
So sure of yourselves
So full of the hustle-bustle of life itself
Never stopping to see what could be
Potentially the greatest things of your lives
Jutting through the stream like hot knives
No all simply let life pass them by
Not seeing all the things
Looking you in the eye
And will watch even when you lie asleep
For the final time
You all think you’re hot ****
All hit and no miss
No questions
All answers
Obsess with self worth
Convinced that you’re dust with a value
Just because a god you’re not even sure exists told you so
When the urge to **** is gone
What’s the difference between you and the dirt you walk on
You all rise and fall like the waves in the oceans
Like a glissando of smoker coughs
New ideas are thrown against the scoffs and scrutiny
Of those obstinate practitioners of organized ignorance
You are the only one who should impose sanction on your life
Not some pretty news anchor
Who nods at the teleprompter with total belief
You all chase after superficiality like a poor animal
At the snap of some fat fingers
Call yourselves Pavlov’s pet
You fattened the hand that feeds you yourselves
Have you met the total of life’s offer
Have you looked at yourself in the mirror
And not seen cheap narcissism winking back
Self-imposed limits are acceptable to live by
A moratorium of thought is not
You have free speech
Now learn free thought
Explain the intricacies of a fast food drive through
To the children of Darfur
Explain how you didn’t want to learn how to finish your schoolwork
To the little girl who can’t afford to buy pencils for hers
She will tell you with chagrin how she aspires to be a writer and a poet
But can’t afford the books to help her help herself
You express yourself by exerting as little effort
While she isn’t able to put in the effort to express herself
It’s the ultimate irony
Religion ceased to be the ****** of the masses
When it got it reached one-million views
You all can ask where do I get off
And I will only smile and tell you how I am just like you
I watch the same TV
Eat the same food
Wear the same clothes
The only difference is you can be different
And by simply choosing to do so or not is a step in the right direction
You are your own Atlas
Carry your own world
Anyone else is just liable to drop it

soft bells, all my  soft bells

there, small bird, there
come to me

how nightingale in memory of aloneness does sing
in all its elinesses does ring

here small bird, come into me
how sun crossed by the purple lipstems
goblin flowers sway clasp
                                   brightest horse sun
            your glissando moonfilled eyes'
    soft bells
                          there, small bird
                there come to me
           how nightingale in song does betroth air
                   and when the Winter's children spring    
                                   chorals all death's lies
                                    giggle goblin flowers' hearts
        
                  small birds, gather me
                  come to me I gather your songing furies'
         tender quietude's
                                               soft bells, all my
                                          soft bells

Edges.

This.

A glissando
on abyss.

all in the glory
a skin piece
melting down the sewer eyes
****!
Columbus ave.
sickly "light"? grizzly stairs up the bridge
******* on the low stoopway
forget that corner and a glinting nametag, a dancer
stay here and run! don't do it again  YES
who bends over in the streets
BAM!
"I wasn't watching I'm sorry"
"Oh, no need honey"
undress me
organic hair pitted down matted in a Tesla
Nikol, Nico
the watchburn and lion's breath purple dangling "in the car again?"
"****
not again"
trunkbed aroma hitting
Des Moines!
or was it blue again?
who's sound is closer to the truth and who's taking the first shower?
get naked
I reach down for the stone
I feel the soft at its edges
cigarette soaring!
Waterloo
which of you suckers ruled England last year?
the weekend slowly sleeps
in the bay's gentle red cradle
Mother
fitting quietly
an alleyway above our heads
who?
Edward
a hand raises from the striped automobile
"Hey! **** out of the road!"
Chopin, the glissando with no lost word
the shattered beer bottle of 20 years, antiquity
glow into the sink
washing onward Barton and Lombard
Barton and Lombard
both streets unacting like the other
shards of melting black pavement lying so tight and close, the lovers of suburbia
...

A wet Spring slept on the porch
Like a damp **** full of Bees
From Atlantis.
A smudge of bacon
in the velvet air of early morn
and couldn’t sleep anyway.
Lightning; you know
the kind that cracks the spine of your bookworm.
with pendulous Thunder and Furious -
Antlers.

My broken robe draped over the wind
Like a baritone glissando sans a piroette
as i plant my hushpuppies in the other stillness
beneath the breeze… like a petulant
peace, ticking like a
Balm.

I sip my coffee
to no applause

Tightrope strung
too high
above a reckless
orchestra, can’t
find a downbeat:
conductor’s
lost her
ictus, and the
soprano’s slipped off
the descant
stumbling drunken
dotted rhythms
in stepwise
motion just
short of lilting
glissando.
Concertmaster’ll break
a string to
catch the pitch
carry a well-chewed
tune. Good boy.
Don’t
miss the entrance
or you’ll tumble,
ritornello
to double bars and
slide straight down a
spit-slick trombone
tuner. Wouldn’t
even mind if Ms.
Grey-Eyed
French Horn
would sneak a
wink, but
we’ll get no
Picardy third
tonight, just
minor keys
and fully-diminished
encores.

A piano glissando started the jazz

There she was, the flapper,
She flew on her crooked dancing heels,
Tweeted a light hedonistic tune,
Her airy short fringed gown
Exposed her rouged knees and her naked thighs

A feather boa crawled on her pallid collar bones,
Her heels tapped on the snake’s every slither

The taste of whiskey masked the flavour of her
promiscuity,
A scandal
The scent of morphine wafted around her,
A mirror to her unsettled hoedown

The flapper’s onyx bob,
Embellished with vibrant ostrich plumes
Her hair’s band,
Glittered with sequins and diamantes

Cigarette incense framed her,
clouded the marquee background
Soft lilac light embraced the musical band
But the spotlight was hers

Jazz and drink,
The ingredients for her burlesque conduct

The laughs of audience members
Chorused with her haughty charleston

The trombone climaxed
The cymbals crashed

Her dance was dying
Along with the grins of men clad in black

and on her last step,
The night dissolved

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind
which binds the passion.
-Thomas Aquinas

June sun wakes and slowly rakes
its brow, a lemon-clouded reach

that staggers broad-brushed fringe
& stumbles over tenement bustle

awash with sweat and coffee steam.
But under modest morning's facing

flower riots of desire:
bitten lips pout in open windows,

coarse, carnal hands glissando
over fruit in grocery bins,

a stranger's barking blossom laughter
a little too long and loud to be entirely proper...

Even here, where my lover tightens the knots
with one hand, shining scissors in the other.

[Part 1 - Undone]
I got in the shower with my headphones on, listened to my favorite singer sing about getting naked and I haven’t related to a song as much since the time she sang about being born to be the other woman, cause I was born to be the other man and I made my peace with that.
Maybe we’ll meet in another life.
Maybe then I’d be happy by his side.
Anyway, I’m gone now.
I had no reason to stay.
Call me up if you want me to do something for you
like run an errand
or ****.
Ima set this as my voicemail, so all the men who things haven’t worked out with will hear it.
I could still give you something.
I’m not over you as much as I wish I was.

[Part 2 - Bitchslap]
My baby is the biggest sadist under the moon
You create mayhem but I can’t stop loving you
You make me sad like the ******* sky’s blue
You inflict pain and sweetness and I can’t break loose
It’s just circles, it’s just dead ends for you.
I could be a god, but still not good enough for you.
My baby is the biggest sadist under the moon
You paint me blue but I can’t stop liking you
I’m suffocating when we’re in the same room
You don’t give a ****, but I’m so obsessed with you.
I need a distraction
I need to take action
He’s sweet, but I’m auto-destructive with my fantasies.
I’m so not over any of them,
but I’m choosing to forget that I can’t have them.
I could still give them something.
Am I the only one who feels this way?
Do they ever think of me?

[Part 3 - Candy Crush]
Takes me to the Hamptons, I’m the apple of his eye.
Sings Dylan up real close, I’m his groupie for life.
Sweet like coca cola, I get high off him at night.
Chews me up and spits me up like I’m cherry bubble gum.
Takes me to festivals, I’m his vintage money.
Drives me to the vistas, I’m his bitter honey.
Without him I’m nothing, I’m the light of his life.
I’m his little baby, every day and night.
Sweet like sugar baby,
Only ride or die.
Nothing to lose baby,
Like Bonnie and Clyde.
I got nothing to lose now,
I’m his baby for life.
I learned to flirt from TV,
Decipher me from WikiHow.

[Part 4 - Errands]
Pick me up from school, we can run some errands.
Drive me to your place, choose the fastest highway.
Handle me with care, I go ahead like a Ferrari.
I speedrun relationships, ***** I’m motopapi.
Let me run my hands up your thighs, hang on your shoulders.
Let me caress your hip bones, gently collide our foreheads.
I can sleep on his hips, I ain’t going anywhere.
Follow me on socials and then to the shower.
Once you go bad, there’s no going back.
There’s no going back.
He can play some hip hop, so his neighbors won’t hear.
Crash me into the ocean, LAPD in the rear.
Once you go brave, you won’t ever give a ****.
You won’t ever give a ****.
I can undress him slowly, I can drive him like a Lambo.
Run my hands upwards like I’m doing a glissando.
Once you go to town, you’re a local there.
You’re a local there.
My consciousness is calling, Ima call you back in two weeks.
My senses are calling, Ima call you back in never.
“What the hell are you doing?” they keep asking me.
Running errands, that’s what I am doing.
I never had a boyfriend, but I’ve had fun in spite of that, that’s the least I could have so why’re they surprised I did?
Now I want the bare minimum and I wanna get it daily like I’m buying groceries, meet somebody new, write his number down on a Walmart receipt, call him up and get my hopes up, get hooked up and give him up.
I’ll see him in another life.
I might love him in two.
He might love me back in ten.
You’re hella cute, hella cute when you stutter, I like your face but you’re also hella outta reach, nowhere close to my dominion.
Hell, at least run an errand with me, it’s the bare minimum.
Pick me up from the gardens, we can waste our time.
Drive me to the riverbed just to break my heart.
Don’t ask me for money, hit me up to chat.
I got nothing to do, nobody here to love.
So it’s no wonder why I want all the things above.
Treat me like a ghost,
I’m gone as we’re speaking.
At least give me a call,
I’m not gone entirely.
I don’t regret what I do, even if it winds up fruitless.
It’s the minimum of it, both its grandeur and crudeness.
It’s a crazy thing.
You and I both know this won’t work, but it’s the best we’ve ever had.
It’s the best we’ve ever had.
The hardest thing is knowing when to give up and I made my peace with that.
I made my peace with that.
Run errands with me, take me to your place, give me what others have.
Get naked in the shower.
Get drunk on hope.
Give up, repeat, crash into the ocean.
Let’s do something together.
Just to stop feeling lonely.
Get high on the minimum of what we’ve never had.
Even if it’s for the night.
Drive me to your house.
Don’t blame me for being this way.
I gave up on the good life long ago and I made my peace with that.

Festive fingers
Allegretto shape
Black mist
Over arched insteps
Passed twin valleys
Where Achilles fell
Now glissando
Palms smooth
Whispering patterns
Across flowing calves
Navigate knees
Bony promontories
Until pianissimo
Spatulate hands
Taut lace against
Trembling thighs
Would that those

Worshipping hands
Were mine.