I want to know what kind of man you are beneath
the surface.
I want to understand what makes your heart beat faster
and what you love. What makes you mad, and why it has
that power over you.
I want to learn if your anger is hot and quick like mine, or
a lingering coldness that freezes those who invoke your
wrath. Do you forgive them when the red mist subsides,
or do you hold a grudge through all of eternity?
I wish I could know how you see me through those quiet
eyes of yours. I want you to tell me if you long to stroke
my hair as we drift off to sleep, or if it’s my curves that
your hands ache for. I wonder if you would message me
goodnight before bed, so that I would never close my eyes
without knowing that I was loved. Perhaps you would
expect my heart to know that already, simply by the way
your face lights up at the sight of mine.
What do you dream of when you close your eyes? Do you
sleep peacefully until the light dapples your skin through
the blinds, or do the tigers prowl around your head,
leaving you shivering in fear in the darkness?
When you are lonely, do you ever think about my smile, or
the way that I always know how to still the demons that
scream inside you? I wonder if I am still vivid in your
awareness, or a distant memory now; a spectre bathed in
the gentle lustre of nostalgia.
Do you chase sunsets or sunrises? I love both. Does the
promise of a shimmering new dawn appeal to you more
than the glow of another day closing in a riot of colour? I
wonder where peace finds you. Will you drink hot tea with
me as the sun blazes through the horizon, reminding us
of the fleeting nature of this life? I think I would like that.
I want to learn if you prefer the bright crackle of a
burning log fire, snuggled up in blankets against the cold,
or the way that the sun plays upon warm limbs, making
them glow golden in the afternoon light. Is it summer that
brings a smile to those lips I covet, or would you
rather turn your face up to taste the snowflakes as they
fall?
I watch to see if you curse the fact that you cannot get to
work in the snow, or if you roll up your sleeves joyfully to
build a snowman. And if you do, I notice whether you give
him a stone mouth so that he might smile upon the
children that wave as they pass him by.
Do you ever fantasise about losing yourself, out there, in
the world? Do you seek the quiet solitude of a wooden log
cabin on the edge of a lake, or do you prefer the lights
and glamour of cocktail dresses in a fancy room full of
raucous laughter?Where do you want to go? What do you
want to see?
Do you hear it when adventure calls out your name and
more importantly, do you answer?
I want to know where you hide, when the world becomes
too much to bear.
Where do you take your freedom?
Is there space for another in your haven, or can I follow
you only so far, then settle patiently to await your return
to me; the reunion all the sweeter for your absence.
See, I wanna know if you have hurt people. Did their tears
rain on your heart, each drop a sharp stinging torment? I
try to imagine if you wear a mask of hardness in the face
of another’s pain, or if you are gentle as you ask for
forgiveness. Do you bleed through another’s wounds?
Can you?
Tell me how you have broken someone you loved, and
whether you were able to fix them again. Did they love
you still when the pieces were put back together? What
horrors live in the bleakest corners of your soul? What do
you think about when you go there?
I want to know the very worst of you.
Share with me the music that plays in your heart, and
whether you dance to the beat of your own drum.
Show me the colour of your love. If you could splash its
brightness onto a waiting canvas, would it burn with
passionate reds and oranges, or would it run still and
strong in a cool turquoise calm?
Tell me if you kiss softly, your lips singing mine a gentle
lullaby, or whether they would rage intently,
scorching new pathways to my heart with a desire that
refuses be stilled. I want to feel it either way.
Show me if you want a sweet girl, or a ***** one. Or a
little of each. What makes you cry out in ecstasy? Is it a
woman that makes you laugh until your stomach hurts, or
one whose beauty takes your breath away with a single
look? Do you look for the quirky ones, perhaps? The ones
who are too easily overlooked, the hidden treasures?
Tell me, would you risk it all for love? Would you fight for
what you truly want, or would you let it slip away into
nothing, never knowing what might have been, because
you never told her that your heart beat only for her? Did
you ever realise she was waiting for you to fight for her?
Will you watch someone else love her because you were
too afraid to be vulnerable with her?
Will you settle for next best, the girl you could maybe
grow to love someday, instead of the one that haunts your
thoughts today? Is that enough for you? Maybe it is.
Could you live with yourself knowing that she got away?
Tell me about a time that you cried until you couldn’t
breathe anymore. Or where you lived through a day where
you prayed for the sweet release of death. Did you make
it through? I have been there. Has your heart been broken
into a million tiny pieces and, if it has, has it made you
hard? Or are you are still open to the beauty that the
world holds for you?
Show me your pain and I will show you mine. I hope it
does not scare you. It has helped me to grow.
I want to know if you talk to the glittering stars above us,
and which one is special to you. What do you think
happens when we die? Do we join their shining ranks in
heaven or is there nothing left for us? Are you afraid of
death? I am. Will you hold my hand if I leave you first? If
you whisper to me that love knows no boundaries, not
even death, will you mean it?
Tell me about your childhood. I want to know the way
your mother’s hair smelled when you crawled exhausted
into her lap, and the way your bedroom looked when you
were 10. Did your father cry when you curled a tiny fist
around his finger for the very first time? I bet he did. I
want to know all the people that you have loved
throughout your life, so that I might love them through
you and with you.
Do you write? Do you draw? I want to know whether you
ache to capture my face with your pencil, preserving the
wonder that lingers softly there. Do you like to express
yourself through words, or action best? Will your hands
illustrate your story as you speak and will I know that you
are lying from the way your lips tremble gently as the
words tumble guiltily from them?
What is your favourite book? Explain to me why it
enraptures you so. Please? It tells me a lot about you. I
love the way people cry when their favourite character
breaks their heart, as though they are an old friend to be
adored. Who is yours? I will seek them out and befriend
them to understand why they have moved you so much.
Lend me your secrets. I’ll keep them safe and I’ll return
them when my picture of you is complete. Whisper into
my ear so that only us two may share them. Do you
believe in magic? I do, now that I have met you.
Tell me your story, for it might well become part of my
story. Let me in. Let me see you. All of you.
I want to know you.*

-Jojo Roden

Your daisies have come
on the day of my divorce:
the courtroom a cement box,
a gas chamber for the infectious Jew in me
and a perhaps land, a possibly promised land
for the Jew in me,
but still a betrayal room for the till-death-do-us-
and yet a death, as in the unlocking of scissors
that makes the now separate parts useless,
even to cut each other up as we did yearly
under the crayoned-in sun.
The courtroom keeps squashing our lives as they break
into two cans ready for recycling,
flattened tin humans
and a tin law,
even for my twenty-five years of hanging on
by my teeth as I once saw at Ringling Brothers.
The gray room:
Judge, lawyer, witness
and me and invisible Skeezix,
and all the other torn
enduring the bewilderments
of their division.

Your daisies have come
on the day of my divorce.
They arrive like round yellow fish,
******* with love at the coral of our love.
Yet they wait,
in their short time,
like little utero half-borns,
half killed, thin and bone soft.
They breathe the air that stands
for twenty-five illicit days,
the sun crawling inside the sheets,
the moon spinning like a tornado
in the washbowl,
and we orchestrated them both,
calling ourselves TWO CAMP DIRECTORS.
There was a song, our song on your cassette,
that played over and over
and baptised the prodigals.
It spoke the unspeakable,
as the rain will on an attic roof,
letting the animal join its soul
as we kneeled before a miracle--
forgetting its knife.

The daisies confer
in the old-married kitchen
papered with blue and green chefs
who call out pies, cookies, yummy,
at the charcoal and cigarette smoke
they wear like a yellowy salve.
The daisies absorb it all--
the twenty-five-year-old sanctioned love
(If one could call such handfuls of fists
and immobile arms that!)
and on this day my world rips itself up
while the country unfastens along
with its perjuring king and his court.
It unfastens into an abortion of belief,
as in me--
the legal rift--
as on might do with the daisies
but does not
for they stand for a love
undergoihng open heart surgery
that might take
if one prayed tough enough.
And yet I demand,
even in prayer,
that I am not a thief,
a mugger of need,
and that your heart survive
on its own,
belonging only to itself,
whole, entirely whole,
and workable
in its dark cavern under your ribs.

I pray it will know truth,
if truth catches in its cup
and yet I pray, as a child would,
that the surgery take.

I dream it is taking.
Next I dream the love is swallowing itself.
Next I dream the love is made of glass,
glass coming through the telephone
that is breaking slowly,
day by day, into my ear.
Next I dream that I put on the love
like a lifejacket and we float,
jacket and I,
we bounce on that priest-blue.
We are as light as a cat's ear
and it is safe,
safe far too long!
And I awaken quickly and go to the opposite window
and peer down at the moon in the pond
and know that beauty has walked over my head,
into this bedroom and out,
flowing out through the window screen,
dropping deep into the water
to hide.

I will observe the daisies
fade and dry up
wuntil they become flour,
snowing themselves onto the table
beside the drone of the refrigerator,
beside the radio playing Frankie
(as often as FM will allow)
snowing lightly, a tremor sinking from the ceiling--
as twenty-five years split from my side
like a growth that I sliced off like a melanoma.

It is six P.M. as I water these tiny weeds
and their little half-life,
their numbered days
that raged like a secret radio,
recalling love that I picked up innocently,
yet guiltily,
as my five-year-old daughter
picked gum off the sidewalk
and it became suddenly an elastic miracle.

For me it was love found
like a diamond
where carrots grow--
the glint of diamond on a plane wing,
meaning:  DANGER!  THICK ICE!
but the good crunch of that orange,
the diamond, the carrot,
both with four million years of resurrecting dirt,
and the love,
although Adam did not know the word,
the love of Adam
obeying his sudden gift.

You, who sought me for nine years,
in stories made up in front of your naked mirror
or walking through rooms of fog women,
you trying to forget the mother
who built guilt with the lumber of a locked door
as she sobbed her soured mild and fed you loss
through the keyhole,
you who wrote out your own birth
and built it with your own poems,
your own lumber, your own keyhole,
into the trunk and leaves of your manhood,
you, who fell into my words, years
before you fell into me (the other,
both the Camp Director and the camper),
you who baited your hook with wide-awake dreams,
and calls and letters and once a luncheon,
and twice a reading by me for you.
But I wouldn't!

Yet this year,
yanking off all past years,
I took the bait
and was pulled upward, upward,
into the sky and was held by the sun--
the quick wonder of its yellow lap--
and became a woman who learned her own shin
and dug into her soul and found it full,
and you became a man who learned his won skin
and dug into his manhood, his humanhood
and found you were as real as a baker
or a seer
and we became a home,
up into the elbows of each other's soul,
without knowing--
an invisible purchase--
that inhabits our house forever.

We were
blessed by the House-Die
by the altar of the color T.V.
and somehow managed to make a tiny marriage,
a tiny marriage
called belief,
as in the child's belief in the tooth fairy,
so close to absolute,
so daft within a year or two.
The daisies have come
for the last time.
And I who have,
each year of my life,
spoken to the tooth fairy,
believing in her,
even when I was her,
am helpless to stop your daisies from dying,
although your voice cries into the telephone:
Marry me!  Marry me!
and my voice speaks onto these keys tonight:
The love is in dark trouble!
The love is starting to die,
right now--
we are in the process of it.
The empty process of it.

I see two deaths,
and the two men plod toward the mortuary of my heart,
and though I willed one away in court today
and I whisper dreams and birthdays into the other,
they both die like waves breaking over me
and I am drowning a little,
but always swimming
among the pillows and stones of the breakwater.
And though your daisies are an unwanted death,
I wade through the smell of their cancer
and recognize the prognosis,
its cartful of loss--

I say now,
you gave what you could.
It was quite a ferris wheel to spin on!
and the dead city of my marriage
seems less important
than the fact that the daisies came weekly,
over and over,
likes kisses that can't stop themselves.

There sit two deaths on November 5th, 1973.
Let one be forgotten--
Bury it!  Wall it up!
But let me not forget the man
of my child-like flowers
though he sinks into the fog of Lake Superior,
he remains, his fingers the marvel
of fourth of July sparklers,
his furious ice cream cones of licking,
remains to cool my forehead with a washcloth
when I sweat into the bathtub of his being.

For the rest that is left:
name it gentle,
as gentle as radishes inhabiting
their short life in the earth,
name it gentle,
gentle as old friends waving so long at the window,
or in the drive,
name it gentle as maple wings singing
themselves upon the pond outside,
as sensuous as the mother-yellow in the pond,
that night that it was ours,
when our bodies floated and bumped
in moon water and the cicadas
called out like tongues.

Let such as this
be resurrected in all men
whenever they mold their days and nights
as when for twenty-five days and nights you molded mine
and planted the seed that dives into my God
and will do so forever
no matter how often I sweep the floor.

a borrowed pencil
coaxing out words
it never knew it had
in the hands
of another
guiltily.

your gusto

ripping through my veins

'merican flags
trump supporters
platinum beer
fireworks flaring
fires visible atop seedy peeled-paint rvs

technicolor lights amped up on edgy recreational vehicles

4000 (BRIGHT BLUE), 6000 (BRIGHT GREEN), 750XR ON-AND-ON-AND

covered in dirt and filth

eating meat

sizzled atop  
flames atop
charcoal bricks and lighter fluid

complimented by krafts brand
mac n cheese

i am apart of it
you know
your triumph burns sticky, out of my skin

guiltily i came into being

birthed inside anthracitic sediments and lighter fluid

scratching, writhing, biting

at the mercy
of a hyper-paint / subtle-death encrusted
reality

A drugstore pallid in waning light, always illuminated in halogen halos.
I am earless with music.
Black metal loud in clanging sets and blows-
foreshadowing the smell of cleaning solution,
air freshener and the outside
sweet at my back
all steeped deep in the rip roaring undertone torrent of cigarette smoke
blended with cheap perfume until I cannot tell the difference.
There is a limp familiarity to the underlying odor
born partially of personal encounter and-
nestled in the hive mind of social experience.
A distillation of regret and remorse,
of lonely,
of irrelevance;
this black hole swallows my voice the way of my ears,
eaten by rust.

Four cans of beans,
kidneys,
in cans squeezed without any power against sagging swells
melting into other curves
and I swerve close and around guiltily,
noting you only as the source of this pungent spring.
You are smiling apologies
ignorant of my apparent inhumanity-
blind to my selfish hands..

Pinioning belly flesh,
flattening,
reaching
and gaining attendance from a better man
retrieving every dropped can.
I’m retreating,
shaken,
tense to alternatively slacken.
My sweat slippery palms with whitened red sharp fingers feel foreign
and I am surrounded by razors then shaving cream,
moving from shampoo to conditioner,
the whole store is infected with smell.
Staring at nail clippers/snipers clipping touch smooth sooth my tense mind-
don’t look
don’t
look
I can sense little else but dread
drawing closer
you are now crouched so close I’m gagging,
taken forcefully-swept away in an olfactory flood
roiling in rot,
currents of solitude exude from your smiling sullen appearance when I turn to you
fumbling
with my electric ears,
surfacing
in a breath of Amish silence
broken with simple request
and I want to scream at you that I am not a man to ask opinions of
that it does not matter what fake nails she glues to her body
that she is excluded and I don’t know why.


I choose swirls of cream suspended within watery milk,
over childish lady bugs framed by yellow
or dots of red alternating to black,
an epitaph to a lifelike effigy.

Turn the kitchen sink on. Wait 36 seconds. Turn the sink off. Count the sides of the kitchen doorway. One, two, three. Put socks on, walk to the bathroom. Take socks off. Turn the bathroom sink on. Wait 36 seconds. Turn the sink off. Count the sides of the bathroom doorway. One, two, three. Put socks on. The whole procedure had been finely polished into a smooth six minutes. Exactly. Justin’s day can now begin. He finishes his normal routine and leaves the house. He checks the gutter. He’s not checking for anything specific, but it’s sixth in his morning ritual and must be done.

Today he found something. There’s a girl, passed out. She is wearing an excessively short turquoise sequined dress, with matching stilettos. Justin was at a loss. The gutter was not empty. Should he call the police? He took her shoe. He ran. Six blocks later, he stopped. He was In front of his favourite coffee shop. It was an intimidating place, with a tattoo and piercing service offered, while you wait for your coffee. He liked it because the address was 666. He was worried the police he hadn't phoned would be searching for the stiletto he had stolen. Who would have known he would turn to a life of crime? Just earlier, while the bathroom sink was on, he had been thinking of complementing the local parking officer (the one with the limp) on his ability to write tickets. Now here he was, holding the glittering fruit of his crime. Maybe he could return it to the young lady. She seemed nice enough, from what little he knew of her. But what if she questioned him? Best have an excuse prepared. He could say he saw a spider climbing into it. His chivalry had saved her from a nasty bug bite. No, he couldn't pull that off. He would pretend to be a poet, that’s what he’d do. Poets are known for being strange. So he set about writing her a poem.

Turquoise like the rain,
off you go, down the drain.

With a dress, short like our fleeting existence,
that could really do with some more distance.

I took your heel to 666,
left you a poem in the mix.

Justin was in fact quite proud of his apparent literary side. He rejected -yet again- a discount on tattoos, and left the coffee shop. He walked back to his gutter, Finding once again the girl, passed out. Slipping the stiletto back into place on her foot, he looked around guiltily, double checking the police hadn't followed him. He went inside. He went to bed. The next morning, he forgot to turn the kitchen sink on. He didn’t wait 36 seconds. Didn’t turn the sink off. Didn’t count the sides of the kitchen doorway. One, two, three. Didn’t put socks on. Didn’t walk to the bathroom. Didn’t take socks off. Didn’t turn the bathroom sink on. Didn’t wait 36 seconds. Didn’t turn the sink off. Didn’t count the sides of the bathroom doorway. One, two, three. Didn’t put socks on.

I want to enjoy life to the fullest,
eating my heart out,
enjoying these heavenly cookies
without a care.
But as I eat, guiltily,
the weight down below gets heavier and heavier,
and thoughts of judgment
and looks, they begin to come back with a vengeance.
I'm enjoying life right now,
but I will pay the price later.

What's in a name?
Let me tell you a story,
Of how my life changed,
And how my name changed,
Every time it appeared on the newspaper.

Replaced by a pseudonym,
Something to do with courage,
I was namelessly admired, slandered, and debated over,
Media’s Exclusive Coverage!

The newspaper headline read in big block letters:
“14 YEAR OLD GIRL SAVES SIX KINDERGARTNERS”,
That made me smile.
Just maybe I thought we had come that extra mile.
But no for I noticed,
My name was changed,
And the Printing Department was not at fault.
That’s just how my country dealt with ****** assault.
I never asked them to hide my name,
They had presumed, of course, that I was ashamed,
Of saving lives. It took me a minute to remember,
I had called Jyoti Nirbhaya for years.

I wanted them to know who I was,
Hiding I thought was for criminals,
Until I realized that I WAS one when,
On returning from the hospital I saw,
Pain in my mother’s,
Anger in my father’s,
And disgust in my relatives’ eyes.
No idea why a part of me had come expecting pride.

In school my “friends” guiltily refrained from talking to me,
Neither were my teachers too happy to see,
That I had returned to the same school,
Bringing with me my painful story,
Which I had mistaken as one of glory.

And when I went to receive the “Bravery Award”,
Only the trophy didn’t read compensation award.
They looked at me with too kind eyes calling me a “hero”
Their smiles told me they meant violated.

As I received the award,
I saw they were trying really hard,
To not let it show,
That they wanted me to know,
The difference between:
Bullet marks on the chest to bite marks on the breast,
Blue around the eyes to blue around the thighs,
Scratches on the fists to cuts on the wrists,
Loud screams in the cold to muffled screams against the cold,
The red of the torn ligament to the red of the torn *****,
The difference between a soldier’s and a victim’s blood.

And suddenly I felt as if I was,
The rescued,
Not the rescuer,
The maimed,
Not the fighter,
The oppressed,
Not the rebel,
The hostage,
Not the warrior,
I thought myself to be.

What’s in a name?
Apparently, a lot.

I tell everything.

You look at me guiltily --


I understand you.

Chorus, string Music Box, 8. Daud Mazmur

Why does yawning slap my face?
I don't wake Yawn's slumbering
while I work, except when tired. Mercy please.
Healing bones, working.Yawning.
Waiting and churning fear into butter.
And U? How long have U curdled
my milk? Soul food & Paneer satisfies.
Save me some of that satisfaction
leftover. When I wake, yawning,
dead tired, who hears my need for snacks?
I'm tired of sighing,
of sleeping in Noah's bed,
floating on crocodile tears.
I can't swim no more with these eyes.
They're too old, swollen from too many fights.
U go. A timeout for a few hours, while I rest the no.
I hear Yawn's snore,
I know the dinner's ready;
Enemies sit; I share the butter without shame,
and suddenly we are not disappointed.
We have guiltily repented.

I had purchased the tickets home ten days in advance to force myself to get back to reality and civilization. My hands were weak from the constant shoveling; my liver the same. Each hour that had passed underneath that sun seemed like a punishment from God himself; a hot whipping sensation that singed the back of my hair and left permanent burn marks streaked across my back. There was no way I would ever forget the constant ridicule and insult from the other workers as I clumsily painted instant concrete on bricks which would soon be a house I would never see. The struggles of the white man seemed to bring a pleasure to the mexican work force that I would never understand which I was both jealous and disgusted by.

Lemino came over gripping a pick axe, large and the color of of a recently picked coconut. "Hey white boy, you need some water?" He threw me a muddied water bottle in a puddle of my sweat. "Thanks Lem. I can barely lift my ******* head in this heat, how do you do it?" Lemino looked up at the sun. "I don't know man." He lifted his finger to the noon hanging sun and said, "Sometimes I just think of the Sun as my woman and I never take no **** from Her so why's that any different." He took a sip of his own water and walked off, his back completely dry and cracked with a mix of mud and concrete.

Jesus, I thought. For someone like that and someone like me to be working on the same house made me wonder why I had ever been brought here in the first place. How did I get here? Why had I been punished so for my work in school, my excellent obedience with peers and with the community? I was not a religious man but I grew up in the land of the free and the brave, how had it come to this? I drank the entire bottle of water throwing it on the sizzling grey brown ground.

"Hey white boy!," screamed a voice from the rooftop. "Throw that **** away or I'll beat the **** out of you when the day is done." ******. I knew someone would see me during any act of comfort or clumsiness. The mexican hyenas chuckled as I stalked guiltily over to empty water bottle. The ten or twelve workers, all shirtless and brown, stood chuckling down on me like some horrific Greek chorus secretly whispering and planning my doomed fate either at a late night discoteca or some run down bar down by the water. Oh lord, how cometh taunt me so?

---

it rained yesterday,
and as we walk today onto
the soaking track,
the long and circular
spiked-rubber
track, ***** puddles
assault us,
bearing the floating,
struggling corpses of
worms that escaped
the drowning underworld
only to be swallowed by
the waves of the
upperworld, where we humans
run and play with each other and
with nature, but as much
as we can change in our mother,
we cannot quell her lachrymose heart,
and so we walk
gingerly among the
vain attempts
at survival which manifest
themselves as bodies laying
split and ******, pinned
to the earth by natural needles
(their fluids drying over
their skin, sticking them,
melding them,
to the ground) as
though someone has
prepared them for dissection.
but no one save i
attests to the sincerity
of ****** science;
i am the only one
to delve into their
infirm bodies
to seek their minds
and travel
down their tracts and
empty their glands
and poke at their five
or four
hearts, however many
worms have;
i am the only one
to dissect them, yet
lay one digit on them i do not.
i dare not,
for what would i discover
but wormlike attributes,
and who would ever
discover
anything
inside a worm but
defeat in its own birth,
ostracism for having
been derived from something
so lowly as a
creature without limbs,
which eats,
yes eats,
the very black vile
we stomp our mighty
feet upon.
but,
remember,
worms have many hearts
(four or five,
however many) and therefore,
more blood to spill.
and so,
from that logic springs forth
the idea
that the blood of an earthworm
(in comparison
to its body)
flows four
or five
times as heartily,
more guiltily.
but no guilt touches the ones
who scream and swerve as they run,
avoiding death scene after
death scene in the
short films of worms' lives.
it confuses me, however,
how these worms came to be
lying dead atop our
artificial turf,
for isnt it fact that
a worm comes to
the surface
when the earth floods, and
so isnt it fact
that artificial turf does not flood
(for it is solid and immovable
through and through, and
so no worm's tunnel
can penetrate the
hard rubber) and
so isnt it
mysterious
that these creatures
have risen to the surface
from a subterranean lair
that doesnt exist?
pondering this,
i stop and i let the rest
run past me,
kicking up
brown water with an odor unknowable--
the stench of death in summer.
i look down to the
ghastly sight, and
i know suddenly that
worms have hidden
and that rain has found and
injured them,
and that we have dismissed and
killed them.
and i think to myself,
i know why worms hide.  
knowing this,
i look up to continue
trampling these mockingbirds
of the dirt
(for who would take pity on a girl
taking pity on worms?) but
i stop when i see a young
boy lingering on
the side of the track,
studying the turf
i so carefully studied
moments before.  
i study him.
and i see him delicately
scoop up a worm,
wriggling at life's end,
hold it between
his fingers high in the
air
like a golden chalice
to be blessed,
and drop it whole into his open mouth.

Are we nearly there Dad?
Is it very far?
Oh he is going to drive me mad
We had just got in the car

Are we nearly there Dad?
Have we far to go?
Oh God this is bad
We had only gone a mile or so

Are we nearly there Dad?
Is it far away?
Why don’t you take out your i-pad
There must be games you can play

Are we nearly there Dad?
I really have to ***
I know this is sad
I think he’s doing this deliberately

Are we nearly there Dad?
Is it much further?
I’m losing what patience I had
I will be done for ******.

Are we nearly there Dad?
This is taking a long time
Please, please stop asking lad
Before I commit an awful crime

Are we nearly there Dad?
This is not much fun
You are getting on my nerves a tad
Please give it over Son

Are we nearly there Dad?
I am feeling very sick
Just one more problem to add
I am at the end of my wick

Are we nearly there Dad?
I am really bored
I hope this is just a fad
He might stop if he’s ignored

Are we nearly there Dad?
He asked rather sleepily
If he sleeps I will be glad
I thought, rather guiltily

Are we nearly there Dadeeee?
He started to whine
Why must he keep on and on at me
I really feel like crying

Are we nearly there Dad?
I said yes, five minutes more
It was a white lie, what a cad
But at last, I heard him snore.

Are we nearly there Dad?
I said "yes son, eventually"
“I just want to go home Dad!!”
he began screaming incessantly

Are we nearly there Dad?
Louder and louder he screams
It’s been years since those trips we had
But I still hear him in my dreams!

Are we nearly there Grandad?
my grandchildren ask me now
these days I don't find it too bad
I've gotten used to it somehow!

Nocturne,
whence she calls me
Nocturne,
whither I call back

After hours, when all
the lights turn out
but mine
I hear birdsongs
as the sun turns on
the sky

Nocturne
whence she calls me
Nocturne
whither I call back
Nocturne,
whence she calls me
Nocturne
Best never to look back

After lights out, and all
the streetlight seeps
through sidewalks
I see her there
she turns the sun
back on

Nocturne,
whence she calls me
Nocturne
I reply
Nocturne
I turn guiltily
Sometimes dreams remind

Sometimes dreams remind
Some dreams rewind time
Sometimes dreams rewind
Some dreams rewind time

Nocturne,
as she calls me
slowly I reply
Nocturne,
shill she calls me
Guiltfully I close my eyes

If someone ever gets me a box of those little word magnets you can put on your fridge
I'll be gone for hours whenever I go to get a snack.
I love words.
I love the challenge of saying something meaningful
With a jumbled stack of them all scrambled up.
I love words.
Having them there to swirl around and make strings of
Like a child makes popcorn garlands for the Christmas tree
Comforts me
In a way that pulling them from thin air can't.
It marries my two soothing balms- expression and mindless motion.
If I see them in a friend's house or a store,
I disappear for... sometimes hours, to be frank.
My English teacher had them on the board.
I made myself late for the following class every day
Because I couldn't keep my fingers off those words.
Finding purchase, somehow,
Tactility,
It satisfies a wild craving in my heart
That mere thinking and typing just can't satiate.
It's really absurd.
Once I visited my friend,
And I wandered into her kitchen to get sodas for us both
And she found me there an hour later
Sliding little black and white type words
Along her stainless steal freezer compartment.
She said, "What are you doing?"
And I jumped, pulled back from some focused, faraway place,
And guiltily realized the sodas were warm.
I love words.
I love touching the things I love,
Feeling their existence.
I love limits on words,
I love figuring them out,
Because even with the tiniest amount of them
You CAN say what you need to say,
If only you distill the meaning to its essence.
I just... I really
Love
Words.
If I ever get my hands on those silly little magnets,
I honestly don't think I'll ever make it past the refrigerator door again.
That's why I don't buy them myself.

I remember the exact moment we met,
You told me my blue eyes matched  my dress
And with blood taking hostage of my cheeks,
I made fun of your German name.

Yes, I can remember
the first time I snuck home to our bed, guiltily
lifting the feather comforter we spent hours picking out
in Bed Bath and Beyond.
A blanket that now weighed as much as a semi truck
crushed around your sleeping body.

Lying beside you, no dreams came
to relieve me from my reprehensible  thoughts.
But it became easier. So easy, that one night
I didn’t feel a thing when I slid under those weightless covers,
Kissing you goodnight, mumbling something
about ******* coming in late.

I remember the exact moment we met.
His black rimmed glasses and off balance smile
As he handed me a cup of jungle juice in a dim, packed house.
His compliments felt all wrong,
Like they should have been coming out of your mouth
But I drank them in
faster than the jungle juice in my ***** plastic cup.

Your face
the day you walked into our room,
that’s what I remember, and wish I could forget, most of all.
I’d coached myself for this moment a so many times
I guess I  never thought it would actually come.
I don’t know what was worse, the lies
falling from my mouth, or you believing them
because you believed so much in me.

I feel this inhuman suffocation
when I step out into
that officially sponsored
fog machine artificial haze
to start the music blaring from
speakers that don't say a thing
Spitting throat lumps and grinds
lurching like scary monsters
controlled by raving mad super creeps
hiding behind walls of
electronic lies
and vinyl appropriations
committed to automation
in
beats making stage cages swing like
stray lanterns filled with
questionable electrocuties -
wild tarts that can't be broken
but you can stare all you want
at
Black-light-blemish-broken-razor-testimony
obscured with slashed fishnet and
splashed neon body paint
Move to the wavelengths
going to grave lengths
as
my dead beats facilitate this
Deja Vu machine world
of
backdoor audition submission
courtesy of half massed scrubstep poser pseudo-players
and maneaters planted on dance floors
Wearing short skirts low cut shirts
high heels long hair and plenty of
emotional baggage
and
I find myself feeling somewhat sorry
and guiltily enticed by the decadent
conspicuous consumption and sinister
seduction I cannot escape
until
The song crescendos and I slam an invisible hand
into the wreck chords
from now until the end of rhyme
I want to stop the whole thing
but this is what I signed up for
this is my punishment
so
with reluctant crossfader switchblade hands
I scratch the noise back into the air
and out of my head
because
the
beatings
must
go
on

The Garden

As the Parent stood looking out the window
At their beautiful young daughter playing in the garden with a friend
They could only marvel at what they saw, a Beauty so delightful, so vibrant and alive
Dancing about, so light of foot and with a laughter so carefree
So youthful and so radiant looking,
And when she smiled it was like she smiled with her whole being
From somewhere deep deep down inside her...
"O! Youth, wondrous youth and innocence", thought the Parent, "such a beautiful time and a beautiful sight to behold
Untouched by this world, all her skies, they were blue
A darling child facing out into a loving abundant Universe"
The Parent smiled and nodded their head
All was well yea! All was good in the Garden.

                  The Tree of Good and Evil

But then there came a day when the daughter approached their parent saying
"My friends they all have phones so they can keep in touch with one another, and they can play their favourite songs, I feel a bit left out, I'd love to have a phone too"
Now the Parent could never refuse their lovely daughter anything
So a few days later they presented her with a brand new sparkling phone (just as she had wished)
She was thrilled, this lovely new shiny thing in her hands, this wonderful new toy... plaything
"Now I'll be able to keep in touch with my friends and play my favourite songs" she enthused
But then the Parent introduced a note of caution, they said "You must be careful, there are dangers...dangers out there
They told her of some websites they knew calling them"healthy wholesome sites"
They warned "Stay on these sites, their good safe sites,
Don't stray!... Don't stray onto the Internet!!"
The daughter was a little perplexed by this, she wondered what 'dangers' were
This was something new to her innocent mind.

                               The Fall

Now the Parent had to go away for a few days on a business trip
When they returned they hastily dropped their bags in the hallway
And rushed again to the window, rushed to see the one they valued most in this world
The One they loved above all... their most precious daughter
What they saw though sent a cold chill through their heart
For there was a difference now, a noticeable change in her
No longer was she fleet of foot, now they detected a hesitancy in some of her movements
And her laughter too, had changed, now it came only in short bursts
Not the lovely rippling giggly carefree laughter of old
There was also a pensive air about her, something which hadn't been there before,
And for someone who used to like their time spent alone
Now she seemed to cling onto her friends more
As if now she was afraid they might leave her
As if now she was afraid of being left alone with herself.

The Parent grew worried watching her, so they went out into the garden
"Daughter!", they said, "Is there something wrong ?" Are you not well?"
The daughter's eyes were downcast, it was like she was almost ashamed to look them in the eye
She nervously fingered her phone in her pocket
And then she said something... something strange, not like her at all
She said "The Planet... the Planet is dying"
"What!", said the Parent, "who told you the planet was dying, who told you this ?"
She went on "And there's Bad men with terrible weapons, there's wars! diseases!! famines!!! "
"Who told you all this ?" again asked the Parent, "who told you ?"
The daughter took out her phone and looked at it rather guiltily
She said "One of my friends showed it to me on the Internet"
The Parent said "We warned you Love, we told you to stay away from the Internet
The Parent then bent down and looking their little daughter in the eyes they said
"Sweet darling child , don't be afraid ! You were made pure...pure and strong, invincible in the face of this world
You mustn't fill your mind full of these dark things
These dark black clouds that will only block, clog up your beautiful skies
Dim the radiance of your magical radiant life"
But the daughter she replied almost resignedly "I know now that before when I was happy I was just living in ignorance
I know now this is how people are meant to be... and to feel. I feel I've grown up now".

As she turned and went back to her playmates the Parent thought sadly
"Now she'll have to decide, to look within, to find herself again...to regain her old self...her old smile
Or else, more dangerously... she'll have to wander...to seek outside".

It's getting harder and harder to breathe,
Out of fear of spitting the blackening  truths inside me.
You are rainbows; and sunflower meadows,
I am the remnants of a fire pit, burnt for over a thousand lives;
I amount to coals and hot embers havent rolled past for a while.
There is no spark.
I have six layers of skin
Scorched with darkness.
And I am guiltily okay with that.

After the fall of every living king
Each memory a myth of what was once living
She screams ripping off her golden loom
Something her lover entrusted to her
Under a pale white hanging moon

When the trumpet calls out to the people
And the sheep have gathered inside of the steeple
Keep your eyes onto the horizon
For the sun is rising fast
The fact standing that forever cannot last

To hear truth blow through the thin green pine
As she asks guiltily if loving me is some kind of crime
I hold my head still with a steady will
Thinking there are sometimes questions with answers
Better to be told with aimless laughter

Hate is a such a simple thing
Where love can be so complex
And yet the two swirl around together
In some kind of whirlpool vortex
There has to be an answer for the two
I can't think of one, can you?

Last night someone called out to me
I heard my name out on my frozen balcony
Opening my door, my eyes cast down below
I only spotted the freshly fallen snow
Perhaps a wish from Prague telling me to go

I wear the handkerchief of melancholy
Disinterested in my burdensome folly
There's got to be something else in this life
Other than the moans and soundless cries
I release my shackles at last seeing the sky

Grass wet with the mayor's winter dew
Pinching myself so not to show a clue
The night fades into an angelic dark-blue mellow
Ceiling begins to crack, my feet turn to stone
My sins hang in the balance waiting to be atoned

Cradle my head upon your angel feathered bed
What you said to me last night struck me dead
There's nothing in this world that I wouldn't do for thee
Bound in blood, we wrote things deeper than any political decree
When you see me again, don't tell me that you still believe

My boat has shipped off, the sails in full spread
I see the thunder ahead of me, but I know I'll do well
A break in the wind, a rumbling swell
There are some things in love one can never foretell
I at last see the lies we spread are the one's we ride
Until the very day we are chosen to die

Smell Spring turn to Autumn
And Autumn turn to bitter Winter
Floating scents of burned flank steak
Cranberry sauce, a fresh bubbling creak
The wine spills and through the table it leaks
At least we tried to live in love far past its peak

There's a soldier on the hill
I stop to listen to him speak
He's talks of war, death, and inner peace
His skin ragged as he rambles with chipped teeth

I knew not true love
Before I had the chance to meet you
And if we leave one another
In the summer heat or the blooming Spring
Know that I loved you with every fiber of my plagued' being
My lungs thick with your perfume that I was breathing
Sleeping next to the warmth that could only come from you

In a whisper, I must go
To find wealth or happiness or the call of the gray crow
I must go whether you curse or trust
I hope that you can see and

Know that I loved thee
With every drop of blood within me

Here I am;
the asphalt covering what is left of my withered self expression.
Here I am;
with nothing but a package of what small personality I did salvage.
Here I am;
awaiting the exile to the inner circle.
Here I am;
wishfully knowing what is next to come.

Here I will be;
a foreigner to  self controlled emotions.
Here I will be;
sent into the burning throat that we call trend.
Here I will be;
a roller-coaster supervisor, but never a rider.
Here I will be;
shamelessly placid.

There I was;
entrenched in my own beliefs.
There I was;
guiltily independent.
There I was;
unique to the tiniest hair on my body.
There I was;
never questioning who I was.





then came the fire





the sweet flames clawed
ripped to shreds
they traveled deep with in the vault I called my spirit
they licked at each crumbling memory of me that would set me apart
their tongues ablaze and thirsting angrily for each asset that made me different
they drooled lullabies
they sweated sanctuary
they left
as if it was nothing but a dream




the fire was gone.






Now





Here I Am.

An occasional gust of wind will lift the translucent white voile curtains and then drop them like a child losing interest. The effect is like flash photography, a burst of sudden sunlight that paints our irises, then quickly fades.

It’s a cool Paris morning. In the low 50s. The windows are open and we forgot to turn on the heat. It’s perfect ‘under the covers’ weather. We’ve succumbed to laziness, refusing to get out of bed. Lazing-in is new enough to us that we’re defining it with a gamut of synonyms.

“Listlessness, torpor,” Peter says, his index finger tracking the slow twirl of the ceiling fan.  
“Stupor, slumberous, supineness, ” I updog.
“Ooh! total submissiveness,” Peter said, drawing the last word out like it’s *****.
“Every man’s dream,” I confirm.
“Inertia,” he says, triumphant in finding an engineering word.
“Good one,” I compliment. “Lifeless, loafing laggard,” I add.

There’s a knock at the door.
We look at each other guiltily, like we’ve been caught.
“We ordered breakfast last night,” Peter remembers.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, “you get it,” I suggested.
“Why me?” he whined.
“Because you can wear less and because what if it’s an ax murderer?”
“These people work for your grandmother, she employs ax murderers?”
“It could be a revolution - this is France - it happens.”

There’s another knock.
“Get it!,” I bleated, like a helpless goat.
“Am I expendable?” he asked, as a man might plead to a lynch mob.
“Women and children first,” I remind him.

There’s a third knock.
“Ok,” he says resignedly, as he rises, draws on shorts and heads for the door.
“You’re my hero,” I assure him, before I pull the sheet up over my head in case it IS an ax murderer.

no matter how much i sleep, rest, or nap i'm exhausted
i've taken to yawning in my favorite class.

no matter how easy i take it, my body still aches when i move
it's frankly rather disquieting.

no matter how much i clear out of my head, i'm still hurting
letting go of difficult situations is hard.

no matter how ahead i get, i'm still stressed for the next thing
the rapidity of life is eating away at me.

no matter how kind i am to those around me, i still know shame
impulsivity of emotion is a thinker's nightmare.

no matter how much faith i have, i still feel uncertain
my god is for me, but it feels like life is against me.

no matter how mature i am, i am still undercut by those older than me
focusing on the positive is not going to be theraputic right now.

no matter how much control i have, i'm still shackled to my anxiety
i cannot just "calm down" to ease your or my own conscience.

no matter how many decisions i make, there is still much left undone
slowing down is a luxury, one i take guiltily and not without consequence.

no matter how much i improve, i'm still bound to expectation of perfection
humanity is not perfect, and neither am i, broken and inadequate, but we try, oh we try.

no matter how much joy is in my life, i still feel the crushing weight of depression.
i said i was doing better

no matter how much i am validated by my loved ones, i still hurt myself
my eating disorder has infected my system completely, down to my bones.

no matter how many breaks i take i'm still being driven into the ground
crying because of household tasks is pathetic.

no matter how much i try to pretend life is not stressful,  it's
digging itself into my heart and soul.

i am not okay, and those who know it are trying to keep themselves afloat
i can't escape this tired, this exhausted, no matter how hard i try.

I’d done it before—losing that feeling that came in the door
when my love walked through, that the ground I was
standing on wasn’t quite steady and the world was spinning
the other way—but he loves me back this time, so now guiltily solid,
I watch as he shakes, head over heels with that feeling
I'm losing and painfully, I remember when both our axes
tilted right instead of left, when earthquakes followed our footsteps.

Fittingly meticulous, finicky
Precisely mitigating routine
Tracing excessively
Over cornered mezzanine

Stray penciled lines
Candidly contrived
Archaic dossier
Balanced centers
Unavoidably erase

Guiltily lost the way
Confused compass oscillates
Irregularly unanticipated
Perpetually transitory

Tender heart insecurity
Ego sensitivities in vain glory
Sacrificed arrogance dignity
On the day of defeat

You standing there looking so innocent
and ****, bitting your lip
Smiling so guiltily and your hair
Cascading down around your face
Over your shoulders and styled by JBF
You standing a bit awkwardly your legs
falling from my flannel and smooth as hell
Your feet up on the ***** as if in high heels
flexing in anticipation and a devilish grin  
With a "What me?" delectation
It's not a skirt, it's my flannel shirt
And with your post coitol giggle
A splash of ***** and a hint of naughty
and you looking muy caliente
As I take you in you take my breath away

When should I write?
When boredom gets sculpted into motivation?
When a distracting thought
Bothers me long enough
To make me turn to it instead,
With ardent concentration -
Thereby perhaps making it
The topic of my next composition?

Should I risk completing that sad poem
I’d been working on for a month now,
When I’m in the best of spirits, today?
Should I try and imagine
What being happy sounds like,
In an unfamiliar milieu of words
For the sake of completing my poem,
Hoping it’ll lift my mood too?

Should I scribble away
The cold downpour of tears with
The harmless, vicarious vengeance of my pen,
The one thing I half-guiltily hold dear
When my anger endlessly battles with helplessness?
[Or are they not worth being written about,
As many tongues would simultaneously utter?]

Must I write in a state of ecstatic frenzy?
       Or could I have to leave that precious thought
                                   Annoyed, hanging in mid-air,
                                            When a trifling rush of new thoughts
                                                  Crashed my way, making me forget,
                              Why I was holding the pen in my hand,
                                               after all.



                                                      Epilogue:
                                               I think I must write now to find out,
                                               Before the ink of my existence dries out.

I hedge, contemplating—
a sweating sky appeared to will us on
heating our loyalty, ensuring friendship
after my departure, remembering
our effort, given dearly
pruning

in the future, plant the dead
there; plant passed sections of
time, and the complications that came
of any blend of love in which I fell
wondering, myself, deeply
pruning

toiling without reluctance
once envelopes saw to my habit
cold days, old fears, and limp problems
all the mistakes of upcoming years
have hastened this day
pruning

drifting issues, written away
the fitting demise of a period spent
waiting angrily earnestly suddenly guiltily;
summers, memories from a younger start,
some still halfway in sunshine
pruning

consider, therefore, this case
something finished: the perfect mistake
feeling like the wind swept in unashamed
entangled relationships, waiting afresh;
however, I hedge, suddenly
pruning

Sanctuary,

Take me from these wintry prisons

That captive, I am, through misery’s fangs

Be still, defiant, no more to me

my course heart beats, so guiltily

Harsh words I spoke, regret, I fold

Your care, I trust, to gaurd me safe

Humility bars me, I fall so low

I’m sorry..

I’m sorry…

Defeat, I pulse, my blood runs warm

In relief, my spirits, content to you

Vulnerability guides me to your arms

Sanctuary, take me away to your heart

Hold me not to my flaws

Forgive me, my love, I plea…

I’m sorry…

I’m sorry..

———————————————————

Sanctuary,

Such solitude, you rescued me

My love, I gave compassionately

Yet now I find I’ve lost the sight

No sanctuary, are you, this night

In light, I guard my heart from you

This pain I suffer, I hold anew

With filth and bile, my body tense

Struck upon your cheek, my harsh caress

Alone I sit, to ponder such strength of love

Such confound deeds you treason for

I surrender myself to a subconscious alcove

Understand me, I have strength none more

I have forgiven

I can’t forget

Sanctuary,

Apologize, your actions speak

Arrogance,your sin, you live vanity

A lust you craved, such a tempting taste

The distinctive man now gone to waste

Bountiful bosoms, and laughter equips

All of my once pleasure and happiness

Selfish desires, contrite you now seem

Was my heartbreak worth your wanton need?

I’m vulnerable, you seem so strong

I live imprisoned within your arms

I take you back, my weakness of love

You rapture my heart, your mistakes undone

I have now forgiven

I can’t forget

so here he was stripped naked in his bedroom
aloof lost in ****** imagination
his mind swimming with thoughts of *******
curvy hips and long legs
how they looked without impediment of clothing
he pictured his engorged member between a lass
thighs
his wet tongue swirling around her ******
leaving a trail of warm saliva on the areola
occasionally his head would swivel scanning the
**** magazine he held on his left hand
a cross scrutiny drawn all over the teenage face
as if he was admiring Da Vinci's art
the right hand lubricated with lotion stroked up and down
in a rhythmic motion
he was breathing hard as the hand performed self loving
there was something about the ****** expression
pleasure  painted all over the contours of his flame:
it was ecstasy but not in religious sense
his eyelids would droop from time to time and the lustful
smile would camouflage inner conflict
the tempo of jacking increased and the magma started rising
eyes still glued on the mag
his body started to spasm
it wasn't just a little twitchy ****** it was a volcano
of pleasure that shook every inch of his skin
the magazine fell he clutched the blanket and clenched his mouth shut
he looked at his sloppy handful junk and thought guiltily
what have i done......

My skin flushed and rouge,
chest rising and falling
in sync with yours.
Oh how you whisper in my ear,
how I wish I could be as pleased as you.
Guiltily my body relishes in the afterglow
knowing inside the depth of our act,
the sin of a desired scarlet.

You hold me, arms holding me like
The branches of a tree,
strong and balenced.
Your hands warm on my heart hurt me so.
Don't you see the shroud of gloom covering my features
The Subconscious of a bride.

Shivering you pull me close.
How I loved to map your body,
questioning what made your body tingle.
To watch you shiver like golden leaves.
Yet I know now the conciquence of our mirth.
Can't you see the deviance our love held,
the hand of all morals held in hand
Broken at the wave hitting shore
as we sang to the goddess Artimes.

Our bodies mold in a scandelous embrace
intwinded like twins, a woven braid.
A mothers death above from our act,
bravery the soul of promise.
Darkness leaving as a dawn hits your face,
as we lie in your loft.
Our bodies emitting the perfume of ****** plea
With my heart beating guitily.

a foreign feeling migrates in.
in with the winter winds
it comes.
ready.
raw.
musters strength.
guiltily building up.
it move from the
core of being
outwards.
pulses like liquid heat
poisons the blood
swallows whole
its innocent host.
runs rampant
exposure in spurts.
unwanted attention.
shameful movements.
anger and hate.
anger and hate.
rage.

(until)

Your feet touch, your minds don’t;
you blow kisses, they’re carried off:
as the wind; to white face rocks.

There’s you, and you, and me—
laughing, trembling.
Leaving: ripples on a mirror.

(for)*

Even when they need it: an open hand to steady;
A solitary swimmer shan’t seek synchronisation.
They’ll sink silently: sapphires streaming,
guiltily gurgling.
As faces gently distort: they’re left castaway.

poetry is dead
in the venues we
are accustomed
there is no
beat
sitting on stage
preaching
the madness
no
romantics
in stony silence
as the pages turn
we have no
present day
poets
that still
believe in
the written word
and the effect
a
line
break
can
have
on a reader
no
no more
no one wants
to settle behind
the scenes
rockstar lifestyles
don't present themselves
to the typists
beating their keyboards
as they do
their wives
but that's how it goes
these are for me
anyways
not you
this is the purging
of every sinful thought
I create
you don't know the
half of it
probably none
at all
but that's how it goes
these lines
all this poetry
isn't made
for kindles
and smart phones
no more
typewriters
or weekly readings
only me
dark in my room
poisoning
the text box
and shivering
guiltily as i
write
one
more
line

My guilty pleasure is not a piece of chocolate after a long day, or bumming a cigarrette off of a stranger. Rather, I guiltily find pleasure in imagining how much better you taste on my lips than those trivial pleasures. The sheer thought of your lips on me makes me guilty with an undying want for the pleasure of your lips.