A hypothermic
jungle, limbs removed.

Garbled mating
songs and silences.

Arial view:
Technicolor.
Black and gray.
Black.

Silences.
Silence.

Was that a flower?
No, a candy wrapper.
No, a rotting fingernail.

Our hypothermic love makes me
feel like a frozen lizard.
Road tripping to Cedar Rapids—
it’s a ******’ blizzard.  
I need some spirits quick to
warm me, then I’ll give her
my hypodermic rod;
one hundred cc’s of thick
hot nectar of the gods, then
this ******* nightmare of
frostbite will end.
And the light and the heat of
my **** inside her will be
our fervor and our grandeur.

Your heart is colder
Than Antarctica,
Where the temperatures
Can **** you.
But I'll risk a brain freeze
To be in your arms.

Cold winter camping
Frigorific night huddled around fire
Many coyotes auspiciously howling nearby
"Don't worry, they're across the water"
Still I wait at the ready with coyot-basher

Tents in snow shielded from peninsula
By tarps lashed together with rope and ply
"You'd probably die out here" says Oscar
Here meaning Newfoundland
Here meaning the Northern Pen.
Agreeing monosylabically

Nearly hypothermic thinking
Not so bad
Maybe stay another night (says the voice)
Sneak down to water
And jump in ice fishing hole

I want to take apart my skin
when the sun is too bright
and the world is too full
of people who will never know me.

I want to open the rivers
inside my wrists and empty them;
to pour myself away
the way I pour whisky
into my empty stomach,
and my hypothermic limbs
into stranger's beds.

She hushes me repeatedly
as if my voice could be– too loud
for these shrunken, elder walls
What voice can I revive to tell her
that this little place...reminds me...?

Ratchet up the memories  
the young mistakes
my welfare “townhouse”

as if my voice could be too loud?!

Where does anger go to say
These cheesy rugs remind me!
of the smoky halls, stoop-sittin’
head lice, **** roach
fumigated invasion
Music loud enough to blow pipes
induce trauma through the walls
Thud Crash
“Stupid ****!”
Knife-weildin’, drug-sellin’, boyfriend-of-a-future

A can of beer later...
with stress on hold
the smells of dinner, now—all fifteen of them!
Assault me through the front window
“Ya there yet?
...to this “cute little apartment, I mean?"


So it’s sold…
Someone else will wash windows, rake the yard
Shovel Massachusetts snow

Christmas lights come down
in my mind—
Running toward them still
Toes numb
Skates bouncin on my back
Sled firing off sparks against the sidewalk in my wake
Running and as always late
Mittens soaked, heavy
Like my eyes—


Mom and I
looking out this window for the last time
Looking out toward the daughter of the woods I was
Behind—me
the bride sinks
to the bare mattress—
“Was it really 57 years?
How can it be?”

since...clutching can opener and Coke
He scooped her up and through that door....
  
“How can it be?   Oh my….”

"You can always keep the memories."
she chirps to check the tears
                                                           ­                                                                 ­But I can’t taste them!
…Mom baking cookies
stew and dumplings on the stove
Snitching chocolate bits
waiting for the bowl
Impatient little helpers at her side

Colors slipping…
A child husks corn in sunlight
A blue Huffy gleams behind birthday candles
Sheets billow from the line

Sounds fading...
A choir of music boxes
before the Christmas carnage
Doing dishes in three-part harmony

I can barely wrap my words around our voices!

“You can always keep the memories”

Preamble to the dutiful decision
Hypothermic excuse
to dump the place

Street sign shrinking in the rear-view

autumn
is when all starts to change
the wind
becomes brisk
warm summer air
slowly suffocated by
arms of an overpowering
cold draft, bitter, mighty
sun light
bright and splendid
shortens, shrinks, shies away
all the kids want
to stay in bed
for their sunlight,
guide, friend
it hides from them
more and more
as seasons change
and
there
fall
the
l
e
  a
   v
    e
     s
one    by    one
there they go as fall comes
they fall
red orange yellow
splendid eye candy
we see an
array of colors
all seems so
simple and
simply beautiful
or is it
something much more?
the real
fall, the tumble
of leaves
down the trees,
do you know what it means?
autumn is
           change
change to winter
the leaves are
dying,
slowly, rhythmically
they die
           one    by    one
they die.
Beauty? How?
In comes darkness,
in comes cold,
in comes
autumn,
summer's dying soul
that
is
winter.
I
am
winter.
You
were
my
summer.

Death gives no rest to my cluttered mind. Death is my enemy! Even in slumber death claws to infect my dreams with its poison called nothingness! So I locked death in the depths of my heart in a chest marked fear. I put on different worldly masks… called college, travel, success, accolades, fiancé, money, ***….I used them to hide my shame but each one was cold blue and hypothermic. Yet in them I felt comfortable at the expense of lost potential and false identity. In frostbites pinnacle my only unbreakable mask shattered…..I lost my Love…………The wailing echoes of delusion shook me frigid till my raw bones shattered the question. Who am I? The undercurrent of desperation violently hydrated my reflection on the dark waters of my soul! I am faceless! Without a face who am I! Death take me now, for I am already nothing!   From below came a vibration that graced my reflection with an ear, a lash and a deep iris.. then windows to my soul sprang and a smile dripped in unabated rejoice…I’m alive!!!! Who has done this?! Show your face, for you are my dearest friend!  Without words death was shaken loose to the depressing reality of dipped anxiety. From behind my many masks I could see Death. For the first time I face you! Your eyes paint the familiar threat that casts me into the obis of nothingness but without you life was delusional meaninglessness! Because of your death threats my life has a face.  Death is my Enemy and my Friend……………..Jesus conquered death so through it I may learn the meaning of His Love and who I really am......now to take down more of my masks……easier said than done....Praise Jesus.........To be continued……………….

Tonight
   got away from the mess
city   toothache     throb
ensemble of car horns
     shoppers throwing     money
like empty   sweet wrappers

park is better
calming me     a cup of cocoa
stepped     into Narnia
     without the wardrobe

snow   squeals   with each step
little deaths
   little graves where others have   stood
a ring of prints from   a hundred   shoes

breathe in     white silence
   find frost’s left a hypothermic   dance
between wires   of a tree
   white fibres together as arms

sweep clean   the bench
   blanket of sherbet
sit and think
how simple it is to be     forgotten
   alone   a caterpillar of tinsel
in a tattered   brown box
not allowed to   shine past
   December thirty-first

or not shine at all
   rather a rope of dud   fairy-lights
   I wonder   I wonder
lamppost emits a   frigid glow
night unfurls above my head
  
   I left my gloves
at home     again

I'm about to take a cruise to an arctic wonderland
Trees will be tumbling and white
Cars will be snow-blown and frosted
My limbs will be hypothermic and exhausted
The sky will be a dull gray
I will be enclosed in sepia tones
Black and white like the sweet 50's.

But constantly I wish I'd happen to spy
Your black silhouette on the milky white sky.

Her face
Sour
A washed out ugly gray
Similar to that of dishwater
With greenish clumps
That closely resemble
Expired milk clods
For eyes

Her hair
Worn out
An expanse of stringy greased mess
As if she’d dunked it into a fry cook’s sink
With the occasionally highlight
Of a darker, muddy brown
Like Mother Nature gave up on a painting
And left her

Her body
Frail
A structure of porous bones and blood
A once pure white soiled with brownish red speckles
The devoured remains of a media wolf’s snack
Unable to really hold itself up
It shudders and shakes constantly
Sort of like a hypothermic deadbeat

So undeniably ugly
Disgusting feeble and poor
Yet somehow
Against what all the yet of you see
I see something gorgeous
Something that could be loved
What I see in her
I love

Could it be that locked in memory
Ancient thoughts are held in store,
Passed on by Neanderthal man
Who's origins we may recall.....

Ape like in physique and frame,
Prominent prognathus jaw,
Burning eyes intense and sharp,
Intelligence to seek for more.

Telepathic thought transference
Little need for guttural grunt,
Massive strength in hand and thigh
Stinking pelt to back and front.

Rushing through the reed and long grass
Casting lance with lunging throw,
Mastodon with roaring bellow
Thrashing trunk with thunderous blow.

Darkness in the smoky cavern
Clustered at the flinted flame,
Family and others warming
Squat encircled, chewing game.

Listening in the chill of moonlight
Listening to the wolf pack howl,
Out across the snow clad forest
Out beyond the hooting owl.

Chewing pelts to soften leather
Massive teeth in massive jaw,
Wary eyes observe the weather
Southern winds may bring the thaw.

Luscious she with scent ascending,
Luscious she with hairy maw,
Bent to me in sweet surrender
Downy hip and coaxing paw.

Roar in rage and beat the earth
Blazing eyes and heaving chest,
Invasion from the **** Sapiens
Seeking females for their nest.

Skies descend with fire and brimstone
Rock cascades and burns the earth,
Mountain God has vent his fury
Scamper hard to cave’s safe berth.

Cold, so cold this bleak snow weather
No retreat from Winter’s ire
Brother, sisters, sons are huddled
Frozen dead in blue ice byre.

Few, so few now to migration
Trek to southern food and heat,
Starving, wet and hypothermic
Staggeringly trudge the weak.

Few, so few to intermingle
With the **** Sapiens here,
Serfs in *******, low and squalid
BUT SURVIVORS..STRONG AND CLEAR!


Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
13 August 2011

woke with hypothermic and shaky skin
a thought: we are made of street lamps
and damp grass feet dripping dew tonight

we live in the color blue under electric moon
and my skin and clothes will be lined up
on top of the dresser for you to sink your teeth in later

my hands are cold in their lipping grasps but your
hips are warm, and desert breathes dragonfly
and smells of chlorine, our legs kaleidoscope

in the pool's reflection.
i am still cold, i am still in spring breaks
broken and inviting your scent back in my life.

I lie here on this beach
     starring up at the clouds above me
while an infinite volume of sound
surrounds me.
I cannot help but think
    that my life should’ve ended more peacefully
but we can’t always receive every wish
we plea for.
Yet,
    2 years ago
       I wouldn’t have thought this
is where I’d be:
     dying slowly
        on the forsaken beaches of Normandy.

The ramp drops
    splashing the sea water high above us,
and already
       four lives are lost.
Captain Morrell moves to the front of the landing craft
    and yells:
HIT THE BEACH!
        only moments before he is incinerated
by an artillery shell.
    that lovin’ 88!

I close my eyes and rush forward,
    screaming as I do,
praying the bullets won’t become lodged
       in my skull
as they **** by we few from 3rd platoon
who survived the landing.

Congregating behind these steel tank traps
         almost a dozen men seek the shelter
from cover that is almost non-existent.
But the German mortar rounds neglect our cover
     and begin showering our position with
                     molten, lead shrapnel
and **** both men and boys.
    so many boys.

The deutsch machine guns spray our position
        with their hypothermic needles
and as more men are landing on this deadly shoreline
     the water turns red from the blood
     of the youthful dead.

Another explosion
    sends the sand showering on top of us again
and my only response
       is to fire my drenched rifle
carelessly at the large, fortified seawall
    that stands between
us and victory.

Sergeant Feretti runs to our position
    and screams at us,
telling us to advance;
ordering us to leave these skinny steel bars of safety
      and the overwhelming comfort they provide us
and take the fight to the ***,
whom so ardently oppose us this day.

I’m frozen from the fear
      surging through my veins
as I stare at all the dead boys from New York,
Wisconsin,
                Michigan,
Florida,
        and Texas,
lying face first
    in the French sand.
I’m convinced that I crouch here alone
    on a beach in France;
God left this place long before the first ramp dropped.

Finally, after what felt like hours,
I muster the strength
    to begin sprinting towards
the German line,
    and it seems as if every **** gun is now focused on me;
setting their sight picture on my center mass.

With only twenty five meters between myself and the first seawall,
        I have hope that I’ll survive this cruel crusade,
but all that hope dissipates
      as four bullets pass through my right lung;
             stopping me in my tracks
like the cold channel water behind me
     as it is repelled by the European land mass
that will consume my body soon.
I slowly fall forward
    landing on my left shoulder,
my hands clutching my wounds.

It’s fascinating in a sense;
      this slow collapse of my lungs,
and how I can feel every single second that my soul has left on this Earth.
Suddenly,
    death becomes more real
than the gunpowder and smoke that is still stinging my nostrils.

I lie here on this beach
     starring up at the clouds above me
while an infinite volume of sound
surrounds me.
I cannot help but think
    that my life should’ve ended more peacefully
but we can’t always receive every wish
we plea for.

Her face is a sour
Washed out ugly gray
Similar to that of dishwater
With greenish clumps
That closely resemble
Floating milk clods in the
Center of her face
For eyes

Her hair is a worn out
Expanse of stringed greasy mess
As if she'd dunked it into a fry cook's sink
And left it to sit
With the occasional underscore
Of a darker, muddy brown
Streaks of feces throughout her head
For highlights

Her body is such a frail
Structure of porous bones and blood
A once pure white is soiled with
Brownish blood red speckles and smears
Like the horrid remains of a wolf’s meal
She can’t even hold herself up and she
Shudders and shakes constantly like some
Sort of like a hypothermic deadbeat

She’s so undeniably ugly and
Disgusting feeble and poor
But how would you feel if I
A relatively sane, accepted member of society
Was able to see something in this horrid girl that I loved?
You’d never accept it and you’d no longer recognize me
For finding love the wasn’t perfectly suited to your ideals
My love has to be pretty

i put on my sweatshirt, yoga pants, tennis shoes,
and said, "I think i'll go for a jog."

And I left. I ran down the driveway
I jogged round the turn,
I passed, on my way down the road,
a collar.
Pink, purple and small.

I took a break. Walked it off
That lost collar means a lost pet.
that lost collar might mean a lost kid.
I brushed it off.

Running across the bridge, I
told myself i couldn't stop, or
The eyes behind windshields would stare.
would realize im nothing.

I took the path along the river.
It was noticeably full and wide.
a dark, River green.
the current was strong and I

Followed it with the path
until i coudnt breathe. And
I told myself to get a rusty fishhook
carve my failure into my skin.

I told myself to ****.
To **** myself.
To jump in the winter river,
to leap too far into the hypothermic current
to come back.
I sat on the edge for too long.

I went back home.

I swallowed
the sound of your name
like it was a star--
five points,  
the type they
teach you to draw
in kindergarten.

It hurt
on its way down,
stalagmites of constellation
catching on my uvula,
hanging on with
astronomical strength.

But this is no cliffhanger.

Do you know what happens next?

I stopped breathing.

You've never deserved
your name,
you know.
"Light giving,"
it means.

Oh,
and how I gave into
the sublime
fallacy
of it.

Because
all you ever did was steal
the moons from my irises.

You treated me like
I was the dirt beneath
your fingernails
(you forsake
the dust on your windowsill--
but don't you know
all dust comes from
the wondrous galaxy that
dwells before us?)

I reached out to you
only to get
c u t
          o f f
at the hands

Still,
I couldn't let you
go,
didn't know how to.
Even when my flame
was reduced
to these weeping cinders,
even when the idealization
I held between my palms
found itself exiled
to this mausoleum
of severed trust,
hatred blossoming
in rosettes against
crumbling tombstones.

The epitaph reads,
"At a loss for words."

Tell me this:
what sort of
"light giver"
doesn't believe in
in the possibility of magic--
in the pinnacle of light itself?

You always thought me
a foolish girl
for dreaming--
naive girl,
silly girl,
wrists blooming
in paper cuts,
always one fairytale
away from insanity.

Until
one day,
I stopped believing
altogether.

And all it took
was a single glance
from those eyes--
glacial sapphires,
your grandest seduction.

Hell itself would have
hardened itself to tundra
at the sight of them.

You always had a way
of contaminating
the things I loved
with a frostbite so lethal,
I would have
gladly dismembered
every hypothermic part
of myself
(every fragment of soul
you ever touched).

Like a shooting star,
I fell for you--
hopelessly.

Catastrophically.

And then the heavens went
dark.

During that winter
We experienced a blizzard of crippling misfortune
Cold misery mounted our souls
And we carried it wherever we went
Filled with shame and strokes of bad luck
We were put into a hypothermic coma
And pushed along by careless snowplows
Forced into the drive way aprons of the rock salt streets

snow is falling
piano playing in the background
grey skies
dead leaves litter the ground
tree limbs creaking in the wind
soaked clothes
numb
no more feelings
heart frozen
head aching
body breaking
walk out to the big oak tree
heart buried in the snow
leave it
leave it there
don't care for it
hypothermic love
i gave up a long time ago

it’s climbing a mountain in a blizzard unclothed,
with frostbitten fingers and toes and nose.
I've scaled this wall of ice for so long; the top of the summit always seems so close.
it’s my hypothermic body frozen two feet from your face,
and I still can’t reach you.

You put up all these walls between us
And now I know why
It's not because you don't want to let me in
It's not because you're afraid of attachment
Or committing
Or rejection
Or loss
No, you push me away
So ******* far away
Because you want to make sure that you drown

I'll never let go, even if you do
Because I'm the Jack to your Rose
And I swear,
I would rather die drowning
With my last image being you
Half-conscious and hypothermic
Lips blue and eyes delusional
Gorgeous and pulling it off, like only you can
I would rather see you like this
Knowing that my drowning saved you
Than be alive and apart from you
Knowing that you were drowning yourself

Dad’s ocean is washing away
The frame of our house.
I am on the second floor,
Riding the waters of Mother’s tears.
I plug my ears with my fingers
And hold my breath;
I still feel the ebb and flow of his rage.
The hypothermic water winds
Around my toes like nooses.

My body is a life vest
Floating on top of a row boat bed.
Its boards are rotten and creaking
Under my adult weight.
Our house is a fish tank. Everyone is staring
through our windows with bulbous eyes as
Rivers flow from our pains of glass.

Stanley Kunitz would have outlawed anger management,
where was he when I was dealing with my felony charges?

Dylan Thomas would have bailed me out,
"Make it your legacy, kid. Go out swinging. How was the bologna?"

Marianne Moore would have materialized before little old intoxicated, hypothermic me,
"This is mortality, this is eternity. Save yourself the trouble, hang yourself in this cell, sweetie."

Well it seems she was hungry
Very hungry
But what can be expected when she is left out in the cold?
When things get hungry they will eat

But is there still an ally behind that blood soaked snarl?
What type of delusion am I in?
Brought on by a loss of blood or the hypothermic cold?
Can you even be aware of your own delusion?

Still, she appears skittish
Despite what has to be a satiated belly
I mean, how much more could she possibly eat?
What a delusion

Should I let the cold take me?
It seems inevitable
And now the wolf approaches, to finish her meal?
Or to curl up and warm me on this frigid night?

A flowered, timidly small bird I passed,
limp and shivering on the unforgiving asphalt
echoed within me all of which he never had
with his creaking sepia beak
through his lungs, out his throat.

He peeped feebly to plead me to lean closer,
I obeyed, slowly kneeling,
as to never disturb this creation.

He projects the coasts of Indonesia
to tell me how he so wished to dip his wings in its pristine water bodies,
He carries me through the forbidden treetops of the Amazon
withering over each exotic insect he never tasted,
He cradles me over the mighty Atlantic until we reach Australia
pointing toward each kangaroo and dingo he never spoke with,
And lastly he showed me the family he never followed
to warmer worlds, blanketed from winter’s rickety breath,
too afraid to conquer the blustery heights above.
Which led him to this moment, waiting for their return on this sidewalk,
losing feeling with each escaping tendril of life.

He spread himself to reach towards my face.
As I lower to make contact with his damp and disheveled wings
I feel each feather individually sweep my cheeks
as he died weepy and swollen in grief,
turning my skin pink with shame, because
we all lie hypothermic on the sidewalk, too timid to take the first flight.
And I, a fledgling,
have many miles left to pilot before the Floridian warmth will comfort me
in endless palm tree affection,
kissed by the fragrant shoreline.

I feel flustered
I should see my psychiatrist, but i won't.
After 2 hypothermic years of alcohol and lonesomeness,
The king of indifference and emotional neglect,
Actually cares about someone other than himself.
again.

The vultures are already flying above me,
I'd **** myself now but I'm not finished building my pyramid.

Love is a death sentence,
Neither contentment nor serenity can breathe in its atmosphere,
Yet for some strange reason
I think I can.

Choking on hourglasses
full of sand and nothing
else. The sweltering heat until your skin becomes leather.
I'd rather swallow shards and rubber and
jars of black bottled ink
than be a part of the big wheel that never turned.
Spinning the water, riptides of salt.
It's spinning for everyone else, and without me
on it to slow it down.
Enough empty days and my heart will rest.
Or enough little candies mixed with
liquid like gasoline and the rest will turn to sleep.
It's easier when you stop counting
each individual second. Each grain of sand
falling down like snowflakes in hypothermic
temperatures. Like vertical lines on a horizon.
Like a pink bathtub. Or a broken toaster.
Or metal the size of a fingernail, hitting teeth and throat.
Teeth falling out from gagging and nicotine. The slow way out.
Too slow for me. I'd rather put on my best suit and tighten the belt, fitted to the last rung.
Perhaps I'll eat some cake. First the guillotine. Then I'll forget to shut the oven off.
Running to the store till my legs give out. Cross the street for some near misses. Then contact.
We're back to shards and rubber.
Just park instead. Take a rest, the engine will be here when your eyes are too tired to open.
Resting easy.

There is a drip
It started years ago, slowly
It is torture
The drip is faster now, incessant
Maddening
My love and I weathered it together, for a while
We are cut off now
I am North and he is South, I miss him
Sodden, waterlogged

Up North I’ve found an umbrella, a friend
Twenty minutes a day reprieve
My love’s umbrella blew away, across state lines
Zero minutes a day respite
Not even an old grouch to splash in puddles with
I do, I splash, at times
But when I am with my umbrella, I am blessed
When splashing, appeased

My love and I reunite at home every day, he is sopping
Nearly drowned
I offer intimacy it warms him, dries him off, nearly
A mist still lurks close
Next day it begins again, the dripping
Unceasing dripping
I believe I have the fortitude to handle the drip
But I am not impermeable
Even with my umbrella, because my LOVE is soaked
Sometimes hypothermic

There's ethyl alcohol between us

I can't seem to see you sober

Hold your hair til puking ends

Hypothermic when I rub back

I can't seem to see you sober

'You make me nervous'

I know I do