I am in a crate, the crate that was ours,
full of white shirts and salad greens,
the icebox knocking at our delectable knocks,
and I wore movies in my eyes,
and you wore eggs in your tunnel,
and we played sheets, sheets, sheets
all day, even in the bathtub like lunatics.
But today I set the bed afire
and smoke is filling the room,
it is getting hot enough for the walls to melt,
and the icebox, a gluey white tooth.

I have on a mask in order to write my last words,
and they are just for you, and I will place them
in the icebox saved for ***** and tomatoes,
and perhaps they will last.
The dog will not.  Her spots will fall off.
The old letters will melt into a black bee.
The night gowns are already shredding
into paper, the yellow, the red, the purple.
The bed -- well, the sheets have turned to gold --
hard, hard gold, and the mattress
is being kissed into a stone.

As for me, my dearest Foxxy,
my poems to you may or may not reach the icebox
and its hopeful eternity,
for isn't yours enough?
The one where you name
my name right out in P.R.?
If my toes weren't yielding to pitch
I'd tell the whole story --
not just the sheet story
but the belly-button story,
the pried-eyelid story,
the whiskey-sour-of-the-****** story --
and shovel back our love where it belonged.

Despite my asbestos gloves,
the cough is filling me with black and a red powder seeps through my
veins,
our little crate goes down so publicly
and without meaning it, you see, meaning a solo act,
a cremation of the love,
but instead we seem to be going down right in the middle of a Russian
street,
the flames making the sound of
the horse being beaten and beaten,
the whip is adoring its human triumph
while the flies wait, blow by blow,
straight from United Fruit, Inc.

I woke up to a beautiful summer morning. The sun was shining and the rainclouds were far away. I decided I would spend the day on the beach. I always enjoy visiting the beach as it gives me an opportunity to laugh at people's hideous bodies. But where? And then, suddenly, a wonderful idea came to me: why not go to a nudist beach as they always attract the ugliest people with the worst bodies imaginable. And you get to see their naughty bits too, for added humour.

So I rushed to my computer to check the Internet for possibilities and, to my utter amazement, I discovered there was a naturist beach only fifty miles from my beautiful home. As I read the details of the beach and the directions, I had a sense of déja vu; I realised with a frisson of ****** anticipation that it was the very same beach described by Victor the ****** in his wonderful story "Confessions of a ******" which held pride of place on my toilet reading shelf.

I was at the wheel of my incredibly expensive and luxurious car just as soon as my servants had packed my essential requirements: icebox with chilled vintage champagne, lightweight folding gold-plated sun-lounger, vicuna picnic rug and of course my lunch hamper. My chef had rapidly prepared a delicious impromptu luncheon of smoked salmon, steak tartare and a selection of other goodies. I decided to dispense with the services of my chauffeur in the interests of preserving the confidentiality of my destination.

In less than an hour and a half I was there; and the place was exactly as Victor had described it in his immortal novella: a long stretch of mixed sand and pebbles, backed by dunes planted with wild grass, waving romantically in the sea breeze. Idyllic, and crawling with naked perverts as a bonus. I parked my car and transported my equipment to the dunes. I regretted not having brought one of the servants as the hamper and icebox were quite cumbersome and heavy. I was perspiring gently by the time I had unloaded everything and set it all up to my satisfaction.

I took some care in selecting what I felt was the optimum location as I needed to combine the potentially conflicting benefits of wanting to see as many naked people as possible (hopefully including some *** action) with the need for privacy. After all I am famous. I finally chose a spot where there were several ghastly specimens on view for a few laughs and where I could also see a potentially interesting couple who might be exhibitionistic perverts. The man was about 45, shaven-headed, skinny and prematurely wrinkled all over by the sun (yes, I do mean all over) and he had an interesting tattoo on his back: "I love hot ***** ***", which I saw as promising. The woman was plump with pendulous ******* and very prominent buttocks; additionally - how can I put this delicately? - her **** was totally bereft of hair.

Before settling down to my lunch, I felt a little perambulation would not come amiss. So, as bold as brass, off I went for a little **** stroll through the dunes. I will not describe in full detail the visual horrors I encountered: hirsute old men playing aimlessly with wizened, shrunken todgers the size of a thimble; obese old biddies, their rolls of sun-tanned lard hanging round them like rows of bloated udders on a pregnant sow; tattooed bald queens, muscles bulging under lashings of sun-oil, their pierced genitals glinting wickedly in the sunshine; the list was endless. How could such grotesques revel in revealing their corporeal repulsion to the eager world?

And then I saw him! It had to be him! In a dip in the sand dunes lay a middle-aged, paunchy little man, intently watching a couple of old ******* groping each other incompetently. It could only be Victor the One-Legged ******! After all, just how many unipod Peeping Toms are there?

I strolled over to him, coughing discreetly so as to give him a chance to stop his furtive *******. 'Do excuse me for disturbing you,' I said, 'but are you by any chance Victor the famous ****** whose confession I read only last week?'

'Why yes,' he admitted, 'but how on earth did you recognise me?'

I smiled and pointed to the cast-off artificial leg lying next to his beach towel (which, incidentally, was emblazoned by a giant "V", a bit of an identity hint, I felt). He patted his stump ruefully and laughed uproariously so that his average-sized ***** flapped like a pennant in a Force Eight gale. 'I forgot,' he bellowed deliriously.

'I'm just about to have a spot of lunch,' I said. 'My personal Michelin-starred chef, Jean-Claude Anusse, always over-caters ridiculously as he knows I often pick up people on my excursions, so there'll be more than enough. I'm afraid it's nothing special: some smoked salmon and some assorted cold meats, possibly a spot of pâté de foie gras, if I know Jean-Claude. And, naturally, enough champagne to drown a hippo in. Please do say yes, as I have so many questions to ask you about your hobby.'

'That's very kind of you.' mumbled the astonished Peeping Tom, 'I should be very happy to accept your generous offer. Incidentally, to whom have I the honour of speaking?'

I was, frankly, shocked when I realised Victor had not recognised me, and then I remembered I was naked. That explained it. 'Why, I am none other than Edna Sweetlove, poetess to the stars, creator of the Barry Hodges "Memories" poems and biographer to the intrepid and incredible superhero SNOGGO,' I murmured sotto voce, not wishing to be mobbed for my autograph.

'Edna Sweetlove!' he exclaimed, 'you mean THE Edna Sweetlove?' And so saying he glanced down to my genital zone in order to answer the question which so many of my fans have asked over the years. He grinned as he saw the solution to the great mystery.

Victor quickly strapped on his prosthesis and accompanied me (slightly lopsidedly) to my little luncheon site. He helped me unpack our repast and then made himself as comfortable as a naked one legged ****** could reasonably expect to be without a chair.

I must say Chef and his team had excelled himself in the thirty minutes I had given them: smoked salmon roulades, a magnifique plateau de fruits de mer including a three-pound giant lobster, steak tartare, a whole cold pintarde à l'ail, a few dozen sushi rolls, a monster summer pudding, and naturally a Jeraboam of Krug '92. No wonder the hamper had been so ******* heavy. I could see Victor was impressed as I offered him a chilled flute of the most expensive champagne he had ever tasted. 'Better than the pathetic, poverty-stricken muck you were going to gobble, I expect,' I commented in a friendly way.

'Mmmmmmmmm! Absolutely delicious, Edna. I was certainly not expecting this! exclaimed the grateful freak. But before we start on what looks like a truly exquisite nosh-up, I must give you a word of warning.'

'A word of warning? What about, Victor dear?'

'Well, you see, there's no, um....er,' he blushed charmingly.

'No what, Victor? Don't be embarrassed, sweetie. This is Edna you're talking to. Spit it out, baby.'

'Well, um, there's no ******* on the beach, Edna,' explained Victor uncomfortably. 'So, if you need to pump ship, you have to do it native-style "au naturel" in the dunes over there, which can be a bit messy what with all the filth lying about the place in that area, not to mention the lavvo-voyeurs hanging round. Or else you need to swim out a bit and unload into the sea. Judging by what's on offer at your stylish picnic, we'll both be bursting for a good old **** and crap afterwards.'

I shrieked with laughter and explained there was nothing I liked better than a widdle en plein air or a double act dans l'eau. We then tucked into lunch with a vengeance. It was ******* delicious, even though I say so myself. After about fifteen minutes' happy munching, interspersed with witty small talk, Victor suddenly went rigid. 'Look over there!' he hissed and indicated the middle-aged couple by the windbreak.

I looked and I was surprised. The plump woman with the big *** was on her knees in front of her partner, giving him a vigorous *******, and he was lolling back in ecstasy, a broad smile on his face. He seemed to be looking straight at us, almost visibly willing us to watch. He winked repeatedly in a conspiratorial fashion; maybe he had St Vitus’ Dance. Or even worse, he wanted me to get stuck into the action with them.

'They're regulars here, they normally put on quite a good show,' explained Victor excitedly, his hand reaching down automatically to his rapidly stiffening ****.

'Victor!' I admonished him, 'I would prefer it if you didn't **** yourself off during lunch. How about another oyster, you silly old ****?'

'Sorry, Edna, I forgot,' he replied shamefacedly. 'No more oysters thank you; they only make me more randy than I already am. But I'll have another lobster claw if I may. My compliments to your chef.'

So we sipped our champagne and enjoyed our luncheon as we watched the couple give us their little exhibition. After a few minutes *******, the fat lady turned around and leaned forward on her hands and knees and her gnarled bald hubby ******* her doggy fashion from behind with some gusto; this made her beefy buns bounce about like two ferrets fighting in a sack.

I glanced around us and realised that, totally unbeknown to me, the little spectacle had attracted quite an audience. Nine men, young and old, short and tall, fat and skinny, stood staring transfixed by the petite scène erotique before us, all ******* wildly. 'Oi!' I called out. 'Can't you see we're eating?' I admonished them, but to no ******* avail whatsoever.

Victor was visibly torn between his innate desire to watch the copulators and masturbators and with his understandable wish not to offend his lunch companion by manhandling himself unrestrainedly. But, thank God, his natural good manners prevailed and we continued to converse and enjoy our meal in the midst of this Bacchanalian scene of depravity.

I watched dispassionately as the couple came to what sounded like a very satisfactory mutual ******, accompanied by the observers' seminal tributes to their performance. I naturally had filmed the entire scene secretly on my state-of-the-art mobile.

'If you give me your email address, Victor my love, I'll send you a copy of that little show,' I promised. He nodded in gratitude. 'Victor  the ****** at yahoo dot co dot uk,' he mumbled rapidly, 'no dots, Victorthevoyeur is all one word.'

Once we had polished off lunch, I told Victor I would like to interview him with a view to writing a short story about his life's work. He was touchingly flattered and, with a little judicious prompting and probing, told me his saga, which I recorded on my Edna-phone. I naturally don't want to pre-empt my forthcoming mini-biography of Victor, but suffice it to say that Victor told me how and why he became a ******, he regaled me with some of the staggering things he had seen, he gave me a list of some really ace ******* locations, he shared all his best peeping places with me, he gave me the ultimate lowdown on the world of Britain's most celebrated *** snooper and I was touched by his burning honesty. I felt a tear ***** my eye at this tragic tale.

All too soon it was time for us to part. After thanking me profusely and making me promise I would visit him one day so he could repay my generosity, he re-attached his metal leg and limped away towards his beach towel. I knew he was raring to go as the best of the action normally took place in the early evening.

'Farewell, dearest Victor,' I called out as he tripped clumsily over a fellow pervert who had been eavesdropping near us.

I say,

"Who am I?"

Don't make me form
for more than awhile, boy,
It makes me DEAD tired,

You say,
"But, you're alive!"

What is the clicking of your chattering
teeth about?

You say,
"But, honest expression, my love"

Oh you're honest, boy,
but it blows me away,

I will say,
“Are you sure about that, my love? Do you have proof, my love? Is someone lying to you, my love?”

My mind speaks so many unheard words,
I don't really believe you,
Though,
I'll flatter it
for awhile,

I'll say,
“You look a little sleepy!”

It's like a jigsaw that will
NEVER
fall into place,

I'll say,
“That's a secret I've never heard of!”

So many choices
to embrace,
Yet,
Too many clouds
fill this place,

We'll say,
“You're so hard to embrace...”

Can you hear me yet?
Do you know what I say?
I'm shapeless, boy,

We said,
“Let's be friends”

Your very own play-dough,
with a smile,
Friends in a worn out playhouse,
for awhile,

I'll say,
"Did you hear my secret?"

Those curious beads,
they can't possibly see,
And I'm so sorry
but,
This time I'll have to
SCREAM,

"Just don't put me in the icebox, my love!"

Two, of course there are two.
It seems perfectly natural now——
The one who never looks up, whose eyes are lidded
And balled¸ like Blake's.
Who exhibits

The birthmarks that are his trademark——
The scald scar of water,
The ****
Verdigris of the condor.
I am red meat. His beak

Claps sidewise: I am not his yet.
He tells me how badly I photograph.
He tells me how sweet
The babies look in their hospital
Icebox, a simple

Frill at the neck
Then the flutings of their Ionian
Death-gowns.
Then two little feet.
He does not smile or smoke.

The other does that
His hair long and plausive
*******
******* a glitter
He wants to be loved.

I do not stir.
The frost makes a flower,
The dew makes a star,
The dead bell,
The dead bell.

Somebody's done for.

I've been ceaselessly sweating since June
And without fail every day around noon
My arm pits are sopping
My ****** are sodden
I feel about ready to swoon

It’s been glorious weather since June
I’m not sure if you’d think it too soon
But top up the icebox
For Pimm’s on the rocks
And celebrate all afternoon

dad is in the garage.
days into spark-light and piles of polyethylene
etched.
soon, he says.
as grandaddy laughs,
rattling the icebox for more beer.

dad’s homemade android:
  the thing.
like a doll polished
& grinning, it
dances for us in the kitchen.

the dog barks, chained in the backyard.

the thing,
do-si-dos for a laugh, catches a glimpse
of the trees beyond the yard,
overheats,
circuits popping into a limp heap of pieces.
  dead.
left to mold-over in the garage.

the days.
the rain.
the cats tiptoeing along the edge of fences
across the street.
the dog barking, chained, &
snapped.
  dead
beneath a truck.

dad is in hysterics.
dad is in the garage,
weeks in and his soaked red knuckles.
mom is drinking with grandaddy.
they rattle the icebox.
  the dog.

the dog dances for us in the kitchen,
reboots and sits.
it digs a pit all night and buries three cats there.
it sleeps on the mound.
it never barks.
it waits there in the backyard, still
& staring into the trees.
  the trees.

If you danced from midnight
to six A.M. who would understand?

The runaway boy
who chucks it all
to live on the Boston Common
on speed and saltines,
******* in the duck pond,
rapping with the street priest,
trading talk like blows,
another missing person,
would understand.

The paralytic's wife
who takes her love to town,
sitting on the bar stool,
downing stingers and peanuts,
singing "That ole Ace down in the hole,"
would understand.

The passengers
from Boston to Paris
watching the movie with dawn
coming up like statues of honey,
having partaken of champagne and steak
while the world turned like a toy globe,
those murderers of the nightgown
would understand.

The amnesiac
who tunes into a new neighborhood,
having misplaced the past,
having thrown out someone else's
credit cards and monogrammed watch,
would understand.

The drunken poet
(a genius by daylight)
who places long-distance calls
at three A.M. and then lets you sit
holding the phone while he vomits
(he calls it "The Night of the Long Knives")
getting his kicks out of the death call,
would understand.

The insomniac
listening to his heart
thumping like a June bug,
listening on his transistor
to Long John Nebel arguing from New York,
lying on his bed like a stone table,
would understand.

The night nurse
with her eyes slit like Venetian blinds,
she of the tubes and the plasma,
listening to the heart monitor,
the death cricket bleeping,
she who calls you "we"
and keeps vigil like a ballistic missile,
would understand.

Once
this king had twelve daughters,
each more beautiful than the other.
They slept together, bed by bed
in a kind of girls' dormitory.
At night the king locked and bolted the door
. How could they possibly escape?
Yet each morning their shoes
were danced to pieces.
Each was as worn as an old jockstrap.
The king sent out a proclamation
that anyone who could discover
where the princesses did their dancing
could take his pick of the litter.
However there was a catch.
If he failed, he would pay with his life.
Well, so it goes.

Many princes tried,
each sitting outside the dormitory,
the door ajar so he could observe
what enchantment came over the shoes.
But each time the twelve dancing princesses
gave the snoopy man a Mickey Finn
and so he was beheaded.
****! Like a basketball.

It so happened that a poor soldier
heard about these strange goings on
and decided to give it a try.
On his way to the castle
he met an old old woman.
Age, for a change, was of some use.
She wasn't stuffed in a nursing home.
She told him not to drink a drop of wine
and gave him a cloak that would make
him invisible when the right time came.
And thus he sat outside the dorm.
The oldest princess brought him some wine
but he fastened a sponge beneath his chin,
looking the opposite of Andy Gump.

The sponge soaked up the wine,
and thus he stayed awake.
He feigned sleep however
and the princesses sprang out of their beds
and fussed around like a Miss America Contest.
Then the eldest went to her bed
and knocked upon it and it sank into the earth.
They descended down the opening
one after the other. They crafty soldier
put on his invisisble cloak and followed.
Yikes, said the youngest daughter,
something just stepped on my dress.
But the oldest thought it just a nail.

Next stood an avenue of trees,
each leaf make of sterling silver.
The soldier took a leaf for proof.
The youngest heard the branch break
and said, Oof! Who goes there?
But the oldest said, Those are
the royal trumpets playing triumphantly.
The next trees were made of diamonds.
He took one that flickered like Tinkerbell
and the youngest said: Wait up! He is here!
But the oldest said: Trumpets, my dear.

Next they came to a lake where lay
twelve boats with twelve enchanted princes
waiting to row them to the underground castle.
The soldier sat in the youngest's boat
and the boat was as heavy as if an icebox
had been added but the prince did not suspect.

Next came the ball where the shoes did duty.
The princesses danced like taxi girls at Roseland
as if those tickets would run right out.
They were painted in kisses with their secret hair
and though the soldier drank from their cups
they drank down their youth with nary a thought.

Cruets of champagne and cups full of rubies.
They danced until morning and the sun came up
naked and angry and so they returned
by the same strange route. The soldier
went forward through the dormitory and into
his waiting chair to feign his druggy sleep.
That morning the soldier, his eyes fiery
like blood in a wound, his purpose brutal
as if facing a battle, hurried with his answer
as if to the Sphinx. The shoes! The shoes!
The soldier told. He brought forth
the silver leaf, the diamond the size of a plum.

He had won. The dancing shoes would dance
no more. The princesses were torn from
their night life like a baby from its pacifier.
Because he was old he picked the eldest.
At the wedding the princesses averted their eyes
and sagged like old sweatshirts.
Now the runaways would run no more and never
again would their hair be tangled into diamonds,
never again their shoes worn down to a laugh,
never the bed falling down into purgatory
to let them climb in after
with their Lucifer kicking.

I walked into the cocktail party
room and found three or four queers
talking together in queertalk.
I tried to be friendly but heard
myself talking to one in hiptalk.
"I'm glad to see you," he said, and
looked away. "Hmn," I mused. The room
was small and had a double-decker
bed in it, and cooking apparatus:
icebox, cabinet, toasters, stove;
the hosts seemed to live with room
enough only for cooking and sleeping.
My remark on this score was under-
stood but not appreciated. I was
offered refreshments, which I accepted.
I ate a sandwich of pure meat; an
enormous sandwich of human flesh,
I noticed, while I was chewing on it,
it also included a ***** *******.

More company came, including a
fluffy female who looked like
a princess. She glared at me and
said immediately: "I don't like you,"
turned her head away, and refused
to be introduced. I said, "What!"
in outrage. "Why you ****-faced fool!"
This got everybody's attention.
"Why you narcissistic *****! How
can you decide when you don't even
know me," I continued in a violent
and messianic voice, inspired at
last, dominating the whole room.

Cold hands,
Cold heart.
Ready to grab,
Never to give.
Icebox soul,
Broken to break.

Moth Wings, in the city
Moth Wings, aren't even pretty

Trying to get far
These wings won't hold me off the ground

Trying to set sail
The ocean storm is knocking you down
It's knocking you down

Steal hearts, at the party
Steal hearts, deny thee

Love is now an icebox filled,
With poison and wines
Platonic memories trying to forget,
Forget all the love that once was,
The trash you once called treasure,
Where hate equals pleasure

Moth Wings, in the city
Moth Wings, aren't even pretty
Aren't even pretty, Aren't even pretty
Little Moth Wings

Go now thing about the pretty little things
The innocence that once surrounded love
OH, IT WAS SO OUTSTANDING

Where the beauty lies,
Love is where your truth will die,
Love is where his truth becomes a lie,
She will cry, Oh, she will cry

Moth Wings, in the city
Well Baby, aren't you so ****,
Pretty
Aren't you so ****,
Pretty,
Little Moth Wings

while you were singing in the churchyard
i was sleeping in the ***** barn
beside a withered picture of an astronaut
and a long beard filled with street secrets

while you were burning up in sainthood
i was screaming into a melancholy leaf
wearing sweat on my miserable *****
and a liar's grin on my face

while you were murdering your wife
i was milking this dream for all the light
and i thanked god on bended knee
saying you're a turtle dove in an icebox

while you martyred yourself into the ocean
i carried you with me on my road to freedom
like an aligator stomped hard by a mockingbird
or a mermaid shot full of antibirth tablets

Arduous late Winter
woes amplify in February
false hope

We’re all sick
of constrictive clothes
and cold climes conducive to staying in

Cabin fever running rampant
45° t-shirts & sunglasses
everyone driving with their windows down  

Hoping Vernal rituals
performed early will
hasten Spring’s arrival

I’m done
fed up
ready to move on

Going crazy in the cold
writhing to get moving unimpeded
by frigidness and snow

I’m ready for Spring
for Summer
for Fall

I’m ready for the scent
of thawing soil in the air
biking in the Sun, verdance, and flowers in bloom

I’m ready for grass between my toes
Fireflies, crickets, peepers
and warm night stars


I’m sick of frost reddened runny raw noses
sick of numb fingers and toes
and having precious few daylight hours

I’m sick of combatting glacial winds with layers,
of treacherous icy apathy,
and dreary bleak boredom

I’m sick of not being able to sit on the ground
sick of long pants, long socks, long sleeves,
and silent stagnant long nights

So, despite the fact
that I’ll pine for January
every day over 90°

Despite the fact
that when mosquitoes swarm
I’ll wish a frost would **** the little *******

and despite the fact
I’ll get just as fed up
with temperate seasons

I still want Spring
and then Summer
and then Fall

But February brings false hope
and despite the lengthening cheery sun
months still stand

between us and t-shirt weather
mild nights, grassy hills,
  and emancipation from an inclement icebox atmosphere

you cry like lost toys and dead pets
there's nothing you can do about it right now
you cry like a small animal with a broken spinal chord
you keep whimpering, but it can only heal in time
you cry like pressing the skin of your palms
into the membranes of your eyes

when everything in your head is so cacophonous
you want to rub away all the little things you absorb
want that your hands could throw out this migraine
like a candy wrapper on the sidewalk
and if you believe hard enough that it's gone
you'll never notice the sugar rush or the comedown
so you press your hands to your face
as hard as you can and try to pray like a religious person
but you were raised christian and american and
the ways of believing and hoping and loving that you knew as a child
seem insincere now, and hard to speak
the language is not truthful
everything is what they told you it was not
nothing is what they told you it was
or everything was always what it was
and you or i could've told them that

and you think that wrapper might eventually end up in a landfill
if you go throwing it carelessly around
and sadness taken with too much sugar can be a toxic combination
so maybe making the bad things go away
is harder than throwing away the wrapper and enjoying the rush
maybe the wrapper is somewhere else now you can't get to
where you can't hear it crinkle or see it shrivel,
but you can still relentlessly feel it
getting whittled away by time and weather
while steadily melting down bits of you
as you pass your heart around
gasping inside the icebox

until one day you look up and the sun is a bloodier color
and your lungs are full of ice like pins
freezing inside of you
and when seconds before you had oxygen
as you begin choking, you think it's amazing how long
it seems to have been
since you were alive

your knuckles are dry from holding on
to a rusty ladder wrung
even when you want to move so badly
and there's nowhere to climb
you refuse to jump
and you're still trying to figure out
how to fall correctly
to break the least amount of limbs

I require three pertinent elixir's inside my icebox ! Sweet tea to quench my thirst , cold beer to settle in for the evening and hard liquor to smooth out the past ....

I want to understand the steep thing
that climbs ladders in your throat.
I can't make sense of you.
Everywhere I look you're there--
a vast landmark, a volcano
poking its head through the clouds,
Gulliver sprawled across Lilliput.

I climb into your eyes, looking.
The pupils are black painted stage flats.
They can be pulled down like window shades.
I switch on a light in your iris.
Your brain ticks like a bomb.

In your offhand, mocking way
you've invited me into your chest.
Inside: the blur that poses as your heart.
I'm supposed to go in with a torch
or maybe hot water bottles
& defrost it by hand
as one defrosts an old refrigerator.
It will shudder & sigh
(the icebox to the insomniac).

Oh there's nothing like love between us.
You're the mountain, I am climbing you.
If I fall, you won't be all to blame,
but you'll wait years maybe
for the next doomed expedition.

dear bill,

so sweet of you
to leave behind
a paper jot
for me to find

for ev’ry breakfast
lunch and tea
gone missing since
you married me;

- however -

such wilfulness
I do condemn
each crust and crumb,
each stone and stem,

each potluck plum
purloined at night
to satisfy
your appetite;

this doctor’s wife
has had her fill
of poetry
and bitter pills,

and crumpled drafts
in juicy scrawl
appended to
the icebox door;

your words do not
a meal make
how many more
must I forsake

- meals, that is -

before your page
is fit for press
and I can sup
on more…not less

love, floss

ps dinner’s in the oven, probably

The Siren song
   Sung by the Sea
   Sounded so much
   Sweeter
Before the boy
Was born.

Truth be told,
   I was born that day as well.
   We shared our first breaths.
   Delicate and enduring atmosphere.
   Sweetest, most overlooked element:
   OXYGEN
   Awoken our lungs
   And spread life out
   Through our
   Fingers,
   Toes,
   Tears.
      (His were louder,
    Mine were longer)
We shared more than
rarefied air that day;
Excitement.
Confusion.
Love.
Fear.

Before I knew it
My Scorched sailor’s skin
      Sought sanctuary
In
   Landlocked love.

You see
   The inconvenient, unfortunate, and unavoidable
   Fact of humans is,
   They like to eat.
      And warmth is also nice.
   Diapers.
   And Kathy next door just got this great icebox and she says she doesn't know how she lived    
   without it and that in the long run it will actually save her money, what with buying in bulk and not
   going to the store so often and leftovers.
   So there’s that too.

So I work
   Willingly, willfully
   With wetness
   On Back,
   But not behind ears.

And my captain is a good captain,
   A true captain.
   Our pay is always waiting when and where promised.
   Pennies are not pinched when providing rations.
   He gave me this job out of the goodness of neighborhood.
But he has no child.
   No wife.
   Little reason to head to port,
   And less to linger long.

I see my boy’s chestnut eyes in my dreams
   And they act like the cruelest potion,
   Which, when sipped
   Leaves the drinker with only more thirst.

But there are dollars here,
And, what other skills do I have?
And, bellies are full.
I try not to complain.

Tonight,
I want the fireplace,
   Roaring.
Our boy smiling, laughing
   His cheeks having played chameleon
   With the scarlet of our flag.
His mother;
   Her eyes,
   Outshining her hair,
   Outshining the sun,
   Scroll between our boy and the page,
   As she reads his favorite book of tales.
   He doesn't understand a word,
   But I do.
   We share an unnumbered smile.
   He likes the pictures.

My mouth has tasted of salt for
   64
   Long
   Days.

The ocean gives,
And the ocean takes away.

winter has crept from it's cathedral with it's blue loom of white sod
against black crows and over-coats. we awaken in our separate pause
and modify our crumpets with thin icing,
drizzled over moon faced scones -
as golden as your marmoset of port wine
and wrinkled wheels of cheese...
at a moment's notice.
you float through the open window where crescendo the crisp winds and the bacon fats
rendering in the musk of firewood, oaking the nose of the decanted day
the early hearth of heaven, now powder blushed and rustle thrum
with skylarks larking in the luminous icebox
of barely sunrise.
your eyes sparkle and my antlers score the aspen bark
on a lost acre of our thickening plot.

we love a lot.

Arctic Seasoned Disguise


Winter breathes in sepia tones along a lonely two lane street
divided amongst the sweeping frozen dunes
now forced into shouldered amnesty

Street lights shiver in snow capped bonnets
while sidewalks sleep ‘neath blankets of flittering flakes
The air, frigidly crisp…moves of tiny chiffon sparkles dancing

Rooftops, plump and soft, show off their frosted padding
as evergreens find alabaster fingers tickling their branches
in chilled teasings and frozen dustings

Footprints, once there are gone, covered and recovered again
all evidence of life is erased beneath pearl clouded skies
and faint outlines of distant thoughts

White on black stripes drape in glacial wanderings
spanning the slush of asphalt weavings
in straight line piercings across the wintry landscape

February reigns brutal, sub zero ponderings swirl
from high above the icebox wasteland, once brimming with color
now opaque in its arctic seasoned disguise…

It's not another blue moon
The wolves are restless
Their savagery grows like
The wicked fire outside my cave
It's almost there and I can
Feel it burning up my toes
My chest still, motionless, remains a frigid icebox
I forgot what purpose heat serves
It's been too cold
Too unforgiving
It's been too many black skies
Frostbite all over my skin
Closer to deaths conniving hand
Enough to graze
Enough to spark fear, touch, blood builds up, squeezing my veins, green vines, curling in and out of their white soil, pulsating, glorious serendipity, the tangibility of
Rest in peace
In pieces
Bony white sharp shards of
Nails
That don't even sever my flesh
No drops of red
Not even to cut the thick air
the clock keeps it's mouth shut
I have no answers
Monotony
In between living and dying
Limbo, flatline, where am I
Louder
Where am I
I hear the wolves howl once more, closer now
The stars shatter
a streak of silver lining
Cosmic brutality
I'm the punch line
Forever hungry
I finally feel their hot breath on the nape of my neck
I close my eyes
Where's my escape?
Stuck
Just
White teeth
Blades
Carnivorous
Famished
Just for one taste of my soft flesh
And god, god I whisper through
the stubborn air
Isn't that all that matters?
The murky cloud of my cry
Turns ghost
Another victim of my past pleas
A furry nuzzle to contrast the ruthless slay that leads me to my final destination
Pink fields, beautiful fidelity, your Golden Gates, on a cloud too far away
Always a little out of reach
I'll wait an eternity
For a god who never picks up his trash

My life consist of complex inginueity striving to be original but molding to the harshness of what the world is doing to me. Am i wrong for contemplating my lifes decisions. Because this isnt the way things where suppost to come out in my own depiction on the out come of my life. Maybe its my thoughts that are making me insane since i constanly think all i am is trash but theres a saying one persons trash is another treasure not sure if weather to believe it or not because woman come and go i just dont measure up to the dream guy. Maybe its my icebox heart that lets them see the coldness in my eyes gazing into theres filling false hopes of prosper and love each seem to be lies. Just to watch them break down in tears with no remorse when i see them cry since id rather not catch feelings being to scared to see where true love coulf take me honestly i dont know why. Im screaming in rage from the inside like im traped in a four corner room staring at walls hyperventilating unable to get out im balled up  feeling trapped im at a loss. Maybe you the reader cant understand what i mean maybe you can i feel like my life has been a bunch of ups and downs more downs then ups i was just a accidental nut that swam into the womb since my fathers pull out game wasnt fast enough now im stuck with the harsh reality of a cold world that beats me down after i get back up when will enough be enough maybe i need to find love and stop trying to hide the void wheres my diamond in the rough maybe I'm thinking again to much enough is enough

I tell him about the 90 year old that made a home in my body.
Say "I feel more than the nineteen years, I feel more than your nineteen years."
He takes it as evidence towards what he calls my "superiority complex"
makes a joke about thinking I'm so much wiser than everybody else as I stammer with arms crossed trying to find the words my nineteen year old vocabulary does not know.

This has nothing to do with being wise you sonofabitch, its about an exhaustion that paints the dark color around my eyes and the sigh that lives in my belly you ******.

He interrupts, laughing "What do you mean? Your bones ache or something? haha hahaha." Loud, obnoxious, not the first time,
not the last. I want to say yes

yes
yes they ache ad they creak
and they burn and so do my eyes and so do my insides and so do the words I say and the way I say them and the way it scares others when I say some profound ****, I almost sound like Gandhi, like Bukowski, I just never learnt of a beautiful way to disguise my pain. Not enough so It could sell.


I was better off alone when the ice made a security blanket around my heart-better off with no pain.
He shines a mirror on all my missing parts, calls me ****** up.
Stand next to me just to lean over in his height, superiority complex runs high among privileged nineteen year old straight males.

The ice thawed but he came with no gloves
I found the bruising less tolerable than the cold this time around
Less bearable than the lonely beat my heart learned to sing.
Its the same story he just repeats himself as another boy who says the wrong things and makes me feel
exhausted for every having opened up my icebox full of secrets.
Every conversation is an emptying out and not the cathartic kind.
The kind that leaves the ninety year old in me shaking with nothing left inside her but rotting gums and eyes that have seen too much ****. Nobody is supposed to make you this unhappy. This is not what I asked when I asked for you to make me feel something.
Every time I say your name Matthew, it almost comes out Nathan, in my head. Nathan with his accent, and the same humor, same jokes. Nathan the boy I emptied myself out to just so he could leave bruises on the uncovered parts. It was so easy to to leave somebody I never gave a **** about.

Matthew, I only say your name so often so I remember it, so I say it right, so I remind myself you are not the same person. Matthew sounds allot like Nathan when your drunk or sad which I am most of the time these days, you sound allot like him with your laugh, sound like your gonna leave bruises on all the parts I lift up to show you. I know this.

This is a fact. Like I know I wont ever cry for you until I'm all thawed out.
Matthew, for  your painstaking insensitivity, for your lack of understanding
Matthew for you not understanding all the creaking in my bones is just screaming

Save me
Fix me

Give me one reason why you're good for me because I cannot think of any and
*I so desperately want to

I propose a toast
to a honeycombed crux
charred black
it wanes but it's no moon.

Molasses streaks the sky
disguised as light
it will not calm the alabaster globes
bobbing in the icebox of her gut.

Stolen
she wanders ghostlike and barren
expectant for the cuckoo's cry
consent to come
unhinged.

An overture in reds and golds -
hardly untruth
the hues bury shame:
eggshell-white and stuffed full of monsters.

Take heed
and never trust the oleander
the fox-eyed traitors
of the flower patch.

These smitten mittens
will forever web
my phalanges

Shove my hands
into an icebox
and I'll need
that temperature
forever

I let these word run from my heart
Paraded by the emotions and tenderness
Thousand and thousands of hurts and pain
Million and millions of love and laughter

I trusted these words to guide my way
Gave them my blood and everthing
Their firmness stood for me when I crawled
Danced with them as they seduced my tongue

I hide in the rhythm and sequence of music
As they permeated my soul, the honesty shield
My voice faded in the unending river of essence
Overtune from a hidden spirit of the yesterday

I believed and these words healed my depths
Sunk in the icebox of caged coldness and loneliness
Memories evading craziness, condensed character
Barricades of conditions and illusionary dissolutions

The keyboard had eyes for me as I winked at it
On its reflection I saw my face, my body, my all
The rotated changes, the persistent difference
A simple kiss, a warm embrace, an extended thanks

"Melting into the floor in the icebox
all the effects are wearing off
The temperatures wrong
I got them double sox"

These days, the unattended icebox
of Gaia’s daughter, Sky, flickers
on—
(a layer of cold crystals decorate the grass)
after her nightly
shade-shows:
turqouise to that cherry cotton-candy hue
to the mixed lavender & orange
like the Trix yogurt you used to eat at lunch.

When the color show is over
and the light returns,
Sky sighs—
Blonde powder does the flying tango.
It swims from the Ragweeds, small yellow
Tornados swarm the fields,
Dance above the rivers,
Among the highways.

Up the nostrils
of the rows and rows of people,
always moving on the earth.
They
begin to sneeze. Gasp.
Pinch their foreheads in disgust.
Curse at the Ragweeds they were given
and destroy.

We have to relate to everything and
We bond in our destruction.

I didn’t sleep last night, not one pathetic moment of lost consciousness-anything to forget; anything for paralysis; still I tick; still I remember. The thought that haunts me like a translucent spirit flying it’s way through my past. My memories tainted with your dark voice, one that would have been smoother without the excess of your choices. I remember sitting in class trying to absorb every word that took an exit directly through your mouth. Driving down the express way of your mind and it’s knowledge. I remember the days we worked so hard together to get to where I am now, and all I have learned. The tiniest of classrooms, the biggest strides were taken inside. The most crucial things you said are simple lessons in life. Such as, to breathe, because the truth is we all forget once in a while. If there was a person I ever thought was perfect it was the person you became when you taught. Was this all a figment of my imagination, this human being? A mask worn, and simply torn off? Or were you once different.
It all started when you stopped showing up for class. How does one tend to learn without another? One does not. The thought occurs to me again, slipping inside of my visual of the past, I cannot think straight. I picked you up in the empty Church parking lot, little did I know you were more vacant than the absence of parked cars around you. Where was the priest that day? Praying for some souls, praying for all souls, he must have forgotten yours. We should have gone inside that Church instead of driving around town, you needed the healing of your soul more than a light lunch. But I refused to acknowledge a higher power when the leaves were turning colors, there was something too logical about those times. Why did I ever pick you up that day? To listen to the things you had to say? I just needed you to fix what was wrong with me, believing you could, after all you had successfully healed what I had thought was broken the year before with your brain. With the things you had to say. Wisdom leaked through the pipes of your head those months, raining out onto the concrete surrounding you. I don’t believe it will ever return; not this late in our lives. It seems so long ago that I could sit in the darkness of the room with high ceilings, a candle in the middle of our circle, with my head down, to pray and cry. To share secrets, to share pain, to share happiness, to share intentions. I lost track of when we stopped having those prayer circles, but the last one I remember was with you, was it you that kept those going? Is the reason I lack strength in the group now because we don’t pray together? Was it always you, and no one ever realize it? It doesn’t matter now.
The wind blew strong, healthy at it’s peak when the earth lay covered with a layer of milky tone. The bracelet lay around my wrist, the one that now is lost, one I will never carry the privilege of owning again. We stood in the cemetery and it had never been so frozen over, why couldn’t you feel the cold? Your coat lay around my shoulders, staring at the tomb that withheld your late friends ashes. Even in the icebox the tree continued to grow with it’s green leaves, nothing could **** it, it was surrounded by dead people. Of course it was inspired to grow through the winter. That tree must have stolen the life out from underneath your skin, because you died in the heat of the moment, when you lost your friend. My teacher lost in the desert, parched of life and feeding on the hottest air. My teacher who turned into my friend who turned into a stranger who turned into thy own enemy.
When you lost yourself I wrote it all down on paper, how the day in the cemetery was the day that saved my life. I’d like to give you the credit, but you wouldn’t take it if I handed it to you on a golden platter. You wouldn’t accept the pedestal I put you up on if it meant life or death. After that day, when you stopped talking to me, I continued to learn from your teachings. What I learned was that disappointment may come in many forms, flesh appealing or earthly upbringings. I remind myself of the day in that Church parking lot every once in a while, how I should have passed you by instead of pulling over. There is a thought that consumes me, eating away at my mind, coming to know that nothing is better than knowing the truth until the truth destroys your perception of perfection in a human being. I pray your breathing soul will rest in peace, you died so long ago.

Dear literary journals:

I'm a millennial American male
who came of age in the aughts.
Do you have ANY idea how much
RAP MUSIC I GREW UP ON?!?!?!?!

And now you want me to write some
sort of rhyme devoid, metrically impoverished
modernist dross which is REALLY

just prose that's written in line
and stanza break, in order for you
to publish me? Please do clarify:

HOW THE HELL DO I DO THAT?!?!?!?!

I have SOOOOO much more in common
with Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and MF DOOM
than I do with any of that ridiculous nonsense
that your stuffy Imagist deity Ezra Pound
(who was also an ardent FASCIST, might I add)
churned out page after page. I mean, look

William Carlos Williams:

"I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold"

Now, look at Kweli:

"Yo, I activism, attackin' the system
The Blacks and Latins in prison
Numbers have risen, they're victims lackin' the vision
****, and all they got is rappin' to listen to
I let them know we missin' you, the love is unconditional
Even when the condition is critical, when the livin' is miserable
Your position is pivotal, I ain't bullshittin' you
Now, why would I lie? Just to get by? "

and please explain to me, just exactly how the former
is SUCH a higher form of art than the latter?

It's beginning to seem to me that
The REAL issue here is that rhyme and meter
were co-opted by a group of writers
who evolved
the usage of
said literary devices
to such an advanced degree,
that many of the older styles
paled in comparison, and
ESPECIALLY in terms of technical prowess

It just so happened,
that to the great misfortune of those
brilliant auteurs
they just so happened to be
not only POOR,
but also BLACK,
thereby barring their innovations
from serious consideration
by those in the ivory tower
of so called "HIGH ART"

As if to say:
"Oh, RHYMES?"
You mean those old artifacts
of the outdated formalists, and
favored staples of the lowly rappers?

In a way that as if by magic, makes Williams'
Inane single sentence about eating plums
written in line and stanza break, somehow
better, more enduringly creative, and
of greater importance, than
Kweli's incisive social commentary.

But, you know. I'm always open to being wrong.
Since, I usually am wrong about most things.
But, it seems that every time I pick up a lit journal,
it's the same type of broken narratives, with
the occasional token verse or rhyme
thrown in for good measure.
Maybe I just don't read enough lit journals,

but I can just about GUARANTEE that in 100 years,
people will have a much more distinct memory of Nas's
"Illmatic" than they will Ezra Pound's "Cantos"
And in point of fact, most people with whom I speak these days,
do not even know who Ezra Pound WAS, but they SURE know Kendrick's verses from "Alright"

So what gives, lit journals? It seems obvious at this point
that rappers are now creating the most successful and
widely disseminated forms of oral poetry currently in existence
So why is it that your publications seem so averse to
styles which bear a written resemblance?

Just a touch of
CLASSISM, perhaps?
Or am I just being ignorant?
Paranoid?

Carried home from a family occasion
and placed in the icebox,
slowly slid to the back of the fridge
as leftover moments fight for space
near the front.

Styrofoam predictions
of life after  childish ambitions
are accidentally neglected
and left to spoil,
unattended and tempted
with wayward growth.

You may find them again,
rummaging through,
making space,
or maybe just looking for something
you thought you lost.

Long since forgotten,
 the ideas molded
over the ages of a chilly
adolescence,
and what might have been promising
is now indistinguishable and unusable.

A small, unaffected edge may remind you
Of its purpose in a past life
and you’ll sigh
as you change the trash liner
to accommodate another failure.

You sometimes wonder
What you may have missed
piling so many options
only to be forgotten until they’re rotten.

It doesn’t help any
to be the one who has to retrieve it.
see what it is,
know what it was...
a subtle, sneaking certainty
of what it could’ve become.

more and more often, it’s too early
to stomach the sun
and you find the day
has begun without you,
as if it doubts your commitment
to present tense.

Still, you continue along hanging
from a precarious
cable car of ambivalence,
waving at each opportunity missed
as it passes you by,

your eyes
idly on the sky.

"Next time, next time"
You mutter

"Next time I'll give it a try."

C.e.M.
2.17.15
Edited 4.18.17