Bluto, the world’s strongest man, could tear bread loaf-sized pieces off a steel-belted tractor tire with his bare hands.

But he could not lift a single smithereen of his sensitive Piscean heart when Lily, the luscious, leggy Leo trapeze artist, left him for steely-eyed Arien Karl, the literate and literary lion tamer.

Horoscopic Circus, Act II

She was a Cancer Dragon. Like catnip to the Piscean Tiger, whose feline DNA was his Achilles heel. Especially when she wore heels. And nylons. The end is nylon, he thought. I love you she said. I love you more he affirmed. And firm he soon became. Then being the ringmaster, she opened her mouth and incinerated him -- as only dragons can….

Leather mini, high heels, pretty bracelets, earring-wheels,
Make-up perfect, smooth, right, -pins in nylons, *** tight,
Little purse, toe rings, pearl necklace -flashing bling,
Baby I’m a hot-thing,
Friday night –dating,
Take me out, -treat me right,
Take me home/bang all night!
Baby I’m a hot-thing,
Friday night –dating,

Dance and twirl stilettos, 'uptown-out-the-ghetto,'
Hours preparation, for **** hot sensation,
Grip my hips, grab my side, rub my ***, pull me tight,
Baby I’m a hot-thing,
Friday night –club-bing,
Take me out, -treat me right,
Take me home/bang all night!
Baby it’s a ***-thing,
Friday night –dating,

Take me to the bathroom; treat it like a throne-room,
On my knees in nylons; tiles hard I slide on,
You give it up, take a blow,
we come out, no one knows,
Baby I’m a hot-thing,
Friday night –dating,
Take me out, -treat me right,
Take me home/bang all night!
Baby I’m a hot-thing,
Friday night –dating,

here comes the fishhead singing
here comes the baked potato in drag
here comes nothing to do all day long
here comes another night of no sleep
here comes the phone wringing the wrong tone
here comes a termite with a banjo
here comes a flagpole with blank eyes
here comes a a cat and a dog wearing nylons
here comes a machine gun saying
here comes bacon burning in the pan
here comes a voice saying something dull
here comes a newspaper stuffed with small red birds
with flat brown beaks
here comes a **** carrying a torch
a grenade
a deathly love
here comes a victory carrying
one bucket of blood
and stumbling over the berry bush
and the sheets hang out the windows
and the bombers head east west north south
get lost
get tossed like salad
as all the fish in the sea line up and form
one line
one long line
one very long thin line
the longest line you could ever imagine
and we get lost
walking past purple mountains
we walk lost
bare at last like the knife
having given
having spit it out like an unexpected olive seed
as the girl at the call service
screams over the phone:
"don't call back! you sound like a ****!"

He smells like redbull and cigarettes.
He’s a quaint New England cottage
On a Paris street corner -
Crude smoke licking at the window panes
And cheap nylons stretched
Across bright stucco.  

He’s the reason for a nice pair of underwear.

Sing oh muse!
Of the heavy-hearted
And her quest for elbow patches
And tortoise shell glasses.

A cloud of confusion from a whiff of cologne -
These are the moments when the crossroads
Is as plain as freckles
Or lipstick on a wine glass.
Propelled forward on roller skates
Called desire.
And white teeth gnawing on broken lips,
And we let desire swell and rattle around inside -
Until we will never be rid of the bruises.
Brick and clouds and red lace and muddy laces
And bruises.

I never leave the West when it isn’t raining,*
My brother says to me through the phone.  
He is on his way back
over the Rockies and through Nebraska.
He’ll never make it intact—
hands fuse to the steering wheel
like nylons on a burn victim,
knees and elbows bolted in
precise angles keeping the car straight,
tires pulling everything forward.
One foot is the pedal, one becomes the floor mat.

Shoulder to armpit with a semi truck
hauling jet wings from Denver,
he notices the paths of rivets
like bread lines in Omaha.
Some of them are starving.

But where is the rest, the airplane body
without its wings? A hollow silo,
pilot in a cockpit
not going anywhere.  
I think airplanes molt this time of year.
It’s still raining or it will be,
the white-lined highways
will carry you here unscathed.

My English class got paired up with a class from the University.
While everyone's partners had the appearance of being "normal"
My partner sat in the back of the class wearing bright red ripped nylons
With cowboy boots with curly cotton candy hair
With a body language that spoke
    "*******"
She was only 23 and smelled like an old Denny's restaurant

Her breath was the stench of her smoker's only section
Battling against the stench of her caffeine addiction.
While I was asking her questions about life
And how everyone including the voice in the back of my head
Tells to get a conventional job
She poured out nicotine into a slip of paper
Like how I just poured out my questions on life outta my lips
She said through licking and concealing her hand built cigarette
"KID! Stop thinking what others think for you.
For your age, the best plan is not having one.
Now do you want to go outside with me while I smoke this?"

And I realized, ****, I don't have a plan.
So many kids my age are so quick to bash Tucson
They've already mapped out the quickest route outta here
Created a 5-year plan to get rich, and have been keeping
They're "*******'s and see ya later's" in their back pocket
Since they turned 18.
And I'm still hung up on the homework I forgot to do,
last week.

One of my friends told me a story how her mother
Followed her passion to be a hairdresser
How her mother tells her stories of the good old days
And used to be so happy. And that her mother gave it all up
For a better paying job in order to take care of her.
Now my friend wants to go to college and make lots of money
And be just like her mother -- unhappy.
I actually broke down and started crying at the lunch table
Because she so obviously didn't learn the lesson
She so obviously didn't notice how her mom sacrificed
Her passion in order for her to chase hers.
I told her she didn't get it.
She told me I didn't get the "real world."

So yeah, maybe I don't
Maybe I like to believe in real-passion
And the real-meaning and purpose of an education
Ya, maybe I don't know what I want to do with my life
Maybe I'm not done exploring Tucson
Or maybe I am immature
Because my plan of not having a plan
Is what excites me the most
I've planned for 18 years for what I'm going to do
To get me to that day I graduate
And I haven't even spent a good hour thinking
What I'm going to do every day after.
I don't need to keep a ******* in my back pocket
I'm not tying myself down to any plans
I'm rearranging the sentence, "F You Tucson"
And I'm just trying to say
"Tucson, I'm getting reading to finally meet you"

If Tucson molds me into the poetry loving
Preaching to kids, kinda hippie I already am
Or if I just become a waiter my whole life, trying to get people to buy my book
Or maybe college will make me even hate books
Maybe not having a plan is a mistake,
But maybe, if I make enough mistakes
One of those mistakes will be something really really great.
And I really, really can't wait.

She knelt there on the dusty, stained carpet that stung her ****** knees through torn nylons. The lighting was bad and the air was heavy. Her frame shivered in the warmth of the cheap hotel room of which she wasn’t even sure how she made it to. Her chest rose and fell violently as tears stung across her cheeks and fell like bullets to her sides. Her heart, or what was left of the mutilated muscle, pounded against her ribs like mallets to a vibraphone. She could no longer feel the pain.

Her weak hands grasped the handle of the blade like a child holds mother’s hand, and she realized then that the furniture here wasn’t waiting for her to put on a show. There were no cameras. There was no microphone. No people. No bodies. No eyes. No ears. She was alone. There was no use imagining it as a heartbreaking scene in a movie; a tear inducing, award-winning music video; a postcard. But she moved like a dancer in her mind’s eye as she tightened her grip on the knife in her hand and a tear played across her lips, now bringing in air between them softly and lightly; barely alive. All she wanted was for him to burst through the door, screaming, and run to her; and hold her. She imagined it in her mind; she thought of the whole act, but she wasn’t sure when his lines were. She waited, hesitated as the ceiling refracted shadows of a different world with each passing car on the highway that brought her far from home and into comfort now torn from her soul. No one was running to her, no one was chasing after her, this time.

The blade plunged deep into her chest with an unstoppable force from something preternatural within and without her. Her breathing was fast and harsh as her eyes darted around the room they had shared briefly. Her head spun faster than the walls. The red stain grew across the front of her dress like a flower blossoming. Tears filled her mouth as she finally accepted the realization that she would die here alone and he wasn’t going to find her just in time like in all the stories; even the real ones.

She fell gracefully like feathers from the sky to the floor, to her side. As she bled out she hoped she would think of all of the beautiful moments she had experienced in her life. She hoped she would think of all of the things in life that used to make her happy. She hoped she would think of his face, his touch, his smile, and her love for him.  She hoped she would regret her choice. She hoped she would feel something, anything at all; but all she could think about was how she’d like to notify management about the collections of dust and small debris under the bed left behind by housekeeping. Her lifeless eyes began to close and she knew for the first time she would actually get some rest. In her last moment she felt like the universe; beautiful and infinite and empty. She faded from the world like snow on warm skin as the door opened in slow motion and his blurry shoes couldn’t carry his body to her side, like in all the stories; even the real ones.

He knelt there on the dusty, stained carpet. The lighting was bad and the air was heavy. His frame shivered in the warmth of the cheap hotel room of which he had only paid for hours earlier. He collapsed into himself, weeping silently, wishing he still loved her.

Pardon me while I wipe this ******
spit out of my mouth.
Speak and write improperly
Bathe in holy water to wash
away the sins off my body

less charming and loving  
then you would expect

it might not had been what it was
but it left a bad taste on my tongue.  like taking five shots of whiskey
and licking your ashtray

I tried to stray far beyond
your ripped and shady nylons
the bloodletting on your stained sheets
where I will never sleep

try not to **** me on the way home
I should have stayed where I belong
the dark pool room
the underbelly of a red light saloon

I get  paid again next Friday
not that im going to give you any
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
ru­in my beautiful morning from
nine till 10 am. spare yourself refusal from
five till seven
thick thighs emotional charged

I have hard boiled eggs
a dog snoring on the floor
a pain in my neck
and my arms and ankles, their nerves are jumping towards the door
heat is up to high IM sweating
like you the *****

Bukowski wrote a song
it is scratching, the needle
typewriter with a loud roar
I cant recall the wine
but the short cigarettes were brown
eyes squinting
I listened like a boy to him, and you
you and your drunk salutes and slurs
commanding a performance from my soul
as if you were Sylvia

such a stupendous, gracious love story
IM haunted by your stare
I do not even think you are here
after all you are a ..... no,
there is really no time for this

the whiskey on my lips you adore
IM sick against a wall and
people are statues above spitting
their teeth below
statues on a wall urinating below

my angst kisses you all farewell
may my spirit fly today
pain grows in the dark

all ye gather,elephants in the room and hall
i hunker down under the blue glow
of the evening news
hiding from both of you

The venom in your snake bite glare ties my pain in knots, Knots

don’t come undone

Every time you yell I smell smoke

You’re burning us, you know

You’re burning us.

And I’m drowning in the fire.

You’ve got your magnifying glass in hand like a detective,

And I know you’re searching for something better

I know you’re searching for clues that we could make it better,
between us

But you always look in the same place, you always look through these
piles and stacks of Anger that we’ve been collecting and you haven’t
looked anywhere else, you know, no matter how magnified that
Anger is, it won’t change what it is.

You’ve been standing in that same spot searching for too long, and that
magnifying glass is burning us

And it’s not that I don’t still think you’re made of stars, because I do

I still do

I still need you, mom

I need you to breathe,

I do.

You’re my oxygen, you always have been but

This Oxygen is suffocating me.

Do you remember that story I told you so many times? About that day
in kindergarten when the craft table got new materials? When there
was nice

Purple

Shiny heart shaped box and I wanted it

So did everyone else, but I got to it first

So it was mine

I had it in my hands

I had it

But then the other little girl spent all morning talking to me about how
she wanted it

She wanted the pretty, shiny, heart-shaped chocolate box so that she
could make a pretty gift for her mommy and I didn’t want to give it
up, but I finally gave in to the guilt and gave up that box to her

Do you know why?

Because I thought about how I had the best mommy in the whole wide
world and I wanted to give that pretty box to you because I loved you
so much and I thought maybe that little girl loved her mommy the
same way I loved you, and I understood why she would want to give
her mommy a pretty thing and to this day, that time in kindergarten
when I gave up my pretty box that I wanted to give to you is one of my
deepest regrets, because I loved you so much and I wanted to give you
that pretty gift.

I still do, you know

I still see you as the duct tape to fix what I broke and the hands that tie
the back of my dress in a bow for me on Easter Sunday, sure I still see
you as the lullaby I fall asleep to because I used to replay that
recording of your choir solo you downloaded on my very first IPod for
me every night before I went to bed one year when I was in elementary
so that in case I died before I woke up, the last voice I ever heard
would have been yours. Or in case you died at least I heard your voice
last. I always romanticized death back then, but now I can see how icy
the frosty fingers of death really are when the death of our old bond is
staring me right in the face, Mom!

Do you remember that one month I spent making absolute sure the last
thing I said to you before you shut my door and left after saying
goodnight was: I love you so that the last thing I ever said to you
was “I love you”? Same logic, mom. In case you died before the next
time I saw you, at least that was the last thing I ever said to you I never
wanted you to forget, and yes mom, I still see you as the stiches in my
torn up nylons but I don’t see you as my blanket on a cold day,
anymore.

I can trust you to save me, I can trust you to love me overall, in the end

But I can’t trust you to comfort me and you tell me to call you when
I’m sad, but you wouldn’t get it.

I can give you ten reasons why you and I need you to stop chasing me
into pain’s open arms and all ten are on my hands, balled up in fists
that are bruised from fighting, I’m done fighting with you mom, I can’t
anymore.

I’m too tired.

You start every knitting project and never finish it before you start a
new one, and I don’t want to become just another unfinished project of
yours, the daughter who left home and never sent more than 10 emails,
one for each finger after that because it’s not that I don’t love you, it’s
just that we’re growing so distant now that when we fight, the “I love
you” is no longer implied and when you get angry, you’re scary

You call me worthless, you swear at me, you say some awful things
mom, and so do I, I know,

But then you demand in irritation why I consider myself worthless as
if I’m seeking attention or something when I admit to you how
worthless I feel, well if you would quit calling me useless and
worthless and I quote “The stupidest human being alive” maybe I
WOULDN’T FEEL LIKE THAT MOM!

Maybe your mom, who is supposed to be the over-sized, comfy hoodie
you can come home to when life is getting too complicated is
constricting you with her harmful words it’s hard to find any good in
myself anymore maybe I’m just really hurt that you would say that to
me.

My sisters came along and they STOLE you, I’m sorry if that sounds
like a selfish, angry six year old but I need to say it because I don’t care
how unbiased you think you are, you never show me the underlying
kindness you show them because mom, I don’t want money every time
we go to the movies, I don’t want two pairs of Lululemon leggings or
expensive boots I just want the Love I feel like you’ve lost for me when
you didn’t have enough to give to all three of your children I just want
you to Love me, mom. I’m scared that you don’t anymore, and God it
would be so much easier if I could hate you but I can’t bring myself to.
I wish I could say I hate you, but I don’t. Every time I cross the line and
scream something unforgivable at you, when you cry, I can hear every
teardrop that falls from your eyes crash to the floor and shatter, but I
feel like you can’t hear me even when I’m screaming, even when liquid
pain is pouring down my face mom I love you, but you can’t hear my
tears and I feel like you’ve lost the Love you used to have for me.

I wish you would come back to me, I wish you would spend just ONE
night without insulting me, or yelling at me because I’m not
exaggerating when I say you haven’t.

Mom, I’m asking you to help me fix this.

We are not going to find the answer to the Cold between us in this pile
of angry, so please lower your voice and lower your magnifying glass,
just stop burning us and help me rebuild our old bond, okay?

The venom in your snake bite glare ties my pain in knots, but knots

Can come undone

Untie this pain with me?

Maybe it started going down Peasley Canyon Road. I can't recall.
****.
Maybe it started with not giving, or not wanting to.
No matter really, that act was over, the lines were out and the curtain drawn.
It's funny what the mind drags up
on it's own.
Mine drags up things like lost telescopes, looked thru
and cracked plastic leather , that hadn't
yet.
I knew how that man on TV felt who had only months to live, as I had only weeks.
Only two.
So...I gave you my blue apres-ski sweater, too big, a ring I still wear, too big to0 and my love, that I suppose wasn't.
On the plane away it was like a mixer gone crazy inside me...part staying, part going.
Of the part that went along I lost or had it removed with drill parades and dope lectures, fighting fires you can't loose and paper targets.
Very surgically.
Letters to you had phrases like 'smashed psyche' (which I still can't spell) and 'never let go'.
Bunk beds can be fun until they're made of steel and draped with woolen blankets and someone's legs from Alabama.
One of my friends at camp turned me on and I became the barracks Dylan, I'm not sure whether Thomas or Bob.
After a hundred years and eleven weeks it ended
and started.
A nice lady at the airport gave us all the only ****** shot we'd e had in eighteen hundred hours.
I'd called, prior to leaving and you were there at the end of that in-and-out mouth that blows the people out and ***** them back in after the fuel
I'd grown tired of walking up that ramp in my dreams but that time, I left no tracks at all.
A blue dress with ruffles round the neck and those patterned nylons then the rage. I read a few days ago that holding hands feels good even in this day and age.
Send that lady a rose.
Two weeks can last 20 minutes, I know.
Then started the back and forth of school a thousand miles away and painful phone call and Conni ,signed with a circle above the i.We split and mended a couple of times and I read the Harrad Experiment and I got a purple note from Conni and I called to say... I'm not sure what.
Hello...goodbye.
Time went by and so did school.
I remember walking across this field in San Francisco and being depressed by how long it took for fifteen minutes to pass when one considered four years.
I flew home to you that weekend and was duly dropped from school the next.
I asked for some dreamed of tug boat in Puget Sound but got instead a minesweeper in Japan. We'de done the front seat and hurried basement tango and I called Conni to say
well, I'm not sure what.
Hello
Goodbye
Stairs and glass and a clutching you and a sick me.

October 10th, Nineteen Sixty Eight
A hand, a car, a reading, a letter, a truck, a plane, a train and another reading.
I think there were only five or six lines to it but it was enough.
No yo-yos, no pick me up and put me down again...ok?
OK, I love you.
A friend named Green, a hundred talks sometimes with wine, sometimes not. Letters and business calls to you, cycles with no keys and McGaha, Clarence BM1, unit of issue one each, houses and no overnights, Lt. Cris Curtis and no-trouble dissension, the Maharishi and July and you and me and you and me
The Astronauts made it and we did too,  by the gate to the new lake
"A small step for man, a giant leap for mankind."
He was almost right.

June 21st Nineteen Seventy
The shrink never seen and you in Southern California at four in the morning and the Kona Hotel.
Burning ears and imagined heavies sent to intercept us at the infamous glass door.Not the first time but the best time.
Flying home together you gave me the window seat and your hand, all I needed.

November 15th  Nineteen Seventy
Sea-tac Motor Inn, coffee and toast and love.
I'm glad you didn't come down cause Ed was there and he was bad enough at saying goodbye.
Calls to you from Hawaii and Kwajaline and Guam and islands no one ever heard of but fish and me.

T minus 180-179-179-177
ad infinitum
Goodbye Subic Bay, goodbye
Tricks to keep away reality like tapes from home and **** in the old man's coffee cup. Jokes told and re-told till we all re-laughed.
Who ever heard of Sea Detail at 3:30 in the morning?
Me, thank God.
Friend Green was gone from Hawaii too, so I left on the first plane. SoCal again as the news media calls it, two days of debriefing then
out
I can't remember if I took a bus or a cab to the airport nor can I really recall which gate or even if you were there.
I guess I start at the tunnel yelling "OUT, I"M OUT!
I don't know if it started going up Peasley Canyon road or down.

I want to make you feel good
The way any other should.
Open up to the idea, let's be understood
What would you do if you knew we could?

Do anything,
The sunshine I'll bring.
Sweetest sounds for you, I'll sing.
Lose your fear, let yourself ring
Don't indulge dear, all those silly things.

Beautiful you
Musical view
Oh, how the rhymes come true
Can we have this all the time?
Oh, it's gotta be
true.

I'm a sucker for nylons
And cherry red lipstick.

She wears them,
and it sends me reeling.

She doesn't know how I love her still.
She smells like the Chanel I gave her.

But she left me out here in the cold,
a million miles from our home.

In the morning,
she’d go to her sewing room again,
half-dressed
in a full slip, nylons, and black pumps.
Over her arm, she carried whatever dress or suit
she would wear to work that day.

She spread out the clothing on the ironing board,
sprayed it with fabric sizer--never starch--
and pressed
each seam and dart
and in and around buttons, cuffs, and collar,
placing the tailor’s ham here and there
when necessary.

In other houses,
mothers still in cotton bathrobes
made breakfast, packed lunches, and set out clothes
for children and husbands.

Those children and husbands
never saw what I did:
A woman up early,
ironing with steam and sizer,
one of several outfits she had made herself,
while holed up at the sewing machine
so that when a husband
came home drunk again
she could excuse herself from their bed
--to finish cutting out a new pattern or
to sew every last button hole of a blouse—
until he passed out.
Again.

Everyone wants to just stick it in the hole,
And pound the pin in,
Ask them to tie some nylons with their hands,
And they're all pinkies.
Kids these days,
Can't even play an F chord,
Three string chords
And verse chorus verse,
It gets worse every year.
Thank the lord above, that guitar geeks are born periodically,
To make that thing neigh, like a Bad Horsie,
And prove, a three piece garage band can still rock the block.
For every one hundred and fifty parttime power chord players, hiding their lack of practice behind digital effects,
And excessive distortion,
There's one Jimmy Hendrix or Dimebag Darrel born.
I see the brows furrowing now,
As you wonder, how does this geezer know about Dimebag?
Just because I prefer the feel and vibration, of a classical guitar in my arms,
Doesn't mean I don't Listen to Sabbath,
and I was a Dime bag fan in the seventies.
Power chords are fine by me,
It makes my tutoring sessions, much easier,
I don't even bother trying to convince them that there are more chords,
Unless, they have that thing about them.
That little floating sign that says
"You are special",
Or the eight year old,
Who mysteriously has thick callouses on his fingers,
Even though he never picked up a guitar before.
What I'm trying to say is,
There is nothing wrong with the kids these days.
I hated learning my scales too.
Rock and roll is here to stay,
As long as the next Hendrix isn't
Aborted.

It came around again
for we are at the center
of our everything.
And the center never
moves.

From between jagged
ancient mountain tops
it's appearance came to be.

Made its way
across a deadly
California desert.
Over a  mysterious,
***** blondes bare
freckled shoulder.

Through the track homes
and the cheap motels.
Between  a beautiful ******
open legs and runny nylons.

Past the clerk asleep in the  hotel lobby.
Past the stolen car
outside.
Across the cluttered
room and
across a dark alley way

Up the main street
of some nowhere type of town.
Across the freeway and the blood stain.
Past the curbside motive candles.

Above the glass like surface
of the morning  dead calm sea.
Through the fisherman's hopeful heart.
And the starlets dying flame.

Over the pages of my
favorite book,
my favorite line.
"Run to me, Come to me'


Through my
half empty ***** bottle
then bounced its way off the cracked
goodluck mirror  and  caught
me straight in
the eye.

Another day had arrived
and with it
the blinding ray.

The first sign
that you've made it
to waste another beautiful
Southern California
day.

not a hurried act,
but a bloodied one,
nonetheless...

yes,
the residuals
are two bodies,
for the price of one(!),
that once, twice
exhumed,
give off
no trace of human
fume

what you don't know can't hurt you...

what?

that is a summary of the case;
the motive, the weapon, and
the scene of the crime, all the sane

the raison d'être...or not to be...
that is the
question,
and the answer..
the why, the how
passion was murdered,
ease on down, each other...
daily,
they ****** each other
to the death,
on crosses,
side by side,
like a semi-detached house,
with holes aplenty bleeding into
each other, their only
diminished capacity attachment

you still don't get it? ****...

look at your parent's marriage

now you get it?

a twenty year, slow bloodletting
each day a drop dripped from
a nail hole just a millimeter inserted deeper

passion is a slow dying
thing,
that two do
to each other

a sanguine sang-froid slow motion
killing,
that stretches out over the years
like black nylons used as a ski mask

pretty, and ugly and
disguising
and disgusting
and all at once,
a dissipation
a dissolving
a double homicide
by languid immolation


**a crucification of a fiction,
a crucifixion of passion

we don’t need
to be fixed.

we need to be
aware. open. owning it.

embracing
our pain, our history
our patterns, our spasms.

confession:
I've been fantasizing…

that one day you'd roll up,
like Richard Pryor at the end of Moving,
sitting atop a semi-truck of your whatnots,
war paint smeared upon your dashing,
wearing a tie bandana and bullet sash,
carrying a semi-automatic weapon,
after stalking your **** cross-country,
to the front of our gutted dream house,
after this misadventure, arriving, finally,
at home imperfect, thankful just to be,
there with delirious, Cheshire cat grin,
like a lion dragging in a carcass,
bloodied, brave and proud,
eager to greet my eyes and say:

Honey! Look what I found!
I found my ****!
I brought my **** home...
This is my ****.

and I would greet you,
with water-colored greys
inking down my dimpled peach,
in a black and white gingham apron,
heels, nylons and corseted vintage dress,
mirroring that ****-eater right back,
tray of warm hash brownies in hand,
that got nothing on my toasty sweet
lips dripping to say:

Your **** is lovely, darling.
It'll go perfect with mine!
It's up in the attic - properly labeled,
arranged and categorized.

and with that kind of
ownership, acceptance and bravery,
there is no way our stuff will ever be
more powerful than us, together,
merged and emerging,
by way of wings, soaring,
above our ****-spattered clouds.

I lean toward the light
but am rather fluent
in the tongue of night

a full house lies
beneath corseted wings
slipped in ripped nylons
upper thigh clings

deal me yours -
iron fangs, claws, force
scrawl impassioned pains
branding your name
primal submitting
heart catharsis

although
you probably
should know

I can play
crowmistress
as good (or better)
than possessedkitten
if you push me
too far

my core
is prism pure
but I can make you
question that
hard

we stayed inside that night
swishing cold drinks around with our tongues
letting it drown out the ringing we heard
and stop the sweat gathering between
our fingers

and you grabbed me playfullly
while i was sitting in the blue chair
i hope you remember
that

i stared at myself in the bathroom afterwards
later that night
standing there reciting bukowski
to my swollen eyes and
broken jaw

my lipstick was blending in with my
flushed cheeks
and i remember

you were going to kiss it entirely
off of me in one sitting
and i swear i was going to let you
until i started thinking about

my nylons ripping and my shyness
unmasking itself as some mental illness
and that stranger walking in and shouting
telling you there is a mountain to be climbing
and a song to be written and
a friend to be helping and you’re
trying with this girl?

she’s terrified of birds
just cause they have the capability
to do what she cannot
flee—
she wants yellow
but it’s dark green
needs pills to be civil
and wine to be social
she wants nights
not days

she just wants the rain
she wants the rain
the rain

and the rain

every single day

and you and i both know
we have no control
over the sun

i’ve been losing sleep lately plagued by dreams of strong arms tightly wound around my ribcage like kudzu and an overwhelming scent of musk and dried paint that lingers like a heavy shadow in the breaking of morning light. i stumble through the routines ripping my nylons and bruising my hands along the way. all i can think about are the mistakes and lies i’ve scattered across all that i once held dear to me and how i’ve burned every ******* bridge i ever built in the gold light of vulnerable youth. i don’t know what i want anymore and every man i’ve ever loved ultimately never adds up to the man i imagine them to be. i fill in the empty nooks and black holes within yourself you don’t even know you have and i build you into the man you never have any chance of becoming and it’s just downhill from there, babe. i’ve got my back up against a wall with my spine so firmly pressed into the surface i wonder how hard it would be to just simply fall through and disappear entirely. i look into the eyes of hundreds of strangers everyday knowing i will never see them again and all i can think is how in god’s name are people ever able to find each other?

15 june, 2012

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm ⚠
___________________
­
In memory of
him?
her?

I do not know.

___________________
­In the hushed moments
before sleep,
you summon the
loveliest memories of him--
memories now
resigned to heartache and destitution,
to some far off, phantasmic realm
(wherever that may be);

you come to school ill
one winter's morning,
flesh cadaverous,
pale cheeks embellished
by bloodshot eyes
wreathed in dark circles.

He rests his hand atop
your forehead affectionately,
his eyes shaded with concern
as he comes to the realization that
"You're burning up."

(But, eventually, his affections
begin to ebb away,
and with them, so does your fire--
the stuff of magic);

Mouth frothing with rage,
you haul off and
punch the living ****
out of a bathroom stall.
This escapade of fury
leaves your left hand
inflamed
bruised
splintered.

When you tell him
what you've done,
he meets you outside
of the girl's washroom
and takes your hand in his,
runs his fingers over the
inflammation
bruises
splinters
softly and asks you,
"Does it hurt?"

(These days, it hurts everywhere--
and all for him, darling);

He pulls you--
fretful and teary-eyed--
to his chest,
his palm cradling
the back of your neck.

For a moment
you forget about
the cuts on your thighs;
the blood seeping
from your nylons;
the sorrow gnawing
at your bones.
For a moment,
you can't help but wonder
if this boy
is to be your
Gideon--
your Holy Grail.

(And, to think,
one abrupt gesticulation
of his wrist
and your neck snaps--
and you're a goner).

I have an unusual friend. A small man with charms of a gentle redneck. He holds court in his garage for his acquaintances, those free or at large. His demeanour is rustic, but his wisdom self-taught. His name is Byron ( I know, it's too good to be true),  not lordly, but Byron likes the girls and light brew. Byron says, “I'll kick your ***.” every time we play golf. Not yet. His voice is chasmic and often influenced by distractions. And then on a cold, witch-***, heathcliffe driving winter's day, with the wood stove well-fired, a rascally friend opens the door, and Byron yells, “Shut the door. Do you think wood grows on trees.” On leaving the same day he advises me, “Don't slip on the ice. It's frozen.” I didn't tell  you Byron has one eye. Better yet, a patch on the other. He looks more like post Frodo  ignoring the “Don't run with scissors" warning from Mother Baggins, than he does Lord B. I dropped my pipe once on his garage floor. A special pipe. It's my bowling pipe. I don't smoke tobacco.  Byron thinks it clever to call me at work and tell my secretary he and I are bowling after school. Byron mixes metaphors. So, my pipe has dropped. Byron says, “ Let me help. Three eyes are better than two.” His cleverness can backfire. I tried to be sensitive, but there was neither an honourable or dishonourable way out. Byron hung an oak wood sign near his stove. He makes his own stain, and rubs it evenly in circles with his wife's old nylons. “It's great for the *******,” he'll quip. The two ***** of the sign are joined with leather straps and stainless steel studded to the wood. The letters painted within the stencilled lines are a dark, rich mixture. The joke. “Lift flap in case of fire.” Normally one lifts the flap. “Not now stupit. In case of fire.” I discreetly pointed out the t.The sign quietly disappeared and was never mentioned again. He'll never kick my ***.

i feel like i never
left or maybe just
spaced out for six
months but this
place still feels like
home, the cold still
chills me to the bone
but i wear nylons and
stretch numb fingers
smile at the people i
will always care for.

Peep show girl, bedroom goddess, ***** ***** gem
Stripped of nylons and grayed tweeds
Her hair wet from the hot, steamy shower

She smells of Sand and Sable and sweet strawberry conditioner
Her plump **** and full, swinging ******* the towel hits the floor
He likes her like this, soft and curvy, still damp

How she moves holds his attention, her lovely female power
Laughter bubbles in her throat, her eyes inviting him
Without hesitation he's seduced by the absence of words

He kisses her neck, just below the ear, he feels her softly sigh
Closer they move, closing the space, his body stretched & flushed
Hands in her hair, her scent mixing with his, he flows toward her

What she isn't; slim and angled, so satisfies him he revels in her
Her lushness stimulates him beyond the physical, heightens him
Here it is warm-here she is free-here she believes she is beautiful

They part, she glows and he smiles, she's still damp but from him
She tucks herself lazily into his side, he likes her like this too
Simple, lovely in sleep's repose...she is his, all of her, all of her

It was always about Sally.
Every part of the working day.
Always Sally.
The report was boring him numb.
She sat across from him.
White blouse, black skirt.
Uniform of seduction.
He recalls the first time
How do you fancy a drink.
The response turning him on.
Only if you don’t mind drinking with a Lesbian.
He didn’t
For a awhile, she became Sally out of reach.
To be replaced with.
Out of reach Sally.
He watched her working away.
Crossing her legs in that teasing way.
Wondering if she wore nylons and black *******.
Out of reach Sally
Out of reach.
She watched him.
Reading his mind.
Strangely liking the unconscious attention.
It wouldn’t happen.
She knew that.
Next week he would be watching her replacement.
The final drink goodbye.
She introduced herself as Michelle.
He didn’t really care.
Lost in another world.
A package arrived.
He knew that scent.
Carefully opening it.
Touching the soft material.
Anything exciting, from across the office.
Sally.
The girl I replaced.
Yes.
Was she nice.
Out of reach Michelle.
Out of reach.

It came around again
for we are at the center
of our everything.

And the center never
moves.

It burns through natural clouds
and unnatural lines in our sky.

Over the Eastern mountains
and scorched hillsides.

Made its way
across a deadly
California desert.
Over a  mysterious ,
***** blondes bare
freckled shoulder.

Through the track homes
and the cheap motels.
Between  a beautiful ******
open legs and runny nylons.

Past the clerk asleep in the  hotel lobby.
Past the stolen car
outside.
Across the cluttered
room and
passed a dark alley way.

Up the main street
of some nowhere type of town.
Across the freeway and the blood stain.
Past the curbside motive candles.

Above the glass like surface
of the morning ,dead calm sea.
Through the fisherman's hopeful heart.
And the starlets dying flame.

Over the pages of my
favorite book ,
my favorite line.
"Run to me,Come to me'

Through my
half empty ***** bottle.
Bounced its way off the cracked
goodluck mirror  and  caught
me straight in the eye.

That first blinding ray
shines its way through the ages
to great you each and every  morning .

The first sign
that you've made it.
Still healthy enough to
gracefully waste another beautiful
Southern California day.

You must forgive
When nothing meant to do you wrong
And it did.
When the two backs
Back in at the party
To each other
The drinks don't spill,
No casual pain.
Even a nod is forgiveness.
When you fall in bed,
Out of love with yourself,
Private and sardonic
So hateful
Nobody heard you, and
You're all right.
A laugh, even is.
When you meant to do nothing wrong.
Like a new bird
Without an old bird looking,
Forego the fate leap.
No one’s watching.
When you allow the old ruins
To flee and burn
Say no harm has come.
Thread unwinding the nylons
Withering in your eyes
On a spying train
It’ll pass.
They will graciously turn away from you
Again,
You feel fine.
Though I know you sing
At night, in the back bathroom,
Washing your hands
Of black bile