12:30 AM.
I am a ghost drifting through the midnight-quiet,
haunting flower beds and grasses
Undisturbed in their slumber. My body floats
Through my neighborhood, stealing the
Secrets of the dark.

1 AM.
Ghoulish eyes peer out from Mrs. Butler’s bushes and
Become miniature 3-eyed deer with antlers sharpened to
Daggers. They roam about her dewy lawn,
Feasting on worms and blinking,
Slowly, one eye at a time.

3:30 AM
Arrives, and they return to their hideaway home,
Disappearing with one final b l i n k
Into the rhododendrons.

5 AM.
I never knew that morning tasted like
Strawberries and honeysuckle and smelled
Like freshly-cut-grass-mixed-with-bonfire-smoke.
My Tongue is heavy with its sickly-sharp odor
And my ears buzz from the tangy sweetness.

7 AM.
Corporeal reality coats my body, connecting my mind
to my soul, my
Soles to the soil and I am incarnate, whole,
A body amid the sunlit specters surrounding me.

9 AM.
A mumbo-jumbo grin slides onto my face,
Synthetic in every aspect of the word,
My mouth is cotton-dry as I slink into the bogusness of a weary day.

10 AM.
Crowds of people smoosh together, their words co-mingling
And I crash my bike into strung-together sentences,
Scraping my knees on the voracity of barbed words.

11. “She’s a constant damsel-in-distress, but she doesn’t work in a strip joint!” I step around the shards of her fallen tiara as I climb the ivory-tower’s steps.
12. My wide eyes view futility as a type of texture, and I imagine it feels like sandpaper. My first class feels like sandpaper-futile in this struggle to stay awake.
13. Bicycling to la clase de Español se siente como moviéndose a través de melaza.
Mis pies cansados empujar los pedales pero I can’t escape the quicksand around me.
14. Reading the thoughts of my classmates helps to pass the time, and
I can see clearer through closed-eyelids than open eyes.
15. Red walks among their peers, watching for passing dogs and smiling at them. Red is
Hyperaware of people they knew from past school and recalls names and faces in seconds. Red is
A zombie trudging on shaky legs, lumbering down the bricked path.
16. Murky sunlight streams through tired clouds and blinking is a visceral kind of pain.
17. My poetry stews in my brain, rotting and fermenting until it becomes a fine wine.
18. Trees wish me good luck, waving their branches affirmatively as I pass by. Their comforting
Footsteps warm my soul.
19. Darkness steals the sun’s warmth but I’ve hours more to be awake.
20. I am a ghost floating through this sea of people. I drift through them, haunting their conversations
Haunting my own quiet mind.

Hoy te contemplo en el piano, señora mía, Fuensanta,
las manos sobre las teclas, en los pedales la planta,
y ambiciona santamente la dicha de los pedales
mi corazón, por estar bajo tus pies ideales.
Porque yo sé de tu planta ser de todas la más pura,
tu planta sabe las rutas sangrientas de la Pasión,
que por ir tras Jesucristo por calles de la Amargura
dejó el sendero de lirios de Belkis y Salomón.
Y así te imploro, Fuensanta, que en mi corazón camines
para que tus pies aromen la pecaminosa entraña,
cuyos senderos polvosos y desolados jardines
te han de devolver en rosas la más estéril cizaña.
En las tertulias de noches de prolongada vigilia,
en el piano me pareces moderna Santa Cecilia
que cual solícita novia, con sus armónicos pies,
con la magia de los ojos y el milagro del sonido,
venciendo horas y distancia me lleva siempre a través
de los valles lacrimosos, al Paraíso Perdido.

Serán videntes demasiado nadie
colindantes opacos
orígenes del tedio al ritmo gota
topes digo que ingieren el desgano con distinta apariencia
Son borra viva cato descompases tirito de la sangre
Un poco nubecosa entre sienes de ensayo
y algo mucho por cierto indiscernible esqueleteando el aire
dados ay en derrumbe hacia el final desvío de ya herbosos durmientes paralelos
son estertores malacordes óleos espejismos terrenos
milagro intuyo vermes
casi llanto que rema
de la sangre
Sus remordidas grietas
laxas fibras orates en desparpada fiebre musito por mi doble
son pedales sin olas
huecos intransitivos entre burbujas madres
grifosones infiero aunque me duela
islas sólo de sangre

lonesome eyes lock amidst the herbal steam in a zen cafe

twirling ruby noodles with cheesy jokes and promising smiles

lethargic lips draw near under a shower of new beginnings

a medley of possessions occupy the forgotten panels of a rustic home

her chiffon pearl gown glides across a narrow alley of blush rose pedals

his laborious hands cradle their infant: one salty bead crawls down his bristly cheek

unknown illness defeats her fragile heart: thirty-seven years young

enticing trigger releases in his despondent grip

forever eternally: the man and the woman


siempre eternamente: el hombre y la mujer

comunicados de gatillo sugerentes en su agarre abatido

enfermedad desconocida derrota a su frágil corazón: treinta y siete años de joven

sus manos laboriosas cuna su bebé: una perla salada se arrastra por sus mejilla hirsuta

su vestido de la gasa de la perla desliza a través de un estrecho callejón de rubor rosa pedales

un popurrí de las posesiones ocupan los paneles olvidados de una casa rústica

letárgicos labios se acercan bajo una lluvia de nuevos comienzos

haciendo girar los fideos rubí con sirve bromas y sonrisas prometedoras

ojos solitarios en medio del bloqueo de vapor de hierbas en un café zen