When I first sold myself there were
black cottons, brass buttons, iron crosses, steel machines
All the marks of war
All that searing heat
With all that pretty malice
Spilling Paris in the street
‘Twenty marks’ I called
‘Twenty marks’
That was 1943
And Piaf was doing well

Nurse, do you know what it is like:
To have a man inside of you
that you could never love?

There was, once upon a time, a pretty little ****
black cottons, brass buttons, iron crosses, steel machines
Lying on my floor
And Maman was starving, and my sister, too
Dignity wasn’t half the tax it seemed before
He gave me a baby, and a disease,
That was 1944:
Piaf was quite successful, then

Doctor, can you fathom:
Having sores all over you?
Yes, down there, and
all up and down your thighs, your body burns.
Can you feel that?

Then, the Germans left, and the Allies came, all
black cottons, brass buttons, iron crosses, steel machines
All of that decor
Fleeing, running out
On the French horizon
Retreat
The Allies were the same
‘Three dollars’ I called
‘Three dollars’
That was 1945:
Piaf was languishing
Paris had died

Jacques, my dear:
Those were our times
smoky cabarets, sculptured croons, fine wines
your rifle on your back could wind my morning with worry
and with my scourges, you took me all the same
but what I remember is:
black cottons, brass buttons, iron crosses, steel machines
then:

nothing

“Monsieur Boursin - she has passed.”

He sobs,
it sounds like
war.

Tears from dusky lowered lids
crystallize and scintillate in the
flames of the guttering candles.

(Walk away, love, walk away!
Kiss my cheek and turn.-
A shattered heart beats, ****** in your breast.)
We love, and yet we return to our 'others'.
We pray we never hurt them. Pray we never break.

I cannot stop this love!  I do not regret it. There!
I only hope that we hide it well enough that it not disturb the innocents...
because, we were innocents too, when it came crashing into our lives.
Bien!  Non Regrets Rien.  Sing the song, and Edith will sing with us. ...
Or Aznavour will.  Or Lara Fabian, or Jacques Brel...
Sing on le chanteur et les chanteurs,  
then come and weep with me.

The Checkout Line

I wish to speak with you
ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

The words and meanings you carry in your pants, the pick-pocket steals your hopes from time.
and the visions of empty trash receptacles
with their late evening drunken lovers' bouts, at restless end tables. And the bums with their ******* attitudes **** covered clothes, and soiled minds

the clarity of the curbside drunk, picking up shades of filtered cigarettes of twilight scandalous
pickup lovers in their evening best.

And to talk with you ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

They're Green Beret head ornaments
detailing the porcelain platforms of Delft
Lining up for one last line to carry them into another faded sunrise at dawn's forgotten memory of yester night
and they walk their gallows holding pride fully their flags of exalted countrymen.

The republic of teacups of literary proficiency.
Wearing the necklaces of paid tolls to an afterlife they find in the miniscule car crashes of engagement with a grinless driving mate in a neighboring car in its pass into the forethought of turned corners.
Where they befell the great disappointment of failure in the frosted eyes of their fathers' expectations.

Who carried the shame of their mother's incessant discontent through short skirts, and high heels.

Who disapproved of the **** whom wore the sneak-out-of-the-house-wear clothing line, and traveled by night over turbulent asphalt by way of sidecar through turn and turnabout hand-over-hand contracts of lover's affection, and slept in tall grasses of wet nightfall with views of San Francisco, and were trapped in the inescapable Alcatraz and Statesville of unconsenting parents and their curfews,

through trials and trails of Skittles leading to after school Doctor visits in the basement of a doting mother, whilst she sits quietly in her exclusive quilting parties with noble equities of partners in knowledge, listening to Edith Piaf and the like,

All the while condemned to time, trapped in the second hand, hand me downs of the 21st century, decades of decadent introverts with their table top unread notebooks, and old forgotten score cards, and the numbers of scholars of years past,

and to talk with you ten years from now will be my greatest pleasure, for you will be....ten year's behind.


They push the sterile elevator buttons, and descend upon the floor of scents flourishing from their crowded family rooms, only aware of distinctive flavors, in their middle eastern shades of desert gumbo,

Who speak ribbit and alfalfa until midnight of the afternoon, sharing fables of slaughtered giraffes and camels that walked from Kiev to Baghdad in a fortnight,

Who are aware the power is out, but continue to scour for candles in a dark room where candles once burned, where candle wax seals the drawers of where candles can be found. Where once sat gluttonous kings and queens in Sunday attire waiting for words of freedom from the North.

of Florence, Sochi,Shanghai
of Dempster, Foster, Lincoln
of Dodge, Ford, Shelby

Of concrete fortune tellers in 2nd story tenement blocks with hairy legs, and head lice, wearing beautiful sachets of India speaking ribbit and alfalfa.

On their unbirthdays they walk the fish tanks wearing their birthday suits to remind them who serves the food on the floors of the family room fish mongers tactics.

The old men wear gargoyles on their shoulders.

Lo! Fear has crept the glass marbles of their wisdom and fortune, blearing rocket ships and kazoos on the sidewalks of their Portuguese forefathers.

Where ancestry burns cigarette holes in the short-haired blue carpet, where Hoover breaks flood waters of insignificance across hard headed Evangelical trinities.

Who share construction techniques one early morning at four, where questions of Hammer and **** build intelligence in secondary faces of nameless twilight lovers, who possess bear blankets, and upheavals, finely wired bushes of ***** maturity. Eating *** and check, tongue and pen.

Where police caress emergency flame retardants over the fire between their legs, wielding the chauvinistic blade of comfort in the backseat of a Yellow faced driving patron.

With their innocent daughters with their nubile thighs, and malleable personalities, which require elite words and jewelry. Wearing wheat buns, Longfellow, and squire.

Holding postmarked cellular structure within their mobile anguish.

Who go curling in their showers, pushing afternoon naps and pretentious frou-frou hats over tainted friendships with their girlfriend's brothers with minimum paychecks'.

Through their narcissus and narcosis, their mirrored perceptions of medicinal scripture of Methamphetamine and elegant five-star meat.

Who amend their words with constitutional forgiveness, in their fascist cloth rampages through groves of learning strategies. And the closets, cupboards, and coins
with rubber hearts, steel *****, and gold *****,

Tall-tales of sock puppet hands with friendly sharing ******* techniques, dry with envy, colorful scabs, and coagulation of eccentric ****** endeavors, With their social lubricants and their tile feet wardrobes with B-quality Adidas and Reeboks gods of the souls of us. Who possess piceous syndromes of Ouiji boards in their parent’s basements.

When will fire burn another Bush? Spread the fire walls of Chicago, and part grocery store fields of food. Wrapping towels under the doors of smoke filled lungs, on the fingernails of a sleepover between business executives with the neoprene finish of their sons and daughters who attend finishing school, with resumes of oak furnishings,

And I long to talk with you ten years from now,
For you'll be talking ten years behind.

Who profligate their padded inventories breaking Mohammed and Hearst,
laying the pillows of cirrus minor
waiting for the rain to paint the eyes of the scriptures which waft through concrete corridors,
and scent the air with their exalted personas,

With the different channels of confusions, watching dimple past freckle, eating the palms of our tropical mental vocations to achieve purity from the indignation of those whom are contemptuous for lack of innocence in America,
this America, of lack of peace,
of America hold me,
Let me be.

Whom read the letters off music, blearing Sinatra and Krall, Manson where is your contempt?

Manson where is your manipulation of place settings?, you deserve fork and knife, the wounded commandments that regretfully fall like timber in an abandoned sanctuary of Yellowstone,
Manson, with your claws of the heart.
Manson, with your sheik vulgarity of **** cloaks exposing your ladies undercarriage,

Those who take their pets to walk the aisles of famished eyes,
allowing the dorsals of their backsides to wonder aimlessly through Vietnam and Chinaman,
holding peace of mind aware of their chemical leashes and fifteen calorie mental meals, holding hands, unaware of repercussion,

With their vivid recollections of sprinkler and slide, through dew and beyond,
Holding citrus drinks to themselves, apart from pleasure, trapped with excite from sunsets, and in-between.

Withholding reservation of tongue to lung.
Flowing ribbit and alfalfa, in the corridors of expected fragrance.

and to speak with you of ten years from now, will be a pleasure all my own, for you will be talking ten years behind.

They walked outside climbing over mountains of shrapnel, popped collars
and endless buffets of emotion,
driving Claremont all the way to art gallery premiers
and forever waited for plane crash landings
and the phone calls that never came

Glowing black and white cameras
giving modelesque perceptions to all-you-can-eat eyes
giving cigarettes endless chasms of light

Colored pavement trenches and divots
cliff note alibis
and surgery that lasted until the seamstress had gone into an
endless rest
and
empty cupboards

Classic stools painted with sleepless white smoke and bleached canvas rolling tobacco with the stained yellow window panes of feral tapestry and overindulgent vernacular

Like a satiated cheeseburger weeping smile simple emotion
on November the 18th celebrations
and Wisconsin out of business sales

Too much comfort, stealing switchboards from the the elderly, constantly putting gibberish into
effortless conversation.

Dormant doormats, with the greetings that never
reached as far as coffee table favelas,
arriving to homes of famished
furniture, awaiting temperate lifestyles and the window sill arguments from pedantic literacy

Silver shillings and corporate discovery clogged the persuasive
push and shove
to and from

Killing enterprise
loquacious attempt at too soon
much too soon
too soon for forever

Wall to wall post-card collages
happy reminders of the places never visited by drinks in the hands of
those received

Registered to the clouded skies of clip board artists
this arthritis of envy
of bathtub old age
wrinkled matted faces
logged with quick-fixes, anemia, and heart-break

disposed of off the streets
of youth, wheeling and wailing
rolling down striped stairs
of shock and arraignment
holding the hand rails of a wheelchair
suitcase
packed away in a life

Down I-37
into the ochre autumn fallen down leaves
and left memories behind
their green Syphilis eyeglasses

weeping tumuli
recalcitrant
mulish, furrow of beast and beyond

yelling, screaming, howling
at the prurient puerile tilling
of sheets

****** the voices of words
and vomiting the mind into the pockets of the turbulent perambulations
expelled from meat-packing
whispering condescension
and coercing adolescent obsessions
with fame, glamour, and *****

Creeping out into the naked
light of the Darger scale janitorial
closets, carrying the notorious gowns
of red wine spells, backpacks, and pins

henchmen, plaintiff, and youth

All the while
ripping at the incantations of the soul
whispering ribbit and alfalfa
in the guard-rail scars
of the dawns decadent forgotten

eph you see kay etouffee if you see Kay tell her a catawampus catahoula hound hog dog crossed bayou levee last night all right what did you say if you see Kay tell her a catawampus catahoula hog dog crossed the levee last night all right i heard what you said the first time why you got to repeat eph you see kay you ******* ****** **** what? what did you say you ******* ****** **** heard you the first time you **** a **** a ***** a ***** hello stop end begin believe conceive create no thank you i already ate what? what did you say begin believe conceive create no thank you i already ate quit ******* repeating yourself  you ******* ******* hello stop end begin believe conceive create eph you see kay etouffee if you see Kay tell her a catawampus catahoula hog dog crossed the levee last night all right

the renown physicist dressed in brown wool suit brown leather laced shoes white shirt burgundy knitted tie wild curly graying hair climbed the stairs walked across the stage stood at the lectern adjusted narrow support pole height reached down into brown leather briefcase retrieved his thesis concerning the relative theory of everything tapped microphone composed his posture made a guttural sound clearing his throat looked out at packed full auditorium it became evident to the distinguished audience the renown physicist’s fly was open and his ***** hanging out it was unanimously dismissed as a case of professorial absent-mindedness

all the creatures of the earth (excluding humans) convened for an emergency session the bigger creatures talked first grizzly bears stood upright explaining demand for gallbladders bile paws make us more valuable dead than alive sharks testified Asian fisherman cut off our fins for soup then throw us back into the sea to die elephants thumping heavy feet stepped forward yeah poachers **** us for our tusks rhinos concurred yes they **** us for our horns wild Mustang horses neighed about violent round-ups then slaughtered processed for cat food whales complained of going deaf from submarine sonar tests then sold for meat many dolphins sea turtles tuna swordfish sea bass smaller fish swam forward pleading about getting caught in long line nets barbed baited hooks over-fished colonies chimpanzees described nightmares of being stolen from their mom’s when they are very young then used in research labs for horrible tests song birds chirped about loss of their habitats land tortoises spoke in gentle voices about being wiped out for housing developments saguaro cactuses dropped their arms in discouragement masses of penguins solemnly marched in suicidal unison to edge of melting icebergs polar bears and seals wept honey bees buzzed colony collapse disorder bats flapped about white nose syndrome coyotes and wolves howled lonesome prairie laments the session grew gloomy with heart-wrenching unbearable sadness sobbing crying then a black mutt dog spoke up my greyhound brothers and sisters and all my family of creatures i sympathize with your hurt but it is important to realize there are people who care love us want to protect us not all humans are ravenous carnivores or heartless profiteers a calico cat crept alongside black dog and rubbed her head against his chest an old gray mare admitted her love for a race horse jockey who died years ago a bluebird sang a song suddenly lots more creatures advanced with stories of human kindness Captain Paul Watson Madeleine Pickens Jane Goodall a redwood tree named Luna testified about Julia Butterfly Hill the winds clouds sky discussed concerns by Al Gore lots and lots of other names were mentioned and the whole tone of the meeting changed every one agreed they needed to wait and see what the next generation of people would do whether humans would acknowledge the cruelties threats of extinction and learn grow figure out ways to sustain mother earth father sky then the meeting let out just as the sun was rising on a new day

there is a cemetery in Paris named Père Lachaise buried there are the remains of Jim Morrison Oscar Wilde Richard Wright Karl Appel Guillaume Apollinaire Honoré de Balzac Sarah Bernhardt the empty urn of Maria Callas Frédéric Chopin Colette Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Nancy Clara Cunard Honoré Daumier Jacques-Louis David Eugène Delacroix Isadora Duncan Paul Éluard Max Ernst Suzanne Flon Loie Fuller Théodore Géricault Yvette Guilbert Jean Ingres Clarence Laughlin Pierre Levegh Jean-François Lyotard Marcel Marceau Amedeo Modigliani Molière Yves Montand Pascale Ogier Christine Pascal Édith Piaf Marcel Proust Georges Seurat Simone Signoret Gertrude Stein Louis Visconti Maria Countess Walewska and many other extraordinary souls it is rumored at late dusk their ghosts climb from graves gather drink fine brandy from costly crystal glasses smoke fragrant cigars and once a year on November 2 party hard all night culminating in deliriously promiscuous ****** **** it’s difficult to know what the truth is since the dead don’t talk or do they

Retail-hunter gatherers pick
clean processed bones, digging graves
with their shiny teeth, studious in
their reveries as they drone

past worlds dumped in the thresher;
the trucked-in fields of film-wrapped
gore splayed lustily before the managers
wound tight in Machiavellian design.

A shepherd herds his flock of
wreathed iron back to its pen, its
skeletal tangle lit in riotous gold by
swords flung from lambent eyes of
pre-dawn’s shunting chariots

Cages shunt and bobble like tugboats
chugging stoic up swimming pool lanes
of nondescript tile, cheered on by shouting
colours to float through archipelagos of
paper towel and chocolate blocks past

the vegemite diaspora, and the arctic
wastelands cased in sliding glass fields of
perfect steady storms as wraiths baked in halogen
ask silent questions of the silverbeet, while

Lana Del Ray’s voice falls like
nightshade—slutty and serene—coating
shelf stackers in a Piaf sadness as the
shelves reach their arms out for more.

The check out chick hatches
a sense of déjà vu as carrots
and biscuits drone towards her
mind berEFT of any twitching
sense of POSsibility that wised
up and flew this leering coop and

deep in her catalogue of grey folds
something stillborn and waxen is
perched on gleaming steel, reeling
out her guts like cassette tape with jerky
nightmare arms and laughing like a
banker watching ***** films, mornings
dull cerise an invocation through
auto-jaws as she bursts out to warble
with magpies in car park’s climbing fire.

Je vois la vie
en parapluie.

DYNAMO

consciousness tossed
around in the heavenly night,
illuminations and poems in us all
as an asphalt drum bounds
oak to flat
dispersing lamentations to
the brain and barbwire ribcage
clawing at our lungs

PHANTASM

pain,
the behemoth cause for all inspiration
the pressing crucifixion
the shrill cry of harmonica overcast in
this bizarre moonlight
sinking an oceanic shadow
for my memory is high off melancholy
but i keep at it because the morning is beautiful

A PRAYER FOR WARMTH

(in my opinion)
nothing feels stranger than
an empty bedroom
we are each others loneliness

SOLIPSISM

Quand elle me parle du ciel,
Je n'ais d'yeux que pour elle.
Quand elle me parle des cieux,
Je n'ais d'yeux que pour nous deux.

A firetruck races past the isolate Blue Fox and infinity. Dulcimer clatters fading brickwork on the cross markets and churches where blind men are the imagining heaven. Luminescent Volcanic leaves heated from sunfire beautiful in the Spring choke lanes which are battered by abstract cavern homes. What happened to the Orient Harpsichord Serenity? Where does the Blue Fox go? Incense Markets Sauna with Smoke are busy in Denpasar while I'm here at a North American shopping mall where Ivory Columns cradled in violet fauna do wait sturdy and enchanted in rows.
Here I'm waiting by the leather clay shade bench in silent meditation breathing community whispers and listening clear to water pour from the lionhead fountain. Parrots caw atop a wide gated ceiling facing Empyreus.

There is a fire in America. The Blue Fox is hidden beneath firs and palms bathing in humidity. The Blue Fox is writing prophecies of economic collapse and rampant pointless murders making the newspapers. Ash storms blazing while banana painted trucks row on row attend to Victorian wood panels cooling to onyx powder in too short a time. There is no room for learning when The End Times go too quickly.
I'm listening to Bob Dylan scream instrumental prayer on harmonica rough against my ears. The Blue Fox treads February Beaches a few hundred miles from Australia and whistling the words of flowers in his head. He chews on wheatgrass jangling change in his fur pockets like those cartoons. He is the vision of Bohemia, he is an active star dazzled in this beguiled galaxy, yet in his spine he carries the turmoil doppleganger kept by all and known by none.
The firetrucks are doing all they can to quell the lung-poison vase boiling an apartment dancing inside but it continues to grow in its enraged fury.

There's a fire in America boys and girls, come around and see.
Canoes of memorial gold row through oppression and genocide, the Inuits and First Peoples of ancient years are wondering too where the blue fox went when agony cries the air. Stories of wisdom replaced with stories of war. Balaclavas labyrinthine through  exotic Bazaars thick with music and plants hanging off fishhooks and brass coat hangers while I write and dream of such Valhallas in my shopping mall on a quiet afternoon.
Bill is playing the banjo with faded paint and a single broken string, there he is on Yates! Cowboy hat made of charcoal velvet holding a meager collection of change.  
Stephen Schizophrenia is lying on his back watching aluminum kingdoms hover on by expanding nimbus clouds. He has eleven dollars to his name along with a damaged half torn belt with his initials engraved on the buckle  He taps his feet to Edith Piaf howling "La Vie En Rose" while an Airplane collides with his sacred personal aluminum palace, suddenly he can't block out the repressed memories he's fought decades to hide deep and dark in his bleak jazz enthralled brains.

Maybe we're all supposed to fall apart. Maybe we're designed to hurt and cause hurt. Where is that ****** Blue Fox? He's ebullient, thoughts fragmented in sharp bliss glass cutting him through while he rolls around the sands catching Buddha particles in his paws digging holes on Kuta Beach to his Idyllic land where happiness is forever and therefore false.

The Blue Fox falls in love overwhelming with everybody and every soul. So many souls by the billions every place! Even the tyrants. Even the demons. Even the necrophiliac scoring an OD'd brunette at twenty six from Anaheim who collapsed flatlined by prescriptions on a 3rd floor Complex.
He adores the narcissist who loves everybody as fully as The Blue Fox as long as they are herself. She is the harmonic untainted flytrap unaware of its own venomous nature but jealous of Summer and jealous of those whose names are heralded through generation to generation.
He adores The addict who is hollow of everything but the ****** sizzling under his patchy skin while he sinks from divinity swelling through his heart. He smiles while the remaining light dies inside him, left with only the regret remedies of suicide.
He adores The artist who fled to the big City and became nothing but watered down pigment after the Capitalists tossed him off the nearest skyscraper shouting pretentious metaphors.

The Blue Fox loves them all! He has no concept of the corrupt, or the lazy, or the greedy and needy and crazy and forgotten. They are all equal to him! The Blue Fox is knelt on paisley carpet smooth and spectacular! His regular India ashram, uplifting his body and his mind. The blue fox knows no doubt. Or anxiety, frailty or tears. He has no impulse or desire. The Blue Fox is joy in form and breathing spectrums of color mixing to combinations we cannot perceive.

There is a fire in america. It rages on unstoppable. It engulfs countries thousands of miles and histories away. It swallows the morning, noon and night. It protrudes disease in its wake. It heats up the ozone layer allowing radiation to make us more than cancer the zodiac. It causes our terror. It blots out our ardor. It havocs our heroes. Nothing is clean anymore. There is a fire in America.

And America is the world!  I'm watching out the front doors of this shopping mall where an elderly man trips at the food court escalator and becomes more renowned with every lethal collision down the tiles of freedom. Paramedics arrive shortly after and attend to another scalded by that same fire.
Up and up it goes!

creek in th'dark
w/brightest stone baubles, dappled riverbottom pebbles under moon-water,
a thousand faces glinting, smiling upwards.
school of carp in the reeds, the stalks rasping in the warm air
as the tails swish them back and forth.
the unheard steady **** of flapping, feeding mouths --
drawing in of algae, snails, waterbeetles;
soft crunch of shell and exoskeleton.

two legs on the dune by the stream wishing
there was two more legs on the dune, angling
down toward the stream.
a tender accompanying voice singing maybe Piaf
avec un accent provincial (de châtillon?)
hair wet, tangled;
sporting powder-white two-piece,
fresh from having swam with strong, slow kicks of slender pale legs,
long in that green water.
legs that look good in black heels.
their clicking imagined in the head.

first musical memory
playing Mary Poppins
over and over on my portable suitcase
phonograph  
not convinced that
a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down

went over to my friends house
to play Barbies
heard B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets
on her record player
began my life long
love of rock music

grew up attending a Southern Baptist church
if my faith continues to evolve in and out of specific creeds and dogmatic beliefs
right arm will never fail to involuntarily rise
towards the Heavens
whenever i hear
How Great Thou Art being sung

parents were in their late 30's
by the time i was born
was exposed to big band music
show tunes
mom's favorite
French operatic singer Edith Piaf

Riverview Elementary
in music class
taught how to do The Hustle and The Bus Stop
to disco records
got to bring in
on Fridays

love of guys with
long hair
blame
on the big hair
bands
the 80's

the 90's
such a kinship to the dark depressing sounds of grunge
believed  Scott Weiland
Kurt Cobain and
Jerry Cantrell
plagiarized my thoughts

mad or need to clean
my house
the 2 often go
hand in hand
heavy/nu metal blaring
at maximum volume

Currently
am at a crossroads
need of direction
helps me to undergo the deep soul searching
inecessary
major life changes are required

give myself vehicular therapy,
driving around Wilson Lake
symphonic classical sounds from the radio
surprisingly
maybe not
blaring

maximum
volume
brainstorming
my options
to the
music

overheard
ppl say  
they wished that
their life
came with
a soundtrack

Mine does.

We’d been waiting in line at Chipotle for half an hour
when you turned to me and said
“If we have to stand here for five more ******* minutes I’m throwing myself in the deep frier.”
I told you that I figured a person could stand just about anything
for ten seconds
Then when that’s over,
you just start on another ten seconds
Our burrito bowls would be here right away
if we just took it ten seconds at a time
So the first night I slept in your bed,
as you kicked me in the side as punishment
for a night’s worth of nightmares dreamt too close for comfort
Each prime number punctuated by another jab I counted
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
One month later at Tim Horton’s I ordered you breakfast.
A sesame seed bagel lightly toasted with butter.
It’s two shades too dark
and when I came home you told me
as far as you were concerned we both belong in the garbage,
slammed the door in my face so I counted
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
Ten weeks before, woke up to knife elbows
slicing into my ribs saying I can’t sleep
So you played architect and I was Pompeii
Finally touching me for the first time in centuries
The dust rising to reveal relief as tangible as ruins themselves
I leaned in to brush my lips against yours,
hands rushed up my cheek and you pushed me,
Just a little too roughly into a forest of flannel sheets and recycled oxygen
I felt thankful that at least you were touching me
In a way that if I tried hard enough I could perceive as romantic
You rolled away like ocean’s waves pushing against the dams of my eyelids
One audible leak and I’d be sleeping in the bathtub again so I counted
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Eight days later at my parents’
Edith Piaf was on my turntable
Your borrowed vape in my hand
I should’ve probably been crying,
But my mind has only ever had one track and missing you took precedence over tears.
Wanting to go back to you feels gross.
It feels wet
It feels nauseating
Why do I want to go back to a place
That was once a home but is now just an apartment
where I pay rent in my ability to sidestep the landmines scattered across floor made of eggshells?
I love you because when you saw me have a panic attack for the first time
You held me until my muscles felt like they hated me a little less
I don’t because when I walked in on you ******* your ex girlfriend
Your thunder shook my tree branch shoulders
So hard that my boughs convulsed and burst the twig capillaries in my eyeballs.
I love you because your stepmother is younger than you are
And that’s just really ******* sad.
I don’t because you say you never did anything that would warrant “this kind of behaviour”
As if loving you had landed me in detention
I love you because you once felt like home.
I don’t because you changed the locks.
1, 2, 3,
For months I told myself that we all crack under pressure
But once I saw that my tremors were coming from your faults
I realized how deep trembles are felt
Love is not an earthquake
Love is not painful
Love is learning how to come home again
Love is ******* magic
I will not delay its happening by wasting another ten seconds on you.

Yesterday for my birthday,
I started off
with a bottle of wine...
I took the train
into town...
I had half a bitter
at the Cafe de Piaf
in Waterloo...
I went to work
for a couple of hours or so;
I had a pint after work;
I went for an audition;
after the audition,
I had another pint
and a half;
I had another half,
before meeting my mates,
for my b'day celebrations;
we had a pint together;
we went into
the night club,
where we had champagne
(I had three glasses);
I had a further
glass of vino,
by which time,
I was so gone
that I drew an audience
of about thirty
by performing a solo
dancing spot
in the middle
of the disco floor...
We all piled off to the pub
after that,
where I had another drink
(I can't remember
what it was)...
I then made my way home,
took the bus from Surbiton,
but ended up
in the wilds of Surrey;
I took another bus home,
and watched some telly,
and had something to eat
before crashing out...
I really, really enjoyed
the eve, but today,
I've been walking around
like a zomb;
I've had only one drink today,
an early morning
restorative effort;
I spent the day working,
then I went to a bookshop,
where, like a monk,
I go for a day's
drying out session...
Drying out is really awful;
you jump at every shadow;
you feel dizzy,
you notice everything;
very often,
I don't follow through.

I am learning the art of forgetting.
I am learning the art of letting go.

I am rising. I smash at you like high tide. Reminiscing about our tidal waves and yard arms, wrapped around our throats like business suit neckties. You see, I got lost, one more time, in our complicated little world and remembered that womb is not synonymous with ****. But rather with mother. And we played house together awhile. While the moon peeled off half it's dress. And I laughed at your 3rd grade poetry. And we regretted nothing, like Edith Piaf, on your couch, in the dark, entering worlds we'd torn apart.

It is worth mentioning that you were the first to ask me to your bed, rather than taken to mine, which proved prophecy wrong and wrong and wrong.

I was waiting for the kiss, like crimson stains, to ask me to say. But we muted them with burgundy.

I was willing to pay.
I was willing to show you.

But instead, we let wine separate us and bottle us up in action we didn't take, corking something perfect now, with the lie that it will be better in time. And I bought it.

Like hands raised in prayer.

And kissed oceans off of your cheeks, one.. salty.. drop.. at a time.

That was our crime.

And you. You came back, figuring you could pollute my stream. A virus set about my heart, freezing me like cold wet days when the wind cuts like goodbye. Come to sound yourself like a siren. But I can't hear your song. It no longer plays on my ears. I have forced it back into the foam that crests the waves and have drown myself in flesh and flesh.

So go ahead. Go ahead.

And we. We would have our night and it would drive you to an assumptive dissidence. Our harmony corrupted. Now an awkward, fumbling minor chord. Bleating like a lamb to slaughter.

I never wanted your soul.

I just wanted you not to leave right after we'd arrived.

Which is becoming less and less true as I run out the lines on my face and hands.

I wanted one, just one, to be there in the morning and then gone.

But I am folly.

And Gods teeth shake like parishioners in a collapsing church as I find my way back to the ******* poet I've become.

Consider these words like mercury, temperature rising.

And how I have made mistakes.

In darkened deserts. In hands on small of backs. In rain littered parking lots. Fireside. Ringside. In cold, cold water. In cleverness. In repeated attempts. In repeated attempts. Inrepeatedattempts.

I have made mistakes.

But take me in spite of my faults, Love.

Just until dawn. But be careful. Dawn breaks so easily. So lay quiet with me.

When the sun fills this echo chamber it will translate all this rich to ruin. My staggering meter to a retched stumble. And how should I finish? With a dying fall as my mentor would have me? Ragged claws and turpentine? No.

You see, I am more now than I was before.

And yet, I have never been what I could be.

Don't.

Don't let go.

Lest I forget.

Come here.
Let’s.
Let’s?
Let’s…
Let’s.

Come here.
Listen to Edith Piaf
(So hipster, n'est-ce pas?)
and the scratch of her
voice on the turntable,
will be ours
to keep in Moleskine
notebooks of memory.
So that we’ll try to believe,
love is actually a thing.
Let’s.

Come here.
This quaint room will be
ours,
our guest, as we breathe life
into the coffee cups, wooden chairs.
We’ll give it a nose, yes.
Lightbulbs will smell red
wine in fingerprinted glasses.
Windows will drink
us,
to us.
And we’ll laugh, our faces
hot and sad, mouths
crammed with French
fries.
A scene blurred with happiness.
Let’s.

Come here.
Trash the hands of every
boy, who’s spread himself
out on marginalia of our days.
Slathered himself on pieces
of time we wish we had hugged to ourselves.
Hate, hate, hate
him, we’ll say.
And his **** hands.
Let’s.

Come here.
Our eyes will be fireflies
behind our glasses,
in this cinema’s night, as we ‘swoon’
at rom-coms as buttery
as the popcorn we bought in the interval.
Life’s too short, we say.
Eat about it, drink about it,
maybe even talk about it.
Forget about it.
Let’s.

Come here.
Talk, about nothing.
We’ll all be dead one day.
Let’s.

Come here.
We can be friends.
Let’s.

Let’s.
Let’s.
Let’s?


(And your giggle will end
all and every verse written.
I’m **** sure of it.)

When I think of the way we love
I spill Shakespeare like a fountain,
I spit rhymes like a rap star,
Words dance inside my chest.

Edith Piaf's lyrics hold the most acute reality
That I have to shut my eyes and sway
Translating the words is unnecessary.
The rhythm underneath holding all the meaning I need.

I can't compare thee to a summer's day;
You are most like a solid oak tree in my life...
An essential component to every season.
Adapting with a beauty all your own.

I don't only crave your mouth, your voice, your hair;
As Neruda would have you believe.
I crave your essence-
Found in the most precise way the your head twists
As you laugh...as you overthink...as you grow drowsy.
Only your eyes could reenact the look you have
When you're feeling most giddy.

Tupac Shakur and I "prayed and watched the distant stars",
And finally you appeared.
Shining so brightly I shut my eyes often,
Stunned by you.
Like a sunny day at the beach,
When you close your eyes and the sun's glow
Pushes against your eyelids; such is your love.

Pushing at the barriers
That keep my heart my own.
I want to stop the world and melt with you, forever.
I want you to know that even if you cannot hear my voice,
I'll be right beside you, dear.

Songs! Lyrics! Because if music be the food of love, PLAY ON!
And without borrowing other phrases,
I truly believe I was made for you and you for me.

No lyric I could sing,
No poem I could quote,
No metaphor I could construct,
and not even the bold truth of plain words
could EVER express how I feel for you.

But it doesn't stop me from trying.
I want to give you the luxury of taking the way I feel
about you for granted.

It will be that constant.
It will be that reliable.
It will simply be.

There will always be Paris

Written For The City I love
Jude Kyrie

*There is smoke in the air tonight.
In the old city that has seen many
wars and tribulations.
But smoke clears
those left will move on.

I do not want to
remember Paris like this.
It is so easy to do.
In the cold sadness.
I want to see the sprinbgtime
on the banks of the Seine
with lovers kissing
as the blossoms appear.

I want to see the artist
creating the beauty of the old city
and its lovely ladies.
I want to hear
Edith Piaf singing
La Vie En Rose
as only she can sing it.
With her heart full of passion
and love for the people of the city
pinned to her sleeve.

I want to be young again
and fall in love
with a beautiful french girl
her kisses sweet and tender
her heart carefree.

Tonight my tears flow like rainfall.
But it cannot last
not with Paris.
Not with its life blood
spilled on the streets.

I love her too much
and I will return
For tears are not the way
for us to say goodbye.

compilations of cold coffee cups,
dancing about in my candle-stained room
to French music from the 50's, today,
contrasting with the cacophony of construction
four stories beneath, below,
the day is blush.
rain as rosewater, fossilizes into flakes on the cheekbones, the lashes.
a quick reading of Kerouac reminds one to
believe in the 'holy contour of life,' whatever 'holy' means,
if it exists at all,
whether America is overrated,
whether i rather play in puddles of Scotland
or some foreign place,
how delightful it sounds, as Edith Piaf's
voice trances my loveless memory.
i'm cold. but we have to be.

There is a woman,
so kind and great of heart,
who visits our church.

From Eastern Europe
she is tinier
than even the smallest Piaf.

When she sings
in praise and adoration of her Creator,
you can almost see
the pillars tremble
in harmony;

as her voice
totally and powerfully
pervades the innermost depths
of the entire congregation.

Sunt prostul lui Piaf,
Șad pe marmura neagră
Și nu-mi plac străinii
Care vin doar pentru Morrison.

I've been picturing your face
it comes and goes all day
I hope that you do that too
edeth piaf singing sweet
it takes away my grief
and then I float, a ways
down.
come home darling. I'm alone
my heart, it will never roam
I'll sing to you when you come
back
I've been desperate
to hear your voice, my love
but if I was gifted the choice
I'd take your breath far away
Oh,
hold me tightly when you're here
sweet darling, please do not fear
till then I'm fine on the shelf
and,
your love, if it fades away
I hope when you see my face
you remember and hold me
forevermore

I made the effort from the train
And hit the platform
With my right foot first and then
My left.

The sun streaked through the rafters
Down onto the pavement, warming the hair on my head,
My skin, my face, my lips.
There were people everywhere only paying attention
To themselves and their things.

A train whistle erupted. I jumped.
A tall man, thin and grinning, laughed. He tipped
His cap to me. His shoulder leaned into the chipped wood
Of a café's doorway. People were struggling to get through.
Old men leaned on their elbows through the bay window
Sipping coffee whose steam curled up into their wide nostrils.
I figured the tall, thin, grinning, laughing, leaning man
Owned the place. He was such a presence.

He said something in French and reached out for my bag
(I think he was trying to help me carry them)
But I waved him off and revealed my watch,
The universal sign of "I am very ******* late".
The tall thin man stepped back, laughed again, and
Continued to lean on the doorway blocking traffic.

I trotted down a flight of stairs
And then up a flight of stairs, turned a corner,
To only go up another flight of stairs.
The arm holding my bag was numb while my breath
Was as short as the midgets I came upon on the street once
I had exited the train station.
They were juggling bowling pins,
Singing Edith Piaf's "Padam Padam".
Their voices were not very good, not well-trained,
But the sight made up from their vocal cords.

I dropped my suitcase in the taxi line.
The heat of the sun and the thick smog of cars
Washed over me like paint.
The sounds of the city brought back memories.
I stepped forward.

Soon, I would be home.
Soon, I would be in bed.
Soon, I would be with Him.
Soon, I would be as close to love
As I could get.

As I could ever be.

As I hoped I ever will.

MIDNIGHT FLICKS OVER INTO TOMORROW

"Henry, Henry...?"
his wife's voice

getting shriller and
shriller

he
doesn't answer
her

can't answer her.

Midnight flicks over
into tomorrow

with a little green click
from fluorescent numbers.

It seems as if
she's in the next room.

A piece of solid
reality but

she's not
only a disembodied voice.

She's been a ghost now
these 20 years.

"Henry, Henry..!"
the parrot says again

so much her it seems
she has been reincarnated

Martha
as Polly.

The parrot growing old
with him.

Edith Piaf sings
on old shellac

"Sans amour on n'est rien du tout!"

The parrot joins in on
every "du tout."

"Coming dear..!" he smiles "...coming!"
the parrot scolds him when it  sees him
"So there you are!"

It was so very long ago
almost a lifetime.
We were caught
inside the magic glow
of Paris in springtime
where love and youth
have no defenses.
I painted your portrait
in my tiny studio.
My God you were beautiful.
In the small room
the incomparable voice of Edith Piaf
sang the only song for lovers
La Vie en Rose.
My brushes found color and form
I had never found before.
I think your portrait
was my best work.
even today after all these years.
I have been offered large sums
of money even when I was hungry
and unknown.
But I would never sell it.
It was painted with my heart
how can you sell the first time
you fell in love.
Today I am an old man
I sit in my studio
sipping a glass of Chablis
looking at your portrait.
Something is missing of course
I flip the player on
Edith pours her soul once more
as her
La Vie en rose completes my mood.

in Paris
A summer is over the night arrives with
unseemly haste, it was not a delicious season
too spent most of the time indoors
fantasising about  silky sand, the sun and sea
reading brochures of adventures in Thailand.
When I get to a new place, it never is as had
Imagined it to be, say when I went to Paris
I had in mind the way it was at the time of
Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and
Ernest Hemingway, instead it was just another
overpriced city, mind I found the birthplace
of Edith Piaf and the street had a patina of
time went by, so I shall not be invited to
a literary salon, but I got two collections of
poetry accepted at Shakespeare's bookshop
I’m glad I read their books, but I’m also glad
I never met them

Fending off scrubland and bare, blue mountain
Logroño huddles in a heap and appears to slide
Almost lazily away from the slow-moving river.
Originality created and arranged easily
By the gloom trapped inside each filthy passage.
Garbage piles against *****, brown walls,
Crammed together and splintering in the sun.
And now and again a scrap of paper
Will fill huge as a sail and deny these still
October nights with a careless movement,
******, obtrusive and far too sudden,
Like the iron bridge which astonishes the dark
With such bright lights and emptiness, asking
For the beige mac, the turned-up collar and trilby,
The mysterious meeting, the garbled message,
When there is only me and the stone Roman bridge,
Illuminated and from another time.
The road from Santiago and the sandalled
Pilgrim loaded down with belief are no more than
A thing remembered or to wish for. But still,
High above the town, the twin Baroque towers
Of the cathedral resist change, insist on
More than a casual glance as I stand here now,
Balconied above the square, safe with French songs,
Edith Piaf and my cultivated tongue
Which nobody understands, and their so strange
Words which I try to learn, and don’t.
Then suddenly to see you simply among
These narrow streets and crowds of people,
Long boots and beautiful, is more than enough
To recall something bright in life after all.

It's a fundamental law:
all matter emits radiation
(all of us even you right now)

& the energy level depends
on the temperature of the object
(inversely related to intensity).

This is black body radiation.
Here, in our meager summer rooms,
we have long infrared auras

(only lizards see them);
our atoms are gracefully aching away,
smeary leaking daubs in halo.

The hotter something is
(like that fling of sun up there)
the more energy it heaves away.

That molten starry tussle
is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit
(& so we see it yellow-white) -

"But," you say, "what if something
is hotter than a star, what then?"
Something, you mean,

like the strange chemistry that burns
burns burns burns burns burns
in my brain on a Tuesday night

when remembering an autumn day
in a cemetery in Paris so many years back
(Chopin Morrison Abelard Heloise Wilde Piaf &c)

it was such a perfect day with her
(the synapses and relays are all
clicking clicking clicking clicking

with wild remembrance)...
Well, then (in theory)
I should be giving off ultraviolet light

at an almost infinite rate (wouldn't I?).
I don't know what it means
that I am here in the plush dark

quiet and quelled by thought
(except perhaps the catastrophic energy
is scrawling and etching me into oblivion).