love a girl like pyrite
when you found me in the mines
shook me from your baskets
saw me glint in the sunlight
said my  irises shifted like tiger's eye
i was never what you thought

love a girl like pyrite
if she's your gold then i'm a
shade of amber, a copper quarter
if I was hard then she is soft and
quick in your hands like a gardner snake
faint and without teeth, tangling through
the grass and you love the silent chase
the girls that flip belly up and
kiss your corners, kiss your
borders, rub away the ash
and lay themselves over your grenades
your sticks of dynamite you blew
me away with

love a girl like pyrite
because I was a fool's gold,
the normal luster of something
grand, sieved through your tables
back into the river, the unspoken
daughters of not-good-enough
lying in wait, picked up by farmers
by men who sell, who hock, who
pawn, washed down in Vindicator Valley
run between thumbs, turned up amongst
rocks the ordinary, run-of-the-mill
we can only be imitators of
the greatest


love a girl, who's fool's gold
would you find her?
would you keep her?

You don't know me
The places I wanna see
The things I want to know
What I want to be told
No, you don't know me

You can't hold me
Or tell me everything's alright
When I know you hold her
Like you used to hold me

You tell her she's made of gold
You know her favorite food, her favorite dress
And all the other things
That you don't know about me

I know you've memorized
Her face, Her voice
Yet when you turn around
Can you even remember my name?

I guess it's too much to ask
For redamancy these days
As loyalty has gone out the window
A word of the past

But you used to tell me
That I was made of gold
And that in your arms
I was only yours to hold
But your hands have roamed
So far away from me

And it's not fair
To make me watch
As you do with her
All you did with me

We used to talk about the future
But in a single heartbeat
You have changed our destiny

All those words of yours
Come back and haunt me
Everytime you called me beautiful,
Was it just practice for telling her?

Well you were right about one thing
I am made of gold
And that girl of yours
No matter how much you try
To mold her into me
She will only ever be pyrite
Just a cheap imitation
Of the treasure you will never hold

In the divet between mountains
Resides a wooden cabin – ostensibly an amalgamation of the scape
Adroitly - I - quondam female warrior flit
Down massive (ancient) hand-laid, hand-cut carved stone steps
Bounding from contingent step onto the dense pad of turned soil
Tacit compliance between gravity and soil holds footprints bound
A compressed deflating crescendo as pace ignites with bounds

Cadences of protuberant wildflowers and grasses erupt from swollen terra
A winsome chromatic menagerie, dispersed in ecstatic fistfuls
A venerably ancient ritual

My nascent clandestine vocation
Personally meted out - a beatification for my provisional sanctuary

Along glacier-fed stream
Lissome fingers shadow inert stalks –plucking dormant beginnings from their desiccated ligaments

I am austere and unadorned save for a festoon of pyrite flecks trailing my semblance
Residual gilding from my ante-meridian swim taken after requisite gathering of wild blackberries, goose berries, and rhubarb along oft-tamped path

The sun, nestling into its requisite apex endorsed my completion
I reclined into the hassock of soil, feeling the elements settle about with an embossment of my form
Imposing verdure arched subtly as compressed soil beckoned hyperbolic flux

As I lay within the basilica of opulent living columns replete with comestible bounty
Lingering dew honed inflections of sacrosanct petrichor in unison with piquant clover
Wild purple clover buds saccharinely tinted and inundated nestled nerves in mine cribriform plate

Birds pitched and galloped through the frond tips and beyond in the lapis expanse
Frequently snatching damselfly’s and assemblages of midges from their ephemeral drift

Auspicious rays transcended stippled diaphanous gravid clouds
Light inundated ether entered humbly into the cathedral oculus
Pyrite speckled terrain beneath, and my bare gilded form above
Cast a refracted aura about my sanctuary

Precipitously the elusive vaporous embankment distended further
Ashen atmospheric correspondence inaugurated liquescent sustenance to my mountain abode

And I -
Lingered beneath the descending gobbets, curls furled in a puddle
Fresh topsoil cupping my corporal topographic contours
Pressing blackberries into my mouth between smiles

You told me I had a heart of gold
And I thought you were King Midas himself.
It turns out all you touch turns to ****,
And your heart is nothing but pyrite.
I guess that makes me the fool.

So you say you been searchin’ for a heart of gold,
 
Cliché,
 
You’ll never find one with a heart so cold,
 
The mine’s filled with water and the troops gone home,
 
And you’ll be left with nuthin but piles of stone,
 
Pyrite,
 
You’ll be laughin til the fool’s go home,
 
I’m right,
 
And you know it cause the truth’s been sown,
 
Put your fingers on the button but there’s no dial tone,
 
It goes 920-68 oh
 
Go head,
 
Think about it til your mind gets blown,
 
And grab ahold of someone so you don’t feel alone,
 
Ozone,
 
I said it cause your heads in the clouds,
 
And the rains burnin’ holes in your **** stained house,
 
Listen close ,
 
let me til you what its all about,
 
its no secret what goes on when the lights go out.

I shine out loud
At midst of all the crowd
You can see me from your balcony
Everyone saw me as precious metal
You could see the fools gold
Making sure I was aware
That I am
Fools Gold

She was like the iron pyrite
The teacher asked them to examine, and describe;
Cold, dense and prickly,
Difficult to love.
Given the right light
And a gentle handling,
Oh, how she'd sparkle,
But in that place, expectations and sensory overload
rendered her lumpen, and resistant.
Removed from her books and her inner world - all she needed -
And placed in a maelstrom,
She was bewildered and forlorn.
Un-cooperative, they called her,
And the teachers loved the other gems instead,
Pretty little nuggets; Ruby, Jasper, Jade.

Two years of discouragement and dislike
And even the tentative sparkles had darkened.
The other gems enjoyed each other
And moved away from her magnetic pull,
sensing difference.
No outright meanness, not yet,
But hints were brewing, whispers had started
And she wandered alone, in the playground,
Talking to the seagulls, and singing to herself.
The teachers only wanted conformity
And called her parents to voice concern
about her lack of friends.
Had they asked her, allowed her to have a say
She would have told them it didn't matter
But they were determined that it did, to them, if not to her,
And her parents were added to the burden of people
Worried and disappointed, watching.
She knew now, she was different, she had always known but never minded,
Now it was a problem. She didn't fit,
Like that scratchy purple uniform, around her chubby waist
Food didn't judge, dislike or condemn.

That life ended, and a new struggle, in a new school, began.
This was harder; the meanness was apparent now,
Difference wasn't tolerated
And someone wandering alone was a target.
She found a place to hide, behind a staircase, with a book,
But they found her, removed her and patrolled her only refuge
Forcing her to submit to the torture.
Every day was a war zone,
So she found another way, and embraced ill-health, stealthily
Spraying deodorant directly into her own face
induced asthma attacks; and not all those  ear infections were real,
She was an accomplished actress.

She got through it, millions do.
She found her own place, her own friends in her own time.
Among Onyx, Jet and Tigers Eye
Her darkness didn't mark her out as different,
And all that fake illness
Was great prep for theatre,
Where she was able to return to her inner world,
And no-one cared if you feigned madness
Or embraced the real thing.
Difference was celebrated,
The whispers now, were that she had a great stage presence,
And a talent to be nurtured,
Not a difference to be despised.

My heart's so *******
I can hardly breathe.

It seems, to me, that every scent is yours
every sight or sound,
song lyric or strip of poetry
relates back to you and the knot in my chest.

I best recruit a young sailor
to untie and bend these cravings.

These faint and vague desires
not to kiss you
nor to *******
but to see you, lay with you, be with you.

That is what I crave daily,
what I need to loosen this knot.

But
the knot
just
tightens.

I crave to see you alone on a walk
or you with others
or you with me.
I especially crave to see you with me.

O' that which I'd give
to see you with me.

It must have been the grass
or the beers
or the LSD
because no natural occasion could make me feel this way.

I first heard you before I saw,
singing across the fence.

Your voice was like cream in hot coffee
scintillating, mesmerizing
fascinating, and light;
a drop of sweet in the dark, dark bitter.

I never knew that drinking coffee black
would soon become impossible.

Everything is
bitter
when you've tasted
sweet.

It's something in the way you visibly think
about the world and
others actions and
everything I say and do; something in the way you care.

It's something in the way you spit,
claiming the concrete as your own, a primal beast.

You are an incarnadine being,
a vastly deep creature whose
curls I can be lost in for
hours and days if not for those eyes.

Those eyes steal me with every glance,
dark mines of copper and fool's gold.

But pyrite is the sheen to which my mind melts,
and Scorpio sun signs
paint the mystique
that keeps me awake and alert all through the night

You keep me awake and alert,
waiting for the next move.

Yes, I'd be a liar if I said I felt friendship for you
and a heretic if I
dared to touch you.
But you dare to touch me. Every day,

you brush your hand 'gainst my leg,
grab my shoulder and hold,
knock your knee upon mine,
you push me gently,
but I die when you grab my thigh,
grab my thigh and squeeze it tightly
reassuring me that you're there
you're real
you're caring for me
and when the goodbyes come
**** the goodbyes
you hug me so closely and so tightly
that my heart,
knotted as it is,
beats faster than it ever has.

I swear that it beats
faster than it ever could.

And in this speed, this conflagration of emotion,
I feel how the knot
only tightens to where
even the youngest sailor lacks the nimbility to loosen it.

I swear that it's much
tighter than it ever was;

that no one has stressed my mind so,
kept my heart strained to where it
beats
faster than it ever could,

it beats faster yet, than the
rush of a train upon steel.

I have used up all my tokens
and squandered all my pardons;
all that’s left is tarnished pyrite
and a jewellery box for two.
For I will tear your heart out
and feed it to the coyotes;
you may be the one for me,
but I’m no good for you.

As the field runs crimson
I’ll proceed to crack your spirit.
I know that this is foolish,
but love - this is all I know.
If the moon would make a bargain
on the dust that seals up fractures,
I would strip my backbone
reaching out to make it so;

I would mend each tiny crevice
- plant hydrangeas in the darkness,
but without a new foundation
it is all still frail and makeshift;
and each compounding weight is
all crushed-guts and shattered-statements.
Again we’re set a whirling;
we can’t recognize our faces.

The strongest tree is only paper
and my convoluted nature
is just a fallacy I’ve built to house,
my fear of what is true.
So, we’ll dance until our knees split,
you’ll repeat that we’re a unit
and as I kick the chair out
choke a final, “i love You.”

. . .  .  .   .   .    .    .     .     .     .      .      .       .       .        .         .          .           .                 .

Amidst staggered breaths
my fragile frame converts to dust.
Oak entombs the ashen ruins
of a long awaited  
Us.

1.i took a breath, punched the door. he asked if it helped at all,
rubbed his temples when i did it again,
told me to call him when i felt like talking,
we havent spoken since. he isnt important to this story.
what matters is how unsafe i feel just saying your name, how unreal
you make me feel. imaginary and implausible. wish fulfillment so blatant
im amazed i ever thought i was something more
than a myth.  

2. i can't give you what you want/couldn't give you what you want. something like a romance film,
candles on the shore,
not blown out by ocean winds.
something where i cry your name or
kiss you when you shout
instead of screaming back,
perfect plaster queen crumbling
for no one but you.
where i sing and you sigh.
where at least one of us cares.

3. im still not sure who's to blame
my heart is swollen my hands are bloated there is motor oil
pooling in the hollow of my palms, did you do this to me?
did i unravel you? im still not sure what happened. i stopped asking for help a long time ago

4.  i do not feel safe.
you are behind me always.
i am sweating bullets and you are loading your gun.
you are a breakdown waiting to happen.
you are my genes planning treason.

5. you're a fake.you're a fake.you're a fake.
buying me coffee and spitting down my throat like
it evens out in the end.you're so kind.you say youd never hurt me as if
i couldnt see my ******* intestines in your fist. you're a fake.
you're pyrite, fool's gold,
costume jewelry cutting off circulation to my hand.

6. i know everything sounds the same.
i know i give the same speech every time.
i know repetition is getting old and
six breakdowns in the same month is
overdoing it. i was trained from birth to **** up my life
and im exceeding expectations.

7. [image: memorial day card,
'we had nothing worth remembering' inside,
hallmark logo on the back]

8. i didnt really want to be real anyway

Love, I have no easy answers for you.
I’ve run out of excuses,
offer no

more apologies, and
I haven’t seen a single
shooting star in months.

I call you love because you were,
because you are,

because,
right now,
to me,
you always will be.

I’m a good man
in a cruel world

that grabs my shoulders
and shakes the hell out of me.

My golden heart shudders
against my chest,
grinding ill-greased gears
of resolve,
lugging the rhythmic consistency
of determination

The world shakes me, spitting,
“You petty fool. What kind
of a man
are you really?”

Love, I have no easy answers for you
because there are some moments

of loneliness on Saturday nights,

moments in life that make my heart beat
like pyrite,

trading soft kisses with neon lights
and shot specials, crawling
into the early hours of the morning

looking for happiness everywhere,
like it’s a forgotten jacket
slumped over a bar stool.

Finding you
in everyone’s
eyes.

These nights,
never change,

the world shakes
and spits.

Remember the night at the lake?

We laid on the hood of my car, we counted
stars like baseball cards,
bottle caps, like the days left
until summer camp.

It was on that night
that I first called you
Love to every meteor we saw.

because
you were.

There are only hard
decisions Love,
but you already know.

Consequences of mistakes,
your impulses fed
mine.

I’m a good man in a cruel world,
my golden heart dims neon,
remembers meteor showers
and childish adoration.
The world shakes
and spits
but my heart
isn’t pyrite.

Crawling from one
shot to the next
I still see you
everywhere.

Love, I have no
easy answers for you.
I’ve run out of excuses,
offer no

more apologies, and
I haven’t seen
a single
shooting star
in months.

You turned me into a paperweight.
Ambling out of your genealogy,
you chiseled me to the marrowbone;
     walk tall with your invisible chains.

You turned me into a paperweight
marooned on polished mahogany –
conquered West-Indian trees;
     walk tall while your mastery wanes.

You turned me into a paperweight.
From your bottomless, two-ton
tongue came my disfigured heart –
     walk tall, you pyrite suzerain.

You turned me into a paperweight,
deserted on paperwork seas,
ball-and-chained to the wooden beach –
     walk tall in your insidious vein.

You turned me into a paperweight.
I fell, clutching the snowflakes,
and held your whole ******* useless life together –
     walk tall, play that catchpenny game.

They call him "Tweaker"

Those in the neighborhood of Spring Mountain

and Desert Inn, those who pace

the same streets and sleep in the same block.

He's ironic and contradictory,

calling everyone he happens

by "Slim"

his emasciated smile

black potholes and pyrite

is as genuine as his intentions

shaming traffic with his sadness

cardboard paper signs

"Just trying to get something to eat"

There should be a question mark

My exclamation point

No excuse not to give...

So here you are "slim" collecting the guilt

All the dollars a day in your concrete quilt

and your own red Target  

shopping cart...


Caught red handed behind 7-11

In the alley (cats avoid)

with a dub, a dime, or nickle sac

god smacked...

carrying conversations

With / a / no one...

I am wandering in the grove.
From out of the darkness
Christopher John appears perched
on an old ash stump
giving a speech about Robert Mitchum
and his performance in Farewell, My Lovely.
I want to say "right on",
but my voice only whimpers.
He doesn't notice me in the shadows.
I close my eyes and his voice fades to a whisper,
then nothing.
My thoughts drift along to pictures of liberty concerned porcupines.
-
I am wandering in the grove.
Against the shady walnut
Elby Marcellous husks the meat from a shell
and tosses it to his canvas shoed feet.
"You ought'learn a trade kid, it'll save yer ***."
His mouth never moves.
A *****, navy blue sweat suit; fruit of the loom.
Hundreds of construction paper stars
glued to a bedroom wall,
and a legacy of tall tales and unrequited favors
for the train hopping rambling man.
Comeback Jack, come back Jill.
-
I am wandering in the grove.
My house slippers were not the best choice of shoes.
There is plenty of mud from the gather dew,
and the rocks are jagged and unforgiving.
The Sylvan's planted the trees here,
Roger and I dug the holes by hand,
Roberta watered them each with care.
The Eastern-kin cut a lot of them down
to help feed their Dionysian pyres.  
At least they left the mulberries,
so the birds still get their colors in the spring.
The songs need the full prism to translate properly.
-
I am wandering in the grove.
There she is.
My feet were tugging me due west the entire time,
I could feel it.
And there she is,
underneath the sycamore like a sore thumb.
I want to cry, I want to run,
but the song comes crooning out.
It is our instinct to dig our nails in
and tear each other apart from the bone,
but we sing the refrain, paralyzed,
feet tied to the ground with pyrite bands.
-
red, orange, yellow
I'm seventeen, long-haired, and screaming my lungs out.
green, blue, violet
I'm throwing verbal punches from sixty-two miles away.
red, orange, yellow
There's no where to be, and no one to impress.
green, blue, violet
Two cities weave troubling stories well.
Everything shifts to ethereal indigo,
things shake around a bit, but nothing seems to be any different.
I awake, rid of my flaxen shackles, but bruised.
The scent of thirteen perfumes linger in the breeze.
-
I am wandering in the grove.
A quilt tied to my neck for a cape,
serves as a warm shield against the cold night.
I found a rusty lantern, half-filled with oil and
with working wick, I venture on.
There is a crunch of brown-red leaves with every step
that I take in song-less stride.
The moon is new, the deer are charged in estrus.
Every creature I happen upon is speaking
in some strange tongue to which I cannot comprehend.
I try to motion that my hunger has become dire,
but no eyes are lifted, no responses given.
-
"Hurry now, no time to dawdle,
we have to make it to market before
they sell all of the livestock, and the farmers
decide to call it a day; no naive pockets."
-
"That rotten boy was a **** from the placenta,
and his mother was a crystalline chimera
made from chemicals in one of those zygote-vats.
Nothing was natural from that household; that bloodline."
-
"The day will come when we need a place to go,
but we can't ever go down the winding path
or Mama-Bog will come crawling out of the mud
and take away your sister like she did Papa."
-
"My eyes saw what I would never believe again;
the town was gone. Not destroyed, not missing,
not packed up and on it's way, but gone.
The **** place had never been there to begin with."
-
"There was once a planet between Mars and Jupiter
that was the home of a peculiar race of fungus.
The planet was bombarded by a multi-nation nuclear strike
when the fungus was found to secrete [OMITTED]."
-
"No, my sister left about three months ago, mister.
Said she was headin' into the city to try and get a job waitressin'.
If she were to just up and leave the quadrant she'd say something,
or at least update her ping location on her bio-input; sheesh, guy!"
-
I am wandering in the grove
and the trees are weighed down with ripened fruit.
Muninn and Huginn take flight.
Tap on the stained glass windows of the cathedral
as if the hounds were nipping at your heels.
There was a time when wings alone were enough
now the game has change, the cards disguised.
No direct line to the big man.

Fools Gold
Looks just like a
Bud Nug
Blatant

Bold,
And Beautiful
By far
The fire marks had been gone
But continue to Bathe it

"You have a way with 'em"
To be straight
Im still holding the
poker chips,
the bullwhip,
Or whichever
Fill in the blank rhymes
Fit best

I am beating the meat
Out of this machine
Wish it leaked quarters
But it never does

Not so easy being a Street ***..
Being a being...
Being a ligament above the rest
Another rung to climb tirelessly
Until we hit the exit sign

Part 2
__
Until we hit the exit sign
Don't just be baiting yourself
.......
You DUMB *****
I like the way you hold that pencil girl
So sent/i/men/tal
So long
so so so much
Suf/er/ring
A piece of a larger sheet
A piece of a larger sheet

Part and parcel
Be Brief
and cut to the credits please
Read those 'Solid Instructions
To Self Destruct'
Must obstruct justice

No
Must uphold justice
DUH
Go for it
Hit the kick drum

Dumb it down all day
We not just
"All Play"
Aye can you see it in my bravery?
The way I play hide and seek
With my shadows
And force them to show
Themselves

Right in front of the
Sun's Rays
Son, Raise
your right hand
And swear upon this pyrite
That you won't Take
Time
For granted

Anymore......

Ashen grey, weathered wood
splintered, white bone
hollowed by the desert sun
skull and backbones
laid to rest, wind blown
sunk in sifting sands, exposed
by wet washing squalls
drinking water into steam
interwoven, dead with weeds
iridescent beetles and scorpions
glints of pyrite, diamond stones
the haunting wind, that moans
wild through hollows and holes.

Climb into bed and...

Hearth embers of body heat circulate,
Tourists on self-guided walking tours,
Exploring the cabalistic eighteen chai holies of the
Human body, temple depository of spark divine.

Heat sparkles cross over the isthmus of Touching Toes,
Continental negotiators, swapping free heat for icicles,
2 X 10 interstitial connections, now land masses filled,
Global warming credit trading par excellence

Fingers, jew wandering, exiled to freedom,
Intertwined within soft-edged, graying sea grasses,
Coverlet over pounding chest,
Hands illegally mining tousled head hair,  
Nestling, nesting, without proper permits

Lick away the rumbling hoarseness
Coating a neighboring sleepy throat,
Gate crasher bringing surround-sound comfort,
Seeking to seal and still the groans,
Escaping prisoners of the ills of the wearied mind

Your favorite parts inspiring, demanding
Song, word, drawing or simple quenching,
Tonic of revival, an affirmation of self,
Existence proofs met through need

I write this for me, for her, for you.
Suckers for iron pyrite, most will skip this polemic,
What you don't know about me could be a
Hit show on prime time cable TV.

Like a cute commercial that makes you smile,
For a product you'll never buy,
I write this for me, for her, for anonymous you,
I am the voyager, you the ******.

Middle of the night envisioner,
Re-writer of The Gift of the Magi,^
If I die today, I leave this as my last
Will and Testament,
Just another love poem
You'll never read.

Forbade from view, the bluebird sits silent,
And writes to her love, an undeserving kingfisher,
The playful and ignorant fisher, too quick,
Insults and praises to the bluest of birds,
    Dedicating his faithless being to his love,
        Like tipping the Styx ferry in pyrite,
                    He does not know.
He’s never lied, but his truth is faded.
Faithful to him she is, and he her,
        Though unsure of his faith,
        El Rey is in pain.

I have expensive taste, I love
leather and satin and innocence,
and its willingness to give me things;
diamonds clawed from the ground
by peasants, miles below oil,
and boys that call me beautiful
when I so clearly am not.

I love jewellery, the gold
that binds it's way round my wrist.
Asp quietly slithering alongside it -
by my arteries, twisting repeatedly,
kissing my blood stream, pulse
throbbing beneath the long pearly
fangs, ready to puncture skin.

My addiction is killing me
the shiny things, the pyrite,
the glittering quartz is all worthless.
And terrified of the outcry I flaunt
what I have - all fool's gold, all of it.
Only for fools that we kiss,
you do not love me and so I am foolish.

Here is where gravity is null, and I am void,
I've fallen, I know I have,
Into a hole, I must have died.
I only just landed, some how alive.
Everything is silent, but I'm screaming,
"Talk to me! Talk to me!"
All that I hear now is whispered out of dark rooms,
from figures staring out from stained glass
as I stagger down a dark church corridor,
and they talk to me slowly.

Live in the darkness,
thrive in the shadows,
You fell into our realm,
from the one up above us,
A gift from the light,
A dark shining candle.
Light washes over us,
Leading us and healing our wounds from the life we lived before.

A wicked ebony carriage creaks and whines as it is pulled,
intricate designs are revealed as it draws near,
thorns of pyrite wrap around its doors,
The windows are old and flaking mica.
There are blood red roses that shed petals at every corner,
they move like magic and turn brown as they descend,
before settling on the floor, undisturbed as the carriage wobbles onward.
The carriage itself is pulled by two huge black figures,
spewing sulfuric smelling gas as they exhale,
gnarled brown horns extend from their heads like a ram,
and each is fitted with harnesses of black fire,
Though it seems not to burn them, I pity the poor souls.
I pity them, but still I fear them more.

They settle in front of me, looking upon me with colorless eyes,
Their harnesses disappear as they stop pulling,
They stand straight up reaching at least seven feet tall each,
towering over me as they pant out thick steam.
I raise a quivering hand to touch one of the beasts,
To prove it's real and truly standing in front of me,
I see the sweat glistening like diamonds on it's short black fur.
I look into it's eyes, but I can't see any threat in them,
However, I can't find any comfort in those dark obsidian eyes either.
I can feel the heat radiating from it's body now,
I can feel it's hot breath baring down on me.
I hesitate a millimeter away from touching it's coarse hair.

The door to the carriage is thrown open with a bang,
shocking me into stumbling away from the beast before me.
I glance up at it and see it still staring at me with those dark empty eyes,
I am nearly hypnotized by those eyes.
A small man, no more than four and a half feet tall,
approaches me and I tear my eyes from the beast's.
The man is old and wrinkled,
his skin grey from age and his obvious decay.
He has no eyes that I can tell,
his lids are clenched and wrinkled shut.
At his side is a whip, nine tailed and barbed,
made from black leather, caked with blood
and still clinging to bits of flesh, torn from it's victims.

The man takes his ****** whip in hand
and strikes the double doors in back of the carriage,
I cringe and step back, fearing what might come out.
The beast in front of me grunts, breaking my concentration,
I look up to his eyes and find he's still staring down at me,
he drops to one knee, now eye level with me, and extends his arm.
It's huge and obviously muscled, He could tear me in half if he wanted,
but now I can see the emotion and colors in his eyes,
Swirls of blues, accents of purples,
hint of green, flecks of yellow.
I feel calm, I feel safe with this beast of a demon kneeling before me.
I trust that he will never harm me, but I don't know why.

The old man lets out a stern yell in a tongue I can't understand,
The man's eyes are open now,
But I find myself looking at empty sockets.
He raises his whip at the beast kneeling before me,
approaching as small imp like creatures unload the carriage,
I am frightened for the beast who stays unflinching.
I can see the beast not even bracing for his attack,
I can see his powerful clawed hands,
one limp at his side, the other stretched out to the side of me.
Neither is going to stop the little man from tearing chunks of flesh from his body,
neither is going to attack the man who is still yelling in that foreign dialect.

I find myself staring into the beasts eyes again,
I am drawn into them, towards them.
My feet move of their own accord,
taking me closer to this hulking monster,
I smell the musky scent of his fur,
then I feel it, coarse and oily against my bare arms.
I don't know when I wrapped my tiny arms around his neck,
but I can barely get them around him.
I feel a strong arm go gently across my back,
then a hand at the bend of my knees.
I close my eyes and can feel myself being lifted up.

The man stops yelling and I open my eyes again,
He's fussing about at the beasts feet,
muttering something about it's height,
he turns his empty sockets on me.
I bury my face in the demons neck fur,
a cowardly thing to do, but I am so frightened by those empty sockets.
I hear him laugh and scoff,
saying something about frightening too easily.
I look back with one eye and see him setting up the thing from the carriage.
It looks like a painting with a ***** burgundy tapestry over it,
I can see golds and browns weaved into it,
but it's deteriorating like the man fretting over it.

He motions for me to look at it,
so I obediently face it fully,
my demon settling me comfortably in one arm.
The man pulls the tapestry from the painting,
I peer down at it wondering what it could be of,
it seems enchanted like the roses on the coach.
The colors themselves seem to dance and writhe on the canvas.

It's a picture of lithe little woman,
She looks to be sitting on an invisible chair in midair,
all around her is darkness and death,
scattered bones and a broken carriage lie behind her,
as swirling purple and blue dust swirls in the air.
Her hazel eyes burn like embers from a slowly dying fire,
They seem to be able to peer into my mind, if she so pleased,
Even see into my Soul through her thick black lashes.
Her coal black eye shadow is painted to mimic a spiders web,
and as though it had been woven on with the silk itself,
it shimmered in flickering candle light.
I could see she was resting on shadows, not the air,
now that I looked harder at her,
and she was surround by them on all sides.
She is the lone bright color in the painting,
A white haze, like gossamer curtains, drapes over her body,
I watch, mesmerized as the haze forms to her frame,
making a dress that looked innocent, yet deadly and beautiful upon her form.
She looks familiar somehow,
and I reach towards the magical artwork,
And she reaches back for me.

I freeze, goosebumps raising the hair on my body.
I wave, and she mimics,
I nod, and so does she.
I look to the beast, and to the man
He nods and I need not ask the question.
This was not a painting,
Just a mirror,
I was only watching myself.
I look again and see the haze left over,
it's above my head, drifting over my hair,
settling into a tiara of demons and spiders
all made from fine crystal that seemed to make a light of it's own.

More whispers came from the closed doors,
whispers that turned into a chorus of voices,
Voices that seemed ominous, sad,
friendly and threatening,
A chorus of evil things that hid in the shadows.
The things that ****** children from mothers,
and lead men astray to their deaths,
yet I loved them without question,
as they repeated again;

Live in the darkness,
thrive in the shadows,
You fell into our realm,
from far up above us,
A gift from the light,
Our shining candle,
spilling light in the darkness,
Our queen of the night.

**** my energy blood and
Recycle it when you go back to your coffin every night
My empathy kills me
My empathy liberates me
I feel so weak, so very very weak
I am the strongest person I have ever known
I am everyone I have ever known
The most knowing of the strength to defend my castle but it is open to the public
I will have to warn the masses of the oncoming spread of disease
"Please take a brochure and know what you are getting yourself into"

STOP HURTING HER
Stop hurting everyone because I feel pain that isn't mine
Its easy to fake it
It's even easier to fake-out yourself
Everything you touch turns into pyrite and fools run up to it thinking they have found gold.

There is at all times
A soup boiling
In the plains of the Savannah.
As the wind presses its large and small hands
Into the course straw grass
To smooth the wrinkles-
But also to make more.

And falling slowly, fluxing,
Between the waves—creatures,
All of them strange,
Blending.
And from time to time, a sickening red,
But only for a while,
Until it is swirled once more into the soup,
Or steeping into the earth as tea.

There is sometimes a stacking of skies;
Amber
On top of pink,
On top of blue,
With pyrite flecks-
But not yet indigo.

And one form rises up out of them;
A baobab moving slowly,
Mushrooming monster,
Exploding exponentially outward.

And at its calloused feet
Are porcelain painted zebras
And soft clay elephants,
Who reshape themselves in the gray murk
Of the water hole-
Which is sometimes blue,
And sometimes sheeted mica shimmering.

Watching quietly, the prince.
Who is still,
(But not exempt!)
Unable to be, but becoming.

Exhausted and exhausting,
Around his furrowed face is a mane
Of technicolor flames.

There in the trenches
I've seen headless henchmen
Bending spoons
For hapless children
Cremated too soon

Demons croon
They zip
They zag
As the lower class picks their scabs
The gift of gab
Sent towards rips from packs
The rush alone could make one gag!

Have you been there?
Would you go back?

There in the trenches
I've met widows and wives
Carousing with voyeurs
Polishing pikes
Their best years behind
Spent on pyrite-
Euphoric alibis
Which eviscerate bright eyes

Will the Church draw nigh
Or watch the stranded die?

Into the trenches
Few do proudly go
Ash pollutes the snow
Falling like pyrex smoke
You might choke
When violence hits your nose

Deathblows
Thrown by the dead broke
Cross your eyes
And clog your throat
Check your pulse
As an ambulance clears the roads

Would you leave ivory thrones
To reach a people with no hope?

There in the trenches
Christ spent His time
Teaching the poor
Healing the blind
Who are we to stand aghast?
Shrugging our shoulders
Fine wine in antique glass?

When revival comes
Will it move your feet
With Gospel passion
Down the cracking streets?

Could you spare a dime
To prepare a meal
For a drooping reed
With snakebitten heals?

There in the trenches
Good News must flow
Will you remain aloof
Or be the one to boldly go?

I don’t know how to start this story
Because I don’t know how I got here

One day
I woke up to find myself surrounded by ruins
And
Cracked ribs
Wondering if there were
Cracks in the foundation
I should have seen from the get-go

It feels empty to scream at
Tumbled bricks
But that’s all I have these days
So their weary edges have heard all my woes now
All the things I’ve lost
The life I thought I would have
Before it turned to dust in my hands

It is such a funny thing
Waking up each day now
And walking around as though my existence isn’t
Straddling a fault line
My bones feel ready to shatter from the
Strain
Of holding myself together
Little crackling noises following me
As I wonder if this is the day
My skeleton finally submits to the dust

I should have seen this coming
Should have known better than to throw my life
Wide open
On a wager
And a schoolboy’s whim
But it all seemed so shiny
So breathtaking
And I never stopped to think about the day
I’d grow sick of gasping for air
Nor the realization that I’d been clutching
Pyrite
All along

So I guess this is a story
Of what a glittering fool I’ve been
Always offering the best of myself
To those who would **** it dry
Never seeing the warning signs
Convinced
This
Time
Will
Be
Different
Even as the bricks around me come crashing down

I watch the cottonwood
seeds
gather on the
wildflowers and
the weeds.
The trail looks a gentle
snowfall
  of dust,
Like the back corner
of grandmother's attic...
Blanketed in mystery
and
  well worn with
                   the years.
White sand and flakes of
pyrite
  glitter on the
  water's edge,
Dancing
with the rythym of the  
  waves...
A hummingbird
chases a dragonfly
into a tangerine sunset.
A hawk circles the road looking
for a wayward mouse.
I cry a silent prayer.
And can
   only
think of you,
My Angel.
And
    the
       wind
            cries
                 too...
Singing her
sorrowful song
Only for you,
My Angel,
Only for you...

Suddenly I find myself tumbling up a spiral staircase
Unexpected deliberate actions
Never intended to travel to this place
Though paradisiacal, tears flow as I fight back the flood
Your voice breaks my silence
Words from your lips piercing, intrusive
Cut straight through to my heart
The levees break, the dam is loose
I cry not for inflicted pain
I cry for the long wait that has now ended
I cry for the many times I wanted this
I cry for the hope of gold and not pyrite
I beg for blindness to resist the temptation to lead me
The twists and turns
The figure eights that begin and end in the same location
To disperse and become straight roads in a long journey
One of hope and not hurt
Accelerating into elation
Surging towards togetherness...oneness
Intertwine
Intertwine
Intertwine...

Gun metal and asbestos
The tundra of your father’s eyes
His heart left in London after the war
Stubborn, your mother clung to the lie
Hide the shameful sight
Your hands left over right
Roll a crochet ****** under your blanket
Picture perfect mask the missing
Digits and appendages
“That child’s not mine…Ma”
Shoulda put ya in a home

Whispered sins and indiscretions
You slept with your sister in silent rooms
Peed in a porcelain ***
Defiant, Old Nellie in her witch gray wool
She won’t latch the outhouse again
Keep that abomination strapped to your thigh
Crossed and awake at night
You came out swinging when he touched you
"Shoulda put ya in a home…."

Pick the rock salt from your hide
And never cry
Secrets sting more than saline bullets
You bared those knees in a hand made dress
And fled…newly wed
Birthed that ten toed baby girl
Relegated yourself to the drain of domesticity
Brownstones and picket fences
When did you cast the first thread
Spiderwebs and pyrite
Whispered sins and indiscretions
Broken dishes…
Broken bones…
Broken vows…
You lied so much better than you lived

That crave for validation in your fathers’ eyes
Drift away over his open grave
You played Taps in the shadows
One last time
I was an open wound in a house of pain
You couldn’t love your child
And swallow the shame
That little redhead down the street
Baby boy you couldn’t give
Fed your shattered ego with fear
In my eyes
Notch your bedpost with ticks for lovers and fools
Man eater never sated
**** point met….She’s not your daughter
You left him in an empty room
Payback is a jade eyed snake coiled up in your marriage bed

That High school Knight
Greasy hands and milk toast breath
You fled again
Tell me you’re happy
When he’s gone from dawn to dusk
Catching crappies* and suckin Pabst in a can
While you pickle yourself with cheap *****
And soap operas
Buried your crazy mother, your Witch of a sister
And the **** you married first….
No ripples of remorse
In the cement of your soul

We only speak across miles
Unreconciled
You will never apologize
Little dreams strangled
Wet ******* around my neck
Soap in my mouth
Welts and belts,
Wire brushes and hangers
Fitting discipline
Can’t leave my own alone with you
Drown your grandchild in the toilet bowl
Rather than ask for the truth
From a terrified child
Who had only begun to adore you
Now I can’t love his scars away
The truth is bitter, cold and lonely
Love cannot grow in a heart of stone
Chiseled bitter by the sins of a mother
A father and another
You never had a chance to be
Complete….
02/24/10
For Barbara....
*crappies are a pan fish.

12:10 a.m. Floor's alive
with our shuffling feet...
Our voices laugh through songs,
we catalog each other's faces
as if we'd only just met...
          I swing through the amber light
          with a stifled
               grin
to cover times like this.

1:10 a.m. Golden Rose.
Watch the sidewalk rise...
to meet my falling feet
as the night swells up around me.
I'm one of 10,000 lights...
          that drag their way towards dawn
          with a coyote
               smile
I cover miles of
               haunted streets.

I've taken time untangling years. I find
that the kindest fill up dents
which the uncouthest leave behind:
               the shapes of
          hard and sharpened edges?
               They're still present.
                But covered for now.

It's 2 a.m. Long stumble home
and my burnt voice sings...
its way through gravel songs
that we've kept in our back pockets.
So long they've kept us all warm...
          Nights like this are golden notes
          in a pyrite
               tune.
Keep me like I keep you.

Life is but a series of redundancies strung together. Sitched with tragedy by ****** hands, I only hope not to stain the thread.

Every event in this existence is nothing more than a domino in an endless time loop
, constantly falling/ constantly falling / i am falling.

fact: the name of the spots on domino tiles are called pips and i’ve tried killing myself two times.

The night I snuck 3 orange bottles from the kitchen cupboard and melted into pillows/into bed sheets/ into wooden ikea frame
waking up to not shiny gates but my mother holding a skeleton in the shower
head in a galaxy so far way i almost missed my alarm clock.  
i wanted to hit the snooze but got a glass full of charcoal instead.
mm was just how i like my coffee, black and ***** inducing.

fact: charcoal is among the purest forms of carbon as are diamonds

I am not a diamond, but a piece of pyrite. fool’s gold.

The second time two years later involved a bulk bottle of excedrin
one part aspirin, one part tylenol, one part caffeine.
if you ever try to off yourself i don’t recommend this recipe,
dog ear it in your terminal cook book as do not try this at home
you will lie on your bedroom vomitting your intestines until your parents are tired of hearing it

They will make you go to school the next day.

You wont.

fact: The most common causes of death are heart disease and cancer. Suicide is number 11

My world spilled over like a bag of glass marbles hitting the floor

Elements of choice
These things that shine
Blind head thoughts
and your energy source
to think a little deeper

Short term goals of golden fold
What motivates men more
than illusions of grandeur
The rock still gleams bright

Pave a path of purpose
Priorities stand still with remorse
Yet we lay in line