for Ruth Fainlight

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root;
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallup thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, the big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand,a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it ***** out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches? ----

Its snaky acids kiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That ****, that ****, that ****.

if i were to bread my tongue
with rocoto and cornmeal
and twist to reach the andean soil
my tastebuds long for so many nights
out of the year
olfaction and your left-sinus blockage
would stay cradled
in broken-baguette bread-crust baskets,
a trebuchet's missile,
naïve to the horn of the world,
and brittled to a carcinogenic crisp
caped in my earthenblood geysers
en el humo, en la tierra del fuego
in(fierno)

i recount by the tally marks of black felt
resorted to in the puddling of spilt tea,
(like broken china, you never missed
a beat to correct potential error

and my memory),
i count them to remember
the epiphanies standing over a red faucet
a gallon water jug, whistling snail-trickle,
wishing away the cracks in the grout
or the grout itself,
wishing away the cracks in the pottery
or porcelain facade of which
you're so fond and grace with singing cuticles

the fingers of a pianist
lacking the wherewithal
and solid brick gall
to answer the ivory's summons

i am not a piece of clay,
i respond poorly to your sculpture of my surface,
covered in oxides and baked in
hell's oven, your mountain fire
scathes me as it does cedar resin
and i am similarly embittered,
pooling sap & draining smoke
in the embers and dead charcoal
of your embrace

avant le corps, sans l'âme
sans le corps, avant l'âme

I turn off the phone,
throw the television set
against the wall,
a knife of the electronic
debris cuts into me,
as my cheek begins to bleed,
I scour the shelves for the
whiskey I need--
I cleanse my wound,
and douse your former future groom,
I hit play,
find a hit melody
to take me marching through the parade--
my hands feel perfectly pyro
as the match sweetly scathes,
in the morning I will wake to find peace--
for now, I'll close my lids
and
dance in my own flames.

Pardon me while I remember.

  when   sight scathes, used upon,
  this glass shatters I love the sight of you.
  in days the Sun trembles
   through a fist of streaming light.
  I can only think of objects the size
    of my clenched hand

  a pear, an empty basin, a flower deep crimson
   between fingers wanting to break
       stem twice-told pains the sound  of it,
   a flat black disk on the turntable bellowing
       sounds of the bones we made in love.

we are mirror
      facing mirror -- our distinct quiet held us
          shattered,

  standing apart, I running towards, and you, from,
     feeling the wind glaze the wounds retold.

during steaming showers, i decide
whether or not to **** myself, or touch myself
once last time (how many times?) to the thought of
his collarbones and never ending pride.
i like it hot, so my skin is pink like a baby’s ****
and raw so it screams and scathes over wounds
i had long forgotten.
i breathe in vapors thinking them as gas, wondering
how long it took for Plath,
for Sexton until they kissed their own eyelids.


i imagine his lips as he said i was a sweetheart, a doll,
i daydream of his fingers as they entered me with no
worry, two snakes, the venom explosive.

showers are a dangerous time,
i come out alive, with bile and dynamite shoved in my throat,
with my heart seeping through the tiles,
my sanity disappearing into the condensation

There is something to be said
For a hideousness so potent
That mirrors are perhaps an enemy
Or something to be avoided.

There is something to be said
For a self-esteem so insubstantial
Not even the most excessive false bragging
Can repair a single shamble.

There is something to be said
For a weight so displeasing
That the scale can cause a panic attack
Cheats heaving, troubled breathing.

There is something to be said
For a body so scarred
Not even summer can shorten the sleeves
Or remove the stiff collar.

There is something to be said
For a voice so deep yet not quiet
That it jars the ears, scathes the mind
Until it simply remains silent.

There is something to be said
For a boredom so immense
Not life or love or fun
Can spark a sliver of ambition.

There is something to be said
For apathy of so great a measure
That the thought of suicide
Simply requires too much effort.

There is something to be said
For a face makeup cannot beautify
Not even when applied heavily
Does it become pleasing to the eye.

There is something to be said
For a personality like a punch to the gut
That changes constantly yet remains unpleasant
Mimicking every emotion, save love.

There is something to be said
For a complete waste of space and air; see
Not to be around the bush, it's easier to say:
There is something to be said for me.

When she touches me,
It is not just my skin she scathes,
It is my soul.

For you,


my love is as endless as the deepest blue

shrouded in mystery, exploding with a force

strong enough:

To shatter steel
To erode stone
To birth life.

My love,

softer than the rays of sunlight fluttering
as orange specks underneath your eyelids
kissing your pupils with their delicate touch
Embracing the liquid of your orbs with a citrusy warmth

Showering you with the joy
Of a thousand torn dandelions
Smiling down at you
In the distance

Distance.

A funny concept.

A million loving words
spoken back and forth,
a thousand steps
taken towards the same direction
A billion I love yous
Over and over again.


Yet,

we are still distant.

Still distant,

because my love is an ever consuming bonfire

Where close
could never be close enough.


Where I can wrap you in my flames
lure you in with my warmth
provide you with a hearth

for as long as you want.
Or as long as you can stand.


Until your skin burns

And my love scathes

With the rage of a million rays of sunlight.

There’s a swan on the line,
Taking your time,
So bow to the seagull in Jewels.

The Burberry is real this time,
But the face still spits and scathes
At those below his mental might,
It is Golden muscles this time,
Not concrete knuckles,
That deliver this slap in the face.

We all sigh,
And roll our eyes,
Cocking our heads like the red-eyed
Pheasant
That lies flattened on the next track over.

TLACAELEL [to audience as spectators]
            Hear ye! Of these five games, his majesty
            The emperor has won the first two rounds,
            And Hungry Prince has crowned the third and fourth.
            Who takes this final set will clinch the match.

HUNGRY PRINCE [aside to Motecuhzoma]
            Motecuhzoma, why not call it quits,
            While thus we tilt in equilibrium,
            So time may be arrested in his stride,
            And nothing will be proven to your loss.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Oh yes, well, well you should prevaricate,
            Since you recoil, and your horoscope
            Is but a bunk, evasive, spurious sham.

HUNGRY PRINCE
            We used to sport like willful brothers once.
            This pointless schism scathes me to the core.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Play on! Your grace, equip him for the serve.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Behold this little token of a ball-
            Through this ordeal, symbolic of the sun
            When- swallowed nightly by the earth’s dark mouth-
            He spars with demons of the underworld,
            To birth anew at dawn. So does this sphere,
            Across the blood-bathed flagstones of this court.
            Regard it so. The gods assort you both.
            To one: bask in divine approval’s nod,
            The other: dark ignominy. Engage!

                He throws the ball to HUNGRY PRINCE. MOTECUHZOMA          and HUNGRY PRINCE leave the stage separately.

TLACAELEL
            A solid serve.

PRIEST OF TLALOC          A capital return.

TLACAELEL
            These salt-and-pepper gents belie their age.
            Look how they swoop, like eagles ******-beaked.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Our monarch springs, a glistening dynamo.

TLACAELEL
            And his contender sheds years as he runs.
            Tell me, your eminence,
            What are your sentiments on Hungry Prince?

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            Though not a brilliant statesman, he remains
            The most perceptive prophet of the earth,
            With whom the gods must share their captain’s logs,
            His auspices so rarely miss their mark.

TLACAELEL
            You’d buy his soothsaying?

PRIEST OF TLALOC                           I'd say I would.

TLACAELEL
            That’s to the heart of this imbroglio.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            What is the real dispute, then, of this duel?

TLACAELEL
            You’d know their true contention?

PRIEST OF TLALOC                                     Tell me.

TLACAELEL                                                                 So . . .

Beaming bright, like sweet sun – it bounces.
It burns, it scathes and it blinds –
It is love like your lips are my lips
and my lips eternal.
It is insecurity like I care too much about my hips
that are your hips eternal.

But it is sweet because your heart is mine eternal,
It is sticky because you cling to me so we bounce, burn, scathe and blind,
It is sleepy-strong, like the tendrils of your murmured words as they fall
in the dark, dark night
where we tumble,
heated and cooled,
twins in our agony, striving for the peak.

Take a lonely stroll through the park of life
Why not kick a stone whilst you’re there to enjoy the mood?
Turn and face the oncoming sweep of hatred with pitchforks at your throat
All you did was kick a little stone.
The rope is tight, it cuts and you bleed
But try to smile as the hateful hands stroke at you with enviable despise.
They drag you through dirt that scathes your façade.
But still you show what’s left of your smile.
The ropes pull and off you fly behind hooves of hatred,
gored and disfigured you cheerfully drag yourself up from behind the horse.
The horse **** tearing at your wounds as you try to stand.
Such a crowd
You wave at your fans and they pelt you with vinegar,
acid bubbles into the bastardised crevices,
your legs buckle as you’re yanked from behind ,
your eyes falter as you watch your essence snake out into the rabble.
They lick at your heels as your mind begins to wander.
Back to the block. You come to, the crowd is cheering
They’re happy and so you thank your audience.
Your eyes adjusting to the love as the axe blade cracks your neck through to the jaw leaving your disfigured skull rolling down into the dispersing gathering.

the candle stick
beneath the flame
the wick burns bright
but all in vain
as shadows loom
behind the light
they hold their secrets
black as night
the brightness scathes
the tallows drip
the candle burns
it's one way trip
till wax has waned
and out it goes
the way once shown
only it now knows

You left the flowers by my door
and I took them in for rescue.
I placed them in a vase,
to turn back the time I laid to rest.
Wilted on the sofa,
I took to rays of sun.
To bless the inner shadow,
Who's solitude might come undone.

Might come undone.

Night rolls in
and I'm falling into a deep sleep.
MY spirit comes down to the soul.
And with our divinity deceased,
The dark night comes to mirror me;
I might be getting old.

I have no thoughts of me,
just you, that's all I think,
I wanna be with you,
my link.

For security, for safety,
For the love of our memories.
For the kids, our kindness,
and the mindful and not the mindless.
Yeah, of purer thoughts and purer love
serenity from upper kingdoms arc
To fight for belief, and sanctity,
bestowing both justice and mercy; upon thy enemies.

And so I gripped the blanket and yelled,
to undo nightmare man his spells.
I won't give into darkness no more.
I won't sleep on shattered dreams,
and walk away on empty deeds.

I'll pierce the bitter night
with rainbow sparks of aether light
as the flint stone blisters and scathes my palms.
I'll rekindle the fire and bring thunder to wire,
and rewrite these stories with passions alive.

why are you so easy
to be walk passed
but then so difficult
to completely forget

a cattle brand that
sears waking memory
scathes dreams of night
what remains of you

are rumpled bed-
clothes at sun-up
and crumpled sheets
on litter-strewn desk