in the fog of a cold summer,
you shivered like a seismograph
tremors assaulting your faultlines
and i took you in my arms,
zipped you into my ribcage to keep you warm -  
you shivered to the rhythm of my pulse,
hot blood exiling
the summer chill.
from the fog of a cold summer,
i took you into my bed,
plucked your feathers
to keep you with me;
made dreamcatchers from your feathers
to keep the nightmares from your mind.
shivering seismograph,
can't fly with bare wings.
through the fog of a cold summer,
i walked with you,
held your hand
anchoring you to my side,
shackles between  us
keeping you safe
[you can't fly in this fog
little seismograph:
the clouds will eat you up
the fog will wrap around you
and dash you against the rocks.
oh, you are beautiful,
but you won't be when you're
bleeding broken on the talus,
your bones escaping your skin.
blood breeds art
but what use is art when you're gone,
when you've found your feathers and flown]
in the fog of a cold summer,
you asked to leave.
i need to fly, you said,
i need to become lost
in arms of mist
and fog.
your ****** arms aren't enough,
your ****** arms are staining me
corporeal.
just keep your arms around me,
just remain in my ribs,
just close your eyes
and let me be your
air currents,
lifting you above the talus.
i can fill all your fault lines,
i can ossify
all your fissures.
i'll fill your hollow bones with my
hot
blood
and exile the summer chill.
in the fog of a cold summer,
in the wake of a muscle spasm,
you fell from the sky
and i caught you,
plucked your feathers
so you could never fall again.
little seismograph,
shivering to the rhythm of my pulse,
i will keep you
so warm.
i'll keep you safe
in my cage.

Lost underneath the hood
she made sure
he stopped to ask for directions
then with map in hand
and strapped to the seismograph
she tremored into the land
of eternal sunshine

While you
had me check to
make sure you are still alive,

I noticed
the most beautiful
embroidery on your heart. (It did not say

her name
or my name)

The valves open and shut so
quickly
not because you are
dying, but because you have so

much love
you could overflow

you are too big of an ocean to just
up and leave me.
I am learning

to tie my veins to yours
so
breathing becomes a little easier for
you and the thump da thump

(I have a heart murmur)

will draw
a portrait of two lovers not abandoning

each other. Red as a rose’s
flesh, pink as ours:
together,
we can never become threadbare.

what is a telescope
-a tyrannosaurus skeleton
-a reluctant birthright
what are *****
-a state line
-an obsolete receipt
what is a wave
-grandmother says: she will never forget as long as she lives
-a forest trail in thick fog
what is sea sick
-he ran over a dog
-wettest March of the century
what is an hour
-no smoking allowed
-the fuming face of a buffalo
what is sunburn
-inedible black toast
-I think she slanders me
what is wine
-overnight contact lens solution
-a humble canal
what is a mirror
(child | beluga)
~(ham):o + ¥ineapple
what is travel
-a last minute thing
-warmth within a windshield
what is revision
-a slow explode
-milk in coffee
what is antacid/calcium supplement
-a bottle cap
-handy clutter
what is a fist
-something to try eating when in circles
-flour, 1-to-20 eggs, some ennui, expiration dates
what is a sigh
-a fresh seismograph sheet
-sound mechanical in early morning
what is skin
-a shoelace
-child labor
what is a workshop
-scalpels, piñata bats
-a lunar module
what is that shiny dead thing in the green eyed river
-New Year’s Eve ball drop
-otherworldly return to beginning

I don’t believe you.
There’s no way you could have
fended off those velociraptors
and their inter-dimensional captors
with a spork and a water gun.

No, you didn’t go into the matrix,
or find an heirloom of the Norse,
or find a cure for when your throat gets hoarse.

You most certainly did not bring forth
Satan with a glass-blown tuning fork
and those pictures you have are photoshopped.

A seismograph cannot detect a pulse
from that distance, you would have to be close,
so it did not help you defeat the devil,
which you’re undoubtedly making up as well.

You cannot throw marshmallows
into black holes, you would be crushed
by the gravity, far sooner than pushed
within marshmallowing range.

You did not ****, nor disembowel
a mutant roll of paper towel
nor did you invent the interrobang.

I wish you would just please quit trying
to convince me that you came back from dying
especially after you weren’t mauled by a bobcat.

You did not inject yourself with nanobots,
or anonymously author a Times Best-Seller
about the struggling wife of a poor bank teller.

Stop deluding yourself, Johnny, it was only a dream.
Son, go back to sleep.

Open backed pick-up truck, bouncing down a beatnik road, carrying the remnants of Dean Moriarty, as eyes catch hold of the four days growth on the face of Cool Breeze.

One flew well beyond the cuckoo’s nest “transcending the *******”

“…The Nowhere Mine…we’ve got bubble-gum wrappers…We’re going to **** it out from under the world…working in the Nowhere Mine…this day, every day…”

Kesey put away on two counts of possession, released on bail at the risk of residences belonging to fellow compatriots.

“LSD-25, IT-290, DMT”

Interrupted the transition through the idle doors of consciousness, requiring the free minded to travel “beyond acid”

“The Nowhere Mine…Nothing felt and screamed and cried and I went back to the Nowhere Mine.”

…

“It’s my idea,” he said, “that it's time to graduate from what has been going on, to something else. The psychedelic wave was happening six or eight months ago when I went to Mexico. Its been growing since then, but it hasn’t been moving. I saw the same stuff when I got back as when I left. It was just bigger, that was all-“

“-there’s been no creativity,” he is saying, “and I think my value has been to help create the next step. I don’t know if there will be any movement off the drug scene until there is something else to move to-“

WHY?

“I’d rather be a lightening rod than a seismograph.” He said.
…

“The Nowhere Mine…”

It's not so easy to see yourself
As a single second in a minute
A fleeting moment
A fraction of movement

It doesn't help that every minute
Is contained within an hour
Twenty four to bring you
An opening and closure

One hour in a day
Consists of sixty minute men
Marching silently
In the shelter of many more

A day drifts by title less
A chunk of driftwood in a
Tidal wave of insignificance
Though they culminate in months

They come in dozens
Empty egg cartons
Wishing we could all be bakers
To add another extra annual memory

A year in youth
Lasts longer than
Your favorite pair of shoes

A lifetime is lived
In the people we embrace and
Inside the presence we give

Our minds write with a pendulum
Rocking back and forth
With intangible wisdom

A seismograph epitaph
Incomplete heartbeat
Static electro pulse
Failing

i am not the girl your mother warned you about.
you know, the one with the pierced lip and a glare
that could start a fire during the monsoon season.
the girl whose arms are inky wings entwined with
weeds and paper chain reminders of past loves.
the girl whose name tastes like smoke on your lips
and whose report cards are littered with the one
letter that begins her most favorite swear word.

i am not the girl your mother warned you about.
the only relics that i carry on my body are scars
from playgrounds that kissed me back too hard.
my lungs consist of both words and silences,
neither of which i have found a way to control.
i am a few inches short of dangerous and about
nineteen years wiser than a pack of cigarettes.

your mother warned you about the girls who
are hurricanes, that will see your body as a stone
they can toss across the oceans without a second
glance. hearts going seventy miles an hour have
no time for regret. but there is always a sign
or a season that brings them; each one you meet
will be mapped out on a list of broken promises;
hazel, audrey, katrina. they won't let you forget.

but i am not a hurricane; i am a california earthquake
with a 7.8 on the richter scale of volatile personalities.
i will come without warning and dissolve the earth
into dust under your feet. there will be nowhere for
you to hide; your body will unravel into war with itself,
and your mother, wide-eyed, will wonder why you
let me in. but i know better. she taught you to train
your eyes to the sky when not even a seismograph
could pick out a heartbeat buried 1800 miles deep.

Do you remember that one time we both just happened to stay up until 4:00 in the morning?
Or that time you tried to walk past me but our small talk got too big and we ended up sitting separated by four thousand miles and an electrical outlet?

Do you remember that one time when our elbows touched for almost a second at dinner, but neither of us said anything?
Or that time I felt like watching that TV show you love and accidentally left my door open and you felt like watching for awhile and punched my arm when I pointed out how a terrorist wouldn't be able to activate an atomic bomb
from
like
four thousand miles underground?

Do you remember how your voice shook with laughter when I told you I was flirting with you?
How it shook like a seismograph on the white cliffs of Dover,
How it shook like a tambourine
Like a dreidel
or a top?

Do you remember how the fire leapt and the mountains slammed and the thunder clapped more fervently than a bunch of liberals watching a mariachi band?
or has my imagination gotten the best of me once again?

when I laugh,
the whole body
one big mouth
of laughter

when I sing
words emit
like a seismo-
seismograph

If I squat, drowsy,
all my teeth are
melting down
a whirlpool

walk, look back
and wonder,
whose vanishing
footsteps
are they
meanwhile,

my as-lost-as-me
friends, frantic for
shade in the sun
and can't find it

together, like a
splash of colours,
we loll in the garden
for the madness to pass

later, at home they ask
about the blood red
eyes, I say, it was
some colour, some holi

.                                                              

                                                               ­   "The wind rustles the forget-me-nots
                                                                ­      In the many balcony flower boxes
                                                           ­                       And so the shrieks of foxes
                                                                ­                               lose their distance."

She’s inside,
finding her bearings.
Fiddling her earrings
around.
******* cardamom pods
White.
And smoking licorice black cigarettes
Her lips faintly popping as the smoke escapes,

                                                       ­   Pop,

And reflecting how she’s been
As lucky as lavender isn’t.

                                                         ­         "the wind sharpens the beach dunes
                                                           ­                    flutters my tangerine towel,"

                                                      Po­p, pop,

                                                           ­        "fills my little girl's glitter-gel shoes"

No,

                                                    ­      Pop

She rubs it out before she sets it down,
sharpening her eraser.
Settling her glass
no chaser.

Her cigarette smokes on its own in the ashtray
a straight grey line caught in the breezes
from the door frame and under the floorboards,
like a seismograph recording of a dancer’s hips
or like any sound man could ever consider making,
escaping up to heaven from the tip of Babel.

She takes back her black ***
Before any more paper evaporates.

                                                          -Lig­ht-
                                                         Pop, pop

Her poems are great shipping tanker oil spills
of vowels,
hoping the reader feels their lips
mouthing kisses along with it.

                                                            ­  Pop

                                                          ­                           "no one ever really tastes
                                                                ­                          one another on theirs,
                                                                ­                                                or saliva,
                                                         ­                                                       so weak
                                                            ­                                     weak as the smell
                                                                ­                                  of potent *****."

Now the wind's at the window,
disturbing a spider
abseiling slowly
and inevitably
as falling snow

                                                           ­    Pop

into the ashtray.
A lifetime of weary acceptance of tragedy.


                                                      ­       -Stub-

she is wearing some chemistry
an old dress for a bluestocking
she turns her face towards a green sea
new rhymes for blazing verbs lurk
in the definition of imprecision but
everything is falling into place
cell to cell conversations afloat
shards of mystery smooth
rounding out the caves of night
mirror wars meanders
mitochondrial Eve confused
into this new creature
saturated with radiance

questions not asked
but answeared
how you love her
do your hands chase
her tango shoulders
is there music inside
the shade of water
waste inside nails
naivete in knees imprisoned
vibration self-asserting

a devious sweeping world
of unthinkable gestures
your hands a seismograph  
for the cataclism of shiver
no need to search for
her selfless sense
as you ravening negotiate
the fossilized song of you
the depth of this tympanum
this membrane
time itself this creature
zoon erotikon
levellling up resurecting
ravaging enchanting

all the rites of passage
for the overwhelm of flavor
she breathes in prehistoric gills
nirvana dance inside DNA
you redefine your sharpness,
delicacy tears & tearing
she dissapears in a snare drum
sanity evaporates as mist
over arched forests
in the pulse of no air
in between skin and akin
in the bewilderment of bodies
searching for their lyric
manna for beautiful beasts
over the sargasso sea

she wails genuine
metanoia, love's dianoia
no disambiguation

My tongue is charred
on the planes of your chest;
fingers seared from tracing the
patterns in your skin.
Forest-fires spark between us.
The hairs on my arms are long burnt away.

You exhale.
Your breath is smoke and I gladly breathe it in.
My lungs survive.
Later the doctors will be amazed that I
lived as long as I did.

We leave no ashes.
The flames are too high.

And yet–

Nothing matches the fires inside,
where new suns are born
every time you speak.
Words drip like diamonds from your lips,
but I love the frogs and maggots too.

My plates are shifting.
The internal landscape speaks for itself:
I listen
to seismograph readouts,
details of soil composition and
tidal patterns,
and hear your breath
in every charted line.

spikes on graph paper
a biography of the earth's
distracted driving

masses merging with another:
hostile takeovers of stone; skyscrapers crumble,
choking apocalyptic dust in their wake

then tsunamis soar,
a fierce baptismal; my mountain home
spared the deluge though

inside, the family's china escaped
from its cabinet, only to be gravity's meal
and shatter in shards myriad

one serving dish survived,
flesh from the lamb filled it, steaming
only a fortnight ago

we'll buy new plates, ones
that will remain in silent stacks, until
another festive event

or until the seismograph records
another jagged jump, scribing one more tale
of earth's lamentable tensions released

There exists an area between hurt and healed called scarred
it's a place that isn't found—but revealed
tectonic plates protecting the core
my vibrating feet split the earth
forming my fault of separation
passive plains give way to cliffs and valleys
your seismograph detected  tremors
so you escaped to safer ground
outside my sightline from inside the trench emerging
memories are all I need to dig deeper
so remembrance goes through a grainy filter
glorifying the other side of my grave of grime
engendering assumptions of purity lying
beyond the fresh dirt door
where the undead hold their light sticks and disco *****
creating light without illumination
I stumble into them like a moth at night
bumping into the last vestiges of light
they say multiplying two negatives equals a positive
but this whole keeps going deeper
we just acclimate to the depths
making a competition of going furthest down
excavating our descent by expanding the division in the land
until magma erupts
lighting the voluminous pit
revealing the hell we've dug
trickster shadows dance along the sides
hypnotizing the feral demons staring
slack-jawed at the empty canvas of the cave walls
attributing the beauty of what they've missed to ghosts
telling ourselves our horns make us unique
until the lava starts burning us
as a reminder of humanity
continuation ensures incineration
yet this cavern has become my home
after convincing myself I belong here
so everybody hysterically huddles together
to protect themselves from the consequences
oozing from the pressurized center
I squeeze to fit into the middle of the crowd
putting bodies between myself and the nothingness that awaits
watching fellow spelunkers burn
while hoping the inevitable doesn't reach me
the liquid flame consumes my carcass
there's so many directions to fling the fire in
but I benignly accept my fate
knowing this is all my fault.

Ha!

Human (rat) race doomed!

Foregone conclusion hashtagged,
linkedin, predicated, et cetera, cuz
overactive derrière of yours truly
(no names mentioned, nor fickle
finger of fate pointed), and writer
of these words and one among many
riders (he adores) on the storm –
referring to brewing, looming, and
quaking potentially severe economic
fallout shattering The "debt ceiling"
or "debt limit"recommends ye dear
unknown (anonymous) readers bid
thee toodle loo  to civilization
and its discontents.

So much for hyperbole!
    
How axiomatic, ironic, quixotic, zoologic
that thee unavoidable ****** urge occurred
while in the midst of writing about that
vitally important ****** function, which
for any other Tom, **** or Harry would
be safer endeavor at least within their home.

That margin of err rear harmlessly doth
NOT exist within the rented domicile
of this twenty six plus years a married
(lighthearted) middle aged man.

What requisite non-forceful,
essential, dutiful call visiting
the ***** to purge the body electric
of supposed waste matter
(quite efficient machine ****
Sapiens anatomy), regarding
said expelling solid, loose, liquid...
thru **** ought to rank as
minimally risky private business.

Imagine matter of fact saunter
to the loo fraught with Uriah heaps
of danger that could imperil
the very existence of (in this case)
myself, and the rest of humanity.

Upon attempting to amble
very short distance, (perhaps
half a dozen paces), an
immediately deleterious,
hellaciously luminous, and
perilously serious threat
(unsurpassed even by hooliganism  
signature destruction forever
enshrining Gothic or Vandals –
if such peoples lived today and
occupied this apartment unit),
loomed as a far more impossibly
harrowing mission any combination
of maximum strength (Excedrin
would be superfluous) supposed
major natural disasters all rolled
into one frightful maelstrom.

Oft times the powerful need
to relief thyself disallows any
preparation H(abiliments), thus I
am forced to make a quick dash
to the toilet, BUT between
the cozy comfort of this easy
chair and the durable material
designed to suction even the
baddest, biggest, boldest BM
belies a trail and mountain
far more of wicked bewitched
crossing then say the now defunct
Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

Though this comparison may seem
like an exaggeration, the higgledy
piggledy hewn heap of fetid foul
fermenting faecal matter poses
dangerous, death defying diabolical
(DO NOT ENTER) dump.

No other option existed for me
to eradicate, expel, exorcise, et
cetera potential ***** matter except
to strike out toward barrier reef
of noxious, odoriferous, pestilential,
queasily revolting sky high (declared
SuperFund Site) to  enjoy simple
pleasure, whereby Gluteus Maximus
dispenses with human toxins.

The urge to let loose a stool sample
overrides any time to pen loving
note to surviving family members,
which (two darling grown daughters
seem like foreigners (or survivors
on a desert island) as each precious
Punim pursues autonomy countless
miles, whereby the eldest then
a Junior at The University of Pennsylvania,
and the youngest offspring plane
and simple sailed about seven
years ago to become
seasoned student abroad.

Though a tenant at this subsidized
(and quite agreeable accommodations
nestled within Perkiomen Valley,
Pennsylvania), no exaggeration necessary
to describe daily cataclysm perchance
spelling doom and downfall of this
dry husband and loving father to deux
progeny, who would hate to leave said
special offspring behind under
the sheltering sky.

Thus every onset to traipse
so few feet to flush out
thine flotsam and jetsam,
(when stream of ***** sprays
like a hose) to pay obeisance
and homage to modern
plumbing, the flash of mine
lxiv years zips thru me
memory, particularly when
carefully, gingerly
lumbering ridiculously slow
(lest mishap finds ambulance
siren wailing destiny of this chap
(most likely pronounced
dead on arrival), whereby tell tale
sigh of turgid tummy
would automatically inform doctors
that obstruction preventing quintessential
rear supply tubby
undisputed venal wickedness.

Tis at  unstoppable twitches
to defecate, (which sharp
saber rattling ****** spasms)
denote common urgent irrepressible
need arising within bowels),
when mental gallows humorous arises.

Such an embarrassing ending
(post eerie er) demise re: conclusion
to my rather ordinary life – (visa vis
being constipated, deprived
or hindered freeing offal,
would put to shame “windbag”
i.e. google as  proof positive
of blocked means to eliminate waste).

Also in tandem (though very
slightly tangential to above
distressful horrible likely presentiment,
this xMan bemoans being
swept off my yam bic pent
tam meter feet (literally)
by gigantic hands of she
(thee divine Gaia, who now
scatters defecated detritus
damning ability to access
commode constitutes reflection
on remaining Norwegian
Bachelor farmer from Lake Woebegone.

How trajectory of one measly
mortal primate webbed
whirled wide eyed schleps
along boulevard of broken dreams
(he may as well live planets,
galaxies or universes apart
worlds) ever shared
an intersecting vector
with another continues
to confound this crossword puzzler.

Again that sneaky sobriquet
irony doth mettle with
steely goatherd drivers
goes Pasteur ****, where gin
till lit tee lives.

Long story short described below.

Circumstance found this then
quite content solitary
son of the soil invited
to admirable, estimable, inimitable
estate listed as “Glen Elm”
within  National Registry of
owned properties within
Collegeville, Pennsylvania.

Garrison Keillor slated guest of honor.

He possessed je nais se quois
ability to tell tall tales,
whereby audience members
became rapt with seduction,
usurpation, and wide eyed yearning
to lean in so as to hear the suspense,
which increased in magnitude
in direct proportion as
his home spun voice became softer.

Unbeknownst to this
poor country bumpkin, when
he took bathroom break
during impromptu intermission,
a gal in her mid thirties
livingsocial with her parents
within the Mainline
(very wealthy enclave of residents
within southwestern Montgomery
County, Pennsylvania)
agreed to follow Jewish tradition,
asper prearranged marriages.

Though neither of  Semitic peoples,
nor the least bit familiar
with one of the oldest Religions,
thee family, whose youngest daughter
hinted of spinsterhood, their
open minded kindred ideas
generated exception to  
dictum remaining steadfast
to pinpoint “a nice Jewish
Kosher Boy”!

As frequent attendees
at this Leiper Mansion and
storied magnet for literati,
the accidental chance encounter
found thyself and unfamiliar gal
(fate decreed as thy bartered bride)
happened to be awaiting use of water closet.

As tends to be the predilection
of so called fairer gender ***,
this petite and attractive dame
introduced herself, which subsequently
found us becoming more
curious about the other.

The natural order of two
heterosexual individuals
(one male, the other female)
allowed basic instinct of
attraction to engender
fledgling friendship, that quickly
leapfrogged into
a sexually intimate dalliance.

Without any precautions
qua birth control inevitable
outcome of hitting
the figurative bullseye linkedin while
listening to the rhythm method occurred.

This reality determined
tepid reception courtesy
future parents in law to marry gal,
whose youngest daughter's
future child I fathered.

Even from this fairly commonplace
getgo dynamics wildly described
along seismograph of 10.00 earthquake,
one category 5 hurricane,
and an F5 tornado thrown in
for good measure for measure,
these tidbits totally hyperbolic,
thus equal much ado about nothing relative
to the interpersonal juxtaposition
of our quite rapid tête-à-tête,
that continues (to much lesser degree –
analogous to subsiding
storm of the Century 21) to this day.

After surviving approximately
two and a half dozen plus years,
(the marital inflictions
unquestionably more harrowing,
strangulating, and threatening
life and limb) battle scars
(many broken bones begot
by innocuous shuffling to
bathroom) populating neary
every square inch of this
ordinary chap deserves a medal of honor.