AmeriKKKa
Land of the free
Land of the whites
Hell for the blacks
Equality non existent
KKK running land
Blacks running dead
Blood splatters everywhere
KKK never stops
Blacks broken with grief
Whites uplifted with grief

A strange weather pattern
Appears up in the sky,
And a strange sludge splatters
Into onlooking eyes.

Menstrual matter falls
From the great godless clouds,
The people struck with awe
As they run, scream alloud.

A trickle turned downpour
Of radiated blood,
Now drowning in a storm
That yields a *** flood.

Dropping violently in pints, gallons, and leagues
We become fossils under a ******* sea.

Janie pushes the metal book cart back into its parking space in the Document Delivery Department of the St. Louis Public Library and hangs the last sticky note for October 30, 2012 on the wall by the head of the department’s closed door. She retightens her brown scarf under her chin, tucking the wispy hairs above her ears back into hiding. Having your hair begin to prematurely gray as a teenager has dramatic effects on a person. Her mother wore scarves around her wrists when Janie was growing up and when Janie begin to wear scarves to conceal her salt-and-pepper hair, her mother just smiled. The clock hanging on the wall above the children’s section reads 11:28pm.
Two more minutes.
She reorganized the pens and books on her desk and set the box reading NOTES onto the right corner or her desk with three blue pens and a stack of note cards. Her coworkers learned fast that Janie does not like to talk. She does not like eye contact. She loves the silence, and never ever to ask her about her hair. Her manager gave her the NOTES box after about a month of horrible miscommunication and everyday it fills with requests for books or tasks that Janie has to complete. She completes the tasks one by one, alone, in her back office in the Reference Department and hangs the completed sticky notes on the wall by her manager’s door. She works the night shift and locks the library up every night. When she’s alone she can talk out loud to herself and those are the only voices she cares to hear.
“Goodnight, books. Good night, rooms.” Janie shut the heavy wooden door to the library, placed the color-coded keys in the front right pocket of her jacket, and began her walk to the bus stop one corner away. She avoids the main road, taking her first right onto a side street that she knows would spit her out right beside the bus stop.
“Goodnight Taco Bell Sign. Goodnight Rite-Aide. Goodnight Westside Apartments. Goodnight Jack-o-Lantern smile.” She stopped in the middle of the alley and peered up at the Jack-o-Lantern grinning down at her from the third story window above. “Mother wouldn’t’ve liked your smirk, Jack. She would’ve slapped that **** right off your face.” Janie, satisfied the pumpkin was put in its rightful place, smiled as she trotted on.
“Mother carved smiles into her arms and that’s why Daddy left, it is, it is.” She kicked at a crushed Mountain Dew can as she remembered that night from years ago.

“Mommy?” Janie pushed opened the door to her mother’s bedroom and saw the moving-boxes torn open and all their contents scattered across the floor. She tiptoed through piles of scarves and silverware and corkscrews until she reached the bathroom in her mom’s room.
“Come to us like rain, oh lord, come and stay and sting a while more, oh lord…” her mother’s voice was slipping off the tiled bathroom walls. Janie pushed open the door and saw the blood for the first time pouring from her mother’s wrist. Her mother was naked and perched on the bathroom sink, singing to a red razor blade.
“Mommy?”
“GET OUT!” Her mother jumped from the counter and perched on all fours on the floor. She began to growl and speak in a voice too deep to be coming from her own throat.
“Mommy! It’s Janie!” She began to cry as her mother, still naked and bleeding, twisted and writhed onto her back and began to crawl towards the door that Janie hid behind.


“Thirty-Three percent, dear. Just a thirty-three percent chance.” She shivered trying to clear the last memory of her mother with the words that all the shrinks had echoed to her over the years. “Schizophrenia is directly related to genetics, little is known about the type of Schizophrenia mother was diagnosed with except that it is definitely passed on genetically. But, there is only a thirty-three percent chance you could have it, dear. Thirty-three percent.” The sound of the bus stop ahead reminds her it is time to be silent again.
“Disorganized Schizophrenia.” She mouthed to herself as she stepped back out onto the busy street from her alleyway. She tightened her scarf and saw the bus pull into the pickup spot. She walked forward to the bus, again immersed in her self-imposed silence.
Stepping out of the February cold, Janie removes her wool scarf as the bus doors close behind her.
“Where to baby?” The driver smiles a sticky smile. Her nametag reads, “Shannon” and has a decaying Hello-Kitty sticker in the bottom left corner.
“The Clinton Street drop.” She hands the driver her $2.50 fare and avoids the woman’s questioning eyes. The night drivers are always more talkative, curious.
“Your ticket hon.” She tears Janie a ticket stub. “Everything is pretty dead this late, I’ll have you there in ten minutes top.”
Janie begins to shuffle towards the seats, ignoring the woman.
“You mind if I crank up the music?” The bus driver asks, purple fingernails scratching in her thick blonde hair. “I need to keep my eyes open and blood flowing and music is my fire of choice you know?”
“Sure.” Janie shrugs her bag onto her shoulder and walks on before the woman can say anything else.
“Route E-2, homebound.” Shannon’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker.
She shuffles down the bus towards her usual seat; second from the back right side.  Shannon starts the bus rolling before she reaches her seat and Janie can hear her singing along to “Summertime” by Janis Joplin. The bus floor, today, is sticky because of the morning rain. Two years of riding public transportation has taught Janie that staring at the floor as she walks to her seat is better than the risk of making eye contact. The bus is usually empty this late but if there ever happens to be anyone else on, it’s better not to converse. Safer that way.
She plops into her seat filling the indention that ghosts of past passengers left. The seat is still warm and Janie squirms around until the stranger heat is forgotten. She tightens her scarf and sighs. The brown pleather seatback in front of her is peeling towards the top. Janie leans forward and idly picks at the scab-like dangles of brown as she watches the sodden city canvas roll past her out the foggy window. As she picks, the hole grows. She twists and digs her unpainted nails into the seat until her hands feel wet, warm. Looking down, they are covered in blood and mud.
“What. The. Actual. ****.” she whispers, wiping her hands on her pants leg. She cautiously picks off another piece of pleather and a trickle of deep red begins to run from the seat back, clumps of mud now falling onto her knees. A puddle of blood and mire splatter down her legs and pool around her feet as she picks at the seat. Her white tights are definitely beyond saving now, so she digs faster until her thumbnail catches on something, bends back, and cracks. She gasps and withdraws her shaking hand, watching her own blood mix with the clotting muck in the seat, half of her thumbnail completely stripped off.
Looking around, all else seems normal. The driver is now muttering along to some banter by Kanye West, completely unaware of Janie’s predicament. She closes her eyes.
This is a dream, this is a dream, wake the **** up.
She opens her eyes to see the pool of filth around her feet trickling towards the front of the bus. Panic sets in with a whisper, They’re going to think it was you, your fault, you’ll be thrown in jail.
“But I didn’t do this.” She lashes out to herself. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
Next stop, E-2. Shannon blares on the intercom.
“It’s just a dream, get your **** together, Janie.” She laughs at herself, manic.
Prove it! Her subconscious screams.
Convinced to end this moment she has to continue; Janie plunges her hand into the pleather grave one more time. Frantic and confused she laughs as she digs, spittle of muck splashing on her bus window.
Faster, faster, faster.
Deeper, deeper, deeper.
Realer, realer, real.
Wake up, now!
Then, as the bus slows, one last chuck of mud splatters to the floor and Janie sees a pink piece of her thumbnail stabbed into the white of a bone in the bottom of the seatback pit. Her white Ked’s were becoming so red they were almost black. She pulls her knees up to her chest and begins to rock back and forth. Clenching shut her eyes she begins to hum. Janie’s sweet soprano harmonizes with the buses deep droning purr, their wet melody interweaving with the driver’s alto and Lil Wayne’s screech made her feel dizzy as the bus turned right.
She take my money when I'm in need
Yeah she's a trifling friend indeed
Oh she's a gold digger way over town
That dig's on me
The bus slows to a stop and the bass is shaking. Janie is cold. She slowly peeks out of her right eye, expecting to be instantly immersed into the same dismal scene. The seatback is whole again. Releasing her knees, her feet fall back to the floor and her shaking fingers stroke the solid pleather.

“Ma’am? We’re at the Clinton Drop.”
Janie hurriedly picks up her bag and flees down the aisle to the bus doors.
“Everything alright, dear?” The bus driver asks, smiling.
“Fine, just fine.”
“You be safe out there tonight. The night is dark and only ghouls stroll the streets this late.”  Shannon laughed as Janie’s jaw dropped. “Happy Halloween, dear. It’s midnight, today is October 31st.”
The bus doors opened and a cold wind ****** the warm bot-air surrounding Janie into the streets. She begrudgingly followed, her mind spinning as she stepped onto the pavement. The doors slammed behind her and she turned to see Shannon pull out a tube of lipstick and smear it, red, across her cracked lips. Shannon made a duck-face in the mirror and reached down to crank up the music as loud as it would go. The bus exhaled and rolled forward, leaving Janie behind as it splashed through the potholes.
She surveys the surrounding midnight gloom and the street is quiet and dark. Even the stars are hidden behind swirling clouds. She begins to hum, hands in her pocket, and shuffle towards her apartment.
“Goodnight, stars. Goodnight, street.”
As she approaches her single-bedroom apartment, digging through her coat pocket for her keys, her thumb pulsates. She grasps the keys and pulls them out as she steps up to the apartment. Sticking the cold, silver key in the lock she looks down at her thumb and in the shadows of the porch sees half of the nail completely missing. She laughs as she pushes the door open to her bare apartment, light flooding out. Without any hesitation she closes the door behind her, sheds her clothes, and slips onto the mattress in the corner of the room gripping her thumb tight. She reaches out for the glass of milk on the floor beside her bed from the morning and it’s still cold. Nursing the milk, surrounded by blankets and solitude, she reminds herself,  “Only a thirty-three percent chance. A nice, small, round number. Small.”  
She sets down the empty glass and curls into the fetal position under the heavy blankets, pointer finger tracing circles on her thumb. Only when she has heated her blanket cocoon enough to feel safe does she remove her scarf and allow her thick white hair to fall around her face.
“Goodnight, room. Goodnight, mother,”

Growling and hissing, a storm formed along the road, portending the merging of the chaos that had been gripping our minds for months.  This day, this type of day, we could have dreamed up in the novel of our love affair.  The conversation along our drive into the country was as full and ***** as all other tête-à-têtes shared in our two months together.  We were never at a loss for words and his conversation had been more educated than the older men I had dated since the divorce.  I was forever astonished at him and with him.  

The first time I met him, I was sitting behind my desk and planning for another monotonous day of office politics and all the drama connected.  Lost in thought, I sipped coffee and read emails until, there was - him.  He opened my office door with such fervor and drama, I knew someone had just entered into my life that would leave me forever changed, and I welcomed it.  A mess of auburn hair, neither combed nor styled and yet quite fitting, haloed around his head and gave the visage of an angel.  He had a freckled nose and cheeks with blue eyes staring from behind all that wildness and they were the only calming feature about him.  I turned my head and grimaced a bit, “how dare someone charge into my office as if to own it”.  “How can I help you?” made its way from my lips with a bit of a sigh.  And he smiled, that smile which would make his face even younger and more deceptively angelic.  

“Hello” danced off his lips and in two syllables was able to sound singsong and my anger soon turned to anticipation.  He introduced himself as Parker and explained his new position as Junior Editor.  He went on to say someone instructed him to introduce himself to me since I was Senior Project Manager for the organization.  His fervent entrance into my office had sent a gush of wind that disheveled my tidy desk and his wide blue eyes looked around at the chaos he had rendered.  He seemed unable to offer apologies, and I soon learned this was his way.  His confident facade prevented admission of mistakes and the word “sorry” could not escape the tightness of his will to be correct.  This was my lover’s way and it was the structure built that only wrecking ***** could destroy.

As is expected of me, I extended my hand to welcome him, overmuch aware of my grip and strength in presenting my hand, I felt the need to dominate the grip.  I was a woman in a senior position inside the male dominated echelon of upper management.  I took his hand and with rehearsed quickness attempted to demonstrate my dominance, my superiority.   It was then, the first time I saw a devil behind his angelic face and I remember my expression churned up my secret thoughts.  He saw my eyes searching those thoughts and delight shone from his blue eyes like cold fire and I was burned.   Our hands soon contorted into a dance of dominance with fingers twisting as if in a finger shadow play.  No time for games or plays for control, I simply took the shake he offered and turned towards my coffee, my drama, my emails and without looking at him welcomed him again and gave a wave of dismissal.  He greeted my brush-off with a laugh and made his way to the chair in front of my desk.  He was tall and the light from behind silhouetted his broad shoulders and upright posture.  He was confident and sure.  His clothes were expensive, well-tailored and not at all the measure for his age.  He had a style about him and I believe it came as naturally to him as did the confidence in which he clothed himself.

I wanted to be angry at his overconfidence, his interruption, his disregard.  I was, instead, amused but annoyed.  He sensed he was beginning to irritate me and it seemed to delight him.  He would speak without taking a breath, eager to finish his thoughts, aware perhaps that time could steal the moment away and he would forever wonder.  He spoke with an accent I did not fully recognize and attempted to invite me to lunch or even coffee.  My lover was bold.  

I was succeeding in this corporate world, my world.  I was not ready to lose my focus for a moment alone with the delightful creature staring back at me, awaiting the “yes” he expected would be my answer.  He was a man who did not accept the “no’s”.    He would get what he wanted and would wait in predator mode until his prey was wounded, weak, ready.  He was not a predator in the malevolent sense, more in the need for survival mentality.  He would lift the wounded and weak above the limits of their afflictions and a “yes” would flow from their lips in fond gratitude.  Today I was not a “yes” and it did not feel like a final answer.  Somehow, I knew one day I would be naked with this man, my lover.  I knew I would take him inside me, and he would show me how to love in ways I had never known.  The “no’ and the explanations of the “no” exuded from my lips, and I could see him grow even more eager to know me.  He would learn the stories of my life from rumors and talk.  He would learn of my divorce, of the men I dated with expensive homes and cars.  He would hear about the occasional woman who would occupy my bed.   I had wished all of it to be true but only the divorce was correct.  I was not exceptional or exciting.  I was driven and focused.  

He stood there hearing my “no” with the sun behind him igniting the fire in his hair with his shoulders pinned back exposing his sculpted chest.  He stood there and allowed the silence after my rejection to hover the room, and there it was.  We locked eyes, and neither could emancipate from the other.  I wondered who he was and what he looked like naked in the morning with his disheveled hair, and we stared, locked in our gaze until my phone rang signaling the end of round one.  

Wrapped in my shawl, I moved between sipping coffee, as was my usual, and typing on my laptop.  He was behind me in the cabin.  I felt him approaching and knew he would quickly whisk me away from the overwhelming din of office emails and calls.  His presence behind me now was no longer disquieting but natural.  

The cabin had been his grandfathers and he had a noticeable pride about it when showing me through the door and gateway to his childhood memories.  He had a smile on his face I had never seen.  I delighted in how young it made his face appear, almost as if the childhood memories possessed him and he became the blithe youth here with his grandfather.  


It was fall at the cabin and the smell of musk and rotting leaves and ozone from the storm, filled the cabin and each deep breath was taking in a memory from my youth.   I was happy to be here with him and yet afraid.  Two months we flirted and touched over our shared lunches, eager to get inside each other physically, mentally.  The office was replete with stories of the happenings between the older woman executive and the younger up and coming man, how he must be using her to advance his career and how she was using him to heal the wounds of her recent divorce.  We heard these stories and watched them grow to the point we ended our touching, our flirting.  Soon the denial of our feelings and time apart turned to foreplay.  Soon there were stares across conference rooms, perceptive smiles as we crossed paths.  The total of it led us to this moment, to time alone together for the first time, this time.  

Fall in the country was the vangaurd to a glorious death.  The earth would explode with color announcing its final breath and moment upon the stage and we had arrived during the final bow and curtain call.  Trees draped in gold - and red - and orange heralded the fire to come and we too were ready to pour forth in glorious blaze and inferno.  During the entire ride into the country an ironical mist of dew and rain dotted the windshield as if nature attempted to douse the desires clawing to escape in each other’s arms.  There was a devil sitting next to me and I had to smile as his auburn hair blended so naturally with the landscape.  I was obviously lost in thought and he looked at me and asked if I was okay.  Him next to me, him crookedly smiling at me.  

“It’s nothing.  It’s just nice to see you in your element.”  My replay was short but my heart was beating so hard I was almost afraid he could see it bouncing behind my blouse, so I began to cover up but was met with his hand before I even reached the edge of my coat.  

“No.  I want to see you.”  His voice was soft but demanding and strong.  Often there were hints of a struggle for power between us.  His youth and position within the company prevented me from accepting his seriousness and his face would ***** into a grimace.  I never gave it much thought other than a bit of a nuisance.  His hand led mine to my lap, and I expected him to hold it, but he let go with a smile.  I enjoyed his show of power but refused to reveal a glint of it for fear I would lose the respect and control necessary over a subordinate.

Soon the cabin filled with the sounds of rain and thunder and as I stared out the window jealous of the drops of rain and their randomness, he touched my shoulder and looked down at me with his eyes bluer than wild lupine.  I smiled a painful smile and he knew I was overthinking the moment.  Taking my hand, he brought me to his chest and into his arms, arms that would embrace all of me and at times felt as if they could wrap around me twice.  I placed my head on his chest and began to reach for his belt.  The *** I had known was always routine.  This was expected, that was not allowed.  I fell into that routine naturally and was happy to oblige his needs in order to meet mine.  He kissed my forehead and still holding one hand, led me to the door of the cabin.  “What are we do…”  He stopped me with a single “shhh” from his lips.  I followed him and felt myself shiver.  I was not sure if I was shivering in fear or from the nip of fall air.  

“Don’t be afraid.  You have nothing to fear from me.  There’s no need to shiver my little poppet.”  He stepped back from me and stared as if I were a tiny bird in need of nestling back into its home.  “I’ve never seen you afraid.”  He touched my cheek and I felt so small and helpless, lost from home, and he was the only way back.  With a smile he took my hand and led me outside to the rain, lifting his face and savoring the drops bouncing off his cheeks.  

“W..w..what are you doing?”  I was trembling now and wondered if I had misjudged this man and he was in fact a lunatic ready to strangle me to my death.  My silk blouse, now drenched, clung to my ******* exposing an imprint of lace from my bra.  He reached for my shawl and pulled it off my shoulders.  He was looking at me so lovingly my body and mind calmed and I was once again in the moment.  Our moment.  This moment.  

His face, stern now, official, his mouth opening with such deliberateness that I was sure he had been in this situation before.  Once again my mind wanted to race to thoughts of not being good enough or that I was too old or too plain.  His voice pierced my thoughts and brought me to attention.  “There will be no talking unless I tell you to.  Nod if you understand”

My mind wanted to slap him with reminders of my superiority to him at work, how he was MY subordinate and how dare he.  My mouth would not open and my head began to nod in understanding.  My body and mind were bending to his will and acting upon his orders.  Shivering gave way to shaking now and I wanted to run to the warmth of the cabin and watch the fire burn the logs to a black crisp and wake up in his arms naked and giggling.  

Having seen my compliant nod, he began to speak.  “Undress.”  One word.  One word in response to the shaking mess of a woman standing in the rain, cold and afraid.  My hands were barely able to form the necessary movements to reach for the top button of my blouse.  I did not want to fail him or appear as if I were unfamiliar with tales of ***** men overpowering and having their way with a willing lover.  My fingers moved quickly now, wanting to end the scene and move on to the *******.  He stared.  He did not blink.  He did not nod or move.  He was enjoying every subtlety of me.  He was pleased.   I was a willing participant in his fantasy.  Nothing made me happier than to please him.  I began to feel hot and something inside me broke.  Was it my will, my pride, my fears?  I was not sure, but I felt alive.  Every thirsty pore of my skin opened up and lapped at the rain so very eager to feel it on my skin and the randomness of the drops was no longer something I envied but something in which I participated.  

My hands began to tug my blouse free from my skirt and the wet silk now draped over my hips like curtains, revealing the curves I was so painfully aware of hiding to keep anyone from noticing my *** and concentrate upon my words and actions.  I knew now I had one button remaining before I would, for the first time, display myself to him.  He did not flinch, rather, he maintained his stare and for a second I pleaded to him with my eyes not to expect me to do this.  He was resolute.  I spread open the soft, wet cloth and began to drape it off my shoulders.  I let it slide from my wrists, then fingertips, then to the ground blissfully unconcerned that my Hermes blouse was now draped over wet grass and mud.  

I looked down at my skin dripping and alive with goosebumps.  I had bought this bra in anticipation of this moment, in fear of this moment.  White lace bra and perfectly matched ******* were demonstrative of my control over even the small details.  My skirt was loose and heavy with the rain.  It was low on my waist and lay just below the navel leaving me the most exposed I had ever been with him.  I reached to touch the button on the back of my skirt.  Undone, I slipped my fingers along with the zipper feeling each click of the tiny teeth holding together the disguise of a powerful woman.  My hands traced the banded edge of the skirt pushing it over my hips allowing it to fall to the ground.  

His face looked stern but pleased, stoic and fixed.  I was in my bra, ******* and stilettos now.  I began to reach for the hinged part of my bra when he stopped me.  “No.  Stop.” He walked over to me.  He was close now and I was so cold I could feel heat from his body.  I wanted to kiss his lips, his full lips, but I did not move.  I knew now the rules and I would do only what was asked of me.  I stood rigid with no flinching.  I waited for any words that would pass from lips to ear.  He did not speak but leaned into me and reached over my right shoulder undoing the chignon in my hair.  He draped my shoulders with strands of liquid filament.  He took his time there, placing each strand in the exact order in which he was pleased.  With two steps back, he looked at my wet hair with the deliberate strands, as if he had created a masterpiece and for a moment I was unsure if the artwork he saw was me or his work.  

“Now be still.  Allow me to touch you, to admire you, my beautiful Moira.”  When he said my name even after these two months, he had the ability of saying it as if he were speaking it in serenade and for the first time.  He moved his hands to my back and unlinked my bra, one hook at a time with such dexterity I knew he must be a professional at *******.  He, who was to be my first professional lover.  He slid both straps off my shoulders, then taking my hands towards my abdomen, he slid the straps forward on my arms.  Lifting my hands, he demanded I keep them out and straight.  Me, the student to the professional, complied without question.  He bound my wrists with the lace bra, the bra I had bought just to please him, then lifted my arms above my head.  “You will keep your hands up until I tell you to move.”

I had become his toy.  I knew in this moment, I no longer existed for me, I was his, completely and entirely, and I abandoned myself to the rain, to the cold, to his gaze, realizing that surrendering to his urges strengthened me.  He turned and walked away.  He took a seat in an Adirondack chair and even it looked small in his presence.  “On your elbows and knees,” he spoke matter-of-factly.  Just five minutes ago, the struggle inside me to have the appearance of strength, would have denied me this happiness, this happiness to be free in his command.  “Now crawl to me, please.  Slowly.”

I did not care to be in the mud.  I wanted it.  I wanted to please him.  First to my knees, leaving an indention in the clay, then awkwardly at first, onto my elbows with my hands still tied at the wrist.  Crawling on my elbows, my back was arched with my waist higher than my head, giving him a view of the thong I had chosen only for this moment, my succeeding moment.  My position felt ungainly.  I looked to his face for approval.  “No.  You cannot look at me”, he commanded.  For a moment I felt I had lost his approval and self-doubt harried my brain.  My will to please was resolute.  I faced the ground, once again aware of the randomness of nature, the power of nature, how things in nature will do as they are told.  The reed is told to bend.  It does.  It does not question why but responds in its way.  Rivers do not question why they are shaped.  They just continue with powerful current.  I was the reed.  I was the river.  I did not question.

Face towards the ground, I could see the mud forming on my body, molding to my shape then rinsing with the rain.  It repeated.  Mud.  Rain.  Mud.  Rain.  This was the cadence to my crawl.  I arrived at his knees and waited there, a dog eager for a command from its master.  I was content to watch the rain beat ripples around his feet, splashing and shining his shoes with glossy drops.  “I cannot love you”, I thought to myself, “this is forbidden”.  “Being here in this moment, is forbidden.” We would have this moment.  Yes.  We could create this memory and think back on it in fondness and with both heaviness and happiness.  I would remember my young lover, my professional lover.  He would remember the obedient executive on her knees.  I would not regret our moment.  I would some day write it all down in my journal and press the pen deep into the paper.  It had to be etched, those words, my words, this memory.

His hand below my chin, lifted my gaze to his and he smiled, that smile, his smile, the smile that was like nature to my body, and I did not ask why.  I was a river being formed.  “You are so beautiful.  All of you.  Your skin so soft and pale.  Your eyes moving from fear to acceptance.  I see now you want to please me and I want you to know that I want to make you happy.  I want to be your lover.  I want to taste your lips kissed with rain and feel your shivering body pulled against me.  You are safe.  I will not hurt you.  Poppet.  I love you.  I have for awhile now, and I think you know it.  You, my wise, wise Moira.”  He lifted me up and for a moment pulled my body towards him burying his face in my abdomen.  He lingered there.  I felt how soft his red tufts of hair were and how soft his words were against my ears.  I loved him too.  Genuinely.  Profoundly.  I was afraid.

He inhaled deeply, there against my stomach, as if he were breathing in my essence.  I felt his breath turn from warm to cold against me as it mixed with rain.  He stretched his arms and moved my body backwards as he extended until I was a foot away from him.  “I would very much like to undress you, poppet.  I’ve been imagining it, aching for it.  I want to see all of you, naked and on display.”  He touched my abdomen with the tips of his fingers, as if afraid the pale china of my skin would disintegrate into a misty dream.  I relished it, the touch of him against parts of me he had not known.  I was always able to keep him at a distance, physically.  His hands traced the edge of my *******.  He moved slowly, and I knew he was wanting to etch this memory into his journal.  Nothing less than ink pressed hard to paper would release this memory to time.  His placed his hands on my hips and spun me around, my thong lining up with his gaze.  “Bend over.”  His voice from sweet to demanding again.

My hands were still bound, and I stumbled at first.  He seemed not to notice or to care, so I arched my back and pushed myself outward and into his view.  I felt his hands move from my thighs to my hips as gentle as summer winds that in their seductiveness turn our faces towards the impact.  I was in my forties and unsure how I would compare to the twenty-year-old’s he was known to date.  The gossip left nothing to imagination and everything to speculation.  My mind had conjured images of him, this professional lover, inside the firm thighs of a youthful companion.  Thoughts transformed to pleasure as the nature that was his hands took dominance over the thin lace that hid the only piece of me left unseen.  I became art in his hands, marble statue, exquisite with textures and curves wanting to be touched.  

The lace scraped my skin as he slid the *******, wet and splashed with earth, over the expanse of my hips and down to the ground at my ankles.  “Step out of them.”  He helped free my ankles, and I saw the delicate lace become one with the earth as the rain beat it into the mud.  This was freedom.  This was me with nature, me with my lover.  I was the reed and he was the wind.  

I was keenly aware of his eyes fixated on the valley of my mound, how my cheeks spread just enough to give hints of the pinkest of my flesh, now swollen and ripe.  “Turn around.”  I heard his voice and could tell the bombardment of rain was making it difficult to speak.  

I turned and began to ***** my body when I felt his hand on my back.  “No, poppet.  You must stay this way until I say stand.”  My body ached to be touched by him, by more than fingers and hands, but this, the anticipation, the wanting of it all, this was the skill of a professional lover.  I saw the earth drowned with a thick layer of rain now, and my shoes made splatters and ripples as I turned towards him.  I was cold now, too cold, unaware cold, numb in my cold.  I was happy to feel it.  I had for too long hid from rain, this glorious rain.  Now, I was one with the rain.  I was the river coursing its path as commanded by nature.  

He took my hands and untied them.  I watched the entire progression of it and I felt his presence now even more.  My hands were free, and I stared at my shoes and his shoes.  I was so small in his presence.  “Stand for me, poppet.”  His voice diffused through the rain and seemed softer now.  I stood there in my nakedness and he delighted in it.  My lover was not afraid and moved his head along with his eyes.  It was easy to know where upon my body his gaze had landed.  He seemed to linger the most on my face, and I thought how odd it was as most men concentrated on my ******* or mound.  My lover was different.  My lover was professional.

“Poppet, I want you to remove my shirt, but you will not toss it to the ground.  You will place it on the chair.  Nod if you understand me.”  He knew I understood but was confirming I was still in the moment and willing.  I obliged him with a nod and without looking at his face, began to unbutton each dot from its hole until he was shirtless before me.  His chest was firm and hairless and dotted with unobtrusive freckles as random as the rain.  I was delighted.  He was beautiful.  My lover was beautiful.

He placed one hand on my head, the other on my shoulder.  “On your knees for me, poppet.”  My knees once again bent for him, and I knelt in the rain, the thick rain and saw my knees again molded in the mud and earth.  I was unsure now.  Years had passed since I had taken a man inside my mouth.  I felt panic, like the river, run a course through me and I started to turn away.  But I was resolute.  “I will make him happy in all things this day” rang in my ears like a mantra.  I watched as he undid his belt and felt it as he wrapped it around my neck two times and pulled the loose end until it was taut but not constricted against my skin.  I was his.  I was the pet and he was the master.  It was official to me now in this symbol.  I was leashed and about to be tamed.  My lover was going to teach me his skill.  I was delighted.

I watched him free the one button on his pants and move to the patterned teeth of the zipper.  He rested his pants on his hips and pulled free the thing, that thing, the thing I was craving.  The thing I would take inside me, deep inside wherever my master wanted it.  I was the river.  

He was not large, not small, but thick, surprisingly thick, he was swollen and vascular.  I studied the curve of it.  The tip, the head.  I watched his hand grip it and move it towards my lips.  I opened my mouth and took him inside me.  He moved his hands to the sides of my head and began to direct me in the movement he needed from me.  I studied the thrusts and followed.  I moved my tongue, my eager tongue, in unison with the rain and percussion of the drops.  I slid him deep inside me devouring and savoring the taste of him.  The taste of my lover was satisfying, and I wanted to bring him to completion there in that moment.

We stayed in the rhythm, with the rain, both lost to the moment.  He stopped his ****** and lifted my chin.  “Moira.  My poppet.”  He led me to my feet and gave his crooked smile to me.  He gave me his smile in that moment, in that second, his smile was mine.  

“I love you”, I whispered, unsure he heard me.  He lifted me like a child and carried my nakedness to the bed.  He placed me there, like a doll.  He contemplated my skin in the light of the fire.  My lover the wind.  My lover the water.  

He was soon naked and drops of rain lit up on his body like little mirrors and I could see images of the room and myself reflected in them.  He removed the belt from my neck.  “We won’t need this.  In this moment, you know you are mine.  You know I am yours.”  We both wrapped our arms around the other, and I felt his skin on mine.  His body was hard and moved in perfect form with each muscle flinching the way it should, each squeeze and release in harmony with the other.  My pale, soft skin was beautiful contrast to his and was yin and yang.  He felt hard and long inside me, so engorged each vein touched the inside of me in a different fashion.  We each sealed our mouth on the other unable to drink as deeply as we wanted.  We were in our moment, this moment.  Alive in the seconds that passed to hours.  We were ready to etch ink on the pages telling of how I was the reed and he was the wind and on this day, I did not ask why, I only did as was I was told.

raindrops bounce on
the window frame,
reminding me we're
in this room together.

your words are raindrops
playing on my metal frame -
nowness splatters
into existence  -
you remind me that
someday we won't be
in this room together.

you repeat endlessly
between my ears -
I sing along to my favorite song -
I want to tell you
all the lyrics
but my words fall
like raindrops.

unspoken are my
tear-shaped raindrops -
their tremors taunt me
on this side of the pane -
you remind me that
we were always
in the wrong
alternate universe.

the raindrops refract
your light,
dissolving a warm glow
into the evening fog,
you remind me that you're gone.

maybe the rain stopped,
but the silence is only
the absence of your voice,
the rest is just noise.

I think of our raindrops now -
smiling -
knowing that you have an umbrella.

They not understanding, I see glimpses of death.
I keep telling y'all I'm not right, but i guess y'all are deaf.
My last straw been plucked, holding to sanity by a stitch.
Im on my last leg, but i feel I'm 'bout to slip.

Body bags and blood splatters, those pictures flash in when i blink.
I'm laughing at the pain i feel until i can't think.
From the outside I'm ok, on the instide I'm wrecked.
I'm like building with bad foundation, i need to be checked.

I feel that point is coming, when the me y'all know disappears.
When my heart and soul welcomes the darkness, the hate, my fears.
When nothing will reach me, when I'll forget the word calm.
When my last tick, ticks and i explode like a bomb.

Cake
You can eat it too!
My frying pan
Is half empty

Hate me
Because I am good
No!
Because I am great!

Michelan Stars
Trips to Mars
Candy bars
Mason jars

Drunk I am
Said the can
To the packet
Of ketchup

Baker's square
I worked there
Line cook nook
Splatters shook!

The kitchen man
Burns the water
The ******* fan
Yearns for slaughter

Ink stained tears lace my pages

splatters of lost joys hit the paper

like the slamming door in my face

and my heart thrown to the pavement.



Life has grown dark

Even hope is hiding

not even pinholes of light

have the decency to show.



ink stained tears fill my pages

as pain moves in to marry sorrow

such bedfellows are meant for eachother,

not like Me and you.

Rachel’s hair, black as ink,
splatters my blank skin.
It’s a rewrite for bad readers,
a stroll for quick-to screamers,
a phone call at 3 a.m., and
a sickening high that just won’t end.


Rachel’s teeth, sharp/jagged like littered glass shards,
dig into my aged, faintly seasoned flesh.
It’s a feast for lazy vultures,
an eyesore for devout heathens,
a dusty revolver on a Sunday, and
a lone drunk at a flybuzz wedding.

Rachel’s soul, battering ram/sputtering mad,
dilutes toxic mine, leaves only the rind.
It’s a constant reminder for dangerous nostalgia,
a blanket smoldering in fire within winter-without-end,
a handshake and a heart attack for closest kin,
an elevation, a joyous atomic cloud, and
a sky crying elative confetti tears of future me.

Assembly line broke down as the mirrors crashed and cracked.
"Angelina!!!" the crooked boss man yelled.
"Get in herre" the crook socks rang like bells.
Angelina poured sweat of the yellow blouse she had bought two days before for another interview in another office and another profession altogether. The room spun for her even though she would rather have it stay still.
"How much longer till this mechanism shifts and all of this stops altogether. Have their been madder women then me? Has there been madder men then me? Have their been madder times or are the times the same just with different tools and gears and nuts and bolts to tirelessly continue, heaving the corpses through the concrete cracked and littered streets?"
"Angelina!!!"
Another nail gun dropped to the floor, firing twenty rounds into fifty blue collared men's tie clips, deflecting them all to the near by wall which held the coats, the hats, the work shoes which the men were not allowed to wear due to "safety intrusions" and "labor union by lateral horizontal negative dairy laws". Another unfortunate fortune from the cracked mirror case but that, of course, is not the story, our story is...
"Angelina!!!"
Angy hurried up the hungry, empty metal n' holy stairs. She lost her high heels in a crack in the stairs but left them there due to the fear. 2011 had been a good year until she had been forced by her landlord, also her boyfriend, to get a real job rather then stuffing her knitted socks with her poetry and trying to haggle them to new age modern morons of the hip near sighters whom glasses were unintelligible but necessary. The mirrors of the conveyor belts reached the top of the platform but the door was shut. The mirrors bent and shattered leaving the splintered pattern of the world outside of them multiplied by the millions.
Noon was her lunch break and it was noon oh two. Angelina would be late with her lunch and the landlord, Nick, was planning to stop in with some home made sandwiches and home made potato chips.
"Nick will have to wait." Angelina thought to herself. "Nick hates to wait."
Angelina entered to stand in the wake of a shaking, sweating purse wearing, purse lipped boss boss. His hair was tossed to one side, struggling to hide his baldness. The subtelty of their relationship was difficult considering Angelina had slept with boss boss to get tossed this job. The act was actually enjoyable, Angelina thought him a good lay, but boss boss was not a fun person to be around, and he was a much worser boss.
"Angelina!!!"
"Hi."
"Your FIRED!"
"Bye then sir..."
"ANGELINA!!!"
"Yes sir?"
"AREN'T YOU GOING TO ASK WHY YOU WERE JUST SO HASTILY AND VIOLENTLY FIRED?"
"It is not my place to inquire why I was fired sir. If I was not doing my specific duty well enough I trust you, as my superior, to have thought what this subtraction would do to your company. If I had questioned you I would be questioning yourself as a boss and I would never want to do that...sir."
"VERY GOOD. DISMISSED!!!"

---

"So he just fired you, no explanation, nothing?"
"There was nothing really to say after the fact."
"You could have demanded an explanation."
"I was in a hurry to meet you. I know you hate to be late for our dates."
"That's sweet."
"And boss boss shouldn't have to explain himself, he IS a professional."
"He works in mirrors which doesn't make at all make him a ropes course supervisor."
"He's very handsome when He means what He says."
The home made potato chips had been burnt because Nick had fallen asleep while watching old re-runs of run marathons from the 80's. Nick had trained for the Olympics in 83' but while home after training and drinking an OK shake, Nick had stubbed his toe while drinking the OK shake and trying to get to a ringing telephone. Nick had collided so perfectly, so quickly and with such for that his right big toe had bent all the way back, his big toe fingernail touching the hairy patch on the top of his foot. The doctors said amputate the toe and save the foot or chop the entire thing off altogether. Nick, not being a dumb ****, opted for the entire foot. He never raced again.
"Are you going to try and get your job back?
"I don't know"
"Well. It's the 28th tomorrow and I need the rent either way. The insurance agency I'm with has been bugging me about percentages and utilities and...well, you don't want to hear about my worries."
"I don't mind sweety."
"Thanks doll. What're you gonna do?"
"Find more work I guess. I haven't written anything in a while, maybe it's a good time to get back on that train, see what comes up."
"I saw a help wanted sign at the mall nail salon."

---

Baby stroller wheels lined with pink and grey gum were lined up against the overwhelming glass wall enclosing the shops from the streets. Trees reflected green with the sun light lined across the clear wall. Birds flew at the top of the block near the ceiling crop, they wanted to come in but were confused how to do so. Children came through the valley with lollipops and balloon powder and strings lined with meats, they were headed to the capitalistic circus, a wonder land that only brought guilt from lovers and their future children's shame.
Angelina stood outside the electronic moment to moment receivers. She was afraid of not being allowed entry. Everyone entering entered easily, but what of she? Would she be accepted? Clicking her unpainted fingernail atop her leopard print clip purse and what was worse she had no cash to get her orange Julius or perhaps see a film if she couldn't conjure of the courage to stop off at the salon. That was why she had come here, right?
"Where had the salon been?" Angelina said aloud.
The mass of the mall was vibrating with a ferocious congruity. Through the fog of meaty torso's lay blank and content faces. Gripping their wares, their steaming quick food, some of it dropping to their foot only to be kicked around on the dirtied floor. At times a rat would scurry from underneath a traveling underwear salesmen to grab a piece of fried bread, half cooked meat, or small pieces of children's hair which floated softly down to the wet and mud streaked floor. Mall cops waved their sticks to each other, some kind of HAIL or CHEER that they were the one's in charge round' these parts and there wasn't nothing no one was going to do about it.
"Do I really want to work here?"
There was no choice though. Angelina needed to pay the rent or her landlord/boyfriend would kick her out on the street and from there, she had no clue where the blue sky would take her. Her parents, both dead thirteen years ago, would be a terrible place to set up camp, especially in a graveyard. Angelina's brother lived over seas working at a ***** clinic trying and failing to heal the weak and unwanted. He had tried to heal her through voodoo practices he gathered up drunk through his 6 month stay in New Orleans but it had only given her a bright blue and red rash for three to four weeks. She never longer trusted her brother with any kind of healing or "feel better" techniques and was no prepared to make the trek to Europe anytime soon, she was in a relationship at the moment anyway and she had a feeling she might be in love.
Angelina stepped through the glass exchanging doors in unison with a family that was entering at the same time. The door seemed to open for any body but was tentative if it would accept hers, this time, it seemed to.
Inside she made her way up "the miracle marbled stairs" which shined bright and blinded Angelina in certain parts of her eyes. They flashed bright red and greens and whites so visciously and fast Angelina thought she might have some kind of seizure. She planted her feet directly on each step as she walked up the 20 to 30 stairs, going very slow and gripping the handrail. People started to gather around behind her shouting "HURRY UP LADY" and "WE DON"T GOT ALL DAY" and giggling to themselves.
"Were they not seeing these lights?" Angelina thought to herself.
"Do you kind people know where the nail salon is?"
Angelina then realized that what she had just said made no sense. Her eyes were gripped shut, her hand tight around the shiny gold handrail, her feet pointed strictly out like some kind of paralyzed summer penguin. The people which had gathered behind her stood bare, jaw slacked, wondering who would step forth to help this poor helpless creature.
A little girl with red sparkled shoes and a orange bow atop her head stepped forth. She smiled even though she knew Angelina had her eyes tightly shut, maybe she would feel the warmth? The girl's mother reached for her so not to get to close to that "crazy lady" but the little girl pulled away, her father saying "If it's her time to go, it's her time to go".
"Miss lady with the tiger purse, I think the hardware nail pull on is on the 8th floor next to the people that sell bread with meat sticks inside."
The little girl stepped gingerly back as Angelina loosened her grip on the now stained golden handrail. She shook her hair out and ran her fingers through it, straightening herself up as if she were about to perform a song or late night poetry reading. Angelina opened her eyes and peered down at the girl.
"Thank you little girl. What's the best way to get there?"
The girl child said nothing. She pointed to a large metal box shooting up and down the length that looked like a rocket straight to heaven. People were gathered all around its foundation, oooing and ahhhing at the sight of the one's which entered. There was a sign over the line of tubes reading "A Shot at the Void".
"A shot at the Void..." Angelina tentaively breathed to herself.
Angelina stepped up the last couple glittering stairs and made her way through the thick crowd of stale clothes, cheap tricks, obsessed teeny boppers, hardware for wear, shoes with no laces, strips of bacon hanging from mouths, lettuce all shredded, soda cans with their lids torn clean off with small splatters of blood lined on the rim, and a perfectly painted fingernail was drawn on the number eight where the long lines and rows of numbers were there to guide the one's to the shot.
"Number eight. Easy enough"
Angelina pushed the button.

---

Inside the tube there was a slow light hum of jazz transfusion and children breathing. There were three little daughters gripping their mother's hands as they bit into their soda pop straws, ******* up the soda inside the plastic and cardboard cups. All three children stared up at her, maybe wondering what she was wondering, which was exactly what Angelina was wondering, a combination of mistaken telepathy, an accident of consciousness that would be never be talked about between the four of them but most surely existed between them.

Smooth as clay they drifted up the translucent clear glass tube, shooting skyward like a man made rocket shot from a man made gun. They passed shops hocking wears of angelic colors: clear pearl pastels shone through the clear blue glass shining into Angelina's eyes forcing Her to squint, dog barks could be heard through the whistling air begging for treats of black and brown, teriyaki chicken strips and duck heads spun absurdly fast with a rhythm that resembled the wave of a crowd at a baseball game waving wildly like children flying from swings never wanting to land in the sand; all this as the three and one flew higher and higher and higher.

---

Ding.

---

Angelina stepped forward, leaving the three children behind Her to fend for themselves. From the looks of the button they had pushed they were headed East. She gripped her bag and peeled Her eyes, twisted her hair in a tight knot to show her aggression, her vigor, her confidence and stepped into the rabid salmon like crowd.

She saw no signs of the nail salon. She saw only posters of rabbits holding artichoke legs and nail guns firing rockets of ice cream and corn bread. These were the mirrors of the supposed revolution but had nothing to do with her nail salon, she needed the cash and she needed it NOW! How hard were the numbers to acquire? How long must she wait before the envelope is sent and the letter read and thrown out? How long Lord, how long?

Questions for a time when the pay checks were easy coming and Her man was by her side. She passed by a little boy playing William Tell with her sister. An apple on the little tots head and in the boys a small, tight and silver ray gun. The boy pulled the trigger but only a small plume of smoke came from the top making the boy ball over crying and wailing and kicking and screaming, nearly catching Angelina in the shin, what a mess...The little girl stayed still in Her spot though because her brother told her "Now don't move a cinch." Wise move my girl, wise move...

At last! Angelina, reaching Her destination saw the brightly neon colored corner of her beloved Nail Salon. The windows shone with pure red glitter, miniatures of poodles lapping up puddles of ice water, women laying out on the sun to catch rays from the Earth, and husbands shaving their backs all in a circle and row.

"How beautiful..." Angelina breathed out.

She entered the store front. Greeted from every corner were beautiful young cupid like angels faces shining divine but with no torsos, floating heads of angels ***** but crying and smiling. Asking Angelina "What would you like today miss?" or "What are you after?", beckoning for her requests, begging for her touch of vulnerability and lack of knowledge of where she was or what she needed.

"Just an application...I heard you all were hiring?"

"Hiring!!!?" the cupid heads screamed in unison.

"You want to become one of us?"

"Yes, part-time...?" Angelina said hesitantly.

As soon as the words "part" had been uttered from Angelina's wise and brave mouth the many heads of cupid began spinning and spinning around Angelina's body. Faster and faster they spun until Angelina herself was spinning with them, unified in a quadruple hurricane stripping her of her former self and slowly manipulating her body, her hair, her other self into her new self.

As Angelina's torso lay in the corner of the store un-bloodied, clothes tattered as well as some scratches  on her elbows from the toss, Angelina's head was floating in the perfect center of the other three hovering cupid heads.

"How beautiful...how beautiful...how beautiful."

"Isn't it?" the three cupid heads answered.

"Yes, everything here is so beautiful," the four of them whispered.

And as soon as Angelina had entered, she just as soon had left.

END

Red                                                              ­Red
blood                                                        ­    poppies
splatters the ground                                       blanket the ground
on a cold                                                      on a calm
Orange                                                      ­   Orange
autumn day                                                   autumn day
a bitter, biting wind                                        a cool, rousing breeze
meets the                                                      meets the
Yellow                                                       ­  Yellow
piercing sun                                                   warming sun
beating down                                                shining down
on dead, littered bodies                                 on thriving, vibrant flora
skin turning                                                   emerging from
Green                                                       ­    Green
decay                                                      ­      grass
an ugly scene                                                 a brilliant display
of man's loss                                                 of nature's victory
Blue                                                     ­        Blue
uniforms                                                    ­    sky
war-torn, battered                                        endless, infinite
hidden                                                  ­        retires
by the                                                           to the
Purple                                                       ­   Purple
night                                                             night

Scraggly curl hair bounces in the air
wagging with whisky eyes breezy pleasing the eclectic electric hectic now mind
like finding a papaya inside an oyster
battery powered like a pomegranate passionfruit flower growing and glowing
around my trinity heart with the noise of a sphere's galactic ******!

Crystal Citrine Mountains provide water fountains of sunlight
as so tye-dye t-shirt hip-cat hippos smokin' coconut shisha bathe in barrels
of bourbon.
Lion snakes spit words of worlds hurling nebulous timeline's spiraling
and crashing and splashing baptism ripples together painting Pollack Splatters
with the aroma of Byrd Jazz Jam on rye-whisky bread.

Fractal Berries served by the Far Out Faerrie Ferryman Skeletan with bejeweled emerald eyes
winks while I read in the reeds panting in pan-flutes while water rabbits scamper
into clay enclaves to bathe in pinecone designed sand-tubs.

The hieroglyphic phoenix twists and skip-scats neon green vinyl
turning the wind inside out to x-ray flames of fireworks.

“The rest is silence.”"-A. Crowley

I

I will know you only because
you are known to me deep down
beneath the subtle shadows carved
permanently upon your deceivingly
angelic face
sculpted by an artist
nameless to none but the heavy slab of stone
he used to create an ache
I’ve come to want to know as you
whose soft and silent rolling voice
where from there springs the torrents
of a turmoil melting like wax
in the mixed up chasm
of your mind
the destroyer of your smile
the reminder of bad times
that causes me to know you and from where you come
riding in bare-back
jet-black hair flying on
the hated molten roaring
riveted steel furnace
of inner anguish
again
and again
you beautiful deadly diamond black jewelry rose
of unworldly charm and perfected pain.

II

This is how I know you
in the steamy swelter of the nightfall’s
stifling bluish pall
you and I alone somewhere
anywhere
but probably nowhere
between the silken smooth heavenly legs of
here and there inside
the broken smoked crystal chandelier
of an ancient chamber room illuminated by
the flicker of more than fifty slowly disappearing
jutting candle-flames
I know you
because you make yourself known
to me
on the black-satin wrinkled bed-sheets that
we lie
writhing around upon like two
dying dancing angels
being swallowed by the suffocating oil
of a shame we bother created
just like gods
or dancing dancers dancing slowly
dying
in the pallid ***** fuming fog
…dancing with the gods.


you are as I know you
silhouetted in the silence of our
ecstatic shattered sighs
as we fly through lust’s futile passions where
we lie, we lie
we lie…

III

You are crawling across
the one-thousand mile mattress
stalking towards me
starvation’s fire fuels
your steely-sharp brown eyes
leopard-like your lithe,
tiny olive-brown body poised
ready to pounce
ready to strike
arrayed in skin-tight crimson lace
deadliness flashing on your face
your ******* dark and pointy ******* feel
fit for me to fed the song—
I smile—
then with healthy, stealthy fury
you leap
and pin me down
trapping
me between these shiny sheets of coal
and your sweeping feline glowing
perfumed-prison hair
polished glossy ruby fingernails
dig deep
into my massive arms
ivory razor-baring teeth
bite my hips
my neck
my chest
my thighs
you stop just in time
to devour me
delightfully
rocking, reeling in the sounds of us around
the intoxicating scent of your
flaming fountain-***
colognes my livid throbbing burning *****
I yell
I try to scream
I want to cry
…but instead, drift off to dream.

IV

You lie awake
aiting watching and waiting allowing
your imagination and your hands
on a journey to your ever-lingering
flaming fury far beyond the heights of hunger’s call
just as we have done no doubt
without each other
for a long time
in the cold
in and out
up and down
back and forth
body arches
thighs uptight
muscular calves quivering
toenails clenching like an eagle’s talons
on the bed
--lift high your sweet holy offering to the air!

Hands wet and warm fly from the glistening
magic perfect patch of forever music
that makes me want to weep
you scream
I awake
we breathe deep
we go back.
Repeat the scene.

V

Pre-dawn purple painted brush-strokes streak the sky
framed by the window where I know I will find you
in nothing more than a gown of sleek vermillion
light-chamois
that displays the room glow striking at your body’s faint
outline
your slender legs
your precious girlish hips
that golden chain around your waist
Divine
your blushing tearless chiseled cheeks
I arise
and walk behind you
run my trembling fingers up your spine
I still don’t really know you as your sighs compete with
mine
you reach around and lead me away
behind a peeling splintered door
warped and withered with
dismay
where you will teach me how to paint
by spilling your blood in
splatters
upon the floor
in said consequence I
calmly take the blade from
your tiny talking hands
pull your slashed and sliced torn wrists
to my tongue
and slowly lick
with a lingering criminal kiss
the dripping cuts that begin to fade
and go away forever in the day
now that the wounds have disappeared
becoming scarless
bloodless
sere
I can but heal your beaten lost youthful body
although I cannot convince you that
I care.
Daylight here.

VI

I know now that I know now
that I know you
and in the ****
with suntanned bodies wind kiss-hissing
through our hair
we walk side by side
on the blistering shoreline sand
avoiding bits of broken glass bottles
one by one
if we can
slowly strolling to the edge of the
abysmal eternal
emerald omniscient ocean-waves
breaking
ttundering
blanketing our feet
spraying its mist upon
our hands
I stop
you sprint
on diving headlong at the deep
the foamy water roars
and roars
you emerge and approach the shore
standing straight along
beside me
to stare
at a pair of grayish seagulls circling
in the air
squawking songs about themselves
when before the breathing of a minute
one
bird drops dying dead to feed
the never-ending belly
of the sea
the other screeches viciously
mourning
you look
at me
and then I come to know now how to know you
now that you have at last known me
as your part your pink and precious lips
for the first time
we will ever kiss
as you finally cry for
our
reality.

That is not sand left clinging to your cheeks
Just the salty tears we need
To set us free.

Now you can bury you and me.


(Threnody means “funeral chant.”)

I know this like the Black of my Hands
because to ignorance, truth is profound
but to Experience, Truth is an *** Round
found in Leadbelly trying to run down
Freedom Ring crt. tied to a pair a shoot
or hanging
on the last rung
of this corporate splatter

I write about what disheartens me
And this one does, way too deeply
The harm cannot be undone
Most were lost, not just some

To go into a field, gambling with the universe
Our brave soldiers, with actions they can't reverse
Lost their life fighting for he country
Til the very end, only one thing on their mind: family

We sit here ignorant in our comfortable seats
While they defend our people, only to end in defeat
Every bullet shot into their hearts
Their blood splatters, turns into art

Thank you dear soldiers, for your service
We will forever be grateful for this
No words can heal and no money can repay
You'll remain in our hearts every single day

/'kriːˈeɪtɪv·mɛs/
noun

1. it's that flash
of inspiration
adding colour
to your blank thoughts.

2. it's that exhilarating feeling
of creating something -
of actually creating something -
with your endless procrastination.

3. it's your canvas
being filled with splatters
of paint and glitter.

4. it's art.

- v.m

Divergent as always, I'm flying a kite in an avalanche zone.
Inevitably, from your safe harbor, you will judge me.

I yell, "this, this is liberation!"

But you don't see me as a revolutionary.
You'll take me for savage.
Medicate the unprecedented out of my veins
Cover me in a quilt of your culture, label it safety.              

Repression of variation, of the noise and the bold, is optimal for this society.
Freefalling enthusiasm isn't exhilarating to you, and paint splatters aren't modern art
They are just a mess on a clean canvas

"Wala pay sulod atong sako Nay.”*

Sack of rice is empty
Stomach rumbling mercilessly
Mind is hazy, breathing sporadically
Cold porridge is a feast.

“Go home!” says Mama sternly
Frantic, frightened, panicky
Rocks hurled, bullets fly
Blood splatters; running aimlessly

We dodge our way to safety
Cold porridge is a feast.

“I will not,” I say adamantly
She looks at the sack mournfully
Empty. Devoid of sanity.
Cold porridge is a feast.

“We’ll get some soon. Don’t worry.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I feel weak, I am crabby
I’m staying despite this misery
Cold porridge is a feast.

Childlike will, piety of soul
Purity of intention, pursuit of living whole

Cold porridge is a feast.

I own an ugly sweater
It has tatters and tears
Misshapen patterns
And holes everywhere

From the missing tag
That’s been savagely clawed and cut out
Why companies make them so scratchy
I have yet to find out.

Cheese grader sized holes
From where hungry moths attacked
For their personal enjoyment
Or a midnight snack.

A perfectly good sweater
And being prone to sharp corners
Don’t pair well together
Just ask my unraveling thread
That’s been caught onto edges
And hideously snagged.

It’s humorously sad
Go ahead, you can laugh
Your sweater is next
The moths are coming
I promise you that.

The bottom frays like a hippy
I would say it looks cool
But that style died in the seventies
Just wait, that that trend will recycle
I’m not in denial.

The fabric and material
What’s left of it
Is a delicate cashmere…

Alright fine, it’s a scratchy wool
Ancient, archaic, and feels like Velcro.

Sometimes leaves cling
So I look like a tree
The optimistic side of me
Just says nature loves me.

But I could do without the bees
Ohh so many stings…

The insides are bumpy
From being cleaned on high heat
Now my sweater suffers from dwarfism
It’s challenged vertically.

The wrists are stretched out
From being rolled up and down
Permanently smells like dirt or meat
Depending on my activity
Or what I had to eat.

Blackened mascara speckles the sleeve
From dramatic tears
Or being too lazy to grab a tissue
As if my sweater doesn’t have enough issues
I drag in my problems
My pendulum swinging emotions
If my sweater were human
I swear, it would leave me.

It’s been thrown on the floor
Tossed in the back of my car
Tied around my waist
And forgotten in stores
I always say sorry
I hope it forgives me.

From the sleeves that cradles sneezes
Hugs are completed
Sharing germs or sharing love
All becomes one experience.
You’re welcome.

The front like a canvas
A Jackson ******* painting
Ubiquitous splatters of coffee stains.

Missing sips that dripped off my lips
From being scolding hot
Or scarce concentration
But nine times out of ten
It’s my deficient attention.

Looking like it’s been through hell
And no denying it has.
Sure, I could donate this human sized rag
But they wouldn’t know the story behind
Each stain and frayed thread.

They would see the sweater as just ugly
Dismiss there was even a journey
They wouldn’t ask
The why’s or how’s it came to be.

This sweater is not just fabric
It’s a memory
An extension of me.
…
..
.
But seriously,
I should get this dry-cleaned
It’s disgusting.

But I love it.

They sprouted more than flew, and
there were quite a few, possibly dozens —
though, looking back, I always do
tend to exaggerate such incidents.

Anyway, this aphid swarm of grassy
greens decided to make me home,
and my chest crawled with specks, while
I waited for a bus to St. Peter's.

They could have been splattered "as if's"
spat from the mouths of hungry sparrows,
taken mid-swallow with a guffaw at
this tourist dressed in DayGlo.

I might've gotten the omen, but
intuition wouldn't surrender its clues
how to shoo insect guests attracted
by a coincidental cloth.

Perhaps they were meant as subtle hints —
an eternal city keeps its own agenda.

I don't know what to write anymore.
But I can't stop thinking about flickers of your lips
and splatters of your touch.
When the rain pours just for you.
Something has to flow.
When water runs over your shoulders and down the drain
like the wisdom of the world.

In the brevity of your light I stole a slice of the sun for my own.
Lying deep inside a dormant orbit.

As the rain begins to weigh you down like the gravity of Jupiter.
My light, my love will be all yours.

Lay with me and tonight we'll steal the moon once more.

Bright vegetables of the sea,
disordered hair, thin arms.

Tubes protrude among vivid coral,
an array of shades against a sapphire canvas.

Wobbly vermilion wires poke out
from under rust-coloured rocks.

A clown swims quick through the middle,
orange in a forest of fingers.

Pink bonbons, candy canes,
an underwater confectionery store.

Some throb with electricity,
small pools of violet light near their homes.

Others ***** rainbows
from deep open mouths.

Waltzing in solitude
as tangerine horses gallop.

More creatures weave past,
realise they are in a multi-hued hug.

Hidden paint splatters,
are they aliens of the deep?

Oh why, oh why do we all have to die?

Accident's and suicide is it really all that better on the other side?

Car crashes and burning buildings, now we are all dead;

Jumping from not so safe buildings and playing with not so toy guns;

Chalk outlines and splatters on the walls.

My oh my, what has happened to us all?

I see my death before I die with my very own eyes.

I'm just so done with watching my death a thousand different times on rewind.

And ever night I scream inside and in these dreams my skin is bleeding and my face is pale.

The water's flowing and sirens are going.

I'm hanging there with rope tied around my throat.

And in these dreams I replay a thousand times in my mind I always end up dying.

In reality I'm only sitting there crying.

A wish to come true after I'm through with high school because a pact was made to save my life,

But now I've been slowly dying.

I was sixteen when the machines came.
The letters “C-A-T” screamed at me from across the street
As the harsh yellow tore at the roots of the
Cherry trees across the street.
Of course the orchard had never been mine,
I had not planted the seeds and curated the
Beautiful blooms through their short lives,
Picked the cherries off the trees myself.
But what about all the photoshoots I’d done
Among the gorgeous white blooms,
All the times my friend had walked through
The rows of trees to get to my house and
Left paint splatters of cherries across the kitchen floor,
All the sunsets I’d seen through the leaves
That made me nostalgic for things
I had never experienced?
What if I’m growing up and moving out
And can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that
These plants that have smiled at me from my
Window for over a decade have returned
To the Earth?
What if these days the
Weeks are crying when they should be glowing and
The absence of trees is simply the target of
One of those odd tricks that sorrow shoots out of the mind
That remind me that change is the only thing that’s
Permanent?
I wish that the emptiness of the field could be replaced by
Happy little white blooms
But instead the CAT machines screech and moan
And all I can feel is
The ache of old nostalgia and the
Peculiar nostalgia of the unknown.

I sit inside my podunk room,
As a million meteors make mad dashes
For different conners of The Universe
Like galactic kids stuck in a game of
Sharks and Minnows.
They snap their space caps over their heads,
Adjust their goggles, and dive into the galaxy;
With the refreshing burn of
Firery friction against their faces
As they glide through the galaxy.

Above my head these nova swimmers soar,
As I pull a folded list from a desk drawer
And lean out the window with a quilt
To stop the chill from getting to me.
I close my eyes and let the cold moon light
Reflect off my surface and pale my skin.
The moon has no purpose but to moon bathe  with, of course.
Of the meteors that circle the sky
I have a very different purpose for.

One by one I recite wishes,
One special I had saved just for this night;
Scribbled in marker with fast hands belonging to a busy brain,
Elegant cursive dawned by a deary mind,
My best script for my friendly letters.
Some I whisper, some I shout,
Some I struggle just to get out.
But one by one these wishes are told
To the night sky, the meteors swimming pool.

Suddenly the windowsill creaks and cracks
My eyes snap open, the timber of my home breaks
And my house, my yard, the trees and the leaves
All disappear, and suddenly,
I am splashing and slushing  in a puddle of
Endless Blue Water until I
get the sense about me to swim.

I swim until the water reaches my head,
My eyes, my nose, my chin,
Drains from my ears
Splatters on my shoulders.
I walk when I can, through
A tunnel of cattails, seaweed, and pond things,
Like a swamp without a sky,
That make the Endless Blue Water a canal with
A wooden door that I reach
After many steps.

Knocking twice, I stand patient
Busy with the thought of what brought me here.
A slot in the door slides open,
Old eyes framed by glasses peer back at me.
"Go away!" The old man barks,
"I can't let you in. All of
The water will get everywhere on my feet."
I stand, my eyes pleading with angst,
Eyelashes that drip water.
"No, it's ok Grandpa. Let her in,
She is tired." A voice, gentle and sweet, speaks
With a melody of a thousand guitars
Tuned to the exact preference of my own ears.

With a grumble and groan.
A click and a clack,
The slot slides shut harshly
And with a creak and force,
The floor flies open and
I am urged by the Sweet Voice to
"Hurry Great Darling! Hurry!"
And I squeezed through
The door, but so does the
Viscous water.

It flows rapidly past the door jam,
And the owner of the Sweet Voice scrambles
To convice the hinges that they
Want to turn the other way.
The dusty ground I now stand on
Quickly turns to mud, as the water flows.
We cannot stop the water from flowing.

The water makes a will of its own,
Rises with vigorous ebb,
And carries Sweet Voice's Grandfather with it
Into the dust bowl in which it surges so fiercely to.
I go with it, emerged once again as I
Grasp for a wrist, an ankle,
A collar, until I find a strap
Of a suspender, and hold fast to the door handle,
As Sweet Voice whispers hopes
That the water will stop. He grits his teeth, and
I'll never forget what he said:

"You are magnificent, Great Darling.
I would have loved you endlessly."

And with that, the water reversed,
Taking the sweet voice back into
The Tunnel of Pond Things,
And slamming the door shut.

The Grandfather and I, sat on grassy moss
That once was barren dirt, that climbed into fingernails
And settled homes between human and calcium.
The Endless Blue Waters  had cleansed the dirt from before,
But had also taken my lovely paramour.

And with this, I wailed great echoes
That shook the ground, because
The sweet voice was the wish
Whispered so delicately but so
Anxiously on my windowsill
That lonely night.

After my fit, I turned to see
Great followers of the Barren Lands,
Ghastly beasts with spots and rabbit ears,
Humans with skin clear, great dragons
That inspired no fear, that
All stood before the Grandfather and I.
They held their hands before their faces,
Checked their teeth, and found it free of the dust
And dirt that haunted their days.

A great feast was arranged,
A thousand chairs at seven hundred tables,
All lined with a feast
Of cooked carrots and sweet potatoes,
Texas toast and orange marmalade,
Corn beef and root beer;
As kites with tails and laughter with squeals
Floated through with wind and smoke
Of campfires yellow, all
To celebrate the arrival of me,
The Great Darling,
Who had cleansed the Barren Lands
And brought about the begining of
The Hallow Lands.

I sat alone at this great feast,
Weary of my loss, when I felt
A tapping on my shoulder. It was
The Sweet Voice who had returned.  
I asked, elated by his arrival, about the
Means of his return, and he replied:

"The moon has more purpose than you
Assumed, Great Darling.
The moon controls all tides, and
With its power on my side, I asked it to
Take me back to you, and kindly it did, as
the moon understands that poles and magnetism
Are not the only forces than bring great things together;
That love can do that great deed too."

We sat under the lemon tree,  
My quilt, retrieved on Sweet Voice's journey,
Spread beneath us, as we watched the moon
Circle the sky for many nights,
Until we decided to join in its company.
One by two, we stepped up stepping stones
On a hill that reached the meteors pool,
Where my paramour and I lived
In galactic happiness forever more.

My apologies leave a dry throat with a sting
Another and another fall from a limp jaw
Another from pale lips
And again from bleeding wrists
My apologies are written in blood
And spilling from one last kiss
Soaking into your skin
Sinking through the surface
And my apologies burst from my skull  as the bullet shatters my bone
And regret splatters across the wall
Written in blood is nothing but
**"I'm sorry"

Between the din of dusk and dawn
Runs Sleepy Pillow Lane,
Where gators guard the Gates of Thorn
And cryptid creatures reign.

They glide across the midnight sky
Like grime in sanguine sewers;
White canines long and talons drawn
Spike rodents on a skewer.

Gray giants glare from full-moon eyes,
A ghastly ghoulish spell;
Sweet sleepers swell the wells of Nile
While centaurs swing the bell.

Horned vipers writhe into your fears
Like scythes through strangled weeds;
And severed heads of angel hair
From shouldered stumps relieved.

A putrid pile of newly-deads
Awaits the devil's scorn;
And legless maggots gorge in beds
From which the fly is born.

Hungry hyenas howl in packs
While circling carrions crow;
And chunks of flesh are torn from backs
Cracking bones bare below.

Scavengers feast on man and beast,
No rotting limb is spared;
From hanging tongues to napping feet
Blood splatters everywhere.

Brimstone and thunder fill the air
With hail presaging doom;
Ten toothless witches shriek and cheer
As zombies creep from tombs.

Masked mummies stalk with stakes and stones
In search of sleeping heads;
They crave the skulls and living bones
Of bodies slumped in bed.

Through R.E.M. you toss and turn
And roll on restless wheels;
Alas Red Rooster blows his horn
To end your grim ordeal....

~ P
(January, 2013)

Splatters of dark red,
On dirt canvas  littered with holes,
Such is art of war.

Rainbow sketchbooks and chocolate lay down,
on the wooden desk paid with broken cells.
The foundation *** which has lied to all the eyes,
hiding scars from my selfish life.

Money, shiny pennies from many, off of my father,
who will see my shine one day.
The drinks of cancer, which I force down,
hoping one day, they end my life as well.

The smell of lavender, purple flowers,
the spring is blooming my heart.
The stars are shining in shapes of torture,
the funny part of this joke is the truth.

Pillows, which are not made from luxury,
they are rather downfall when it comes to appearance.
Yet the softness, the cold textured feeling,
it warms my cheeks up with sweet medicine.

Lip gloss, I had once wore to attract a male,
who no longer cares for me in the fashion I wish.
Pink, red and blue… cream splatters all over my cheeks,
my eyes are green faded jewels lost in track.

Pictured life moments surround me,
her voice cuddled me to sleep,
when nobody would listen to my painful cries,
I once cried the tears of many hurtful lives.

...my mom tells me as she tucks me to sleep.
Her eyes are bright blue with similarities to the Tenerife Sea. Solid, bright but with an icy touch. I believe her.
Then my eyelids flutter open after a kiss and I stare into a young man’s brown eyes. Solid, deep, full, sincere, warm. I trust him more than I should.
My own eyes aren’t that easy to decode. They’re a complete mess.
A chaos of color conflicting with eachother, instead of settling on one.
Blue when I wake up,but  green when I step outside.  
If eyes really are the windows to the soul what does that say about me?
Am I splatters of different colors floating around like petals in a mysterious endless lake in the forbidden part of the forest?
Am I a rainbow only to be seen clearly when both rain and sun hits upon me?
Am I a bouquet filled with different flowers plucked different places with different stories?
Forests are easy to get lost i.
Lakes are easy to drown in.
Rainbows are not tangible.
Flowers are pretty but their lifespan is short after having been plucked.
I wish I wasn’t a chaotic mess.
That I wasn’t torn in between the things I want, the things I can, the things I have, the things I want to be.
I hope that one day my eyes and mind will make up their will.
But for right now, I my eyes may stay a chameleon.
Only seen by those who really see.

The fundamental phenomena in nature are symmetrical
with respect to interchange of past and future.* --- Richard Feynman

                 Millions for Defense

In the Cabinet room of Monticello, clutching Decatur's letter,
the President removes his wire-rimmed glasses ---
Frigate Philadelphia has been burned.
Decanting a bourbon, he pours and quaffs.
Outside in the piazza the cicadas' din is unbroken.
The Pasha of Tripoli has his tribute!
In three short hours warm rays of sunlight
will greet the outstretched arms of Earth,
but for now the bourbon scintillates.
Ink splatters on the blotter,
as he pounds a clenched fist upon the desk.
Not one cent!, he pronounces to the wall-clock.
Cicadas hold sway in the Charlottsville night,
but on the Barbary Coast a fire is raging.