I bent my toes over the tub
like talons on a sunbaked branch
and clenched the curtain
in my gloved hands.

I sprayed Tilex on a scouring
pad and scrubbed the black mold
riddling the ceiling and caulked
edges of the shower like leprosy.

My lungs filled with nitrogen,
oxygen, and argon as well as
sodium hypochlorite and hydroxide,
spores, and mycotoxins.

I staggered backwards, trying
to find solid ground but found
only a dazed, curtain-wrapped
fall to the cold linoleum below.

This is it.

Your big moment.
Taking time at these crossroads.
Your decision determining destiny.
A moment all your own, never to be replicated.
skittering circuits buzz, obedient to your commands.
Hours lay ahead of you, stuffed and bulging with the static you will consume.
Channel 2 or channel 4?

This is it.

Your catastrophic downfall.
An outcry was made, now the civility is shattered.
the acquaintances you once held as companions,
may now cut icy glares as the senate did to Caesar.
alarms ring, as you feel reduced in their eyes.
You got the wrong change at the cafe,
so you ask for a fiver.

later on,
your banquet awaits, golden and sunbaked.
stewed for months, in rich and creamy crop of the land.
taking your throne, in the cool shaded flank in your garden of eden.
A cup of soup and a bag of crisps.

these grand odysseys still raise up those same emotional epics,
as moments in youth locked in the past.
like lying on a blanket at the very edge of one of the seven sisters.
alas, you are still perched upon oblivion,
cup of tea in hand.

“I know why the heart gets lonely
Every time you give your love away.” ()

Puts me in mind
Of a man who embodied our eternal, sometimes fruitless search
And why the heart is a lonely hunter.

John Singer, you silently sang,
Of heartbreak and devotion to someone
And the eternal search for those elusive qualities
Those missing puzzle pieces we all look for
Happiness
Acceptance
Love
Always seem out of our grasp
Like a puddle of water
On the sunbaked, summertime highway of our lives
Traveling
Always looking for something
Hunting for anything
To let us know we’re human
We’re loved
But still our lonely hearts search on

“I know why the heart gets lonely
Every time you give your love away.” ()

The heart is a lonely hunter.
Staring out the window of the bus
Thinking about the ones I love
And wondering if it is all worth it.
I wish I could’ve sat down with you, Mr. Singer,
And compared notes through pantomimes
Written words of your struggles
Maybe I could’ve understood you better than others
Deaf and mute, you
Couldn't communicate with words,
Couldn't hear what other said,
Instead you communicated with looks of compassion
Serenity,
Composure
Masking a single-minded devotion to one person
And you let others who lean on you
Attaching what meaning they may
To the nonverbal cues you say to them.
When some of it wasn’t what you really intended.
Believe me, Mr. Singer.
I know all too well the misunderstandings
That come up in the name of simple love
Or the search for it.

“I know why the heart gets lonely
Every time you give your love away.”

You think you have something special
But does the other person really understand you?
And when others need you, and vice versa,
They fail to see behind the wall masking
Your true heart
What you’re really trying to tell them
And even with the powers of speech and hearing
Would you still have made yourself understood?
Misunderstanding, it’s so easy
Words are woefully inadequate
Because people will see what they want to anyway
They attach their own meanings to the words you say

Mister Singer, I can understand why you blew a hole in your chest
Sometimes that gaping hole is more preferable
To the gaping hole left by a broken, misunderstood heart

“I know why the heart gets lonely
Every time you give your love away.
And if you think that you are only
A shadow in the wind
Blowing around but when
You let somebody in
They might fade away.” (*)

on ruby jacobs walk, a
small girl
asked us for money for ice cream.

she eyed our cones
                                yours, lemon
                                mine, strawberry
with a child’s hunger
glinting and opportunistic
as she held out her palm for coins.

i was not yet accustomed to the shapes and sizes,
to a dime being smaller than a nickel,
and in any case wanted to preserve them for souvenirs
so we shook our heads and walked away.

a year later, writing this poem,
i learned that ruby jacobs was a local restauranteur
who, as a boy,
illegally sold ice creams
for a nickel on the boardwalk.
                                                a nickel is the larger coin
                                                the size of a ten pence piece.
                                                i know that now.

the wide atlantic rose from a sloping manicured lawn
        star-spangled,
                                like everything here,
                                                           ­     the airborne flag
                                                            ­    above a wide pavilion
                                                        ­        a fanatic wedding cake topper
                                                          ­      against the blood-blue sky.

        i slipped
out of my shoes and let
the white sand burn my feet,
and jaggedly fill the spaces between my toes.

the atlantic held open its arms
though we weren’t, as we imagined,
                looking east
                looking home
but south to new jersey, across the bay.

the gnarled boardwalk was a
song of the twentieth century
        a roll-call of mass-market capitalism
        here in the city that didn’t invent the concept
        but certainly perfected it:
                                                hot dogs
                                        amusements
         ­                       ice creams (we’ve covered that)
                        fridge magnets
                baseball caps
        i bought an espresso cup with a picture of the president
and the caption:
                         ‘huuuuge!’
i stopped to take a photograph
of a space-age building from the fifties
which turned out to be
                                        a public toilet.

later
from the sunbaked d train,
brooklyn spread out beneath us
the houses garnished with flags,
then the city coughed us up on seventh avenue
and night fell five hours early.

A cold, dark desert begins
When a faint peach light saunters over the horizon
& climbs the sky,
Leaving darkness to shadows and graves.

The chaffed branches of bushels,
Barely lingering along the threshold of life,
Find solace in crawling growth
As the glow reaches dusty twigs,
Making them as networks of smoker bronchi.

Faded green cacti hold posture sharp,
As totems of harsh-landed culture,
Serving as solemn landmarks
In a flatland of mixed dust and rock,
They stand tall
All for a breath of young desert air.

While quiet hue spreads,
Passing each towering rock & mountain,
Even quivering lizards,
Waiting to be sunbaked,
Change to pink-yellow glow
& scarcely move
As the sun soars above
sizzling rigid scales,
Until the glowing horizon becomes a burning, lit land
Under a radiating Arizona sun.

I crest the sand dune
breath catching in my chest.
A sigh of relief,
my eyes consume the sight.

The ocean is so blue.
So vast.
So loud, yet
quiet. Like white noise.

Joy bubbles up into my chest,
onto my smiling lips
and squinting eyes.

My senses buzz with satisfaction.
The smell of sunbaked sand,
of the fresh ocean air.

The wind is cold and the sun is warm.
The sand, scalding hot on
the surface, but cool once
I bury my feet deeper.

Peoples voices and seagulls calls
are muted by
the waves crashing against the shore.

The weightless blue sky,
The deep blue ocean,
and the soft white sand.
Simple enough, but
I can't look away
and I want to stay.

From your old calloused hand
To the last living strand
Of hair that sprouts feebly
Like black sunbaked seaweed

With earlobes enourmous
And eyeballs a-milky
These wrinkles put dimples
all over your flesh crawling

in mongst the shadows
Of large concrete buildings
And root in the gutter
For edible matter which is

Torn in your hands by
Pain-quaking fingers
And prodded and poked
Into toothless dark places

Where bleeding black gums
Weary of smiling
pound out the mixture
Into acid bile.

I pity the monster
That crawls from your lips
When your life is no longer
And your tongue is for eating

I pity the blackbird
To peck out your eyes
That eyelids unmoving
Cant shield from the dangers

dedicated to the mirror of the shadow of my former self.

8:25 A.M.

step in late.
the eyes,
the eyes,
exceptional in eye shadow
find mine,
or perhaps i was looking for them,
and i realize
how distracted i’ve been
by my new summer coat,
but now
the eyes are relentless,
the eyes do not blink.
the eyes are omniscient,
the eyes will not sleep.
now that i’m
face to face with fate,
a captive to the eyes
that supposedly convinced me
that all
         faith
                       is
                        blind,
one half second suffices
to make hell
now something to be strived for,
and heaven twice the myth.

and near those eyes,
the face,
the face that infected a thousand consciences
stands by, silently
begging for a command,
its latest fix up on its favorite neurochemicals;
the face,
the face that screams satisfy
for the member that skull-****** a million subconscious desires!

or,
       perhaps,
         he’s a mirror.

9:05 A.M.

and i, the mind,
the only man wearing a collared shirt
in this barren company,
plead for recognition;
to make an impression;
to grab the attention,
scribbling in slang
for hate
            or,
        perhaps,

            triu­mph!

the eyes
beam blistering illegitimacy
into the mind,
unawares and
unintentional.
i make the silent error.
still, the face
chokes out a weak
“hey,”
where there was once cold callous.

definitely a mirror:
opportune moment,
easy catch
while the eyes still wonder:
“standards?!
what the *hell are those?”

of all faiths, his
                 is
                            blindest.

12:00 P.M.

away,
away,
away, away,
unto the scarlet heat of day,
with winter boots on sunbaked clay,
away,
away,
away, away,
away, away, away
from malady of present way:
the lonely path, too late to pray,
“erode your blessing’s granite sway
away!”
away,
away, away.

but affectation stays not long
as the face has just found out,
contorted, cried, and bellowed shouts
and in the mind’s eye, belted songs.
first contact in eighteen months;
he says:

“it’s you, weakling, you
first source of all my pain!
worthless, worthless,
perverted, scheming,
evil source that
ruined my life!”
definitely a triumph.
“or
perhaps
enhanced it,”
say i.
“herman,
i observe
you’re not so weak
as once i thought,
and half as meek
as last time i heard you speak.
away.”
away,
away, away
unto much cooler, peaceful days.
for now, i’ll put my summer coat
away.


1:57 P.M.

step in late.
no eyes,
no eyes
filled with hate.
no fears,
no fears,
no heavy weight.
no tears,
no tears,
for the day grows late.
today i committed sacrilege:
i tried to sanctify this date.
today i blasphemed against the
holy human mind.
i eschewed the natural anesthetic of time,
and repented of a baseless crime.
the eyes,
the eyes are in my sight,
yet out of mind,
and cannot last for long,
for the many hands,
the hands that rip and tear asunder
will render limb from limb
so desperately trying to
save her from
each other!

She shrinks running on the beach
winds reach her hairs dancing free
smaller she grows far out of reach
around her prance the waves wildly.

Her limps all gone, gone is her ache
she’s now again a pristine child
with sandy footprints skin sunbaked
she catches me in her love beguiled.

In the saline wind her coppered face
stoops for treasure of wave washed pearl
in enslaving thrall of love’s wellness
years wind her back a little girl.

Soon she will be back with worn out shells
boast of her finds from the seashore
never knowing in those moments’ windy sails
she unlocked in me a long locked door.

My sunbaked hands, that are worn in places, handle the grapefruit moon. Juiceless craters embellish the surface that is smooth to the touch, but ¾ it’s natural size, as it has been prematurely picked from the tree above. Flatlands an Amazonian green, resembling the most courageous leaves that journey to find the purest sunlight, with polka-dot peaks that resemble the tint of dewy summer grass in the shade. There is a hole where once stood a pylon that connected the moon to the universe it knew. The scar’s mark forms a pupil and in it’s orbit I see nothing but the incomparable eye of a chameleon. While it twitches and inspects the world, tiny white rovers scuttle across the glossy hide of their new-found planet and ******* bugs invade. Bugs! I drop the moon, as it is infested, and recoil as it hits the ***** concrete floor of what is known and rolls into what is expanding.

He ain't too quaint
That forlorn saint
Sat atop that rain soaked wood
He drags on his cigar, long and good
Flannel shirt and mud smeared Jean
On hard work did he wean
No, he ain't too quaint
That forlorn saint
But the sun sure kissed him hard
And left his skin crack'd and chard
And his fiercest lover yet
Is his own cursed sweat
That runs tenderly on his skin
While he works hard to purge the sin
Of being born a working man

don’t tell flowers

you love them.

wilting daffodils will cry,

sunbaked tulips turn their gaze,

and beneath the pinkened sky chrysanthemums

hide shame in yellowing beds of weeds.

in the new age your bursting fingers fiddle helplessly with a broken plug.

you’re all swollen tongue and swollen heart and swollen organs in a big bag of bones.

no one has loved you since, and repeatedly in three years of foreign language,

we remind ourselves of our broken mind, broken body, broken roots,

an oak tree that has been standing for too many years and is rotting at its core,

all its rings eaten up by termites.

loathe love, hold onto your bitterness, you’re starbucks hot chocolate.

cladding of a miniature kite
flying low
nearly raking treetops


figuring out all the stupid crap apps
vying for attention
flashing waste of unnecessary things

peck.. peck.. at indulge crumbs left
berried stalks on a pavement
deep fried horror slow ingest

impoverished smiles answer sewer cracks
sift through detritus of sea sludge
trickery wishes weeded out by force

probe eyes drill into sunbaked back
from across wrenching chasm scream
tearing of brown paper heard from toothless vagrant

hide a peek into auburnt stuck starfish
stand on violent edge
treble want not nearly seen

rocking wicker chair on solid balcony
light breeze fondles sweated head
curls o'oblivion study of gripping truth


I place within your palm
a miniature__kite
of such extent
its face can be hid forever
within the depths of you

It's dust, mostly
the kind that burrows
deep into the creases
of his forehead
and hides inside
the crinkles
around his eyes

It's forever stuck
to the soles of his boots
and never rinses out
of his denims
in the river,
not entirely

And it finds a way
to roll with beads
of sweat in dripping
lines exposing
parchment skin

but somehow never
penetrates the ring
around his head,
preserved forever
by his stetson's brim

And it's also ashes
from chaparral
and tumbleweeds,
lit up in circles
where he camped

leaving a trail
of where he's been,
like breadcrumbs
swept away in a
restless breeze

It's the creaking sound
of leather in his saddle
and the rhythmic
thud of horseshoes
pounding sunbaked ground

It's the wind in his face
that grits his teeth
and squints his
glassy eyes

It's standing in the stirrups
to fly above the racing plain,
keeping balance
with the whipping mane

It's the endless sky,
and the horizon
that never fades

But mostly,
it's the dust
that he holds
in upraised palms

slipping through
his fingers, disappearing
from his touch

in the wild and still
untamed range

as i sit on the sunbaked bricks
             my mind wanders back to what you said.
"you're rude,you haven't changed, nobody likes you, you are insignificant,
                              you are nothing."
             It's not true. It can't be.
    If i am nothing, why do i hear the applause of hundreds of crisp leaves in the wind?
             are they clapping for me? or am i nothing?
    If i am nothing, why do i feel the gentle wind caressing my face?
             is it touching me? or am i nothing?
    If i am nothing, why do i hear the birds crooning sweet symphonies?
             are they singing for me? or am i nothing?
    Is the gray cloudy sky crying heavy tears for me?

                  Or am i nothing?

While spotting for terns and heron,
My sunburned arms were glaring bright red,

Subsurface sunfish weren't interested in my suffering,
they preferred my redworms instead.

Pock marked, panfried fresh
finishing my signature dish with zest isn't fun anymore,

Emerald streams and
bronze, sunbaked trees
      Golden arches
embedded in our hair.
And call to you the serenade of nature, the trees howled,
In perfect equilibrium
                                   My solumn,
                             secluded daydream.
Fixated on the absence of time,
The loss of structure
and chaos so beautifully aligned.

~


Heat mirage on sandy soil
disintegrating cirrus left from the cool night
skittering horn toad flattens to hiss before
leaving the sunbaked earth
for shadowed hollow protections.

Large red-bottomed fire ants
carry back to a simple hole cuttings of magpie
they store foodstuffs for the hard months ahead
while cleaning the land of rotting bodies.

Hollow bones stripped of flesh
begin to bleach and crack
stiff winds pile feldspar and quartz along the western edge
of a bird long free from nest building and chick rearing.

Only a passing coyote gives the magpie body a second thought
before turning west towards dancing foothills.   /

I roam the streets freely
With no fears or worries

Embracing each day
With nonchalance

Dancing with childish ease
To the buzzing voice
Of the morning traffic

With blank eyes you stare

Masking your bewilderment
Spitting in disgust

As you hurry off
To chase illusions

Whilst I move like the wind
Caring not for attachments
Or never ending pursuit
Of happiness

Romancing the uncertainty
Of unknown tomorrow
Yet you think I am mad

  

YOU THINK I AM MAD


I roam refuses for food
Feasting on your left over  
You think I am mad
With wide eyes you gaze
Upon me with derision
Masking your amusement
Often with a benign smile
Which slowly transcends to pity
The children serenade me
With songs of mockery
Whilst I dance unclad
Happiness I become
But you think I am mad

You dwell in your homes
While I lay in street corners
The night breeze lures me to sleep
We both wake at **** crow
On sunny days, you walk the streets
Clad in choking clothes
Your sunbaked faces
Trying to hide the wetness
Budding underneath your arms
I stand naked in the shade
Dangling my goods
You laugh at me
You think I am the one mad.

Your company's like nighttime sky over sultry summer days-
long arms embrace afar across the cooling humid haze.
The heat still broiled into pavement now evaporates the rain
but at its core, the asphalt molten, still sweltered and sunbaked.
I chain smoke my way through another five minute mistake-
again now in tens, I'm alone, still awake;
sometimes, shallowed breaths, then wavering, shake
and unresolved, unrequited, in between aches.

Sunbaked streets
Home
It's a state of mind
Not a place I recognize

And this mind lives alone
Amidst hostile interiors
And foreign exteriors

The pounding heart
Sends the blood spinning
Death spiralling
The mirror broke when it met my eye

I forget the time
And I disappear
Somewhere between
What is happening
And what has been

It feels like drowning
In a muddy lake
Where the water thick clogs the lungs
Makes you suffocate with the anger
Of a thousand burning suns

And darkness does not bring silence
When eyes close nothing is mended
And cold hands refrain from taking hold
There's a tear and I'm beginning to see it

I think I'm lost
Somewhere between dreams and reality
Losing sense of which is what
And I'm terrified of waking up

how do you define this feeling
when it's
the taste of honeysuckle on your tongue
and the feeling of the wind running through your fingers.
how do you explain this feeling
when it's
the bright spill of chalk on sunbaked pavement
and the glow of sparklers on the 4th of July.
how can you save this feeling
when it's
the sound of crickets and grasshoppers playing your favorite melody
and the brilliant pop of purple heat lightning
in the air that promises a million things to come.

She lived beneath the spuming waves,
A crown of pearls atop her head,
And like a pearl her limpid face,
Her lips of fiery coral-red.
Her palace was a sunken cave,
With scalloped roof and amber walls,
While golden-paved and turquoise-domed
Were all the dark, rococo halls.
The candlesticks, the marble busts,
The amphorae and frozen clocks,
Were spoils from all those star-crossed ships,
That came to grief upon the rocks
And when the moon beamed through the waves,
She dreamt of life upon the land,
Of painted birds and pungent flowers,
Of honeyed fruits and sunbaked sand.
She pictured there a gorgeous prince,
His eyes like shards of peridot,
A youth with hyacinthine locks,
And raiments of forget-me-not.
But when she woke, she knew that she,
Would never tread upon the land,
Nor smell the flowers, nor taste the fruit,
Nor kiss her lover on the hand.
And as she held this solemn thought,
That they would always be apart,
She felt as if an icicle
Had struck her squarely in the heart.

once as a young lad
sad for she broke my heart
I sat out in a field
crying
inconsolibaly
I cried until the fields got moist
the wheat rose over my feet
the willow bent
her loathsome limbs over
my sunbaked skin
to shade me
and then
the night broke sudden over me
the field the willow the wheat
the crickets sang me a lullabye
the ground took my head in pillow
the stars sang sweetly overhead
the next day came cleansed
of sadness I overheard
the morning doves the squirrels
the trees dancing to the barely breeze
the grass groaning under me in ecstasy
and felt the essence of
gravity of
humility
my hands my lips wet
with nature's dew
I cried
with something new,
right then and there,
and that was the last of my
feeling sad for
myself,
I gained a sight a third
stronger wiser
eye,
and to this day,
I have never
forgot.

What is this? It feels vaguely familiar.
Is this Solomon's "Noonday Demon"
establishing residence again?
Melancholy? The dejection
of a scolded child?

I am carrying my sadder twin
with me wherever I go.
My shadow has finally caught
up with me after a long while.
Like an unloved cousin, it has
tailed me all day long.

Coming close enough to murmur
in my ear. What it is saying is
unintelligible—whispered sibilant half tones.
The lamentations of dying mollusks
stranded along the sunbaked shoreline.
The grieving call of an un-mothered fawn.

What can be done? Is there anything that
should be done? Are we in danger here?
Is it possible we could drown together?
The two of us bound as one like
Paolo and Francesca in Dante's underworld.

Me, making the motions of trying to live a life;
it doing the only thing it knows how to do—
clutch my shirtsleeve and groan in tune
with the cicada’s last few bootless
serenades to the empty woods.

the cowboy was feeling silly
out on the town looking for
a rambunctious bronking filly

his days worked fast
but felt so long
the nights out on the prairie
were hauntingly cold
but feel so lonely 

the dead sounds echoing
the rolling plains 
silent to all derelict movement
mooned eyed critters
creapy crawling about the feet
not the right kind of
slithering serpent, needed for body heat

the sun in all its glorious 
golden hues sibilate a unity in colors 
waking the unforgiving land
hours behind his
crepuscular sunbaked skin
canvassed in leather scars

riding out from the threshold fears 
in the jilted hearts of
the Apache's political affairs
knowing the doted line
has never been the friend
to a chicken scratch man

his side bar thoughts
meant to entertain 
adjacent to moseying the dusty trail
tailgating a herd of heifer ***
thirsty for a tall wide bottomed glass
filled to the top less of a lid
with a slow ***** pour

hiking a short skirt
bridled to prance around
up and down
the patina fantasies
gidding up in a cowboys mind
going bucking wild
burning his brand for stud