Sweltering insurgencies of electric power chords
Tribal reverberations of skin-stretched drum boards
Rolling and filling; syncopating the noise
Of the ***-less toys
The ****-less boys
Enraptured in the music
The anthem
Of invidious phantoms
My eyes hurt inside and
I want to pull them out and
Scrape out the gunk and rust
that’s behind my self-indulgent perseverance
so I can cry
for the first time in years…

Wrapping my hands around his slender torso
Licking away the paint, the dripping ooze; more so
Than hastening my ****** and mordant urges
To bite what emerges
And my mouth purges
The obelisk from underneath
The iron-pierced jester
The voracious molester
My hand tightens as I grip
his throat tighter and
I want to squeeze until his eyes pop
from his sockets and
laugh until I puke against the walls,
watching the ****** fluids mix
like an execrable marinara sauce…

I turned thirty while still being sixteen
The vivid beauty of the world was only in dreams
But none of mine, none that I can recall
Many years have passed since I took the oral fall
Where no one saw
Intransigent need to live
For the snake in my veins hungered for more
So many had their way
until I was limp and sore.
Defamatory fingers of mire and strife
Probing and stretching
My insides
And devilishly comforting
With limpid ambrosia
That’s infected by bilious worms and maggots covered in icing
And fruit

Amatory gauntlets fastened and secured over
Handless limbs that retract under matriculated frictions
That fracture, crack, morph, distort
Emphasize, marginalize
Rationalize, desensitize
Acts of *******, evasion, moral drainage;
Pieces, bits, chunks, sections, portions, servings;
Arms, legs, eyes, tongues, fingers, toes,
Love, lust, infatuation
Adoration
Boys, girls, women, men,
Angels, demons, monsters, humans
Creators, gods, titans, divas
All extended and limited from the minds that worship
Sanctify, mesmerize, glorify, rectify
While humans eat more, love more, **** more
Than the angels, demons, monsters, and titans
We ponder and cherish
Nevermore, for me
Ever lore, for all
Crows surround
And chaos found.

Utterly enchanted 'neath
  mesmerizing constellations,
as an entranced blue moon
    swoons over sparkling
           celestial diamonds,
cello's were eloquently playing
  serenading starry stratospheres  
     within an endearing melody
           and milky ways of poetry,
simultaneously syncopating
   strumming pizzicato heartstrings,
tuning our harmonious passages
      of rhythm and rhyme 'pon
apricot mist sunset horizons &
   seraphic skies rendered of
          lapis lazuli sunrise grandeur

Shahrazad, dancer of the night
Behind the purple lattice of Persian screens
You dance to the rhythm of ancient music
Swirling in the mirth of frankincense
Spinning into the night.

I drink from the silver chalice of your smile
Seeing crescent moons reflected in your eyes,
The echoes of singing voices radiate the vision of desert nights
As I feel my passion flowing
A river of silver and gold melting into distant plateaus.

Desert enchantress,
Spinning your dance eternal in the lapis depths of evening's promise
I surrender now to your smile
Let me drown in the music of your dark eyes
Your seductive voice,
Leading me to misty moonscapes and ruined castle walls.

Shahrazad,
Swaying to the syncopating rhythms of drums and bells
Beneath a Persian moon
Drawing me to the magic of your spell.

Cut, cut, cut.
This is true.

There is no other
Way through—

Feel my head.
It is heavier than God’s,

An Iberian sculpture
Jam-packed with *****.

Misery blackens it.
Sweet Lady,

I want a Picasso smile.
No one comprehends!

I am all alone,
A Buddhist bud

Rising, falling, rising
Choking on its

Indelible, sick scents.
Those silver hooks

Cast nastiness,
Smirking

“We got her again”.
O heart,

You fill me with irony:
I cannot adore someone

Unless they adore me.
You never do me good.

I’d throw you out
If I could,

Sitting around
Bored as a Leopard,

Syncopating Satan :
You amuse me to death.

Pretty boy,
Dumb girl,

Beaten mother,
Hateful Father,

Make me numb.
My skin is a sky

Of Samurais.
That is that, that is that.

**** me.
I won’t come back.

Ive still got your hands locked around my throat like a noose and its cold
cold as summer rain when spring breaks
there is still frost up in the mountains for gods sake
and when i hear you sing its like whatever heaven is supposed to be breaks
and holds me in its celestial proverbial arms and rocks me gently
when you sing the vibrations shake my soul and resonate deeply and completely
and you let all your vocal chords ring out in beautiful chords
that i try to play on my guitar but they always sound flat
and this old hat that i wear on my head seems to travel more than i will
as its been to brazil and i thank roger for that
but i digress cause the point is to say
when you sing it brings me to a place i only dream
and it seems that with each breath you take
it makes my heart quiver and shake and break into a thousand pieces
but it only takes a crescendo to bring it back together so please sing for me baby
i know your register better than you do so please sing for me baby
when im old and grey and beatdown and blue i will remember you
i will remember you as one thousand melodies carrying through the trees
i will remember every word you said to me but I will remember them as a song
blowing down the streets on cold winter mornings and hot summer days
through the hallways and alleyways
on the highways and freeways
syncopating with the hum of my tired engine
running on fumes and memories of afternoons and evenings listening to you sing
so before you go one last encore
one last song to ease me into my cosmic core
as i lay on the shore of the great south bay
like it was on the first day and like it will be on this the last
sing me something slow but with fast parts that catch me off guard
like the first time I heard the pixies in my bestfriends backyard
something that will send chills down my spine and relax my mind
to solidify this truth that to me is self evident
as my energy is spent i need to hear you sing your song
in this place that was always tuned to so different a key
please sing for me baby
please just sing for me baby

You have to start
by finding things
to burn.

Turn the island
into a tinderbox.

Fill your truck with driftwood
and detritus hustled up from
derelict construction sites.

Scavenge plywood scraps
and lengths of two-by-fours.

Find a spot beneath the dunes
and dig into the still-warm sand,
your rusted shovel syncopating

with the rhythm of the waves,
crunching into the cool dark
hollow of a deepening pit.

By dusk, the hole will be capable
of containing everything you want
to burn.

Set the shovel down.

When the darkness
finds you all alone,
take the lighter fluid
in one hand
and a match
in the other.

Wait for the
wind to die.

If you do it right,
the orange embers
will crack and rise,
truant children
ushered home
by pacing stars.

If you do it right,
the smell of salt and smoke
will stay with you for days.

If you do it right,
the bonfire will
bloom like a flower
and consume itself
all night long.

In the morning,
your work will
have healed, doctored
by persistent currents
and the extinguishing
sweep of high tide.

I no longer call your name into the night
no more do my hands fit to yours
I have forgotten how your voice sounds
it took some time, but my heart stopped syncopating to the beat of yours
and in the process of letting go of you I became mine.

It's been raining 3 days now
I wondered if it would ever come.

At first just a drizzle, to usher the fall
The season of change is now a downpour

I don't mind it,
I've changed too.

Letting go is liberating
So I'll watch the raindrops
As they fill my world with beats
Syncopating the freedom in my heart.

Blue jeans and bangles,
Mr. Bo Jangles
Black shirt and pendant,
A rebel unrepentant…..
Dyed hair and wrist bands,
Henna in your hands……..

But I am not blind,
I see you in my mind………

A confusion in rhapsody
A contradiction in harmony
Changing colors, off-key hues,
Syncopating off-beat cues…….

I want to see you in tuxedo
Where no crossovers,
Cross the line…..
I want to see you as you were
No make-over,No pretense…
When the fusion ends
And the fugue begins…..

For no matter how they change you
No matter what they say,
Your tuxedo origin will show
And there, your heart will go…..

Back to where it all began
Back when you were just a man….

No fame,
No game,

I love you now
And I will love you more,

Back then,
Back when,

You were just a man
Behind the piano

Curl up against me
Lay your head upon my chest
And listen to me
As my syncopating heart
Beats a song of love for you

it was summer
june, maybe july, I'm not sure
but it was raining and we were sitting in the parking lot of my favorite bookstore
you were behind the wheel of your truck, the seat just a little leaned back and my head was in your lap and your hand was in my hair.
I had bought Ariel, you had bought Spoon River Anthology, you said you wanted to get into poetry.
and you read it to me, the gentle waves of your voice syncopating with the steady beat of rain outside, and they made a music that made my breath catch in my throat
the windows fogged
I pulled the book out of your hands and tossed it in the backseat, so I could kiss you and feel your heartbeat in my ears
you smelled like sweat and salt and sunshine, you smelled like summer
and I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you

Our hearts are charged with
Love’s electricity, its
Rioting thunder.

That divine madness
Of her sensibility
Overwhelms us and

Makes heart exultant.
Fibres quake, electron fire
Cascading through me.

Heart wakes and goes wild
Like a wanderlust troubadour
Seeking the next song

Wildernesses, hearts
Are overgrown and rebel
Against cages, they

Demand perfect care.
A mesmerizing mantra
Consists in heart beat,

Syncopating care,
Notating all our loves, joys;
The muscle of prayer.

i'm as tiny as a fake something 
in the middle of nowhere
on the edge of nothing
wing-like 
with brazen teeth for grinning bites 
and the knee of listening 
howling into a phone
telling of hunger for food and herb
in a dream of diagraming sleep

~~~

she has no respect for the weak
hating her vulnerability
shrunken living in a cardboard room
stiff and dry the size of the sky
ranting tears in braids of rain
a five o'clock shadow of begging meditations
until deaths' lips formed the shape of O 
shaping a tunnel rimed in late afternoon
telling me her body is but metaphor
for orbiting angels
a fashionable estate of limbs
in apple fruited curved headlands
and demitasse islands of past desire
floating in pink glimmering heavenly clouds
licking the blue
where the emptiness of life used to be

she shimmers rainbow tranquilizers 
packaged by twos 
in shinny tinfoil marvels
slick as icicles
for the perfect dose 
you can feel in your hand like braille 

at tongues touch 
it folds into dark warm nothing
showing her that death 
has it's own special charisma
like calico tattoos
or syncopating neon moons

deaths mouth opens like an opera singer 
and eats her eyes 
till these sunken alters liquidate
and breath ascends distant from the ache of want
in the knee of forgetting
red and wet
black as crows

These Saturday mornings
are profound
crinkled sheets
and coffee speaks
in tongues
I wander
through words
and rhyme
syncopating time
and space
and the pace
of sound
my mind
navigates
the newfound
breath
as my pen’s
unkempt cursive
forgets
time
I descend
completely
into my
rhyme

In early dawn I watch
the syncopating rhythm
of yellowing elm leaves falling,
wounded by an autumn storm
their drifting seems so gentle
but I slept through the storm
its violence ripping off a limb.
There is no healing of this feud.

I loved that limb and its bird feeder.
Is my small grief wasted
or does it cling to my soul
in tiny measure
to deepen it
like forgiveness after a marital tiff?

supposing there's a group house or
mansions, cabins, possibly tents
I'm sure my dad would pass those up
for timber and a good toolbox
a Husqvarna° power saw
what we called chainsaws and a Skil°
saw, also known as power saw
down here where dinner's had at noon
myself in syncopating spurts,
small deaths & dancing verbs likewise
would choose to build some sheltering
of flesh transcribed, raw hewn with tools
inadequate to make a stand,
but you know what i mean again

Your name,
Repeating in my mind,
A syncopating rhythm when the nights are long.

Your name,
Providing solace, hope, and longing.

Your name,
Belonging to every iteration of who you have ever been, and who you’ll ever be.

Your name,
Containing multitudes of wonder bestowed to its owner.