buckeye flour,
almonds,
acorns,
tree-bark,
cacao,
wine

your only criticism is that i split infinitives and spit bitters.

I burnt my hand on the laminator.
You laughed, and continued to talk about tannins,
Drinkable leather,
Even though I couldn't smell them
Over the tobacco from your clothes
That slowly seeps into mine.

I'd come outside with you for a cigarette
A compliment,  maybe not to my lungs,
But I don't mind letting my battered bronchus
Take one more hit so I can laugh with you
About the sommelier placing the wrong cutlery on the table.

I have to keep up
Sharpen my tongue, mind, wit.
More so than those blunt scissors
Which crawled through parchment and maroon ink,
Mimiking the nice red from Chile it described,
Goes well with fish.

I can't imagine you crying,
Though I'm sure you did.
Turning away the sellotape-scarred wooden desk,
Blistered from years of frantic Christmas present wrapping.

Your walk, a sound only comparable to
A bold child clambering up the stairs to bed,
A heavy, determined, "I'm fine" step,
All femur.

Out to the tiny garden, more butts form compost for your vintry.
Only there would you let yourself search,
Rustling through your handbag, past papers and lighters,
For a scrunched up tissue.

To make wine,
Grapes are crushed then poured into fermentation tanks.
Once fermentation begins, the grape skins are pushed to the surface by carbon dioxide gases released in the fermentation process.

I am the only fruit who has the necessary acids to make natural, stable wine.
My tannins add a bitterness and astringency,
But I must be picked at the right time.
My acidity and sweetness must be zen in balance.
The right ones are sorted through, but not all of us make the cut.
Unable to be served as sweet wine, too bitter.
Some more sweet, not bitter enough.
Simply picked at the wrong time, their peak unwanted, forgotten.

After being sorted we are destemmed and crushed.
Our roots ripped from us, dignity stomped upon.
For years, it was done manually, by foot.
Now, preformed mechanically, systematically.
But hey!
"Mechanical pressing has brought tremendous sanitary gains as well as increased the longevity and quality of wine."

Grape abuse continues, white wine grapes are quickly crushed.
Why do you ask?
To keep unwanted "color" from leeching into the wine.
But red wine,
Red wine is left in contact with it's skin, forced to acquire more color, more flavor and additional tannins.

After being sorted and crushed, I naturally ferment with in six to twelve hours.
This continues until all my sugar,
Is converted to alcohol.
To produce dry, wine.

The final stage is aging.
I am bottled with a cork,
Put on a shelf.
And ironically,
await my optimal fruitfulness.

An ever-flowing chalice
of thick red wine
You could choke before you drown
Damnation in excess
Devilry in revelry
Plenty; a curse
Revenge is in the tannins

tea leaves sit soggy, sad
forgotten  at the bottom

of the cup

leaching, bitter tannins
now, forgetting the life they led

no one willing to read their fortune
no spilling of the secrets
they never truly had

just detrius now
from dust to dustbin
the cycle of a tea leaf
long or brief,
happy or sad
a parable, in hot water

once green and lush in colour
in essence, verdent's liquid fame
once used and now just *******
every life has limit, every limit claimed
as we sup, we suffer the race of time
running through our fingers

clamouring at our mind

one day we too,
will be *******
waiting for the dust,
one day we too
shall leach our liquids
in the unforgiving  dust

It's Christmas Eve
and here I sit
drinking a drink
and giving a ****.

The mistletoe's hung
way up in the air
on the semi off-chance
that you'll give a care.

With stockings and trimmings
and **-hoes and tree
and candies and dandies
and gifts not for me.

So welcome to Christmas
a wonderful time
with tannins and balms
and lonely red wine.

She told me over dinner one evening
that I should switch to white wine—
less tannins and calories, she claimed.

I smiled and shook my head,
a vintage cabernet stubbornly clinging
to my bleached white teeth.

The next day I found a couple bottles
of chardonnay chilled in the fridge,
a note tethered to one’s neck:
Drink Me!

I did not.
Four months later,
we signed divorce papers;
she packed her things and left.

I drank the chardonnay that last night,
dizzied by the herringbone pattern
of the old parquet floor, and wondered
what would happen if I ate our frozen cake top.

Leatherbound
Tannins have branded
My fingertips
But the steel still feels and heals
right
I'm at home with this
This wooden body
And slender neck of burnt mahogany
Each string a page in the next great novel
It just hasn't been written yet

We grew in this yard
in between the broken glass and dog ****
vine inches
minutes by hours by days
roots crept in an inconsistent soil
and growing despite

To arrive now with weekend garden centre eyes
you may see weakness in some leaves
that belies the truth of a fragile fruit
long nurtured from blood
and uncompromising viticulture

And if you try to claim the bouquet
or the legs on that glass
or the complexity of hard fought tannins
and subtle warmth
and lasting aftertaste

Then you will see us spit

none more than I,
surprised and wary,
that my all-my-life
urbanized body,
be so unnaturally well attuned
to a slight degree
temperature modification

I,
proud city dweller,
born and bred,
urban dust,
the sandblast used
to erode and etch-a-sketch
my body's skin pores hollows,
by definition, pride and myth,
a tough skin necessified
to survive where
plants cannot

the chill of fall,
and the follow up of
it's 'whiteout' afterwards,
faintly dimly but
remarkably present,
unmistakably different
from the chilling moisture
forming on the ice bucketed bottle
of dinner's colden, golden,
waiting white Sancerre

the lowest, coldest single note
any viola can exhale,
I,
hear coming from Itzhak Perlman's
so close, Shelter Island retreat,
a foghorn warning
clearly felt, smelling its deep fried heard mournful warning,
tonal hum, swelling from the outside in,
not despite, but to pointedly spite
the surrounding humidity condensation of August
on the air cooled window panes

the very same humidity
that makes humans
curse the blessing of sweating,
registering slews of
no-one-cares complaints to
no-ones-listening people,
about the drying out everywhere
wet dampness of the end of the
simmering season

a sliver, a musk,
a prophet's portent,
so subtly well entrenched,
secretly by nature sent,
a realtime single line of code,
message that winter is indeed coming,
but not to the Seven Kingdoms,
but to the Czar's literary summer palace

I,
the sole prosecution witness,
to winter's germination
as the evening cools,
testifying about the acorn droppings
felt beneath flip flops,
like hurtful peas
beneath a princess's ten deep mattresses,
reminders of too soon time to be mourned
as gone, gone, gone
the summer,
the peak of the foliage, the zenith, the crest
of this old and very peculiar man

but one?

how can this be,
one **** degree
of Fahrenheit
leads directly to
sniffles and endless
gesundheists?

one **** degree,
separates the operatic arias,
the shower sing-a-long songs of his summer soul's
contented tented revival,
which now, in these sultry days of  August,
he sings, so swell,
practiced with an artistic style of
summer lazy's 'doing nothing'
so, so well

soon to suffer the mysteries of
the longest day
of wintery night,
where silent snow falling,
beautifies but makes the man
put down his pen and
reread his summer poetry

tonite,
we fine and dine
dressed in summer attire,
sock-less, coolest linen with cotton blended,
only ******, good natured,
political discussions allowed,
some daring souls,
bare their left shoulders,
more tan skin out than in,
while others defend
the natural human right
of man to wear in tandem,
white socks and ugly cargo shorts

all the fabrics, all the friends,
crinkling wrinkling upon the tannins
of sweet brown sugar of caramelized skin

some wearing bright pastels
clean new white T's,
so eye brightening-whiting-delighting,
that they are legally required,
and illegal to wear anytime else,
except for this one abbreviated quarter
of the best days of his life

smell the snow,
hearing  the boots and parkas,
making tramping noises upon snow cleared paths
swimming unhappily across
slushy street corners, almost mountain pass impassable
all these molecules, wafting in the coolness
of the August shore breezes ,
fedex'd  up from the polar south winds
of wintertime Argentina

all of these hints,
present and accounted for
in the atmosphere,
but of them,
I,
do not speak
not out loudly anyway

why,
to be lost beneath,
under the munching noises of summer corn
summer fruits, tongue exploding,
clinking of happy glasses,
toasts of "what a great summer eve!"
the wisdom of silence loudly asserts

for who am I to
rob us the deceit,
the human natural conceit,
that the future is the identity of our
permanent press present

that the unpracticed pleasures
of lapping up breezes,
the genteel salted aroma of
heated sweated forehead beads and sea water,
the cocktail odors of barbecue sauce,
fishing boat's diesel, Campari,
root beer floats,
strawberry shortcake's speaking of its peaking,
little children laughing with carousel joy at
running unshod and free upon bunnies and frogs,
all words and thoughts somehow miracle rhyming with...
forever

soon to end in the
disenchantment of reruns on
a flickering black and white tv night,
once again, no longer obsolete,
unlike the man

the eyes glisten from held back tears,
all come to give me hugs, thinking
the old man, in his white apron is
joyous simply happy or simply,
grill smoke got in his eyes

but that one **** degree...

Captain's Log,
rough seas this morning
as we sailed into
Port Hangover
first mate Asprin taking double shift
as is galleymate Coffee. Unable to make headway against megrim winds.
Also having difficulty navigating nausea reef,
may need to run aground
on Throwasickie island
as vision is becoming blurred.
Put present difficulties
down to attack of tannins, whilst sailing
wide red wine sea,
last watch.

Dean's fists on dashboard
Billie's voice over airwaves
Tannins on our tongues

Boil, boil, toil and trouble
Yeast ferment, airlock bubble
Honey sugars turn to wine
A bouquet of flavors that taste divine
The raisins help give the yeast it’s power
While we wait hour by hour
The oldest alcohol known to man
So we drink it while we can

We brew the honey we brew the yeast
The concoction becomes a mighty beast
We brew it slow to make it strong
The process goes on for very long

You can add some fruit to give it flavor
Or some herbs given by the neighbor
Caramelize the honey to make a brochette
That will surely brighten your day

Add more honey to make it more sweet
Or add some tannins and serve with meat
Weather you have it outside or you decide to stay in
Make sure to take your metheglin

We walked to Sealers Bay, four of us, all women
Bleeding Madonnas on a pilgrimage in the rain, together yet alone
each to her own journey
Moving like the floods of 2011, ready to take out any obstruction
Mud ******* at our feet, rainforest leeches suckling our blood like desperate children
The rhythm of my feet set off a reverie of how I lost my mind just a moment ago.
I found it again, blood pumping in my ears, heart pounding like thunder
The sweat running down my neck made me think of you…wondering where, how, who?  
A futile fancy
Still the rainforest clings to me, my feet echoing on the boardwalk,
the sound of running water filled with tannins
emotions of the forest flowing beneath my feet to Sealers Bay
A beach once stained with the blood of whales lies calm and blue, deceptive
A moment of sunshine found me sprawled on the sand, waves of exertion washed over me
The repose was fleeting.
Nature interrupted sending a shower, and a chill up my spine
A journey is rarely one way and retracing my steps is like retracing a lifetime
…would it have been better if?..
Eventually I turn my mind skyward to a flock of black cockatoos screeching like banshees at the women trudging one foot in front of the other in a winter forest
Nineteen kilometres of contemplation can quieten a busy mind, it is the number of surrender and endurance
The feeling of my toenail lifting in my boot is strangely cathartic
like a mistress, how pain focuses thoughts on the detail
I see tiny red Correas, the *** organs of plants, there for the pleasure of others
My buttocks and calves scream as the incline of the hill steepens, spurring me on
pleasure in pain makes you forget yourself, and the forest
there's just breathe and movement and rhythm

Bottle me up
fill me to the brim
Posture me on your grainy shelf
Watch as I
Scoot my ribbed bottom closer and closer to the ledge
I inching over bourbon blondes
like a solo cup at a wedding
Anxiously awaiting a lofty bouquet toss
I await to be uncorked
Ah, the moment you grip my glass
and collapse a key into me
OPEN and ALIVE.
Please let me air-ate  
Let my maroon acid settle like freckles
on your tongue
See how my tannins feel like cannons right in the ribs down to the gut?
Notice how my words are cabernet crisp?
It is a beautifully intoxicating experience to break me down from solid to liquid

This is not my true form

I am solid.
I am a cascade. a basalt boulder. at the very, least a cloudy glacier not meant to melt and definitely not meant to be bottled.
I am a mountain.
Delicious if you are willing to trek to the top.

Before important business
can start, there's a general
sniffing of the night; a stale
nose of fireworks, perhaps
the evening star? The moon
adds a drop of essence,
beyond the too damp wet
piles of autumn leaves. We
walk, stopping frequently to
sample other joys; a scent
of fox, a whiff of squirrel.
Inside the wine shop I am
greeted by an offer of tasting.
Good boy. Sit. Strong tannins.
rich summer fruit lingers after.
Honey. Figs. Redcurrants.

after a dyed fabric has dried, it may be kept as is,
or treated with a substance bath to alter its appearance.
when treated with tannins, dyed fabric fades.
the industry jargon for this is "saddening";
dulling it, diluting its color till only
a muted, polyphenolic echo remains.
such is to sadden fabric.

and such is how i felt:
plunged into scalding water, adulterated
by the bitter tincture of your amnesiatic neglect.
clench me by the collar of the button-up i wore just for you,
encircle my hollow torso with your corrosive hands
(i starved just for you, almost-lover),
no holds barred, and keep me down under until
i am steeped tasteless, bled of everything that
makes me sing cerulean and cry pewter,
rejoice goldenrod and pen indigo...

and i will be stained the hue of your rapture.
would you love me then, almost-lover?

i want you to (please / don't / touch) me—
to strip me and admire my figure in your myopic vision,
without restraint, because **** makes my heart ache
and this is so much better, is it not? (is it really?)
i want my neck bruised by your vigor,
and collarbone perforated by your teeth;
my tongue will set time to this sordid minuet
of thrice-bitten lips over four spindly limbs
that are unsure of what to do with themselves.

it's these nights i need you more than ever,
almost-lover, when the hospital folds and
seersucker duvet covers of homes away from home
seem to, suffocate, ensnare, cremate
my perspiration-slicked figure whole,
contorted and aching from cold,
in romantic heat death embrace;

in the shades of the gloaming, i sundown,
sometimes with lust but always
with adoration,
with exaltation,
with deification;
laying what feeble oblations have i
on the altar of my old testament god,
who grips indulgence in his left palm
alongside pain.
i am tired but tired never wins.

the harvest comes late and the punishment
is his wrath, my deathless death by his hands,
and in those tainted waters
he could baptize me again and again,
**** me over and over,
till every orifice is inundated with
everything i (never) wanted.

as i force myself to stare at those bare,
writhing bodies for hours, those hours when
carnal leisure so often accompanies vice,
my scratchy, woolen throat abrades at my voice
and i want to retch with each inhale.
as the torpid tide pools of saliva
lap against my cheeks,
an overwhelming sense
of nausea consumes me.
i take these sensations
silently as they come,
moment by moment,
patiently enduring this
migraine of the heart.

i’ll *** for you any night, almost-lover,
if it makes you happy:
my god is just as he is cruel.
sadden me till my epiclesis,
my prayers for intimacy,
are duly answered either with
flesh or scraps of providence
(devout as i am, i will never complain
or be in want of more than i am permitted).

forget the sins i have yet to commit.
forget the sins i am too scared to confess.
forgive them, because i am your
most esteemed worshipper,
a singular boy of faith
in your hell of babylon.

dear god, if i cannot have your love,
i...
will feast on your body in its stead,
taking unholy communion from unclean lips,
in the futile hope of mollifying
the abyss i carved out within.

death comes in many flavors, almost-lover,
but none so decadent as this.