The first settlers to the area called the Lumber River Drowning Creek. The river got its name for its dark, swift-moving waters. In 1809, the North Carolina state legislature changed the name of Drowning Creek to the Lumber River. The headwaters are still referred to as Drowning Creek.

Three p.m. on a Sunday.
Anxiously hungry, I stay dry, out of the pool’s cold water,
taking the light, dripping into my pages.
A city with a white face blank as a bust
peers over my shoulder.
Wildflowers on the roads. Planes circle from west,
come down steeply and out of sight.
A pinkness rises in my breast and arms:
wet as the drowned, my eyes sting with sweat.
Over the useless chimneys a bank of cloud piles up.
There is something terrible in the sky, but it keeps breaking.
Another is dead. Fentanyl. Sister of a friend, rarely seen.
A hand reaches everywhere to pass over eyes and mouths.
A glowing wound opens in heaven.
A mirror out of doors draws a gyre of oak seeds no one watches,
in the clear pool now sunless and black.

Bitter water freezes the muscles and I am far from shore.
I paddle in the shallows, near the wooden jail.
The water reflects a taut rope,
feet hanging in the breeze singing mercy
at the site of the last public hanging in the state.
A part-white fugitive with an extorted confession,
loved by the poor, dumb enough to get himself captured,
lonely on this side of authority: a world he has never lived in
foisting itself on the world he has -
only now, to steal his drunken life, then gone again.

1871 - Henderson Oxendine, one of the notorious gang of outlaws who for some time have infested Robeson County, N. C., committing ****** and robbery, and otherwise setting defiance to the laws, was hung at Lumberton, on Friday last in the presence of a large assemblage. His execution took place a very few days after his conviction, and his death occurred almost without a struggle.

Today, the town square collapses as if scorched
by the whiskey he drank that morning to still himself,
folds itself up like Amazing Grace is finished.
A plinth is laid
in the shadow of his feet, sticky with pine,
here where the water sickens with roots.
Where the canoe overturned. Where the broken oar floated and fell.
Where the snake lives, and teethes on bark,
waiting for another uncle.

Where the tobacco waves near drying barns rusted like horseshoes
and cotton studs the ground like the cropped hair of the buried.
Where schoolchildren take the afternoon
to trim the kudzu growing between the bodies of slaves.
Where appetite is met with flood and fat
and a clinic for the heart.
Where barges took chips of tar to port,
for money that no one ever saw.

Tar sticks the heel but isn’t courage.
Tar seals the hulls -
binds the planks -
builds the road.
Tar, fiery on the tongue, heavy as bad blood in the family -
dead to glue the dead together to secure the living.
Tar on the roofs, pouring heat.
Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon,
obtained from a wide variety of organic materials
through destructive distillation.
Tar in the lungs will one day go as hard as a five-cent candy.

Liberty Food Mart
Cheapest Prices on Cigarettes
Parliament $22.50/carton
Marlboro $27.50/carton

The white-bibbed slaughterhouse Hmong hunch down the steps
of an old school bus with no air conditioner,
rush into the cool of the supermarket.
They pick clean the vegetables, flee with woven bags bulging.
What were they promised?
Air conditioning.
And what did they receive?
Chickenshit on the wind; a dead river they can't understand
with a name it gained from killing.

Truth:
A man was flung onto a fencepost and died in a front yard down the street.
A girl with a grudge in her eyes slipped a razorblade from her teeth and ended recess.
I once saw an Indian murdered for stealing a twelve-foot ladder.
The red line indicating heart disease grows higher and higher.
The red line indicating cardiovascular mortality grows higher and higher.
The red line indicating motor vehicle deaths grows higher and higher.
I burn with the desire to leave.

The stories make us full baskets of dark. No death troubles me.
Not the girl's blood, inert, tickled by opiates,
not the masked arson of the law;
not the smell of drywall as it rots,
or the door of the safe falling from its hinges,
or the chassis of cars, airborne over the rise by the planetarium,
three classmates plunging wide-eyed in the river’s icy arc –
absent from prom, still struggling to free themselves from their seatbelts -
the gunsmoke at the home invasion,
the tenement bisected by flood,
the cattle lowing, gelded
by agriculture students on a field trip.

The air contains skin and mud.
The galvanized barns, long empty, cough up
their dust of rotten feed, dry tobacco.
Men kneel in the tilled rows,
to pick up nails off the ground
still splashed with the blood of their makers.

You Never Sausage a Place
(You’re Always a ****** at Pedro’s!)
South of the Border – Fireworks, Motel & Rides
Exit 9: 10mi.

Drunkards in Dickies will tell you the roads are straight enough
that the drive home will not bend away from them.
Look in the woods to see by lamplight
two girls filling each other's mouths with smoke.
Hear a friendly command:
boys loosening a tire, stuck in the gut of a dog.
Turn on the radio between towns of two thousand
and hear the tiny voice of an AM preacher,
sharing the airwaves of country dark
with some chords plucked from a guitar.
Taste this water thick with tannin
and tell me that trees do not feel pain.
I would be a mausoleum for these thousands
if I only had the room.

I sealed myself against the flood.
Bodies knock against my eaves:
a clutch of cats drowned in a crawlspace,
an old woman bereft with a vase of pennies,
her dead son in her living room costumed as the black Jesus,
the ***** oil of a Chinese restaurant
dancing on top of black water.
A flow gauge spins its tin wheel
endlessly above the bloated dead,
and I will pretend not to be sick at dinner.

Misery now, a struggle ahead for Robeson County after flooding from Hurricane Matthew
LUMBERTON
After years of things leaving Robeson County – manufacturing plants, jobs, payrolls, people – something finally came in, and what was it but more misery?

I said a prayer to the city:
make me a figure in a figure,
solvent, owed and owing.
Take my jute sacks of wristbones,
my sheaves and sheaves of fealty,
the smell of the forest from my feet.
Weigh me only by my purse.
A slim woman with a college degree,
a rented room without the black wings
of palmetto roaches fleeing the damp:
I saw the calm white towers and subscribed.
No ingrate, I saved a space for the lost.
They filled it once, twice, and kept on,
eating greasy flesh straight from the bone,
craning their heads to ask a prayer for them instead.

Downtown later in the easy dark,
three college boys in foam cowboy hats shout in poor Spanish.
They press into the night and the night presses into them.
They will go home when they have to.
Under the bridge lit in violet,
a folding chair is draped in a ***** blanket.
A grubby pair of tennis shoes lay beneath, no feet inside.
Iced tea seeps from a chewed cup.
I pass a bar lit like Christmas.
A mute and pretty face full of indoor light
makes a promise I see through a window.
I pay obscene rents to find out if it is true,
in this nation tied together with gallows-rope,
thumbing its codex of virtues.

My Mom needed something from the store
So I told her I’d walk up there for her and get it.
We were barely getting by
The two of us.
She was living on a disability check
And I was in between jobs
Again
So these little walks to the store were all I had.
I got her some Epsom salts and was walking back
Had just walked past the hardware store
When a small, sleek, black, BMW pulled up next to me.
To my surprise it was a chick
A big titted redhead with pink sunglasses.
There was something in her eyes
When she peeked below the sunglasses
I saw something in them
that frightened me
A voice inside was screaming at me
Just keep walking
Just keep walking
But like a fool
I ignored it
And bent over the passenger seat
In the convertible that smelled new.
“How big is your ****?”
The lady asked
Her chest just heaving and jiggling
With every breath she took
And every word she spoke.
“What?”
“I said….how big is your ****?”
“Ha ha!”
I took a look around
Expecting to see a hidden camera
Or a film crew in a van across the street.
There was no one
No witnesses.
I leaned back down
“7 inches? Maybe 8? I don’t know lady, I haven’t measured my **** since the 11th grade!”
The redhead took off the sunglasses completely and looked me up and down
Those bright green eyes scanning me
From my worn out Converse to my greasy pompadour on my head.
It seemed like an eternity
I got uncomfortable.
Just standing there
Squirming
While the redheaded fox
Kept inspecting me.
“Okay. Get in. Hurry up.”
I wasn’t even thinking
Just reacting to it all.
I’d always dreamed of this
When I was walking down that
Same old ******* street
The only street that I ever saw
Dreaming of
A beautiful woman in a sports car.
And now here she was.
Here we were
Driving down the street
The breeze blowing in our hair
She made an immediate right turn
Onto a suburban side street.
She parked in front of a house that was up for sale.
Again she took off the sunglasses.
“Let me see it.”
She said, staring at my crotch.
“Whoa, whoa, lady. What’s this all about?”
“My husband and I…..we have certain…..tastes. Things we like, things we enjoy. He’s an older guy, so he likes to watch young guys **** me. I mean, just really give it to me good, make me scream. And of course after your services have been….rendered….you’ll be paid two-thousand dollars. Now do you think you can do that?”
“Uh……I—I think so.”
“Well, I need you to know so. And if you were bullshitting me, if that **** isn’t at least 7 inches, you can get out of the car right ******* now.”
“No it is, it is.”
“Well...”
“Well...you gotta start my engine first—“
Before I could finish my cheesy line
She was in the passenger seat
Climbing on top of me.
“Rip it open” She said looking down.
I did as I was told
And ripped the front of her blouse open
The buttons flying in all directions
Bouncing off the windows and rolling on the dashboard.
Her two, round, fake, **** sprang out of the top
Hitting me in the face
As she rubbed them up and down
And all around.
She kissed me sloppily
And then started in with that biting *******.
She met my lip so hard
It drew blood
acting purely on reflex
I grabbed her by the arms very hard
And pulled her back from me
Staring at her with those crazy, intense, eyes
That I sometimes got when startled.
“Oh…..” She said looking down, at the ******* in my Levi’s.
“Alright. You wanna see the house?” She asked.
I let go of her arms and she rolled off of me,
hopping into the driver’s seat and starting the car up.

She drove all the way to the edge of the city
Where the Red Mountains in the east
Meets the long winding road out of town
And into the desert.
It was a large ranch style mansion
Decorated with cowboy themed ****.
The redhead parked the sports car in
A massive garage
Filled with dozen of rare and expensive automobiles .
She told me to leave my plastic grocery bag of Epsom salts
In the car
She said I could get it later, when we were done.
I followed her to an elevator at the back of the garage.
We took it all the way down to the very bottom.
Stepping out of the elevator
I found myself in a large expansive grey room.
The floors were concrete
But they were shiny and slick
Reminded me of the floor in the meat department
At the job I had just lost.
The room had a few beds in it
Some custom built sets were erected all over the room
An office, a jail cell, a medieval dungeon, a medical examination room,
There were a lot these little sets built all over
In the back of the room
The corners
Were pitch black and covered in darkness.
I wondered what they had over there.
“So what do we do?” I asked, fidgeting in my pants
thumbing my switchblade stiletto in my right front pocket.
“We have to wait for my husband to come down. I just texted him.”
“Oh okay.”
“You should take your clothes off and put this on.”
The redhead said, taking a hospital gown from a hanger
Next to the medical examination set.
“….put that on and I’m gonna go get into character.”
She said, walking behind a white privacy screen
The old kind, like they used to have in doctor’s offices.
I undressed myself and got into the hospital gown.
I can’t say what it was exactly
But I still had that real nervous feeling
I couldn’t ignore it
So for some reason
I hid my switchblade on me.
Put it in the waistband of my underwear.
And that made me feel a little bit safer
This whole thing was beyond belief
I was never this lucky
Something was rotten in Denmark
I could feel it in my bones.
But there was no backing out now
I was riding this all the way
No choice.
I took a seat on the medical examination table
The thin paper crunching loudly beneath my ***
They had it down to the finest detail.
Even the little slots with the Highlights magazines.
I watched the black & white clock on the wall
And it took them 28 minutes to finally come out
The two of them together.
The tall, beautiful, redhead and the rich old man.
But they matched in an odd way
His face was nearly the same color as her hair.
A red faced, big nosed, drinker,
I’ve seen that face a thousand times
Ain’t no mistakin’ it.
He had white hair all spiked up
Like how young people have it
And he wore nothing but gold
All over himself.
Gold necklace, full fists of rings, bracelets,
I couldn’t ******* believe it
I tried my best not to laugh
I was snorting to myself
The ******* had a Mercedes medallion around his neck
Like Flavor Flav or something, it was that flamboyant.
But the guy was like 70 years old
None of it made any ******* sense.
The florescent lighting above
it did this thing where
his eyes were so sunken in
that it created these two black shadows
where his eyes should’ve been
just pitch black
endlessly hollow and empty
with a red face.
Satan himself, covered in gold and diamonds.

“What’s up?” He said, extending his well tanned, leathery claw.
“Hey.”
“Alright, so let’s not waste any time. Let’s get down to business? Huh?”
“Yeah, sure.” I said.
“**** yeah! Let’s ****! You wanna **** him baby?”
”Why do you think I got him? Hell, I almost ****** him on the way home.”
“Did you now?” He said, looking over at me with this look
I couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or rage.
“Alright, alright then.”
The chick started to walk up the three little steps
Of the examination table
Her feet were pale as snow and her toes
Shiny and red like a the paint job on a brand new Cadillac in 1956
I remember that.
She climbed on top of me
Started kissing me and
Rubbing my ****
Under the examination gown.
From the corner of my eye
I saw the husband moving over to the camera
Which was setup a few feet away
Looked to be hi-def ****.
She bit my lip again
Really ******* hard
Pulled a big chunk of skin off
“*******!” I yelled.
“What?” The husband shouted back.
“He hates it when I bite him!” The redhead shouted with a smile
blood on her lips, from mine.
“Well, don’t take any **** son! If she does that again, you just give her a good smack!”
“What?”
“Yeah, don’t be timid boy! This ain’t ******’ Sunday school! We’re ******’, here!”
She did it again
And I wasn’t even thinking of what that old coot was yelling about
I just hit her on principle.
A good open handed smack across the cheek.
“There ya ******’ go! That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
The old man threw his hands in the air
And started doing this little dance it was the weirdest ****
I had ever seen.
The redhead grabbed my face with her hands
Taking my eyes off the old man
Who was now singing some song
And shuffling around the floor.
She looked right into my eyes
Those mint colored eyes
She whispered to me
But I read her lips
“I’m sorry.”
And she pulled me in and kissed me
Put my hands to her *******
And proceeded to kiss me
Like a long lost love
Not some guy off the street.
And that’s the last thing I remember.
Besides the ***** of the needle in my neck.
Just her red hair hanging in my face
The florescent light shining through.
When I came to
I was standing upright
But I was strapped to a table
My arms
My legs
My head
Every part of me strapped down
Tight.
I wasn’t going anywhere
This was that bad feeling I got when she looked at me.
This was where it ended. Right now.
They were both standing there
Staring at me
Smiling with drinks in their hands
The cameras rolling
They had multiple cameras setup
Some 80’s techno playing from an iPod dock.
“What? What are you gonna do?” I slurred, it was hard to talk.
“I know, I’m sorry. Okay, look. We both agree that you probably are owed an explanation, I mean….these being your last moments and all…”
The redhead interrupted, looking at me, like she had before
There was love in her eyes
“Honey…remember what I said? About how there are things that we like and things that we enjoy? I’m sorry, but this is what we like.”
“*****?” I managed to choke out,
just the sound of the words chilled my ******* blood.
“Yeah. Hey…son, let me tell ya…we’re actually saving you a whole lot of heartache and disappointment. You weren’t gonna go anywhere, you weren’t going to accomplish anything. You’d work the same **** jobs, bouncing from one to the other, until you finally died of either ***** or drugs.”
“It’s for the best, sweetie.” The redhead said.
And I’d love to tell you that
They left the room for a few minutes
And I was able to free my hand
Taking the switchblade
From my underwear
Cutting myself free
Killing them both
And cleaning out their safe’s cash and diamonds.
But this was no movie.
Well not the kind with a happy ending anyway.
That’s when she walked over to the table
And grabbed the knife.
The song on the iPod changed
And I instantly recognized it.
It was the song.
I never could explain why
But as a boy
This song would come on the radio
This 80’s electro song
And it always scared the **** out of me
Turned my stomach
I never knew why
But now it all made sense.
That song would be the last thing I ever heard.
With the cameras rolling
The redhead gave me one more kiss.
I closed my eyes and pretended.
I pretended that she was a girl that loved me
That she was kissing me goodnight
Sending me off with a smile.
I just kept my eyes closed
Squeezing them tight
And I didn’t even feel the knife
When she slit my throat right there
In that slick, shiny, grey basement.
It didn’t hurt
I didn’t feel any pain.
Just warmth.
The blood flowing down the front of my neck and chest
pure warmth sliding down me
And I started to get light headed
Everything getting dark
Very quickly.
I could hear my heartbeat
In sync with a high-pitched ringing in my ears.
The last thing I saw
Was the redhead standing there
Luckily the husband had his head behind the camera
So I didn’t have his scary face as the last thing I ever saw.
No
It was the redhead
And those mint green eyes.
They never found my body.
The couple put me through a wood chipper
And fed my scraps to their dogs
After slicing off my biceps for dinner that night.
They went on doing this for years
Picking up guys and girls from the streets
who were down on their luck
And wouldn’t be high profile missing persons.
They acquired hundreds of DVD’s
Selling these ***** films
To their elite and powerful
Friends in high places.
But they justified it all.
Surely I wouldn’t be missed.
I didn’t have a mother
Like they had a mother
I didn’t laugh and love
Like they did
I was expendable
Disposable
Use once and discard.
The rich eating the poor
Blood meal for their insatiable & gruesome appetites.
It’s okay though.
I’m not mad or anything now.
It’s just blackness
A dreamless sleep
I don’t even know how I’m telling you this
But the worst part
The thing I still think about the most
Is my mother.
And what she must of thought
When her only son
Went to the store for her
Epsom salts
And just never came back.

Saguaros stood
like spiny-sentinels
as I sped along the Camino,
alone,
top down.
Warm winds &
tequila-breath
burned my shot-eyes
when I first spotted
the thumbing Lupita,
way south of Ensenada
on good 'ole 1.
Her graceful
toothy-smile
under her full lips
seemed gracious
as I pulled up
alongside her,
kicked the door open.

She hopped in
& we catapulted
with her hair streaming &
brown-skin shining
in the falling sun.
We hit high speeds
smiling
as we continued
south, driving
into the coming night.

Twinkling-stars
& static-filled
La Bamba-tunes
kept us company.
We discussed
sacred-mysteries
in broken languages,
later, counted
each others toes,
rubbed noses
in my bedroll.

In the morning,
she was gone
left me a note
& the ruffled rose
she had pinned
in her raven-black hair.

As I drove off
in a dreamy-state,
somewhat disappointed,
a spiraling one,
a lone black bird
trailed behind me,
I'm sure it was her.

Soon, she disappeared
from my rear view memory,
but never out of my mind.

My dream girl found a lover
She speaks of him in rhyming lines
the joy she feels dancing between every heart shaped syllable,
thumbing it's nose at my breaking heart.

My dream girl found a lover
the deal was sealed with a rain soaked kiss
and hands that fit just-so.
A love tightly bound,
according to her rose tinted ink.

My dream girl found a lover
I hope he hears the fragility in her sighs
over the beauty that radiates when her smile crinkles her nose,
for that alone can distract a man from the sound of breaking.

My dream girl found a lover
to mend her broken heart,
a coveted position filled.
Leaving me forever dreaming
of almosts and half smiles.

The clock gets me.
It comes to me in the middle of the night
Pulls back the sheets and says, "Hey fucko."
Then it lifts open my sobby wet sand-encrusted lids,
It knows when I'm trying at sleep, pumping quarters
Like I was swallowing yawns, sometimes I try to squint
Harder and take a dream to the next level, whatever
The next level is. It's like Friday night when I wanted to go
Out to do something, whatever something is.
Because I know that if I don't I'll miss that thing that's so
Important that if I were to miss it the clock wouldn't come for me

Again.
And on Tuesday's when I'm knotting a dream around 2 o' clock
In the morning, my web-footed adventure, say, killing your

Boyfriend, say
Fighting the Nazis, say,
Rediscovering that you sent nudie pics to
That rando guy we met in that club that lives
in Prague-
I throw the clock at the ******* wall.

Because who knows, I make the bed wrong
Or maybe I don't cook right, or look right, or
Smile the right way at the right

Time. And you start thinking that I have to die.
The bane of my existence is an imagined feat in your
Walnut-sized brain, slowly numbing us while we're
Supposed to be, say

Listening to the rich, Oxford voice of
David Attenborough.

Instead you're thumbing through that index
of CVS cashiers, just trying to find a scruffy face
To flip your digits to, your homemade justification. It becomes
A feat, an unjust cause of mine to

Get it right, that imaginative and artificial bit you've
Been sewing up Monday twilight.

That's when I go out and jaw your sister, somewhere between
A smirk on your face and a bit of anger at the end of your sentences.

Petite arctic terns
navigate the sky
on epic migration
wings clocking
45,000 miles each year

it seems they know
how to go
with the flow
by thumbing a lift
on atmospheric airways

that crisscross the planet
adding thousands of
seemingly needless miles
to an already
arduous journey

flocks congregate
in open ocean
to rest and fuel up
on fish and krill
for the last push home

these tenacious birds
understand
the cliché
it's all about
the journey

they synchronize
with invisible currents
because to beat
into the wind
is a futile expenditure

they pause
in community
to re-energize and feed
on unfathomable
bounty

four ounces
of feather
and hollow bone
instinctively holds
these truths

there is much
to be learned
from an
arctic
tern.

Bodhidharma, the first Zen patriarch,
told Emperor Wu that merit
meant nothing;
but great emptiness
revealed by sitting facing a wall
had great merit.
Wu was perplexed.

Patriarch number two, Hui-k’o,
faced a granite wall in a forest for seven years;
it became his beloved.

Seng-Tsan, the third Zen patriarch wrote poems
and his legendary Hsinhsinming verse
transcended all the unnecessary duality
in the mind’s mire.

Tao-Hsin, patriarch number four,
said don’t’ stare at a wall,
just do the laundry
and watch the clear water
turn brown
then pour it onto the vegetables in the garden
when you’re done.

Patriarch five, Hung-Jen
meditated from age six staring at the horizon
and said if you find the line between sky and land and sea
you slip into infinity
with no sky, land and sea
just one place for the mind to finally rest.

Hui-Neng came next;
no wall
no laundry water
no heavenly horizon
just fascinating monkey mind
sometimes full, sometimes empty
running whichever way, whenever,
and that was all good.

The 300-year Tang dynasty
had three wild man patriarchs-
Ma-Tzu shouted constantly;
Pai-Ching did laundry,
and Huang-Po told everyone
they were already enlightened
and should not bother  with Zen at all.

Lin-Chi was the Jesus of Zen
who loved everybody everyday.
He taught the heart’s clear natural action,
compassion, not walls and laundry and trying not to think.
His love was wiser than his mind.

The patriarchs of zen
taught more than a thousand years
before I grew up an American idiot
in a materialistic world
populated by narcissistic borderline freaks
thumbing smartphones in leather car seats
never doing laundry
afraid to face the walls
built of brick made
mortared tight together
with the fear
of their own compassionlessness.

meggie
was thumbing
through her
fair trade
“style with a
conscience”
holiday catalog

eyeing
baby organics
indulgent Alpaca’s
green gear for guys
dining as nature intended, and
the best reusable shopping bags, period!

“What do you want for
Christmas Dad?”

“just be a good girl, meggie.”
I answered.

“I’m gonna get you a pair of socks
for Christmas Dad.”

“I don’t need an expensive
pair of socks.  megs...

After a couple of washes
one always gets lost
inside the bottomless
tumbler.

Leaving only one to lay
inside a chest of drawers,
in the company of
happy matched pairs,
waiting to warm my
Lamisil wanting toes

One sock
alone and unhappy
its a really sad story.

Radio Arcade: Socks Song

Suffern
11/8/13
jbm

I need to know something. I don’t know if you want to tell me or not, but I really don’t care. You’re gonna tell me or you’re gonna find yourself in a world of trouble. I’m already ****** and it won’t take much to push me over the edge into dangerously angry territory.

No, **** it. Never mind. I’m ALREADY in “dangerously angry territory”. No, it wasn’t your fault. I was already close enough I could see the other side of reason before you came along.

But it would still be nice to know, if you’re willing to tell me. I mean, I’m not going to force it from you. That was the plan just a moment ago, but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided that my bitterness is not your fault. I won’t make you pay for it.

Yet I do feel as if it would do me a world of good to know.

Where were you when I was falling in love?

Were you sitting in a back seat of a crowded subway train with a cup of Starbucks coffee in one hand and a copy of “The Catcher in the Rye” in the other, holding it in front of your face as if it’s pages were a fascinating mirror? Was there an old man sitting near who turned to look at you every so often to the point where it creeped you out? Maybe you eventually said something to him, like “Excuse me, but is there something you wanted to say to me?"

“Why would you get that idea?” he would ask, as if he were totally oblivious to his invasive nature.

“I don’t know…you just keep looking at me and I wondered if there were a reason for it.”

“Nope. Not that I can think of.”

Did you smack him real good right then? Did you draw blood? I hope you did. I hope the driver had to stop the train to come back and drag you off of him. It would have been a real drag if the police had to be summoned, but on the other hand, wow, how ****** the thought of you resisting arrest.

Or did you cower into your corner, turn a page in your book and let the lecherous ******* carry on? I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. I don’t think that’s the kind of girl you are. I think you’re a firecracker.

And I think that wherever you were when I was falling in love is not where I wanted you to be. Not where you should have been.

Because I fell in love with a robot. Who knows why I fell in love with an ottoman? I didn’t know she was one at the time. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to fall in love with a machine? No, she was flesh and bones when I met her. She seemed normal, like all the other women I’ve ever seen or known.

But then she started smoking cigarettes. She carried them around in a little soft leather pouch that could be mistaken for nothing else but a case for holding the little *******.

God I hate cigarettes. I hate the smell of them, whether they’re lit or not. I hate the dark tan color of their filters with the little white dots speckled randomly. I hate the cotton that stuffs their filters. I hate the white paper with the almost imperceptible stripes banding around their length. I hate how the brand is stamped close to the base of the filter. I hate the packages that they come in and the cellophane that wraps them. I hate how stray flecks of tobacco gather in the bottom of the boxes and the wrappers, too. I hate how they make a person’s breath stink. I hate how they make a person’s clothes reek. I hate the way they look in a shirt pocket. I hate the way they look between people’s fingers and in their mouths. I hate the way they burn down to the nub and the ash that they leave behind. I hate pitch black nicotine stains on ******* smokers’ hands. I hate the way some people put one between their ear and noggin and actually think it makes them look cool. I hate how smokers seem to have some code of sharing, how it’s always “Hey, can I *** a smoke from you?” and 99 times out of 100 the answer is “sure”. It’s never, “Okay, but you gotta pay me back.” Oh no, Smoker’s Karma is at work here. I hate the way too many people call ‘em “smokes”. “I’m off to get a pack of smokes.” Good God, I think that’s lame. “Smokes”. Ha. I hate the way smokers ***** about laws that prohibit them from smoking in public and how so many of them have absolutely no regard for non-smokers who not only can’t stand the smell of the ******* but would just as soon not chance even the most remote possibility of getting lung cancer caused by second hand smoke. I hate how smokers would tell that person, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The chances of that happening are one in a million.” So what? *******. ******* with your nasty cancer sticks and **** your tar-lined wheezing lungs, too. **** the death bed you will lie on when emphysema steals your last breath. **** the oxygen tanks that cost almost as much as all the cartons of cigarettes you have wasted your money on during the last who-knows-how-many years of your life. **** all your attempts to quit. **** the feeling of disappointment that overwhelms when you fail once again, as Mighty God Tobacco hugs you, strokes your wet hair, wipes the sweat from your forehead and the tears from your eyes. Sweet summer sweat. The tears of a clown.

You know what? She never smoked before. I never would have thought she would pick up that disgusting habit, but she sure as hell did. Picked it up like it was a twenty dollar bill someone lost that she found on the side of the road as she walked to the smoke shop to buy another pack of Marlboro Lights.

There’s another thing I hate about cigarettes. “Smoke Shops”. Where the value-minded smokers purchase their wares. Not “Cigarette Store”. Not “Tobacco Warehouse"…oh, no. It’s a SMOKE SHOP. You’re going to buy some smoke, brother Jim. You’re gonna spend too much money at the 7-11 and it’s all gonna go up in smoke, but by the grace of God you are gonna save a couple of bucks by purchasing them at the “Smoke Shop” instead of the convenience store. You complain until you’re blue in the face about how ridiculously high the ciggy prices are at normal retail outlets, but when you run out of ‘em and the God-blessed “Smoke Shop” is closed ‘cuz it’s Sunday you’ll drive like a madman to Love’s and blow ten bucks because there’s a “Buy Two Get One Free” special going on. What a ******* good deal that is, eh, mister?

Furthermore…CIGGYS??? I hate how people call ‘em “ciggys”. But not nearly as much as I hate the word “cigarette”. I cannot stand to speak the word. I hate the way it rolls of my tongue. I hate the way the word sounds like it means “little cigars”.

I hate the way some smokers empty out their car ashtrays in the parking lot. I hate the way all the butts look lying there in a heap, a pile of paper soaked with the spittle of a hundred different mouths. And yet the nicotine python grips some desperate smokers so tightly that they will pick them up and try to smoke the last tiny flecks of tobacco from their crushed and blackened ends. I’ve even seen people extract the remaining **** from several discarded butts, roll it all up in a Zig Zag paper and smoke it. Don’t these people even know what Zig Zag papers are for? They sure ain't for tobacco, Charter.

“Butts”. There’s another word in the smokers lexicon that just sounds silly. “Smoke ‘er down to the ****, Jack, we’ve got more!” “I don’t have an ash tray, Terry, so just put your BUTTS in that half empty soda can over there on the table”…never thinking that there might be someone else at the party who could very likely mistake that particular pop can for his own and take a mighty swig from it. Oh my God, the thought, it gags me. How nauseating it would be to feel one of those wretched things fall against your lips and…Egad…the flavor…and yet the cruel smoker will laugh at such misfortune.

****.

God help me.

She was not a robot when I met her. Oh, no, she was a beautiful, exciting, passionate loving woman with a heart of gold and a desire that was practically insatiable. Here…take a look, I have a photograph in my wallet. See what I mean? That’s right, daddy-O, she was a real dreamboat. I used to carry this picture with me wherever I went…I guess I still do, huh? But I don’t know why. I don’t know why I torture myself looking at it, remembering what was, all we had, our bright and glorious future wrecked and deserted by her newfound proclivity for smoking cigarettes. Yeah, my friend, she was a real keeper. But you know what? **** her now, y’know? Just turn her over and **** her.

But hey…perhaps I’ve been too harsh on the smoker in general (if not to her…no, not to her). Perhaps I have exaggerated a bit. After all, some of my best friends smoke. It’s their business, not mine. Never has been mine. I know that. If they knew how I felt about the whole thing, whose to say they wouldn’t tell me to ****** off and never come back? Then again, if they are so shallow as to take any of this as a personal insult, then maybe, just maybe they aren’t my friends after all. I doubt the robot would want anything more to do with me if she knew what a stalwart anti-smoker I am. But I thought she felt the same. She DID feel the same. She told me as much. Before she lost her soul. Before she started smoking cigarettes. Before she started bumming ciggys.

I got no time for changes in her life so now I ask you again…where were you when I was falling in love?

Were you sitting in a Pentecostal Holiness church on a hard pew early Sunday morning before the service began, thumbing through the hymnal, looking for one that best expressed your feelings of devotion at that point in your spiritual journey? And what would that hymn have been? “Onward Christian Soldiers”? “Peace in the Valley”? “In the Garden”? “Smoke on the Water”? “Hotel California”? Maybe some obscure Black Sabbath song tucked in at the end of the book, next to the Doxology?

Did your hair shimmer, reflected in the light that poured through the stained glass window directly behind you? Did you feel it’s heat on your neck? Did it draw out beads of perspiration there, glistening? Would you have let me lick them and taste their saltiness even in the sanctuary of the church building? Probably not. But I don’t think the idea would repulse you like it would some other bonnet headed midi-skirt wearing holy rollin’ *****.

Maybe I would have asked you outside so that you might feel a little more comfortable with what I’d had in mind.

And maybe you would have told me “no”. I couldn’t blame you for that. No, I wouldn’t. It’s only natural for a real woman to guard her integrity in situations such as this one. I could not hold that against you.

Is that where you were? I need to know. Where the hell were you when I was falling in love?

"hello kate ," Jack delleto says and sits down.

"my name isn't kate. it's Kathleen.'" hello Dell. "sue thinks Dell is such a **** name. " what should I call you?"

"how about darling?'

she looks up from the whiskey glass "hello, Jack, DARLIN." her soft deep voice whispers.

Kathleen crosses her legs and the black dress rides up to the middle of her thigh.

Jack glances at the milky white flesh. she is drunk and Dell does not care. he leans forward, ''do you wanna dance ?

"but no one else is dancing."

"Well, we could go to the beach and take a walk on the sand.

"It's twenty degrees outside." she swallows the last of the whiskey. "we'll freeze."

"i' ll keep you warm."

"all right let's  dance."

"jack stands up and takes her by the hand. she rises and jack holds her close to him. jack feels her heart thumbing.

she rests her head on his shoulder. "what matters most to you?"

"not giving up."

"what's important to you?" he asks.

Kate lifts her head off his shoulder and looks into his eyes. "I don't want to be on welfare, and I want to be able to send my son to college." she rests her cheek against his. "I lived in foster care homes all my life and I always knew one day I'd have to leave. do you know the difference between a house and a home?"

Her voice is a roaring whisper in his ear. "love."


the song comes to an end. kate takes a cigarette from the pack.
jack strikes a match and the light flickers in her eyes. "maybe someday you'll have a home."

"do you want me to?" she leans forward and puts the cigarette to the flame.
    
"Yes."

Kate blows out the match.

Return trip from the borderlands
and Maria, she's driving though
she's had a little too much based
on the tremors and the listless
drift of the party bus from left lane
to right.
I'm in my Chuck Taylor's,
the Warhols, the $795 collector's,
thumbing through my girlfriend's
Facebook timeline. She just bought
a Picasso, a self-portrait. I want
to stab her with the long end
of my ****-me shoes. They're
on the carpeted floor. Jenny's
on the carpeted floor too. I roll
her on her side so she doesn't
choke on her own *****. Hero.
The path lights overhead start
blinking and somebody, Kate
or Kristen, I get them mixed up,
starts screaming, "Strobe." We're
in the left lane going ninety, ninety-five.
The right lane looks weak.
Jenny mumbles something as I step over her.
"What's that?" I ask.
"Read the quiet book. Love the quiet book.
the whole human experience captured
in twenty-six scattered symbols."
Someone's in the ****** laughing.
We go into a tunnel and everything
goes quiet and thoughtful and black.
Breathe in through the nose and out
the same way. Click the heels together
and wait.

Every human walks around with a certain kind of sadness
stitched into the tag in the neck of their coat.
They carry it like a wallet weathered from use
and old gift cards in the pocket poke at the seams.
They keep it tucked away like a pressed flower
in between the pages of their favorite novel
and find it while they're thumbing through
for that line about love that they have forgotten.
They leave it in the bottom of their shoe
and let it poke at their soles when they walk,
and, becoming accustomed to it,
no longer feel it at all.

Water is reeked with nicotine
The souls are reeked with Ginsberg
but the heads and the thoughts have both pungent smell like
hot rooster comb flowers
I slept last time the day before yesterday
I saw the ****** Mary so beautiful
in that glow of blue & gold
                                           neons of Bethlehem
thumbing a lift near a cadillac with CD plate
& the jazz was caroling in wet sand
there were twelve bars in the honour of that boy
who has to come here one day finally, ****
he has to come just for jamming in this world
as it's said he could /!/ get all that mess of ours
off ourselves gentlemanly playing the part.

“Are you sure about this? It seems kinda ******’ weird Mike…”
“No man, she’s totally cool. She likes it. I do this, at least, once a week.”
Bobby was hesitant, but Mike insisted he try it out. There had been a big fire in one of the apartment buildings a few weeks ago, the only part left untouched was a storage room under the stairs. She lived in there, he said.
“Usually, you gotta call her on the prepay first…like before you go over. But, for me…see I’m a regular, so she just gave me a key.”
“What so you just go inside?”
“Yeah, dude. Like I said, she likes it. Most of the time she’s all doped up and like, passed out. But like, as long as, like, I show her the money…she just like, tells me to stick it in. She likes it, says it helps wake her up and ****. Really gets her going.”
Mike was breathing hard, as he talked. They were getting close to the burned out building.
“I don’t know man, this seems ******. ******* a ******-******, that lives under some stairs, in a burned out building? I mean, what the **** man? Let’s just go home and **** our wives.”
Mike stopped walking and stood, staring at Bobby, in disbelief.
Slowly he spoke.
“That is...the stupidest thing...I have ever heard you say.”
“How? This is-“
“This…is a ******* adventure *******! A break from the day-to-day, a break from the norm, man. A taste of strange. Now c’mon already! We’re almost there”
They slowly started walking again.
“Well…do other guys in the complex do it?” Bobby asked, kicking a rock.
“Of course man! She’s got like six regulars a week. She’s got that and like, all the guys that just try her once for the hell of it. She does group deals too. The girl like, ****** a bunch of the high school boys before, she told me about that. The state champion on the wrestling team even gave it to her.”
It was amazing how the fire had blackened nearly every inch of the place. But that door beneath the stairs, was still faded blue & white. They walked up to the little door.
“Alright, now…do you wanna go first or second?” Mike asked, fumbling his keys into the door.
“I don’t know. We’ll see man.” Bobby didn’t know if he was really gonna do it.
Opening the door, they found her asleep in a small recliner, too small, it looked like it was made for a child. All miniature and ****. Bobby thought she was gonna look like the Crypt Keeper in a tube top and heels. But to his surprise, she didn’t look half bad, he thought. A real pretty little redhead, in flannel pajama pants, with painted black toenails and a Ramones t-shirt.
“What’s her name?” Bobby asked, nervously thumbing his Levi’s pocket.
“I dunno. Everyone just calls her ‘Easy’.
Mike shook her, trying to wake her up. It kinda worked. She opened her eyes a centimeter, nodded, and mumbled,
“….go ahead baby….zzzzzz...”
“Alright, buddy...I....am gonna go first.” Mike said, stripping down.
Bobby leaned against the wall, between that and the arms of the mini recliner.
Three Dole banana boxes were stacked in the corner. Lubes, condoms, and punched out cigarette butts, covered the top box. With his **** all shiny and lubed up, Mike put it in and got to it. It didn’t take long, two minutes into it and he blew his load. She didn’t move an inch.
“And don’t say anything man! I usually go a lot longer.”
“Hey, I wasn’t gonna-“
“It’s been a week since I ******, so just shut up.”
.She twitched and snored. Track marks on the tops of her feets. Mike reached down and spread apart her ***** lips, looking up and smiling at Bobby.
“Well? Come on dude...slip it in.”
Bobby unzipped his pants and pulled them down to his ankles.
Somehow, his **** was hard. He tore open a ribbed ******, from the pile of them, on the stacked Dole boxes. Bobby slid the ****** down his shaft. The room stunk like a can of expired tuna. Mike was still holding open her ***** lips.
“Mike. Move your hands. Come on, I got it man…”
He did like he was asked and stepped to the side. Stroking himself and grinning big. Bobby slid it in with ease, and began pumping away. Easy moaned with pleasure, at last waking up, her eyes finally open, and looking at who was ******* her.
“Give it to me, Daddy. Give it. **** me good.”
When Bobby finally came, five minutes later, Easy was wide awake. Bobby rolled the ****** off and held it in his hand.
“Do you have a garbage...Miss Easy?”
Mike and Easy both cracked up laughing.
“No. Just throw it behind something. Anywhere, I don’t give a ****.” She said.
Feeling a bit embarrassed, he quickly put his clothes back on. Mike stood, naked still, lighting a smoke for himself and one for Easy too. They were both smiling, rotten-toothed grins. All Bobby wanted was to get home to his wife, the guilt and shame, already eating him up. Easy laughed exhaling her cigarette.
“****. That was just what I needed. Thanks guys. Make him a copy of the key, would ya Mike?” She said, with a hearty, smoker’s cackle.
Bobby stood with his hand on the doorknob.
“See? I told you, Bobby…she likes it.”

Simple string slips through, complicated fingertips.
Wishes, desires tied into the shape of, a single red balloon.
Thumbing a ride on a Sunday breeze,
Surfing its way over tops of rooted trees.

Winged aerialists delicately balanced on mirrored water,
The leavers dance, front row for a final show.

Doing what I can never find the courage to do,
Slip away, uncharted destination.
Through ragged linen flowing in the sky,
Past the saffron fireball,
Cautiously placed beyond the horizon.

billboard's calligraph --
past the haze of Manila infested
by car sprawls and belching machines.

magnanimous treatise of tarpaulins,
people chin-up asking God
with askance

something like this
"o god make this bearable
like a mound of fresh fruits
from ****** labour."

maniacal sensurround:
earth-shattering frequency
of footsteps trampling the mouth
of monolith shadows - the peak
of this quake is our complete silence.

rain's catharsis in effect
sousing us in the blood of unreal light.
this diastolic shrinkage
jamming the beat of constricting vessels.
the adrenaline surges
within the dermis of this pretension.

a collective of tired beings heeding
the recherché of voice metamorphosing
into form, a dagger-butterfly
paring us skin to bone, cranial
to visceral, soul to nothing -

catapult of a trajectory spit
plummeting in eased-up pace
from Taft Avenue flyover
to a subjugated wagon of scraps
and empty wine bottles.

today's paper reads:

"Palace hits hiring
   of **** dancers"

fancying to fall right in the
spanked curved of this
insatiate melodrama - something
  prayer could not save from
this land's mutinous ignominy.

   we resume to fulfill our madness,
hundreds of tack-headed people
  rolling down the streets of Makati,
drenched with rain's trilling aftermath.

squinting to look at
  no sun, only the grieving of skyscrape,
thumbing down unidentified objects
  in the depth of loose pockets,
    desperate for home.

Her thoughts
grow like weeds
through swaying reeds.

In her head
exists a garden
as bright and as varied
as the tulips of Amsterdam.
Each canal lined with bikes,
the water flowing from one to the next.

If not careful, though,
that mind will overflow,
overgrow with the seeds
of past ill deeds.

She sits still now,
thumbing through her prayer beads,
pleading for the protection
of some modern-day Diomedes.

Leo

Leo with the spindly frame, Leo with the too short days and endless nights, Leo who walks like a shadow darting across the walls hardly daring to be seen, a boy avoiding crowds, arms crossed in knots, sits in a room 8 years too young, thumbing through the infinite pages of life's mysteries, holds smooth black stones in open palms to the rain at the edge of those long and winding roads that are lined with tunnels of trees and pillars, takes matches between his teeth to splinter the tongue that so badly wants to speak.

Leo, harsh or gentle, tries to wrap his arms around cold air, too close to nothing, still never falters. Holds his upper lip stiff as a board, closes his chest like a cupboard filled with terrible secrets, shakes his furrowed brow, mumbles nothing's to the carpet, tiptoes down the stairs that groan under his fragile weight, because tonight, like so many nights before, he has to help the broken girl under boxes and brass pipes, sort through the mess of her head with the man in his own, gives her polished rocks to rub between her fingers to quell the demons, but he knows he cannot help.

Leo in those battered bones, with peeling fingertips, crammed into little glass vials, filled to the brim with waters and weeds, mouth corked with a cap so tight that a whisper could barely escape if it tried. Leo in hands as cold as death itself, skin so pale and clear that you can see the little thump of a heartbeat, and the stream of ice blue blood through thread-like veins creating a web of eyes, lips, voices, hands, a spindly frame that could collapse upon itself with a single blow. Leo whose eyes are sharp as arrows,  words striking off that flint stone tongue, flicking sparks into the gasoline soaked pages, dripping with rage, lighting a fire that will never be silenced, hands curled into fists that tremble in fear of what they might do. Leo who's greatest fear is the second voice inside his head,  another life he has to lead, another mask he has to wear, sits screaming behind that too familiar phlegmatic face, that strained jaw so sharp I'm sure he's accidentally cut himself on it before, Leo with too nice shelves, the untied shoes, presses his lips into a firm line, wavers oceans in that cracking voice, puts one finger to the screen and disappears without a sound.

a guy sits here
hair a twist
no ordinary man
but a case
whatever prefix fits

he knows no limitations
seeks no thrill but fear
holds no memory dear
brains grasp simply too frail
such a broken outside
and gargoyles pier
however
he tranquilizes them
anytime someone comes near
yet the people abstain still
no shame, no cheer

they simply cannot see what purity
he has in his crypt
intimidated
severe

so let us move forward and glaze over the thick
move towards the misery which anguishes him

nonsense is sensical, whimsy at best
rational is of logic and dreary
detest

******* and thumbing
he frantically does his best
pulls his hair out
pulls his hair out
closed fist
punches chest

"where is she
where is her
name i cannot confess
for it escapes me...
not because
but rather-"

due to his distress

he stopped and sighed
violence
cried
broke down
then bled
red from his eyes

i want her
the sad one
shy

hurt inside

abused, accursed
diseased but undisguised

she'll love me

she will
there's nothing there to hide
she'll make me forget myself
sing or dance or
romanticize

"i want her...
a baby's friend
the neighbor's newborn daughter
the baby friend that came over
as an infant, i saw her
i kept the same heart
but its been through a lot
and now its done with slaughter

i kept the same heart
its growing apart
i need the neighbor's daughter"

it seems as though convinced
he truly had the heart of a newborn
ambivalent
knowing no complexity
purely hurt or comfort
either way's a shoulder
diamond or dirt
seemed to be bipolar

so he seeks the same
not the opposite
that would be a shame

because no one else can relate
to someone who feels the world
has turned its back on fate

he seeks out this girl
overlooking
all the beasts in his way

with evil colors they mask their face
appear to appeal, they may

but he knows better
their defenses fragile
they attract a plethora

to which they expose
like a sinister rose
the black rock in frame

the black rock so hard
shapely carved
to which its "blacksmith"
inscribes no name

a black heart
he sighs
which holds no light

might as well not exist

The Record Store died and the windows, some broken; held the light of day in transparent
tangles, sharp cracks in spiky slabs of glass. Red splints... fissures of bluish tint, silver yellows
glint in shifts, misfit prisms.
An old poster roasting an English Invasion,
facing the setting sun's horizontal furnace. Here and there,
the odd box, coats of dust, strips of beige tape; these
huddle in long shadows of analog. Looking in -
hands on either side
of your father's face,
you can almost see hipsters thumbing empty bins, like
bowling pins in an empty lane.
Bowling pins wearing scarves.

I shuffle my pod and rock on.

Boy, don't you dare look at me like that.

Like I'm a question, a riddle, a puzzle, jigsaw pieces that don't quite fit with each other. Like I'm an unsatisfactory answer, a justification riddled with holes, a problematic solution to a solvable problem. Don't look at me as if I'm a blank sheet of paper, as if you can see what isn't there, as if you see beyond this cage while even I can't see through it. Just...don't look at me.

Boy, don't you dare talk to me like that.

Like I'm a pulsating time-bomb that is always on the verge of explosion but never really toppling over the edge, like a shard of glass that cuts everything it touches yet can be easily crushed into mere beads of crystals, a beer bottle with liquid forgetfulness as its contents, a bucket of blood, sweet, luscious agony, a cacophony of pounding hearts and rasping breaths. Don't talk to me as if you know I'm about to shatter because I'm not going to be scattered in front of you, no, boy, trust me, I can handle this.

I can handle this.

Boy, don't you dare stay with me like I'm the one who needs you, like I'm the one aching for you, like I'm the one who loves you, like you're the one for me. Don't get close to me as if you're actually planning to touch me, don't, I hurt everyone, please don't touch me like this. Like the soft brush of a bird's wings against the sunset, the caress of ink against paper, the whisper of the wind thumbing through the rustling leaves, boy, don't get close to me.

Please don't come near, I am an explosion of splinters and jaded rocks and pain and anger and spite, boy, stay away from the explosion. You might get hurt trying to help me, I don't need your help, I don't need the glimmer of your smile, the vastness of your eyes, the comfort of your lips, I don't need you, boy, listen to my lies, believe them as if I am a stranger to you, an unread book, an unused drawer, boy, I'm no good for you. I'm not good enough for you. Listen to my lies and believe them.

Boy, don't you dare love me like I'm your forever, because I'm not and I will never be, I am not forever. I am only a single instant, a flicker of flame, the dying light, the purple dusk, I can't be yours, boy, I'm not enough. Don't you dare care for me as if I'm a snapped wing, a broken bone, a bruised face, a torn knot of sinew that still won't stop beating at the bars of its prison, boy, I can't let my heart out of its prison, it's dangerous when it's out of its cage, boy, it might see you. It might know you and recognize you as my forever, and I will trip over my own feet falling into your eyes, boy, this heart needs to remain caged in its prison.

Boy, don't scold me about this, I know what I'm doing, I won't wear my heart on my sleeve, I won't set it free no matter how many times it hurts itself trying to break the bars of its jail, even if the edges of my ribs become knives with serrated edges I won't let this stop, I won't let this heart out.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, my heart.

Please forgive me, boy, I lied, I've lied so many times I've lost count, so many times the truth is nowhere to be found but in my chest, no, boy, I won't let you in. My insides are hollow and lined with blades, all you'll find there is hurt and anguish and blood and unshed tears, and silent screams and the soundless slamming of fist against flesh and bone, boy, I can't let you see this. I can't let you get hurt.

I'm sorry, heart, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Boy, I know you know me, I know you know I love you, so please, please stay away. I am no good for you, I am not good enough, not whole enough, not enough, boy, I'm just not enough to fill the empty spaces inside you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, my heart, boy, I love you, I love you, boy, leave me now and don't ever show yourself again.

Just don't.

Please don't.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Boy.

Please don't break my heart.

And now there's a gap where the last eight hours should hang
sitting in a hospital bed looking at my boss across the way
arms crossed, thumbing his mustache like cleaning a brush
He says, "Forgive us, but we had your mouth reconstructed"
"As well as your wounds healed. We didn't think you'd mind."
I say, "I don't mind. I don't like liquid diets, anyway."
Why does it
hurt
so
much?
No work for
me
for
now.
He tells me I'm dying and that I'm strung out too far!
Tells me I'm putting too much in to what turns to scar.
Take some time off he says and give myself a chance.
Forgotten for so long to grin and ask myself to dance.
So I say, so say
you, and I'll try
but I'm fine.

And now there's a plan unfolding without my direct discretion
I can feel strings somewhere above as they're pulled softly
I sleep on the train after dressing up doll-like at home
Makeup and suicide tools wrapped around my curves in laughing walls
A women in red locks is taunting me from inside her ward, so familiar
"I should never have let you go," I say as I'm approaching
"I could have found you out," I say but she laughs once more
And sets herself on fire
Nothing but ash before me just out of reach
The dust swirling
Motes of adolescence tickling my fingertips
Why does it
hurt
so
much?
Waking I can't
place
her
face.
Arrive at The Roxy. Beneath her neon sign I absorb
cold rain in a way that makes my spine quake.
And inside the lobby, through my boots, I feel the floor
erupting from the music just through the doors.
Why do I come here?
Knowing there's nothing.
I'm nothing.

Sitting at a bar
In a palace built by
Nineteenth-century slaves,
And the back of my shirt
Is soaked from the
Hundred degree weather.
I rub my neck,
Wipe the hot perspiration
From it with my hand,
Only to pick up
My glass of beer
And get it's cold sweat
All over my palm.
I ask the bartender
About the nets
Obstructing my view
Of the gold-flaked,
Hundred foot ceilings,
But he doesn't know
Why they're there,
Or just doesn't care
Enough to humor me.
Happy hour prices
Segregate me and my soul
From the charcoal
Suits shuffling past
As they head to
The trains that will
Deliver them to
Their BMWs
So they can drive to
Their wine cellars
And plastic wives.
The history of this place
Is suffocating me,
It's thick in the air,
As are the dialects
Of dozens of states,
Shouting to each other
Or to themselves
Or to god.
I pay our tab
And dive into
A red line train
Like a CVS syringe
Into a ******'s arm,
And rush away from
the city's heart
With the other cells,
Through tunnels buried
Beneath the birth and death
Of the American scream.
If I fall asleep,
I'll never wake up,
The dream will replace
The reality I've created.
The steady thrum of
The train croons to me,
But the acidic stench
Of July humanity
Keeps me locked
In this scenario.
The darkness flees
As we breach the
Border of daylight.
Jetskis on the Potomac
Remind me of what
I don't know.
Dreaded beards
On weathered sacks
Of human decay
Perched on plastic seats
Remind me of what
I've painted as real
In my underexposed brain.
I'm exhausted,
All my water has
Evaporated, risen,
And I'm a Little drunk.
My eyelids are heavy,
And move like
Hurricane barriers.
Open:
Same scene,
Different passengers.
Closed:
Spiral staircases
Of neon fibres,
A religious maven
Spitting his canon,
Fleeting images of
Hardwired memories
I've grown old
Trying to erase.
Open:
He's staring right at us.
The man in the
Periwinkle shirt
And the bronze
Kmart tie.
His sweat shines
Like young paint
On an Oldsmobile,
His double chin
Is tanned to
The color of his tie,
And he knows too much.
He knows more than I do,
More than I can take.
His eyes shine
With the knowledge,
The stupid grin
Plastered on his
Greasy face
Knocks me out.
Closed:
The sky is vast,
And unscathed by jealous clouds.
The crystal clear water holds me up,
Its pressure on my back
Is as refreshing as it is comforting.
Max and Andy splash and laugh to my left.
The pond water in my ears
Distorts their sounds,
But the mushrooms in my blood
Explain them.
Jesse is coming,
Doing well at keeping his cigarette dry,
Swimming with one arm.
I feel something unlock inside me,
Forget it's June,
That I'm floating
In this lake
For the first
And last time,
That I'm still
In Rhode Island,
That the love
Of my life
Is in Virginia,
I forget my limbs,
My hair,
My skin,
My ****,
My heartbeat,
The stellar iron in my blood,
And as the water fills my lungs,
As the shouts commence
And sight fades,
I am reborn,
I am the microbes I am swallowing,
I am the glow of the nearest star
Glinting off the rippling surface,
I am the sand beneath me,
I am the air pushing the pine needles,
I am alive,
I am open:
I am still on a train
In Washington DC
And this ******* guy
Knows too much.
His lips are wet with it.
It's written in the part
Of his thinning hair,
In the way he's thumbing
the pages
Of the book he isn't reading.
I can't contain the shout,
The burst of wasted pride,
The "*******!"
The "What do you see that's so ******* interesting?!"
I can feel Ali's hand
And the eyes of
All the passengers in the car
Fall upon me,
And the pressure
Caves in my skull.
From my sunken face:
"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case."
"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case."
"I'm a reasonable man, get off my case."

Shoulder to shoulder
These young men,
Boys,
Stood for the rights of all,
Thumbing their noses
At the iron fist that crushed
Their people's heart,
Giving voice
To those rendered mute
And heart
To those without hope.
Shoulder to shoulder
These young men,
Boys,
Stood while bullets ripped
And cannons bellowed
Until they could stand no more,
The word surrender
Unheard and unspoken.
Shoulder to shoulder
These young men,
Boys,
Lay at peace.
They lit a spark
That ignited a revolution
And the dreams of giants
Were realized
With the sacrifice of
These young men,
Boys,
Legends.

Enter through the double doors and it will hit you
A one of a kind, nothing like you ever smelled before
You will know where you are even if you’re blind.
Plug in air fresheners filling all the outlets through out
With a fragrance of fresh cut nectar filled flowers.
Masking now the true scent of the repulsive chemicals
That fill your body and flush you till you run clear.
Stronger the smell, stronger my fear
The closer I come to the lower room
The deeper I inhale.
Expanding my lungs to capacity and hold as long as I can
Setting up my writing room next to the dead is my plan.
Nickel silver oil lamps eight feet tall
And a matching tear soaked blue velvet prayer alter
Worn out from carrying all the weight from the mourners
Will be my only light and seat as I sit and write.
Thumbing now through a hard cover book
That sat in there for many years
Eyes closed and close to my nose
I fan the pages as fast as I can go.
Polo, Taylor, and Calvin Klein,
They used to be a favorite
Pores now sweat a strange new lovely kind.

(CARSr.6-19-12)

Standing by the road side
Thumbing a ride
Sleeping Bag, Backpack
And...Guitar on my back
Heat rolls off the Highway
Like Hallucinogenic Waves
Found a Roach in my pocket
Got me through the Day
Nothing but 70s Buick's...
And Cadillac's Roll By
On the on ramp to  I-80
Rolling on to  West Skies
A wish for a fast ride's best
Been up for 36 Hours
Popping Little White Crosses
Nothing Passing by but...
Military bosses.........
A VW Micro-bus pulls up
With a Band of Tie Died, Dead
Heads, cranking Jerry Garcia
The smoke the bowl, Kept on Toking
Greatful Dead played "Keep on Truckin' "
I Rolled off some Riffs, along with the Band
Flyin' 300 miles in that beat up old Van
My head got mellow, with these fine Fellows
They Dropped me off in the cool of the Night
And all I saw of them was their Red Tail Lights...1/27/15

the world is adorned with a million windows
the bleakest night has a thousand eyes
daylight shines into the globes darkest corners
truth will ultimately expose all lies

NASA’s satellites circle
Tropic of Cancer latitudes
cameras pinpoint the disease
metastasizing in the body of Homs

from stratospheric limits
sensitive lenses read the names
magic markers have scrawled
onto white sheets covering the dead

YouTube gets Oscar consideration
for grisly cinematography
a real-time visceral docudrama
of panting fascists gleefully tramping

through the desecrated streets
coolly administering a coup de gras
to a city on its knees, pleading release
from an **** of incessant bloodletting

twitter records desperate tweets
the batting wings of endangered flocks
furiously thumbing into the blogosphere
calls for UN intervention that falls on blind eyes

BBC reportage,
the global gold standard
for journalistic excellence
scoops the stories
of London based FSA partisans
awaiting repatriation to scatter
Bashar’s Kodachrome killers

Has the All Seeing Eye
who has graced us with sight
laughingly curse us with vision?

Does the
One Caring Eye of the Universe
bless us with perception
to haunt us with images?

Has
The One Thats Sees Everything
blinked closed the eye of compassion?

Has the horror of Homs
become too much even for
The Universal Eye of Love?

the opened eyes
of a dead child
reflects our
cold winter
of indifference
demoralizing
dehumanizing
a watching world

Music Selection
Grateful Dead Eyes of the World

Oakland
3/2/12
jbm

If you are not depressed
Than i am not impressed
With your intellect
Nor the deceptive specks
Of irrelevance
That may have been missed
In perpetual happiness
Be appreciative
For happy minutes
Treat life kindly
Even when it grimaces
Only rewinding
Once it finishes
And the penance
Is paid
Merely stroll
Through soulfulness
Upon rivers of tears
And new beginnings
Merely passing through
The black and blue
Splintering fear
And lasting the innings
Making corrections
To loosely elected
Concepts
From little blessings
That test the water
Guessing the color
It may be dark here
But covered
In the covers
Of the comforts
Smothered
With others
Puckering
From the red shirts
Skirting through
The murk
And when feeling down
And drowning
Its our own hand
That pulls us out
Irrelevance stronger
Than the doubts
And now
We are still around
To scribble these
Scurrying sounds down
In tattered papers from storms
Formed of conformity
And informing peeps
That it is okay to feel ******
As long as you
Don't take anyone with you
Or fish for pity
Imploring you
To feel it through
Just being true
To everyone
But more importantly you
Moving beyond the crutches
Beyond the clutches
Of others than ourselves
But still giving them hell
Be about it
Give credit
Live in health
As hell is a state of mind
Made of fear in kind
To pale the rites of our time
To sty our ascension to the skies
And god is real
It lives
Its sealed
A given
But not what you think it is
You
Me
Everybody
Everything
In synchronicity
And you create the scenes
Then shed them away
Responsible for the things
You do and say
Man up
And feel some empathy
The beautiful pain is here to stay
The greatest heights
Contrasted
To the deepest lows
The demon lies
But the angel just goes
And the broom
It controls
Where the dirt goes
Ill never know
What tomorrow holds
Thumbing my nose
On that which is outside
Of my control
And i'm full
Of all that which
Makes me whole
The rain
The sun
The flame
And the coals
Promising more
The love is strong
But hearts get sore
To the point where
They don't feel anymore
And in their boredom
They become *******
But know
From whence
The wind blows
So grumble me this
And grumble me that
Watch me pull a jack ***
Outta my hat
And laugh
With you
Watch me caress
A kitten on my lap
And stab you
Positivity
It *******
Makes
Me puke
But i love you
Not

By Me, the Great Duncan

Fickle and ever indecisive,
Destiny such a mistress
Taunting at my soul,
Yet,
When it shines in your favor,
Such a shine, shimmering with your jubilation for everyone to see

Hopeing was now a tired act,
Always the same night, same time,
Deep in sleep wanting nothing more,
Than to wake to someone,
Anyone to just ease this,
This tragic ironic loneliness I had put myself in

"Why?!" I screamed to the heavens of my dark ceiling,
Calling a question that mockingly,
Never was answered,
Yet

No more,
Live,
I whisper to the glass and grass,
Flowing and burning,
Mimicking the nights,
Speeding by,
Blurs on a deserted and dark, desolated highway, thumbing my way down,
Trying, searching,
For the tell tale signs of destiny,
Shimmering on the horizon,
Till,

Finally, in a bar,
"Let the night begin!" We yell as we begin our hunt,
Laughing, yet always on the scout,
Never seeing her,
Passing oh so close,
Almost!
The clock ticked down,
Closer and closer as Destiny,
That fickle mistress of my nightmares,
As deemed fit,
I met her tonight,
For all my cries in the night,
For all my past failures,
For all the ones lost,
I would find the one,
I've been asking for,
But only just,
As the clock,
Ticks,
Down,
Ever,
Closer,
Till...

She smiles sweetly,
I see her, only her,
The rest is blurred,
Distorted in the wake,
Of the beauty,
Radiating,
Only for me

Another smile,
From on high,
Destiny laughs,
We embrace,
A sigh,
Happily,
My question answered,
"Why?!" I had screamed,
Her,
Destiny answered

My mother is getting ready for work. And I am a child of about 9 years old sitting on her bedroom floor watching her get dressed the same as I would for the next 9 years or so in this house. The house that I remember then use to shake violently from the train a block away and was so glass-fragile and so cold-damp that its walls warped and swelled; making it look like someone had once blown up a large balloon inside of it and the walls curved around it. Even after that balloon popped the walls never managed to regain their original shape. My mother who never complained about the state of our home and in fact rather fancied it would tell me “Isn’t it cozy living in a snow-globe shaped house, and when it shakes we can pretend we’re snowmen in a glass ball.” She would always say things like that. I would always listen; I would always sit quietly with my legs tucked under my *** and watch my mother get ready for work. She would go through the same motions she went through every night and every night in the same order, she did this so often and religiously she had it down to an art, a methodical system of movements that at this age seemed to me more like dancing. I would watch as her dance started in her hands. Her fingers thumbing over the light pale and pink lip paints she saved for weekday afternoons and for Sunday mornings. She instead reached for the bright Chinese red stick she painted onto her perfectly pursed lips. She then reached for her black dress, pressing down the wrinkles smooth as the backs of thumb-tacks, smoothing the fabric over her hips, her thighs, her legs. Next she would sashay over to her vanity, pick up a small container and spread over her eyelids a bright but dusty blue shadow. I love this next part. When she would gently sweep me up and sets me on her bed as she knelt down and told me to sprinkle her face with a shimmery clear powder, giving her the look she always said made her stand out, made her look “unique”. I always thought she looked like she was in the caught in the middle of a snow-globe. Her next step was then slipping her dainty and fragile size 7 feet into heels that I knew would look invisible in the dark night outside our front door, she would look like she was almost floating. I often thought those would hurt her feet as she walked that long stretch of street outside our house.  Her arms then would sway and flick her hands outward, grasping with all her fingers a purple and gold glass bottle of perfume on her dresser. Back then it looked to me like a curious crystal globe of sweet-smelling water that turned sparkly when she shook it. This is my mother’s last step, she presses down the sponge-like pump. I really love this part. The only magical part of my mother’s evening- the part I always thought would make her realize she should stay. As she presses down on the pump I see the shiny and clear purple hued liquid release and bubble out into tiny specks of oxygen atoms, I watch them as they swirl up the golden bottle-the rounded glass holding them in, controlling them, allowing them to eddy and ebb around themselves, to tango around each other within the safety of its bottle. They are dancing, writhing around in their own world, free from the terrors of the outside air, these atoms embrace the chaos and they wallow in the pressure that perpetuates them in an endless looping of rhythmic motion. They enjoy it. They bask in the comfort of the fluid that holds them tight together safe in their glass house, keeping them untouched. I, sitting there eye level to this bottle watching ever so closely as the air bubbles swim closer and closer to the surface until they slowly start to realize that they are being expelled from their bottle. Then they stop dancing and move franticly in a tornado-like motion, they scream and they fight their way back down towards the others like them, wishing to not be pushed up and out into the bigger pool of air they know will surely render them invisible. They wish so strongly to be kept inside their glass world, to always be safe and visible in the enwombing liquid that circles around them in their bottle that reassures them of their existence as a single being and not as a part of a whole. To be separate from the mass of air that awaits them, the air that only yearns to add to its girth, by swallowing the tiny air-bubbles. I want them to stay. Stay in their snow-globe and live forever as air bubbles safe and few, to not swim up to the world that will gulp them down whole. I know they are dainty and fragile and I want to keep them safe. I want to always see them dancing separate and unique and never leaving, yet they do. I want them to stay, yet they do not. All in an instant, faster than the blink of an eye, the once dancing bubbles are gone and are now sprinkled sweet across my mother’s neck. The only evidence of their existence- a lingering scent flowing out of my mother’s bedroom as she grabs her purse off the couch. I want her to stay too. And as she grabs her bag and slams the front door it shakes our house like glass around me. I remember a younger me, left there feeling liquid and weak in a snow-globe house now void of air.