Sometimes I get stuck in this state of Darkness
where my eyes can see
but it's like my head is just pitch black
and I almost wish I couldn't see anything,
like I wish I could just curl myself into a ball so tightly that I disappear from space for a while

sometimes I get stuck in this space
and I feel like my tears and my thoughts
are climbing up my esophagus and clogging my throat
blocking my airway
suffocating me from the inside

maybe I never told you I was depressed because who wants to relive that moment
that choking hazard moment of cotton ***** in my throat

maybe I never told you I was depressed because there are no words I can use to describe it that don't transform themselves into their meanings
that don't take over my mind
crawl through my head like little worms
eating away at my brain
my thoughts
my skin

have you ever thought of a traumatic experience and then felt those events happening again
felt the dark hole of life-threatening-trauma attack your mind
Shiver through your body
like it was a demon you let in through a memory-
through a word

maybe I didn't tell you I was depressed
because I wasn't strong enough
my depression fills me to the brim
fills my head and my chest
my arms and my fingers
I can feel it moving through my body
I can feel it expanding and engulfing everything inside of me
every last vein, nerve, *****, and tissue
how can you expect me to have the energy to fight
how can you expect me to have the energy to pick up the phone
to open my mouth
how can you expect me to have energy-to have the courage to utter the words of how I feel
I feel so worthless
in those moments I feel like there's this black whole inside me and it's consuming everything
it's taking everything but my skin
and it disgusts me

can you imagine the feeling,
having something so utterly repulsive on your skin you had to scrape it off immediately
It felt like you needed to be cleansed
like you needed a shower
take that feeling
now imagine it being under your skin
imagine, every muscle ***** vein nerve every cell in your body underneath your epidermis disgusts you
imagine all you wanted to do was to
GET
IT
OFF
and you can't
no matter how hard you try
you can't scrape it off
you can't claw It off

imagine you're scared of spiders
now imagine you're covered in spiders
and someone's holding down your arms
so you can't get them off
imagine them walking on your skin
in your mouth
crawling on your open eyes
in your ears
you're cringing at your own skin
You can feel them going down your throat
Their disgusting tickle in the pit of your stomach
in every crevice of your body
their tunneling under your skin
and you can't get them off
what are you supposed to do
but cry

Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wings on,
testing that strange little tug at his shoulder blade,
and think of that first flawless moment over the lawn
of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made!
There below are the trees, as awkward as camels;
and here are the shocked starlings pumping past
and think of innocent Icarus who is doing quite well.
Larger than a sail, over the fog and the blast
of the plushy ocean, he goes. Admire his wings!
Feel the fire at his neck and see how casually
he glances up and is caught, wondrously tunneling
into that hot eye. Who cares that he fell back to the sea?
See him acclaiming the sun and come plunging down
while his sensible daddy goes straight into town.

The peephole was across from the study lounge,
As I stayed awake, the silhouette of light from your pacing body was bouncing back and fourth like a pair of anxious eyes under my door.

Back and forth, Back and forth.
I was hypnotized, the beam was tunneling your thoughts into my mind.

Suddenly.

I was asking are you okay? You said. "I'm just thinking".

"I'm just thinking", meant I was just thinking.

I was crazy, no you were crazy.

No, we were both crazy.

Busy minds, busy thoughts, pacing back and forth,
Busy minds, busy thoughts, a friendship had came forth.

Isolationist theories
of my brutal development
A mask
In the world of passengers

Regretting every slight disruption
Making icy chatters of teeth
As we wonder

How will these small altercations
Affect the grand course
of my surreptitious collapse?
Just a violent object on an axis
A washer head
thrown into a tumultuous ocean of visions

A flickering correspondent
Lying on an abolition
The worst things happening to the best people
It spins and breaths and *****

This molested scared demon
Anally penetrating all that I believe is genuine
Reels of my childhood development
Played on repeat to search for ammunition

The tunneling rib cages of my insanity
The forest nymph of all that is good
The one who created me
Locked away in a windowless world

Analyzed as if lockness was one of them
I always thought it would be me
Falling  to where I could not be found
How am I still standing?

I slept with her, my rapacious pen, took me in quiet vengeance in
full on conjugation

raken and taken, me,
her overlording me now, her authorship, so long held
in my maledom abeyance,
a kept imprisonment, unleashing at last, a tongue lashing~leashing,
de-spite my un-desirous craven lying supplications,
excuses of innocence and accident, coincidence and conflation,
ashes, ashes, denials incinerated, all fall down

she wrote/stabbed upon my heartless chest,
in the cheap crudités colors of a prisoner’s inking,
“user of words mine, all mine”

gathered up my innards of loose words,
speculative notes & titles yet to be,
born and kept hid in password protected silent back labor files,
now hers, leaving me sputtering, unable to create,
a homeless mute citizen, possession-less,
helplessly hoping her hovering harlequin might relent,
without any shelter, even a glimmering, a single aleph or bet

she celebratory cackled and clawed,
professed her reclamation ownership of all my poems predecessors,
zola j’accusing that I, ripped from her forcibly,
with no granted permission, her womanly touché of my scribing,
warning of no more global warming for my unprivileged hands,
daren’t try for pretenses of stolen legal guardianship,
warning of a new, forced caining inscription,
a tattooing of  “thief” upon my 5 knuckled right ******,
“plagiarist” boldly inked in back & blue upon my left palm

I, predator,
she, victim,
of my now self-professed, admitted confess,
she, my single victim,
of a decade long serializing criminal coverup

her parting poem a threatening,
herein issued in this very verse,
damning all who would falsely credit themselves,
to suffer shame and an unimaginable curse,
this, the newborn eleventh of ten commandments

parting, she kissing my lips, even my emptied apertures,
with warning bitings,
she knew all my
my numerous noms de guerre,
no dead scrolls caves to hid in, and to be discovered some future day,
and if ever marked as copyrighted,
’twas no tunneling escape,
the exposed truth to be over-stamped
upon all, upon each, in every language,

”copied right from the tongue of a woman!”


and she would be wright...

slip into misunderstanding
it’s the safest place around
six feet from communication
deep beneath the ground

elaborate tunnels
crawling seasons from reason
cavernous cave-ins
dirt and words to breathe in

sink into mud
skin scraped off by roots
each handful of earth
digs further from truth

skeletal structures
empty vessels abandoned
decaying to marrow
from hazardous habits

shovel your safety
and leave it behind
your dirtclod disinterest
is unsympathized

Tunneling thoughts like rain
Craning through light clouds
Unsuspecting victims.

The fear
The tears
The temper tantrums;
                                           A kind of rebuttal

That won't let our feet find land
We adjourned to rehearse,
but our efforts were null and void

Only to appease with flames
that licked our shriveled bodies

D r
       i    p
                 p  i  n
                             g  
                                              Kerosene

Tainted like ink                  Spilled on
Reams of paper
ruined like Christmas
A house warmed by          Open flames

fallen candles                     Adorning
A naked kitchen                 My limp body,

Splayed beneath the oven      
                                               As
darkness indulges,             It
consumes
The smoke,                          Fills                
                                               Each crevice
                                               In your mind

Can you ever fight it
Burn your way back
To blissful ignorance.

growing up to choruses of revelation and redemption,
i always heard them say that this world is approaching
hell or heaven.

now that years have passed and i have found my own voice,
i say -with scars of experience- there's not much difference between
an abundance of wildflowers or an abundance of wildfires.
life continues to blossom fearlessly forward;
lovers continue to burn just as brightly.

so, dear friend, i beg of you,

spread me like your wildflowers.
hiding beneath the weight of loam
bodies curled tight in the shell of youth
clinging tight to the gentle flame
that burns within us all.

spread me like your wildfires.
ever expanding heat and humidity
swelling and growing faster, faster
collecting sparks like goosebumps
and awaiting the ignition of touch.

spread me like wildflowers.
roots like fingers tunneling
their way through the damp
fertility of adolescent life stumbling
through hallways headfirst into the light.

spread me like wildfires.
bellowing smoke like clouds dances
from lips never kissed
now singed to a gentle crisp
from the intimacy of a catalyst.

spread me like wildflowers.
stems burst forth from the dark
with the kinesthetic rage
of a child no longer content
to crawl upon hands and knees.

spread me like wildfires.
gasping, wheezing, aching,
spreading further, higher to find
new sources to burn like blood in veins
in the heartbeats following a first touch.

spread me like wildflowers.
bodies now rising strong against the tide of winds
lifting the burden of petals upon shoulders capable
like butterflies crouching upon fingertips raised,
poised to fly.

spread me like wildfires.
flames stretching like arms across
the skin of a now familiar lover
embracing in the hot throes of passion
and the brilliant burn of innocence's remorse.

spread me like wildflowers.
buds burdened with dew
heavy with expectation to begin anew
straining against the drowsiness of flesh
until finally bursting forth with brilliant zeal.

spread me like wildfires.
the overwhelming euphoria
of feet finding steady ground
and of thoughts no longer filled
with concerns of mere survival.

spread me like wildflowers.
growing past fearful worries of tomorrow
content to stretch limbs and petals wide
seeding the earth with children
and blessing a new generation with beauty.

spread me like wildfires.
drowning the overwhelming clamor
of a forest in the midst of song
replaced only with the lonely blaze,
the roaring glow in that crackling ******.

spread me like wildflowers.
the seasons of youth long passed
leaving trunks and bodies to thicken and knot
scarring deeper with every lingering reminder
and memory of the light left dimming.

spread me like wildfires.
always hungry, wisps of flame
lick at the heels of the forest
stealing the air of life and lungs
and leaving the body breathless.

spread me like wildflowers.
the brisk, impersonal wind of winter
chills the rooted beauty of Nature's eye
gently wilting the aging passion
under a soft crown of frost.

spread me like wildfires.
never content to rest in one place
or shy away from raging against
the gall of day to ever end at all
and lower the shades on former lovers.

spread me like wildflowers.
gently resting like bodies
no longer warm to the touch
sleeping deeper than corpses
in the morgue of your memory.

spread me like wildfires.
ash swirls in the flurry of
flame's last breath, whirling
in the charred remains of intimacy
no longer returned, no longer found.

so lover, i beg now of you,

bury me like your wildflowers.
drown me like your wildfires.

Sometimes at night when I turn over and my hand slides along the small of your back
I can feel the changes beneath your skin.
Sitting next to you, I read you like braille
Like something you need to touch to feel the meaning of.
I know you are a storm beneath your skin.
Sometimes I feel lightning reach out
To the answering chaos in me.
Our suffering makes our togetherness
Electric.
Cataclysmic.
We could crumble mountains.
I don't know if you know your own wildness inside,
Wilderness.
I think inside you are vast and lonely, wonderful but vaguely sad,
The way the trees sound when a breeze sighs its way through them and makes them sway.

Sometimes I feel a coldness from you like a chilly night without a fire
The kind of cold that starlight and silence bring-
Not a hostile chill, like the sharp fingers of frost or ice,
But just a distant kind of... Containment.
A solitude, like the desire to curl into the rocks by the river and become one by touch.
A desire to be still.
It scares me. I don't know how to reach that part of you.

Sometimes I look at you and I see storm clouds and wildfires in your eyes,
I see the end of days, and earthquakes, and brutal hurricanes,
But I see them through glass, as if you've stepped inside a mirror and imprisoned your rambling hurt to keep the world safe-
I see it through the cracks in a briar wall that's sprung up suddenly and sharply, tangled and complex, a warning.
And although I don't want to be
I am warned.

I want to touch
But I am so very good with boundaries
So very
Sensitive.
I feel the changes in the air
The way a deer in the forest may shoot its head up at the scent of a hunter miles away, caught on an errant breeze.
You change what I breathe in and out,
You change my weight and my texture.
Sometimes from you I can close my eyes and feel what warm honey must feel like in essence-
If sunlight found purchase in the air.
I feel fields of wildflowers and slow, dreamy, balmy nights and days at the seashore with diamonds capping the waves.
Sometimes I feel from you the tickle of cut grass, and the smell of fresh rain, and what a butterfly's furry wings would feel like if stroking them wouldn't make them crumble like spun sugar.
Sometimes I feel from you the slow, deep pull that I remember from sitting at the bottom of that coral reef in St Thomas-
The heat of the day sinking in layers through the water to hold me suspended in graceful pressure-
Poised to be swallowed by something much more significant and much hungrier than me.
And sometimes there is simply cold, the way I said,
As if the wind has somehow changed and left me adrift, sails dead, in a sea that offers no sustenence and no explanations.
In those times of stillness I wait, breathless,
Cautious-
They always pass,
So far.

I sit beside you and hold my breath
Hold my hands.
I sit and look at the grass
At the sky
But I see you instead
Silent beside me,
An unknown, a mirror maze
All of a sudden sunlight
And all of a sudden shadows.

When you go dark and silent I want to start digging.
I want to sink to my knees and pull apart the earth,
Find its heart, hot and sticky and molten,
Burning with the secrets of a forever life in the belly of a fragile stone.
I want to claw it out and put your hands on it,
Watch it feed your soul and sear away that terrifying cold.
Light you up so that you will never curl up silent around a black glass starless hailstorm ever again.
I feel the dirt under my fingernails and how
Odd it is
That it is familiar, from scrabbling out of grave after grave,
Confused and reborn and shivering.
How odd that now I am tunneling towards what remade me so many times
To try to break the laws of nature and bring it to you
Before you ever have to sink towards it.

But I feel from you. And then I don't. And then I do.
And it wakes in me an unsettled longing more powerful than my history.

I feel from you the silence right after the last note of a symphony fades
Before the audience applauds
Before anyone has even taken a breath.
I feel that exquisite beauty
And the fear that it will shatter.
(The fear that is the knowledge that it will shatter.)
I feel all of this from you
For you and
I think it might be
Love.

Your story is in Spanish:
a blind man visits, eats, drinks, smokes
and searches your face with his fingers after dinner.

To feel someone's eyes upon you, you say,
is a metaphor. To feel someone's fingers
on your eyelids is also a metaphor
for truth.

Sometimes I tunnel to know how deep the clay begins,
to know "cathedral" in Spanish
to know poetry in S = KlnW
to know where I'm alone.

When you say, "Dádivas ablandan peñas," and hand me a wild cut twine, taut with a kite, I see your scarred fingers  and know

your gift is not a kite, wise with wind
but the tunnel you dug

and the stone in my hand crumbles

The mine shaft’s gaping mouth
yawns like the throat of an old, useless god.
Gnats hover by the scattered rocks.
This is real not a set, or a scene,
a spit of dirt shot through the sluice, all things like
a picture cut to kiss my America expectation.

In the surrounding bush, tamaracks curve towards the clouds.
The clouds where, above the furry tips of conifers, cataracts
plummet down mountainwalls, and ask:
“afraid?” And I am, I am.  I fear the sheer
slopes of tough granite slashing the giant sky
in two; the hard-edged mountain face.  The expansive air.

And this split is brooding old and unknowable
tunneling briskly into the unfamiliar, bruising
Montana a grisly purple-red
when the sun swings underground
and shades the hot **** by the mine with cool night as
behind it, the mine appears to growl.

JESUS emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.

The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering fourfooted in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all.

Karnak? Pyramids? Sphinx paws tall as a coolie? Tombs kept for kings and sacred cows? A mob.

Young roast pigs and naked dancing girls of Belshazzar, the room where a thousand sat guzzling when a hand wrote: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin? A mob.

The honeycomb of green that won the sun as the Hanging Gardens of Nineveh, flew to its shape at the hands of a mob that followed the fingers of Nebuchadnezzar: a mob of one hand and one plan.

Stones of a circle of hills at Athens, staircases of a mountain in Peru, scattered clans of marble dragons in China: each a mob on the rim of a sunrise: hammers and wagons have them now.

Locks and gates of Panama? The Union Pacific crossing deserts and tunneling mountains? The Woolworth on land and the Titanic at sea? Lighthouses blinking a coast line from Labrador to Key West? Pigiron bars piled on a barge whistling in a fog off Sheboygan? A mob: hammers and wagons have them to-morrow.

The mob? A typhoon tearing loose an island from thousand-year moorings and bastions, shooting a volcanic ash with a fire tongue that licks up cities and peoples. Layers of worms eating rocks and forming loam and valley floors for potatoes, wheat, watermelons.

The mob? A jag of lightning, a geyser, a gravel mass loosening...

The mob ... kills or builds ... the mob is Attila or Ghengis Khan, the mob is Napoleon, Lincoln.

I am born in the mob-I die in the mob-the same goes for you-I don't care who you are.

I cross the sheets of fire in No Man's land for you, my brother-I slip a steel tooth into your throat, you my brother-I die for you and I **** you-It is a twisted and gnarled thing, a crimson wool:
                One more arch of stars,
                In the night of our mist,
                In the night of our tears.

Silhouettes in moonlit mazes
your tears are complex superstructures.
Superclusters wrinkle I, negative energy,
tunneling through chasms forbidden;
you and I float.

Comes  a sound, depth charged sleeper cell,
a bloop, a mystery, an unsweep,
a whistle, a Julia, a train, a slow down.
Heard by 350,000 zombies.
You and I sleep.

A child derails a train, safe to say,
that the world has its trapdoors.
Its a mystery, they say, but what do they know?
About us and our death.
You and I disorient.

Your two ******* hide a heart,
A mother board center of circulation.
Your body’s iterative delusion
Graces mine. And dissolves me.
You and I disintegrate.

We need to hack the heart,
With absurdity and farce and slipstream:
Into subspecies, we, simians,
We are grateful, gratified.
You and I evaporate

It's 11:11 make a wish
Look out the spotty window
See all the frowns
And boring towns
See how powerful the words we use are
They can cut deep
Deeper than the most violent assault
Buildings and obelisks of befuddlement
Pressed for time
Lemon scented tiles
Scrubbed
No mold
Personal preference
Common courtesy
And common sense    
Scarce but invaluable
A face only a mother could love
And a father can lie to
Coulda
Woulda
Shoulda
Didn't
Searching for carrion
Give way
To the wayside
ECNALUBMA
In the rear view
The worms eat us
The early birds catch the worms
The cat nabs the worm
After being resurrected by satisfaction
And the night owl writes the tell-all
Put the ear to glass
Put the glass to the door
And listen closely
To sound of knuckles cracking
And the chattering of coffee shop patrons
Indian givers going back on their word
Fingerless gloves
Prim and proper
Promptly pummeling
Tunneling to tomorrow
Well done
Slim to none
Fat chance
The local native's tongue
Sold fresh and farm raised
On any given day
You can find demi-gods
Playing a a pick up game
Matchbook
Matchbox
Mismatch socks
Pick up sticks and stretchmarks
Just stay the night
So we can wish this all away together
It's 11:12 open your eyes

In fourth grade I got a handwritten paper back from the teacher.
All my lowercase letter b’s were perfectly circled in red ink.
I think that’s what made me allergic to fire ants and yellow jackets.

I used to work at a breakfast restaurant and I smiled a lot.
I brought him his omelet and he told me it was as big as a body *****.
It was nice that I got to ask strangers for their first names.

I donate blood every fifty-six days on the dot because I like the questions
about prostitutes, and the ****** Butters, the rubber bands and the iodine swabs.
I am O positive and I feel regeneration as the bag fills up.

I wore black in Valencia and I could feel the gray matter pulsing in my brain.
I danced with the balcony girl in the bathrobe and I watched the whole city burning.
He always offered me the same breakfast, a warm glass of milk and a cigarette.

I slept on salty bark in Big Sur and we drove fast over Bixby Bridge.
I couldn’t get my head far enough out of the window in the backseat.
I smelled so human and breathed in the waste of the redwood beasts.

I came across an old barn with an old truck parked permanently behind it.
The bed was piled high with bundles of dried lavender harvested before I was born.
I grabbed scratchy handfuls and rubbed the brittle stalks on my arms and neck.

I stood in the cathedral so I could feel the weight of each broken back.  
The forest sculptors and lamb carvers believed in what they could not see.
Light pours in through the stained glass window and I feel the colors in my bones.

Gravity isn’t a factor when a jellyfish plague leaves
a layer of purple gelatinous mass on the beach.
The hills unzip their jackets into the ocean waves,
feeling the cool breeze on their uppermost ridges.
Rocks are painted from within
demonstrating all the colors of the turkey tail.
There are spirits around me,
watching from the pine trees and rippling the water when they wink.
The explosion of the dawn wood pigeons
startles the leaves awake.
I was there when the lightning made this river,
filling it with life and movement.
I can see your shadow from behind the aspen grove,
tunneling the light towards the chalk cliffs.
The ground is shaking from the thunder core of my fiery center,
I take shelter under the strongest branches.
I wrap a blanket of constellations around my shoulders
and count the times the bullfrog burps.

“I can never remember if the Earth goes around the moon
or if the Sun goes around the Earth.”
‘That’s alright, I can never remember if the tides are pulled on strings by fish
or by machines under the marsh.”

Then there are these blue dreams of mine, underwater in a car with one door open.
My ears are popped and I can’t get them unpopped, even if I chew bubblegum.
So I put my thumb and index finger on either side of my nose and blow.

Mystery, slow and steady
As I watch the stars take form
Powerless in this shell
But at least it's kept me warm
Concealing the outside world
From me, just a scared little girl
With no thoughts of bravery
Or curiosity to wonder about the storm
As lightning strikes
Through the scars in my eyes
And imagined tears take form

Tunneling through the hole in my brain
Trying to find a spot in which you still remain
Getting lost continuously along the way
Finding old memories,
Some dreams previously lost to me
Leaving my thoughts in disarray
If only I could find you, you'd say
'Take my hand, I'll guide you home
And never lead you astray'
But that destiny is clearly lost to me
And deep inside, I start to pray

The frames
Tunneling us enough to cloak the rays of diversity, of possibilities
The normality shaded a charcoal black, sprayed over us
Stinging the eyes of those who could see the spectrum
Blinding the ones who walked down the colored roads from the coliseum to the Twin Towers
People hung up on the walls, stapled to the confinements of society's critics
As if a snowflake would make them unloved, unseen, unwanted, unworthy of living and chasing happiness

Nobody can be there to comfort you
No one can be there to let the rain ease
Nobody can make you smile
But yourself
And the book's stacked on the sore shelves have taught us the opposite

Through the words strung around your front door
And the shades covering your walls
You can bust that choking frame apart that you might be trapped in
And create one that doesn't shift to make the papers tell society you're normal
That nothing's wrong with you, that you are not a sinner, and that you are not hell bound

Spiraling, collapsing, destroying, breaking, slashing
The ideas of ties over flat chests and the long hair to the ones with the *******

Finding your spectrum may **** off the clouds
And you may be blinded
But the colors come out from beneath your feet

And

Diversity thrives in the wonderland
That not everyone comes to witness

Follow me down into the rabbit's hole
To discover your frame, your life, your portrait
Your spectrum is not society's

Stinging eyes to the ones who see the spectrum
And the scars to the ones who have already painted their own
They have more to tell

Frozen for millennium, looking eternally over its territory
Someplace it's own, hard fought and for which many fallen, his own
A man of stone, gazes, immobile
Part of the mountain, now, to those below

Play in its shadow,
Gaze at its likeness
So similar to man
Large brow, hawked nose
A common man

Moments measured in years
Too unconcerned to bother
Throned high on his mountain
Kept to himself, memories of battles
Friends, brothers for this valley

In the valley, children play
Not concerned with a likeness
Too common to stare
Leave that to tourists
Who come and they go

Eyes shift with a rumble
Grating, smell of granite on stone
He sees soft children, not of stone
Knowing life, not hard
Not like him, of stone

Parents, families tell stories
Of the creature in stone
Eons have past, myths, legends
To scare children, laugh now,
Old widows' tales, all told

Protector of the Valley, his title bestowed
Passed from crown to hand,
From times beyond old, to seek and be told
His memory is not foggy, sharp and bold
He watches for signs, of evils still known

A rumble, earthquake, they know
Not gods of fire, nor devils below
They built houses of stone, solid and uncold
Women skitter, men more bold
Children laugh, cry; depending on delight

Small creatures take wing, a flurry of flight
Soaring through the air, not for those as he
Their moment is ignored, not the threat he seeks
But from whence they come, something astir
A rift in the ground, a creature of Below?

Buildings lean, no great such thing
Prosperity is well, good neighbors to help
A man looks upon his home
His family safe, wife at his side
He is not alone; a sound takes his eyes

The creature was large, an Elder
Beyond language and time, seeking who-knows-what-this-time
They have come and he is here this time
Again, he moves, reaches for weapons
For stone, like his hide; for earth, like his mind

Some monster, some flesh of daemon
A creature, unnatural and bold,
Ripping earth and spewing foul
Springing forth, denying safety for child and wife
In an instant, the man is alone

Unmoving for years, centuries untired, readies for war
Rock flexes like muscles, stone tightens, coiled and then unfolds
From his seat, his throne
He joins battle, swings lethal, heart cold
Elemental, Warrior-King just as old

The man, stuttered by sight, then sound, both unknown
Falls to the ground, some part of him rolls
He looks up to see the mountain
Falling down, then up, and down
Time slows and it falls on down

The King sees the soft, fleshy man
Not unlike his form, but not made of stone
Shaking the Earth, the man is no concern
Only the Nemesis, the creature that came before he was old
He meets it with weapon, violence and scorn

For a moment, the man saw the face of the mountain
Above him and cold, eyes of flint
Recognizing, but disregarding his life
It met the daemon, crushing it's limbs
Epic, fury, a fight to shake bodies of men

The creature was old, even elder to old
It cast spells of fire, brought curse to the land
******* power from life, it's nature to man
The King broke weapon, chipped fist
Losing both ground and tooth

Pulled to his feet, a neighbor drags him away
Between stone foot, and slamming tentacled limb
The great creatures smash earth, livestock as well
Together they clash, first forward then back
The mountain looks down and seems to grin

The King sees the earth and inside
On a grave he does now fight
Clenched in heavy stone fist
Forged in primordial fires
A weapon, fit for a king

The mountain slammed it's fist
Down. Into. The. Ground.
Wrist, then elbow, then shoulder gone
And the other, brought itself together
For the first time since mankind hand seen it

The soft creatures stared at him
The Elder Nemesis gathered itself
Calling its volumes to one spell
The small ones stared, mouths slack
And his fingers, at last, touched it

Half in the motion, of standing
Almost although an action caught in time
Men, and women now, surrounded by children
Who wouldn't know where to flee, stared
The Stoneman rose to his feet, great axe in hand

It was lighter than he had thought
Gripped, tightly in two hands, now
He leveled his gaze, tunneling
A spell of his own, one of fight
He spoke his words of death

The world seemed crushed, smalled to a sound
When the mountain bellowed, erupting noise
A scream, mad and angry, forced, primal
Trickling blood from their eyes, ears
Children, falling and for the frail, death

The Nemesis saw his movement
Was unfinished in either word or deed
Unprepared for violence or tool
Raised suckered limb, protect!
Sheered through, it sunk deep in to its mass

Again and again, the mountain struck
Slamming ax deep, flailing deep; madness
Bone, blood and flesh, raining down like hail
Children were picked, dead and live alike
Carried off far from this site

The creature was dead, Nemesis no more
But still he struck, drunk on action, fluid of motion
Again and again, pulping it beyond
A fury, his crown for this, soon to be spent
A lesson to be made here, Others, he suspect

Hours, the ground still shook
Days, miles from their valley homes
Weeks, they could still feel the powers to the west
No one to believe their stories
Only superstition by day, fear at best

The small ones didn't return
He pondered, again on his throne
No wonder, to witness, such an Evil
Unbridled violence, not for those
His wound would fester, he would not grow old

Hard mighty metal
plundering into the soil,
tunneling pastures
of calm, Sioux tracks on the cold
clay of thieves and History.

Do you remember when tunneling ravines would flow through our stomachs before we spoke out into the open?
And how vigorously tapping our feet felt like the only way to shake the mountains, daring to bury us alive...
or how when cold shoulders felt like judgment harmonized
and yet the dissonance euphonized in our ears as we swept our heads back into the open arms of the universe,
engulfed by inescapable laughter  

Now things are different; you wear your heart on your sleeve, washing the shores of people and things that scare you with your perpetual confidence,

and I proudly observe in wonder and admiration...

Distantly tapping my feet, fighting ravines, and laughing alone.

Its Torture.
The cruel
painless kind.
Torture,
like watching her
from the shadows
as she  
Loves her new Lover
while you're
still so alone.
Within my
mind Ive said
a word then
spelled out
in ryhm.
It sounds so perfect
within my
mind,my quivering lips
mouth the
word in silence.
Im afraid to try,
listen to my struggle
and you shall see
why it
is I hardly
speak.
Its the stammer,
the god given
gift which has
held my
opinions hostage.
Prevented me from
approaching her
and telling her
what she secretly
longed
to hear.
Forced me at times
to remain silent
when there was
so much more I
had to say.
This stammer
provides
cruel children
reason enough to be
even crueler.
I speak around certain
words and
communicate
more with the hands.
Kind souls
finish sentences
for me as I fight
for my voice.
Never  knowing that
their attempt
at being helpful
only drives this silent
knife even deeper.
This Stammer has
barricaded what
I need to say
somewhere
within that dead
and maimed space
between
my mind and
my speach.
I'm tunneling my
way out of this
self contained  
prison.
Word by
written word .
Im slowly
finding
a way for
this silent
and crippled
voice
to finally
be heard.

Leaning on the wall, closing my eyes,
All I could see was the vast darkness of my mind..
Tunneling my way through random paths,
I tread through those not so forgotten thoughts...

What I saw was smiles, banter and laughs,
The pains well concealed behind the cheerful mask,
Satisfied, I passed more such charades,
Stumbling for the nook, where the smile is only a facade...

It was lying there in a corner growing roots ,
Surrounded by makeshift mazes, difficult to look through,
Slipping in, I was prepared for an onslaught of pain,
Yet, the force of attack surprise me every time.

Braving through, I touched the core; very gentle,
Wincing as if it was the day of trental,
Blood singing my elegy and not yet dry,
The oil on my canvas still gleaming with pain...

I sat hugging my knees and a ready made smile,
With so much ease and practiced beguile,
The smile slipped, when I heard the door knock,
My eyes turned to see you walk...

Leaning on the wall, closing my eyes,
I could see the ray of light,
Not wanting to meet those inquisitive eyes..
Shivering, I closed and tried not to pry open my eyes...

guys with tight six packs
ride atop the wave's backs

surfing surfing surfing
in the mid morning sun
surfing surfing surfing
beach days are such fun

tunneling waves
curling nicely into shore
suntanned guys
enjoying the surf's lore

waxed boards slicing through
the topaz sea's hues
surfer guys all paving the way
to the blue waters dues

surfing surfing surfing
in the mid morning sun
surfing surfing surfing
beach days are such fun

Stars sit in the sky,
planets revolve around them
out of sight of the human eye, at this hour.
Earth revolves around the sun, a star with a name,
that brings heat, warmth, fun, daylight, somewhere at this hour.

We speak of the human condition,
more babies are being born than those that die,
is it me or has all the peaceful air, unspoken promise
left the atmosphere and gone to you know where, at this hour.
Tunneling through the ozone is not the way to get, God in His
artistry with Holy Love the world and creation, to save us, at this hour.

Wait.
Wait a minute.

I have stepped over the line, trying to tell you about the Divine.
I am like a sloth at a speed reading contest when it comes to that.
I am like the only Meercat, kicked out of the family group,
can I get a war whoop of agreement?

You all know where I try to stand,
I make it obvious when ever I can.

So when I am away for a few days,
and may not have any technology to
                                                     play
with to stay in touch, miss me please,
cause I already miss all of you.

First I’ll change his eyes
from brown to green

because I’d rather be reminded
of the algae in the pond

than the bourbon on his tongue.
I’ll say pond when I mean lake

because I prefer the intimacy
of lily pads.  I can say things like

he offered love like it was lemonade,
fresh-squeezed and innocent,

because then the idea won’t seem so foreign.
And then it won’t seem so dishonest

when dragonflies become hummingbirds
because I envy their tunneling

nature.  I can pretend that they
drilled a hole in the sky

where we can live out
the lives I’ve forged for us

through poetry, where
we are together every time.

Lee was over twice my age
When he brought me by my hand
Into his house, best described
As a two story trailer that
Permitted the perfume of a bloated corpse
To still haunt the air like burnt popcorn.

My whole mind was pulsing
As he led me into his bedroom.
I felt adrenaline painting my mind
With the static of dread and adventure
Stuffing the sound of my heartbeat
Like sirens driving away
                                                Waning
                                                                Waning
                                                                                Waning

He sat me down as if he were a waiter
And he’d be right back for my drink order.
I’d probably order ***** if I drank
But right now I need a soda for the sweetness.
I don’t remember him sitting down next to me
Because I was tunneling through the carpet with my eyes.
At some point I recognized the grunting on the TV
As the same purr of the demons in my closet.

I felt a hand grab my jeans roughly,
Like he wanted a fistful of popcorn with the movie,
And my pants shrunk around my hips with fear
As the hand began to scrub them,
As if it were possible to wash away
The last fortification of innocence left.

This is what a man does.
He finds his prey and kills it quick
And then meticulously takes the time to clean the corpse,
An irony coupled with the loving fondling of tiny organs.

He gripped my hand.
Not aggressive or forceful, but more akin to
Merlin leading Arthur’s to Excalibur’s golden hilt.
I expected to feel his denim as he felt mine
But I found the rubbery tingle of my nightmare.
The skin of my arm began to curl into itself
As if I had reached slowly into a cold shower
And I could not prevent the dreary progression into the ice.

This what a woman does.
She yields to his strength and calloused hands,
As she yields to let him inside her,
And yields to release his spawn into the world.

I didn’t know what to do anymore.
So he began to pull of my jeans,
Slowly at first, but he began jerking from frustration.

This is what a man does.
His missing father and Y-Chromosome
Compel him to lead:
The cows to the barn to be milked
And his bride into the dimly lit marriage bed.

I follow the melding flesh on the screen
As my hieroglyphic guides into the maze
And I find myself falling to my knees
Saying a silent prayer before being devoured.
I felt the water retreat into my eyes in an attempt
To obscure the last picture of my virility.

Because this what a woman does.
She bows at the altar of a ******* god,
Swallowing the last crumb of pride she has left
After he feet were bound again
                                                                And again
I don’t remember the rest.
And maybe that’s what a woman does,
That’s the only way she would follow him.
I remember him leaving to clean up.
I begged God to let me cry,
As the generations of women before me.
I hoped the tears would wash away the black tar
I could feel clinging to my once unstained skin.
If I could catch them in my hands
I would rinse my mouth out with melancholy.
And this is what a woman does.

Caught in the maze
Of amazing veins
****** cells excel
Tunneling thru’
Vessels and vestibules  
Mind oscillates vacillates
In chaotic amplitude
Like a pendant in pendulum
Of wishes and vices
Divine and devilish
Wise and unwise
Pride and prejudice
Dual mind is in duel
  
Behind the temple
Brain at home in skull
Will and wit seated well in skill
Rein, rule or roam and ruin
Embroidered and embroiled
Embodied and emboldened
Meditate, mediate,
Cogitate, agitate
Churn and spurn
Nurture the soul within
Explore the radiant light    
At the end of the tunnel
Mind, the deity on duty
As mysterious as its Maker,
The Brain behind the brain

Malignancy burrowing
Deep down within me
Grinding the good
To a deep reddish dust,
Flailing about
I try hard to contain it
The pain is intense
But stop it I must.

Malignancy tunneling
Down through my conscience
Baring the thoughts
That I wish least to see,
Revealing the ugliness
Locked in their content
Revealing maliciousness
Portrayed in me.

Desperately trying
To hold the malignancy
Desperately trying
To stop the release,
But out through the keyhole
It flows to the atmosphere
Out to the public
Out to the police.

Malignancy laughs
As a form of appeasement
Malignancy reaches
To hold out it's hand,
Malignancy calms
My hammering heartbeat
The secret's out there
And I'm dead in the sand.


Marshalg
On a rare sick day
@theBach
9 January 2010

My bruises are fading
from that old, ragged bench
that we sat in for hours
as we fell further than we ever did before
into each other's arms.

That tattered metal frame
carved out a starving skeleton
through a dull blue cushion.
The bars dug into my back, shoulders and neck
like sinking teeth, spurting blood under my skin.

Now, the vessels are healing,
soaking up what's left of me
and tunneling it back to my heart.
Blue and purple reminders
of a quiet, muggy Saturday night
are becoming fluid—like my memory will:
Rather than the truth, I will remember
what suits me best, from a faulty camera in my mind.

I pray these wounds never fade,
so I can know the jagged angles forever:
both of the frame in my back,
and your sharp thin bones
cradled in my skinny arms,
maybe for the last time.

I press down on the waning bruises,
a sign that time has escaped me,
to feel no pain; no proof
that at last, you loved me best.

wind, think-bits, and traffic.
they all mesh up
and dawdle through
the goon-soaked mind.
okay.
this is a fine kind of
semi-quiet.

a motorbike, revving to explode
cuts through the noise and
commands me:
"listen to me groan.
boy
am I ever
alive."

on the bike, I can't help but suppose,
there's a person.
and I  further suppose a rush,
sweet, vicious rush
of adrenaline.
a lurching in the *****.
a landscape of streetlights and gust,
******* screaming
straight through.
out there.

maybe there's two of them?
and the wheels just spinning and spinning and spinning.
and back here my head's just spinning and spinning
and spinning,
while people are out there
tunneling through to
the edge
of death.

****.

now I gotta get up and write all this down
just so I don't feel like a mollusk.