The dread set in upon opening my eyes, as i swing my legs to the right side of the bed and stand. Slightly stumbling i make my way to the bathroom while adjusting to a waking state. I flip on the light, wincing my eyes in a sharp electric freeze from the back of my head, and while recovering, i pull the shower curtain away from the showers pull ***. Pulling the *** out slowly twisting it to ninety degrees as the water turns on, i am reminded to feed my plants before leaving the condo for the day. I step into the shower dipping my head under the warm stream of steaming water while resting my hands against the wall, as images of all the women i had saw the night prior begin shuffling through my head and a partial ******* forms. I imagine their eyes filled with tears, as i shove them down to my ****, and finally the Rolodex of faces stops on a Starbucks girl with piercings all over her pouty face that i had encountered on a lunch break a few days ago, and i begin stroking my **** with my right hand whispering "you ***** ****" over and over, as her eyes look up at me innocently, Mascara running down her face, until suddenly i hear my phone vibrate atop a pile of pocket change in the bedroom which promptly kills the moment in my wonder of the importance of a 5:00 AM jingle, which slowly fades, while i proceed to apply Ax shower gel to my Ax body scrubber that i had received as a gift in a Holiday work raffle three months prior.  Vidal Sassoon extra volume shampoo plus conditioner, "All in one," proudly printed on the label, as i apply a handful to my shaved head in a smooth dripping lather, that i do not rinse until after applying a pink ****** scrub that's label has worn off, and i am unsure, and not concerned with its origin, as I squeeze a blob of Colgate paste onto my toothbrush from the rack overhead, and scrub in a slow circular motion, while i rinse off the shampoo, shower gel, and ****** scrub, and then reach for my Listerine mouth wash, and swish for 30 seconds before spitting the burning mixture into the drain, while putting the brush away. I tilt my head up, and open my mouth wide under the water, taking in a mouth full, which i gargle for 10 seconds then spit, and turn off the shower reaching for a tattered towel left over from a breakup four years prior.  I dry off while still standing in the shower, and gently lay the towel on the floor before stepping out onto it, and grabbing a stick of Degree antiperspirant from the counter.  I apply 3 long strokes to each armpit before capping it, and putting it down. Two sprays of coolwater cologne i apply from a 1 foot distance, misting my chest and lower neck, before i put it down beside the deodorant, and walk back into the bedroom, grabbing a pair of boxer shorts from a drawer not caring which pair i grab. I slip them on, and walk over to the mirrored closet where i flex a few times, point aggressively, and in an authoritative tone repeat "I don't give a ****.", three times before sliding the closet door open and grabbing a pair of Marc Echo blue jeans that i had purchased online two years prior with a gift card from a local pub that i may have frequented too much to have received.  Reaching for an Infliction black tee shirt with ghostly gray swirls cascading to its base, i become completely still, left arm clutching the shirt still on its hanger, i am paralyzed for two seconds before looking away, and saying  "I don't have any plants" inquisitively to myself, yanking the shirt from the closet, and walking over to my phone atop the dresser.

Picking up the phone almost eagerly, i click the screen on in a light squeeze, and swipe my finger from left to right across the display to unlock the device, to a missed call from an unknown number, a voicemail, and 3 missed text messages. I tap the voice mail icon, and enter my pass code upon the automated prompt, "1234." The voice mail immediately clicks a few times before hanging up which assures me of its automation, and i assume its the power companies robots attempting to collect the monthly charge again. I tap on the missed text message icon, disconnecting from voice mail, and see that all three are from a girl named Haedies i met through a roommate long ago that i have recently found over facebook. A "How are you!", "I MISS YOU!!!", and a picture message of her with a wax figure of a trollish cartoon character i cannot quite place, both looking very serious, and i look at her **** pressing out from her white tanktop, ******* clearly hard, and her neck, long and attractive, its definition, thins my blood, and her dark black medium length hair loosely dangles just above her shoulder, causing me to partially smile, as i close the message paying it no further thoughts, and slip on my tee shirt, as i head for the kitchen. I open the refrigerator and grab a plastic bottle of 5 Hour Energy, and twist it open, tip my head back, and take the whole drink down in one swallow, throwing the empty plastic shell back into the fridge, and swing the door shut with my bare left foot, before i head back to the room to put my socks and boots on. Once my black combat boots are fully laced up, i put my wallet, change, and keys into the appropriate jean pockets, and head for my jacket hung on a hook beside the door. A black leather windbreaker. My mini trench that allows for a high level of concealment, and pocket space made possible by Wilson Leather. I run my hand over my face satisfied with my slight stubble from not shaving today, and reach into my left inner pocket of my jacket and pull out Sony earbuds, and plug them into my phone. I select a Pandora station based on the black metal band "Burzum", and walk out the door, locking only the dead bolt behind me.  5:25AM

Sitting in the world’s most uncomfortable chair as I readjust my seat for the sixth time… it seems to be a futile effort.
An overweight man in a grey jogging suit is walking in, his white shoes leave wet foot prints across the faded carpet as he crosses the room and begins taking up the chair opposite me with a heavy sigh as though he has walked a long distance though I can see his car through the half closed blinds.

I think the carpet used to be red, like the long carpets they use in the lineup to see Santa but now it is a muddy color… like the water one might use to rinse paint brushes after it has been used too much.

The woman beside me is wearing a faded floral print dress, she smells like garlic and is snoring softly a rumpled romance novel clutched in one hand as her head nods forward onto her chest.
I watch it rise and fall slowly for a few long moments before finally pulling my eyes away again and look towards the desk where the blonde receptionist is sitting.

Her hair is pulled back into a messy bun and there is a pen stuck in it to keep it in place, the pen is blue… or black I think but there is a red cap on it.
She is wearing those nurses’ scrubs they are a faded purple color with chains of daisies decorating them.  

I look past the blonde receptionist and her messy bun with the blue… or black pen with the red cap sticking out of it to the hallway with its bright lines of light and glossy floors.

Another woman is walking out of one of the doors, I can’t see it but I hear it close loudly in the silence, the woman beside me with the faded floral print dress jumps a little snuffling and grunting her dime store romance novel held up before her like a shield before she realizes it was just a door.

Just like the overweight man in the grey jogging suit as he to tries futilely to get comfortable in one of the world’s most uncomfortable chairs, I don’t think he has ever jogged… maybe he just likes the color.

The woman beside me is slouching a little further down in her chair... in another moment she is snoring again softly, I watch the woman who just came out of the unseen door.

She has a little boy with her, he is wearing black puddle boots and Spiderman pajama pants his coat is blue with black racing stripes down the back… he is tugging at the woman’s hand and saying something in another language.

She hushes him and turns back to the receptionist with the messy blonde bun, I watch as she reaches for the pen that is holding it in place… that one that might be blue or maybe black with the red cap on the end before she stops and picks up a black pen off the desk and writes something on a slip of paper before handing it to the woman.

She looks tired, her black hair is braided loosely and strands are falling into her face.
There are large dark circles under her eyes and she dressed in faded jeans and a grey windbreaker with the crest of a sporting goods store I have never heard of embroidered across the shoulder.

The boy is tugging at her hand again and as she turns to look at him she wearily sweeps her gaze over the rest of the room before she answers him.
Her voice is very soft with a practiced kind of patience most parents have, though I can’t make out her words I am sure they are also in another language that I do not understand.

I watch as they boy runs towards the door and pushes all his weight against it making a great show of his strength as the door slowly swings outwards and he leans back against it digging his boots into the muddy colored carpet as the woman follows him out.

The man in the grey jogging suit that has most likely never jogged before has gotten out of his world’s most uncomfortable chair and is eyeing the other still empty seats around him mentally trying to guess without having to walk over and try them which is the least uncomfortable.

He looks across to the woman beside me in the faded flora dress as she gives another snuffling murmur her fingers slowly letting the rumpled novel slip from them, it slides onto the floor and bounces before landing cover side up. Fields of Passion.

He looks at me and our eyes meet, I roll mine in a dramatic gesture of my opinion of the sleeping woman’s taste in reading... he smiles but says nothing and finally decided on another chair right beside the one he had before and sighs heavily as he settles himself into it.

I hear my name being called by the blonde receptionist with the messy bun held together by her blue or black pen with the red cap.
This time the snoring woman with the bad taste in novels doesn’t stir, the man in the jogging suit smiled a little as I pass him and I smile back before turning and disappearing down the hallway with the glossy floors and bright lines of light.

I saw your face in a paper sky,
Saw how good it looked in black-and-white.
The light in your eyes is
One of those pre-lit things-
That is, to say,
That when you wink,
The sky goes gray.

Heart Ripper, you're a decorative lover,
One red-hot summer.
Heart Ripper, what a gorgeous shame.
Love is love, under any given name,
But after a hit, it's forever lame.

You're the classic American case
Of mud inside a jar,
You air-brushed lonely-heart.
Perfect imperfection,
A photograph in a frame,
You're smiling, but dustless.
Dustless, and perfect.

Heart Ripper, you've gained a red list,
And another little lover wrapped up in your fist.
Heart Ripper, she's on my side,
If I can't give it back to you,
She will in good time.

Just like some music in the canal,
You remind me of a favorite song.
But this final number's old,
Over-played, over-sold.
Skipping in that broken-record fashion,
Really,
I mean to say,
That this is a tune from the past,
That's closing fast.

Heart Ripper, you're a powerhouse lover,
The blanket superior.
Like a windbreaker in December,
You're there, but not quite enough.
Heart Ripper, never fixing what you've torn;
The needle, the thread, the sewing hand--
Take this as a tune of pity,
As a brand new set of plans.

Hero, hero,
Get it while it lasts.
You're invincible now,
A regular rough horse from the city.
Go home,
And just for good measure,
Repent, before you receive
More than just a tune of pity.

I'll hold you up and lift you
Like the wind blows the willow tree
My tears will fall and cover you
Like the rain washing the earth
I'll carry your burden on my shoulders
& wither under the pressure
Too tired to walk, too shameful to fall
Bury me, bury me
Like the dearly departed

I want to start off by asking you to forgive me. I've never been good with apologies, only making lights in hospital flicker and leaving dead roses at your doorsteps as a reminder of all my withering mistakes. People spend a lot of time in hospitals when they feel guilty, people spend a lot of time with things that are dying - it makes them feel like they are paying for their sins. In the grand scheme of things, I get to watch you die for free when you inhale your burning, filtered death, and it is a beautiful thing. Admit me to the hospital, for I find that I used to have a heart but the love inside of it has turned malignant, it has eaten away my chest cavity and left nothing but a gaping wound that bleeds darkness, and your staple kisses can't even hold the wound together for long. Admit me to the hospital on the basis that love is blind and I had gouged my eyes out for you, willingly, for in my sight I saw the promised land and it looked a lot like you and I never knew paradise could be so cruel. Admit me to the hospital, and ask them to put me into an induced coma, and in my unconsciousness, tell me that you love me like you did when I was sleeping, because guilt makes people feel crazy things; guilt makes me angry that I am not a beautiful sunset, that you won't grab your camera and windbreaker and rush out to catch me before I disappear. I always loved you through the wrong vision, like staring out of stained glass windows in an empty chapel - you're supposed to be the one in the confession booths, yet here I am, etching my feelings for you like hieroglyphics into church walls and wherever else people will either abandon when they're happy or visit when they need a reason to not feel so guilty. Churches and hospitals are not so different , you and me are not so different - we have always been made for the guilty, and we are full of prayers from people who might not know that one man died for all to show his love indefinitely and I have been trying to hang from a tree ever since just so you would know for one moment. Again, forgive me, I have never been good with apologies.

The milk man died last week.  I didn't
know him well, just enough to know his favorite
chew and how much he hated Fritos.

I knew his lover and her worn-out
windbreaker, her frizzled hair as gold
as her Marlboros.  I sold her a pack of silvers

once and she nearly snapped my neck.
They take (took?) their tobacco dead
seriously.  She hasn't come back

to work yet, though her five allotted
days of grief are over.  The empty
milk crates just aren't empty anymore.

R.J Calzonetti


Screaming cross the skyscraper’s windbreaker tapering

Aether vapour- trailblazing ****-sapien wafers

Of machinations psychotropic doppelgängers

Aristotle throttling menagerie’s philosophically hypnotic obelisks

Mind-boggling astronomical chronological esophagus

Antioxidants phosphorus catastrophic mitochondria

Beyond anaconda onomatopoeia

Of hallucinogenic Armageddon biblical umbilical cords

Swarming northern lights of aurora borealis

The chalice a battleground of Evangelion belladonna

Metalica candelabra swallowing the monochrome Hanukkah

Of a cold winter’s eldritch disintegration photosynthesis

Of innocent infinity stretching wretched beckoning requiem

The words that fall upon my page, are really just a shallow grave

Of the dawn of nighttime in my eyes, calm upon the twilight sun

Wrong is done draped on the blood moon wraiths

Skyscraped fields dusk a hollow thud below the dunes

That thumps the consumption of our fate, fumes to glow in darkness loom

Left blind in light of day you cannot see, the little pieces silver sheen

For blinding light may fade to grey, and I will never have my way

Nightfalls on another daybreak, dawning darkness, sundown on another day

Twilight plays with sparkling haze, the sky a wildfire made ablaze in patchwork scarecrows

Who etch rainbows black as a heart of coal, sold flatlining railroads

Gold wraithlike halos of stained-glass cathedrals unreal in the fever-dream of human beings

Bleeding Elysium from the seabed of dead worlds, gourds of incorporeal cornucopias

Born orchestra morsels of sorrowful oracles predicting crucifixion of ellipsis’ antithesis


(MC) Aurora


Absonant  as my pen writes the twilight, the red swallowed on horizon and bright

As through a sea of blood under my feet and shrinking mast of my mighty ship

A shadow I make on that red snow and peep into my heart’s hollow

It’s deep as much as my pen spake of grief.

I blinded in that last light and hurled like a beast dreading the songs of holy lies

That have just pained in bright and made me grieve.

They dragged me on my wings and deplumate  me as so fallen humans

They wrenched my limbs and rive my heart out and flinger me in air and I laid forever

On the stones that dank my blood.

I wait for the troth  of  demise but betrayed as it didn’t come to detract,

I laid when the horizon grinned red on my face and poured the last ale

And brutally drank the last sip of me.



R.J Calzonetti


People are sleeping under the blankets of a tranquil streetlamp

A sunflower in the damp bed of concrete

Soon they’ll be pushing up daisies

Underneath the foundation of what I stand for

Nip the bud of the flower pedalling the root of all evil like fallen leaves

Breeding paraplegic freedom from the pollen melancholic

Anarchistic polycrystalline shapeshifters drifting vilified

Buried alive like asphalt constellations crowning metallic gallows alcoholic in my solitude

See the clouds bury the ground in half a heaven’s heartbeat

Limbo’s limitless abyss the photosynthesis of the sepulchral diablo

Revenants of redemption dancing with death

Evanescent in its bioluminescent crescent moon spooning illuminated illustrations

Of Himalayan mayhem cremated avarice of ethereal onomatopoeia unravelling catacombs in God’s palindromes

Homeopathic saplings decapitated in the dismembered September wastelands defibrillator

Invigorating the nightshade white wraiths plane-walkers of Apocrypha documenting entropy

Pent up sentience avenging the endless demigods of discombobulated proclamations nocturne graceless, octaves eldritch, evangelic

Elegant elevators to flights of staircases where the air is fragrant with the fragments of stagnant stained glass asterisks

Written gospels to masquerade hostage to the faith the man misplaced the sacred hate, the passageways of apathy apostrophe

Apartheid of serpentine survivors carving smiles on the sidewalks

Farming diamonds and their detox

Arming giants like a phoenix

Carnal nihilists with their secrets

Stardust quiet as the bleachers

Start defiant still a reject

Art discipled to our freedom

Shattered hearts pick up the pieces

Jigsaw puzzles, smothered treasons

Sow the seeds and **** the reaper

Even legions rhyme and reason

Tattered flags without a penance

Good men do not go to heaven

Buy your burden at 7-11

Your exit is the only the next entrance

Resurrection prepubescent

Asymmetric biomechanics

Anguish to be reprimanded

Megalomaniac in our sabbath

Living life is just a sentence

Psalms of seance death’s senescence

Baptize vengeance lest it ventures into heaven

Ventriloquist omniscience of rhythmic equilibrium

Earthly hurricanes reemerging insurgent as the sugarcane purgatory

Primordials metamorphosis contorting rigour Mortis oracles horoscope cloaked in cloaca hallucinations

Induced irradiated amalgamated retaliatory incorporeal chlorophyll

Born from the sorcerers' spell, the cathedral of doubt

The only darkness is within oneself, light shed within a holy shell

Isolation is a lonely hell, scythes of moonlight blight of bells

Nightingales fail to halo word of mouth

Enveloped in the clouds cast shadows hex

But resurrection cannot hide from the eyes of death

Fresh as babies breath

Rank as the body festers effigies

Bless the Nephilim the questions beck

And call for some god to collect the rest

Is there any answer?

Even growth can be a cancer

Lifeless corpses once were dancers

Devils waltz on top of canopies

Heaven’s hands have touched serenity

****** brands that crushed His enemies

Stained glass sanguine dismantled entropy

Calamity ran dry insanity dabbling in humanity

Unravelling the candy wrapper saplings of happiness

Pitch black irradiant dull edges sharpening archangels, darkness reincarnating

Blinding bioluminescent glistening abyssal rakshasa sarcophagus parting monarchies

Metamorphosis coruscating fornication immortalization Tartarean

Reverberating ****-sapien scintillating hurricanes palpitation circulating ricocheting oblivion

Shining crepuscular homunculus dully illustrious

Sunless avatars, mannequins of Abaddon stygian as fallen leaves on the breeze of Avalon Evangelion

Incarceration breeding Elysium’s jailors in the cathedral of double helixes

Bethlehem's’ new genesis of Lucifer’s crucifixion

Brighter than a fallen star

Mourning in the dark

Doppelganger apostles night stalkers of phosphorous

Pockmarked arcanum bloodstained in gravestone Salem

Where the braves’ halos dined on maelstroms alone

Heirs succeeding failures of the empty throne

Filled with nothings’ own

Brimming bound by Babylonian poems

Deus ex Machina's apocalypse coughing prophets of Samsara blossoming diabolic

Life is but a Holocaust

Death the moment God forgot

Breath the only psalm we sought

Kept within a hollow box

Shedding devils, angelic, lost

Finding metamorphosis


(MC) Aurora


A world often synonymous with beauty on the horizon,

Meet my eyes you mourned demon load the strength on thee.

Crestfallen light on your wrist burns down your girth

And you can plead, just plead your twilight sun.

Watch the dead sea swallow you in the salts of agony

And drown in the anguish, hundreds of angelic bloodsheds,

Press hold of the thumbprints on your throat, you can't roar.

Sore lugubrious melancholy aired atmosphere,

And downhearted souls dispirited dragons dragged along.

The sob grim hiding in a blue funk rusty smog choking wind,

The nyctophilliac animals howl long the cold-blooded love song

In your lungs and burn.

It's the twilight sun,

Just that twilight sun.

As I entered the subway in the early morning spit and drizzle
My sleep rusted eyes saw bags, black plastic bags,
Bin bags, there were three, huddled at the far end,
Against the biting cold, the trinity of bags rustled,
Flipping, flapping, hugging, seeking warmth in the tunnel.

And yet…

When my shoes slipped across the wet subway floor
And I got nearer to the ******* heap at the far end,
My eyes suddenly froze and my steps slowed,
Those bin bags were acting as a windbreaker,
A windbreaker for a body upon the concrete floor.

A man without a home…

Wind, shrieking a heartless hymn of obscene guilt,
It punched through my carefully guarded sense of humanity,
A man slept there, discarded and forgotten, head near the gutter,
Shoes curled, body curled, a man searching for a mother’s warmth,
The light above harsh, dank, and as lifeless and as merciless as a tomb.

Do not forsake him…

This man, he was the son of the morning, dreaming in lands unknown,
Sleeping in lands known, attacked by politicians, kicked by society,
Demonized by the press and bitten by the rabid media machine,
Knifed by the blade of youth, and eulogized by the church and elders,
Yet, through it all, we all knew, and we silently walked on our way.

I found a statue of Christ amidst detritus
of a burned-out bar on High Street.

The Savior scorched to a cinder:
the state of faith in America.

I crossed myself and stowed
the King of Kings
in folds of my old windbreaker

(buried beneath the hardened exterior
I've projected to protect myself
from the tyranny of evil men)

to spare him the indignity
of further exposure to the elements on
our exodus through these city streets:

a trifling attempt at reciprocity.

yours is the knife that
lies in bottles of pickled
berry fingers, the night
is is the way you move- groove:
how it stains them-
the sun that shines on the other side
of the
moon craze.
so shut up (and sit down)
with all the garden things crawling in your hair.
cut it short, babe.
end it
soon. but
gimme good-
eyes like stale jellybeans tumbling out
the bag, over-ripped-open.

he's still out there.

still coming for you.
don't tie your shoes.

don't love me well
don't find a way to
get away

we need these            and more.

and when the toes break
from kicking at
everything,

history will show us that there is no good and evil.
only
cruelty
and different directions in which it falls at certain times.

and when you are brought to tears
by an upload of an old toonami ad-
that ******* takes you there,

you will know about it.


and living,
you will fall into
the spaces
that
sleep
ever just out ofgrasp

churning like a bellow of
me

She wore a windbreaker as red
as her parents voting habits,
and smoked American Spirits
as rough as the next-door
skateboarder's hands.

At 18, she was bored by
teen-aged touch,
and looked towards the
thirty-five year-old avant-garde
painter, who meandered in his
sun room, like a soul
pretending to be lost.

At 20, her parents told her
to go to college, to go to
'some place other than here'.
So, she went and had skinny,
Greek fingers with chipped nail-polish,
dip down and inside of her, without
judgement, without thought, and,
with this touch, she felt free.

At 24, she was an undergrad with
an apartment and a guy named 'Blake',
and Blake said Brown and she said State.
And when Blake left, she felt complete
despite losing something meaningful.

And when her story started to go on forever,
her body spread across the pavement like
seeded jam on burnt toast, scraped thin,
without image and without future, lost
inside crevices and cracks, a memory
or thought, wandering nothingness.

When I was little my father
Used to take me to the beach
With my tiny baby body wrapped up in his arms and
His coat that fit the 6 foot 8 inched
Man with room for an extra 4 foot girl
Who was too cold to walk by herself.
I loved the sea only beach it
Provided the beach
Which provided the walks
Which resulted in my dad with the
Extra large, forest green windbreaker.
I didn’t care for the ice cold water
Or the frigid air
Only for the effect that It had, that ended
With me inside that forest green windbreaker.
I didn’t even really like the walk because 2
Of my legs equaled one of his
But I loved how 2 of his arms equaled
One of my 4 foot bodies.

His eyes gleamed and played in his eye sockets, like marbles on a playground. When he spoke, he waved the arms of a worn windbreaker. Dried ***** pooled down the center zipper. This was a man who stopped to compliment my boots and not my face. Or skin. Or purty smile. The wind encircled us and almost pulled the cardboard with a toothy model on both sides out of his dried finger tips. His niece insisted he carry that thing around. If only she had given him an entire billboard instead.

When I saw the gaunt streetwalker, companion of the sunrise, keeper of the bottle--he had enough to live off the recycling from years--he reminded me of the naked frightening people we are when we peel off the fifteen layers of skin, disrobe, and dismantle our pride.

you scratched our initials
into the surface
of the polished wooden table
behind Redlight Redlight
with the key to my heart.

P + S.

a brief message
etched in time
for all to see.
you grinned up at me
when you'd finished,
ombré fluttering slightly
in the evening breeze,
and said, unabashedly,
"it was the first thing
that popped into to my head."

P.S.

sometimes, i still think
of how your hands clung insistently
to my windbreaker when we sat
on the pier, how our bodies
synced in quiet harmony.

No tinkly tintinnabulation of children’s songs precedes him;
The vaguely Sputnik-esque speaker on the van’s roof
Squawking out Ernest Tubb and Hank Snow,
(The ice cream man is a hillbilly fan)
Tunes so out of time as to be almost beyond time itself,
Not unlike his ancient, off-white conveyance,
A vehicle of no particular make or model,
Bearing license plates issued years if not decades ago
(One thinks that the DMV would have insisted upon their replacement,
But the ice cream man likely retains them through force majeure,
And it would be no surprise if he did not find himself subject
To such notions as licenses and registrations.)

His arrival is not subject to any calendar but his own.
When his truck announces itself for the first time,
It is, by definition, the height of spring;
You notice the leaves have become a fully-formed green canopy,
And you eschew a bathrobe
As you saunter out to find the morning paper.
The next ten, perhaps twelve weeks are a blurry kaleidoscope,
Rife with cones and bomb pops, drumsticks and choco-tacos,
Dispensed with a high-wattage grin and a hearty Mind how you go!
But the ice cream man is always searching the sky
(Sometimes, you would swear he is actually sniffing the air)
Seeking clues like some ancient trying to ascertain the future
In the pebbles and small bugs in a crow’s innards.
At some point, be it late August or mid-October, he is gone,
Leaving you to instinctively grab a windbreaker
If you leave the house after suppertime,
And the shorts and t-shirts are consigned to some large plastic bin
As a matter of course.

Invariably, at some point during his curbside season,
There is the urge to ask him where he goes
Once he determines that his time has ended for another year;
Surely, he cannot live on the quarters and dimes
He tucks into his improbably white apron,
And he must have his obligations to banks and landlords
Not unlike any other man, but somehow the idea
That the ice cream is under the thumb
Of coupon books and past-due notices
Is oddly unnerving, indeed unseemly.
In our minds, he has always been and most likely will always be,
Engine hacking, sputtering, then implausibly purring
As it pulls away from the curb,
Its confectionary conductor
Humming some long-lost Cowboy Copus tune
Which trails off into nothingness as he disappears from view.

He comes in around the same time
every Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday
eating alone save for the newspapers
constantly clutched beneath his arm
his spectacles worn to ice
his windbreaker and khakis
every time ordering the same
salad, soup, and pasta dish
He doesn’t talk much
and I like that
his words are rare occurrences
of honest observation
a reflection of the aged, sad look
which he wears on his face
every Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday
just before the dinner rush
I never see him arrive or leave
simply he appears
a ghost from an old photograph
walking among the swirling mess
of flesh, blood, and heartbeats
I bet he drives an Oldsmobile
or maybe a buick
stick shift with faded leather interior
I bet he had a wife once who loved him
and children who weren’t too grown up
to give him a call every now and then
just to check in
I think about this man
under the closing-time moon
as I pull myself into my car
and leave
away with my own life
my own story
and I aim not to forget him

Your windbreaker holds back all of the rain that flows
Only seconds away from the curb where you stand,
Puddles distant near and far are the result from the
Violent storm at hand. I'll try to somehow understand.

Your hand stretches outward as if to beckon, but instead
You stick your finger up and let me know how you
"Really feel," but I'm always at your mercy, your dark
Brown eyes hold me in a somewhat helpless-make me reel.

If there was a way to go back to that time and find you there,
What I wouldn't give to tell you how you made me feel.
A lady knows when she's found her love, and there's no way
Without you I'll ever get bye when push comes to shove.

My sister was my first ward.
When GOD saw fit to send
her to me he forgot to include any warnings.
She would drink all the juice,
and play with all the toys.
She was cuter then me, smaller than me,
and could not sin. At least that’s what my family thought.
I didn’t know it was possible to love and hate that hard until we grew up.
As a fledgling guardian I had to do well in school,
respect teachers, and keep out of trouble
because she followed in my wake.
I was her windbreaker that protected her from the storm.

My overprotectiveness of all Double X chromosome
carriers is pretty much her fault.
I made plans at night on how I would keep us both safe
if we ever had the misfortune of being alone in the world.
I blazed trails and fought demons
so she would never know darkness.
And I failed.
I made her hate me and the weird thing was I was content
with the hate because she was safe.
She’ll never see the horrors of the frontlines.
Never know my scars.

It’s taken two years to get my best friend back.
No matter what happens or the gap that may arise
she will always be my friend.
Now I’ll always mess with her, give her advice,
answer when she calls, remind her of her embarrassing moments,
and I will always be the first to defend her.
She’s my littlest one and I’ll have her back until the day I leave this world.
Love you lil sis sis.

Columns of water smoked over
The lake last evening,
Leaving a sun-soaked
Wet-dog pungency. But wagging.
Fatted newborns are
Claiming trees, digging holes.
The worms are doomed
Beneath the green.
Snouts are grovelling
Where they belong.
This was a blithe storm
Passing through.

My sun is eclipsed by you.
After a calming period.
Especially after seeing
You again, seeing you're happy.
That's a rising barometer
For you.
I see it in your hands,
On your ring finger.
Being congenial is different now.
But I am persistent
With my lieu time.
I will be resistant
In my windbreaker.
I have learned
To wait in queue.

Christmas lights dangle from the balconies
of skyscrapers off Highland and 50.
the wood of the dock is well-worn,
but firm beneath our feet.
our reflection is emblazoned
on the lake's dark surface over your shoulder,
a still-frame frozen momentarily
like a photographer's snap-shot.
stars wink hazily out beyond the city's smog, lazy
voyeurs surveying the crush of our forms.

those same nebulae must have conspired
to shape our bodies eons before,
back when the universe was first born.
what else could explain
the way you fit so perfectly,
furtively resting your head
in the nook between my neck and chest?

i place no faith in gods,
but distant suns, lightyears away,
deigned to reach
through parsecs of space-time
to smile down from above
as if they'd designed
this moment
just for us
and couldn't bear
to miss out.

the heady scent of Spirit Cigarettes clings
to your woolen sweater,
an incense of second-hand smoke,
shampoo, and Perfume.
i lose myself in an instant,
breathing in and out.
in and out.

i run my fingers through your hair,
lingering at your jawline,
circling infinitely beneath your earrings.
your hands cling insistently to my windbreaker.
wordlessly, we share an unspoken need
to simply be intwined
beneath a waxing moon,
staving off a chill
that has little to do
with this Florida winter.

wise enough to recognize
bliss like this interrupts our melancholy
only temporarily. ephemeral seconds
suspended like phone-lines between us.
but i yearn to share
moments like these,
however fleeting,
mutually wrapped in rapture.

I found him, my saint and savior,
Sitting at his leisure sipping tea,
Trimmed green in the background
With his own private backyard pool.
Cable, golf the whole thing on TV,
Chatting with friends about the
Trends in Hollywood, the PG rated
Movie that sold so well because
The mass public could "indulge,"
*Instead of looking outside at the
Grey tattered jacket and windbreaker,
Tethered against a rainy post in the cold.

there is a boy who smells like crushed up pills
who licks his lips when he thinks hard
and holds his hands in the pockets of his
blue windbreaker.
he is the kind of person with the kind of mind
that you wish you could read; you want to
delicately crack open his skull and reveal the
contents written in its folds.
you want to know what is written on the crumpled up
slips of graph paper that he carries in his jacket pockets.
you want to know why he is and why you are and
what mess of universal ties somehow connect you.

The chaos of history
Where we try to find patterns that quickly crumble, where fear of *** is a constant
Fear of free thought is constant
Regret after war is constant
To find organizations of prejudice under the euphemism of protection is constant
Inequality has been constant. I cannot think of a time in history where hierarchy has not existed. This doesn't mean it couldn't ever exist
Perhaps if our empathy was increased by our tools for expression, there would be more equality, if feelings were so out in the open that they couldn't possibly be ignored
That politicians lie for support is a constant

Given these constants, why do we continue to lament?  Because we dream of an ideal, somehow, because we are dis satisfied with what is put in front of us, because as scholars we criticize, why can't we accept?  The individual makes a choice to live for change because he sees the possibility, but he finds that his honesty is misinterpreted and reinterpreted by the ***** to fit an ideal that never was, that the maytr becomes inhuman, a lie of pure soul that was far from the truth of, how perceptions change naturally and the idea of change may be an illusion

That Gandhi did not liberate India, but rather shifted the tides in the right direction as a performer, a martr, that the liberation of India happened on it's own. That a man cannot change the world, but live his life in his own ideal image of it, which influences but does not actually change,

I want to run away from my own thinking
It gets carried away from me, and suddenly I am a victim, or perhaps my self pales in comparison to my emotion, like a small child gazing at the golden gate bridge on a dark night a he huddled in his think windbreaker, it is a hopeless cause, that emotion is as real as any rational thought, that there is no real distinction, the idea that everything is about *** except for ***, *** is about power, but emotion is not about power, it is from a scours that is beyond the animal, it is absolutely an completely human and alien to the natural world, I am pale to the comparison of this life, and my emotion drives my passion, and in my rational mind I am hungry for food and drink and for power, rationality, the animal instinct, that I fear death when I am rational, how pathetic and now time consuming and how completely undeserving of the following feeling of pervasiveness, that I am capable of anything and death is my fate no matter what my choosing, oh, I will choose the former every time, until my rationality dies, yes I will go gently into that good night

I weep and I beg, please take me away
I weep and I beg, please take me away
I weep and I beg, please take me away
I weep and I beg, please take me away

There are paper plates
with your face on them.

Your green windbreaker
has made you a legend.

the wind wants to be visible, and even has a new color to show us...the wind knows how we are and knows that some will taunt it if they see the wind being blown by wind. The wind will not be pushed around by people who want to make things they see disappear. So i do bad stuff and they can't even see me. I'm gay, but i also carry farts right to these judgmental people's noses. In yo face! The funny thing is, these people actually think it's their ****. Breaking wind huh? I just broke you dog! You can't break wind boy! You betta getcha a windbreaker! TBAG! Shut ya mouf! Tailwinds from now on *******!

She came back today
new hair swishing, talking, laughing
non-verbally different.

trendy, mismatched clothes
shapeless pants
a cheap embroidered windbreaker.
even with heels, she seems below me,
no longer restrained, outspoken, quiet, or fun.

I’m grasping for normality,
clinging onto her old expressions
that rolling of the eyes
flicking of the tongue
replaced by swishing
maneuvering, stoutly and gracefully
all at once.  

once we were little planets
now transformed into a shooting star
and me, firmly grounded in familiar earth.