For Lonely Hearts in Darkness Across Oceans

If you cry my name in the night,
if you call out longingly and in silence, despise me,
forgive me my love!
For I am drowning in silence, drowning in the rays of a sun
that has ceased shining,
in the stars that no longer smile, in a moon that mocks my linings,
my mind mires in sorrow,
for what happiness can I write,
when I can but touch you in leaden images?
When your smile lasts only in photographs?
The depths of oceans are but a tenth,
of the tears my heart has tasted in your absence.

I am hungering for you between breaths,
I scream your name in my exhale,
my inhale moans your loss,
how long will this torture last?
Amor, come to my side, end this fast!
My vision fades to black and white,
without my love, sunsets bleed to a blight,
a memory of beauty once known,
now, only in dreams and photographs shown.
I but vaguely remember taste,
with you, I had roses in the morning, noon, and night,
now ashes have roses replaced,
now, to taste requires a flight.

Let emotion overwhelm an ocean.
As I am yours sofia,
then eres mia.

On Nights Like This

On nights like this,
when the cold breeze from the window,
softly slips across my bare back,
leaving goosebumps and gossamer kisses,
soft as your lips in the summer,
warm as your heart in the winter,
a hearty fire roaring in my loins,
fed stick by stick across an ocean,

on nights like this,
when children’s chatter fills the night,
when pretend adults’ talk turns trite
cringing at every last invite,
I turn to the open blackness of the sky,
to the cold, blue stars, shivering in the distance,
for warmth only your existence,
only our persistence.

On nights like this,
I had you.

Sleep

The soft drone of hibernation, the
machinery at rest,
echoes forever in my mind.
These are songs of silence,
that dance as neurosis in my mind.
We as Forms, in this void asleep,
our artifices stripped,
reveal in subtle innocence, and
confess.

The hum of his pure rest
drains the venom from his
angry tongue, and suddenly,
his skin pale and baby soft,
he draws his limbs in closer, and
unconscious, rubs maternal warmth
across a cold exterior, making a new nest.

With her composure undone
as she dreams, her perpetual smile
in incremental motion begins to lament,
while from her glossy lips
she tastes the clearness of
wordless, inexplicable tears for
a secret second, only one moment without sun.

And he with the petrified face of day
can't subdue his ecstasy as
his smile exults delicately across once immutable skin,
and his cheeks now pink, colored
like the sunsets back when he was eight,
when his dreams felt like today,
a fear, a love, a play.

So when I cease my sleeping, my dreaming,
then the interior will be my exterior one final time.
This time, Death, mostly I beg for one thing-
That I see an exquisite expression,
one which whispers, without a word.

Time

Monday-to-Thursday and then Tuesday-to-Sunday the same,
days like the seasons cycle through me,
playing a tedious game,
bearing the burden of my blame.

because time sometimes fasts but always slows,
reappearing each second to scatter scars
and tiny ghosts across my skin, and
with each smite millions of undiscerned cycles.

So August-to-February, like June-to-November,
is filled with secret inspections of minutehands that
point to the infinity of noon;
my thousand eyes look upward
at a cycle, which transcends.

But the incessant tick of the seconds, with
sonic waves through my head,
pulls me down with stronger hands.

For Souf

Love,
how wild you have run!
How shamefully you have scorched and scorned me
to be outdone at last,
my greatest tearful joy

You make me weak,
week by week,
Ashes scatter my face,
Disguising patterns you trace.

Love is not a potted plant,
while my flame flickers,
your bonfire consumes cities.
I bring my flame closer, united,
We burn, one, incarnate.

I smile at the stars tonight,
these, cursed beings who define distance, do but desire
the fire.
Tonight, I do not question fuel,
I hang in shame at my fears,
Smiling through my tears,
I laugh at the jealousy of gods.
Oh mortal twinings are writing
the tapestry of divinity in flesh.

Love,
how wild you have run!
We run as one,
two fires blazing together,
with naught to burn but each other.
As flames leap and laughter,
forget all but the light,
we create forever.

A Very Grey Matter

Damn Truth,
Have I not murdered you enough?

Still you return, shadowing my every move,
Whispering your wispy wings into my wire
-taps left to tripdrips in the tediumtimes

Knowledge and unKnowledge
Desparate search for doubles;
No need to look over my shoulder,
Not without a pinch of salt or two in my left

I want carnal possession of the ultimate,
While erasing all my personal carnal possession of the penultimate,
Me n Kurtz could do with one more reality.
To deal with a fearsome desirous ravening need
For my hand to be held,
By anyThing

Still Truth knocks me down from behind,
In order to prevent me from (over)taking her outstretched hand in front;
Stuck in the middle

Behind,
Truth is the kitten I drown in my backyard under the cover of darkness,
The threat knocking on my chest,
Leaving me gasping with these truth-addiction pains in my heart,
With these fears of deeds splayed before dapple skies,
Less
Truth comes knocking like pigs
Rootings in muck breaking down my door,
Early morning light, nazi’s trucks around unnecessary
Only seventeen, a beautifully incomplete boy-man,
Hoping to never be complete, with holes from howitzers,
Self-inflicted

Ahead,
Ever-lasting tag,
Too slow to ever get you before base, and allie-allie-in-free,
But you never come out for me,
Unwound the veils of a very old, very dead man stretched out on really new trees,
Found the threads connected into my very own grey matter.

But you never come out for me,
Despite prayers and pillaging,
Despite fire and fighting,
Despite fear and friends,
Despite danger and darkness,
Despite sin and shame,
Despite monsters and murderers,
But you never come out for me,
Thusly have I been called Morningstar.
And thusly, have I murdered you, Truth,
Yet still for you I quest.

Ephemeral

Peeking at the card again, his eyes brimmed once more. God, he thought, why am I such a sucker? I get stuck on every one. This was more than just ephemeral, more than just a kiss one night, more than just a fuck one weekend, he told himself. Just like every other night. But with every kiss, with every intimate moment, with every lingering touch, he could feel the truth of the world kicking him in the face. Were they all deaf? How could they fail to hear it? Pounding in their ears, moving the blood throughout them? Every tick one closer to death. Every man living in his own shadow. Every death coming a day closer. The reality of the world was ephemeral. And people were still bleeding over land, like it was more than just a place to live, bleeding over oil, like it was more than just an energy source, bleeding over small thinly sliced trees, like they were more than just paper. Was he the only one who could hear it? Everyone was bleeding. A small incision placed inside of them, from which a drip escaped every year, widening the gap in the dyke, letting more drips slip through. The red liquid was pouring out slowly from each. All bled equally, regardless. Could they not hear their bodies calling them to their end? Were they not aware of this beating, of living to escape it? Well, they had their primitive soma, their so-called “religion” to tell them they would live forever. True, his lifestyle was one few could sustain. He understood why. His own mind tried to reject his body’s urgent messages. This is more than just ephemeral it said. He repeated that to himself over and over again, biting his lips in frustration, alternating each one til they were equally chewed. And still when she appeared he kissed her, and when she whispered in his ear, telling of the future he smiled. His mind liked what she said. When they were together, he could ignore the ephemeral. He felt ethereal with her. Looking at the card, his eyes blurred again. The tearing of the anchor shook his whole frame, as a light wind blew him right out of town. He was ethereal, ephemeral. Eternal.

Untitled

I’m the guy who can’t rhyme,
Doesn’t rhyme, doesn’t understand rhythm, meter, or design,
And who often, often,
in the rush home from your house at 11:30, rushing to meet curfew.
Coming back from that which keeps the blood moving slowly, softly, through my veins.

Wonders, how it would feel, if I were to slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, ease my hands off the wheel.
How long my blackened sepulcher with wheels would hurtle onward
I wonder if in those supercharged possibly final moments I would finally grasp
An appreciation, or lack thereinof, for that “gift” of life,
I would find a final answer to the “only true philosophical question”

I suppose I could do it on a straight away,
And see if I had the cohones not to make a move.
To stare death in the face, to embrace it with open arms.
Or y’know, afterwards, I’ll say it was “to see if I had the reflexes to save myself,”
Y’know, cuz it was just a game. You know that right? Oh good.
I wouldn’t want to worry you.
Y’know.

I’m the guy who doesn’t want to step back from the ledge.
But is too afraid of oblivion to pledge
“In a minute there is time, for a dozen visions and revisions
Which another minute will erase.”

So now let’s just….
Ease the temporal away, peel this clockwork orange
To its very seeds. Let’s see under
This
Skin
And
Smile.

Lucid

His hands trembled uncontrollably, as he focused as hard as he could. Slowly as the first flakes drifted down, he poured the whiskey, precious lifeblood cautiously, but invariably the shaking was too extreme and some landed on the asphalt. Cursing, he downed the shot as fast as he could, with the ease of true drinkers. He enjoyed the burn, tasting the truth of the day with Tennessee’s poorest. Anything but this reality. He couldn’t take another lucid moment. Downing his third shot of the day, he rolled up his newspaper bed and moved on to the sidewalk to panhandle.

Shivering through the cold, Jim arrived at the party dressed to kill, with truth the furthest thing from his mind. Until he noticed the girl being groped in the corner was his girlfriend. The liquid burning his eyes made him stumble, as he hunted for the vodka bottle. One lucid moment, he thought.
One taste of reality, he wished with all his might, as he inverted the vodka bottle above his mouth. Careening out into the yard, he passed out in a puddle of puke on a pad of putting green soft grass.

What a drag, she thought, taking a stiff pull on her cigarette. The ember at the tip glowed with a gentle power as she bent over a limp form in the yard. What kind of asshole gets this wasted? She kicked him delicately in the mouth, watching the red pool amongst the brown. Taking another pull, she flicked the butt onto his back and turned back to the party with the taste of truth in her mouth.

The colors seemed to flow from within and without of everything. The chemicals in her bloodstream left her breathless, examining the scenery with a fascination unfathomable. The white winter overrunning the dull brown of slow death found her blood enchantingly warm. The ultra-realness of it all gripped her, as her shivers brought her to her knees. She could feel her heart racing as the snow reached up to embrace her. A bad hit of ecstasy?
Her final thoughts were replaced by surprise, as her body found that particularly spot of yard already occupied.

Jim woke with his wish all around him.

Ketchup

Ketchup

Life is
Living the Young American
Uncomfortable, scratchy, tight in the crotch jeans that look great
the long walk from the Metro with 60 pounds of books,
being chased the last 200 yards by the
kids you were friends with in kindergarten who now hate you,
making it to safety, white picket fence with friends and baseball bats
slurpees at Seven Eleven and shoplifting and
wunderkind and wanderlust and friends anywhere and everywhere here to share it with
CD players, death metal, guitars, girls, too loud and parents that have lives too
Beltway Plaza movies at midnight, opening the emergency door to let the group in
Not liking snotty preppy kids and finding some of them aren’t too bad anyway
Scatter, running from the cops, K-9 into our precious grove of heather and oak trees
Experimenting and finding what’s good and what ain’t
Drunk on a rooftop staring at the moon and thinking and talking
Of Lestat and Armand, vampires young, the battle to come, angels and demons and humans
Once in a while enjoying school
And actually having fruit with lunch and always making a sandwich
LD tournaments and stomachs dropping out, crushing some witless girl in a round who couldn’t figure out what Locke’s social contract and governmental legitimacy have to do with each other if the world
Depended on her
Watching Mulan and actually liking it and knowing all the songs but not saying a word, cuddled on her couch and knowing
That touch is the greatest sense there is
And damn this layer of cloth between us you smile at me and I’m blinded
Staring down the sun when I see you
And we’re roaming the streets and it’s past 1 on Christmas Eve
And you remember your dead mother’s suicide on Christmas Eve
And your dad leaving with no goodbye and I don’t know
What to do and the only thing in the whole world
That makes sense at all
Is life
Life is
A bottle of purple Heinz Ketchup

debutantes and dresses

Debutantes and dresses
The social til is brimmed and overflowing
Emotionless stresses
This (thief) knows where he’s going

Hard Drinks and Dry Docks
The register left empty
He’ll have it on the rocks
This (murderer) knows what he’s doing

Dysfuntional Families and Dreamfilled Diaries
The take(s),
Mini
-mum
The heartbreak(s),
Max
-imum
This (monster) can’t stop the shake(s).

soft slinking salutes

Soft slinking salutes,
From the waves to a small sandy beach,
A tiny boat rocks, with us two, bobbing backwards
Towards the horizon, never to be reached
Your wave
In and out of focus, swims
In time with this ragged breathing
As these masks slip on and off
In time with this ragged heaving
In time
In time
You will tire
Or I will tire
And what will happen then?
This image, in and out of focus, swims,
A final Polaroid afloat
Fighting to the surface, one more lungful
Oh lightly lapping lips,
From the waves to a small sandy beach.

How Do I Explain These Things?

Write-
-Ing w e ighs
Worth-less when
C
Oompared
With your lips
,
With
y-
oour
hips
;
all m-
-ooves
a lay-
-back
to
young,
- er
scripts.

Last Saturday

Last Saturday, I wore a funny black and white and red costume,
The red, a little flag that went from my neck to my navel
Oh gee did everybody look good, grand
White dresses and debutantes, on everyface Ayn Rand
And I sat at a round table, with nary a knight in sight,
With many wine bottles and
Im
Portent People
Told how great things were going
And how wonderful our leaders and politics were
And I deigned to suggest that perhaps perfume and silken blindfolds
Had them unable to see-smell the dead hippo,
Which I’m sure my friend harryhomeless was intouchwith
And a lady dressed in black, with a very nice
Pea-Green-Gold necklace, to match her emerald eyes,
And her immigrantmade pearl necklace from Tiff
Any’s, an indulgent old soul, also from Tiffany’s,
Told the table that
“Under 21 and they know everything”
Which clear makes
The
Verse
-In truth
Over 21, and know nothing do you?