Flying

Lay the pieces out for inspection,

neatly arranged by type and size.

Select matching parts.

Assemble supports.

Gently stretch delicate skin 

across the framework 

we have constructed together.

Secure the string.

Connect heaven and earth through humanity,

and soar 

on the ocean breeze at twilight.

The pounding surf laps at your shore like a greedy orphan

chewing away the boundary between sea and land.

While our hearts ride the wind with the kites

we carve our joy in granite

and write our regrets in the sand.

The moment will expire

but we can examine the corpse

to gather some cold comfort

some lonely day when wonder

seems like every other lie we save for children.

But right now it doesn’t take work

Light, unrestrained

Yearns through the void

To kiss your face

And die in my eyes

And the string pulls and sometimes it burns

The kite will do what the kite will do

and it will fall when it falls

despite our desire and karma.

We just hold tight

enjoying the night,

flying.

I want

I want to bury my face in your hair
and die
with your scent in my lungs.

I want to wrap my arms around you and squeeze
like you're the last bit of toothpaste in the tube.

I want to find every man that hurt you
and beat him
at everything he's best at
in front of everyone he ever respected.

I want to find the mean girls from high school
make them fall in love with me
and dump them on prom night
by showing up with you.

I want to know every inch of you with my tongue.

I want to listen to you laugh after midnight
when we both have to work in the morning.
I want to rub our foreheads together
and let fireflies explore our skin by moonlight.

I want to have to throw away my favorite
black silk shirt
because you ripped the buttons off
with your teeth.

I want to regret saying
some fucked up shit
that makes you look at me
that way.

I want to laugh together
at some other fucked up shit I said
that makes you look at me
that other way.

I want to hold your hair when you puke.
I want to know what your farts sound like
but not what they smell like, because that's gross.

I want to know what your breath tastes like in the morning.
I want to hold you while you soak my face with tears.
I want to know everything there is to know about you
and keep it to myself.

I want to start making love on the beach as the sun goes down
and finish as it comes back up.

I want to make love in the middle of the day
and go back to work without taking a shower
so when I unzip to piss
your scent will hit me in the face
like a cloud of love bugs on the grill of a semi
and I'll remember every noise you made at once
and I will spontaneously sigh-groan out loud in remembered ecstasy before I can catch myself,

drawing funny looks from the other men at the urinals.

I want to go to bed mad at you
and wake up ashamed of myself.
I want to cover you like an atomic force field
and take all of your pain for my own.
I want to make you moan
and your legs shake like Michael J Fox.

I want to make you forget
what pain and hunger feels like.
I want to make you wish
the world would end when we kiss
because every moment that we don't is a disappointment.
I want to give you your space.

I want to listen to you babble about the minutia of your day
in excruciatingly painful detail
while I rub oil into your breasts and thighs.
I want to make you feel alive.

I want to wake up with pins and needles
because you fell asleep laying on my arm.
I want to eat your sin and feed you love.

I want to open pickle jars for you.
I want to reach into the back of the top shelf in the cupboard
to get that thing you need as often as you need to use it.

I want to move at your speed.
I want to make you blush when I tell you how I feel.
I want to hold you in the dark till neither one of is afraid.

In a word,
I want you.

Albino Crow

Albino crow knows
Nobody listens to words
anymore
anymore
Singing songs of his heart
they see alabaster wings
not the melody he brings
they say he needs a shiny concept
to best represent his emerging brand
and delineate a marketable persona
to set his art apart from his peers
he needs a gimmick
he needs more misery
they wanna know
who is keeping him down
No one believes in happiness
anymore
anymore
Truth is why we can't now
we're so poor
anymore
Albino crow hops
from branch to branch
along the grass
digging deeper than he can reach
stones chipping tender beak
dirt and blood making mud
like a funeral shroud
piss-proud, he takes the summit
dripping death and intoxication
he says
see, I'm just like you
cock-a-doo
a-doodle-do
Mud Crow forgets
what he came to say
and it doesn't seem important
anymore
anymore
but from the rippled surface of his favorite bath
a stranger stares him down
and laughs

Counterfeit

I'll pretend to love you
so you'll keep making me sandwiches
and I'll try to figure out how to keep you happy
without losing my mind

but the days wear on
and my patience wears thin
behind this false smile
my teeth are clenched
and grinding

when you talk
I look over your shoulder
out the window
at anything else
but you

our love is counterfeit
at least mine is
built on a lie
hidden under false hope
and whitewashed
with a fading coat of lust

Stonemason's Lament

You. You were right about everything.
A warm blooded ghost casting shadows on my eye.
I. I knew it from the start.
Suspending reason to chase my love of sorrow.

I'm the one who reads a book twice
and expects words to change in the meantime,
while in between time, print is dead,
each syllable a mortared stone
art's illusion suggesting life
when the only possible change
is destruction.

So when you look back
(I don't expect you to look back)
You'll see me running crooked circles
around these crumbling monuments
forever bearing witness to ephemeral truths
locked in cold, dead stone
or as close as human feeling can approach.

Mother Nature and Father Time

Mother Nature and Father Time

Mother Nature never changed a diaper.
Father Time don't understand the moonwalk.
She just lets her children figure things out for themselves,
While he's marching on and on across their corpses.

And all the children sing and dance forever.
And all the children march and carry praise.
And all the children smear their gold dust into tired, blinded eyes.
All the children cry and kick at bedtime.

Mother Nature doesn't care about her babies.
She only ever cares that there are more.
She spreads her legs and welcomes any suitor.
Mother Nature is an eager, lusty whore.

And all the children clutch her apron strings.
And all the children shout and scream “she's pure”.
And all the children crave to suck her supple breast.
All the children do is break her heart.

Father Time doesn't care about his sons.
He only cares that they will keep on spinning.
He will not listen to them whine and talk about their feelings,
Father Time wants the trains to run more promptly.

And all the children try to make him proud.
And all the children want to catch his eye.
And all the children try to play when he gets home from work.
All the children scan the darkness for his face.

Mother Nature and Father Time went to market
And all the children stayed right here at home.
Mother Nature and Father Time went to the Milky Way
And all the children got was a lousy T-shirt.

Pound Puppy

On her second day
at a three day kill shelter
she found me
with her bright eyes full of dark rain
and a hyperactive tail that drew my eye

I was looking for a cat
because puppies are dumb
chew everything
and piss all over the carpet

But she was cute enough to tame
and learned to come without a leash
we laid together afternoons
and dug up the neighbor's garden

On the way out one morning
I forgot to latch the door
and she ran

To the old man down the street
singing a recycled, borrowed lullaby
through tired teeth

So now I keep a plate of kibble
on the doorstep

Whistle strange melodies for her
and double-check my locks

Hoping she'll run back for a walk around the block

Or five

diggin holes

When it comes to dangerous women
i'm like the croc hunter with a drug-fueled death wish
lookin for a beauty
i'll stick my thumb in her bum
and flash my baby blues
at her snarling maw
reach in and snag a heartstring
to tie around my neck
before I throw her off the bridge
like a cinder block

I pick the winners
in a roomfull of stable women I will find the one
that had her first abortion at 12 years old
in the TV room of her trailer
administered by her father's left foot
wrapped in a leather engineer's boot
because he wanted her to stay an only child

so now she smokes and snorts and drinks
to outrun the memories until she passes out
and she gets raped so much
it seems like a hobby

and I say I wanna bring a tender touch
but baby, I'm the toxic pretender
lookin for a stockholm hostage
I can infect like an opt-in tumor
enthrall in love with a capital D
with my weaponized sexuality

I'm just looking for another hole
to stuff my bullshit in
and if it isn't deep enough
I'll keep digging in

my twisted princess to have and to have
to hold and to suffocate
own and control
and kick to the curb
when I'm tired of playing house
till I catch her back
on the bounce

I'll treat her like a goddess
to worship and adore
as long as she keeps me happy
because I love you only means
I love the way you make me feel
and nothing makes me feel
very good
for very long
and I get bored
very easy

i'm addictive
best taken with other drugs
cause complications
and decrease tolerance

by the time they pry her loose from me
both our asses will be covered in clawmarks
and the screaming lies called promises
will still be ringing in deaf ears
and hollow hearts
till something new comes along
to fill the holes

Un Dunga Dook

ten million years ago, right here
give or take a couple thousand millenia
bo chaka came back from the hunt
with a fat sack of elephant meat
and his youngest son
cho locka cho
with the cowlick dredlock
and a heart full of pure love said
un dunga dook

which means nothing in the here and now
with unlimited text cell phone internet plans
and ten million digital channels
but what he said to his father that day was
daddy, where have you been

and bo chaka the brave
with his well-scarred flesh
said son, I killed me an elephant
but it sounded more like
un dunga dook

un dunga dook the boy said
how did you do that daddy

and daddy said un dunga dook
with a little help from my friends
T-boy and shorty,
and lazy-eye ned with the limp

we went to the jungle and ned hid in the branches
and T-boy hid behind the tree
shorty went to scare up an elephant
and chase his fat ass right to me

and when he ran up I told it a joke,
to keep him distracted while ned jumped on down
and T-boy hit him low, shorty got the behind
and we got us some meat for the town

cuz cain't none of us take daddy elephant
by ourselves, we get squished just like grape
but un dunga dook son with a little bit of help
we can be something more than an ape

and un dunga dook, poetry was born
it a hot cave in a swamp in a jungle
and ever since
we been trying to get it right

but that's a fallacy
a pipe dream
a phantom in the wind
because there is no right
when you share it
when you paint the world with your heart and breath
or peel paint with the force of the stench
it's all good

un dunga dook
it's not about
looking cool
being right
fitting in
or being proper

connect letters
into words
string words into lines
lump lines into something like stanzas
and with enough truth you got yourself a POEM
connecting two minds, two hearts, in telepathic synchronicity
like Corsican colonies feeling communal pain
we beat with one heart, scream with one voice
the fittest beast only in company

because a poem unshared is like jizz in a sock
it might feel good, but nothing will come of it
and a poem in the wind is like dandelion seed
carrying love and pain like a desert monsoon
sprouting weeds in the gardens of stepford
un dunga dook

speak your heart
speak your mind
and fuck anybody who says they didn't like it
it's your poetry
it's what you're made of
so make love to my soul with your wind

bill (a poem)

Bill

he put three cigarette lighters
shaped like pistols
on the coffee table
between a test tube
tweezers
and a flat-tipped jewelers screwdriver
before passing the pipe to the left

he said they made these torches too weak
the smoke like an albatross
around his neck

he lit a cigarette
through three-inch butane jetfire
and drank cheap beer

somebody complained
that Bill would take forever
but nobody meant it
and he wouldn't hit it
until the fire was just right

but it don't matter
the meth high lasts
and he had stories
to fill twenty minutes more

he said he
stole the third lighter from the gook
that ran the quikstop and
talked about
how easy m-16s clean

as he pulled two of those lighters to pieces
laying each part down
side by side in pairs
and he put the third one in his pocket
and he only put one
back together

and i don't know what he did with the pieces
but they were gone
and it was tight
as his nerves on the fourth of july
and shot flames twice as high

and I wanted to ask him
about the stories nobody can finish
unless they're trying to sell you something

because Paint It Black is just a song and
Willem Dafoe is just an actor
and Bill is just a shell
that moves and smiles sometimes
when he's high enough and
shakes most other times

and he's alone not fighting Spiderman
just spiders in his head
sometimes he dances though
to Paint It Black and cries but
now he's focused

and tonight he's smoking glass and
fucking his best friend's wife
and it's all right
I don't want to ruin that
I take the pipe
and try to make him laugh

Revelation (a poem)

I hope I never lose the memory
of what it felt like to hold you complete,

To know my arms
are the only thing
that kept the world from crushing you,
though I can barely save myself.
The fear empowers
and overpowers me.

To save us both
I whisper-sing into your ear
a military marching song
of boys graven in their father's image
grown,
staring,
sobered at a fun-house mirror
as the lights come on
and the D.J. plays the polka
to scare the bacchanalians into
stumbling out the door
blind and vital
alive in Christ
like no seminary alumnus
high on Eucharist
and Jesus juice
could ever hope
to give witness.

And I remember it
as the most divine rendition.

Eduardo's Soliloquy

I greet the morning sun with a warning and a shout,

Stretching full to   
And stretch full to let her bask in my glory.

It's my turn;
Today I shine.

I've seen the others,
And tasted them.
Too weak to make the cut,
They'll make the chopping-block instead.

Their watery blood whets my appetite
but lacks substance to sate it.

When the man comes to pick his winner,
"Eduardo"
Will be the name on his lips.
And I will win for him,
And for myself.

Galaxies Colliding (a metaphorical love poem)

Galaxies Colliding

When galaxies collide,
It takes a long time.

Sometimes one gets trapped in the other's enormity,
And can never pull away again.

Sometimes neither one survives.

Sometimes gravity knocks planets around;
Down black rabbit holes like cosmic billiards,
Splashing through nebulae,
And smearing dark matter
On the walls of a chuckling God's clean living room.

Sometimes suns swap systems,
Asteroids tear through atmospheres
And vaporize crusts into colossal acne pocks
For future life to live within and puzzle over.

But most times,
When galaxies collide
Nothing inside of either one
Ever gets close enough to touch.

Image courtesy of Tom Brown of Baltimore