The trouble with falling in love in late night bars...

Her body is a passport
stamped with Italy's boot-shaped malice.
And the ink is still fresh on this kanji --
like stitches across my chest

The green tea flowed through my lover's veins and tore wide the chasm that I would fill with cold tears and call it the Atlantic.

Atlantic; Atlantis; At last this; At last this is buried.

By the time I got to New York...

Disillusioned.
I think that was the word I used.
This concept of the real
and Sartre’s transcendental I –
something about how I can just rise above the singular inner-body human experience.
This was my best friend’s idea
of changing my emotional address.

I think the most staggering thing
the worst feeling
is the solitary.
That moment where you realize –
while sifting through your music collection
and all those books upon your overloaded shelf
and all those television shows that people say
rotted. your. brain.
since you were too young to conceptualize time –
that none of these scoops in the river
have yielded a precious gem of experience
to decorate your radically pierced heart with.

I still get my mail.
Because moving didn’t really mean leaving.

Winter stole summer's thrill.

I.
She says I handle these things better
but I’m just really calm.
The eye watches with dismay from the centre
while things crumble around it.
We’ve been star-separated lovers
since this mess with the sublime
feeling of purpose began.
it’s like Lady Fate had lost all her bets
made with Lady Luck
so she folded on the best two-pair she ever had.
I swear
while my heart travels through all the horrors of
this unknown world
my mind will weave a tapestry stronger
than Atropos’ shears.

II.
1am and I’m shaving
can’t sleep with mind
raceracing thoughts through
jumbled in a cloud like
“Why is everything in its current
positon?”
fuck me if I can’t take a joke
she laughs and tells me that can be arranged.
but the joke’s punchline strikes
before the setup starts.

III.
Recovery to re-cover the tattered upholstery no longer covering.
I am furniture:
When you visit, I am a simple comfort, outdated. In need of new colours.
New patterns.
Stitched together like a quilt – a thread of tea-stained will.
I am a fever:
Pitched aside like hay for feeding, warm inside a consumer.
New harvest.
Sprout.
We have not yet decided if our crops
had been drowned, or perhaps the sky has sobbed
just enough.

Because these handcuffs hurt too much...

I sink into her
and she bares her teeth.
She snarls a beautiful snarl,
nose scrunched, gums pink with
rage’s instinct.

The ivory whites, crown of her pure face,
sink into my soul – this is her

idea of rough sex and somewhere
between my bleeding ethereal being
and her lust for my soul, this love
is recognized as more pristine than
peaceful green-blue fields
and grows faster and healthier than weeds
in perfect soil.

I am become growth.
I am face-to-sky praying for longevity.

This is her idea of rough sex.
Our love is a cannibalism of the bleeding souls
that come together like water and oil on harsh pavement
to make all the beautiful colours of our life’s toil.

And I'm crazy for lovin' you...

If I were the subject of a one of your songs, I'd be the poor man that brought you roses, not the rich fuck that tried to buy you.

But really, I'd like to help you write a new song. And yeah, I know you're dead, but if the arts have taught me anything, it's never too late to be appreciated.

See, Patsy, I don't think you ever got a fair shake if those lyrics really do tell your story. And the way you sing! That shit is sorrow on a stick served up by sick snakes that played you for a welcome mat that read "love me" and each and every guy wiped his muddy feet on you.

When you first told me that you were Back in Baby's Arms, alarm bells sounded off and I tried to warn you, but I was five years old... and you were already dead. But, Patsy, two decades later, I still shout "NO!"
He's been foolin' 'round on you right from the start.
So give him back his class ring and take back your heart.
Because when he's done fooling 'round with two or three,
He'll come back with some ol' nasty STD.

I'm crazy, Patsy, because everytime you've told me you're lonely and blue, I worry. I'm crazy for thinking my love could fix all this, and I know I'm crazy for loving a dead woman I never met. But some people believe that the memory of someone is enough to keep them alive and I've held a memory of each lyric in here, or... have they held me?

Sometimes, I go Walking After Midnight. And I wish you were walking, too. But, Patsy, I'm crazy, not delusional. I mean it metaphorically. See, I'm searching for a woman like you, and I know in my heart of hearts, she'll do her best but I'll still wish she could be you.

You've set the bar too high, Patsy. And I've been too eager to help you write a cheerful song. And maybe I'm So Wrong, but I don't think I'll be satisfied with anyone that loves less than you did. I want someone who will fall to pieces so that I can help her reassemble the resulting puzzle. I want to take her South of the Border, be the source of all her Sweet Dreams, and be the cause of and solution to all her Heartaches. Patsy, I want a San Antonio Rose, and if I ever leave her for Seven Lonely Days, I'll whisper my heart's beat into the Wayward Wind and hope that she hears it.

Patsy, you taught me to love, and all I've wanted to do is teach you to smile.
I've got these words, please accept them like they're roses. They're better than any rich man's gold.

Breathe the moon and eat the sun...

Dan! Dan, man!

I was at the bar, getting your drink and it smelled like an odd combination of ass and rotting pussy. I now understand the name of the bar.

The waitress couldn't see me, and neither could she – this flame with a new rope to burn. And she'd lick the braided bastard in clear view of my silent, stoic face.

But, I swear, Dan, I was invisible.

Between the smell and the bitter taste in the back of my throat, the incredible flop-sweat brought on by bothered ego and shattered concept of equality between bearded men –

BECAUSE, HANG ON! Aren't all bearded guys the SAME model action figure? This one's super karate chop action arm broke! BUY A NEW ONE!

So... my beard, unequal to his, I guess? And my wish, echoed by Skee-Lo ("I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her") was cast aside. Like, you know how a wizard pulls the rabbit from the hat? Think that rabbit matters when the trick's done?

And rabbits don't even, technically, have beards.

So the waitress finally comes to me. Things are silent to my starboard side and my stomache ached for liquid relief. She pours my drink, the forces me to wait... FOR YOUR FUCKING WATER, DAN!

And that's when the rope speaks. He asks a question with a confident tone that, though my head was down, I'll know who he's addressing. My spine shattered, restraightened, and set itself with scoliosis. And his will, too, someday. Because I think I know what she, the flame, saw.

Igor. Begging for another fish-head.

But, Dan, I won't beg. Not for fish-heads, anyway.

Or whatever I find lying around...

to paint this winter
without us

and all the essential colours
creating the backdrop for sanity

attempt at poor substitutes.
mixed colours.

just to find some semblance of former normality.

The words break upon the shoreline
to wear away the rocks to sand.

my mouth hangs open when I pretend to speak.
dead-eyed, lethargic;
I'm a dial-tone.

Hair of flowers,
body of sky's blue blues
and slimy sorrows
so much white left to be filled
colour I can't provide
because I am not a painter.

Why don'tcha do me right...

The following is my first experimentation with plunderverse, and even then, it's not true plunderverse.


an illusion of pain
twirls around my head
like cartoon birds singing
a familiar parable

thisbodythisbodythisbodythisbody

a holy gift to be unwrapped
weaving between my cut-throat breaths –
please keep breathing, please...

thisbodythisbodythisbodythisbody

holding me like an ocean does an island
celebrate this new experience
alive; mortality; eternal; an illusion.

thisbodythisbodythisbodythisbody

Before I sputter out...

her words scratch
to satisfy my eczema-plagued
soul with explanations
that, yeah,
we all sleep
with a little night light
for years longer than we should.

we've all got parasites
that feed in the dark,
rustle and shake away
at the resolve we had when the sun
stood us up on our shadow-base

the truth is, her and I
have very different night lights.
Hers burns red across the white
and mine burns black
at the end of this pen
searing my thoughts into this poor page.

The ghost veins gossip.

I've two poems forthcoming in Durable Goods Magazine. They'll be in issue 55. I will have a few copies of this issue which I plan to spread around to a few local places so that it can be enjoyed. I'll also probably get around to doing readings involving the pieces within the issue sometime in the next month or so.

I love even just the concept of this magazine and I encourage anyone reading this to go check it out. Subscribe. Understand that print will only die if you let it and that this computer screen you're staring at means fuck all in the world.

When you die, do you want to leave something behind? I do: A pantload of words. In this digital age, how many people are really going to have their works endure? If it's on a website, a hard drive, a disc, or any other digital media, I will bet my bottom dollar that it disappears. But print... it's something you can hold, smell, FEEL. Don't let that die.

Support small press. Support the PRINTED word.

I watch my world through a glass.

words begin to tumble
slow as the snowflakes
that land on my nose
so that I can blame my red complexion
on the cold.

The shallow drowned lose less than we.

I.
sometimes the flames tickle
the soles of my feet – the follicles in my skin jump
like fish out of water to find the sun
because the calm dark deep called home
is a prison where I lay on the stretching table.

II.
grade teacher said to always capitalize “I”
because I’m special and worthy of respect.
but the more my Inner-demons stretch my lImbs
the less InclIned…
i am to believe her.

III.
try to breathe on the city docks –
the waves carry the sounds of screams
from home to my emancipated ears.

That ship left and I wasn't on her...

(all of this)
I've thought of her ever since
(tears in the rain)
because that's how the brain works
(all of this)
and she probably thinks of me
(a breath in the wind)
like a breakfast cereal
(all of this)
that she never had
(peace in the protest)
but heard good things about

Ja, das ist mein teil...

displayed her breasts like hanging game
fresh from the woods, arrows extracted,
but nobody could disagree that they'd be delicious
over a roaring grill with the right sauce

I misted her with my eyes
and, glazed, [du riechst so gut];
she smelled like fields of honey bees.
I'd wear her pelt with drooling face –
rabid with imagination's force-fact-fiction

circle like a vulture above a lost desert-tourist

Yes! I am a long way from home.

Just click on the image to view Graffiti Kolkata 19, featuring myself, Aleathia Drehmer and others.

Hopeless but I don't know it...

Rain on concrete steps
fades to grey like your hair in the sun

if not for the temporary stain
of damp love, I've never be clean

you throw me about like a sapling
in a tropical storm; winds like hands caress and slap

waves broke on my back all summer
in that green-blue lake of your ebbing tide

She leaves a trail of honey...

You, with your Jennifer Aniston hair,
walk like skimmed milk into my coffee.

I just seem to feel better when they're out of view...

Another poem has departed from this blog, after a minor adjustment.
Why?
Well, it's being included in a broadside. In India.
Yes. India.

Not exactly certain of the title of this broadside. But it's being guest edited by the wonderful Aleathia Drehmer (also of Full of Crow).
But, at the risk of error, this broadside will be titled Graffiti Kolkata 19.
Further interest can be taken here: http://www.graffitikolkata.com/home.htm

Oh.

The most important thing, he said,
was the screen on his only window.
Because it's one thing to be hot,
it's another to be hot and bothered.