Afterthought 1636—By Chance, Less So
I will less recall than reminisce that scent of oatmeal cookies lightly burnt on breath wiped clean by rain. Back then we weren’t intent on keeping track for days like this when smoke, less than erasing fire, brings back too fresh the taste of charcoal-crusted flecks of words unsaid, as if our last night’s sex less lit your room than burned the midnight black. Before you knew I’d be in town you’d shopped ingredients. Aroma from downstairs betrayed the hour. How long I’d overslept! You hadn’t. You went on with life’s affairs as though one you’d called lover hadn’t stopped by chance the once you’d baked what wasn’t kept. |
Afterthought 1444—A Crossing, A Casting, A Calling
We three will come as were sent to bring out through our seeing word inspired in visions meant for our own each one's freeing. We three brought along our dark ghosts and demons tossing, our magic here to make its mark to break light on our crossing. We three share a common breath our life our love rewinding, none harming past all death, irrevocably binding. We three join to voice moon's rise for dancing sunlight's falling, bardoi to holy exercise in one the others' calling. We three recreate the myth, true poetry reciting — Birth and Death and Beauty with our song new legend writing. We three times three serve its same our blessed covenant lasting, in our Muse's sacred name according to our casting. |
Willed, Done
A myriad poems I have written. Many more I have spoken or sang without writing down. And many more I have fragments of, waiting to be tied to the rest. And countless more I have seen or thought of or dreamed or known to be there. All within reach. But these myriad I have committed to ink here and in my other books. A myriad poems I have written during the past decade. Slightly longer, as a month is to the cycle of the moon, as the circumference of a circle is to the line across its center, as a man's ten is to a woman's three times three. A myriad poems I have written during the past four thousand days. Four thousand days ago today I lost my first muse to a cruelly abusive early death. She left me pieces of poems she had to leave behind, and she sent me to her mentor. A decade ago today after I had found in him a mentor my own, he pointed me toward a casting call that led me to my new muse. One thousand nine hundred days ago today my mentor began a new life after walking through death for us a dozen times. Forty four months ago today I lost another kindred spirit and partner in crime for my poetry and my devotions, again to an untimely death. And in those four thousand days and through that decade and with these past nineteen hundred days and their forty four months, a myriad poems have I breathed through my pen. Credit Nancy for the fire. Credit Adrien for the discipline. Credit Sara for the breath. And for the life and the love, credit one who wishes not to known. Still in grief after losing Nancy, ten years ago I initially had every intention of quickly following her, after first obtaining from Adrien the archives she had entrusted to him to be held for her daughter. Adrien sensed the risk I posed to myself and pointed me to a 100-poem challenge, then specifically bringing to my attention a casting call made almost simultaneous to my challenge launch. I met Sara as I was working on those 100 poems. The rituals instilled by that poetry challenge and the spell woven by that casting call and the fun I had with Sara saved my life and reignited my heart. Those 100 poems were and will always be the core of the myriad I have written around them. Those 100 poems I began at this very moment a decade ago, I dedicated to Nancy and the faith she and I shared. I wrote those 100 exclusively in sonnet form, reflecting the fortnight of the days in half a moon's cycle, from new moon to full moon in the odd-numbered sonnets, then from full moon returning to new moon in each succeeding even-numbered sonnet. Reflecting the continuity of the moon's passages, each sonnet was connected to both its predecessor and its successor, as in a close mirror. With the full circle of sonnets representing 50 moons, the images I worked with were designed to approximate a 4-year leap cycle centered around the moment I first met Nancy, although I doubled up on images and memories and expectations to suit each fortnight's particular timing. I wove in cycles of our stars, made love to many of Nancy's own poems, collaborated with Sara, and blended my voice with my muses both old and new as best I could. Throughout, the ritual served me for devotion to our one Muse. Those who choose to wish me ill have falsely accused me of speaking in riddles, of employing poetry's holy language of metaphor to conceal. Our faith has held our knowledge in secret from the earliest. Such secrets are not fashioned to withhold knowledge nor to kill it, but to preserve it and to believe it and to give it new life from one to another. Those who choose not to accept me for who I am have falsely laughed at my faith and made fun of my words as if they were mere games. Our faith has been rejected by countless of every people. I do not write seeking publication or audience, no hidden agenda. So also I crave the acceptance of none, not even that of my mentor nor my muse, none save the favor of our Muse. For reasons related to my rituals and for those with whom I have been writing, I consider this moment as the midpoint of a 20-year cycle, as also the midpoint of an 8,000-day period of my writing, embracing 3,800-day periods and 88-month periods of life and love. As dreamed, so willed. As willed, so created. As created, so done. As done, so blessed. |
Afterthought 1352—Your Nothings
No nothing is the same as any other. A mathematician you once thought you knew tried to explain his unique proof of that to me. He lost me at the part about different infinities and about lines and curves in complex space and about time's role in actuarial equivalences. Or maybe I lost him in an earlier dream he had, back when the three of us were first together with nothing expected and nothing promised, and neither of those the same as this nothing, this nothing we've had to make something of. Set it all equal to nothing. Like the quadratic equation, he says. Like what? Oh. Another metaphor. Make it all as a metaphor. Like a metaphor. As though a metaphor. Same as. I had to learn it the hard way. I had to be nothing. His quadratic equation's nothing. Euler's nothing. Einstein's nothing. Aristotle's nothing. Then yours. Class remained in session. I walked the empty hall. Outside the fires of riot were lighting up the streets. A strange woman was taking your place in his bed. He got rid of her by explaining his proof of nothings. Turned out she was just Pilate's grandson in drag. Truth is nothing. No nothing's same as any other. Divide nothing into itself. Repeatedly. I always believe you. You made me. He said so too. So where was I to fly when you showed what I am to you? All your brochures, they turn into the world you wage war against. I believe in you. It's nothing to me to be nothing to you. The sacred statue goes back to its ancient home tonight. You'll make it up to me. He works out who everyone is supposed to be before our eyes. Bank hard left. Make it all yours. |
Afterthought 158—Nicely So
As though no corner where to sleep As though no chair to think my own As though no friend’s hand mine to keep Since told leave you alone — Nice As though no prayers hopes to rhyme As though no daydream not undone As though no calling out of time Since told leave you alone — Nice As though love’s promise played pretend As though love’s kisses aged to stone As though love quit its own dead end Since told leave you alone — Nice Some songs any word will do Some nights any dream must do to suffice Some winds any voice echoes you Sometimes it’s too nice As though none of it mattered much anyhow Not to you anyways — as though I’m no one To you anyways — as though second chance we’ll not allow Since told leave you alone — Nice As though become as made out to be As though uncast, as though unknown As though you’d never a thought of me Since telling me leave you alone — Nice As though each breath breathes wasted waste As though infinity’s all fills nothing’s none As though my name leaves you foul aftertaste Since telling me leave you alone — Nice As though I’m the cunt he saw you as As though as swallowed as mechanically blown As though “fuck you” its practiced meaning has Since told damn it leave you alone — Nice |
Afterthought 180—One Must Not
"One must never be angry about how little they say is left." --Sara One must never be annoyed over how little we've said gets left behind to fill the void. Nor must one be angered at the theft of hours wasted, of tears spent over how little we've said gets left. Nor must one be puzzled how it went down so quickly, with scarce a thought of hours wasted, of tears spent. Nor must one regret how we fought to keep it alive long after it died, down so quickly with scarce a thought. Nor must one mourn our love's suicide. One can only take pleasure hoping but to keep it alive long after it died. Our lights are out, our doors shut. One must not recreate what's destroyed. One can give and take pleasure hoping, but one must not be annoyed. |
Afterthought 131—Complicity
Quite well enough did you recall my name and clearly it recited with ill charm for your accomplice to know, when he came, to whose child you wished him do most harm. |
Afterthought 130—Eldritch
"No," our mother cut short my brother's plea to make the stop where for two bits we'd see a live five-legged dog. The whole next hour we got the lecture about how no authenticity can be found advertized at so cheap a price at some rundown farm in the middle of nowhere, how that extra so-called leg was just a piece of an old sock sewn on, how it couldn't stand or walk or scratch its owner behind its ear. And by the time we were leaving Georgia behind I had learned two lessons that I have found to serve me well ever since. First, how much is like that dog's extra limb was said to be. And then, how a thing not so can still be known by the needle and tread through which it's sewn. Desultory dreams will make up for you being out later than you said you would be back. I doubt we were both as drunk as I've been known to get reminded how empty it can get here, nothing left to stitch together into a new leg or extra arm. Yeah, anyway we were the ones making our escape, mother no longer swallowing liquor as an excuse to risk abandoning her children to your abuse. I can't help wondering the fuss that bitch made when her five-legged son got so poorly displayed. The numbers are wearing off the ruler I've placed over fabric I'm cutting, as if they'd been erased. Become nearly as useless as a forgotten friend ridiculed as waste, shrugged off and abandoned. I don't think I need a replacement, not just yet, as long as its edge can be used to make the cut. Seems I'm always getting told to remove free will from the exhibit. Like, "Just accept me as I am, I had nothing to do with this fifth leg I sport, and me biting at you isn't done out of any ill except yours at fault not paying your just due to let me be the fraud my mirror's calling you." Our mother said we'd escaped you none too soon. Our mother patiently taught us how the waning moon is silent without its sun. Our mother understood about fire, about rocks and herbs, about blood. Our mother taught at so cheap a price what's sold will not last. Eventually the seam wears thin and the false will fall away, as if never there, like a word one never learned to hear get said. Our mother dies as if alive and lives as if dead. Unfamiliar. Unexpected. Strange, even weird enough to be photographed, that's an extra charge. Things that shouldn't be, they should be revered and thought of as meaning as they have appeared to be. If we pass up the temptation to diverge from where we are, we never get to where we go, so settle for pretending what's real as though. |
Afterthought 117—Principled
Oh. What strange unexpected mystery awaiting its creation as if nowhere but on your breath and forgotten as quickly as a love that gave you no child to carry you death after death after death. So, just one question: Does your father still tell you what and what not you're to see. Ah, ah! How this moment's magic moves through word meant to hold its own, to stay the night just long enough to whisper a forbidden name to her own in the bed where her soul's mate lay. So, just one question, Does your father still keep you from your lives and loves? Eh? Exquisite metaphor! The only real injury is that done to one's own self. Which are the books taken with us when we go and which the ones abandoned to their shelf? So, just one question: Does your father still come by to see how you are? |
Tibb’s Eve 2014
Moonlight skates over icy outport roofs on crisp wind off the bay, scattering wanton stars past the black of tomorrow, and I stop counting the treats and drinks and smiles and kisses I have to endure before you will be back home with us. |
Afterthought 28—Gaslit
Her I've meant no ill — at her worst she did it for my best. But if love can't touch her, what will? Sorry, I've had my fill of having my friendship second-guessed. Her I've meant no ill. I believe. She says I don't. Still … — I'd give it a rest, but if love can't touch her, what will? My bruises? Scars? Gone nil. Names she called me? Surely cut in jest. Her I've meant no ill. She's my tomorrow's home, with no until — my unsaid words expressed. But if love can't touch her, what will? Rather to kiss than kill: even an abuser deserves being blessed. Her I've meant no ill; but if love can't touch her, what will? |
Afterthought 27—Encomia
No word or act you've done is meant for ill — who tells else traps herself in her own lies. To yours thrice flow your blessings, as you will. Every promise made you will fulfill. Who turns away your honor turns unwise — no word or act you've done is meant for ill. No miracle desired's outside your skill — who mocks can't know the magic in your eyes. To yours thrice flow your blessings, as you will. Unfailing — whom you first loved is loved still — who chooses else accepts false compromise. No word or act you've done is meant for ill. The life in you's impossible to kill — who wishes not finds only empty skies. To yours thrice flow your blessings, as you will. Your word stands sure beyond the last until — who won't accept you's gone before she dies. No word or act you've done is meant for ill — To yours thrice flow your blessings, as you will. |
Afterthought 25—A Disengaging Limerick
A woman reproached her betrothed saying, "Something I always have loathed is when I come home early catching you with some girlie, I find neither one of you clothed." |
Afterthought 15—When I Was Down
"You got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend When I was down, you just stood there grinning" — Dylan When I was down you just laughed off what I was down about When I was down you just kicked me out When I was down you just lied words we never said When I was down you just wished me cold dead When I was down you just shrugged like yeah what's the use When I was down you just cut me loose When I was down you just turned against me two-faced When I was down you just called me waste When I was down you just said leave you the hell alone When I was down you just wanted me unknown When I was down you just said you'd do it all over the same When I was down you just forgot my name When I was down you just washed your hands of my mess When I was down you just couldn't care less When I was down you just thought yourself of me well rid When I was down you just gunned after my kid When I was down you just cracked crude jokes of it When I was down you just quit When I was down you just were glad to call it our end When I was down you just moved on to your next friend |
Overshadowing 70—Breakfast, As Usual
How still you stand against the morning's move into the bed I'd wanted you to rest at least another hour against me pressed. Or is that just a shadow, dreaming you've left waking to its appetite to prove the waste last night has made of my request to break our kisses open? Look—I've dressed to join your ritual sacrifice, my love. No cereal, no eggs, no orange juice, no pancakes, bacon, hash browns, toast nor grits. Just coffee, black, brewed strong how you prefer to have it done. Your breakfast is a truce you make to keep what little peace best fits what we might be with how we never were. |
An Hour Unwound
 |
Casual Convo "Et cetera." "Et cetera? The end is rarely that expected." "Which is why one says so after." "'Too late,' you imply?" "'Assume' is what, but since I'm still your friend in Facebook terms, we play nice, right?" "Depend on it." "I used to. I might even try to once again." "Oh?" "Yeah, or not." "No lie, that's what makes it so easy to pretend." "'Whatever,' right?" "'Whatever.' Choose your word. I'm not responsible." "By that you mean you'll hold against me what you think gets heard or doesn't get that close." "Don't make a scene." "A scene? A life was more what I'd preferred, as if one word made sense beyond this screen." |
 | Just Visiting As if one word made sense. Beyond this screen perhaps. Across that threshold yes. As though one promise could have been accepted. Oh inside those walls for sure. No guards between the two of us of course there then. Routine as a good morning kiss as if you know I pose no threat. As though I choose to go or stay with no missteps to intervene. Like this were home. Like you knew I'd been meant to be a part. No stranger. Family. Except I'm not. You'll not know where I went tomorrow morning. I won't ever see you waking. This will mark the best extent my time with you might offer guarantee. |
 | No Excuses My time with you might offer guarantee of nothing more than somewhat shared pretense by which I'm not thought worthy your defence so shrug it off or claim the fault's with me, whereas with my best acting I can't be near good enough to earn love's recompense. We're sorry we're not sorry. In a sense, we're both and neither due apology. Would anything be different? We can blame me all we want, and I could even do what you make like I should've. All the same I'd owe you, right? No chance of something new. Forgiveness has no meaning, no real aim when what I'm really bad at's loving you. |
 | 100% = X / X When what I'm really bad at's loving you, the best I do just makes me all the worse the upside down and inside out reverse what you expect of me. Sad déjà vu how we're divided by ourselves, into each other one on one, our mirror's curse as absolute as math. I can't coerce more truth of it than what you think most true. And so we've nothing left. Completely done. Undone's more like it. No more to have shared, since giving all's the same as having none and we've already taken all we'd dared. Consider me love's void. I'm not the one against whom all your loves should be compared. |
 | Throwback Ancient History Against whom? All your loves should be compared against which holy saint? Upon whose best must all our worst improve? Each passion's quest must measure up to whose high standard? Spared no mercy by whose precedent? Declared unworthy on whose sayso? Second-guessed by whose presumptions? By whose litmus test selected? For whom confidences bared? It's over! done with! settled! obsolete! irrelevant! before our time! old news! as dead as you'd desired! deadweight! deadbeat! deadwood! dead end! It's dead! It's ended. Choose to live our love in our own day, complete in our own moment, free of yester's views. |
 | A Girl's Monolith In our own moment free of yester's views secret braids of color bind a tight threesome together bathed in blinding light in our own dances hand in hand with who's lonesome enough embraced enough to lose love in life and life in love to write abandoned stillborn touches of goodnight dreams we'd scarred thick dark as one'd abuse open face into fierce firestorm to share reality intended opportune except will I go? can't he? where? you're seeing hearing cutting coming soon? over the bed made home to our affair - us three yet there beneath a rising moon. |
 | Exoterica Us three: Yet there beneath a rising moon inside another's shadow made to fit through hungry thighs, through open heaven split, yet have we not the voice of ancient rune within us? Their own one: What you impugn creates your only truth. What you permit destroys your freedom. What you've made of it will lose by midnight all you'd gained past noon. We never heard a word of it. They hadn't let their silent moments break into our peace so they we three quite easily forget as we them can ignore. So does love cease in voided lives born empty, breathless, yet their one must keep what we three can't release. |
 | Rejection Accepted Their one must keep. What we three can't release their one must hold. What we three won't adjourn their one must take. What we would not unlearn they must pay homage to. Too strict police to run their's street. Not shamelessly caprice enough. Not thought that much of. Taciturn in tune. What's too unwanted. No concern for either our decline or their's increase. Discarded objects' shadows do impose, don't they, on territories newly claimed so need must be put down. Rejected. Those get left no chance of honor being named except to gauge what comes against what goes in terms of whose gets credit for whom's blamed. |
 | Love's Occultation In terms of whose gets credit for whom's blamed our bed lies at the eye of the eclipse, with moonlight at her darkest in your hips on me left blinded by his circles flamed. For whom's intents whose purpose dies defamed, our dance composes swirls on glides in flips through open space. Raw unveiled passion slips along deep crevices on satin framed. Oh wait. No, my mistake. That's just a cloud and one I should've known's not come as mine, yet looking up to you's as disallowed as much as if our orbits stood in line, so I'll fall to the shadows of the crowd without the silhouette of your design. |
 | A Sapling's Sonnet Without the silhouette of your design extending through the dark across the lake to take his shore as yours, he'd never make your branches to his stormy skies incline. Without the potion of your root and vine imbuing wind and soil, he'd never wake beneath your canopy, but rather take his place beneath your quiet forest shrine. I see my way. Both in and through. And out. What's unknown grows to what we will believe as sure as oaks from smallest acorns sprout, tomorrow with today's past lives to weave. To weave. Yes, that I'll also see about to give breath to all earth and sky conceive. |
 | Spring's Offspring To give breath to all earth and sky conceive, to bring light to all corners on the day, to spread peace to each word bold visions say, to reclaim hopes that fears and ignorance thieve, to comfort ghosts of all who cannot grieve, to reinvent all garbage and sewage and decay, to color in the drab and the dim and the gray, to make true love the promise all achieve, may she who turns her circle round to spring and he whose fertile seed mates true and sure fill we who dance and they of whom we sing with life reborn in innocence right pure to melt through bitter winter's icy sting, for death itself to offer certain cure. |
 | Something Apotropaic For death itself to offer certain cure against contagious love's dissembled smile so as with something sure to reconcile, one's resurrection can't be premature else one's again exposed to the allure and tempting eye and captivating wile at risk of falling victim to love's guile against which no believer can endure. Say, tell me where to find that silver charm you always wore around your neck? Your heart is naked, open to harsh hurt and harm. You sacrificed it? God, that wasn't smart. Let's look see if we've something to disarm the threat to life of love's capricious dart. |
 | Friday, the 13th The threat to life (of love's capricious dart, its poison proving meant's not good enough unless both think so) is (not up to snuff no matter how much sacrificed) to start (there was a job, there was a place) to chart a course (and all the other legal stuff required of him to immigrate) to tough it out together, then fall far apart. It kills a man. Then kills him back to back again until the man's past all unknown and yet again until the man's lost track and even yet again damned to his own dark hell. All voided out. All lost. All black. Unwanted. Turned away from. That alone. ... |
Another Trivial Indiscretion
Expecting this to be the night you’d need
to let me keep, I leave my door ajar
and sit up with a book already worn
by many reads, a favorite memoir
by one whose word sought flesh on which to feed.
Some liaisons fade before they start
to breathe, some reach orgasm as reborn.
Our own dies prematurely in that part
of us that never stays to see our morn.
These bodies fake the lives we dispossess
betrayed by kisses falsely sold as kissed
the only way a kiss might touch the heart.
To fool our inner lover’s idealist,
our sheets lie, crumpled stale untidy mess.
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For a Friend on the Eve of a Triumph
 |
A little credit. That's what some might cede
you, maybe even realize you're the same
who wrote your essay. "What'd she say her name
was? Wasn't she the one who...?" Some may read
enough of it to get you guaranteed
an extra hit or two from those who came
to get attention of their own. What fame
it has to offer isn't what you need.
And when the dust has settled back in place
and once again your poems lie still, come see
the changes I'll have made to mine, the base
I've started using, how they make their case
because of what you've done. Believe you me,
my words love yours like kisses to your face.
— written for Sara
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used to be
 |
i finally get it, excuse me for what all i'm not
when you do it so well, it's something to keep
you always had something special worth being got
when i do it my way, it's insulted as cheap
when you do it so well, it's something to keep
keep that i would, if it went better with mine
when i do it my way, it's insulted as cheap
used to be, yours and mine knew how to combine
keep that i would, if it went better with mine
when you do it so well, we know it as need
used to be, yours and mine knew how to combine
when i do it my way, it's thought of as greed
when you do it so well, we know it as need
need that i would, but i'd have to be there
when i do it my way, it's thought of as greed
used to be, yours and mine were hungry to share
need that i would, but i'd have to be there
when you do it so well, it's some exquisite word
used to be, yours and mine were hungry to share
when i do it my way, it's better off unheard
when you do it so well, it's some exquisite word
word i would dream, if i had the right head
when i do it my way, it's better off unheard
used to be, it went without being so unsaid
word i would dream, if i had the right head
when you do it so well, it's a perfect touch
used to be, it went without being so unsaid
when i do it my way, it's so nothing much
when you do it so well, it's a perfect touch
you always had something special worth being got
when i do it my way, it's so nothing much
i finally get it, excuse me for what all i'm not
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Just Saying
Sonnet 51
I won’t forget you loved me. (bye) That’s that
control thing you have over me (farewell)
we’re not supposed to point our finger at:
I’m clearly not your line of clientele.
(so long) Forget you loved me. That’s for you
to (take care) settle. It’s not up to me
to hang on to such fantasy (adieu,
adieu) beyond its calling (blessed be).
I won’t stop dreaming as though you still touch
my face. You never wanted to. I won’t
give up believing you possess my heart.
(until we meet again) Not very much.
And I won’t let you leave me. (ciao). Don’t
tell me when you quit on me. (let’s part)
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pearls
pearls will fall like all but brighter stars done in by yawning moonlight
pearls will chatter like chickadees calling dawn stray dogs barking back
pearls will find smudged horizons to splatter with
lightning struck twice vacant
i scratch out circles at each arm i call them pearls them all pearls
fencing freedom for work
folding vision up for bed
taking only one chance
dont broadcast it it wont sell what will help
dont point at it it wont forget soon enough
dont laugh at it it laughs back sneering
be good to who will be mothers
be nice to who will give their own
be true to who will leave open
there will be more to meet
there will not look down
there will make pearls
i will have to terminate it
i have to make it stop
close
what went with red
sleep again eat again be still again
dont make fun of have some
thiis will not be it
doesnt hurt not where
not near not in any of the ways
exterminate it
make it go
away
there is a stone inside me
it call it a per call it a pearl
a black hard stone
a growth
it feeds on me
it keeps me up
it moves me far away
dont look at it not straight on
it will last when i cant
it will cry when i wont
wrong goess wrong
not some another way of seeing
not for an alternative take
not as worth turning into opinion
make it my mistake my wrong my sin
hten and it does my best truth and be wrong
sara watches my try to swallow
she stays awake to see that i dont
she has someone too looking in on me at random
i make her to tell me when it has turned its into too much
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|
 |
i need to terminate it make it quit
its claim on me its merciless control
constricting feeble breath through knotted howl
at what gets made with me as stupid bait
it has to end itself to pull its weight
its penalty its purpose rank and foul
out from the inside gnawed and swallowed whole
across cold skin my curse in bloodline writ
to sacrifice the one reward i'd prized
ironic how love plays out so such twist
this part of me most me unrealized
not ever taken out not ever kissed
not ever noticed never recognized
then i at liberty to not be missed
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Always Something You
 |
Though every morning brings me dream anew, tomorrow I'll be just as ever yours. My waking word is always something you. Though parts of me may still look like they're hers, most all of that belongs to yesterday. Tomorrow I'll be just as ever yours. So much is better left where last it lay - How brief, the time of those in whom we trust! Most all of that belongs to yesterday, to nightmares simmered in decay and rust where love once laughed and played without remorse. How brief, the time of those in whom we trust! Though I myself am nothing more, of course, there's one place I will always call my home where once love laughed and played without remorse. I'm only by myself, I'm not alone - your heart will always be what I call home. Though every morning brings me dream anew, my waking word is always something you. |
– alone
 |
my eyes are now near swollen shut i should keep them so - alone more exposed than they had me at the clinic more exposed than when i was informed - alone walls and windows and faces accelerating away until i realize it's me rushing from it all - alone who and how and when and what i will do and how it will be done and who will go with me - alone i should try to eat, i need my strength nothing wants to even make the attempt - alone not the biggest regret of this most regrettable day but i do regret having told - alone in the deepest pit of my empty stomach in the hole caved in where my heart used to be - alone fears and conflicts and desires and choices and considerations and the one live shadow swallowing it all whole - alone the one day i needed it most ached to know a quiet touch inside the torrent - alone smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack smack - alone it is what i have always been why should this get to be any different? - alone i have no floor plan i have no company - alone i have to stop i have to do this myself - alone calm again i know what has to happen - alone silent invisible - alone |
Carnal Continuum
 |
Gods' breathless exclamations tempt my tongue to suck each drop of sweat hot off your lips. As aching and hungry as your words get sung, gods' breathless exclamations tempt my tongue. Like smoke, your lover's whispered cries she's hung in clouds across the skies between your hips. Gods' breathless exclamations tempt my tongue to suck each drop of sweat hot off your lips.
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sunday morning
 |
- for l. always
Sunday morning lounging with no agenda,
you behind me breathing across my shoulder,
still off somewhere dreaming new songs and dances
softly emerging.
Early sunlight waits at a frosty window.
Just one ray breaks through for our cat's amusement.
Dying embers settle in last night's fireplace
cozy as secrets.
Feeling me awake you begin to snuggle
closer, making sure that I'm really with you,
asking what I'm thinking about this moment.
"Being together."
|
For Keeps
Wordless, lurking deep in your bedroom's shadows,
keeping every move under strict surveillance
fixed on opportunities, targets, tactics -
passion's devices.
Played for keeps, this sport is no mere diversion
matching kiss for kiss like your bed's my chessboard,
sacrifices, gambits and traps conceiving
mating positions.
Caught by your own strategies, captured victim!!
Want a rematch? I'll let you make the first move.
Stakes? The usual - loser submits to winner,
winner takes loser.
|
Sleep Well, My Love
 |
Sleep well, my love. Sleep long into tomorrow.
May dreaming fill the changes in your night.
Don't lie awake. Your work today was thorough,
creating time and home and life and light.
Fly far away. My heart will be the arrow
to guide your visions to the farthest height.
Sleep well, my love. My breast will be your pillow,
my arms and legs the bed where you may hide.
The fire's burned low, its last breaths soft and yellow.
The storm has passed; its clouds will soon divide.
Sleep well, my love. My sleep is soon to follow
and when you wake, you'll find me at your side.
|
Just By Breathing
 |
Let my words fall peacefully through their echoes
short of how this feels being close beside you,
leaving one mere sigh as my sole expression,
sharing your singing.
Let my sighing rest, leaving only breathing.
Gently wake the virgin that sleeps inside me
dormant, silent, waiting for your soft touches
giving me shivers.
Let my breaths lie still, let them cease entirely,
save for those I'm holding for your recapture,
helpless, trusting - You know the spell I want, love.
Kill me with kisses!
|
Local Brew
Taste my lips. You'll savor concocted potions,
Sweet delights your tongue finds intoxicating,
Spicy doses swirling inside like witchcraft,
Lovers' elixir.
Drink until your will is as weak as water.
Swallow me like whiskey that heats your body
Close to boiling over with lust and leisure
Drenched in my syrup.
Sauced to madness, craving my liquid magic,
Drown beneath the flood of excited passions.
Bar's still open, darling. Are you still thirsty?
Ask for a refill.
|
Smoldering
 |
How adored I am! Does it take a thousand
nights? when only one is enough to conjure
universes blazing as though creating
fire in your lover.
You adore me! Pour on your fuel, your passion!
Dry incendiary lips crave ignition.
Heat my breath with dreams that we'll burn together
scorched by our kisses.
Come, adore me, lover! I'll dare extinguish
not a single flame of the thousand burning
even when consumed to my dying embers
left on your heart's hearth.
|
Remote Control (Partial Draft)
|
(You know, I won't have time to get the fancy footwork
Off my neck this pass through, those old eschars
Painting their portraits of future stares
From the nervous clusters of younger girls
Who will keep their wary distances.)
"'Login window expired. Please try again.'"
This will earn me a bureaucratic shrug
Void of interest in relevant context
Outside which the girl confirms them:
{She needs to be here another day.
She needs her privilege taken away.}
Do I have anything left they must condemn?
(Our only older woman looks perplexed.)
Do I have anything left they can not drug?
"'Don't know where, don't know when.'"
{Go the path of least resistances.}
(Being kept as one of your precious pearls,
Being known as yours, not treated as theirs,
Sees me through each day behind these bars.)
Here you go: *pickled moonlight smirk*
They will do my nails for me again.
Down to blunt stubby stumps.
"'It ain't that in their hearts they're bad.'"
(Trust me, I will grow them back
Before I reach them out to yours
And lightly run them up your arm,
Then jump them from your shoulder
To your chin and ever so lightly
Pass them across your parted lips,
Ever so lightly until you bite hard
Wanting to know how sharp they had to be
To be regarded as so dangerous.)
Ooooo, but yeah can I be perfect!
I will show there where they missed,
File it down raw with my teeth
Before sliding against a tender gum
To demonstrate I still know how
To taste what my appetite wants.
Jean exits her room and takes a bow.
Judges creep in wielding instruments.
"'I have fallen far beneath.'"
But I know where Jean came here from.
It's daddy's fault, is that correct?
(Jesus Christ, just get me kissed
And I'll betray myself for free.)
{Open up, dear. Share it with us.}
Jean stands up and completely strips.
The young girls stare at how she's scarred.
<I can make it a whole lot colder.>
Yeah but I'm headed where it already might be.
Jean checks my eyes and calls them hers.
{Let us help, dear. We mean you no harm.}
I will have no more. I've just been had.
Freedom burns brightly just through that crack -
She knows where I'll go more than where I've been.
(My head hurts bad. My tired heart jumps.)
Look, come look, the short girl's bleeding.
She looks like a poem - distant, vapid.
"'There is no pain, you are receding.'"
Check out the screen, see what she's been reading:
Some recent scab, she keeps trying to scrape it.
Look, come look, the short girl's bleeding.
Screw your damn tubes, I don't need re-feeding.
It's my own body, you don't need to reshape it.
"'There is no pain, you are receding.'"
Her smile's rehearsed, her casual air's misleading.
Without our tourniquets, she won't make it.
Look, come look, the short girl's bleeding.
Let me find my own way of succeeding.
<Trust me, it won't kill you, we can take it.>
"'There is no pain, you are receding.'"
My progress my own doctors are impeding.
I look like a prisoner - clinical, naked.
Look, come look, the short girl's bleeding.
"'There is no pain, you are receding.'"
Everything's under control. I'll be fine.
{Sign here please.} No, that I decline.
It aches me to keep this smile in place.
<I can help you to leave no trace.>
{She wasn't fixed before. She left too soon.}
The butterfly dies when you puncture her cocoon.
By night I make myself swallow pill after pill.
When day clocks in "'I sleep beneath the golden hill.'"
(My head hurts bad.) There is no pain as such
As long as I do not look, but only touch.
They're only thoughts I'll have, not some disease,
Don't cure me of their voices. {Sign here please.}
No really, I'll be fine. I still know what's real
As such as long as I touch, but do not feel.
I'm given my morning meds in a small paper cup.
Thank you, bitch. {I'll have to write you up.}
I've only one goal that's worthy to achieve.
<You know who I am. I can help you leave.>
I want no help. It will not last.
I want no attention. I'm quite used to scorn.
I want no therapy. I'm done with my past.
I want no pity. There's nothing to mourn.
I want no applause. I'm not here to perform.
I want no prayers. I'll be fine in my hell.
I want no treatment. Who's to say what's the norm?
(I want no one else. Only you know me well.)
It's too late now. They should leave me alone.
I can't be fixed and made as if I'm new.
Recovery? I'll manage on my own
And with the love of friends who'll see me through.
(Thank you know who for me, he's rather kind.
<They'd give it second thoughts if he but knew.>
One word from him's worth all my drugs combined.
But all I need to work it out is you.)
Another day of black lies in my file,
Another nurse without a fucking clue,
Another line I write outside my style,
Another nightmare made to turn out true.
(Just you and you, please be at home inside.
Don't tell anybody else how much I tried.)
Once again good morning, girls, once again later on good night.
<They can't really hear you, darling. They believe you are already dead.>
*Shrug* Doesn't matter anyway. I don't know how much more I'll fight.
They're off inspecting my passport and reserving me my own bed.
Only one of my thousands of voices might lose its pride.
But nothing new here, girls, just move your own little carts along.
Let them give you your lives back, I already have mine close.
I'm too beyond their redemption, I've done too much of their wrong.
You've still got enough your own lives left for them to diagnose.
Only one of my thousands of voices will have died.
I have to laugh and laugh, girls, but don't lose your straight face.
Where else in here can one such as I go to find some lasting fun?
Jean won't be gone from us long, we can save her seat and her place.
We say what's left. "'It may be our words find nothing, find no one.'"
Only one of my thousands of voices needs to hide.
I am about to get me new eyes, girls, you go on seeing what you want.
<They can't really see you, darling. They believe you're a dream.>
Next time I pass through a mirror, I won't be nearly so gaunt.
Next time I watch my mouth move, it will not be to scream.
Only one of my thousands of voices should be denied.
My shadows will move through our hallways, girls, pure background stuff.
{I'll have to write you up.} Fuck it, do what it takes to be paid.
Now that I know I can love and be loved, I have known quite enough.
<They can't really love you, darling. You can only get laid.>
Only one of my thousands of voices lipsyncs suicide.
I practice what I preach, girls, go and practice your own petty fad.
(You and you there, I won't stop either, I just want you to know.)
{I'll have to write you up.} Bitch, I don't care who you think is mad.
<They can't really cure you, darling. All you can do is to go.>
Only one of my thousands of voices makes it outside.
Just alert me when
The next prisoner exchange
Will be.
Weight of Love
 |
I'm not given to opportunity
for breaking through to what I call home,
to what play the sun or the moon to me
-- I've made those things on my own.
So I won't lie and claim I ask, as such,
for such gifts as come from above.
But you, you're true, in the aim of your touch
from a heart with the weight of love.
I worry you might feel hostility
when my time here has come and gone.
But even if so, your words still will be
the moonlight that brings in dawn.
And your poetry will live on, my friend,
as I dream what you're writing of —
release, pure peace, a song with no end
from a heart with the weight of love.
|
[untitled response to a moonlight terzanelle]
 |
A terzanelle! As rare as a true heart
gets all the love deserved, again and again
our rites circle our dreams as though to chart
a terzanelle! As rare as a true heart
finds each line imagined from the start,
still the day of your work here will long remain.
A terzanelle as rare as a true heart
gets all the love deserved, again and again.
|
Another Uncounted
Clear. The song is clear. There is no knot — no blood clot will interfere. Controlled. The pain is warm. This is my way back against the fold as if shut. Composed. My vision cut. I will break through to find new form in you. |
Sonnet 3 (draft 1.1)
Perhaps responding to a casting call would blow my cover, show you who I am. There's consequence I'd just as soon forestall concerning one for whom I give a damn (at least for now), else I'd've disappeared as soon as I'd done all Nancy had asked of me. This silly game has interfered beyond the debt to which love's got me tasked. But that casting call? I do know what's required to make those words bind meaning that will last from spell to spell, from night to night, from moon to moon. My mentor knows this. He inspired the dreams that brought me to this mystic rune to our high calling in our freedom cast. |
Sonnet 2 (another draft)
A ragged string of songs self-plagiarized should give my host his due. The most he asked of me is that these hundred days be tasked to Nancy's honor. Had I not realized his love for her, I might've eulogized her on my own, might not've come unmasked. Some questions, sir, are better left unasked. If I don't answer yours, don't act surprised. I don't belong here. I ought not've come so quickly after. Once I'd been released, I thought things might go back to how they were when she was here, with us the ones deceased and hers the pen these words were coming from. Perhaps if I could make me sound like her . . . . |
Sonnet 1
 |
This wasn't how my work was meant to end: a ragged string of songs self-plagiarized, like how my chance to stay out might depend on how well I behave unsupervised. At least I'll try my best along the way to use their voice as if it were my own. One never knows which words will get to stay or like those lives which don't work out, get thrown. So heat some coffee up and grab a chair. Just don't take anything too seriously and I won't either. Really, I don't care. Mine won't seek your censure nor your praise. It's just a game, means little more to me: a hundred poems in just as many days. |
A New Casting Call
In blood, with inviolable fasting we recall our common bound casting on the bed of our lady youngest to renew as the moon in her waking our breath, its word here remaking secret water circles among us. |
Afterthought 1640—Last Fake Smile
Shoveling out my secrets hard and fast |
Afterthought 1638—Villanelle Finale
So this will be my final villanelle. The rest have gone forgotten, dust to dust as far as you’re concerned, eh? What the hell was I expected to’ve said, pray tell, for you to want to keep me? Go I must, so this will be my final villanelle si telle est ta volonté, mademoiselle. No problem. There are forms one cannot trust, as far as you’re concerned, eh? What the hell is pure enough to cast your make of spell? Mine weren’t that. No pearl can come from rust, so this will be my final villanelle. Then who decides what does or doesn’t sell? Nothing’s kept. All’s worthy but disgust as far as you’re concerned, eh? What the hell can this one say to last, save: fare thee well, whatever. “Hello.” *smirk* Yeah, there’s a bust. So this will be my final villanelle as far as you’re concerned. Eh, what the hell. |
Afterthought 1628—and so, to where you are
and so this is what it had to come to me still writing stuff bent around you from time to time, you already through with me, and I won’t make it that far, to where you are and so this is what it was said to mean: me putting it out there where it’ll get seen from time to time, for you already routine to look away, and I won’t make it that far, to where you are and so this is the hole to which we’ve crawled: mine fooled as if once cast then so called from time to time, yours off elsewhere sprawled all left alone, and I won’t make it that far, to where you are |
pearls 
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