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.

pearls 

Say No More

It's like they say. It's always like they say the girl must try to see. Tomorrow. Make her work. Some coffee black, familiar clothes, some sunshine after dawn's brief rain, a break in her routine discord, a part to play. Your local bus, it's on its scheduled run commuting dismal dreamers into gold, like money in the bank: it comes, it goes. She goes along. She does as she is told, there being that to tell as not's been done. You smile. You know the questions not to ask, your children running laughing off to school in casual mask. Each minute you compose will fold back on itself, her morning jewel.

pearls 

Eighth One

Clipper smoke, Deep breath facefirst to hard wind, I need no confession to know how bad I've sinned. I feel just like a snowflake adrift – Nothing else I can give. Fast burn, Frozen rock before it goes ash, For you I've saved the the real ones in my pocket cache. You'll have to pardon me my thrift – Nothing else I can give. Shelter, that's something I'm not after So I can keep this thing lit. And if I don't, what would it matter? Nothing to us, wouldn't it? Dead drag, Back home from where I came, Where all the sleet and hail lines up to take aim. I can't say how and won't say if – Nothing else I can give.

pearls 

Seventh One

One never knows which words will be your own – Those voices once as much like yours as mine Or like those lives which don't work out, get thrown. My name's become to you a noise unknown, Invention of an imbecile's design – One never knows which words will be your own. One either breaks the skin or cuts the bone – The songs we once composed may still combine Or like those lives which don't work out, get thrown. Obscure motifs, a crushed rosetta stone, Quaint angles tricked from cigarette and wine – One never knows which words will be your own. The garden we once slept in's overgrown. Should we again our beds have intertwine Or like those lives which don't work out, get thrown? Screw this shit! I can't do it alone – Without your lips, my whispers misalign. One never knows which words will be your own Or like those lives which don't work out, get thrown.

pearls 

Sixth One

So let's exchange some quatrains over gin, maybe even steal ourselves a kiss. Don't ask me what condition my head's in. It's not my same old. Then again, what is? My backgrounds paint me colder than I am. With all these layers, I must be warm inside. So yeah, I act like I don't give a damn when you and I both know that ghost's done died. I've never been the best of company but though I'm rarely nice, I'll not be cruel or when I am, the wrong is meant for me. But don't ask why I left or where I went – Let's just pretend I've been away at school or suffered from some fatal accident.

pearls 

Not Good At This

Alright, my room is empty, set to go, no more than I can carry, keep the rest, this might not mean goodbye, I'll let you know. I posted what I could, you've seen the best, but I've got some of yours to take along, no more than I can carry, keep the rest. Let's not do kisses, I'd just get it wrong, I never had the time to do them well, but I've got some of yours to take along. I've made arrangements for my clientele except for one I'm wishing I could keep, I never had the time to do them well. My promises are thin, my talk is cheap, my dreams are headed somewhere out the door, except for one I'm wishing I could keep. It wasn't you. It's me. I can't do more. Alright, my room is empty, set to go, my dreams are headed somewhere out the door, this might not mean goodbye, I'll let you know.

pearls 

will be rewound

every word i've used will be rewound steeped long in magic's sciences and arts redoubled front and back, christened and crowned adverbed and adjectived, reverbed, renouned then decomposed in unassembled parts every word i've used will be rewound upside down, tongue-twisted all around (it'd come out inside out if i'd the smarts) redoubled front and back, christened and crowned like memories that echo then resound the way i see stops short on all its starts every word i've used will be rewound all tied up in knots then gagged and bound (it's backwards, if you're reading from its charts) redoubled front and back, christened and crowned unwanted, unresolved, unheard, unfound as though a hall of mirrors for our hearts every word i've used will be rewound redoubled front and back, christened and crowned

pearls 

phantom pantoums

i've seen the end, it's come time to resign — every breath past here has its own word (i knew them all, i loved them all like mine and yours) - i've left you every sound i've heard. every breath past here has its own word, while each word speaks an endless silence (his and yours) - i've left you every sound i've heard to dedicate what can't be to what is. while each word speaks an endless silence, his are promises of worlds that never were. to dedicate what can't be to what is, you sacrificed to him and i to her. are promises of worlds that never were enough to recreate what we've destroyed? you sacrificed to him and i to her - we give the most to what's our greatest void. enough! to recreate what we've destroyed - that's why we sing the song, it's what we give the most to. what's our greatest void? the word we left unsaid, the door left shut. that's why we sing. the song - it's what each fragile moment aches to be there for: the word we left unsaid, the door left shut, our secret lives, the dreams that spoke of more. each fragile moment aches to be there, for i've seen the end. it's come time to resign our secret lives, the dreams that spoke of more. (i knew them all, i loved them all like mine) each fragile moment aches to be there for our freedom, our control, that light ahead, our secret lives, the dreams that spoke of more (though nothing more about us need be said). our freedom, our control, that light ahead - how is it home has always felt so near? though nothing more about us need be said, my friends will come around to itch your ear. how is it home has always felt so near? i've seen the end. it's come time to resign. (my friends will come around to itch your ear. i knew them all, i loved them all like mine) how is it home has always felt so near? there was a time i used to give a damn. my friends will come around to itch your ear - don't tell them where or what or how i am. there was a time i used to give a damn for those who feigned the same for what they gave. don't tell them where or what or how i am - there's nothing in my soul worth shit to save. for those who feigned the same for what they gave - i knew them all, i loved them all like mine. there's nothing in my soul worth shit to save. i've seen the end. it's come time to resign. for those who feigned the same, for what they gave, i can't make up the difference nor the change. there's nothing in my soul worth shit to save, i've nothing in my head one might call strange.

pearls 

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
	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

pearls 

come as a friend

when i look for an end when my free will is lost death, come as a friend let peace on me descend let pain and fear be tossed when i look for an end when no day's left to spend when goodbye's worth its cost death, come as a friend let strength my sleep attend let love be my riposte when i look for an end when prayers in blood are penned when names are traced in frost death, come as a friend death, so gently bend the words on which we've crossed when i look for an end death, come as a friend

pearls 

borderline calling

i've not yet found my vision's pledge and when i do i'll soon forget, like sitting at the water's edge away from where the sun will set. as blank as sky stripped clean of gulls who've left to watch the day slip out, the dark's crest swallows vessel's hulls like emptiness devoured by doubt. a full moon from the border bleeds out into my damp unkempt bed; it pulls my longing which recedes in floods from my confessions bled, then bathes me in its holy light while i sleep naked on the beach where wave on wave my sins recite as far out as the tide will reach — as black as sand, a faceless squint at moon-swept wind beneath the sea, then as i'm drowning, just a hint toward what the coming light might be. recycled waters wake my skin; into a new red sun i melt deserted in this void i'm in where nothing is the way it felt.

pearls 

Go Back

A bastard hustler turned my head when all he wanted was my bed, which though a steal to many men had not been stolen until then. When I'd gone farther than I dared, he proved me worse than unprepared, except when I went farther still I proved myself prepared to kill. He used to take me at my best unguarded, unperturbed, undressed, until he had me all his own then left me wasted, lost, alone. I wish to god it didn't hurt, like hell I know he's made me dirt. It can't go back to how it was and he won't be here when it does.

pearls 

memo to self

girl, get your bony ass up off the couch quit your damn moping what happened's no reason for playing the slouch giving up ain't coping so what if life and living it suck? don't act like you're that easily dead whether come or stay, whether win or lose make it be chosen so what if you won't get what you choose? still you're not some frozen piece of shit that don't give a fuck with your losing all up in your head

pearls 

Recycled Piece

Eventually every poem does it, loses its author and reader, and settles into a page that only a dry wind disturbs, its mouth polluted with modernized versions of its images, forced to seek out its pleasures in the arms of new words. Accompanied by my shadow's dear friend I go there to refresh like two gray women in a thrift store's illumined dust, wondering aloud at the lives each item once had filled whether in our holding them their meanings might be lost. We bargain with the proprietor the price for used time, walk home giggling fresh air over our peculiar find, with the wind in our hair like the first owner's ghost - this wasn't ever hers, nor will I hope to make it mine. Who was she and what moment did this touch in her day? Did she feel anything in it that our routine might repeat? Her gusts circle and dodge as if caught in our breath, the distant echo of simple ritual in each line we read then will leave again unread, untreasured, forgotten, unused down the road beyond the home of our own heart's love where others overlook it in their own searches for what will sound more familiar to them than this is and ever was. While already back in the thrift store's dimming shadows, like a discarded snapshot of an unknown aunt's chance pose another odd item will be rescued from the storage shelves to occupy our Saturday afternoon indulgence's empty place.

pearls 

Casual Villanelle

Bring on the juice! Seduce me my head to slip beneath calm waves of lukewarm booze and dip down free to choose, content to lose my grip. Fools gold is for fools, passes are passé, the more a love's real the more it's its sham, my more commonly felt's the most casually cliché - if I cared you'd give too damned a damn. Don't cut me loose! Our noose I would not gyp its chance my head to lighter views equip, so not refuse my hungry muse her lip. Your straight, my flush, our pair - See any risk you want to see strip? Undress all you can, do a full exposé, lay me down undone as a hard body slam. It won't take much, say the right word and I may play dropdead drunk on the merest flat dram. Bring on the juice! Seduce me my head to slip beneath calm waves of lukewarm booze and dip down free to choose, content to lose my grip. Choke up my throat with your curliest hair, tease my tongue with your fingertip. You be the master, I'll play the protégé - I want your most thorough exam. What, you're always left wanting more? Touché! as seethrough as a poem's wham bam! Don't cut me loose! Our noose I would not gyp its chance my head to lighter views equip, so not refuse my hungry muse her lip. Make all of me all the more bare - Bite into me, stinging silk whip! What more'd you expect of so easy a lay? How far up me'd you think you yourself might ram? and me using you for what you put out per se, sucking inspiration from each oozing gram. Bring on the juice! Seduce me my head to slip beneath calm waves of lukewarm booze and dip down free to choose, content to lose my grip. Until I'm left screaming out nothing but air that makes inbetween gasps skip. And I come back to crave after it night come day, grab as much of you as in me I cram, swallow every drop of your fertile spray from floods through which both of us swam. Don't cut me loose! Our noose I would not gyp its chance my head to lighter views equip, so not refuse my hungry muse her lip. The next time I check I want to still feel you there, a bright scratch on my breast, a deep bruise on my hip. So grab a quick peek and sneak up my negligee, say your, "You do it like no one else, ma'am." I don't mind that I'm only tomorrow's throwaway - let nothing be said, that nothing's what I am. Bring on the juice! Seduce me my head to slip beneath calm waves of lukewarm booze and dip down free to choose, content to lose my grip. Don't cut me loose! Our noose I would not gyp its chance my head to lighter views equip, so not refuse my hungry muse her lip.

pearls 

Out Behind the Watershed

Strangely anti-matter is exactly the same as matter except that it doesn't, not unless the two interact after already having the first two strikes against with no compromise paving the way for convergence and to tell apart the different versions of myself taken seriously forces contact of parallel energies where the end of one word is the beginning of this which already will have been said and said again trapped in a bizarre tunnel staring death down cold to present us with an acceptable alternative path through official openings to the same recollection. But at least Rae would know the difference between ordinary wear and tear and this, this social exercise in combining what has been tried before with itself where the fit would do most damage, deep down where one life ends there another was readying its entry without expectation, without a chance, without time. Rae leans back to swing her ankles up on the table slipping into some perceived situation easier than she has avoided finding more than an unbuttoned shirt fumbling through another attempt to show she belongs yet with enough hidden to think to keep me shut out although it's more than she can't work it out that Gwen still studies her looking for a landing strip after near half a year of adult comic book scenes but would wake from the slow afternoon's skin games and find herself something fresh and clean to put on to return like autumn's color to her more familiar mission of getting me to get over it, which for her would mean that Rae would know the difference. Far to the other side out behind the watershed where lines take generations to shift perceptions one teardrop to the right making all the difference and scratching out a poem fragment to scar the edge so I will remember where I left it, I surprise Rae puzzling over notes Gwen would write to cheer me up so she rolls out a peep show how she's in her rights and I shrug at her act while lighting a cigarette then explain to her how a poet and reader divide what their words and images and messages will mean and these go off in different directions and do different tasks and fill different rivers and empty into different seas and fall to different depths and return to different surfaces in different ages to rise to different clouds that might merge again in some bent jet stream only after losing place of where it ought not have been simple coincidence for mother and baby to divide what their pain and breath and love would mean and have those go out in directions that will separate us like this. Contemptuously Rae pulls her hand out of her jeans to lick her finger as though it fenced the border between what I will never do well to understand in what Gwen sees as nothing past simply obvious.

pearls 

Routine Nightly Routine

The house breathes deeply, usual for the hour when to their fancies angels dreams devote except where one gets shoved into the shower, a kitchen knife waved crudely near her throat so she'll behave, while all the others sleep like floating in some forest's hidden pond. A washcloth's stuffed into her mouth to keep her quiet while she's pressured to respond. Like hide and seek her cousins chase their rest into each laughing game their thoughts can find to use for play. Her own must get undressed for feeling up then taken from behind. One darling stirs half-waking as though roused then slips back to dark shadows seen within the secrets guilt from innocence has housed. The bruise inside is all that marks a sin. The darkness settles back into a snore like tiny wings escaped in naïve flight far distances. What she's been brought here for will get itself brought back tomorrow night.

pearls 

Almost Pretend

It was, almost, a smile I might have kissed, as simply naked and open as his first, a perfect morning past its evening's end like shadows held tight by his tiny fist straight through the hearts of demigods I cursed into a dream I want: I want my friend. The changes to that dream will all be his as though my waking hour'd assumed my worst to birth these words I'll never comprehend but live for just that one his presence must almost pretend.

pearls 

Just Once

Just once I'd like to be the one on top where I'm controlling pressure, push and pace and how long we'll go on before we stop, without a fear that I might lose my place — where I'm controlling pressure, push and pace for both of us, to bring us there in synch without a fear that I might lose my place if I don't care what anyone might think. For both of us, to bring us there in synch, I'd give attention to your each response. If I don't care what anyone might think, then we could take this where our love most wants. I'd give attention to your each response, if only I knew we were good to go. Then we could take this where our love most wants, or if not, I'll return back down below. If only I knew we were good to go and how long we'll go on before we stop! (Or if not, I'll return back down below... Just once I'd like to be the one on top.)

pearls 

As Posed

His Back: Gwen told you what you might expect? My Silhouette: She knows me well enough to tell I'm not put off by twisted stuff. His Stance: Leave covered what you least protect. My Body: What's indebted, come collect. His Camera: Trade my blackmail for your bluff to pose our meanest hungers in the buff. My Razor: This one's yours in that respect. Offstage, each photograph hangs cold and wet like dirty laundry heavy on steel clips, each image worth the shadows given back. In audience, his lady's cigarette paints stripes across her thighs up to her hips in burlesque poetry of white on black.

pearls 

journal

- i - almost past denver goes how far i went then one more ride a long night's drive beyond before forgetting what i'd called intent my winds turned east i can't help but respond besides there wasn't yet time to forget my latest debt i'd thought to make it to a western shore look up a name and street i'd memorized to stake me what i'd lost manhattan for before the words i'd written got revised or in some cases need to be erased as aimless waste for travel cash i sold a piece of prose for rides i mainly took whatever came ahead behind you know the way that goes you close your eyes to keep them on your aim as long as i kept moving i did fine outside the line that history it's said i scrambled from the work the rep the man even the child they're only distant memories they've become which ain't the model after which i'm styled the words we said the breaths we said them on are good as gone that first step's always easy wasn't long before i made it halfway down the road i wasn't right that didn't make me wrong it only takes a second to reload some never learn to learn from a mistake that's all i make yeah then i ran into a little snow and didn't have the shoes for pushing through that wind chewed up my bones that much i know it felt a lot like sleeping close by you as in how well it did to make me stay through night to day which works a whole lot better with a place where one can point to where one has a bed i always had my smile on just in case and always wore a coat easy to shed yet got to spending nights nothing to hold that wasn't cold how often and how near i reached for death to fall asleep beneath a windblown drift i now know i'll save this for my last breath "you won't get found till spring, you lucky stiff" some wishes have to wait to be the last the rest go fast the ride that finally took me one mile high that woman was an angel straight from hell you can't choose which directions might apply when satan checks you in her own motel at least for once i found me things to eat within her heat it wasn't where i'd planned to turn around for heading back toward chelsea's cozy rooms what i meant rarely matters so i've found i work off scraps from what my world presumes ask anyone who knew enough to know i'm just as though so downtown denver felt about as far like standing at the ocean's very edge my ride asked "do you realize where you are?" i told her of the cut the blood the pledge and mentioned with my eyes what it's about and then got out   - ii - the guy i hooked up with my first night west wasn't expected back in before past three and was good just enough to not need to be best so we had us some time and he spent it on me but wanted kept out of my art and my song so's not here long   - iii - so my old roomie sold her some writing too say yeah to her for me if i first don't it's rare to get paid right for what we do more than likely it's for what we can't or won't i should've been present to show her out loud she did herself proud and that pledge we wrote down after i'd left her on the concepts and me on the drums i'm hearing her publisher found it quite deft yeah that's what a serious promise becomes she'll so knowingly smile when she hears that one said over what's ahead some words must be written to get it said some words must get said to be believed some words we believe go straight to the head then stay up there even after they've been retrieved the words she came up with set heads on fire of raw desire she'd argued hard for joining me out on the road my thelma feeding off her best louise then here her world's grown out while mine's only snowed as hers gave out heat i've been feeling mine freeze yeah that would work magic her fire with my ice roulette with dice she won't need me saying i wrote shit for her like a map i might draw her to keep it all straight the way we will love knows the lovers we were and won't memorize the lines rhyming with hate then still be around when i need me a friend word without end   - iv - you're trying hard to not mention the limp for now i'll leave that one for you to guess i'm still your same goddamn mischievous imp everything me still works well more or less including the leg which walks a little odd blame that on god no doubt you've also caught a few new scars in places where you know i'd never cut let's just say one really does see stars and these i got when i saw little but my legendary caution's slipped to shrugs blame that on drugs my coming back that must get you amused must tickle you pure pink you told me so yeah except i ain't sick lost tired used my point of no return left me years ago returning me hard time this journey's of blame that on love   - v - passed out irresponsibly silly drunk any other excuse a woman like me might pass all i remember's when i escaped from that funk the whole damn world'd shoved itself up my ass not near enough coming out where my mouth'd been that there was when was when i heard the voices finally cease was when what was called love inside me died was when the moment handed me release was when i went along for just the ride a ride up through the mountains god knows where out in thin air i'll keep in touch with who did me that drive who hasn't said what hit him with the urge it takes too much to keep such dreams alive they don't turn real the instant they emerge i only know he touched the one i was a good cut does "have i been kidnapped?" darkness bent his smile he stopped the car so i could move up front the rock and snow took over mile on mile i lost the itch to ask "what do you want?" we didn't talk as though we didn't need he had the lead until somewhere midmorning on a ridge a thousand lonely worlds from any life with icy peaks to stars stretching their bridge and slicing up the sky the wind's cold knife we walked us hand in hand off from his ford away and toward i briefly thought the scene his fantasy some poet fetish yeah that'd be my luck he's brought me to this sharp infinity and now he'll only want me here to fuck except i'd not have minded that at all as i recall as i recall i questioned how he knew where everything inside me stood so still as i recall his silence made it true or if it didn't then for sure it will i barely even heard him drive away or i won't say relief at first so far i'd not been harmed with followthrough amusement and surprise concerned neglected paranoid alarmed a thousand prayers a thousand more goodbyes of every bastard asshole prick i've cursed i cursed him worst then came the fear of being too exposed for this occasion i'd not thought to dress then horrors i'd want left as undisclosed and sins i'd just as soon not dare confess i figured he'd abandoned me to rot yeah who has not? i know i'm not the center of my world that i want things my way that ain't the truth i'll even feed off shit against me hurled and find it sweet no matter how uncouth yet only knew that night out on my own i am alone attention? yeah right paint it with a twist pity? spend that where you'll get repaid he'd thought himself to be as little missed? yeah maybe so but i still felt betrayed we feel the love the most after it's gone when it's withdrawn i know i know i'm not the one to preach to some i'll never be more than a child but everything we need's always in reach i found that out myself out in the wild there's nothing accidental in love's voice love is a choice love chooses to be clawed up by the bear love chooses to fall off a jagged cliff decides to get forgotten god knows where accepts what happens then without the if love makes the love that love is lover of love chooses love down on the plains i'd wanted to escape and when i die will seek such solitude up here my peace found quite a different shape that stripped me of my isolated mood although it wasn't all that big a deal that time was real i frolicked naked in subzero chill and laughed so hard the echo had to blush i watched the sun come through where day soon will and heard old secrets snow pretends to hush i danced i played i didn't give a damn how crazy i am of course he came to drive me back to town it's only down here friends not always do and yeah we made love when we got back down but not as though we'd thought it that far through past that i've not yet seen that guy again thank you amen   - vi - another thing i don't check in advance will that be trouble if so tell me now things can't go near so far outside pure chance one chance i'd kill to let myself allow just long enough to make us another spring another thing if things work out ok we'll make that soon to kick it off together face to face then if we stretch it out on into june by then i hope to have me my own place unplanned and unintentional no doubt if things work out i will return the time i lost or stole it doesn't matter we weren't keeping track you've never seen me when i've lost control when i give in like that you get it back out here i had to teach myself to learn i will return   - vii - i got a parttime job that was legit that worked me without taking off my jeans some days i even half made sense of it how one's not worth the value one demeans so somehow i've become the best of clerks whatever works i even served as substitute cashier to be that trusted that one made me laugh yeah even so it won't be a career they don't expect that much of parttime staff at least it meant i didn't have to beg until the leg   - viii - the leg yeah god's a rank comedian my soul's the part i meant to dislocate i'm not so good at catch me if you can without a knee that takes a little weight smirk on! whoever gets it shares its shame limp joke gone lame it floors me flat how people get amused the kicks some get from anything thought odd my size my shape the ways my body's used perhaps they're just in image of their god this ain't burlesque a leg no longer whole wrapped round a pole i didn't do it for the cripple jokes i didn't do it for the sympathy it's not to score some income from a hoax it's not broke how i'd want my leg to be nor all the other stupid silly talk i just can't walk at least not straight and not without some pain and likely will be permanent i'm told except that's not what moves me to complain but how it can no longer take the cold while time steps on through blooper flaw and glitch without a hitch intentional it wasn't not this time though who knows what my nature might intend but if i did so what is that a crime? there's nothing there i've a duty to defend some things are meant while some are just because that's how life does i've read somewhere how all roads intersect except the ones diverging from a fork this road was both together i suspect a guy showed up i'd known back in new york and let's just say that last time wasn't fun and call it done a business trip or maybe here to ski i'm not enough to come this far to find but i'd seen him and knew he'd spotted me so upped my watch ahead both sides behind then caught him with a hand tucked down his pants where i go dance there's never been a corner i can't twist through doors and alleys only locals know i've gotten good at being scarcely missed a shadow shifts and i am good to go so i saw little risk of an attack later out back maybe he never meant me any harm maybe he meant nothing but that all along all i remember's him grabbing me by the arm then a patch of ice i must've turned on wrong blacked out came to finding i'd not stayed put dragging one foot i'm betting i won't ever chance to see a joint as useful as a working knee joints get smoked by idiots like me it takes a god to make a goddamn knee apologies to kilmer for the point mine slipped its joint ask anyone they'll say how i despise hospitals doctors needles nurses pills we only get what health our money buys i'll skip them cures and settle for my ills so though it could be years before i'll kneel fuck it i'll heal again what's me still works well more or less including the leg which walks a little weird would i revise a word? i can't say yes our dreams run out of things we thought we'd feared da damn da damn da damn da damn da damn i'm an iamb   - ix - besides i play the furtive fugitive on roads that don't require a steady pace i'm moving to a life that wouldn't live a home that couldn't find its time or place believe that and i'll not believe in you oh but i do yeah sure the knee thing kicked me hard as rock ain't no fringe benefits out here on the fringe it killed me trying to walk halfway down my block hell even rolling over in bed made the damn thing twinge apparently good employment opportunities require working knees at least i'd been caught up my share of the rent even'd started to save for my proverbial rainy day now i'm behind and what little i had's all spent not to beg or complain just true enough to say something else true i can say's what one learns no more sharp turns   - x - so that should bring us mostly up to date out here there's nothing left for me to rhyme a week at most for me to reinstate what better way to waste away our time heat up some coffee pull me up a chair i'll see you there

pearls 

cautioned again

one. casual. shot. could. end. it. all. too soon what little shot we've had at love could end and bang! that quickly i'm without my friend how uncontrollably inopportune! far be it from my meaning to impugn whatever fates our whereabouts suspend however superficial or pretend no matter how insipidly jejune the dullest life i'd willingly embrace without adventure challenge or event if that means never needing to replace your photograph with any other face or farewell tears with any worse lament (so stay a little longer, just in case)

pearls 

Ripped Tide

You'll not be back to settle your affairs, to sweep through driftwood pieces left behind distinguishing what's still yours from what was theirs, your forwarding address still undefined. Escape! the chance to not feel so confined— I know. Remember, I heard all your prayers and know the god you wanted them to find. You'll not be back to settle your affairs, to help identify your rightful heirs or have your proper places reassigned, so I'm the one the angry current dares to sweep through driftwood pieces left behind if but to salvage one pearl to remind if only me what their cold questionnaires mistook, misrepresented, and maligned, distinguishing what's still yours from what was theirs. So what if silence drowned you out! Who cares? One word of yours was worth all theirs combined. But blank's the surface your horizon wears, your forwarding address still undefined. Did you just float too far? Or was I blind to riptides in your longings and despairs? Tight eddies twisting through our love unwind to solitary sides of parted pairs— You'll not be back.

pearls 

Saw

See after the leg, I'm told. *shrug* I don't mind it all that much. My step's just not so light as used to be, no inference to draw nor pace to which my odyssey is bound, let me and I'd throw the damn thing out as soon as you'd forgotten what you saw. I used to be so careful what one saw revealing only what I had in mind so something like the leg wouldn't leak out except when there was precious little light. I've gotten careless lately, so it's bound to flaws unwelcome scrutiny to draw. *shrug* It's just the luck of a random draw: a bastard from my past showed up and saw me dancing, and I guess he wasn't bound by courtesies that normal clients mind. The secrets we hide most, gods bring to light, so now I cover what I wish found out. Except you think I need the leg checked out? Perhaps you're right — it's difficult to draw good tips with this bad stance. I see the light, in fact I see the future light you saw and say so here, I thought you wouldn't mind, but healing? *shrug* This leg ain't homeward bound. I see my injury as more of a bound, a straightjacket I need my freedom out. My need for dancing's only in my mind, my hand does better playing out the draw. So I've been thinking, if I were to saw the damned thing off, I'd be that much more light. Don't look at me as though I'm making light of things you care about. I know it's bound to look that way at first, but when this saw has finished chopping deadwood, we'll find out I'll turn out perfect, better apt to draw attention off my body to my mind.       *shrug* Pay no mind to the different light       I've used to draw where this one's bound —       Help stretch my leg out, and hand me that saw.

pearls 

Won’t Ever Quit

The dress you gave me's useless now, it's hanging on the door as empty as the hole that's waiting for you in my bed. I wanted it, I'll want it not.  Like love it's neither nor: we dress it up, so what — my clothes don't care what's used for thread. Besides you know that getting dressed's not how I make my bread. For you perhaps I wore it well, for me it never fit, so now your gift's a metaphor for what I need to shed: a love that never had its chance to start won't ever quit. Whatever were we thinking?  You're a soldier, I'm a whore: while I don't care what's sacrificed, you'll fight until you're dead. So off with you to wage your battles in some aimless war, I'll defend other freedoms getting laid where you're not led. Or am I love's true patriot?  It's you've sold out instead. You think me a deserter?  I'm not scared, that isn't it — the flag I'll follow isn't colored blue and white on red: a love that never had its chance to start won't ever quit. Yet though you've left me nothing, why I am left needing more? Because of me, you never coming back — that's what I dread. The time we never had to give's the time we must restore, else when all's said and done, we'll never do all that's been said. My new dress, your old uniform, the dreams and lives inbred — You show me where they'll shoot you and I'll show you where I'm hit, I show you where I'm hit, you'll show me where our sheets were spread: a love that never had its chance to start won't ever quit. But then, I never touched your heart.  My love was in your head. I try my best to see that through the crack where we've been split, yet what you couldn't have's been taken just as though we'd wed — A love that never had its chance to start won't ever quit.

pearls 

Adjuraciun

Leave me, wicked lover! Hit the street facefirst, for all I care. You'll not get missed by me, what with the company you keep. Permit me to forget you still exist since I've existed solely for defeat, scarcely worth your worst. Why then repeat our sick affair? Why risk another tryst on sins you'd have to answer for? How cheap word gets depends — to you the twist depends who's beating versus who gets beat. Go on, get out! I don't deserve the hurt of love like yours. Leave now! I must insist. Besides, it's not as though you owe me dirt — I never could've been one you'd've kissed.

pearls 

Another Life

You're trained to handle every foreign threat? Don't think I don't appreciate your locks and keys and walls and guns. Your duty rocks the world, and you don't even break a sweat. It's just, I'd rather rock a bassinet. The threat I fear most's knitting up these socks with no wee feet to wear them. Freedom mocks me showing my surrender, "Not as yet." Like any sonnet, things don't get designed to fall out perfect, me with you here. So yeah, word be told, you are my life. I'd mind your leaving, but if you should have to go, the best of you will've been left behind — I have another life you wouldn't know.

pearls