1226 - of whats’isface

If your body were cold like
The tallest glass of gin
I’d throw you back, pull you down
And burn away my taste buds
To suffocate the taste of sin

And if your lips were Jaeger
I’d shot myself straight in the head
Time and time over
Raise and repeat
Till fingers come back red

If you hands were rum and cocaine
I’d fill myself on snow
Angels in the playground
Drinking in your liquor
High on all that you don’t know

....but if your mind were made of licorice and
Sweet Bacardi black
Then i’d break the bottle
Beside the habit
And never once look back

1225- Conscious still streaming some bull

Melatonin nightmares
Burning bullet casing bright
Like one, two, three and
You’ll do as well.
Shape shifting searches
Change form and face in the fog
“Futile” I’d tell you.
But you’re not listening again.

Black. Dinner is
burnt to charcoal
rice crispie treat
But seriously?
Who cares anymore
Crunching forward
Sliding back
Intellect battles life
And always loses.

Respect?
I don’t think so.
Grey wall angles
Missing my drink
I could keep going
On and on and
Out run you for once
But ive got bigger fish
Nets be goddamned

Freefalling through frosting
Billows bearing buoyancy
Afloat for, no wait.
Bouncing back on incongruencies
Weighted down wanting
Idiosyncrasies in between the spaces
Of this god awful ….

1225

House of wire
Held up with the duct tape
Holding up pictures of dreams
And dreaming of anywhere else

Rags filling cracks
Keeping out the cold
Worn doors, stained carpets
Disbelief keeping things constant

Garden buried in slumber
Our sleep walking footsteps
Light step typing love letters across the beds
Dreaming of the places past mountain purples

Passing in gusts
Leaving prints between leaves
Leaves scattered in corners
House of wine: Held up with hope for ‘soon to come’.

1221

Trench coat girl
I am in love with the way you hold your cigarette
Lips to hip, and rest.

….. as the tension builds.
Then the raise!
Fingers arch, your hand surfaces without warning

Hold a moment
(In which I can almost hear your nicotine perfect pitch)
Before you break

Pull in –
And release
Dropping back into reprieve

Thank god for addiction.
I get to watch you on repeat
Sucking away at my attention.

1220

Strangers in the night
Exchanging glances
Yours touched tender
Mine reluctant to take chances

Strangers in the night
Our skin brushing
Hands clasping
Heartbeats rushing

Strangers in the night
Are we onto something?
Catch your eyes held onto mine
Pretend its nothing

Strangers in the night
Our places shifting
Positions changing, Postures telling,
Spines arching, Voices lifting

Strangers in a strange place
Your wanting reached me
Through ice and self-consciousness
Gasps entreating

Strangers seeking comfort
Our cold bodies merging
In spite of reservations
Relief - for a moment - surging

Strangers in the night
Under moonlight shine
Meeting again for a moment
Partners in time.

1121

Acidic sensations leftover
From the yesterday before last
All turned turpentine and memorabilia
Life snapshots
Forgotten nights gone past.
Abandoned lovers
Drenched drunken in lust
Upright standing
Nerves crumbled to dust.

Memory of smell

They say smell is the sense most closely tied to memory. Describe one memory of yours invoked by a particular smell.

College Writing
01/23/08

A Memory of Smell

It’s supposed to be a knee jerk reaction, not a conscious thought.
A word or phrase, and before you can blink your brain snaps to a place of reference. In my mind’s eye I can almost see electrical pulses going off as the sound of the word takes shape in my ear, neurons exchange fire, changing it from reverberation to information. Lightening bolts shoot across nerve endings, carrying the meaning to a storehouse of memories where it sets off an explosion of fireworks as it connects to
- what?

It’s only supposed to take a second, yet I’m sitting here before the shimmering screen of my laptop, trying to focus on ‘smell’ and nothing’s coming up. I feel a kind of emptiness as pulses of energy ricochet inside my brain looking for something to connect to, and I glance around the room for inspiration. My eyes land on my roommate’s bottled water, whose label proclaims its contents to have come from the ‘pure mountain springs’ of some exotic far off place.

Electricity fires somewhere in my brain, something fits, and then it’s like a thousand pieces clicking into place, one after the next. A domino effect of sensations avalanching through neuro-receptors paths, the sheer force cracking open my dorm walls of paper-mache, cardboard and spit. They split down the middle and a sky, so crystal it almost cuts, bursts in as the rest of my room melts into nothing.

My computer drops and falls away into the lush valley stretching below me like a jungle paradise. The chill morning sunrise lights up the velvet rain forested hills standing sentinels-like in reverie on all sides. I take it all in. The view from the heart of the Guatemalan mountains is a sight so beautiful it could make me believe in God if I didn’t know better.

But I do know better.

This tragic beauty is no paradise and in a second my eyes water as billowing clouds of acid white burn my nose and eyes. The social workers from our encampment are burning the trash from our pre-packaged breakfast because we are 5,000 miles from the nearest waste center or landfill. So instead all of our garbage goes up in smoke, invading the atmosphere. Not just paper cups or napkins, but plastic plates, silverware, wrappers, and - because there is no sewage system and it will not decompose with the rest of our bathroom waste - used toilet paper.

Burning shit and the smell of death and plastic, are all tossed together inside of a, now tar-like, black garbage bag that shrivels in the heat. The cut crystal sky fills with amphetamine white clouds as our trash burns and I can taste the smell of the chemical fumes in my mouth and nose.

The local boys come with their mothers to pick through our smoldering refuse. They toss aside a broken flip-flop and yesterday’s orange peels but stop to rescue an empty water bottle whose torn label proclaims its contents to have come from the ‘pure mountain springs’ of some exotic far off place. A place similar, no doubt, to the river running a dusty 15 minutes down the mountain. The remnants of it’s bathwater warm currents still dripping off my hair from my swim just hours before. When I had floated near weightless in wonder and marveled that any place could be so pure.

Now I stand feeling anything but, as I watch the toxic smoke billow from sweltering piles. I cover my nose more tightly with my bandana, the noxious smell filling my head and electricity starts to static in my brain. The children gathered around the trash heap with their mother don’t seem to mind and I wonder how they can not care as I imagine the smoke entering their mouths, swelling through their throats and crystallizing inside their lungs.

The images and the smell fuse together, darkening blue skies into black and the chemical burn in my throat is as sharp as the skyline of an industrial jungle. In the half darkness, thin bodied boys are hunched over a fire still seeking relief, but not from the cold. The small flame provides a different kind of reprieve for those to whom digging through trash for treasure is an everyday occurrence. The hot odor of lighter fluid is overpowered by the clear burn of chemical disease and I taste its sick toxin smoke turning to frost on my lungs. I can taste the plastic smell in my mouth, and I wait for the electrical pulses in my brain to turn from chaos into something pure.

today&yesterday

daydreams floating where white meets white
buoyed up on foam
but going down slow
dragging the bottom as jaws unclench

im feeling sand in my teeth
watching the place where white meets white
confusion encrypted in lines
unfolding sheets falling down to my feet

slips dripping drops
spots starting sparks
flame leap reaching high to heaven
burning driftwood charcoal bright

flecked glass
ballet dance
shifting, skiming, dropping, driftting
these choreographed collisions
where white meets white

12ohsomething

You’re gone from me
Word and thought from this place
Vanished beyond recovery
Couldn’t bring you to mind if I tried

You’re gone from me
But left behind a trace
And I can sense where you’ve been
Residue left in the parting of ways
Or rather
Ending of your part

Past the place in the journey
Where you’re gone from me
I never saw you fall by the wayside
Couldn’t go back if I tried

goddamn

I have seen you dead

No

It was you no longer

The body lay empty

Silent

Void of life

Recalled the person who had inhabited it

Reminded me
That you were no longer there

-unknown

portrait

Baby fingers curling upward
Clasping grey
And clutching at cobwebs
Baby nails scrapping away

Thin limbed reach
Harsh against
A skeleton world
On sky skin stretch

Clouds slide pale
Weather drawn taught
Intrinsic curiosity
Inhibited thoughts

110808

Eyes caught in
Tranced stare dance
At skies
Observant as
The exodus lumbers on

Clouding vision with slow grace and
Grandeur
Relentless billows,
Stoic breath
My hair pulling forward
Streamlined and screaming

Jackets hanging abandoned from the branches
The stripings of warfare
Bright colors left behind
Life stolen along as
The exodus keeps marching

The silent sigh
The softly whispered
“north north north”
Pulling at my hair
Earthbound entranced.

Soliloquies of death.
Turning with tide.
I feel the rush stir me
Seated.
I watch the exodus go by
Symphony in movement
And quiet
The stillness travels
Makes its way across the sky

ring a linging

I am calling out in words
That whisper
In grainy grey and white

I am calling in the time
Between the tempest
And waters untested

I am calling inward
In search of idioms
Hidden in under and around italicized interests

I am coming back with static
And stagnate stale nothings

I am coming back unanswered

Breath bated
Bent backwards
Buried again.

1101

We are seething through the streets
We are red and we are raw and we are running hungry

Desire has made our breath hot against the air
It prickles in drops on our skin
It stands out and jumps from our flesh
Screaming with the psalms of ecstasy we have discovered

In this moment
In this city

Our lungs are burning up the air and tearing down buildings with the voice of our longing
Our inhibitions torn off one by one and hung from all the high places

Till we can run naked around cobblestone corners and backlit alleys, running from the asphalt-
Till we can be love and feel love and make love against the arching back of the city-
Till our wonder spreads out like a canopy to catch us in our freefall-
Till we can sing with the breaking of each sunrise-

Till when we dream, like tomorrow is infinite; then we have found our profession.
And I will know it by the touch of your palm, as you herald the new morning.

householdappliances

Its intensive shock therapy
Applied straight to the senses
Jolting bumps turn to uncomfortable tingles
So lets turn up the heat shall we?
Relentless
This is absurd.
Tiny vibrations
In spaces
And I feel the way the shaking amounts
Catastrophically
Breathe.
Just breathe in.
Angles skewing perception, touching toxins
But I promise it will be alright
Just take it
In.
Still breathing.
Take your hands
They are yours after all, so take them goddamnit.
Take them, and go.
Don’t stop, you can do this
Just breathe and release
And I promise we will catch you,
So long as you let us.

october

I wonder if you can hear me across the distance
Feel me shifting, ready to leave
Do you taste the change in the autumn air,
as I turn my eyes north and inward,
and take back my breath into my lungs.

recall

Cowboy body, your summer is still under my skin
Your tangy taste of toxin still touching my lips at the corners, still teasing
And I know exactly what you do to me.

Rollerblade ravebeat, your high still bounces through my bloodstream
You rainbowed my soul with whatever colors you wanted,
Paints all chipped and faded and colored over. Neon shining through in the night.

Hey moonshine skinnydipper, I still think of you.
Salt sweet sweat tingling neuro-receptor paths, each time a memory recalled,
Bridges burning, heat branding lines, and new lines. Hacking with smoke.

And I cant tell you what rehab is like, not from here.
My legs pound and my heart hammers itself clean through this cage
But they would cut out our tongues before they’d ever let us leave intact.

when i should be focusing in class

You are reminding me of Autumn, in the way you fill me.
Clouding my thoughts with fog and drizzle and brightest clear sunshine.
All October Ale, brisk breath, tasting winter exiting my mouth

You remind me of rain slicker leaves
That fling themselves toward my windshield.
Damp smell of clothing when we turn the heat up to compensate.

When the air is filling my lungs with frosty sunrise daybreak,
Promises of beauty and cold, defining the shape of my day
Yearning forward and backward. Longing in the clarity of the evening, the crisp crunch of the day.
Nights incline toward winter, but the stars hold reminiscent and we are friends of memory.
This feeling of not quite being. And hushed voices.

You remind me of rain whipped days, full of sparks and building with tension of circumstance
Leaves twirling lover’s dances of grace and death around one another.
Brightly dressed and vibrant, the last thrill of throwing themselves out into nothing.

And your voice comes into my sleep like the heavy overhead spaces,
To keep me from digging out my silks and finery, to help leave my dresses dusty and moth ridden.
Grounded. Leaf storms falling, but I sit watching instead, thoughts leaning towards cacophony.

102308

Accident prone,
Our backs arch forward, eager to meet
Crashing full force together
Wreckage spilling
Out into the street

Glass glinting broken
Red savannah glare
Catching light reflected back at me
Illuminated stare

And with each intersection I find you
Meeting at the crossroads and every crux
Decisions of space and moments determine
Split second outcomes between us

Leaving, always dissatisfied
Wary of disaster, but rearing forward all in a rush
Feeling your breath on my skin as you pass
Just close enough to touch

1022

Stroking the sensation
The moment passing slow
How come hearing has this effect?

Equilibrium of sound
And vibration.
View shifted, outlook
From offhand to direct

Sending signals of recognition
One space to the next
Wishful thinking and imagination
Forming players I suspect

numb

Dumb skin
Oblivious, warm.

Blind corners
And dark spots
Leave me lost in this world of sensations
Disguising me from myself.

Solutions in sounds, a travesty of words
A tapestry of spaces in between
Libraries of unspoken secrets.

i dont know

If I had to guess
Id call it intuition
In spite of inhibitions
Your twisted lullabies come quickly
Running like milk down my chin
And I’m drink drink
Drinking them in

Tales of condolences
Worded with eloquence
Phrased just so, like ginger root
And nonsense you know

Desert of doubt
Uprooting the unkept
Digging and digging
Dragging them up in pairs
Side by side soldiers
Together in graves

102008

These are white walls of fog banks
Divided by difference in opinion
Grey mist and barriers forming white
Lines of defense
We are white powdered
Sugar sweet and seething
Writhing lines, sharp inhalation
And exhale into exhaust
Tired steam stemming trails out behind us
Pinpoint the place where apples started transforming
White distances and
Disappearing horizons, suddenly we find we cant find each other
Discovering silent spaces, doors all closed, blank faces
White lies disappear in a cloud of smoke
Evaporating into the atmosphere

streamofconscious

Country of my body
Fingers dragging the stretch of my abdomen
Exploring a landscape of curves and lines

My ship's hull, the bend of the beams
Curving ribcage ridges and troughes
The slight dip, roll of the land, shape of the valley
I feel the swoop of my sides, hipbone oars pulling forward

Rounding hands over hips
Curving mound at the pit of my belly, my own personal mountain
Domed cap and crater, perhaps this is a volcano after all

My skin is smooth, but not like glass or wood
It is smooth, but it is alive
Reaching arms over my head, I feel it shift around me
Stretching tight over affixed structures, breaking and changing topography

yesterday?

Tasting you strangely
Like sweet red stain strewn
All across the sky

Your skin slick memory
Intoxication
Polluting my senses five

1009

September skies
are saying something to me.
Whispers rushing round my ankles, through my hair
Murmuring flurries from the standing dogwood trees

Grey colored days
are speaking through the leaves in the gutter.
Maples dancing slow rag-time, Chestnuts swaying the swing.
Frosty gusts pulling words out of wood smoke,
etching echoes, the voice of my mother.

Horizons articulating
feelings like the concrete
Language barriers inhibiting translation
Communication comes instead
through the roar and hum of street

yay

In through the nose
Electric fire
And solemnity
I am cold
And ambivalent

Tasting transparency
In your words
Your expressions
I am perfect in this moment
And not the other way around

Sharp like lightening
I am crisp and clean
And breathe your lies
With each exhalation

October

Love me gently
With your teeth in my neck
Tear away borders
Biting back nightmares
An opium infection
Injecting jubilee
Euphoria and relief

Love me cautiously
With my waist in your hand
Shape the curve of your smile
Pulling close to fit
Keep out the past
Keep me still and sure
Break away bird boney hesitation
Quiet shaking out

Love me strongly
Blind kisses coming
Rushed and night magic
Pulling each moonrise, each sunset
Pushing against time
With the rush of sheets and doors
Doorknobs of brilliant chaos

Love me swiftly
But leave my words in my mouth
My hands in each others company
Change with each gear
Separate turns, our cautious slips
Anxious with winter coming
Till your eyes return to your own
And we find our places

Train call

Steam throat sighing
Forceful exhalations
An opera of foreign places
Breathing destinations in my window
Where I can almost sing along
Steel voice traveling the distance
Between one ear and the other

bs

I think its bullshit
Monotheistic ideologies and
Incongruencies thickening the smoke
Shining shiny faced out of the
LCD screens and headlights
And I think its bullshit
All lies and deceptions
One big happy fucking façade
Being passed off as the real golden deal
Streets paved with potheads, dopefiends and babysnatchers
Lined up and waiting to buy sell steal
Snatching every chance of happiness we can handle

1004

Pelican attention
Standing stiff
Dip
And retrieve

1003

Our bodies are burning
And the water, long gone
But there is wine still
And we will have drink
Yes, we will drink to our own nightmares
Our waking glass of reali-tea

The mask falls off the blind
But we are more lost than ever
And we will burn on
For anger
And for wanting
And for fear
But we will burn nonetheless
Screaming loud to the gods and angels we forsook

Stewards to nobility
But we can’t even save ourselves
And as the pieces crumble
Our scabbing flesh is consumed by what we have birthed
Hand devoured by puppet
And we burn as we fall
Blindly
But the ground is not far

And the children run laughing
Feasting gluttonous on all we have wrought them
Spinning reckless on the wreckage
Swinging on a playground decked with used up time
The weather is not just inclement, it is upon us

And I twist myself apart
Scatter and laugh at the pieces.

late night ride

Ruffling feathers
Im almost almost almost
To where I can feel it

Just a taste
Of what it should be like.

1002

Spider hands creeping
Stepping
Finger leaping
Leaving my dreams bruised blue
Discoloration spreading along lines of lies and
What is this again?
I taste salt
Cars colliding on the street, where I can hear them
Cement rising forward and back and again
My shins tighten
I feel my body as it shifts with the seasons

You’re not the one I wanted
No,
But you’ll do for now.

Though I don’t really want you
No...
But you’re kind
And you smile
And you play the gentlemen
And I like that.

Though you’re not all that smart
No...
But you’re nice
And your kisses are sweet
And you hold me
And I like that.

So....
I don’t care so much that
You’re not the one I dream about

I drown my sorrows in the definition of your arms
And the pull of your shoulders
And the heat of your breath
And I like it.

The intoxication of your sensations
Making my sleep dark and heavy.
Dark sleep. Quiet.
Dreamless.
And I like it.

Slumber ship sailing on waves of forgotten thoughts
Where I don’t dream of how
You’re not the one I wanted.

093008

tangled piles
unseen sunburns
we gather like dust
collecting in corners of this house
we fill it separately
spaces becoming clearer with
the passages of time
arriving and departing
with each hours chime

092808 - still cant rhyme

faces three
you speak to me
in guises not your own

and I implore
subconscious’ door
to see what I’ve been shown

what i needed

The feeling in my head the morning after
Heavy with guilt and hangover
Thoughts a jumble in mistakes
Who even knew there was kindling enough for this sort of regret?

And just when I thought I had things kinda figured out
Misdecision and shame go
Hand in unwilling hand
Afterburn feeding on my fuckup

The brutality of the bay fulfilling my needing
Bruising troughs, ascension and fall
I feel my emotions ebbing with each collision
Keep on breaking like glass, but it’s still here

Who knew I had this much to expiate
Just what I say I needed
Needing something else to crash
And come back together

0928

Sweating sin off my skin
While sunspots are blooming on my eyes
Blooming on maple leaf tapestries
And I watch in waiting
For them to go up in plumes of red and orange
Smoking swirling life like
With the sound of mad giggles
Curling in fits of jubilee
The air just as crisp and burnt as cigarettes
Ashes coating my eyes
Wind tasting sweet like gold

Flower power?

Sunflower kisses
Yellow face spinning
Lucy’s own eyes
Could never ever compare
Sunshine glowing golden in my heart
Embodiment of love lit on air

092808

Im careful with your name
Careful in its speaking
Cautious of the way it fills my mouth with memories
Fearful of the flood that fills my skin with its voicing

Could the place where my thoughts meet oxygen ignite?
Cause a chemical
Reaction
Cause my feelings to manifest
In physical form
More solid than these unspoken hauntings

Regardless that they’ve devoured my thoughts already
Your name floating freely through passageways
Current running swift and crowded
Bringing you to head all too often

Such an abundance of you
Im full to spilling
Your name, a drop threatening
This captive whole
Im in danger of breaking free

Canyou haiku?

Theres too many things
That can’t abide the chaos
No room left for words

Bellingham Bay

I want to be the sound of the spray when it hits the water
I want to be the reflection of the sunset on the water, on the tail of the porpoise
I want to be the place where the sky meets the clouds
I want to be the moment before the fall
I want to be the look they shared
I want to be the water mark on the beach

092708

Fog filling
Clouding
My vision gone white
I cant see beyond
Past, around
Or through
Utterly lost in this sickness
Maps, useless
But I trust you to be my guide

When on earth did I hand over authority of my emotions
I don’t remember the reins being taken from me
Fighting seems more strength than I could muster

I dont understand Feminism

I don’t understand feminism
After all, men don’t write poems about being men
Scanning through pages, thick with words like
“Voluptuous” and “Mother” and
“Vagina”
and I don’t understand it.
Is something wrong with me, I wonder
That I haven’t felt a need to contemplate the form my body takes
It is simply
what it is and can never be anything else
But what it is.

I don’t understand feminism
I don’t understand the anger at things that have already ended
Or are as inevitable as living
Discrimination exists regardless of role
You WILL be judged by everyone who is not you
But that doesn’t mean you must do it too,
And so harshly.
That is what they are there for, but
You are there to not pay attention
how can they say what you aught to be
They are not you.
They will never know
your story, even if you tell it.

I don’t understand feminism.
The desperate call to
“love who you are” and “who you are is beautiful”
and things that go without saying
Reiteration takes its force from denial,
as one trying to convince theirself
How hard is it to just accept who you are and then just
Be.
I don’t understand the fighting.

I don’t understand feminism but
I understand the daily shift
The bizarre twist of the self that is not you
Changing out of control
Hair and
Blood and
Body
Where there didn’t used to be
I understand
Facing a mirror with the knowledge that
My face today is not what it was yesterday
Or what it will be tomorrow
That child’s cheeks have acquired
Freckles and acne and
Will acquire
Wrinkles and hair

I don’t understand feminism but
I understand confusion
When what I thought I was, wasn’t the same as
What other people thought I was
Where individuality is preached but somehow im still not good enough?
I understand feeling lost in a labyrinth
Where it everyone else seems to have
A better idea of the right direction

I don’t understand feminism but
I understand eyes watching, scrutinizing
I understand hunger
Eyes eating up the me that is not me
Should I be flattered? No. Should I be offended?
I don’t think so.
I know I shouldn’t accept this but….

I don’t understand feminism but
I understand fear and
Wanting and
Hands and
Trying to scream around them.
I understand that hate and heartbreak and being used
Are all things that happen
In this world
Where bad things happen to ensure the balance

I don’t understand feminism but
I understand the WE
That draws power from alikeness
Collective conscious of experiences unique
I feel my connections
Holding us linked
Differently to each other than we are to others
And I understand

But I don’t understand feminism.

deliverance aka the 'i cant ryhme without sounding like a fool' poem

Unborn, your comprehension
In silence, dormant sleeps
Bound up by that deception
Which hearts and secrets keeps

Desire given ego
Takes shape by what’s to come
The countdown reaches zero
Before the moon will kiss the sun

Till when? I know,
These things shall also die
Till when? I know I know
In faith again we sigh
In faith, we sigh “I know”

my name is not edgar allen poe

Lone black crow
Perched behind my house
Facing the road
Feeling filling in my belly

I couldn’t see what he saw
His gaze was fixed forward
And when I looked again
He had flown

sometime early in september

Your bones rise out of the desert
Blue faded timbers, rising from the dunes
from the sand
from the sunrise
Whale ribs bending prison striped shadows cast in dust and singing of
Stillness and
Redemption
And all things inevitable

Windcast tones born over hallows
Breath bearing life
Sinking into my skin
Stretching over words, filling empty spaces
Havens untouched, locked tight treasure
Chest filled with renewal
Your bones sing to me

Birds loosed in unison
among dreams unleashed
These timbers moan
Aching sweetly.
Darkly. Keel low inside me, almost
Running aground.

Mast drawn and straining to rest
Foreshadows of dawn just touching the edges with
Tide ebbing back at
White bone feet, blue timbers
And in the morning, echoes fill these hills with silence.

0924

Its like
Okay
Yeah
I get it
Done
Over
Yes I see
Okay?
Point taken.
I got the hint.
And that’s fine
Okay?
Fine.
Didn’t
Really
Want




….anything





From you that is.
Doesn’t matter to me
I just thought,
But if not….
And that’s fine.
Ya know?
Okay with me
Unless of course…
And in which case I don’t care
But ya know
If its cool with you
Then you know where I stand.

092308

You heard me
But i
Wasn’t watching
Or didn’t believe you
Or (probably) both
After god only knows
How long
Why should i?
So I kept doing
Whatever I was doing
And you kept listening
To whatever I was saying
And I kept
Not seeing
Past my own bullshit

Roman candle birthday cake

Vomit boils with delight
Gleeful acid bubbles
Swarming up my throat's hot passage
Claustrophobic and tired with misuse
Bursting in my mouth
And I sick up everything
Chocolate clover car accidents
Unspoken fears, nervous ticks,
Pastel colored conformities
Conscious and subconscious insecurities
Bad dreams spill over my feet and up my face.
And I lick my fingers
I hide this mess of me

hmph

She’s so awesome
How could I not believe you
And I don’t
Don’t want to
No I don’t

She’s completely beautiful
And I’m intimidated
There’s no competition to be had here
But I maintain attention
Just in case

And I don’t believe you
Languishing in denial
Naming it hope, for lack of other options
Obstinately refusing
Cuz one of these times
I’m going to come out on top

hella emo

Was it merely blindness
That led to such deceit
Your vicious acts accomplished
Left me downing my relief

Untrained words, unpracticed hearts
Quake uncertain with misuse
Bind my thoughts in expectation
Again all hell comes breaking lose

And already repercussions
Form battalions in my head
But from this foresight, hesitation
Is the price I pay instead

092008

I can not

Think
About
.....

I can stop this

Train
Before it reaches critical mass
Or at least look away

I can save this

Addiction

For late night indulgence
Lonely winter fantasies
Instead of my daily fix
I can cut back

Wayward thoughts

Prune constant reminders
The little things
That I will not dwell on

-stereotypical indie poem (warning, may contain sarcasm)

True to form
We paint exteriors
More shoddy than what lay underneath
With dreams of grandeur
Calling like
Your gentle whispers guiding me across the water
Peaches at sunrise

Henry

In gods unholy name why
You stole all our songs of laughter
I cant hear them anymore without crying
Turned them into bitter memories
For what?
Made me the culprit

And how could I have known?
So much more I could have done
But how could I have known
It would come to this
Took our friendship and made it into something else

Imbalance of power
And all our memories turned bitter bitter bitter
For what?

I
could not have known

Only imagine
everything I might have done

You wouldn’t believe how much I think of,
You wouldn’t have done it if you knew how much I think of
And all the things I might have said

091908

Its not the first time
But that doesn’t bug me, not as much as
Knowing
It wont be the last.
That I will watch this again
Each time remembering all the others
And how much I don’t want
To watch this again

homogenous

Shame eating up my insides
Again and again
Ears not working right
One hour, two, three
Echoes still ringing
Confident
My jaw hurting from
Bent-up retorts
Your blind by choice bigotry
Tongue sore with biting back
And I know I’ve earned each ache
To keep the peace?
Echoes sounding hallow
Self scorn bites deep
But still unsatisfied
Feast dragging on long in the night

091908

Pieces of my sanity
Scattered all over
The room upstairs
Is a mess.
Everything accounted for
But the chaos,
Astounding .

Never the type to keep things neat and tidy
I maintain a system.
Inefficient
But still working.
Disorganized piles of like subject
Key items in plain view.

Problems arise when in need
Of what lies buried underneath
Searches breed frustration
I know I could contain this
If I only tried

mentiras

Tasty tasty lies
Mmmmmmm…. Sweet
Going down
Like syrup
Coming back up
Less
So much for intoxication

Filling in the blanks

Who am I to tell you what would be_____
What would be_____
What would make you_____
What would ____
How can I say such things
Me
With my small words
My little learning
Little life
Everything I know I’ve heard from someone
Who heard it from someone
Who heard it somewhere
Irrefutable, no doubt.
Me, who couldn’t this morning decide between Rasberry
Or Peach Mango Yogurt
Don’t look to me to tell you whats________
Cuz I couldn’t tell you

DC

So this
Is the East Coast

So this is
DC

I can hear you on the subway
I can see you in the headlights
Of multinational vehicles
Feel you in every historical tidbit
Of every fast talking tourist guide

Another badly planned family vacation
Breathing in acceptance
Breathing out daydreams
Of days long past
Of days long in coming

Your specter warming my neck
With constant reminders
I’ve missed the last train out of here.

081808 ____ drops by

Is this how its always going to be now?
Meticulous
Moving words
Around
Silences
Forcing Familiarity
Wanted or not.
Playing games of
“Do you Remember?”
and
“Have you Seen”

Is this gonna be another one of those things
I leave behind

Moments of ease
Rising like waves out of the past
Peaking suddenly
Then gone.

And I realize I don’t know this person
This person.

0918

I can see it as much as I cant
Residue of some former love
Still holding things together
And I cant tell yet
What kind of glue was used
How long it will hold up
Or if it matters
And is that enough

Brittle Bone Oak Riddle/Coconut Cream

Sweet pie delight
Under melted moonlight
These stars shine too bright for my eyes

Burnt and hollow with age
Like a bird in its cage
Looking out from my house to the sky

Dana

Still beside me across the country
We
Are not going anywhere
Without our past.

Imprinted on our hands
You bring it out of me
Your presence bears light
And I light up in turn

pretty self explanatory i think

Regret
Tastes metallic
Aching cold and sharp
Born in my mouth
Birthed on my words
Transported via ear channel
To incubate inside my skull
Growth spread slowly throughout
My body
Expanding to fill places under skin
You swell with each breath
Living on the memory of sins
I feed you with my thoughts
Parasitic and hungry
You fuel my imagination
With daydreams
Longing to make things different

091808

I guess things aren’t what I thought
Nothing really
Heel turning up the stairs
So I retired to the couch
Head hurting with hangover
And unspoken rejection

You know, I didn’t want you
And I’m not just saying that
You’re a fucking idiot
Nothing you say is funny
I didn’t want anything to do with you

Your body on the other hand
It and I get along
Quite agreeably actually
Quite nicely. We get along
Your body rocking the world of my body
It and I might have gone out for a picnic of pleasure
Chinking our glasses together
Downing the contents to forget what we don’t like about each other

But your words are ridiculous
I’d tell you to use that mouth for anything but talking
But you’ve already told me goodnight

091708

Tripping on contradictions
All these feelings are a result of something-
That signifies that I should-
Which is because of my upbringing-
And shows that im-

And yes i know already.

And if know, does that cancel it out?
10,000 reasons for every perceived problem
muddled up in mixed up sensations
what am I feeling and why am I feeling and what in hells name does that mean
12,000 solutions
do I have to be so analytical?
Keeping everything aligned in my head is so much more work than I remember
15 hundred things I need to do or not
The regular bullshit of mindless moments keeps on accumulating
Into ever increasing trashing heaps
Flies swarming

Caught between regularity and forced action
I have excuses for everything and I don’t know anything anymore
Except that this will soon cease
But that doesnt help it happen any faster

091608

Its this weird sensation
Of knowing
So precisely
Of being
Utterly incapable
Of
Time still passing
Feeling useless with waiting

instigation

Id like to see a surgeon
And have you cut
Straight from my head
Your tumor of thought
You’ve become invasive,
Malignant, imagination.
Entering thoughts and places where
I don’t want you
Times and spaces, uninvited
And im fucking sick of it

Doesn’t that make you cancerous?
You’re bad from my health and you keep spreading
Each day a little more you inside of me
And im fucking sick of it

Breaking myself open to get at the pieces of you
Lodged beneath the skin
Twelve layers deep
But im peeling away
Eradicating this infestation

You’re so much apart of me now
Amputation is the only cure
And I don’t give a damn
If a part of me is lost
By cutting you away
Only natural to expect
Some bit of me would always hold on

Will I miss you my sweet disease
Miss you eating me alive?
I want to be numb to this operation,
Will the cure hurts as much as the symptom?
Addicted to suffering I guess

So medicate me doctor
Take me under and take away
Every part of me
Still attached to you
Im ready to be rid of this.

091508

Stress blocking blood
I cant think
This unwanted guest
wont be ushered out
Futile attempts
To outmaneuver
Logic hiding defeated.
Traces of anxiety lurk
Everything becomes a symptom
In the search for a solution
Scouring thoughts for a source
Strangely morose
And unjustly so
Fuck off feeling
You are
Unwelcome.

i have no idea where this came from

Theres an ocean in my belly
Swaying with the light of the moon
And its Full of Little fishes swimming
From morn till brightest noon

And when the night sky flowers
My fishies go to sleep
And when my love stands near me
They dance and jump and leap

Singing
Why oh why
Do the fish in the sky
Do the fish in the sky sing oh why
Oh why oh why
Are there fish in the sky
And they’re singing yes they’re singing oh why to me

And the fishes make wishes, on under sea stars
as they swim with the blue spotted whales
And the whales in my belly (made from raspberry jelly)
In whalesong, are whispering tales

Singing
In whale-ish we speak
So our songs you will keep
Locked away quite as tight as a clam
Through our moaning and groaning
You’ll decipher a toning
That sighs like the waves on the sand.
Sighing in, sighing out on the sand.

So they sing through the night
To the pale white moonlight
And the ring in the vaulted round sky
But so softly they sing
Like a pelicans wing
That you’ll never again hear me cry.
No, Ill sing till the day that I die.

Singing
Why oh why
Are there fish in the sky
Are there fish who are singing to me
Oh why oh why
Are these fish in the sky
And they’re singing and sighing
Oh why are they singing to me

091308

The place between eardrum and comprehension
Is long and windy
And crowded with echoes
En route gone astray
So excuse me a minute
If your words got lost on the way
Or if hints of their significance
impeded the delivery
Of whatever you had to say

Sonny

Your body gone
But I remember you
Eyes smiling
Your grin unfiltered
And I knew when I saw you
I should’ve known
I should’ve known that
I should’ve known

Your voice gone
But I remember you
Long bearded laughter
And how you always said hello
Your greetings bright each time I saw you
And I didn’t see
I didn’t see that
I didn’t see

Your words gone
But I remember you
Deep seated thoughts unrushed by circumstance
You stood like an oak
And oh how we loved you
Basking in your shade
We loved to love you

And your spirit stays.
Legacy and honor living on
In more part after your departure
Your spirit stays.

_____

i think of you and its
sweet like summer laughter
free and unchecked
twisting through smoke
curling to fill the spaces between us
till theres no distance at all

i think of you and its
grinning faced sunshine
a fountain breaking down all my walls of
all my unspoken words right to
my core where every smile that you smile that I smile
lives flashing in time to blood born pulsations

i think of you and its
hard biting bitterness
and the burning taste of regret
for all the unsaid things
that should have stayed that way
and all the silent words
i waited too long to free

i think of you and its
trust reborn in a different skin
not quite fitting
still weak legged shaky
with unfamiliarity
careful but stronger this time

i think of you and its
too much sometimes
to think and breathe in unison
air wont fit into lungs overcrowded with
traces of, oh what i have missed.

i think of you and its
long achey nights knowing I’ve
never wanted anything thing this surely.
Finger of thought tracing the edges
where we meet up so perfectly

i think of you and its
missing the best and the worst
of all the little things i never saw as
i was still stirring from sleep.
When your gaze was my sunrise
just touching the cheek.

09/10

these exits arent made easier by repetition
time and tide striking with unforeseen fatality
no more than a ripple
once noted, born away in tumultuous waters
the lesson learned is not one of acceptance
but of inevitability
that this will occur again unendingly
set to be played on sick repeat
over and over and over
and over
the waiting intensifies the reaction
strings taught to breaking
chord wrapped tight
tearing skin right open

sweet tooth

the sky is a vast chocolate cake
blue velvet so rich with frosting
one bite would be
much more than i could take

and all the stars are
broken candy bars
scattered across the deep milky way

taste of cool whip breeze
hint
of mint
just to tease
sweet cream dreamy
like kisses of air

with your JELLiE bean eyes
twice as full as the skies
gumdrop freckles
rice paper hair

Sugar burning my brain
Leaving teeth candy stained
Sending shivers from my head to your feet

this sweet tooth building tales
through fudge kitchen trails
in a summer i wish i could eat

090908

Strange. And stranger.
Weirdly shifty
Like not quite, what?
But then again, maybe so.
Encircling conundrums,
Come
Then speedily go

0908

Twice now
In passing it seems
We bump the elbows of
Awkward conversation.
This isn’t forced politeness
But uncomfortable desperation
Wanting to enjoy this and
Why cant it be like it used to
Easy
Neither admitting the inevitable
But fearing
we have become our parents after all.

090708

Hot night dreams.
When chill midnight seeps into my bedroom,
Intermingling with air
still stale from the day

Recollecting,
Your hands
On my hands
On your-
On my-

And I don’t care about any of the things I’ve cared about before
Washed away
Burnt from my head with your hot hands
And I don’t even mind.
Ferocity and intoxication
And I don’t even mind
For once.

Your mouth making me want more
Your mouth making me- oh.
And again.
Room clouding with little gasps
Rising like steam off our bodies
Till I don’t know how to breathe

And its better than I ever thought it could be.
With you making me-
Making you-
And its better than I ever thought.

090608

My brother is getting married
And im not ready.
Relatives I didn’t even know existed arrive to bustle and make busy around the house. But somehow always find time to catch me in a corner, and ask me what im doing with my life. Flowers, and tulle, and paper lanterns settle over everything like a white powdered veil of misguided dreams. Not that that’s cynical or anything.

My brother is getting married, and I am leaving the anthill with the dog tugging on my arm and music battering my ear drums. Skipping through back trails and brush, behind closed eye windows of white washed suburbia I scramble. Stopping to light and relight my joint when the wooding becomes thick enough. My dog wanders over and sniffs around my ankles. I keep moving upwind to outwalk green-stained air.

My brother is getting married and I’m walking around the field, lost in transient-type thoughts. I take my dog off the leash and he runs through the dandelions, sending wishes flying like my whims on the wind. I wander to the swings. Chase follows, looking stardust frosted with dandy-seed-aeronauts stuck in his fur.

My brother is getting married and I am standing, one foot rocking this black tar rubber cradle when I see you on the far end of the field. Leaping off the swing Chase and I run across the dirt. Twin red comet tails streaming behind us.
I cant recognize you, but I know my hair’s distinctive shine will give me away to anyone from the area. And who else would come here? I circle the outer edge of the field, feeling like a bird of prey, and picking my way down to the lower playground, watching your back as I get closer. Watching your shaggy locks sway as you and the soccer ball bounce off each other,
-and for a second I think its you.

My brother is getting married and as much as I know I am over you, nothing has prepared me for the way my heart stopped at the thought of seeing you in this place.
And I had spent the last two years making it mine again.
730 dizzying turns in orbit to dry erase the memories of you and me in this place, until the way he moved- like you used to- brought them back in a flood.
And even when I see his little boy face, I still duck behind pine tree skirts and walk the chain-link path between blackberry brambles and spiky fern bushes instead.

My brother is getting married. And I follow the dirt path wherever it leads me. Leading me I think to the bent tree fork I used to perch in, centuries ago it seems now, Cheshire grin matched only by the stars above me. But city zoning has cut a jagged path through this neck of the woods. Tree gone, neon red tags tell me which other memories are marked for uprooting.
My dog catches scent of something intriguing and tugs at his leash. I let his persistence lead me home.

090408

Chrome and steel angels, burn apart blue skies
Over lands I cant even imagine
And death turned bitter
Comes like our Northwestern rain
In ways and places
I cant possibly conceive.

And my best efforts are paltry.
Timid at best, my small outcries fall
On dead ears of politicians
And dead bodies of sons and brothers
Lovers and students.
Fathers and mothers.

My words are broken.
Made lifeless under siege.

September

Goodbyes churn,
burning in my belly
Like the liquor I drank the night before

Your glances singe my cheeks,
Wounds lingering fresh, sharp stinging
Confessions of past sins

And I love you more than ever
With your arm around hers
And your words in my brain
I love you more than ever

090408

Blackberry stained summer
Biting almost
With its sweet tartness
Reminding that
Yes,
I still live.
With all that entails
Yes, my lungs still fill
With air
And smoke
And mirth
Still tighten with
Unwanted thoughts
Strayed south from my head
Wrecking havoc on my insides.
Yes, I am still alive
Sunshine and leisure making bright the colors
Bright the flavors
Bright moments passing,
With speed unreal
Wearing themselves into my skin.
Yes, I still feel.
Yes, I still breathe in
Lifeblood and incense kalidescoping within and without.
Yes, I still exhale

_____ - 090208

….and you were my favorite.
You my love.
You kept me laughing and dancing
and wanting to go further than before.
You were too much love
and I didn’t know how to receive you.

-Leaving-090308

Skin achy shaking
My lungs cant keep up with my
Heart cant keep up with my
Blood pounding through veins over
Skin
feeling stretched
Senses shocked
That these things not physical
Can have an effect.

Refusing to believe its over
gone by so fast so fast, so fast right by me
Days peeled back like pages of a diary
One chapter finished.
Rereads not permitted.
“But god can it really be ending?
Just one more month
For love, another month is all
And I swear this time I’ll really taste it”

Regardless, I know the savor would be bitter with anticipation
No, I lived in those hours
I have felt these moments passing.

But no, no not really.

I know,
And I know I will return
But this moment, this moment-

Pages come unglued
Float free through my head
Turning all my thoughts into paper tree dreams
Sunlight filtered into fire
And I will wait for these heady days to return in their time.

Odd.

Blackberry cobbler for breakfast
Its thick sweetness filling my mouth
Bitter black seeds filling the cracks between teeth
I wash the dishes to kill time
Chunks floating through soap till my nose starts to bleed
Odd. I dreamt of blood last night
Filling dishes in the living room.
We’re out of tissue and toilet paper
I use a red patterned valentines day napkin instead.
This crazy substitution cant continue.

Um..... july?

That’s a thousand dollar smile at least.
The kind that nature didn’t give you.
Nope.
Your mother paid someone for that sly grin you wear.

I see it when ypu walk in the room and look at me.
I see your teeth, beautiful white and even.
Your mother paid someone a lot of money so that you could shine them at me.

I remember how she told me you were a slut.
Talking, reading your poem out loud.
Mouth shaping words shaping pictures.
I remember her saying you use your art or music or poetry to get into girls pants.
You keep making eye contact. I keep observing and acting unimpressed.

june twenty something. maybe july.

I hear it first.

From the upstairs window,
a kind of cold rushing creeps through the house and I move downstairs to the kitchen, as the rain begins. Slowly at first. Settling in like a thick damp blanket of grey, just touching the skin.

The strawberries are in a cardboard-foam box. I take them from the refrigerator, place them in the steel sink bottom, and switch on the faucet. Watch the water run over.
Rivulets forming glassy veins. Entwining ruby heartbeats.

Outside, raindrops are beading onto blades of grass. Collecting and sliding down. Tense and alert with the chill of the shower. The faucet squeaks off.
I lift the container to the countertop, and tip it on its side. Spilling berries across black granite. Jumbling and bumping like round red acrobats turning tricks.

Water is accumulating on the trees now. Gathering and dropping off the leaves. Dripping droplets below.

I balance my hand flat over the fruit, palm down, just resting against slick skin, and rotate my hand in slow wide circles. Berries revolve and roll underneath. Tumbling fat red somersaults.

Silver worms shiver down the window pane. Drops tapping down hard from the ledge above the window. Puddles forming on the porch.
I scoop the berries up in hand and walk to the door.

Step out of my slippers and into the downpour.

The rain is falling loud and heavy now. Hurtling from the sky with a kind of ferocity. Grass making stringy wet curtains around my feet, blades bent over in submission with the force of the assault. And I can hardly see through it.
The only sound is rushing water.

Beneath the maple at the south end of the yard is a patch of dirt, where only a few green hairs live out of sight of the sun. The earth here is saturated. Heavy and wet.
My toes sink right in.
Hands tighten with excitement. Feet tensing. Toes clench.

I twist in and down. Around. And again. Squelching. Stomping. Turning. Toes squeezing. Heel driving. Hands gripping.

Stomping and stretching. Mud and Juice. Tighten and release. Tighten,

-release.

Reverse polarity

I caught those glances
The ones you sent my way, unaware, that I was.
Caught them all. Held and kept them
For safe keeping and later review.
Funny thing about hindsight
Each time I look back, is different than I remember

How quickly turn the days and hours.
Shuffling by,
Burnt out leaves of autumn, caught in freezing embrace.
Bright life that moves in flashes
Fade, then quickly passes.

These sparks keep me warm now.
Roles reversed, I study your form
For signs of recognition.

Sometime in May

Sickness sore muscles and my throat feels like utter shit.
Sticky purple cough syrup will taste vile. Sticky purple taste reminding me of grape Smirnoff, reminding me of my first time getting trashed, reminding me of ‘the ex’ and that car ride from hell. Or toward.
Tea will be better.

Purple was the color of dana’s minivan door, sliding shut with a click on the day she left for Eugene.
Cardboard boxes and boxes, till the door rolled shut.
‘Click’, not ‘Slam’.
Captured moments encased behind glass. Sure ain’t no sunshine in Seattle.

How do I get myself into positions like this? How the hell do I get out?
I feel like a fucking pretzel, except maybe less salty.

“Are you leaving already?”
“Yes, we have to get going”
Nowhere and no reason.

My room is becoming a junkyard.
….cleanliness is overrated anyway.