treeFingers & teaLeaves

2012-01-02T18:40:00.000-08:00

light of sun, sweet bright night,
wish i may, wish i might
have the gift of life tonight.

the first firework spark i felt
brought you straight to mind,
hot and poignant, real yet fleeting.
a burst of something powerful yet delicate:
the commodity of beauty should be
a prerequisite to all things.

when recovery means washing yourself of
the grease of humanity or
collapsing inward into sleep
(hospital beds written into comas on your forehead)
suddenly different lines of life become
very clear...
drawn upon ragged scratch paper
and all starting from the same form of source -
a point, a pinprick -
yet it is not light we are born from, but
darkness
and a familiar darkness to which
we will all return.

are we are so busy hunting for something we pretend to understand
streamlining the same stark landscape
that we rarely see one another
with the fire of clarity?
we rarely stop to scan the scenery
for soft bits of peeling birch,
snapshots of powdered moss and crumbled pebbles
so artful in
their decaying, vibrant splendor.

i can't seem to clear my throat of the madness
the sickness of yesteryear,
and in the wee early am on January 1st
i scrub off my makeup rough enough
to raw my cheeks -
rubbing 2011 from my face
and ignoring the endless ache of cold
creaking in my old bones beneath
the sparkle of celebratory war paint.
i have turned on the closet light for
the new months spilled ahead
but i have yet to give in and lick my fingers clean,
scoring the mess of months that pervade
my garden of organs and cells.

i cannot promise you the wholeness
of Eden because
i am not made of light,
but to me you remain a bright spark
of something real in this duplicity of time
when each hour is a knock on death's door
and we're all smashing down the walls attempting to
bare some lightweight joy
and make a clean free break.
the water in me will forgive the crevices their
flaws,
you only must unfold and open
your invisible cities with sincerity.

let emptiness be your cure and not
your ailment.
let wayward streets be damned by the
gorgeous dark wilderness of you contrasted to
the light of one smile,
your smile is the sun
and fallen folks like me, we need the sun.

one morning i will wake up
to your face planted right against my own,
and another morning i wake up
with another shot at life
is another good day indeed.

2011-11-13T20:23:00.000-08:00

The days, they start sometimes with a smile and a fresh steaming cup of something hot for fall, sloshing around in the cup holder of the car on the way to see family all bundled up in layers of fabric like onion skin, healing in layers. Healing in layers, supposedly, that's what they say. And then sometimes, the days that start in smiles end in tears and whiskey alone, they end in music that drowns out the endless stretch of seconds ticking, sliding down the drain with the rotten herbs you boiled to try and soothe the stomach gurgling from stress and a sadness you can't understand, or something dark like that. You watch the sun creep down and be swallowed by the horizon, down down slow below the line of trees, trees that watch you cower on the minuscule plant-covered balcony in a desperate attempt to be alone, rocking rocking back and forth for soft comfort, curled on the hard metal and wondering where the hell to find a piece of substance when trivial pursuit is the only board game you keep coming back to, dusty gold medals and all. And sometimes you reach out, you reach out to those eyes in the night and hope for a stirring, but the backs turn away and the words thrown at you hold no love, you accept the inevitable, you accept your unhappiness as a lack of gratitude but deep down mostly you just accept your punishment, having tried to be good and pure and make good decisions that suit everyone, having tried to be true to yourself and who you believe yourself to be and then failed, start as trying and end up tired, having failed at fitting the puzzle pieces into their rightful positions, all lined up to be marched to war. Your tongue is lined with fur. Your heart is etched stone, only you can't make out the graffiti....all gibberish and smart-ass obscurity, beautiful and damaged like a photo you once saw on Reddit. Funny enough to not laugh. You blame it on capitalism, blame it on the Illuminati, or your possibly nonexistent gluten intolerance, blame it on these hot November summer days that make you feel an alien in your own dry taut skin, hell blame it on your Father, no matter so long as at the end of the day you stand up and be a man...because none of us will ever be the heroes we want to be. Just a man, a haggard-faced man maybe with tits or dry hands that takes responsibility for his actions, be they tears or smiles or silence or raging fury or fear or cowardice or a much-needed self-slap to the face.

2011-10-05T22:49:00.000-07:00

You can hold me tight
sleep next to me at night
but you can't protect me
from myself,

You can't put out the fire.

2011-10-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

The following was brought to you by
self-imposed solitude during
my healing journey in Panama.
(This was while staying with the beloved
Mercedes, a purely Spanish-speaking "cuandera," or,
a healer who has been practicing natural medicine for
over 4 decades. I was mostly alone there, studying,
healing, learning, growing for almost two weeks.)

The rain came steady, finally,
(Lluvia despacia)
and
In the wet thicket
I can taste my natural soul
like warm herbs and fresh
papaya,
A burning woman-child
cries out in need
as
I paint myself,
The strokes of completion
Of happy alone, alive
Of healing, at last.
I understand everything so suddenly
as in the distance
The chorus of voices
echoes out
[The familiar peace of foreign chanting]
In unison
and the night, still young,
is coated with the
Twittering and chepping of
a harmony of
Creatures,
A cacophony of life.
In me, I have found the mother
My Earth
has turned her soil over
to expose the
Roots
of a tree planted before
I was separated from the
umbilical cord
And deep inside,
the water flows raw and makes new again.

Is strength really the purity of love,
the courage of living
or
the love of letting go?

You have to fight your way to the earth, where your tears will feed life and the ground will eat your pain -- all real human beings must do this or be ill for not doing so.

And in the meantime, I'm throwing wild parties in a treehouse -- on a limb in your heart.

The more empty I am,
the more full I feel.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there,
I did not die.

2011-10-04T20:59:00.000-07:00

I have so many burning, aching
Words
in me
Begging
to be dug out
with the shovels of
Your mouth.

The need, it breaks across
My skin
like the fire
of
Mysterious mistakes
and
Autumn,
she is wreaking havoc
on my veins,
whispering
Slow burn
Scream loud
Fuck hard.
Come find me in the night
those pearlized white crescents
beaming into my smoldering complexion,
Our medicine soothing the unquenchable
hunger shrieking through our savage cells
until my moon-sticken complexion is only the
striking reflection of your own expression.
Separate we are soulless,
Together we soar.

2011-10-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

night train

I remember waking to a comatose leg,
numbed by the sudden onslaught of
cold mountain draft,
Swiss alp snowy dawn,
my eyes nearly crusted shut by
the crackling stiff train air,
tight enough for breath to get
Caught in.
I was confused by the frigid ozone --
after all, when I had drifted to sleep
in the train car (rattling like old bones)
on our overnight journey from Czech land
through Switzerland to
Tuscany,
it had been stifling sticky unbearably hot,
air thick enough to slice with a
blunt butter knife in summer...
And now, shivering,
I have to stumble over my sleeping roommate
to rummage for my jacket in the
Dark.
Still numb, back in my seat nest,
I dare to slowly peel
the window shade up, inch by slight
Inch,
Unbearably curious as to what
lies beyond the icy window border
in that ghostly foreign Abyss.
Winding and rumbling through the rolling mounds of
Trees
and thin suspended bridges
Above sparkling ethereal towns
painted into the wooded peak crevices,
I remember thinking
This can't possibly be real
I've woken up in an ISpy book
And the night train just howled and
Clattered,
Like an old metal teapot
tossed upon a campsite fire to
Burn and steam and smoke until
sparking its own demise.

And every October
since that glittering train reckoning,
that late night early morning awakening,
Each October
This memory creeps up to me as
I lie sleeping in my sloppy unconscious
Golden tower of disarray --
Surveying the wreckage of summer
(messy nymphet of
scattered light and
fallen leaves)
This memory jabs itself into my
Broken skin,
Injecting me with wild pyre
Get up, it says
Wake up
and open those wide eyes
Remember how alive you were,
that night?

When everything appears unreal and the
movement of time is
too mercurial
even for a Gemini,
Breathe it all in
Doesn't matter if you keep up or
Slow down
Just clutch the beauty
to your heaving chest
And run with it as fast
as your heart can hold out,
Until your skin peels off,
leaving nothing but a rattling skeleton
Night train of bones,
rumbling into the darkness
climbing through the mountains
surrounding the miniature sparkling
ISpy towns
Covered in a glistening blanket of
surreal Swiss snow.

Life is too short, too fleeting
to miss one second
from behind sleeping eyes,
It's all a waking dream,
anyway
And these memories are what keep us
Breathing
(along the neck of October).

2011-09-26T18:09:00.000-07:00

Sweet September: the Things I Remember

scribbled on a cocktail napkin on September 8th

The dogs are digging for field mice and
My tongue
is made of warm, salted caramel
I'm breathing a healthy mix of fear
and contentment
Like heavy-weighted chocolate,
A dark and dangerous sweetness
Thickly filling my chest cavity, my mouth
And spilling from my Midwest lips.

These quaint tragedies we invent,
They're crawling along my veins
Like the cool breeze that's serenading
My feverish skin, and
The symbolism of the wind --
No longer bearing fire and
Destruction (breeds creation) --
Suddenly, is viciously striking...
(That invisibly sweeping movement fanning the
Carnage of heat)
Oh yes, fall is decidedly nearly here
At last,
I'm streamlining these wispy, dreamlike
Castle-house neighborhoods, these haunting streets,
Cradling nostalgia like a newborn and
Craving everything unspeakable,
Unspeakably near (to you).

Mutual catharsis

I remember your eyes across the tin table etchings,
the smooth burn of adulterated tea and sidecars
Lining my throat with confessions
I had yet to understand,
Roughly loving
like your hands along my
Young Trembling flesh,
Together we are strangers enamored
Or
the burn of unfulfilled real potential
Maybe the scream of whiskey hills with
Head plugged into chest,
Heartbeat rumbling like
A distant train in the
Hawkish, sticky night.

I remember thinking,
I would wrinkle my nose for you always,
Climb you like my favorite tree
Mold my lap into a bassinet for your
Weary, well-traveled head
If only you'd let me,
Never leave me.

With every soft-spoken "hi"
I couldn't help thinking
"I like us together",
like
Perfect home-fries with homemade
ketchup Or
Flawless omelets with
Provincial veggies,
Like making intuitive sense,
the sensory delight of
Fat fresh-baked biscuits and
fig-mint-gin preserves.

I remember wondering if you noticed
Me noticing
that in the midst of our reflective
Loving gazes
You would close your eyes for the
Briefest
of moments
as if you couldn't
adequately maneuver the
Wide Breadth of your affection.

Beneath the stars of synchronicity
I plunged my hands into the
Lushness
of your urgency until
Your gasps broke me open and
your once-desolate night sky
Twinkled with pleasure.

And the deflated mattress reminded me
That nothing supportive
Lasts without frequent maintenance,
But perfection and expectation are
Overrated and
Pale in comparison to the
Tangible ferocity of
Two body-beings pressed together like
Mutual catharsis.

Do you remember?
The thick sex of dust and that
indescribably spellbinding smell,
Cottonwoods or maybe Hickory
Some kind of mysterious burning leaves,
Unseen --
And Me, pitching into your frame like
A lean-to battered by the rain,
Your shelter wrapping tight and
Filling me quietly like
Whispered bleacher reticence.

I remember: Unspoken sharing,
Our matched longing for a stone-cabin with
Climbing walls and a smoking chimney,
Some kind of ghostly private nest
For a pair of bluebirds
Taking in the city lights from pre-pubescent
Hilltops.

Wobbly

Aspens fall in the forest with a delicate
Sound that awakens me
Each night, without fail.

I remember everything,
I remember you the most.

And where are you in this mess,

Where are you now?

Are you fighting to hold on,

as long as you are able

Until I fall away, merely

A tree dream?

Are you lacking coordination or

Nursing the remembrance,

That unwavering Elegant Universe

The heaving breasts of our

Sweaty Affection?

Do you see me

Watching you

over shared coffee (with cinnamon),

Wanting to be
yours always,

something atypical but overly sweet

with a kick, like

Lover's delight or chai

with soy and malted eyes?

Where are you now?

2011-09-23T20:35:00.000-07:00

the last ferry out

Who knows what tomorrow may bring
Maybe sunshine and maybe rain
Maybe I'll see you again and
Again we'll find whole
Or we'll start all over
Maybe spring will break open and the
winter won't take hold or
have left us broken
Maybe
Someday this old machine will
feel no pain

But tonight your thoughts evade me
I'm crawling and holding
my hands out, but you
You are walled away
Another state....of mind
Arms and chest and touch, faded
from me as skeletons
Some supposedly necessitated form of
sensory deprivation
So far and stretching longer
They say distance makes the heart grow...
stronger.
"Time heals everything"
But only love can cry and buckle, like this
Distance wrings me out and
Dries my eyes with this
Strange stiff remoteness
between us.
Skeleton me.

Seems like a long time since I've
been above you, known and loved you
You're folding need like laundry
and dodging bullets or
Keeping a safe, (close) distance like
a Ghostwriter
Playing the cards just right
Coloring inside the lines
like you promised
Half-heartedly tending the fire
Aces and evasion of solitude but
Fuck,
I know you feel beneath this
The aching bones underneath
The blood firing bullets
Waiting for some passionate
words to shatter skin and spill over
My blue translucent flesh
You must see through me,
See my need and hear me
Read my words and remember
Surely,
you must..

Still be full
of those
Surprise shooting stars,
watched in tandem
From the safety of a
sentimental trampoline,
From the wild spinning of
an oddly calming
Carousel.

Our tangled limbs,
they wrestle daily struggle
Crushing unspoken into
carpet burn
But I will not allow these sparks
to be smothered and
Fuck,
I know this was my idea but
All I want in this moment
is to be alone with you,
To climb you and clamber inside
Soften your thudding heart
and feel your pleasure tearing along my skin
like shredded scrapbooks
Or something equally meaningless
in the light of growing up and
moving on.

You've ruined me now.

Ruined, skeleton me
Flightless bird
With a wretched hopeless
heart of scalded gold.
Sell it in the pawnshop and
We'll call it a Fold,
call it
a night.

Into the muck, together
Feel free to listen
Feel free to
to stay around,
To wait it out or
Fuck,
feel free to hurdle this fence and
Take the last ferry out.

2011-09-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

I am the watch you never wear. I am your lonely waking. I am the rain in your hair. I am your spirit aching. I am that extra ingredient your pantry lacks. I am lost and found. As the days roll by, I am their sound. I am the beauty of pattern. I am the belt against bare skin. I am the funk that you're in. I am your black coffee jitters. I am fresh-cut bangs. I am your first fall sweater. I am childhood board games. I am blissful ignorance. I am your old friend insomnia. I am the wind that starts wildfires. I am fear of corners. I am your favorite soft t-shirt. I am skipped meals. I am methodical airplane safety measures. I am gullible travels. I am awkward family photos. I am the bruises of allegorical ghosts. I am drug-induced dreams. I am the rug that ties the room together. I am the broken record player. I am your earned sweat. I am the comfort of fortuitous happenstance. I am the coyotes crying in the distance. I am the abyss of politics. I am drought. I am the defense of heretics. I am the hole left behind by umbilical cord. I am dilated desires. I am catastrophic complacency. I am the rhythm of settling. I am the glamour of nostalgia. I am your mother's silence. I am the burn in your throat. I am the call of the wild. I am melted ice cream. I am the itching scars. I am the creaking tables in dusty, ancient bars. I am the gloaming magic. I am the sting of solitude. I am the undiscovered aptitude. I am dandelion wishes. I am the symbolism of unwashed dishes. I am the secrets of puberty. I am fanatical astrology. I am garage sale treasures. I am the unspoken chemistry.

2011-09-07T20:59:00.000-07:00

Xxx

You seem to think that I do not know better.
Deep down,
we both know how this story
ends.
Deep down,
You love me but,
tonight
Love is not enough.

I am not enough to calm
those anxious fears,
the insecurities that keep your
Eyes wide in the night.
Sometimes you talk to me
as though I have become an enlivened,
tailor-made version
of your best friend, but
I am not anyone but
someone loving to keep you warm and
fill you up.

You don't know me
as though you really see
my shape in the doorway,
or my spirit as something touchable
Beneath the need of
Your fever dream, and
my own feverish words,
You don't hear them
From my mouth beyond
something beautiful and
Distracting.

I could give you everything
and maybe one day I will, but
Maybe tonight
I need to run
and I need you to let me,
Let me give myself away
and forget all the aching
My hands are tied, and
Maybe it's all too much
to believe in the things I say
Maybe I
have nothing else to lose,
Maybe I could give up and
Just fall without
a soft place to land, maybe
Just like heaven
I am just a messenger.
I am just your lapland.

I am just cowering under this
Nostalgic pillow-fort,
a little girl
clinging to the memory of
Your mouth and falling into
Everything
Everything will fill my bones,
And I'm waiting
to jump in headfirst.

With or without you.

(Sometimes I'd like just to ask you
what honest words you can't
afford to say.)

2011-09-04T18:00:00.001-07:00

The seasons have already begun
to change and
I can see the harvest moon and smell
the trees prepping for pre-hibernation
shedding
of layers and skins
Such timeworn yearning
ready to be buried and dissolved
into the dirt's flawless complexion.

I want to fill my senses
and swim until I wash this decay
away
and my lungs swallow the
distance,
until I feel your bare skin
touch mine in the endless
waters, stretching tight
and perfectly near to
the heat of me.

I am so ravenous for you,
you see
You see me beneath
this
messy, haphazard packaging
these wide eyes tangled hair and
trapped need
running so fast and racing time
Sweating for something
only you understand
as me,
Real and burning for autumn.
Burning for the newness
Crawling toward
that ripeness
within the breadth of your arms
and the precision of
your gaze.

2011-08-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

I'm painfully in love with you.

But the question remains,

What now?

------------------------------------

I will wade out

Until my thighs are steeped in burning flowers

I will take the sun in my mouth

And leap into the ripe air

Alive with closed eyes

To dash into the darkness

Will I complete the mystery of my flesh?

lyrics by Bjork

2011-08-17T17:01:00.002-07:00

bruise

I need you so much closer.

A place where holding tight takes all

time and energy

Can't stand too close without

Burning apologies

Cut out those candid glimpses and

Wind me up; I'm ready to blow

Explode,

Time to go

...with you

Can't escape this

Best line of fit

Building fire in blood, in

Something higher than wild and

I remember being inside something more,

We are more than this.

And you beg quietly,

Someday you will be love

and not the sound of settling

I'm quilted into your hands

or keeping you tucked

Far too deep to mean

What I need,

But will you wait to finish

What you started,

Or is this what the cards read

to the backwards attraction of your

Glowing eyes?

So far-sighted that you can't recognize

To place trust in who or what

You recognize,

As real.

Speeding toward the line of trees,

That pale shelter

of broken down

Earth and shadow and

A love you clutch tight to

until the clouds roll in

and the bruises look understated.

Blue and plain and broken because

You can't feel this, anymore

You can't feel my hands on you

The way that I do.

And tomorrow it will all change

Tomorrow

will you look at me the same?

Tangled hair that smells of

Lightness,

Forest floor and

The dust of our affection.

Sudden gesture and I'll bruise

your faith into the right,

Read myself into your history

Rewrite this dementia.

I need to make you writhe,

need you so much closer but

Nothing makes you move further

down the wire.

Maybe we just all forgot,

we're all lost in autumn.

2011-08-17T17:01:00.001-07:00

wedding day

She throws apple cores
and rotten peaches out into nothing,
out into nothing for the land to reclaim
and clamber over.
They fall occasionally
on the hood of a dusty old car,
a dusty old car that leaks oil like
the lies in the oceans.
The car once belonged to someone's father
and his father ages ago,
ages ago before they founded the towns
and paved the roads.
The father is gone now,
lost to the wilderness sowed by truth,
sowed by truth that's mocked
by reality.
The reality we live,
where we bring foreign soils,
foreign soils along which we
tread fermented smiles
that
More and more every day
they smell like a wedding day,
a wedding day that may never
come.

2011-08-09T07:56:00.001-07:00

Lupita, Part One

I could feel my ruddy cheeks beneath the scruff of facial hair beginning to burn moist with need as I carefully watched her play, pouting lower lip twinkling with Southern summer heat. Bead by bead, sweat eased down the easy slope of her small breasts, and her toes were curling trails of absentmindedness in the soggy dirt she sat splayed across, elbow deep in mud and brown flesh of legs tight and smooth. She was flushed from head to toe, and strands from waves of unattended hair were loosening themselves to tangle in her abnormally long curls of eyelashes, my disintegration was near. I watched her and she knew, she knew more than perhaps even I could comprehend, that she and she alone was the sole impetus of my demise.

She looked up at me and I saw the recognition cross her features for the barest and briefest of moments, and I stood there in the doorway frozen, tray of prepared sodas motionless upon my palm as her eyes latched onto my vulnerable stance mid-longing. The patio threshold was a frigid stiff realm of packed tight tension layered across certain secretive, knowing exchanges, I should have left instantaneously and let those seconds slide away by their own time frame, instead I was stuck here like a doe in the headlights of the finest pickup truck glare, eyes fixated on those pores oozing voluptuous yet girlish sexuality.

She did not avert her gaze as she grabbed the sweating glass and gulped its contents in less than a pair of seconds, and I watched every swelling movement and gentle heave of the ball of her throat, the creamy planes of skin rolling like heat waves.

The ice clinked and jangled in what seemed like a deafening manner as she roughly set the cup back down on the plastic. She glared at me defiantly, beads of perspiration running like bared legs sensually and abruptly down the tender lines of skin that wrapped her in such
pliant yet tight
coating.
My voice caught slightly as I tried to say her name.

The air was heavy, humid, fluid like boiling water music, and inch by inch she was melting with it, hovering on a cloud of the thick smoke of my incensed arousal.

2011-08-07T21:10:00.000-07:00

I will crawl inside your head

while you sleep and dig myself a grave

to lie in, I will awaken each buried desire

like a sparkling soil-ridden treasure with

the flick of a dirt-smudged wrist, my

limbs so tangled in the foilage

of your dreams, your needs, the leaves spiraling

uncontrollably until they come to rest

against the mole of my right bare breast.

Here you will rest, here we will lie together

until the rains come and break open

our ground, so full of life and death and

the creation of a perfect destruction.

2011-08-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

Something fledgling, burning

Need that

cracks apart my skin

Already blistered by

the howling summer

winds outside

I cry out for you

but across the empty

streets and crackling heat

there is a silence

that screams aloud,

nothing like patience

but a lot like

love

(or something

like it)

and

A yearning for

the white-hot resonance

of voice that builds me up

up...

to the tops of my

tree-like bones.

Reaching and

screeching in the dark

for something

painfully real.

I want to give you that.

I'll give you all

of it,

but is that enough?

I am crumbling

beneath a pressure, desire

with

no name,

an ache with no

words,

only fingers and

tongue and

such perfect skin to hide in

and on.

(Might as well fall in)

2011-08-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure who you are,

where you came from

but

You feel like home.

And in the nights

I wake up wrapped up in

you,

your voice

pulling me under

the water until

we're

swept into the

darkness,

together.

2011-07-29T15:13:00.001-07:00

Spindly fingers like piano keys

Long, strong and I see them

stretched tight across my

Ribs, counting

Quiet

but I know what songs

Your thoughts dance to deep

in the night.

And today

it finally rained.

my peace brought the sky

down

down, in pieces

from your strange heaven-

what a ride

Fireball of reckless

Joy

And I felt you here, with me

Roaring

on the wind

and emptiness.

In those moments

you feel so alone, so far

you don't know,

you don't know

how beautiful.

Today I was lost in

my own head again,

Driving slow

Enveloped

in the imaginary touch,

the hypothetical end result

When suddenly a little

gray bird fluttered

to a standstill

on my front driver's windshield.

He stayed there and

sat with me,

together we sat

in knowing,

knowing where

my thoughts had

led, once again

and

These days you are with me,

always.

2011-07-21T06:26:00.000-07:00

I can feel your autumn from

Waves and echoes

Too far in the distance

creeping, burrowing

In gorgeous lines of melodies

Along my skin

Too close for comfort,

Mesmerizing and rich, dark honey

Like the clang of childhood windchimes

Like the pull of the moon tide

You come to carry me

Away.

Along the months like

Falling leaves, like old lovers

We have walked so tall and proud

But within us lies that same quivering

Each fall that sweeps our breaths

Along the ever stretching ground

We are both waiting, it seems,

For different things

But in the night we become

The same shadows

That unfurl like sleepy vines

Of longing, of creation

Or maybe

The destruction of that distance

That called to us before.

In my dreams last night

I touched your face,

I found the violet sky laid bare

In those beautiful, music-roughened

Hands, Fountain

of eternal youth.

2011-06-30T04:40:00.000-07:00

Ranier Maria Rilke said so many things of value, where to begin?

“The deepest experience of the creator is feminine, for it is experience of receiving and bearing.”

"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

"For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation."

"The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things."

This time for us is beautiful and I am spilling gratitude, we have come so far, but I stand in the lingering shadows of the morning's first breath of light and I am full of a fire I cannot share with you, a need that you will not feel for an unspecified, unlabeled amount of months, weeks, years (because timelines are for people who can't embrace seizing the day) and I will learn to let go, because that's what you do in times like these. That's what you do as a human that loves another. I have been defeated--you will say, that's not the attitude to take, but the night has fled and I have left my bed and still I feel a shrieking ache that is my own to keep and grow into. You cannot take that from me. Behind these walls is a fortress that needs protecting, and you cannot take that from me, even in the most bloody of battles when vulnerability is a warrior lacking armor barreling into the line of fire with a shit-eating grin on his face. This fortress is my solitude, it is a home built for bearing and receiving, and as I learn to let go you will learn to accept and scale the stone as another challenge, because that is what you do as a human that loves another.

2011-02-01T02:18:00.001-08:00

Winter does not want to unclench her talons from our bones, not yet. She howls in protest at our doors, shaking them with fury as her fists find their way into soft-shelled hearts of stone and wood and brick and wool. From miles away i feel you here, i feel your cry in her, your eyes flung wide open in the dark, recalling a metal roof and solitude sleeping next to you-in the emptiness your mind spirals out its fingers and sleep slides from our body cavities a distant memory. You become Black Oak and i am touched by your rage, your sugarcoated depth of despair like a well in the earth swallowed by a mysterious bloom-covered moss. I know with the morning will come your poetry, because deep within you i live, like the coyote, like a crystal in snow, like Colorado, live alongside your deepest fears as a call to the wild and a call to arms.

2011-01-13T20:24:00.000-08:00

Ministry of Home Security

We are not as impressive
as we would like to think,
Make like hands and toil, tremble
over cloudy cold glasses of alcohol
Picking at fat and open
Pores like whores laid wide open
For the world to take a crack at.
Go on, take your best shot,
Cowboy.
You have no idea what I am
Really
made of.
You haven't a clue
how old I really am.
You will never know all
of what lies in this
Possession of a heart
Dirty, wretched thing.
I stare into the mirror until
Nothing but smoke breathes back,
Breaths and breasts and
Beasts of burden.
I blame my cold bath on
Your absence but really
I can only blame my own denial.

You can call the shots in the dark
when no one is watching
and you can call yourself
Less than a man for me,
But I would rather fool myself than
Let go of what I know
In these cold nights as real.
Speak not and I may
Hold it against you
But tomorrow those sockets
Will hold the safety of new eyes
and your fears will be
Nothing but
True grit to grind into
the dust of
Only loving one another.
Because that's all we have,
right?

2011-01-03T11:36:00.001-08:00

I can feel the altitude in my stomach as the wind wraps tight around the mountains, my bed sparked in the night and colorado is coursing through my veins. All i want is for you to lie here with me, before my head explodes, before i float away.

2010-12-05T18:31:00.000-08:00

Eggs for Breakfast

I just want to love you,
he said
And make you eggs for breakfast
Louise smiled and believed him
And as she sat
in her car still running,
she knew he did love her, really.
Really: a love so real it
could not really be called merely love
but something much closer to
Emptiness,
a hole that swallowed her whole
as the wretched cradle of night
enveloped her like
the ratio of exhaust to oxygen.

He said a prayer she got home safely
but when she sat in the darkness,
in the driver's seat,
the driveway unlit
(unlike her cigarette)
she swore to herself
she would never sell out to hopes
of marriage or kids,
She sat alone
and in her mind saw his teeth
Flash like metal.

As she uncorked the bottle
all she could think of was
the time her father fell down
the stairs, drunk,
When she was a child,
riding on his shoulders-
a Bitter reminder
of what it really means
to aim for the top.
She chased the little pill
with Bitter memories
and heard his echoed warning,
Let go of the past
only the past wasn't the cause
of the burning in her gut
or the oil-slick stains
on her cheeks.

Stop brooding,
he told her
don't ruin a perfectly nice evening
and when he went home
to a warm home full of old friends
and a quilt Mamaw wove
just for him
She let go of her faith,
Watched it slide, scurry away
Quickly into the cold like a tiny,
lost puppy.

No one is around to assign blame,
or guilt
for expectations
that are futile in the wake
of life's open eyes,
Sleep now,
her mother said
and forget
that the only one
Worth depending on
is scrutinizing your
trembling hands in the mirror.

2010-12-01T08:12:00.000-08:00

Dec. 1, 2010

Today is my dead grandmother's birthday
But I found myself not feeling much like her
In my car, this morning,
I reminded myself much more of my father.
Instead of bringing coffee from home,
poured purposefully
into my "eco-friendly" travel mug,
I stopped to buy cheap black coffee
from the little Mexican food joint
on the corner,
the one with authentic dishes and
a small fire burning in a
miniscule wood stove in the brick wall.
I drank from a white styrofoam cup
that contained far too much coffee for
one individual in one sitting,
even on such a cold morning.

Days like these I am painfully aware
of the time that passes,
before our
very eyes like the lives
of loved ones
or the breath between our lips
as children blowing out
birthday candle flames,
still unaware that wishful thinking
is only prolonging the inevitable.

2010-11-17T20:48:00.000-08:00

I tried to materialize

you singing to me,

tonight

in my mind

Only to realize my imagination has

lost it's touch

and become more old maid

than mermaid

or maybe

I just can't remember

what that's like,

anymore

Sinking into the softness of

devotion

the lull of Trust

like sleep.

Slowly the rain,

the wind the wine,

slowly

Breaking off in pieces,

this is how I come to learn

Myself again.

And in the mirror

the bruises bring me back

to the

Cycle of existential love

that turns its back

each time I bear my

Boiling blood.

And if I could pick up a guitar

right now

and play you what's inside me,

You would understand,

you would

love me right until

both our eyes were red

with it.

2010-11-17T20:38:00.000-08:00

Eat Drink and Be Merry

Raise your glass, he said

Because all our worries

Tonight, their meaning is empty

Dreams like dying stars,

Memories fading into grayscale blurs and

Most importantly

Tomorrow is nothing because

We may never make it there.

Life is short but sweet, yes

Like a summer dress or

The hope love brings.

When you were young,

Everything felt much softer

Home was a lot closer and

It all looked a lot more like

Jesus.

Tomorrow, we die.

2010-11-17T19:52:00.000-08:00

by the knife

help, i'm alive.

I'm still alive in here.

I want out.

this suburban war beats hotter

when the weather turns its cheek

something unspeakable

and we've started a war

neither of us can win.

so I stumble

only the wall here to

catch my drift

can you hear it beating? crumbling.

like (beneath) a hammer.

my liver is crawling with

the toxins of a past

holding tight enough to choke,

but it's okay.

It's okay.

lack of breath keeps me going.

the hard-edged touch

of my own hand,

not the caress of another

to bother with now, never.

the distance is nothing new,

me and you

we got this down just right

tight and tighter

until it snaps and we

fall away. apart.

the insatiable needs

crawl inside me and vomit

stale pleas,

mutual self-destruction at best

and now i select my future

from a pile of dusty closet cards

that remind me of false hope.

false prophets that smell like

my father

and run faster

than these dry eyes can blink.

the puppy sleeps and inside

inside i am screaming for nothing,

just screaming to hear myself

make noise

so i know

i am still alive.

we swallow hard such harsh words

and i never told you but

that night

i was testing your heartbeat

by the knife.

2010-11-11T19:07:00.000-08:00

A White Winter Hymnal-

Is that so much to ask?

I was following the pack

All swallowed in their coats

With scarves of red tied around their throats

To keep their little heads

From falling in the snow

And I turned around and there you go

And, Michael, you would fall

And turn the white snow red as strawberries

In the summertime

lyrics by Fleet Foxes

2010-11-11T19:05:00.000-08:00

Tonight

Wine sours in my stomach

and I finally see it clearly,

We are all the walking dead.

2010-10-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

When Love is Not a Song

I have found myself

In this place many a time

Before today-

Sipping peppermint tea

Too hot to soothe

a cantankerous stomach

Incapable of ease,

Watching the chemicals

From my faucet pool into

Oleaginous patterns

Atop the steaming surface

like translucent age spots.

I am so tired

of getting myself off

Simply because I crave

the release of endorphins,

Holding my breath until

I become lightheaded,

Disoriented in pretense

of being a child again,

Weightless

Careless

Breathless

On the trampoline instead

of an old woman

Impulsively seeking

Some sort of repletion.

I come back to myself

In shame

And recall those words

From such a strange movie

to relate to:

I just wanna feel good.

Here again, it seems

Vicious cycle of lost

Mouthfuls of desert sand

Parched

and craving something

No longer recognizable

as real or right.

These stones once built villages
and kingdoms,

Impenetrable fortresses that

Offered protection

or the guise of it, at the least.

Today we cannot even

Afford the luxury of

A facade-like strength.

Now we are living in metaphors,

Living in wait

Or vain

Or because

We have no choice in the matter.

2010-10-02T10:30:00.001-07:00

1~October

The Cage

I wipe the dust from your skin

Map the points,

Thumb and tongue

You push me down and

The bed swallows us then

Spits out

A disheveled, tangled

Thing

All sweat bared and raw to

The touch, as one.

Light will one day

Split you open,

Even if your body is

Now a cage

The metallic warmth a lot like

Skin, Beneath my hands

Smooth and endless,

Strong.

The Sex of Self Pity and/or My Cursed Writer's Cock Crock of Shit

I am not that kind of writer.

I am not one to sit around and dream up

Witty phrases, all smart-ass half smile

And punctuating gestures

Sarcastic, extended metaphors like

Riddles that make the whole room

Cackle and take another swig.

You drag your cigarettes in the dark,

Light the pipe and hastily scribble

The next snicker-worthy verse about

God or Jews or being drunk,

Such flamboyant enlightenment you bestow

Upon these ears with your wisecracks

Of justice or Symbolic thought,

Societal cultivation.

No. That is not me,

Although it is easy to pretend to be

Something so supposedly seditious

Yet utterly and unconsciously trendy.

I can use big words too,

You bastards,

I can slam and roll my words around,

Cradle, Stroke them in long strides

Like eager clitorises

Awaiting the right moment to explode

All over the face of a beloved.

I, too, come home with a head hard-on

Full of inspiration,

Wine drunk and ready to rage or rumble

Or move mountains and shit,

But instead of

Furiously finger fucking my keyboard

Or typewriter or pen and legal pad

Moleskin or leather bound journal

Full of cocktail napkin dribble

Or whatever the fuck you jerks

Use these days,

Instead of rubbing my

Cunt of unconventional creativity

I sit around and brood,

Feel sorry for myself and

Eat junk food until I make myself gassy.

Yeah, it's true, I'm telling you

I wish I was more like you jokers.

If only I was capable of trying

That hard at being effortless,

If only I could stop being such a

Pansy-grazing fool,

Maybe even take things

Less seriously, learn how to laugh

At myself and poke fun, Hard,

Over and over and over

At everyone else in the world

Until they scream in protest

Against those ticklish ribs

And kick me, Hard

Right in my tight,

Puckered,

Asshole.

An asshole,

Yes, I can be that too

Just like the rest of you,

But I still, for the life of me,

Cannot write like you.

2~October

A Jesus Poem

This day was made for you,

He said

And when he placed his hand

Over mine in the car

The warmth of it against the

Cold of my own startled me.

I suddenly knew this was

Symbolic of our entire relationship,

Me being unexpectedly moved

And healed, Saved,

By the steady glow of his

Infinite compassion.

He has never ceased offering

Himself up, Sacrificing everything

For the sake of others

His huge and heavy heart

Bears the excruciating weight of love

No matter the cost.

He is the only man

Who has never let me down,

Who has never abandoned me or

Wounded me with harsh words,

The only one to see and cherish

Each and every

Sliver of my beauty

No matter how fragmented,

Regardless of the haze of life's

Aching endlessness.

He has supported and encouraged me

Unquestioningly

And he is the only man

I have ever loved so fiercely

Yet never touched sexually

Or called my own.

For years this man

Has been my savior,

Not in strappy sandals

Or a robe of white,

Nor with hair long and flowing like the

Water that he was said to walk on

And a beard made of gold,

But in brown scuffed boots and a

Matching thrifty jacket,

With a singing voice that would

Make any right-minded woman swoon

And fall,

A stoic and sarcastic nerd

With the capacity for more wisdom

And skill

Than he could begin to know,

With soft ears that

Go on for decades,

An unprecedented benevolence

That knows no bounds at all.

This beautiful man,

He is not an integral subject

In a revered Book of myths

That people around the world

Have relied on for centuries

So that they may believe their

Lives are right,

He is not the Son of God

Nor is he a holy Jewish prophet

That may or may not have

Performed miracles

Ages and ages ago.

He has believed in me

Even when I did not deserve it,

And his loyalty and devotion

Are something I find to be

Quite worthy of the maintenance of

Blind faith,

Far more so than eternal salvation.

This man has taught me about

My own strength,

And to me

That is much more powerful and

Substantial

Than any crucifixion or resurrection,

And to be quite frank

I do not believe Jesus died for me,

For my sins,

But I know this man would

If only I asked him.

2010-09-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

Pretty Bird

I remember you.

These days still

From far.

Your wings

Spread young and wide,

Lustrous black beneath

The playground moon.

Every breath was a

Full one,

In the woods as children,

In a tree house with wings

And memories like dreams

Soaring painstakingly.

Your face was stitched in

Those leaves of color

As though you painted each

By hand.

Before the wind took you up,

I remember you.

I remember being so afraid,

I was so terrified

Of wanting to remain

In one place.

Away from the rain storms,

The little holiday villages

We imagined as Home,

The long drives and

Rooftops, or

All of that laughter

We built around one another

Like glass.

The best silence is in knowing.

Wherever you go,

Wherever you land.

2010-09-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

More Full than Not

Last night you saw inside me

And when you opened your

Soft mouth-flute

And I heard your

Cozy sounds,

I knew I would never leave.

The first time

I heard your laugh,

Old man

I knew it would not take me long

To turn you back into God.

If someone asked me

To put you into words

I would choke a little,

Stumble and double over

and say

Such an exquisite taste

and

Every time you touch him

You become lighter,

More refined.

2010-09-20T11:15:00.001-07:00

Bright-Eyed Night

I once knew a man

Who had nothing and did not care,

What he wanted

Was all he felt,

And by the dusty streetlamp light

That filtered through his blinds

At night

I loved everything he was,

I loved him because I thought

Him to be powerful,

Strong.

One man deep he laid me down

And showed me I was a woman.

Those days my eyes were

So full of needles, So full

Out of focus and foolish but

Bright.

And he folded his body

Above mine like clockwork,
Hot eager leaves
Spread wide and holding
Hands moving fast.

Wishful thinking did not

Yet exist, I was too

Busy

Giving myself away

In the night on an armchair

With a cigarette

And a taste for excess.

He, always staggered by
His own luxuriance and
I, never for lack of youthful fervor

And desire,

The desire in my pores dripped

And slithered

Off my skin to soak into

His,

And all I remembered,

Wanted,

Craved

For so long was the heat.

It burned away the ache of day,

Those nights,

They paused

The relentless march of age,

Of Reality.

Soon the heat turned to steam and

Burned off everything.

Burned off us both like blisters,

Peeling

Little flakes, falling away.

I woke up one gray morning,

Makeup still applied and smeared wide

From sex

I crawled onto the cold tiles

Of his bathroom while he slept,

I looked at the tequila bottle

With its missing cap

And mocking shine

And I knew he was not strong.

I cried and I knew I was weak,

That I was far too young

Too young to want to grow up

So fast,

So fast by his pudgy hands.

I wanted to grow older

Overnight

Through believing strength was

Loving yourself so much,

You did not care about wanting,

You just felt whatever you

Wanted to feel.

Too young.

Too young to think

I knew shit about

Anything,

Too young to be "strong,"

Because I wanted everything.

And on this night

I have nothing,

But I do care.

And I know now more so than ever

What it means to love,

To grieve

To grieve for the grieving,

But still I am weak

Because on nights like these

Still I envy that man,

I envy him for having no excuses

For his weakness,

For not knowing better,

I am so much more than that

Yet I continue to ache.

These nights the heat has fled

Age has finally caught me,

And In my bed are

One thousand

Emptied bodies

With hollow eyes once bright,

Waiting for the flesh to be picked

From their cracking decrepit

Bones.

2010-09-05T17:28:00.000-07:00

Black Moon Swan-Woman

A riddle of magical gems and

River shells, She is sprigs of rosemary and

Brass wind-chime earrings with those

Beaded, ornamented limbs and

Caramel skin

So lightly draped beneath the burn

of Harvest moon.

Wild mane of copper fire hair

Her deer doe eyes take you in

Squeeze madness sugared into your

Blood and spit you out

Something else entirely.

Earth goddess roams the

Apocalyptic shadows that

Even the most

Rational and scholarly of minds

Hide

And seek,

Unknowingly She is such a

Stunning beast,

Culture wars fought and raged over and

She alone is

Such a seductive and perfect destruction.

Glowing and gold and black and

Feathers which so gracefully match

The water's dangerous depth

Revealing the endlessness, the

Inevitability of a sex

As beguiling as death.

You know her by her fragrance

She claims lovelessness as her own

But she is never less than love nor

Is she worthy

Of anything but.

Her teasing flames movelessly cross along

My skin like leaves shading,

The luster of her shoulder blades and she is

Moonshine throbbing

On body and on high.

She is my own personal and

Beloved

Sorceress of high summer or

September,

October,

the Fall of one thousand autumns and

Even in winter her colors do not shed.

She is where I flee

These nights that I do not know myself,

I know nothing but my urge to run.

2010-09-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

Offshore

Sometimes my dreams are laughable upon
Waking, illusions that fool me
Into the romance of heartbeats and breath
Oh, the cleansing breaths
and ribs that feel and crave touch, but
Please remember me,
Happily
With bruises on my pelvic bones,
the time we counted
Every car passing
and almost got caught in
the kitchen.
Remember me fondly.

Sometimes I think I weigh too much and
Read too little--
but who has the time for such frivolous,
Joyous delights?
Don't let me down, old friend Doubt,
I will self-pity until
the rooster feathers roll out
With the tide
and I have nothing else to
Rouse my brief REM sleep of rainy mornings,
Don't let me down.
The nerves have departed me and
When the light leaves my windows
I see my skin the best.
Flushed and bubbling,
a lot like swallowing.

Sometimes we can't find our swords but
I like those nights the best,
I've lost myself one too many
anyway- Generic and dead,
Dead energy. Swirling wild in the
Hill-country heat, an invocation of
Those too weak
Too weak to wake, too weak
To die.
How far is the sea?
Maybe if I don't stop
Running I will find the shore
Before my intestines erupt.
No one knows anything for sure,
They say
that's the appeal
But as far as my own certainty, or
Our collective integrity goes,
It was that day a molding
Piece of shit in the sun.

2010-09-02T22:04:00.001-07:00

The day it finally rained

I saw an old man with owl eyes

Today outside of the market

A nearly blind security guard

With a canary colored poncho

The slow movements of his head

Traced his erstwhile grit in duty

He not-quite smiled as I bustled by

Nonchalance a plenty

Thoughts in waste and a hands-on mind

I nearly flirted with him

Just to scavenge a gentle glow of pride

Because no one does things like that anymore

No one takes the time

Onward toward my destination

Under an electric crackle sky with a finger sack

I wish now it had gone differently, I wish

I had turned back.

2010-09-01T07:38:00.000-07:00

Convinced

Complacency

is not fine by me, is not

some catchy tune whistled

softly by my ear, and yet I

succumb to the fall

of my own blows so much like,

as yours.

The hammer crash into the walls

breaks thin plastic cracks into

my own

stretched tight skin,

Only we are so much more

than this

but we let it go.

Too much in one direction

not enough in the other.

We are better than this,

better together and when it all

slips away

We are not perfect nor will we

ever be, but our love for

one another is enough.

Isn't it?

2010-08-31T21:14:00.000-07:00

One taste

How all this would vanish, evaporate,

if I didn't clutch at it, cling to it,

still remember

some twinge of glory.

The spurt of the first of

the month, almost,

so new with

Indirection and symbols and

weariness and chatter-

Some guy longing to

escape

and walk the line so viciously

(the sour stupidity of desperation,

always in search of more,

excess)

he drank embalming fluid.

Rotting in the ground and

seeping into the underground sources

of life,

always the death and

the poison.

Fucking arsenic sludge.

Quick growth in brain size and

capacity,

or an instant-evolution,

so quick it left

the slimy crevasses

riddled with tumors.

2010-08-31T20:14:00.002-07:00

Immaculate Conception

Tonight you compared

your greatest talent to

William Faulker, and afterward

I asked to bear

your children

only to quickly realize there is

far too top-heavy a ratio

of destruction to creation,

of fleas to clean skin,

of blood to love,

I have been losing faith

in the human race

not to mention

my own compassion and

sanity.

Your words in my mouth,

my words on your page,

it's all the same

but nothing is lasting,

that's what they say, right?

Maybe we are all better off

doing what we know best,

stick to selfishness and

the blind side,

screw the rest.

Faith and endurance and

all those mumbo-jumbo myths

and shit.

A new respect for history

but a hope with definitions

as subsisting as

heaven and hell,

Shriveled and melting

and utterly flawless in the

haze of fear.

I reach out and touch cold concrete.

More countries with dirt for water

and hours of walking to reach

but me, I only scream

for the loss of something

which existed only because I dreamt it so

to begin with

Not tangible enough

to hold.

Like these agonizing

heat-waves my whole body

bears, we roll harder

until we thunder into one

another

Never pushing hard enough

or backing away or truly listening or

allowing room

to breathe.

I asked you to fulfill desires

that I know only as skin-deep,

I nothing of the objectivity

of your revered antiquity,

my requests are empty

and the only truth is my need

to hit the blue highways

and flee,

I nearly bought a plane ticket and Yes

I am a coward.

Together in near-fall

like wars

that I probably

seem to know nothing of,

ruled by emotions and governed

by nothing but nonsense

or something.

who am I kidding?

This is Texas and this

fucking boat is sinking.

I am no mother.

2010-08-31T17:49:00.000-07:00

I have loved you for

so long and only now

do I realize I hardly know

you,

I know barely

anything

at all.

2010-08-29T23:26:00.001-07:00

Little Red-Fox Dog

Green tea steaming

on the pier where my dress

sticks to my knees with sweat,

Our casual conversation about

Pelicans

falls in and out with the waves but

your eyes betray where your mind

drifts to these evenings

Even through the aviators.

Your baritone

makes the

Styrofoam in my hand

vibrate, and there are

little purple flowers in the dunes

Now it's almost time to go.

My uterus

is so full of dead tissue

like broken shells.

My mother

projects her emotions

through speaking her pet's mind,

Aloud

Geri is sick of the beach

and has had her fill, now

...an old dog's last dying wish.

Everything is dying.

The gulf is screaming at the horizon

and the Oil

streaming down my cheeks

is like the prime black blood

slithering in my sandy veins.

Watch the tires spin at

short departure and burn along

the pavement,

Imagine all those rocks crushed beneath

the weight.

...Like a family torn apart by

Selfishness

staring out the window and

salty everything.

Tangling,choking,drowning

choking

in waves crippled by,

gravid with seaweed

Red like the fresh blood

the sea bleeds before

it turns black, shrivels and

croaks.

(Toads in the road, I slept while you drove home and killed them.

One by one. Ashes, ashes,

sand.)

In my dreams I keep choking.

Teasing myself along the thin-edged

razor of endlessness.

The Vietnamese family digs holes

for small colored clams,

minding steadfast the task at hand

A family of go-getters

Simple, mindless and all

so genuine/Easily pleased that

it appeases me.

I suppose we are all collectors,

of something.

He does not count these moments

like helmetless

motorcycle deaths,

but I know he remembers

the exact shade of the water.

2010-08-29T23:11:00.000-07:00

Beans

On a day that may or not exist

My head laid embedded in the

lavender and cream unicorn pillow

suspended on fleecy dreams and

I was so young

I may not have been born yet

My brain was a second thought and

still forming, stirring round as

the beans downstairs were stewing and

smelling so savory and toasty

in their stainless steel kettle pot

or something quite like it invisible

to my little closed eyes, my senses

were quiet but I was not unaware

My own contentment was breathing

steady simply because because back then,

on this possible day

I was to wake, be born to, and

dream of the smell of fresh beans.

What more could one need?

2010-08-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

The lightweight

Sometimes my silence is mistaken

for a stodgy sort of temper,

a wary and guarded distance held

a tractable detachment

And even to myself

I appear [then become] disinteresting,

A bore

and my,

Such sullen distaste have i

But I am all or nothing

once you crack that lining,

inside

I am more than something

plain-assailable

or so easily defined

My tally is a jolted scribble

ribbon slash of passion across

a page that becomes your canvas,

And

my mark stands wild and strong

apart from all those silly patterns of

rigid lines

When you strip me out

of those stifling bits

necessitated and contextual,

try me on as naked

wash the earth full smudges from

my face

From beneath I reach out

and startle you

I strike you down hard

to a place where my comprehensive

silence reigns

only

[and] for the briefest of instants

I swallow you into me

and all that Creation

is transparent,

beset.

Weightless.

2010-08-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

Compost grinds

You and your daffodil face,

like a horse, you said

about as oddly graceful

only more well-composed

but you don't know how I see you

between the low-hanging moon of

midnight blue expanses and framing

branches

Together we are shedding and

the dough is rising with the

heat,

mounting before it escapes____ with September,

growing sweetly

sticky. thick. damp

into something neither of us planned.

There is no illusion of control now,

we are folded into one another

and baking, full and hot

our fate or

something as equally

pleasing to the ears.

You and your half full mugs

of old coffee, stagnating in the

bathroom of Mexico flair

I watch you in white with

such a perfect painted bicep flexing

in the light softened

by weary eyes

A paper department store lantern

that has never shone as such,

sending a new glow into those fine-tuned

features like the gilded water

of an ancient wishing well.

New and

nearly full to bursting,

sleeping in my bed as the coffee grumbles

in the filling pot

You are the weight and

immeasurable wind

that leaned the precarious scales in

the right direction.

2010-08-24T16:47:00.000-07:00

The teeth of small sharks are

much more sharp.

I hear the fluid rise in her throat

and I swim in the other direction.

Pray for the safe haven of familiar arid desert in the Sudden downpour

Only child, Only season

Blood coursing through and hammering louder and Swelling higher and

Smothering out the light.

Brakes squeal, My heart

is liquid thunder

Harder pumps and round lumps

of indiscretion. Black Coal eyes.

The chest pains of panic

and the obscure coughing fits

and the repeated indigestion of indecision

and the reminders of old sickness

and the fear of perdition

flushed fast with the filth of addiction.

False perception of alone

You say I am learning to grow

Up.

Look up, you say

But I know the full story

and this is what happens

when the crumbs make the transition

from food to

Dirt.

The ground is so much more solid

beneath my feet

so pregnant with growing pains

and the sky is only touchable

when you aren't afraid to fly.

2010-08-24T16:08:00.000-07:00

August

I leave the door open.

It prefers the lack of closure,

Despises the sensation of being

Part to a whole

It prefers to swing by its hinges

And scoff at my smelly melancholy.

It creaks and mocks my old woman moth lips,

My little girl nerves with gnat-like stature,

The movements that slither slow and sag as

The daylight fades

The only real feat of this heat.

I should choose to be caught in the rain

Instead I shrink away and

Avoid touch eye contact.

Outside the wind creeps faster and howls in hot

Bursts of breath like the second orgasm

And inside I am screaming

Caught beneath

These falling trees

My bowels are twisting, begging for release from

The burn of my mouth,

This wretched thirst.

I am tired of waiting and

Tried of saying something for the sake of nothing

And tired of staying dry, so tired of

The need for perfection and disrespect for silence.

Outside the cars creep by and sigh in recognition

Of an era drawing its blinds,

The rain starts again and their headlights flicker

To life

To something bright for someone else

But me,

I am building a shell and crawling inside

Until all the trees are knocked down

In the wake of October.

Ashes,

We all fall around.

2010-08-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

Lately it is consuming.

A sleep that falls hard and

slams flat into the slates of

shuttered eyelids,

they hide the choking cry

of these brief alien nights.

The onset of decay, the first leaves flee

tread lightly

and shiver, fluttering sweet to land

and lie flat, static along

those cool tiles

The only reprieve

from a summer that bleeds us out

Dry

and empties its energy like thick sewage

onto our slicked skin.

The sweat is the only reminder

we are still alive.

And dark was the night in the

suburbs, when we slid naked

through the shadows down

the stairs and inhaled the ashes

from one another's chests,

Your eyes of fire do not see into me

deep as the autumn

when you go there, go,

but I will let it go.

Tense measurements of time that

barrel into such splintered bones.

If i was pure, i would hold it close

to my chest and run with it

But I am not, I am afraid. I

will lie alone tonight and in my mind

dance

You dance

dead and hot and old and droning on

in summer,

summer of nothing, of a near birth

that shrivels in memory

out to sea tossing and wild

This cresting ache.

I have the metabolism of a bull.

My eyes harden like horns

and sharpen, then fade when

the exhaust pipe pops

and shrieks in protest of the temperature.

I put my shoes on

and trembled for the first time

my memory could touch,

but you did not come.

The walls shook

and the storm invaded

and dissipated with the sound.

2010-07-14T18:54:00.000-07:00

49

Surely
we have created everything with fate.

On days like these,
it all falls together so effortlessly.
Days, they fall suddenly
like a grandfather's 81st birthday,
like melted cupcakes and
broken down vehicles and
sudden sex on dirty sheets,
like a whistle stop red wine and
a small puppy's subtle cry or
a 49.49 in an herb shop,
the cardinal number squared
or something with the kind of meaning
that cannot quite be grasped.

Surely there is more to this
than
a simple definition.

A small sign breathes into me,
life
a quiet and odd reminder
after months of (an endless sort of) aching
and
an unquenchable emptiness
meant to gather speed
only slows
as
I regain control.

and now
I see (clearly)

There are cycles gripping every inch
of this place.
One need not be well-versed in
the language of the divine,
a simple 49
can transform reverie into an eerie sensation
of infinite connection.

2010-07-05T20:22:00.001-07:00

We all long to thrive
The sensation of
withering,
it gnaws our wretched bones
and we wind up
unconsciously feeding
from one another's energy,
not understanding why
sometimes
we feel so empty
so drained,
stagnant.

2010-06-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

My father, he lives in a place
where the internet connection
fades
when the rain rolls in
from the tropics.
The heat today
is unbearably near
to my skin,
the electricity
of water and iodine combined,
static tension packed tight
pushing deeper and
embedding
like the seed of new child.

2010-06-21T05:49:00.000-07:00

I've got shoes made of
rotted wood and nails and
my insides are curdling,
curdling.

2010-06-20T08:32:00.000-07:00

possession

I watch the water boil
and I swallow the silence,
tuck it beneath swollen tongue
It is all so simplified
this way,
but so heavy in the night.
Books with smoke pages
and so much alone,
so solemn
a commodity
that it nearly kills itself to sell.
I'm not buying.

2010-06-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

Shock treatment

An empty ice-less icebox
strange to taste
and a
loneliness one can only
grow to love
on such days
All this
Brittle, stilted, artificial
stuff.
Thunderous silence but
I sense it
beneath your strong,
turned back
And alongside a tumbling stomach.
Fingers which
twitch and tremble
in pockets
of gold
cold to the touch,
the lack thereof
of
of something and
Absolute blind fuming sick.
Humiliation and insulin
trances and
false post-partum depression.
I will pull your tonsils out
as you so plead
but only to trade you the ache
for a surging burn of acid
in my body
These nights, they keep
twisting me into balls and
a small, very small word before bed.

2010-06-15T21:45:00.000-07:00

West Texas Wedding Singer

When you've been drinking
your face turns red,
cherry round and warm
And your eyes look bluer then,
your teeth stand at attention
White and endless and
fierce in the light.

2010-06-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

This place in these days

This place is sinking quicker
than the oil can leak,
and we're all sitting pretty
until we catch the heat.
Hotter and hotter these days
and I sleep harder and rounder
only wondering how long
it can possibly go on,
washed in the fury
the horror and the sound.
The sound of voices I believe to know,
they echo and rise higher
around//
Me. These desires,
they break wild and
travel far from the places,
these places I go, I go and
grow to know and
cradle
and loathe,
These days.

2010-05-27T21:02:00.000-07:00

I know the clouds

An orange glow is lit behind the gray
And no rain comes,
but I smell it in the distance,
screaming
And I still remember the meaning
of every formation and
coloration,
because I learned meteorology
as a child.
I wanted to chase all my fears
like tornadoes
until they spun out of control
and became obsessions,
or tore down the walls
revealing the foundation.
Sometimes
in these slow days
I like to imagine
I'd still succeed at tornado-chasing,
But most times
I just wind up cowering in my bedroom
staring at the clouds
waiting for the rain.

2010-05-27T20:04:00.000-07:00

Wax and Wane

She was sometimes more
like a glass teapot
than an old woman,
Heat steaming and building
more and whiter,
So brittle and trembling
beneath the fluorescence
With fingers dried and
cracking,
Her fungus nails like
diseased tree bark,
Dried blood crusting and
gathering tight like
water spots beneath
Those powdery roots,
Crumbling
like the mildew of
ancient herbs.

The age in her bones
Seeps into her ovaries and
Her only companions are
her fat cats,
Wax wheezing by her side
and Wane wailing
at the front door,
Splayed across the cool tiles with
cool eyes squinted and
Begging to be let out into
the dark.

2010-05-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

Suitcase Pop-Tarts

I can't remember how old I was

But I still had my plastic pink

Minnie Mouse suitcase

with the silver stars

and broken zipper,

but I threw a handful of pop-tarts

inside- probably the S'mores flavor-

and walked straight out the

front door.

I didn't understand

why my parents

couldn't stop yelling

at one another,

only that I hated the sounds

and surely I felt the angst

of being utterly misunderstood

and attention-starved

as most little girls do-

or at least, in one-child

"families"

when parents

are pre-divorced and

too occupied

to spoil their punkins anymore.

So I left.

I thought running away would set me

free,

that I could start over

somewhere else

and this time I had no intentions

of going to Nana's.

I just wanted to leave.

So I did.

I walked up the street

quickly enough so I could get a

head start

before my mother noticed my absence

When in reality,

my mother knew

from the moment she heard the screen door

clammer shut

what I was up to,

She just let me go

like a good mother would

surely knowing what was coming,

or maybe not.

I made it to the end of my block

and stopped

I stood there

and wondered if she had seen

my empty bed

If she had called my father

at wherever he was staying

those days,

called the police in a terror

crying over her fear.

I imagined her face

her open pores and

freshly plucked eyebrows

and I stood there for a good while,

waiting.

After what seemed an eternity-

four minutes at most-

I sat down in the pale, thin grass

of the lady with big dogs and a

front patio garden bed

and unzipped my suitcase.

The zipper got stuck

and I stuck my little hand inside,

pulled out the pop-tarts

and ate them one by one.

Then I laid down in that

dry and scratchy grass

and fell asleep.

2010-05-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

the lost river

She drove her car into the river,
they say
one night she just lost it
got in her car and went,
smudged tears seeping into
her round cheeks like black oil
streaks burning the streets
in the heat of summer and
She was lost in its waters
like ashes of incense
and pictures of life.

She thought of her lost child,
they say
and the nights just crept on
longer and longer
until the only thoughts left were
of the days,
counted days and measured
time like a phantom
that drove her wild
drove her wild like her car
into the Blanco River.

2010-05-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

lowercase

drink water
sleep-
for more than four hours
(for once)
run in the fresh air
get my shit together
pack
stretch
make love
swim
yoga
paint
write
READ
for leisure
(extensively)
sweat-
a lot.
these are things
I should be doing
now that I actually
have time to breathe
but instead
I'll drink a beer
and sit here
and remember everything
and be a little afraid
of what, i don't know
maybe of everything.

2010-05-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

old

At 4 a.m. I waited for him
in the vacant streets
the wind whipping and
digging holes into my skin
so sharp and quick that
the Styrofoam box
of old food
almost got taken away,
ripped from my tightening
hands in the dark.
The obscure crowing
of some distant machinery
like a rapid moose in pain
made me wonder
where this old town goes
at night
and how sleep deprivation
makes you more keen to
weird happenings
but mostly just a hell of a lot
more paranoid,
more rusty
and creaky like old hinges.
I felt sick
enough to vomit,
I nearly did in fact
but I held back
and only shivered
on the curb
because I knew he
would come for me
Like he always does
because he knows
what its like
to be this unhinged,
because he loves me.

2010-05-08T01:52:00.000-07:00

popsicles and eggs

These days I rise
after the bare minimum
of shut-eye
and feed you too much
cheese and eggs and beans
like Mexico.
Even as memory
begins to fade
My favorites bring
me ease
like pina colada popsicles
eaten too fast.
Like all that chamomile
tea and arguments
over nothing,
or taxi drivers whose
favorite game was to
rip us off
and laugh over their
chorizo grease
at how naive Americans are,
how the light-skinned
women bitch too much
drive their men nuts
then run off and fuck
a tourist because
it's spring break and their tits
are perky, they're entitled.
But those days
we got so skinny,
living off the land
and Pedialite popsicles.
Now I find myself
sipping cold coffee
that smells like
old almonds,
writing down my life story
in the blink of an eye,
only a minute or twos worth of
strange photos
and a voice i hate to hear
as my own.
I may not talk much,
or talk about it
but
I have this habit of
lying in public bathrooms
face down on the
cold, smudged tile,
waiting for a miracle
Or maybe just
a gas bubble
to work its way
out of my weary system.

2010-05-03T22:46:00.001-07:00

The skeleton with the needle

For years when I was younger
I feared sleeping.
I hated being alone
but loathed
the act of sleeping
even more.
I could only drift off
if my mother scratched my back
for at least ten minutes,
usually more like
twenty.
I would awaken every night
without fail
around midnight,
usually a bit later
and I would flee my sheets
and run for cover,
across the shiny tiles
to my mother's room
on the other end of the empty house.
I always imagined
a towering skeleton
was chasing me,
holding a hair-thin needle
between his
bone phalanges
And with cracking strides
and snapping jaws
hot on my trail
he would hunt my hide
all the way until
Mommy's threshold,
a mere few inches from
overtaking me
before i reached the
safe zone.

2010-05-03T21:42:00.000-07:00

Blank Pages

I am so tired of this carcass.
These plain slates and
Broken thoughts,
Scribbled as pounding voices and
Heated like microwaved lasagna,
only to become chewy. Old.

Lately I drink paper instead of tea,
sleep against hormonal imbalances
Instead of a strong back,
White light of computer screen
sheltering me.

My skin is dry and cracking.
I am so needy for nothing.
Hungry on empty,
for a deadpan quiet
Instead of glazed expressions.

Mouths tight and closed
Begrudgingly
Because it's harder to keep the space,
but easier to breathe the stench of silence.

Such a risk, the truth we say we seek out
The confrontation of
Reinvention
like the tremor of some wooden ladder.
Hollow steps toward the sky.

Blank pages of stretched skin
with veins like margins,
Blank pages speak to me.
Louder than fire alarms and
the fear of spreading earthquakes,
Louder because I am a coward.

Into the oven like Sylvia Plath,
Mountains of cookies and
Blackened pans,
Ignoring that wretched howl within.

2010-05-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

Death by Bug

I thought my boyfriend was choking to death
I thought his throat was closing in.
He gasped, stopping short mid stride
Halfway between home and the library.
He hacked and spit and gagged, bent at the waist
And still his face turned redder.
I was afraid and patted his back,
Slightly bewildered and
shoulders tensing.
Uncertain of the cause of such purple cheeks,
I saw no evidence for his sudden distress,
Only unexpected asphyxiation.
The culprit was too quick,
Apparently. Or maybe not.
It was a pleasant sort of day and
Thankfully we were merely deterred
in the fresh air,
Not stuck in the parking garage
That bat-shit cave of a place
But my poor boyfriend, nearly retching
Chest heaving thickly and quickly
Could not free himself of his assailant.
An hour before a poetry reading,
His voice was made hoarse
by an invisible corpse
Because a bug flew into his mouth
and died there.
But not like my boyfriend.
He did not die at all.

2010-05-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

german poundcake

an old poem I found

I cooked German poundcake last night
instead of studying for the two tests
I'm going to fail today,
with honor.
Her favorite comfort food
to help soak up the vodka in my mother's
gastric juices.
More like spongecake
I guess.
I'll put some candles on it tonight
I considered a morbid black,
but settled on
White.

A Happy Death for the
Birthday Ghost.
Maybe it's too much like
living in the past or being in denial
But she asked me to,
Something to accent the two balloons
for the turtle pond I think.

Today will be one of those days-
constant indigestion
with a mouth sore from getting too impatient and
burning myself,
I keep tonguing it and
pretending there is no irony attached.
She's already flitting around, busy tasks,
expending nervous energy
and then there is this sinking
Like the childhood dismay of watching the last of the warm bathwater
swirl down the drain or
Waiting until the last minute until suddenly
there are none left.

Last night I dreamed of spontaneous disco dance contests
after being rained on,
being hunted on the playground,
trying to hide from the afro-man with closed eyes
while the audience watches knowingly.
It's an epic playscape, and I'm quick like a pixie
but even with shut lids he finds me every time,
typical.
Needless to say
I was disappointed,
in myself and in my subconscious
for giving me such shitty lingering sensations upon waking;
trying so hard to live up to expectations
and leave some sort of impression,
Like every pursuit is a contest.
So pale in comparison to
past nocturnal themes
that I wish I had stayed up all night studying
like I used to do when I gave a damn about school. Sort of.

Maybe then I could have aced this German test
and given her a reason to smile at me from oblivion.

2010-04-30T09:33:00.000-07:00

december legs

Lace-edged panties
Fit just right
And we string gaudy lights along the Douglas fir
Artificially glowing
And aged,
Your legs tight for miles and your laugh like bells while
Through wine-stained teeth we exchange ghosts.
Our stockings rub soft beneath the covers
And against one another
We lay the past down
Like men beneath the bounce of breasts,
You, gasping mouth hot against
And I, always searching
Beyond the dawn
The birds cease chirping,
Some unspeakable heat that rises in winter
Claims each quick breath as its own
You convulse beneath
Skin slick and blood of rose oil
Shaking so thickly through
Doll hands and dark eyes like glass,
Your chaste highlands curve wild
Rounded nipples and such limbs,
Unshaven still smooth
And soaking
Upon the stretch of coarse quilt and
Under torn Japanese lanterns.
The tamales grow cold in the fridge and
The dogs lie uneasily at our feet,
Tuned and unblinking
Toward the muffled cries.

2010-04-13T16:08:00.000-07:00

blue of my blood.

Rojo
Flows more freely,
Whipping through its neon tunnels like the
Burgundy sugar
of expensive Mexican cokes
in disguise.
The women here, such protruding bellies and
Red eyes from ancient dust,
The crimson of allegorical whims
and a culture refined by
Despair, at best
Matching her side-swept hat
French, maybe with cigarettes or
a vest.
Too young for this.
Spoken moments that dissipate
into the skirts swirling high, bunching
into wind-knees
Perhaps there is still baby fat to lose.
And I may claim
The sway of skeleton earrings and
Bloody noses,
yet they are stains of an
Impoverishment
that is not quite my own.
The lights burn hard here,
rugged and powerfully enticing
So I will lose myself again and again,
the oldest city in Texas
a lot like him
Sweet to the touch and
Soft—
to the tongue.
A relic to savor
Lingering before the swallow.
In this same abyss such beloved memories
Devour and cherish me
Whole
Our feet will trample the recognizance
of our own
Such aches and flashes, they reside
in rows on command
And these years we've grown
Urban city sprawl
Like the McDonald's done in columns
and red brick walls
Next to the 5 and Dime near Market Street
where Daddy took me and Sister for
a quick round of treats
We stood on the hotel balcony
and threw jellybeans down
upon passerby,
Littering the gutters with our laughter.

2010-04-05T08:23:00.001-07:00

Electric,
unfurling energy that binds and wraps fast
Round the ankles,
In the sweep of voltaic wind I feel
your grasp,
Raising gooseflesh along my skin, of its own accord
and
Unbearable, a nearness of presence that Begs
to be traversed
Rapidly, and then that ache of...
oh, the Warmth,
Sparking wild and melting into the seams
of you, and me.
Interlocking,
Imagined ghost of your hot mouth upon my spine,
Patterns which spin and heighten, Divine,
Your eyes probing, Deep
and
Judicious, when
We meet in the middle, each Movement synced
and simply meaningful,
Uninhibited like the smoky vibrations of
Soft-heated Flesh in the night
Your age, it compounds my pulse
So brisk and piercing-
Irises of centuries beheld in atom by atom the light of a
New age of rich intricacy
Each morsel of you is tender
and
So pliant beneath the pull of
my innate peregrination
I, sensing your ripening,
Splay you wide, open across the Great Divide
I crack apart the shell of experience
and
Dip my fingers into the molten garden of
your endless gaze,
With truth a burning river
Dipped between our
newfound coexistence
Harmonious, the song of your pores
and the breadth of
Each breath,
your opulent reckoning
Coming fast, rapid,
and
quicker still, the Pounding
Syncronized, amalgamating that which
fiercely seethes inside,
Embers and Coals
of revived efficacy,
Feeding from, bleeding the New
Springtime shedding
and
you are a Trinity
among the immortal sprites
of some Infinity.
Silence stretches exhaustive
and
propagates awareness
These beings. Perhaps more kindred than originally sought
Not legible,
But the same strange animal, and
I don the shape of a woman
A coquette with confidence like
Flame and Glacier
Yet I am bound by deeply embedded golden truths
of Yearning, Season, and Physicality
An unshakeable synthesis,
and
A laugh that sits, entrenched
within my marrow,
embedding itself in each crevice
Effortlessly. You are Earth in
Top form
The essence of such, the unspoken
is unknowingly so powerful
as to
drown even the riptides of
a lifetime
And those light airbrush touches,
As I crawl into your
Venerable roots
and
cultivate new tunes of the highest melody,
Your sun of reconnaissance
consumes me.

2010-03-25T18:40:00.000-07:00

garden man

I stopped smoking
Your gun
and I am pressed tonight alone
Against the blade of
Tight sheets
With the stench of old sweat
Your masterpiece
Those keys, tap tap tap
near your legal pad
Touch me
with such burning care
fierce and
Stumbling passion
As the evening churns
to misty emptiness

And oh,
to be a fly on the wall

the weight

2010-03-04T09:21:00.000-08:00

the pills slide down the ledges of throat
and spill into the acidity like too much coffee
vitamins like small rocks
the distance skipped measured by
notes the band plays out of tune-
they go unnoticed
and you wonder if there are
enough quarters
for a few loads.

and your strange habits...
only seen by gnats that flutter, mock
the mindless movements
the lack of interest taken by your hands,
who would rather press themselves
against pen or brush
sugar or water or dirt and sun

what appears mysterious
is really only cyclical
just another thing you don't quite know the purpose for
but embrace anyway
and you sigh as the day pulls tight
and seems to halt
if only momentarily
you feel the exhaustion set in
before picking your feet up
and turning up the southern rock.

warmth of true sleep is most evading
right before spring breaks through the earth.
respectable people eat their free bread
warm butter and cracked skin
smile at passerby
as the wind creeps in faster
and they may lie to their loved ones at night
but their waste is still swept away
time, always the time

sometimes things are so true
that it's easy to forget

your circulation stumbles
such small breasts
will round themselves
into an assigned meaning
that fades with the onset of evening
and the pounding of drums in the distance
thickening, thickening,
and thickening.

My heart of substratum

2010-01-31T20:19:00.000-08:00

i have wrecked my own silence.
this will not be the last.
i will bury my hands until i no longer sense their stain,
i will soak in this bereft cavity until i can no longer stomach the edge of teeth.
char the taste with my own aching skin.
layer by layer and then the blood boils of excess and necessity.
the force of a spin that pulls,
tugs,
sucks me in
and spits out a mottled shell lined with scarred cells.
the markings of a beast that does not exist.

the words are emptied and drowned in the coercion of obligation.
the demands of a world that knows your widest,
bleakest
gaps.
it is accustomed to the blind verity of your speech,
it sows and sews the fears that simmer beneath,
stitches until something soft muffles the shrieks of wind,
the streaks of blinding light.
it knows your cornered whispers,
it hides with you in them,
it snickers and calls you easily by name like your oldest friend.

the authenticity bleeds from the inseams
and you forget what mess the stains soaked clean.
the ties that bind are the cables that snap when electricity leaves them
high and impoverished.
the wrong kind,
the call of wild stretches high inside,
it fills and coaxes you away.
a paltry way into the solitude,
where the wetness collects but nourishes only itself.
the river travels well and swallows the land.
the womb bursts and becomes simply more dust.
replenished, an essence called into stillness and then extinguished.
quiet. unmoving.
a spark so succulent
its pulsing is felt even after death.
it stirs in the whitest of eyes and contorts the most pastoral of guts.

sit still and longing.
you wait for the curdled nonsensical cacophony of mind and body to scream,
only it simply stares back and says nothing.
eyes wide shut and unblinking, deadpan, stewing.
not placid but stale.
more convincing than courageous.
all spit and no fire.
the most meaningful is choking through a mouthful of grass.
you hope for the reminiscence of dirt, the call of the earth,
but your tenement rejects the love you hunger for so nefariously.
it accepts only the most suitable of statics,
the most disagreeable of desires.
hovering between what molests it and what it so painfully needs.
hounding and yet purifying.
the howling and crawling reverberation of drains in the night.

and in this cessation,
sedation thrives and crumbles thin.
it is forced, it is graceless and obstinately unforgiving.
in this supposed repose,
a simple disquiet lies and lines up just right.
a time to learn, a time to live,
but there is also a time to leave the sun and walk in the shadows
to greet all that is contemptible.
deemed shameful and forgotten alongside the precariousness of yesterday.
tightropes of memory
that tremble when the match is struck
under no shelter of hand.
the tread is well-worn and familiar.
the bed is still cold.

i have felt this wrath and i remain unimpressed.
electrons evade me here.

even the most uncontainable of angers still cower in the spotlight of sometimes.
the penitence of retribution.
my vengeance, a wandering breath.
the compensation steeps lucid in my dreams,
hour by hour.
sigh by side.
exorbitant grief that breeds smiles upon your touch
grows pains in your absence,
suddenly and inexplicably weary.
crying for your gentle incense in the breadth of foreign soils.
the remittance of excessive adoration and precipitous decisions.
the glow and flash of false neutrality like costume jewelry in the dark.
a fraudulent verdure
like clams in the damp murk,
clutching jaws tight simply to embalm the pearls.

My heart of substratum.
Breaking waves and hoarding convulsions like cracks.
i will fall into the lines of the bloodless.
i will paint my own complexion
into the icy subterranean eyes of the moon.
i will chew at the numbness and savor each day.
i will stow away the most savage of lashes,
condemn them to rest until they perish in the smoke of my own red tides.
all that is unfathomable, extinct,
still beloved.

...and once again, i'm blabbering undecipherable, unintelligible jargon bullshit

tonight

2010-01-13T17:10:00.000-08:00

My mind is like an orchard
Clustered in frozen portraits
Of blossoms that bloomed so fine
Just to drop from the vine
I've seen them all tonight
Could keep it silent and tortured,
Or shove it unto the floorboards
A rusty heart starts to whine
In its tell tale time
So free it up tonight
Life deals a measly portion
Light on good friends and fortune
It's chipped you away inside
And drawn all your blinds
Concealed it all from sight
Could cut that final corner
Charge the void no quarter
Or skip to the final line of some
Suicide note well publicized
Or give it up tonight
Kindly reverse the order
Of the options you've laid before you
The needle, the dirty spoon
The flames and the fumes
Just throw them out
Tonight
The time that you've been afforded
May go unsung, unrewarded
Some nameless you cannot know
May be coming to show you
Unbridled love and light
Should you grow in an orchard
Covered in dusty portraits
Of blossoms that bloomed so fine
Just to drop from the vine
Oh, listen up tonight
Don't keep it silent and tortured
Or shove it unto the floorboards
Your busted heart will be fine
In its tell tale time
So give it up tonight

2010-01-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

just a glimmer, they say.
the glimmer of a sledgehammer,
the sharpened and shiny edge of reason
in the meaty middle, the warmth of the season
one and one and one and the same.
on into the heart of it all.
the beginning.
the pulp and core and
fusion of strength and terror.
there with the shaking, the flowers, the aching

once in a blue, full moon
and a mere three moons into the newness.

the day comes
and what was meant and done and right
are all so separated and perfectly interconnected
that you could almost laugh,
but those bells
they toll differently now.
there was never a plan or design that flowed quite right
and now?
it is all strikingly beautiful
yet nothing that fits seems fitting,
beauty that makes you cry out in the night, fists clenched

not alone but far away. but. but.
suddenly is sooner than you think.

inside.
and suddenly, i know nothing else

2009-12-30T07:51:00.000-08:00

it's when you open your mouth, and nothing but dishwater comes swirling out.

everything washed in but nothing came out quite clean enough. water spots and smudgings of unknown substances.

you'll call bluff but the dish washer, he's not to blame. he's just doing his job. the water, it likes to wander, it has a mind of its own. and right now, its mind isn't on doing the dirty work.

2009-12-29T19:37:00.000-08:00

i am the unspoken body language you could not understand. i am the white quiltings of morning snow, empty and silent but lasting. i am the memorial balloons that endure the sting of rain. i am all of nothing and nothing of all. i am everything you rage for and everything you turn your back to. i am the nondescript red stain upon your clean clothing. i am the sweaty sheets. i am the burn of tea against the roof of your mouth. i am branding. i am the strange loneliness written off as mere emotional excess. i am the unbound hair that irritates yet frames your vision. i am the hidden dirt road. i am the exhausted dinner dialogue over rapidly downed wine. i am the pitcher of your favorite holiday punch. i am the constant trickling of fish tank mysteries. i am split custody. i am Christmas morning pre-breakfast cookies. i am post script ramblings. i am sodden shower breakdowns. i am steady ache, and i am the absence of ache overall. i am nervous stomach twists. i am war paint. i am your hatred of conflict. i am your addiction to antiguity. i am your wanderlust. i am the hidden pangs. i am your self-cut, jagged bangs. i am the rumble in your thunder. i am the best friend you lost, and the one you thought you had. i am between the lines. i am electrical warmth, gently hypnotized. i am blank. i am full to bursting. i am strength and i am loss of structure. i am echoed and i am straight lined. i am all the stereotypes. i am the golden branches that stretch far and wide. i am the loss of grip. i am the river between two parts of a whole. i am the separation, i am the completion. i am the creeping morning. i am the too-big bed. i am the screaming kettle, too full of steam and hot for release. i am the congregation. i am your childhood haunts. i am your sleepover stories. i am your gleeful laugh and your perfect cry. i am the glue between earth and sky. i am your sigh, i am your settling skin. i am every hole you buried old memories in.

i am rebuilding. i am reaching. see me, feel me, hold close and let go of pride for pride.

2009-12-13T10:27:00.000-08:00

Back into the land,
and those cotton fields stretch wide and far across swept vision.
Emptiness that cannot help but to engulf and slow.
Slower,
and his heartbeat fades from under fingers.
Slower and strange and sinking away from the white noise,
more towards the earth.
Alone, better.
Pungent solitude that sows slower anger,
then soft but quicker movements toward self.
The land opens wide and swallows whole each constant
with an airy belch,
all is forgiven.
Love more within.
Spread flurries of seeds into the roots,
breed music like a bled vein.
To unravel is to untie from anchor,
genuine release, softer away.
The wild rises up and sinks deeper, his skin sizzles.
Spider veins tremble across hands now fitted in tightly and right,
that crumbling ache.
The silence of ferocity,
the simplicity of passion.
Melodies of dirt and grass,
and the fury rumbles in the darkness.
Abridged backbones that crack tremble
and heal quietly to themselves.
Dandelions wavering in the cool breeze now abating.
Scruples become miniscule rocks in the dampened sand.
Here, now, a smile holds no presupposed meaning.
Every branch has its own sound,
each found beautiful in its contribution.
Nothing dismissed, nothing overlooked.
The definition of failure,
it crawls like vines downwind of spirit
and solitude is the only truth emanating far enough to reach the place traveled to.
The only shadow that brings ease from the necessity of sun.
His youth sparkles deep in the rivers,
in the heavy brush alongside the creek where they washed dishes.
Here he is within always.
The Rockies occasionally inch higher,
the land again farther between,
and the snow softly drifts down to meet tousled hair.
And she,
she will be kept safe by silence.
The memory of his heartbeat quickening under her fingertips with his breathing.
Breathe in
and she's nothing,
nothing but land to tread again.

Marsh/mellow Mornings

2009-12-08T22:17:00.001-08:00

She stayed up late to spite herself.
Obligations and necessities were unnecessary,
and so she stayed up
and instead made cup after cup of tea,
eating chocolate until she felt she might vomit.
She stayed up late,
because she loved the feel of writing just because she could.
She stayed up late,
imagining him fishing in the cold,
maybe with a huge thermos of hot cider,
or the very least a beer and a head clear and writhing
with the cold blue light of moon.

She laid on her stomach to feel grounded to the earth.
She laid down in that stolen favorite fleece coat,
belly to carpet,
to feel solid again.
She laid flat to feel the pressure,
to surface the drifting chasm of uncertainty.
She laid on her stomach, occasionally rising to turn on and off the heat,
absorbing and holding and remembering everything.

She built silence.
She built it all around her in pretty little rows,
built it in his honor and with his name on her chapped lips,
unspoken.
She built silence,
and beneath the sheets of it, found only herself,
listening to the hushed murmurs,
the crafty drafts of energy melding in the next room.
She built silence,
and in the heart she became nothing more.
Simply there and simple quiet.

She was less melancholy and more marshmallow by early morning,
late night,
And the sound of his breathing somewhere
softened.
Around and
somewhere the sound,
then everywhere the curl of purple sparks,
and so she brought him harmonies
in the dead of
livened sleep.
The hush-hush of filmy-shaded dreams.

2009-11-30T13:23:00.000-08:00

The center of winter came and she was always wasted. These days, always faded. When the first snowstorm came this year, the flakes were a soggy gray, not the brilliant pearls she remembered dreaming of as a child. They didn't flutter softly, they sputtered and crumbled upon the windowsills and evaporated into the cold emptiness of December. Nothing solid, nothing lasting. Not even some measly ephemeral beauty, light and soft or surreal. Just static. Her mind was blank. She couldn't rely on misery any more than she could joy. Her hair was limp. Spun gold, they liked to call it, back when she was the woman every man craved and chased. She would brush it until it shone blinding in the sun, and hung thick and silky like royalty tapestry. If only she hadn't always been so desirable, maybe then her youth wouldn't have dried up so fast. Tall and curvy timebomb with perky tits and a wit as sharp as a bed of sewing pins. Nearly overnight she woke up and was dead. Blonde bombshell, finally exploded. She blamed her mother.

2009-11-25T19:19:00.000-08:00

With the cold living in my extremities,
today home is a strange & familiar distance away
soothing but aching and. Anxious.
Home in the smell of burning cedar
and the whiskey barrel plant in the front,
that threat of death in the first frost
that leaves the taste of youth behind for once.

Shoes on the stone fireplace shone just right, and

We speak of those beloved road trips in the maroon wagon-Chevy
with
So much cactus carsickness,
and the small garden patch of forest remembers me-
Waving as rocks for my melancholy goodbye.
Yet it has moved into a new era
of unlined stillness,
less shrieks and a different breed of peace
beyond
the sizzling blue hour
the wooden tree swing
(stolen for a dream-future)
the advent calendars
the mini Christmas trees
and the scent of Nana's sweater
just like the bed of plush,
head on chest
rocking
rocking.

Today home is long and colder.
Home in the bottle of vodka hidden in the closet,
in an old man's clumsy stumbling grace
and slip of the hand,
that old blood leaking antiquity of love
and the slight sigh of content loneliness.
Loneliness of
Complacency,
of loss and of duty
and of slow,
steady,
restless simplicity.
Repeated tasks and the comfort of nothing.
Fill the need like history's steady thump-beat,
rusting carpenter fingers
that crinkle and bend over the folds of sawdust oceans.
His bones creak while the old house speaks.

The age and streaks of silvered time struck her down overnight
Cigarette after cigarette
so her pores can stretch more and more
...tight.
And in the pair of undecipherable
glass tumblers of bourbon and cognac
there are shared laughs and a yielding awareness,
but sleeping always brings that same loneliness,
all parties alongside the soft isolation.

Papa and his dahlings and some jambalaya stew
The night rolled in and all were sockless in their shoes
Freezer crackers, five, four, two
Solidity smeared and so did you.

2009-11-21T14:50:00.000-08:00

merely thoughts in blurbs

Although I am coming ever-closer to graduating with a degree in journalism, sometimes I am utterly torn on my own beliefs about the integrity and values of the media today. Of course, people become journalists for a variety of different reasons, and you will never hear me deny the necessity and power of good journalism. "Giving voice to the voiceless," we call it. However, as I observe so many of the trends in our society today, including mindless television, the growing obsession with technology, and the declining quality of expectations that people hold on what is being reported and what is "news-worthy," I can't help but feel my father come out in me. I can't help questioning my own choice of career and exactly where I hope it may take me. Not that I am opposed to technology, mind you-after all, here I am, typing this on my delightfully sleek Macbook laptop. In fact, I also just joined Twitter, to help me keep up to speed with our so rapidly moving world. However, it really saddens me sometimes to step outside of myself and beyond the comfort zones and crutches that we all so often rely on, and see the sad truth of what society is becoming in this atmosphere of "growth", la sociedad actual.
Sometimes when I open my eyes wide, I don't recognize the skin I'm in, or the ashpalt I walk.

...The dictatorship of the single word and the single image, even more devasting that a single party, is imposing a life whose model citizen is a feeble consumer and a passive spectator, built on the production belt according to the US model of commercial television.

Maybe, baby, I'm just not built for speed.

oh yeah, totally turning that into a song

Kansas City Shuffle

2009-11-10T00:12:00.000-08:00

The Fence
Part 1

Once upon a time there was a woman-child, and
at the bottom of the dirty water
of a claw-foot bathtub
she found herself
staring back,
alone,
one man deep
in a makeshift mansion in the soft-edged suburbs of Kansas City.
The epitome of alone,
with soft pink florals in the comforter
and the wallpaper
and her soul shaken and broken
stumped and trumped up,
the rose soap and the heavy linen curtains
and the whisper of foxes behind the fences
of black wrought iron
in the backyard at night.

And in the depth of night the wolf-dog would escape
to hunt downy hides,
somehow leaping those privacy fences,
terrific heights of borderlines
and over 50 feet of seemingly impassable wood,
but wood rots and cracks
(the monsters fall silent in the forest)
and even as it stands at its tallest
among the hunch in its splintered back
a secret builds itself

around
and around the mere strength of one sound.
One light,
the light breaks over the hill country clouds
and the wolf-dog is on his side,
bleeding from gun shot wounds.
And in times when his voice is unrecognizable
and the closet seems much more wide-open
than these spaces,
I remember.
All it takes is one angry farmer.
Sometimes freedom is disguised,
make of it what you may
paint it
and take it
take pride in it,
like that fence she slaved over
to keep the wolves at bay.

So maybe his words hold truth,
our only real ancestors are fireflies,
our only connection to the light
the light that both blinds
and drives us forward,
keeps us moving towards the
greener pastures
on the other end of the fence. That fence.
One and the same,
the fear that breaks
and the faith that binds,
sticks and wraps them tightly together
like gorilla glue
and then rips jagged across the sides
like guerilla warfare,
your own and personal-sized.
What is most your own in these moments,
the moments
that own you unexpectedly,
swinging you with strict joy from end to end as if there isn't one,
when only moments before it was
strapped against your neck,
around and around and pulling, choking. black vision.
Stripping your
flesh like bark that's crackling,
now peeling to reveal what lies beneath
such rainbows and colors of ecstasy
(honesty)
that you believed to only be worthy
of those wildest of dreams,
now real, Real.
But-careful, so fragile. Strong and yet so fragile.
Delicate and headstrong and exquisitely unbreakable.
Hold on.
Hold on.

You say you want to walk on the other side
but how can you tell what lies there is what's right?
I do not know much about the mysterious ways of the world
but i know you are beautiful

with every inch of me;

you breathe.
As you breathe,

breathe in
The ways of the world, I don't understand them
but I know that merely by the paper thin folds of
the fawn hands that swirl henna along my palm lines,
trembling lightly,
exist lifelines;
Simply the floating voice like bell jingles
of the Indian girl close at my left
adorning my skin,
those foreign syllables,
alone are enough to draw me to the desire
for the distant lands
of a country I know virtually nothing about.

Please don't ask me
which grass is a more vibrant shade of green
because I will tell you that
my breath catches
when your feet turn slightly in
as you sing near me,
to me and through me
and as your toes curl
and stack upon themselves you just can't see.
You
string me up like your beloved fishing pole.
You roll right through me
and pull yourself through soil
like white rain-flowers
in the damp dream hills alongside
the gravel.
Every stroke of paint is for you.

And sometimes I humor the idea;
it almost slips from my tongue towards
your ears as I graze that winter beard-
admitting out loud that we ended up in Guatemala by default,
when suddenly left was right
and wrong was newly defined,
our right of passage through the other
and the other made all the sense in the world
make sense.

And in the womb of the world he crawls to his feet

the world, the world is all the timing we need.
To get by, is each other and the idea of an anchor
that was really here
all along.

diamonds growing in the mountain
beneath the pressure of all time
they grow in hope and expectation
waiting for your hands to find
cause only you could reach inside me
and figure out the worth

And, oh
the Reverberation
(oh, for the love of you).

2009-11-05T09:19:00.001-08:00

Once the realization is accepted
that even between the closest human beings
infinite distances continue,
a wonderful living side by side can grow,
if they succeed in loving the distance
between them which makes it possible
for each to see the other whole against the sky.

Jaundice

2009-11-04T05:23:00.000-08:00

The bears and you

Silence is knowledge.
It is when you finally find yourself alone that your demons step out of the shadows,
claws bared and eyes glowing.
And your love is in the dark without a nightlight.
Suddenly you find the scent of the blood under your own
bones
and you smile as you go under.

The emptiness beckons like a gnarled finger in the nightshade
of November
and November is only rightful in itself
when the cold seeps into your flesh from the inside,
not the air.
Blood is crackling and you feel it all right there.
In that moment, you feel it all,
you crumble and the sickness takes hold,
Succumb to the heaviness of
the disquiet,
that disturbing yellow stillness that swallows.
Become the sea of winter at the edge of the night,
just before the sun returns from sleep-
Only this time it remains where it lies
so that you may lie with yourself and the white heat
of renaissance.

I, In Season

2009-11-01T17:42:00.000-08:00

Into I go

My hands shook while I lit the candles.

My legs are weak today. I am content even as I am questioning my path. Darkened even as theirs is lit with incense ash and purple, pink, white wax. The sparkle in my step is in the colored foil and the jelly beans and gummy rolls, the trolls and pink hair and little ghosts and bows and stickers and lipstick and glitter. Together we squeal, building our castle kingdom in the gold tree. I can nearly hear her tongue ring click against her teeth as she laughs. That gorgeous close crop of hair, tight against her neck, and so I set out plenty of of my favorite hair clips.
She is in the wind tonight. Reflecting in the silvered skull ring, minty glee in the peppermint schnapps. The wax folds upon itself and evaporates and still they burn, hot and lasting.

Already such a wild child at an age so young and ripe, but her heart was soft and true and right.

She left my life in April of the year I was thirteen, and only a few months prior I found an unexpected counterpart, a sister, the best friend I didn't know I needed, a strange and unprecedented love that I did not, could not find in another. Exit one spirit, enter another.
Sweet blonde bubble of joy and laughter, and through her and our friendship the process began, I very slowly and painfully began learning how to love myself. She was my my brightest lights, my darkest secrets, the ache of the growing pains in web of bones that ached for affinity to infinity. She helped heal through fulfilling, filling, building previously unrecognized and unrealized desires and fears and dreams.

Sometimes I am so taken aback by these beautiful cycles,
when everything seems to wind and twist into labyrinths and then suddenly a moment of awareness pricks your new in season skin and you see it has circled back around and joined with itself.

And she was what I subscribed to, the only confidante I surrended myself to and with, and
one day I woke up broken. I woke up and found I had sacrificed myself for the sake of that surrender, I had lost what it meant to be me. I didn't know what was most mine, my own, and no one elses....not hers, and not one of many his. Just mine, mine for me to realize and then share the way it was meant to be shared, not spread too wide and thin or stretched near snapping. Not painted black,
I painted over the colors with black and told myself I was proud of what I had created, that the
smoky charcoal was the truth. I trusted that truth and then the black choked me, morphed overnight into handcuffs that bound me to her bed and my own fear and hatred of myself.

A beloved twin, my altar ego, but it is change that is the oldest of all friends and the most ancient of truths. The spirit took flight and I opened my eyes to a world that did not include her flaxen mystery, her companionship. She was no more in the golden tree, it was only Cody and me, I was back to my roots and with a change of name and a couple choice betrayals (fierce yet blessed), her halo became a stranger. I found forgiveness the second time around, but only through walking away, letting go. Circles may always come back around, but sometimes, when direction is hazy and obscure, forward movment must be forced until you find your own footing.

And around the same time we both bowed out, I began to trust the tide, I allowed change to pull me out to sea; there in the water, in the womb of the world, I swam and swam and swam until my bronchi nearly popped with capacity to love and hurt. I swam deeper until I built up the strength to push past the sting of breath, the fear of depths. There at the bottom, I found not one, but two more soulmates. Two best friends lost, swallowed into the stretch and cold breadth of endlessness, and two much stronger bonds were discovered, forged there in the flowing waters. I found them like treasure on the banks, on the ocean floor, with lungs of life and eyes the likes of sands of time that only exist in dreams.

You will never hear me denying there is a design, everything happens in season, even the ones most seemingly devoid of reason.

It is never long that I question what I am fighting for.

And as I finally blow out the flickering flames, running only on their own fumes of recollection,
I'm curious as to where the stuffed tiger is now- perhaps keeping sweet Seal company in the thereafter. Another life, another time.

But for the grace of God, go I.

Happy Halloween, Feliz November,
Merry Día de los Muertos

for Cody

Hunting Season

2009-10-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

Old Mr. Flood

Old man and the sea,
simply for you I flee:
I chase the flailing limbs of sweaty hides
and swallow or graze
the subtleties of these honey nights.

And under
lamp-lighted grill your cowboy shadows,
those brutally sententious features
disheveled and exposed.
tender October moon.

a celebrated time that feels a lot like
When I stain myself with the cinnamon mush
sauce of apples
and I hear your voice in my ear,
or see you in your fall sweaters.
While you read your epic novels
and watch your old vampire films and melodramas
you take on a sort of timelessness
to me
that feels like moist forests of
deep flame
surpassing the most antiquated of ship songs
or the grain
of grandfather clocks.

Gold skin shiny stretched tight
and cracking
in just the right places,
the first kiss
when i felt as though my heart
were nothing but an enormous flower.

The darkness beyond the windows,
the streetlight etchings
of gravel cooling
and blinding those glassy depths
with primal freedom.
Rusty with ragged loss
of control but slick and pliant
with coatings of throbbing frames.

Bubbling threshold of need,
circuits of the present presence of
wooded portals
and crackling brush.

Your margin of power in the wracking waves
of silhouetted contours
beneath the rims of silvery lot,
the peak of picking season.
Ripe fringes of lashes laid
flat across pale plains
of roseate electricity,
the moment of barely grasped periphery
of all that will be undone.

You break upon me,
simultaneous death[drowning] and salvation

I stopped believing
and it was still there.

this is when you know
it is real.

Gem

2009-10-15T21:25:00.000-07:00

Even God is Godless

Usually she was busy laughing or praying for her life, but sometimes, at full stretch, she considered sex.

his sickness is back and forth
breaking over them both
she's checking the windows constantly
and fantasizing about progressive muscle relaxation
to keep her mind off old hauntings.
that creep of never quite finishing what you start.

Sometimes I pray for rain,
or for blindness,
for music as a pump that inflates the soul.
And sometimes i sense the burn of drab addictions
I still remember
when i scribbled that only unfulfilled love is truly romantic,
and believed it.
Sometimes I see the 14 year old in me,
sparkly lips and lavender eyes and a salty adoration for the wilderness,
exploration of illumination,
all kinds
of sweet and sticky bitter hot
spice of modulating seasons,
convergence.
Sometimes I find just as much beauty in the creaks of my weakness
as I do
the extremities of my strength.

(not that strong without these open arms)
I am more at ease with lost dances through
the hot glue of me and you.
So real and yet
my capabilities are
old maps of something new,
something shining I am digging to unveil
cracking, blackened fingernails
scratching and peeling and flaking bit by bit
the skin
of hardened soil.
Oil in countries flowing like spilled plasma,
the pretense of war
when really
that's the way we get by,
no amount of strangulation can destroy the lives of rocks.
Those beloved jagged heights.
The symbolization of hearts,
the splatter of rain on your flushed face,
the ache of a thousand lonely nights
magnified then filtered into the pull of the tides
as the clouds begin to roil and you find
Something in nothing.
Heaven is hell.

Sometimes I have these moments when I begin
craving something more real than my measly skin,
when even touch is a lost art
and my insides just keep aching,
stretching,
reaching to touch the breaking point where sun meets ceaseless space.

Sometimes the endlessness feels too enclosed and tight,
maybe it fits just right
or sometimes I need more room to grow.
But sometimes I drive at night and blur my vision so I lose myself in the spin of lights
and sometimes i just know
this fishbowl is big enough if we all just keep swimming.

nobody

belongs anywhere,

even the

Rocky Mountains

are still

moving

-- George Bowering

and after it was all said and done

under blue moon I saw you.

Fluidity

2009-10-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

Of Flight

Fair weather for falling
for dirty bare feet propped up on the sleek polished wood of railing
for a gentle lounge across the Indian lands of an old soul's home
for a thin layer of red dog fox hair, graying with graceful age

the same place she claimed as playground as a little girl, bursting with visionary energy,
worlds upon worlds,
wrapping herself in layers and sashes of bright colors,
adorning easy pride for magic carpet rides.

for shared goat cheese and kitchen shenanigans
for a mother's treat of purified water with sliced limes and oranges
for that certain adeptness with language, familiar witticism

you're smug.
you're charged.

falling hard for the simultaneous synchronization of shimmering reflections

for the enchanted lands living in the panes,
portals to the patio world of her childhood castle and the
new realms riddled with the fluidity of rhythms and meaning.

meaning, dance.

for fresh bicycle crash battle scars and
for fresh peppered tomatoes and juices
for beginning to recognize your own squeals of joyful glee
for falling asleep in class to visions of being spanked
(by a cutting board in your mother's kitchen)

background music of Spanish formal and informal commands,
conjugation station.

and just when you thought of the dying honeybees
one flutters to rest upon the crease of your elbow,
mitigating your mess of thoughts to a simple lull of time and days passed.
a ceaseless peace.
like a lover laid bare,
or the knowledge of the loss of existence and the existence of loss.
then shepherding the incoming front and engulfing the circling vultures
the butterflies will stop by on their way to Mexico,
the earth's turning pages fill your open spaces
(flooding the sky's sizzling energy )
with the sweet static of the season.
sticky and lush,
the senses of metamorphosis.
white owls will find you in your dreams and
chase your nightmare terminology to the shadows
until your equations become instinctive
and you move upwards, in the reach of breaching
the promise of relief.
the breadth of your true pitch of breath.
and the heat, God
the heat
outside is warm as unclothed beds
and the scent of release,
the cats are in the window
and the sheets turn over and over again.
in the wind.

such a dazzler
exploitation of exfiltration
wildly spinning nymphet
when

the aeronautics of a life in flight,
the migration is a sign
that it is when the solitude divides
you find yourself in the center.
these golden moments collide
so collect your guileless limbs and go
while there is still time.

"Because of the burnished mist through which I peered at the picture, I was slow in reacting to it, and her bare knees rubbed and knocked impatiently against each other.."

Elephant Guns

2009-10-05T23:26:00.000-07:00

Daddy's Fireworks

Llovía.

I know October is here when he has lips of packed smoke

and I dream of her olive skin in India,

all so temporarily permanent-

Rome calls me in thick, brisk whispers

while some unknown foreign terrain pulls me from the air

and into its swirl of streets and sweeps and lights

like my body knew its own place and

hurried home through the crowds.

I know the time is drawing near when I feel like the fourth of July

and I remember the pierce of blast as he unloaded into

summer's hot charcoal sparks,

the trembling blue stars spoke volumes as I covered my ears

squealing my protest and youthful fear like

the fly of fur

over the fireworks-

dreaming of a suppertime with no gunpowder and no countermines.

leave the airplanes be, daddy.

even some little black sheep

prefer peace.

I know I am older when the hours stretch tight ache

and the shifting atmosphere invades my knees with divisions of

burning bridges. Rebuilt,

then taken by storm as his old bones sigh,

the children asleep in the submarine,

the faded skin of old flame sets in

and the strength seems to emanate from

an Italian hospital ages away

where I first learned to feel safe within,

alone. Myself.

I know the months creep closer to colder when the turtle pond grows

in my eyes, when the windchimes

harmonize with her German,

those wrinkles draped below her eyes

and I recall the animal talk of another time

upon the peeling sea foam ledge of water's edge,

sad yet yielding pine,

older than me.

Mecci's home now her fountain of heaven.

Daddy's supposed safehouse.

up up and up onto the wet deck, remembering sudden dark eyes under the sweep of infinity,

the stars so sharp, so penetrating

blinding with their watchful beacons of subtle idolatry,

before the fall and yet after they came to earth
as lightning beams of alien
sea towers along the coast of me.

as he alongside the jacuzzi,
the old torn porch swing with jagged, damp stuffing

clammy boardwalk of old faith and new breath.

And years and years ago, the puppies laid under the shelter of stone furnace,

the wolf dog escaping the supposedly most impenetrable of wood

to drag home prizes of slain sheep and

crumpled rags of deer.

In a year's time i would again long to celebrate the Lilliputian villages,

the dark creep of thick beer,

those fraudulent yodeler hats of chintzy yellow.

and I'm in my black slouch boots of last year's faux suede,

recalling that surge of self-anointed appropriate autumn,

still post surgery and craving affirmation,

aching for a tenderness to slough off the small ridged scars, stichless but ruthless

the softness of him brought to me repletion

beneath the snowing leaves,

rivulets of reason in a season of callous change.

and multiple journeys down the line, I apologize,
your young bride
the failure of Tugger a sign, the denial of free spirits,
the solitude of that fateful flight

into the core.

that chasm of vacillation
and the magic school bus game,
the Seattle tequila stroll.
silent betrayal.

on the streets of that chilly Northwest city in her tights and new cantaloupe sweater

she strode past dark-skinned men and imagined the texture of their lips,

lost senses of scattered pieces, a puzzle left behind to simmer in November's dress.

And then the bullets.
the size of stale grudges
and the most simple of celestial deviations,

metal is broken with a click of wrist and shift of hip
one snap of alignment upon the lines
the cycles collide

and once again
intercession of fortuity finds you here,
staring down the barrel and
sliding
like eager beads of sweat
upon your mother's forehead
when she promised herself this was the last time.

Dissemination

2009-10-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

Ring Around the Rosie

occasionally the seeds are spread too thin

Sharp and open
Leave me be, this is not sleep
(only sleeping more every night)
The hours become heavier and weighted, bleeding into dawn
Always waiting, hovering between
That cold light
A noise, and then the trembling
The suddenly fragile frame, all wallpaper pants as the figurine tightens its plastic smiles
(spiders inside)
And dust on the lips of this strange vision of hell
.it fell away. back into the

glitter floor, painted earrings. black and white and alone. I laughed in the mirror for the first time in a year. foolish snow.

And me, sometimes it's just me here. I need, need, need need need. Breathe. To feel real.

A hundred other words blind me with indifference, despondence of disbursement

Like an old painted doll in the throes of dance
I think about tomorrow
(please let me sleep soundly)
As I slip down the window
Freshly squashed fly
It means nothing
or is it, I mean nothing?
standby.

I can lose myself in Arabic art and American sex all the time

(Forget my face in the dark)

These streets have too many names for me

I'll get used to this eventually, I know

(Please do it right)
-Run into the night
Because I will find myself again tomorrow, gather and weave it all together
Crimson lines/pumppumpexplosion

/memories in a fire.

You can never say no to anyone but me.

Too many twists,
occasionally robotic, I'll admit
Please make it good this time
...except the same words haunt me
In sequence/ in despair of time.

go on

the lights go off

when things don't feel right
I lie down like a tired dog
licking his wounds in the shade

when I feel alive
I try to imagine a careless life,
a scenic world where the sunsets are all..
breathtaking.

No. I couldn't tell you how the house burned down.
Last night, oh, we were running around.
Midnight surrounds you,
you forget yourself while the full circle moonlight makes you proud.
We were just running around...

Sing for that call, sing for this fall, such was a. Shhh

it was my home, once

and for all.






occasionally the seeds are spread too thin


and then I find that old solitude once again, it's only human.
each and every piece for you,
but maybe one for me-
and when the guard is off duty
i'll be sure my soft shock of broadcast is not too public.



ashes, ashes...

Cimarron Canyon

2009-10-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

Memories of New Mexico

Here's to Father Sun and Mother Moon,
embracing me and you

even as we think we are slowly dying
(death is slow life, life's slow death of repression).

In the wet. We wait until we've gotten through the twistiest, steepest mountain roads until we allow ourselves to savor the chocolate covered pretzels; we let the rain clamber in. Weakness- pain leaving the body. The little white paper bag from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory is perched between us, he cracks the windows again and the cold hand of liberation slides inside my lungs. Victorious release. I know I trust him because I'm able to write as he navigates through the treacherous, winding strips; I still remember when I was too terrified to even attempt to drive in abnormal weather, let alone surmise someone else to do so without tearing my eyes off the road.

And we feel solid. Rocks. Real. He told me he doesn't feel lonely anymore.

Occasional map glances for mere reinforcement, he and the land know one another, here. The best smelling air of anywhere. He wants to keep that scent in his nostrils for all time, hands sneaking out to grab droplets of New Mexico's cooling blood ("It doesn't look real"). We always share the best drives- surreal, ethereal spheres of peace. Terrenes like my painting visions; he is my blue tree in what dreams may come. My journey...the night fog creeping in and those hauntingly esoteric flashes of light in the distance. Always to the East. And in this damp paradise, I don't take out my camera, I know the futility: absolutely nothing could record or accurately capture this beauty.

I can see the ghost of fog-writing edging the window (Love)
...to see my own utter elation,
echoed across his face.

He wished for just one kiss while he blew the frost fuzz of the dandelion in the wind
breaking the mountain tide, outside the center of a community not our own (but of our kind).

Great chasm of sky bestows the steeples of earth with invisibility, this never ending solid wall of precipitation. It's just me and you on this road:
"Looks like we're driving into the abyss."
"We are. We always are."

Nihilists enamored.
(I can nearly slap Colorado's left buttcheek from here.)

oceans and grasslands and deserts and forests and mountains and plains and valleys and canyons and rivers and bays and gulfs and marshlands and swamps and pastures and meadows and creeks and lakes roil and meld and blend and meet and then a centerpoint of sudden light...
bursting over me and ciphening the poison out.

and then
a hand on a knee, a head on a chest
breaking (someday the) waves with the most pristine of whitecaps (think pre-sunrise Swiss Alps)

In the mountains I feel as though I understand myself better in my dreams,
like I am more in tune with my most raw subconscious desires. I awake believing that perhaps I had never really been sleeping, merely stepping out of one skin and sliding into another.

My life has finally truly begun
by the language of his movement and
the rhythms of his tongue.

Blood

2009-10-02T21:06:00.000-07:00

Generative Capacity

In the parking lot of an oversized, corporate grocery store in a small-standard college town, a chubby nine-year old Hispanic boy was choking on his own blood.

Streamers of it streaked his dirty cheeks and chin, gobs of it coughed down the front of his oversized and now undecipherable T-shirt (quite possibly black with a familiar wrestling logo adorning the fabric front). He did not know where his mother was. His mother, who was more concerned with her grocery selection (quite possibly not the healthiest given her own overweight appearance and casual disregard) left him in the car for "not very long at all" while she chose her poisons from the long shelf lines in Capitalism's clutches.

A kind, middle-aged woman found the boy stumbling deliriously around the cemented plains of the parking lot, where heat waves rose and bounced off the glares of mirrored metals. She spoke to him in soothing tones and pressed a miniscule wad of paper towel against the scarlet; he struggled to recede from hyperventilation and spit fat piles of the thick fluid onto the dusty pavement. It stained the woman's carefully manicured hand, swirled around the edges of her carefully placed gold ring, and threatened the careful floral blends on her blouse, but through calm questions she ignored it.

Another concerned couple caught the scene in passing and found an old red dishtowel in their backseat, rushing it to the boy, who was now surrounded by strangers and sweat and blood but no worried mother or father. The solo napkin drenched with body dahlia:discarded and replaced, as more curious bystanders peaked and briskly turned away. The male measure of the couple, a selfless and wise Capricorn, lowered the bleeding child to the hot asphalt between the cart return and a vague Suburban as the workers were alerted of the parent-less boy's distress. Warm-hearted Cap's inherent quiescence placated the boy slowly, while the girlfriend quietly and gently distracted him.

The milling marketing masses tuned out the loudspeaker like always, and the unfit mother blended into the aisles like the stale frigidity in the meat section (plump with preservatives and mindlessness, the rankness of exploit). While her son had stumbled out of the deserted car in a panic to seek help, unable to manually cease the flow of his blood, she tapped her Target flip-flops and tried to decide between instant rice and potatoes-in-a-pouch (might I add, neglecting to pick up repetitive cell calls).

Uneven pitches of tone and breaths of frantic pants as his chest heaved in beats of two and three; between all these he admitted this bleed was the first with unknown cause and the worst one yet. His grubby white sneakers were now gilded with the cardinal spattering of a day he wasn't soon to forget...hopefully. His mother, on the other hand-
she is lost already.

His sable hair shone slick in the perspired drops of sun, a close cropped sort of flat top, and the blood kept ebbing nimble and sticky beneath the pressure of rag. His own wet, coagulated gurgles brought cries of near terror from his throat; the couple murmured comforts and convinced him to lean, lean and breathe deliberately,
it's okay, it's slowing,
Mom will be here soon.
She'll hear her own voice through the overhead and come running.
He drank the cold water Capricorn brought him and attempted communication through muffled fear.

When Mom came, however, she simply walked to the corner between cart return and car where he was slumped and wedged. With demand to know what had taken place in her innocent absence, annoyance a plenty, her only worry centered on abandoned groceries and the possibility of her car doors left unopened in her son's haste to find a pair of attentive eyes. As she went to check on her vehicle, he spat more wads of red on himself and averted his eyes in shame.

His rescuers patted his sweat stained back and hesitantly took leave with hidden disgust,
sinking into the sanctuary of themselves and trying to fight off the anger and creeps of disquietude.

and on a night that silent sirens swirled with patriotic colors that penetrated fall's new stillness,
and outside the open doors the air smelled of moist, sunken earth,
she almost stepped on dried wax the color of dried blood in the bathroom,
a simple tealight spill after he lined her bath with candles and incense,
turning off harsh fluorescents and opening the window to let the cricket music in.
But now as she studied the clammy, hardened splotches of burgundy and copper,
so oddly reminiscent of mummified plasma
she was no longer thinking of their wedding music,
and instead was remembering the involuntary twitches and visions and impulses
as the energy cross-haired her body and electrified her pore by pore.
She remembered her dreams of harvest,
of strange Indian women lying upon her mother's bed unclothed from the waist-down
in search of healing-
she kneaded the dark skin and dug for the abnormalities she feared in herself,
feeling the entity of her own fertility impale her
with questions and a truth she could not uncover nor deny.
She felt the call, the sting of semiotics,
remembered her own blood being pulled from her core like clockwork
or moon hypnotism,
the red tide,
or return of fruitfulness after las inundaciones y la sequía.

And then, the choking...the painful, heavy inhalations of heady sex in disguise.

He left his roseate juice in disregard and
She imagined the ghost of a teakettle to be a train

but this time, when she fled the bathroom,
she didn't forget to close the door to keep the heat in,
the oxygen out.

Alpha

2009-10-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

in the beginning

before Shy died.

When she was a child of no more than seven, she began to long for traveling rollerskating rinks she was yet to know existed. Circus tents of bright carmine and vivid sapphire pitching above smooth wooden floors that shone in the Texas sun. It was autumn, and she sunk into the season with glee and a soft grace that already spoke of her magic and lined the folds of her imagination. She hung plastic pumpkin buckets in the most modest of the front yard branches, and when the time was ripe she would delve into the scarf collection and cloak herself in labyrinths until she wore thin. In the trees she was at peace. Sometimes the air would get too thick and her throat would tighten, but up there, against the stains and curls of bark, she could see her veins more clearly beneath the youth of her skin.

When she learned how to roller blade, her body taught itself to move.
She slid her callused feet into the pads wedged between the gleaming plastic and streamlined strange driveways, catapulting and churning visions into asphalt battles. Her hours were injected into dimensions of pebbles and crystal mattresses beneath the sharp wooden starburst of home. The backyard forest of nonexistent broken bones and the berries;
the berries, that mystery of eternal clusters of
ever present red planet pomes
and lines and lines and
corners and droves
of...
borders.

trophies and the taciturn

2009-09-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

Take me into you.
Take me in like the last lingering beads of heat,
as the remnants of summer cling to the suckling breast of fall,
hang on-
Hold tight to the rush ,
arms clenching veins pushing back, into
the final hoorah of summer's sex.
Self love in the bathroom.
Some sort of plain cubicle with its dusty tile sores,
its reckoning-
Olive ceramic beckoning and backwards light switch,
the splash-splotches of nondescript gray cloud plaster clusters
and the lack of window is still inviting,
however briefly.

Sweat globules seep slowly.
Damp hairline and now bleeding into those chestnut strips of bangs,
stale and somehow still novice-
Unseasoned in this birth of season,
like the chewed bones of sea or grandma carpet
the color of Redwood bark.
Blackberries ripen rapidly in this air.
Stilled breath pocket for old pangs,
pressed roughly against the counter edge and driven like horizontal rain-
His hill country underestimated patience,
as the stormy redhead's ruddy cheeks place in her
an eerie and enigmatic calm,
a beloved echo for her own roots unparalleled
as Red scavenges for cigarettes and
his chipper black-clad form molds itself to the football futon.

Stove-top pot jolts.
Packed tight heat waves,
like familiarity of regularity, the cathartic tea aims to soothe-
The blunt end of those reflections
or maybe it's the feathered fedora curls that simplify,
bulls-eye,
tongue-rub out the stamps of months passed.
Smooth stimulus.
Scratch your coated teeth upon enamel sheen,
watching a certain red-wine stupor stumble to the fridge-
Meteoric dozing and douse of second-round shrimp,
the filtered water tastes like blank slate and mobile home memories
that are not quite your own.

Cool air crispy-creeps.
Suddenly radioless room and the smell of meat,
temperature summoning and reeks of classroom flings-
Old French movies,
black and white and steaming tea mugs of last year
(always the Queen of Selection)
recalling the half stranger with a knack for black humor
and wordplay sliding his cold hands up the steaming curves
of beneath-the-shirt.
Lips flawlessly pushy.
And the not-quite-bedtime memories overpower,
the heated panting and lonely bed smudged with dirt-
Avoided like hush that night the apocryphal shotgun leaned into the corner
and he whispered into your silence,
sweetened the itch of skin.

Tonight muscles bunch around bones
and dreams are side by side
assembly lines of vitamin warriors like movable mountains,
a sort of St. John's wort mood.

shame on

2009-09-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

i am black eyes under limp hair. stringy drizzle in the threads of thrift stores clothes-supposedly the best kind- (supposedly, always supposedly, shot in the dark. he says it's all a shot in the dark)-
but easy to come by, already worn thirty-six times. there is vibrancy in the shift of continents but no condolence for those who sponge it up. drop by drop by drop and still faded. still the holes they sink within themselves, into a sheltered veil of safely cultured ignorance. and the blender mind, shallow breath, saggy old bones.
and when you touch my cheek and tread my dirt, the barren land is moist once more, fertile and teeming with ornamental lines of grace. not of this world. i will twist and struggle and thrash and shriek, i will cut my own bruises just to watch the contradiction of processed progress,
but each time i refuse to stamp myself with the destruction of healthy water molecules and trembling bits of jade-shaded hopelessness. the wine of sticks of iron in my organs.
ashes ashes. we all break down. the threshold is a humid piece of chewed gum underneath the sneaker of success. redress and then undress, curl up in your own stagnant fears again. stand tall, every day is Judgement calling. his beard hides grey well but then there is the black, the rivulets and streamers of sky and of black, pure and potent and hard-shell. where is the fallacy? each time I send search teams, instead it finds me. every time. time. every time. illusion, seclusion, delusion, fuck you quantum physics. fuck you organized religion. fuck your science and your truth and your common sense and your metaphysics and your independent ethics and your rationale and your irrational love. in the end, we all fall down. until then, i just want a warm bed and windows open to let fall crawl in.

2009-09-24T23:32:00.000-07:00

scathed, it will pass and evaporate like the hover and blink of endless nights.

the moment missed,

dismissed as time blankets the thick of brine in

double nostril sigh,

choke...don't choke,

i'll gently pull the lever of layers

and peel away the cloaked pressure of

black. black like the minds of so many lives in denial,

table scraps for the monster and its alien claws toughen,

molars harden, eyes darkened,

grows and grows and grows and.

you think I will allow it.

too locked away from light to peel the lids open and meet the eyes

of dreams. brush of skin against that lightest of feather chamber,

opening dainty and gulping air like grass. it transfers and lingers

like years of clumped salt and dirty grains. mouthful. mouth full

of torn pockets of exploit. teeth clenched tight around the gnarled,

decrepit fingers of beat. deadbeat smiles.

slow rain like soft rockets of discontent. nervous shifting,

sheetless mattress.

it's ok to sink a little, deep.

vapid and colorless. melted sands of grime and shit like mudsockets,

but keep your fingers stretched high

and wait for that moment the twine wraps tight.

on the other side,

there are no rainbow goblins.

golden smears of sticky sustenance,

honey windchimes.

the repletion of fall's lullabies stapled into your joints,

droplets sucked up the strings of leafveins until the void is echoing once more,

and the abyss is quite suddenly

lacking a certain lifelessness.

up and up and.

2009-09-10T17:12:00.000-07:00

i found you on the riverbanks breathing red sand like justice
and when the waters sighed, your hair curled against my skin
and held me there with flower stems.
the latitude of leaves and multiplication surges
depends upon the ability to release the follicles from their
waxy prison. behind the source there burns the sun,
behind the sun there is an efflorescence
an opening, an outstretched network of spiderweb furrows,
the silhouette of truth.
imagine-
truth in the sway of your laughs underneath the shade
these sweet brief rains, tints of shedding and peculiarly crooked change
they fall upon me like the draping of autumn.
and September sings in
saffron ceramic.
I'll make that beloved 5 minute walk,
7 if I linger just right at the muddy roots
imagining you as though you
were truly real and not just some figment of
foreign imagination,
floating on the puddles, purely peppermint-ginger memories
where the souls of our soles are stamped into the wet dirt
like the ash in the lungs of Santa Ana summer in the West.
deep violet stranger;
the companionship of cardinals-
not simply outside the panes but in the trees of reach.
I'm imagining the red that runs like sweet mountain thyme
beneath the paper thin crown of skin
of delicate wrist.
you are, it is,
piercing.
space scalped and then hung up like hot compress towels to
air out,
dehydrate,
rest.
and yes,
I remember the star-winds
I can practically feel the brisk pull of the arteries
the moon-call of the tar-gravel rocks upon the sticky roof tiles of the treehouse,
the bottom of the mug my relief.

unwound,
founded on nothing more than the rush of electric blood and thunder
as my bones greet the season with
new reason to
unfold.
étranger douce , vous remplissez mon cœur.