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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

I have loved you for

so long and only now

do I realize I hardly know

you,

I know barely

anything

at all.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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,

Ashes,

We all fall around.

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.