Bottles

Those are bodies, not bottles,
Stacked below your window.
Fractured faces stare at you
From the broken sparkle
Of each bloody shard.

That is a pyre, not a pile,
Whose glow bleaches the sun.
Jagged limbs flame from the heap
And lunge like razor blades
Through the soot and smoke.

Ashes are no ink for songs.
No fire from your pen
Can ever perfume these lines
With a scent sweet enough
That cinders will sing.

Jonah Complex

I am alive inside a monster,
The stomach of a dreaming whale
Whose body of earth and sky
Swallows the world and digests my days.

I can never die here, only dissolve.
Sinking deep into the beast's skin
I bleed from the grave and strean
Through a billion blossoming limbs.

My heels will kick and stomp the skin
Until I hear the beast's bones break.
I will slice at its starry span
And crawl out any open wound.

I will not be consumed like this,
These words ulcer the dirt and air
With light no darkness can submerge
And a mouth forever singing.

Climbing The Walls

My grandma climbed walls welted with thorns

Without seeing or reaching the ceiling

And fumbled her way up each sharp step

Into the darkness above.

She heard voices calling out her name

Through the tall planes of plaster and wood,

But when she opened her mouth to answer,

Thorns pricked her tongue and fog spilled out

That filled her lungs and clouded her ascent.

I watched her limp body slow with each pull,

Thorns plunged deeper into her slumping head,

And I prayed she would fall.

Smoke Smothers

Smoke smothers my mother

With pillows of fog

Spewing from tar-choked tumors

Wheezing in her breast.

Narrow ridges of smoke like

Silent scythes held aloft

Are splitting apart her lungs

And spilling out her air.

Smoke smothers my mother

And spools above her head

In rings like cloudy crowns

Vanishing with every cough.

Evolution

We wrestle with a bright, shining night
Chafing the milky curve of the moon
And speak to stem the starlit tide
Blinding our tongues, whiting out our words
Under a glowing talcum cover of linen snow.

We are grappling with ourselves alone,
Embracing the empty, glaring moon
And holding back the living starlight
We curse instead as glittering chains
That pale, trembling hands are pulling taut
In our callow and cowering hearts.

Soft, clutching hands squeeze the night from me
Freeing me to ride the sweep of the moon
And inhale those waves of starlight
Falling on her fingers, pooling in her palms.

Trusting The Light

So many colored days,
When sun-bleached skies are like oceans
And plumes and pillows of clouds
Are like islands and peninsulas drifting
Beyond the reach of storms.
When green bellies of bushes bulge,
And silver summer heat sparkles
Like glittering mist lingering in the air.
So many colored days, so long ago.

Once I could turn the world upside down
And dangling from green limbs of grass
Shake loose sunlight from graying skies.
I could fly between the thick brown trunks,
Wooden pillars of stalagtite trees
Reaching to the skies below.
All things were ascending, enlarging,
New, equal, and within my grasp,
But even dreams can fall to the earth,
And even the brightest colors lose luster
And bleed with time.

Time turns the world in the other direction,
Hemming sunlight in fading fabrics,
Its white shine dulling to autumn brown
Like oak leaves after fall's first blue chill.
Clutching colors still swirling within,
Words like purple sparks fall from my fingers
And burn apart the strangling black knots
That leave me gasping for grace to grow.
I will mold new shades from my soul,
Streaming blue shafts of light will pierce silence
And surround each touch of my hand
With a glow, illuminating what I did not see.
I cannot turn the world upside down now
And will never trust sunlight again.

Bloomington's Best Betrayal

I didn't want to be there
In the dishonest florescent glow
Of a Steak and Shake parking lot
Fanning the fires of another.
After creamy flirting over milkshakes,
Her mouth was convulsive and tart.
After kissing her again
I slid my tongue across the roof of my mouth,
Clasped our hands together and smiled.
But I swear,
I didn’t really want to be there.

I wanted to be with you,
But we even drank our coffee too.
Bloomington's Best Betrayal
Served by a slack-eyed college girl
Lacking the sparkling aplomb
Of her televised counterparts.
When I say I thought of you.
You can believe it, 'cause it's true.
Your home was a mile away
But I wondered if my scream
Could cover such space.
I would shout
Look, look at what you've made me do,
I don't want to be here.
I want to be with you and you won't let me.

I followed her home,
Driving through hazy globes of light,
My hands flexing and contracting,
My eyes stinging, my sight in misty tatters.
And in the dark, cluttered patchwork
Of a single mother's apartment
She glistened like a raven in the sun
Just before I clutched her wings.

Though I didn't want to be there,
I did not leave,
The icy threads of my lust
Tied me to her bed.
And when she thrashed greedily into me,
I hissed there would be no other
Until the icy threads uncoiled
And my slurring promise dissolved

I didn't want to be there,
I wanted to be with you
And I wept in another woman's bed,
You can believe it, 'cause it's true.
The ties binding us in betrayal
Were a stain between us
And we laid awake until dawn
Like preening penitents
Now shaking at the scope of our sin.
And since I didn't want to be there
I wouldn’t see her again.

Bring me another coffee
To thin the filth and bile
Inflaming my stomach
When I recall my guile.

This is the poem for when all else fails
To blacken your broken tears
And a paper cross you can climb
To show your love of nails.
This is the flavor of your betrayal
That you will taste when you insist
It was her who left you in the end.

What The Moon Brings

What the moon brings is a maiden,
Diamond-eyed and flaxen-haired,
Body bursting with a glowing spill of milk,
And an expectant mouth.
She does not make small talk.
She waits for me to speak and dances
On sparkling moon-drops of light.
She sits with me and sprinkles
The stars upon my tongue.

Vengeance

I hope I gut you in your dreams,

Strip the icy velour that blocks my touch

And tatter your cloudy dome of sleep.

I want to wreck the moon in your window,

I want to chill its chalky glow

And steer its beams to freeze your rest.

Love only lives, it never survives,

And our perfumed mouths cannot spoil

The slow decline of your caress.

My vengeance will be this.

I will detest the chill of your kiss

And vaporize your dimming heat.

Black Umbrellas

Upturned black umbrellas float on the silent surf,
Their handles are curling claws of gold
That sinks hooks into my eyes
And latch jagged spurs into my mind.
Their crawling parade slinks across the water
And their limbs reach to stab the sky.
This is the river of despair
That bleeds through my body like a human vein.

I do not know what raises this armada against me,
These ominous ranks that wreath the world in smoke,
These vast fleets amassed against me
That bombards my days with dust and flame.
My defenses wilt in their wake.
These vessels cut open the water
And dismantle my calm.

Let me split their formations and disperse their advance,
Let me ride a wave that can swallow them completely,
Blast away their hulls or topple their sails.
They are spinning shadows that drift in the foam,
A procession of parasols that pull me under
But I will not drown.

Pity

Pity pours forth in permutations,
A grand gallery of shape and smell.
In the broken circle of humanity,
In the blue teardrop
And the ashen aroma of loss
Pity will find its purchase
And will stand against reason.

Pity has its powers and charms,
A rough alchemy of persuasions,
Kinetic tongues of honey
That relish pandemonium
And the white-hot charge of self-regard.
Pity will find its purchase
And stand against reason.

I want and need your pity now
To reach the meager creature within
With kisses like sweet bruises
That can make worthy again
For all your pity helps me to become.

We Are The Dreamers

We are the dreamers.
Our matchless music
Can silence the sun.

By love we rise
To kiss the mouth of heaven
With fiery fervor.

We are the damaged.
Our sparkling scars
Pulse with passion.

By love we fall
Into the indifferent embrace
Of cold, cautious hearts.

We are the dreamers
And from haunted hands
We can conjure the dawn.

Mercy

Mercy is like a plume of cotton
Blooming from the blue bed of the sea
With starlit strands that divide
The water's glassy dimensions.

Mercy is like a spray of dandelions
Dancing in a billowing sweep,
The fragile yield of such things
Earthbound to seed.

There is no mercy for myself,
Only a fumbling caress
That must suffice to summon
The illusion of intimacy.

My mercy must come
Bursting from the earth
Like a fist of grass
In exaltation.

I will sing for your sanction
With a smoky voice of hope
And the faith that all things
Can live again.

One Day Binge

Something breaks inside
And you’re off.

You always start with some money,
A fifth maybe,
And the whole grim adventure
Fills you with excitement.

You aren’t partial to the bars or taverns,
But it doesn’t really matter
Where you drink.
You aren’t much of a social drinker.
Your preference, such as it is,
Leans towards isolation
Drinking in emaciated woods
With indigent alcoholics twenty years your senior.

The first fifth goes quick.
You never were one to waste time
Chasing down a buzz.
But it isn’t enough.
One bottle is never enough,
But the money is getting scarce.
Somehow, you scrape the money up
For another bottle of cheap vodka
And you’re off once again
On this desperate game.

Conversations are banal and haphazard
Under the weight of this much liquor.
You hear the drunken tales you’ve heard
A million times before
And laugh once again.
You fear the horrors that the morning may bring.
No, God, no. Please, not yet.

Another fifth.
A heavy fog has settled over you
And everyone’s movements have fallen
Into exaggerated eighty-proof slapstick.
Some pass out.
You drift in and out
Of a black out.
All is darkness.
The night is cold when you wake up
And your faithful companions
Are nowhere to be found.
Soiled with piss and spilled liquor,
You stare at the sky above
Asking for answers
From the shrieking silence of God.
You lie there for hours.
It is all you can do.

Look here
At those who admire destruction
As if it were a holy mandate.
As if it were some wicked destiny
Dealt out like revenge
For a glaring lack of courage.

It Means More

It means more to me to have the poems
Than it ever did to have you.
It means more to me that I could retain
A measure of humanity
In the midst of my recriminations.
It means more to me that I am poor
Than it would to prosper at your side.

It means more to me that I might know
The secret pageantry of my heart
And not the frenzied silence of your dreams.
It means more to me that I live honestly
Through the repertory of days
Than lie for the spoils of your world.

May the light of forgiveness find us both
And transform our desperation
Into a healing power that dispels the lies.
The countless evasions and retaliations
Punishing us for who we could not be,
Abusing us for all we could not give.

The Fall

Nothing is more important than the fall.
There is drama in the delinquent descent
At all altitudes or velocities.
The trajectory of adversity
Wears a painted face of ancient allure.
The bloody theater of decline
Titillates both our primacy and fear.
The plunge of our peers satisfies our thirst
For another to take what we deserve
And fills us with dread that we are next.

Nothing is more important than the fall.
The lusty tumble of swollen bodies
Locked together in a seamless descent.
When the taste of dissidence has dissolved
And mouths bloom and breathe like musky flowers
We thank the solemn permission of fate
That anyone dared to love us at all.

I Bless

I bless my life and forgive its follies,
The feckless flights of fancy
That aspired to see the face of heaven
Until my wings melted like chocolate in the sun.
The gentle invasions that contended,
Like a drop of dew upon a web,
Against fears of a sudden plunge.
I bless my life and find grace in these things.

I will have the grace of starlit seas
And the kinetic composition of light on my body
Will give poetry to the speech of my heart.
I will have the grace of wild stallions
And the landslide of sound
Will exhort my spirit to forgive.

And when forgiveness comes at last
Like a loose garment or a robe of silk
That lightens my shoulders
And lands like a windy crown,
It will be for me and for you,
It will be for what I could never do,
And it will give me the strength to go on.

You Cannot Have My Misery

You can press your fingers into my flesh
And savor my formidable flavors.

You can flatter me with luxuriant whispers

And share the yield of your body.

You can have my immense attentions
And even a glimpse of my fear

But you cannot have my misery.

It is a dark globe, an obsidian sphere

Where pantomime prevails
And I am masked by elaborate multitudes,

A hieroglyph of manicured faces
That offer no hints of distress.

I cannot share it,

This great shiftless cloud that chokes

The mouth of heaven.

It is the inviolate part of me,

An exclusive domain,

And I will not temper its imperial range.

You can have my gentle permission
To be loved and held at last.

You can have me at your side through the days
With all that comes with it
But you cannot have my misery.

Orphaned Jewel

You are an orphaned jewel,

A gem of opulent carets

That enchants the eye and lingers

Like a fragrant ache.

The smell of sapphires,

The coy perfume of sweet bread and honey,

Are aromas that flood my mouth

And I savor with a nimble tongue.

The scent of your glittering latitudes

Is fired by a pressing loneliness,

A foggy shine that lends depth

To your luster.

You will always be an orphan,

A rogue radiance,

Unfocused but brilliant,

That irradiates the will of men.

For Him And You

You don’t hit her, but you might as well,

She wants you to.

Your petulant, tactless spirit

Demands that you batter her

With weapons heavier than hands

And she will wait for more

Because your hatred protects her.

She hides from love in you.

Neither of you are capable of anything

Except greed, hysteria, and mutual desperation.

She’s capable of nothing but dinner and pussy

While she counts the pennies in her head.

You are my befuddled violent proxy

And I give you permission

To straddle her like a tombstone

And humor her with the pale flare

Of your love.

If you haven’t hit her, you might as well.

There is no blow that she cannot take

And there is nothing she will not do

To preserve the safety she finds

In your dull-witted, hateful heart.

I wish someone would hit me

Or that murder could end this poem.

I would have them fling my black heart

Over the ramparts of your memory

To hungry dogs on the other side.

And, yes, you would burn
But not nearly as much as me.
I should die like no other
For this poem
And for the crime of ever wanting your love.