my thumb pulls off to show my child
the world is not how we perceive
for when we find the real is mild
our hearts are slow to this receive.
sweet little child it’s you i love
i break your heart to loose your mind
your hand i hold, your arms i hug
and pray the truth you’ll someday find.
triumphant in the night
i am breathless by your
majesty
truly befitting of so
many eyes left wanting
but still
your spine
does arch
with the waves of my
electric touch
masterfully wielded
my name rides particles
into your lungs
as you gasp for air
after years stagnant
and in this
i feel like a beast
and you do too
as i find my hand
on your throat
this rush is like a drug
as the teeth sink in
and i grow wary
to say the least
as the ecstacy
flows through our
veins
of what parts of me
are left in your
memory-foam
mattress-top.
Does their psychosis comfort them?
They wear it like blankets
on a cold winter’s day.
but with so many patches,
it’s a wonder the things stay
together at all.
Love is a heaping plate of food,
but hunger returns, and with it, more meals to prepare.
Love is a parking meter,
keep putting in, keep putting more in.
Love is a robbery,
demanding to hold up, reconsider,
choose carefully your next words, and
hand it over if you know what’s good for you.
Love is a pirate ship plank to teeter over,
tread oh, so, precisely, there’s no safety net.
Love is an enigma,
origins stark but untraced.
Love is a compromise,
swirling selfish and self-serving to selfless.
Love is variable x number of cows for your daughter,
no, love is about much you’re willing to sacrifice.
Love is slow release firecrackers,
spark, spark, sparking.
Love is a hardboiled egg,
cracking open heads and cases, peering in,
let’s find out what’s inside that mind of yours.
Love is a stomach ache,
fearful, gripping, slippery, stuck.
Love is a chasm, falling, falling, falling, fall to fill.
Love is “a hamster wheel.”
Love is oily, stringy hairs, not yours, on the adjacent pillow.
Love is a fresh wound that never heals.
Love is unknown, incomplete,
repeated, over, over, over, under,
says so much, can’t say enough———
Love is not ends of the earth,
is not ocean or sea.
Love ain’t no river wide nor valley low,
is not rhymes and lyric.
Love is not mountains or horizons,
is not stars, studs and is not planets
Love is not “let it go and if it comes back to you, love it forever”———
Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things———
Love is soggy bathroom towels, unwashed underwear, unpaid bills, free sex, morning breath, oil changes, making ends meet, taking out trash, spoiled cheese, what the heck do you mean there’s no milk, wilting flowers, cuddled on couches watching reruns, dirty dishes, boxed memorabilia, running errands, bodily functions, toenail clippings, I’m sorry, enduring in-laws, remember that time, that’s not what I said, toilet seats.
Love is apples,
Love is oranges,
Love is gone all pear-shaped, poppycock, and popcorn
with M&M’s.
Love is full of holes,
we are full of holes,
cooked spaghetti in sieves straining liquids and sound,
something which is never quite defined, fingers can’t pinpoint,
so interminably tangled, overlapping.
Some days fatter, longer, short, severed, soggy, forgotten, overcooked,
slurped up with delight, to take some now, leaving leftovers for later,
the good with the bad.
It’s difficult, in love, to tell the difference anyway.
I dreamed of fresh-mown lawns last time I slept,
and there were no tracks and no trees and no
yellow spots to mark the dandelions and no matter
how far you looked you couldn’t see the house this
yard belonged to.
It must have been a nice house with a three car
garage and at least three stories. There’d be
pillars out front, I bet, to hold up the balcony
that walked out of the master bedroom so
the gentleman that owned the place could always
watch his guests and enemies come and go.
There may be a fence off in the distance,
making a long, unbroken circlet about the yard
and lining up the property with everyone else’s,
so there wasn’t any question as to who’s grass
was who’s.
Perhaps it was a magnificent stone wall instead,
so as to keep this perfect green as beautiful
and lush as possible, however untrue it may be.
Then, it may have been a picket line, but why
would the gentleman spare any expense?
The drive out front had to have been cobbled
and clean, mortared every spring to repair the
breaks and cracks from the winter season. The
traffic would be sparse, of course, as the
Gentleman only has so many friends who can
match his stature.
The pool would Olympic-sized, weather Olympians
swam in it or not. Or perhaps the gentleman
forwent the swimming pool, and made a glorious
fountain instead. It would be gilded with gold,
I can only assume, and would sit at the mouth
of his great, fine, shrubbery labyrinth, the
aisles of which he has never wandered.
Or perhaps it was just the perfect field. After all,
I tend to dream silly things when I’m having these
dreams of mine.
the sieve and the sand 