My arms numb, my chest
collapsing, my head
sinking. I am alone-
why wouldn’t I be? Here
I am, left aside-
rot and wonder all
I’ve left in this.
Wishful thinking never gets ya
anywhere, and I’m done
with all the plausible reasonings
I had stored in my artillery crate.
No defense is good enough, for
I’ve clearly met my match.
I found you, my treasure, in the dark,
the rain pounding, falling in streams
down our faces.
I found you, light and curious,
beneath the cherry blossoms, bathing
as we wandered defiantly in Spring.
I found you, the wind
at our backs, the world before us
as we pressed on gracefully, down
whichever road we thought best.
I found you, mine, when
you were not mine to find.
Bodies like barbie dolls, void
of all nature, all feeling, all
joy and splendor.
Ken dolls, all of ‘em-
stupid bulge spots as if
there’s something there to hope for.
They’re all the same plastic,
inorganic lumps waiting
to try and rub against
whatever kind of senseless parts
I don’t possess. Me,
I’m one of them-
the lifeless, the shapeless, the
unpleasurable mockery of all
which is holy. I am unfit to fulfill my duties.
And, well, this whole world’s a joke.
With only Skeleton Man at my side;
I waited,
and waited and
waited,
thinking maybe, just, maybe,
you would be
there, at my ready, here
for me.
But never, of course, but only
to sit,
and wait, and
wait
some more.
So to hell with all of
those, the crummy, decrepit
sex-in-a-jar types who mere-
ly lie out, palms open,
to receive what they had
wanted. Right there
for them when they need it.
Ah fuck ‘em.
Goddamnit, sirens,
I’m already at my teeth
in overwhelmed hysteria,
my heart nearly poundin’
out. It is One Thirty Six in the Morn,
and I’m tryin’ my damndest
to get my shit together and
not have a mental break-
down and maybe even sleep,
and all you do is continue to Zoom!
past my house with your stupid
wailing banshee shit and keep me
from having a moment’s peace,
for chrissake. Jesus
I need a dose of yoga.
I wouldn’t be here, fumbling my way through the dark, over-crowded rooms and the sickly, slimy basements searching for the door with calloused fingers; I wouldn’t be in this cave, hiding and hoping for others to miss what I’d done; I wouldn’t drag, head-to-floor slowly, scathingly, begrudgingly through this supposed gateway to Paradise; I wouldn’t be trapped among the dead bodies, barely up-right; I wouldn’t be filling my cup at every empty oasis which offers even the slightest mirage of saturation. If not for you I wouldn’t be stuck staring into a blank wall that surely must bear your image; I wouldn’t look around every corner with my heart all a-flutter thinking to see you waiting there; I wouldn’t rejoice at the melting snow, convinced it promises your return; I wouldn’t imagine your heavy hand upon my shoulder when I need you most; I wouldn’t hold your relics close while all others are gone nor dance with your shadow. I’d steer clear of the sadists and their Opiate Swells and their cold fingers and their dirty hair; I wouldn’t nearer myself to those undeservings who flee from my good graces, would not identify with their self-loathing, their regression, their silence. And if not for you I wouldn’t have known otherwise.
Where will you be, my love, when the trees become
skeletons, haunting,
reminding me all is gone?
Where will we be, dearest, when the time comes
for you to return
to corrupted territory awash
in heatwaves and malaria
while I remain, lost in the land
of death and ice, alone?
Why not run
away to where the death-trees cannot find
us, to create our own edenic gardens?
What keeps us in our hell-holes held-up locked
in spiraling misery?
Left upon my pedestal, alone, towering
over my self, my glory
never-lasting.
Others come to poke and prod at my
spectacle with their sticks,
at the ready to run
at my slightest twitch.
Nevermind-
it is Hell enough without their
flames, licking
at my open wounds drawn
by needles and reeds and thorns.
Sorry am I to them all
for their insatiable curiosity, driving
them, inevitably, far away while I am
left still, stuck, on my teetering, fiery
tower, trapped among the
ruins.
My back has developed a
knob in the spine where I
carry my things with
others in tow.
Soon enough, perhaps, I shall
be gentler on my mass of lop-
sided, shaking bones.
My heart is fine by
definition though a bit
panged from constant
overdrive. So,
perhaps I should cool it on
the coffee.
I take solace in
your sad-puppy dog-house
stares from across the
room.
For as much as you’ve hurt,
ruined, embarrassed me,
at least I know I’ve won.
Soon I shall be
in Europe, entwined;
away from your flu-
like misery.
Booze burns my dry, cracked lips,
searing down through my
innards. I make like
this is relaxation- French
Brandy, lounging-
when really I am simply
bored.
Where are you to help decide
my next move, as I fumble and thumb
my way through the dark brambles before me-
the final remnants of
your Rabbit Hole?
I hopped on to your bandwagon
myself; my demise my own.
Perhaps I should have
known you’d slashed the tires, cut the brakes,
before we’d even started.
I pretend the pillow next to me still holds your shape.
I pretend that comfy mass is you, safely wrapping me up,
Enfolding me within you while I dream.
I pretend you still need me, or even want to
Need me. I pretend that you’ll wonder where
I am when we’re not together.
I pretend that all this is a joke,
And that whatever she says to you you spit
Back in her face.
I pretend I am different, that
I am not like all the others you’ve deserted only
So you can sulk in your corner, lonely
And bothered. I pretend
It doesn’t bother me when you act like I’m not
There. I pretend there’s
Still hope, when all there is is
Still-hope, stagnant.
I pretend you’ll come around
Soon enough, ready to take me in,
Drink me up with each kiss, each hand on my face.
I pretend these things are real,
And maybe, not just hopeless
Memories.
I know there are Those, but they are not him, and he is not that.
And, in my deepest animal, I wish it were-
Careening, demanding, needing
me, my arch-in-back as
I twist before his Readiness, his angst.
Hoping for the best only to find nothing;
a shrew to tame for my own dear desire.
I am a ghost.
Once lush and full,
I am now lost-empty-
floating through
the rooms of my memories
past.
I am no one, I
am here, invisible,
filled and fueled only
on images of a finer day
which once held me
tightly in its arms.
To each room,
I am but scenery,
or rather, a
soft breath disturbing
crisp, sweet, putrid
air, in each pressing moment.
The frigid night air burned
as it poured
through the crevices of my
protection.
Exhilaration, I thought.
It was propelling, all of
it, on the cusp.
The dimmed, lamped concrete corners
awaited my next stumble.
Moments spent
in front of a
mirror not mine in a
bathroom within a
bedroom not mine,
convulsing,
twisting endlessly
into who I am, or,
who I contain inside,
writhing ‘neath my
shell soft and sweet and
I can not let her out for
fear of shock, but
do you know her Power?
Do you know she’s there?
If and by chance you were
to see her
radiance unfold,
only then would you know-
understand- the grave errors of
your will to deny
such a Beast in lady’s
clothing, waiting to
Take you at the first
chance.
I chased a bright red
sunset to its shore,searching
for its end.
When last I caught it, it had vanished.
The juxtaposition startled me when
I realized I’d been chasing
our own brightly-colored ending,
only to find it
gone.
A smile found
my face, finally,
after they left and it
all passed.
I am home, now, alone
in my quiet kitchen illuminated
by nothing but windows.
All is calm if only
for a minute
and I am contently
discontented.
O sweet Mother-Child,
a barking siren to us all,
you may bring me the most
of any- who else
might make me equally
enraged and sorrowful? I
grovel at your feet
to know.
For now no one may
tear me from my solitude
as I anxiously await the next
storm.
I looked up
at the stars and immediately
looked away.
They mean nothing
if you aren’t
looking too.
You are my bridge
which crumbles at the last
minute,
just before we reach
the other side:
safety.
My darling light, how
can you dim? knowing
I need your elusive illuminations.
Might
I rely on you just once?
I am worthless under
your shaking branch.
Wet
bathing suits and towels remind me
of a beautiful day-
together.
That I musn’t forget the
sweet serendipity of smaller seasons
expired.
But a bowl, eyes
like a chino,
the temptation awaiting
my consciousness reminds
me of moments that
could have been, but,
never were.
In the flickering lamplight
I listen or your call,
the sound from you returning to
this solid soil.
~
I awoke at 5, whence once
the jazz turned to talk
and I, alone, in my bed,
was reminded of my solitude in the
night. While all others slumbered.
~
Alone I sat, I sit alone. Listening
for that sound, that
single signal showing me you’re
near.
Never knowing if I should return
home, giving up the search.
Your sketchbook, your soul,
given to me to stow for the while,
sits on sheets and somehow I
sense you through it. You will
be back to reclaim what is
yours in time.
At last, as though two long-lost sisters, they have found eachother. Two meteorites colliding, making a BANG, and take over the gaseous nothing which surrounds them. They combine their forces as the great Dynamic Duo that has finaly realized their strength together. What can they do now? O what possibility! they have as a double-force of ignorant weight-throwing, refusing to back down. They hate themselves, eachother, and everything around their pocket of nothingness. They are drawn together, somehow, against nature, by their negative poles, though Nature herself deemed it so to happen! Fuckin’ finally! Two chicks to cluck about neither hide nor hair, together, thinking their askew’d thought The Word.
Last night I swallowed
my French heritage.
It was everything It could be-
soft murmurs incomprehended;
foreign.
Breathing into me, knowing
I understand.
A dream unbelievable
Hours of my wildest imagination
right before me
at
last.
I have not yet woken up.
