keep close to me
you and your mistress
american dream
soon you and your wet feet
will be hot as ifrit’s armpits

your lovemaking was like old books
burning the truth from your head
camping on the carpet of cowardice
a tent made from blankets
but your trailing yellow streak thinks
we’re outside
where

between the madness and the blind she is waiting
her breath is graveyards
she spits headstones and banal epitaphs
dead decades before the deceased
what are you sprinkling on cold biers for?

you hide it so well
you’re so dead inside

so set the house on fire
sweep up your dreams with dust pans
burn her picketed prison
as skuzzy as motel linens

turn your head and cough
I promise this won’t hurt
me at all
and I promise I wouldn’t lie to you
much more than the next saint
and pathological liar
trust me, I’m a doctor
in theory
and this is for your health
I think

This life is:

A collection of
Words
Misdirections
Puns and bad jokes
Open ended questions
and one way streets
Spreadsheets
Trailblazers
Square ones

East Sides
West Ends
and all the avenues
Jigsaws and equations
Between
the next traffic light
and equal sign =

Do you hear me?
He loves you.
He loves you!

What are you
going to do about it?

Why is it so awkward?
I didn’t make it awkward.
You did.
Because every time I ask, something inside you says,
“I should, I should, it’s right.”
But you say, “no.”
Something squeezes at your intestines,
getting caught like a moth halfway up your esophagus before you swallow.
But it’s there.
Something says, I’m rejecting it.
Something says, I’m spitting in his face.
But we’ll unravel miles of colored yarn balls
Longer than a curious kitten
With this and that
With this and that
With this and that
Yes, we could take a ride on this carousel and believe me,
there’s more than enough rope,
and there’s a horse with your name on it.
We can go around and around and around
so by the time we’re done, it will be hard to tell who’s who anyway-
Impossible to wrap it back up, present it as truth-
These gnarled, knotted strings become tripwires,
tripping us up
letting us give way to pretense- pulling the pin on explosions-
Messes that we couldn’t possibly seek to unwind and glue back together.
And there in the middle of it all you’ll say, “see, I told you so.”
But if you told me so, then why is it still awkward?
So let each be his own spinster
Pick the thread that best suits him
And let him trace it to his own sense of truth, you’ll say.
This, after all, is the road I’m on, and what right do you have to tell me that I have to pick one?
That only one is the right one?
Tumbling over tripwires, stumbling into traps you’ve laid,
bumbling backwards into the nets you’ve created with our words-
Your tongue twisted trails leading to no where but back to your own entrails stretched
as lifeline markers to navigate our return trip through the rabbit holes and loopholes you’ve crawled-
When you’ve finally found yourself and found there’s nothing to be found in yourself-
When you’ve willingly pulled every last organ out-
What will your whimsical words have wound?
I know the answer.
So you can spin it any way you want.
But why is it so awkward?
Is it awkward because you’re wrong?

A finger presses MUTE

sun glare silhouettes
a dying plant
streetlight
stop sign
leafless sycamore
empty mailbox
canadian geese in file
a leashed dog dragging its owner
two runners with white earbuds
momentary vehicles broadcasting phosphorescent joists
as reflections play life on the windowpane
and all the world is stuck inside two centimeters

If Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived
then I say, give me more wisdom than Solomon.
If a man unmatched in wisdom
found his delight in the ceaseless gathering of innumerable riches—
the captivation of hoarding of chariots and horses—
and the pastime of collecting seven hundred wives
and three hundred concubines of foreign princesses—
I say, give more wisdom than Solomon.
And if that harem could deceive his heart,
convincing him to build shrines of idolatry
to worship the abominations of Moloch and Ashtoreth—
rejecting the very God who gave him
the wisdom to attain all that he had—
I say, give me more wisdom than Solomon.
Tear me in two.
If Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived,
make me a beggar.

the only thing I don’t want
is getting to the end of this life
and regretting I didn’t speak loud enough

Where’s the line for Santa?
Oh where, oh where could he be?

This Chistmess
This is Christmiss
Christmaze
Christmaddness
Christmustness
Christmastide
Christmaswaves
Christmaslines

But surely this isn’t Christmas?

Mass
Masses
Mass introdus
Mass exodus

The malls have opened.
We have been commissioned:
Ite, missa est.

the hiding place survives
between
the fibers of loose leaf
and the prick of graphite pigment