Wake

You know how these things smell like flowers. Buds and stems, buds and stems. Sometimes, they seem invisible...  their strangling scent owning vision too. It's not what I wanted, this odor too strong and inappropriate. So inappropriate. It is my own. Mine to play with. Arrange and plan. And they are here. Just because they are expected to be here. My own mind, pulling from the typical. And that is wrong. And I delete it.

Starting again. These things are like something I've orbited. Toyed with when I thought it was the time. I should have planned better. The scape is nearly dead. I don't know what to choose but subconscious is the best medicine. Spoonful. I pull memories... shapes... and hold them like play dough. Skin... warm faces... smiles in neon... lighted signs in our own happy language. I read you, made you, and I will display you well. Dismounted and adorned.

You know how these things smell of nothing. Rich nothing. Safe and sightless. This is more right than the putrid flower, the clog and compressor. I need room to shed and disrobe. I am flattened and skinned. It's a fresh sight to be strewn among the fragility... deflated and pale. I say something of remorse to my old shape and kiss could haves good bye. I can't be with you anymore. Not me. Not the awakened, alert me that can remember... that learned what it was to have a memory so linear and precise. I can't live in you.

A fake fever, a fake death. To hollow away this sick. You know how these things must be. No visitors, no tears because in this new place they do not exist - they can't. Glazing blankness, cross of fingers... This will work. Fingers to lips. Adieu, free flow... You know these things must be.

He from the Sea

the moon shallow dives to meet you

under a midnight sea

you never looked more lovely than this time

wearing 4 feet of tide

an oceanic light

shuffling your private deck of cards

suits of flowers and a crystalline count

your game is insatiable

the way you swap poppies for lavender

your eyes dressed in book bindings

i sit quietly tucked under water lilies

swallowing your incantations

the murmurs of your dewy heart

i'm nourished as only empty can be...

by you.

in your palest skin

flush drained to the sea

the blossoms......the winking stars...

i wish I’d been the one to build your play

dream the colors and set them to tune

the essence of light, sky sugar digits

so pure...

you never waver

only to bleed your grin

for the petal ripples

the bite of the figure

you know what's underneath

Die to Slow

Slow, slow die...
Breathing is a hobby and I give it up
Let me lie. Please let me lie.
I plan on dust but dirt under my bones wont hurt me 

Your wish
Your command

I will follow whomever puts me as they will
I'll lie still if they wish it, too
Just let me rest
Rest

I never planned on a die. A death.
But they planned the rest
So come to my funeral and hurt like i hurt.
Miss me?
Miss the point.

We'll See

A hair wrapped at my collar
warns me of rope
I pluck but I miss the root
Stunned and gagged
I'm so sorry I missed you.
I'm looking back at picture day
and thinking of the black teeth
"Primp and mutter something toothy," He says with a lisp.
Flash, you're it.
The camera looks so pretty.

Keep me Up.

My hand has red valleys.
The silver pleads guilty and slinks.
It's me.
The fan in the corner braids hair with it's fins.
The rib cage denies cancer.
Contagious.

Green

There's an effort
while I pace these
yellow walls.
There's an ache when I tell
the snake:
"Hiss? I'm sorry, you can't
'really' fly."
I walk wooden floors
remembering when they made
my feet dance.
Kicking my soles until my
toes couldn't resist.
Happy days.
The bird in the
corner screeches
"I'm crooked! Where did
the star
by the window get off to?"
I say "Ask the Frog, he should be
King by now."

And So It Goes

In the morning I'm resurrected and religion cooks me breakfast. 

Hope lays out my clothes and forgiveness combs my hair. 

I am washed and placid.

A man I sometimes know hangs his head and we weep and often plead insanity. We seldom remember 11pm. 

When the blinds close and wet laundry slaps our faces we kiss and giggle. We won't be that way, he says. No, I shrug. 

We become laughter and strange voices and screen voyeurs. We are stationed in ritual. We walk an hour hand's precipice.

We nibble and dribble and our brains bubble up. We peak. 

Our needs divide. 

He: Time is of the essence. 

Me: I've only just begun. 

He: You must speed up.

Me: You must slow down. 

You: I'm doing this for slumber.

Me: I'm doing this for life.

You: You push.

Me: You hurt.

You: I'm leaving. 

Me: And I?

You: Profanity.

Me: Cries.

Bustle and mess and screams

The dried laundry meets the rug. We are in ruins. 

A man I couldn't know shakes his head. I cry as he curses me and dubs me crazy. It's now 11pm.

And we don't know.

At night I'm executed and hurt digs me a careless, lonely grave. 

Defeat pulls off my clothes and fear lets down my hair.

I am filth and I'm an earthquake.



Zip It

Shut Face has no mumbles & says no words

Shut Face is a floorboard stare-down & a nodding corpse

Shut Face lies & limits feeling

Shut Face forgets to respond

Shut Face pretends she's not human

Shut Face will not have needs or wants

Shut Face hears nothing needing reply

Shut Face acts as she must

Braille

casting red on a 

white page 

like a Pollock invitation

spatter frames holding blind art

nervous sputter pulse

derailed 

paled

Gravy

You just said...

You never said.....

You told me that you passed the stuffing.

What stuffing?

The Thanksgiving innards. The kind roasted inside a silly white sacrificed beast

Where's your manners?

Manners?! Cutthroat

Gnaw my bones, check the stars, pick my all alone battle

I choked on the wishbone you stole for me. Now it's yours... Again you score

Let's bow our heads and hide, say our prayers with a little peach luck inside

You gotta lotta drink inside you, girl

Better let it lay low and stabilize you(!), YOU, the girl

For real, my tongue is sick

It's stretched on a stretcher in a straight jacket form of stitch

I'm a maze, turkey table, pass the gravy, coat me

It's how you play to make my mind disown me

Let's pause, tongue twister men

Dinner's dead, back alive, realigned

Give me clock,

Give me breath,

Give me gravel fists instead

You wanna wish!

Flavor

I think about what "Sharp" must taste like. I think about my uvula pinning saw-shaped letters to my tongue as they march up my throat like warriors. "Sharp" is the blood spat from a slice of words, bled in tailored ribbons to a helpless (and perhaps guilty) victim. It is "Sharp" that wins the clashing banter, the tweaker of features to signal "Smug" and "Satisfied"... Where the eyes ease to the pause of slim slits, the mouth a narrowed ream of a split stem, curling as a wilting petal, dead with the finality of the quarrel. "Sharp" is victory, is quick wit, is ruthless. A murder of speech and a shot gun clothed in a silencer.

i knew you

the place. soft. 

silly string warmth. 

tender.

glow stick hearts. 

valentines on clotheslines.

safe. so safe.

it was.

Non

My palms are upturned and empty. There should be something soft in them. I know this from my heartbeat. Empty flesh. Empty creases. Dry rivers. There's never morning in these hands. Only nights... over and over again.... I hurt and I wonder why it's never now. Never now. Always almost. And why I love so hard with soft milk in my tears. I hurt with a shame. A desire to hide these splinters and pluck them free. Foreign. I don't recall their shape, recall anything, except that foggy glow of hope that mumbles in the hallway. She's not my friend. Any longer. Not my instant retreat. Pain replays in dark hair. Reminded. Unobtainable.

Waning/Waxing

sleep walking

ghosts

hang lazy lanterns

a shadow minion

creeping

like long birds

in slippery wind

patient vessels

nodding

while the pretentious

calendar

cuts

the moon in half

Branded (a dedication)

Unlucky

crooked, depraved

the alarming walk

down the scowling canvas

that calls itself the

dome of the sleeping hours.

that fall.

which shivered in gravities fist

unfortunate

I suckle my worries

and

murder my wishes

I do not

dream

tonight

Smoke and Tin

The curl of a lazy

tendril

summons the dazed

smoke birds from

their tin nest.

This,

the shock of the crawling

sky,

writes me a poem

stubbornly

with ivy

stooping to

pray

under each

apostrophe

Up

I look above the mountains high

cratered star squares in the sky

fragile planets

blown from glass

the shivers wrinkle time at last

Born Again

in the cold-blooded mist

at the heart of the sycamore soiree

i burn my match of aggravation

and bury my stillborn days

this is the end

this is where i disrobe.

Loom

the

stranger

beats

out

a spasm

of

laughter

as

he counts

down

the petals

of

a

curled away

flower