All I seem to remember
Are the hollow eyes
Peeking from behind damp walls
Walls dripping with misery and the cold winters day
In a land where no flowers break through the heavy clay
Even though they try their best
The beast always catches them at the stem
Tears the blossoms out in calm rage
The feeling sold by its empty eyes
Like a useless spy
Wandering the streets sick with smoke
And liquor

Under starfull skies
Praying to God for a comet
To yell my wish at:
“Oh,to be more than just a clump of cells and flesh and bones
Patching together my soul
Creating something mine
The only thing I can call so“
Because I know each breach carved with the steady occupation
I could lead your hands into the gaps dug by
My litospheric plates moving
                                                   shifting
                                                                colliding
Far too soon

Now I have forests and mountain ranges
Peeking out of my veins
Spreading the dark ecosystem of my mind
I can feel the frost and the gloom biting trough my skin
The fog covering my every inch

Fangs dangerously close to bones
The only part clean of the parasites
Unlike my tunnel-disrupted skin
The penetrated veins sticking out of it

Slowly decaying away
While my heart fills my leaking body with new blood
Sisyphean effort
The life that goes to waste
But stains the flesh a vibrant red
My half-alive corpse
The only thing radiant on this grey lifeless street

The monster slowly kneels down to my side
Pierces its talon through my bone
Sells me to death
Leaves my core to rot
Defeating its defences like an unknown weapon
Injecting terror into the cold white stuff tangled around my heart
                                                                                     stuck around my veins

It sets me onto fire
Letting its own creation burn
For the sake of its pleasures
As the luscious woods burn to just skeletons and dust
The hollow eyes filling with the shadows of the light
As it snarls
A twisted caricature of a smile

Always ,
. . . kept a fire
burning in my heart . . .

Even though
in years
we grew apart . . .

Never could
just let
it go . . . let it be . . .
so now you know

We would dance
coming
in and out of view

You'd cling
to me . . .
I'd hold
onto you

Neither one
cared or
knew better . . .
what
were  we
to do ?

(Chorus)
So we
just kept
dancing . . .
dancing . . .
dancing . . .
the night
away . . .
holding onto dreams
we made up
along the way)

(meanwhile
dancing all the
night away)

(Music) . . . .

Sometimes there was
no better way . . .
not until the sun
chases the night away

so we
kept on dancing ,
dancing . . .
until
we were out of view


(Chorus)
So now
there is
no other way

Stepping back
is impossible
you say

So I'm dreaming
I'm dancing ,  
dancing
all  
the night away

(No better way
til the sun
comes streaming in)

I'll be dancing
the night away

Sculpted faces,
aging drama queens,

all the world's stages, this
is after those, these depths
of despair, where no pieces fit,

Kintsugi, fractured flash bulb scene,

an instamatic moment, a Kodak memory.

I was never one who liked silence
I'm not particularly sure why
Maybe it reminds me of childhood
Where cries were ignored

Maybe it's because of the voices
That keep rolling around
“Be quiet!” I tell them
But they increase their sound

Piercing through my heart like a dagger blade
It carves my heart to this very day
The silence deafening over me
Until the day it becomes sweet

The silence inside me
I'd rather not keep

My cat’s timing is
impeccable.
I’ve been slothful
with writing lately,
and the cats play
the antagonist.
I sit in my
favorite chair and
put some Vivaldi on.  
I’m determined to write.

As soon as I pick up
my notebook and pen,
the black one with
the white spot on
her neck jumps on  
my lap and bites at
the moving ink pen.

Her sister chases
imaginary bugs on
the coffee table, and
knocks over a slim
glass of water.
She runs away.

The newest edition to
my cat family is a
large tiger stripped
female that is
currently trying to
avoid the puddle, while
she bats at the
leaves of the fig tree.

I bet Bukowski
didn't have to
deal with this ****.
On second thought,
he probably did.

When does the
champ know that  
he doesn’t have  
It anymore?
Is it after that
first loss to a
*** he should  
have knocked out in
the second round?
Is it when his body
doesn't do what
his mind tells it
to do?  

His punches are
slow.
His legs are
weak.
He once was one
of the greatest.
Iron Mike, they
called him.

He loses to an
overhyped cute
boy with little skills,  
and blonde curls.
It was brutal to watch.

He was king of
the jungle in those
early Brooklyn days.
Old lions don’t just
wander off and die
alone.  
They get killed and
eaten by  
younger lions.

After this charade,
I hope the champ
hangs up his
gloves for good.

Plenty, long - it is pitiful.
Is it never better than to taste of it?
Empty, numb - it is pitiful.
Is it naught that is more flavorful?

In the living glass of the universe
I am a liquid,
Drink the drink.
By the marsh like mixture of life,
Split the iris,
Eye to eye.
As the electric echo of an echo
Waves as expression,
I am a particle.

I am the light

By the gypsum rose grown.
I am the order borne out of the primordial.
In weaves & webs perennial,
I am the pyramid doubled.
By the barycenter offset zero,
I am without mass & weightless.
In the predeterminants of the hypermatrix,
I am a bolt of lightning and the thunder.
By the storm of the ocean struck,
I am a standing wave in motion.

Material and immaterial.

The poor thing got
lost in the escape.
And she was still hungover
from the childhood terror.
Her personality was
ruined--redolent with
the first flowers of
madness.

She made a pretend
world, full of delusions.
A house of cards that
was laden with
lunacy, her insanity
became safe and dependent
on her never taking
responsibility for her
actions--she was a
pawn for the adage,
Hurt people Hurt people,
like Blanche from
A Streetcar Named Desire,
and
Don Quixote,
Her world crumbled and she climbed
into the abyss,
when she looked
deeply into the
mirror of reality.

It’s hot in
Missouri.
The summer  
sun looks down  
jealous of
youth playing in
the fields,
carefree and
careless.
Kids drown
muskrats with
rocks in the
stream, and have
funerals for flies.
Death watches, and
waits for
winter to come.