The irony of
a smoking awareness stand
yielding free cupcakes.

If ever you find yourself
surrendering to the darkness,
look to me—

Listen.
I will never claim I can save you,
Lord knows I can't save myself,
but I know, for a second, our
eyes carry a comfort the dark
has no power to put down.

Listen.
There is nothing that can
divide the bloodline that streams
into our hearts when we touch
skin, when we grasp and
piddle at the wind, searching
for a safe breeze to cart us home.

Home.
Fields of lilies, dayflowers, marigolds,
things we thought were silly before.
Look at us now, prancing about
like the couples we made fun of
not so long ago—love was a virtue,
not tangible bliss. We can touch it.
It whispers of springtime.

If ever you find yourself
surrendering to the darkness,
look to me—

I will swear to whomever will
listen that I will never again
be that far behind you.

Dear.
There is always light; it is simply
a matter of opening one's eyes
and finding it.

The morning after was cold.
I shielded my eyes as the blinds cut
open; scratched glass gives
way to a beautiful summer morning.

Avoiding my pupils at all cost, you
scurry out of bed and mechanically toss
your clothes atop that slender frame
just in time to say,
I should go. I can't disagree.
I haven't the conviction.

The sores on my arm have all but blackened;
bruises beneath the surface of my
skin retell the night like a lost tape:
we came home, we made love,
we rode a euphoric steel railway in a lumpy,
benign mess of an evening.

Now it is morning. Birds are chirping,
children play games in the street.
Light shames to shine on our battered faces.

To place name on faith
is blaspheme—aside from the
faith one names oneself.

The wood-burning fire
resembles a cusp of cloud
set ablaze by faith.

And I said to her
Those lips could tear worlds apart
as she smiled that smile.

I remember your naked body
like it was yesterday,
bending about your bedroom, quiet as
drifting rose petals stripped straight out
of a summer sunset sky.

I remember our naked bodies,
touching in discovery, swimming oceans
between ourselves we never fathomed
into existence; never questioned out of it.
For the first time, I felt at home—at sea.
Innocence no longer played part.

After the crescendo, I saw the clock beside
us on your nightstand. I used it as an excuse.
"I really should leave, it's getting late," knowing
full and well that she could see right through it,
right through me. I lept through the doorway,
sparing a look back, parting with my shame.

I got home and ate pizza with my family.
My mother and father chuckled about a newscaster.
My brother and I bickered about housework.
I went to my room after dinner and collapsed on my bed.
I wept as my eyes surrendered to darkness.

I am lost at sea—and so is she.

There was the moon
and then there were the stars,
so bright and boisterous,
far away from us. Less familiar.

We were always looking up. Be it
the stars or the moon in the night sky
we always found a way to stir up
some trouble under the endless
cover of darkness.

There was the moon
and then there were the stars.

We loved the former because
it was close, reliable, beautiful, serene.
We loved the latter because
it was adventurous—you couldn't
fit your small fingernail on it.

We loved what passed. We remember.
All the stars are gone. Now there is darkness.
Nothing to light the way home
but memories and kerosene.

Cupid sang about sunbeams
and blooming grapevines before
darting a single arrow in either
of our directions—I suppose

he knew better. I suppose it was
all part of the Master Plan, because
if there wasn't a plan then what's
the point of planning a *******
thing anytime, anywhere. There

isn't one. It was written that I'd
meet you. Shakespeare said something
tragic about it, but he certainly never
felt what I felt. Not like this. The feeling
of loss is never familiar. You are talking

underwater without a snorkel or air
to pray with. Cupid never misses, that's
part of the plan. But maybe, ever so
often, he hits the wrong people right
in the ***, and forgets to pull the arrow out.

I talked with you on the phone the other day.
You were telling me how you visited the zoo;
spent an afternoon watching the zebra graze
and the lions lazily roar at civilians with digital cameras.

I talked with you on the phone the other day.
You were visiting the zoo, crying on the phone—
How can they keep them in cages
Locked away as if they don't feel like we do
You forget
there are people in cages without keyholes
there are blistered eyeballs scanning a lightless horizon for a lock pick or a clothespin
that may allow them to puzzle their way into the gears
There are people who die searching

I talked with you on the phone the other day.
We chit-chatted about sunbeams and lawnmowers.
We were happy, careless.
There are no cages here.

Only keys.

They say ****** is an unforgivable sin.
I beg to differ.

Why?
Because it's fun to differ. And also, I could fathom myself committing ******.

I'd do it with a knife. It shimmers—it's clean; cutting flesh with primal ease.
It's painful.
It emulates so many feelings we have—brings them up to the surface.
You can see it in the victim's face,
right as the blade slides in.

They say ****** is an unforgivable sin.
It's a sin, no doubt.
—I ask now for forgiveness, for what I may soon do.

A sick reasoning of mine is this:
"In some defeated way,
I feel as though you should be thanking me."

Smart poetry



Christian pacifist punk artists shaking their fists at the government elite

Mothers dreaming in Tide-to-Go and quiet nights

'"Bed-head" implies you have a bed to sleep'

Cracked lips, because its cold and I don't display that spring-merry ****

Smart poems sound like silly songs

John 8:7

Greek reference to Aphrodite and her thousand noses

'I haven't slept in four days'

Atheists asking fundamentalists to dance at the prom because you're alive now in this moment at the least

'It's silly to think we'll be alone forever'

Finality—some kind of closure

I can't seem to sleep

There are those who die with the wind,
and those who inherit,
staring, steam-eyed, at the blistering cloud scattered sky,
scanning for a safe place to land amongst our feet.

Everything starts at the bottom.
Sun peaks over the orange Horizon,
Sea crests and bellows, ebbs and flows,
History begins at the Beginning, and so on.

People start at the feet, and wheel their way up.
So often there are toes caught in the zippers,
the hairs of our feet singed on the swelling soil
we plant our feet.

A Sun rising.
A wave crashing.
A human being born into a dying world,
deprived and blinded,
it's beauty swept away in the panic of a coming storm.

And some day
I will sit on my back porch
in infinite, consecutive jest,
staring at the night sky.

And, best of all,
I won't trouble myself wondering
why I have the itching inclination
to look up.

And, even more so,
I watch, contented,
a celestial understanding:
The stars. They speak.

Save a piece of me.
A laugh, a smile, a subtle flicker of my eyes when the lights turn on.
You have to remember something, so make it small. Don't keep the battles,
the strife, the words I said and never meant, the words you never thought you knew.

If you save anything, let it be a moment. A second.
So brief, so inconsolably unmemorable:

A candle's flame. A flower's lonely petal.
A breeze, pushing us both in opposite directions.

He was a father's son:
quiet, respectful, hard-working.

He loved the winter. The snow flaking
off the trees. Chilled little prayers.

His father had seizures. Every once in
a long while, his father's eyes would lock
his mother's and his being would tense,
frozen like Cybil's lake across the pasture.
Writhe, foam at the mouth.

He was an old man now. He remembered
everything about his father.

His raspy, charmed voice. His knowing brow.
His leather bound skin wrapped around years of a blunt ax and needy firewood.

As the son's eyes closed into nothing,
he remembers Christmas with his father. A reunion of sorts.

He would ring the doorbell, his father on the steps.
He would invite him in for coffee. He would refuse, only to say, It was nice to see you, George.

Yes, you too Dad. Take care.
Goodbye.

There were days I thought I'd never open my eyes,
days I didn't want to, days I have long tried forgetting.
We called it the Aftermath.

The calm always settles before the storm.
So they say. Hardly could one handle the
violent twists and turns in the winds you spun—
I could never quite quickly enough grasp
a branch to hang on to.
I wasn't yet strong enough. Yet.

The days after the storm, I sat idle, nigh—catatonic
outside your apartment door singing 'Sweet Caroline' like a *******
child because, in my childish, young heart, I thought,
You can hear me. You're listening.
The return silence was deafening.

Nothing was audible, save the radiator buzzing in the hall and the fierce, intrepid lapping of winter wind against a broken window pane.

On her arm, the tower of Pisa bumps back and forth with her swollen sleeves.
On her back, standard holometabolous insect flutter flames it’s way heavenward.
Her thighs house songbirds, yellow, flightless—beauty is her.
A cobra draped around her neck; an olive branch psyching back, rearing it's head, infinite.

Her body is a shrine of shadowy ink.
Her cheeks have become temples.
I lie my faith in them alone.

1
O black golden cleanser
O ebony shrine ballast
Pry open mine eyes,
sharpen my senses like cutlery
& envelop me—
Is the day so young

another cup please, just to
Get me going

2
Heat
Not quite that of a fire
"but trust me, don't touch it"
Let the smoke stiffen
& soften become the
summation of particles & at once
lose all sense of being

I'll have a smoke now—
maybe I'll kick it a little later