Strings plucked by cold fingers on cold hands.
The hand-bone's connected to the heart-string....
Sinew rasps against brazen cords, etching orchestral symphonies on the stone in my chest.
Riding the waves of screams, cries, songs...time.
Upon that crest I ride, ever away from that distant shore;
     Ever away from that distant hope.
Ever away.

Caught in the tide of cold spring air.
Cool air sifted through fiberglass filters. Menthol kissing lips, freezing the air across my teeth.
Welcome, Nicotine.
Welcome to my body; lift me on your crest, carry my inhibition.
Invoke your calm upon my weary mind and let me forget I am alone.

Alone? Or...alone...?

Faces will be forgotten.
Sand covers cracks...sand covers much....
Time covers much, but not all.
Who will you remember best? Whom will I never forget? Who won't I have to?
The sand will fill the gaps, but...my house is clean....

Clockwise from the front, right: chap stick, lighter, change; nothing; wallet, gang-ties; pump; phone's in the jacket.
This is my identity, always with me - my companions. But none are company.
None can give what I seek. None, it seems.
Desolation is a feeling. And feelings console.
At least you can be certain of their purpose, at least you know who they are.

Who are you?
How will I know?
When will I see that wry smile and be certain of it?
Give me that stone heart, that I may etch my symphony upon it.
Let my sinew warm those brazen strings.
Ride upon my crest.
Be my Nicotine, my sand...my certainty.

This letter was not meant for you
it was meant for me with you
to that crystalline time when we were two
before the shattering was through.

The mornings in 
when we lay oblivious to the shuffle and the city din
when the weight of the world was still 
not enough to budge us a single inch 
from between the linens.

So I recollect
all the fragments I thought I left
I'm not one to dwell but what else
is left for the lonely boy at the bottom of a well?

But now there are three
There's you and there's me
and there's who we could've been
And I've not spoken to him yet
as I'm not sure this specter is real
Or maybe I'm afraid to ask if he once half-lived,
was he thrown from the wheel
and tossed down the well here with you and them?

But I've fooled myself again
What I saw as a window
was only a mirror that needed mending
And what I heard as your voice
was always the wind
hurling back at me my own laments.

Beauty brutally murdered my captain
One touch, and the crew deserted
a hasty mutiny to an unknown island
Where I before with calm weathered
the waves, now the torrent upends
the bow, wrecked upon rocks
that could've been havens.

So I'm thrown from the sea to the sands
Left alive by a wiser hand than
I, doomed to make beach castles, just a man
mending the grains, seeing the slate
wiped clean again and again
forever banned from the mountain
and the densely wooded lands.

One day I'll abandon my post
cut short my careful tending
and set off from the coast
Leave behind the crooked lines
and SOS signs, the feeble moats
Face the interior, each step deep down
and further down into the jungle dark
and every fear the most
Hope beyond all Hope that all I own is Hope
and one day reach the sun, then I'll know.

And what keeps me shuffling through the dark?
The thought of you shuffling too
alone and apart
Not the thought that our end
will be as our start
but that the art
of the whole **** thing
is all we are.

Tourist, who gave her eyes
to the fishes and the sharks.
Ingenue queen of the lingering darkness.
Tourista, chain smoking in the rain.
Perfumed winds blow from her mouth
dizzying the Phoenician sailors with longing for her shores.
And the moths circle,
searching for her cable knit heart.
And I will go back to my darling,
my darling tourista,
when you my darling are gone.
Us being strangers of the night
and enemies in hollow places.
Tourista prays to ooze juicily
at last round the bearded lips of God.
Tourista swallows sleep
and swallows deep.
Tourista lost in translation
between valley girl slang and punk rock idols.
Pushing pushing pushing, push em.
Tourista of the long white neck, neglected.
Free of love nibbles and nicotine kisses.
Though she longs for their ghosts
and strokes the scars of their cousins.
Her screaming, rolling head full of tinder and ready to ignite.
Like the loveliest of hand grenades.
Tourista who's heart swells and empties with the tides,
all Jackson Pollucked up inside.
The punch line of every joke. The object of every desire.
And tourista rattles with wheezing.
Tourista vacant. Accepting reservations.
Calling dimly she prays to the highway dogs
and hound dogs and squealing pups.
Tourista of the pure soul, sprinkling ****** lamplight
like vestal seeds.
Though she implores every living thing to dampen the flame.
Hold tight, says tourista, happiness is surely near.
But she hides it away in her bedside table and hopes she will forget.

My Sweetie,
My Baby,
My Love…

Crashing through the morning
Like a
Bull in a china shop
Like a
White man in a jungle movie

**** chest-rumbling eleven- o’clock-pm voice
Echoing, echoing in the six o’clock am sunrise

Clearing the mist…
Scattering the dew…

Disturbing… the… peace…

Would never hurt his feelings and say
Baby please don’t walk with me

Although I can’t see myself causing him pain
At times I want to make it plain
And say-

Honey…
Shut the hell up…

You’re scaring all the animals away
Mr. Woodpecker’s not pecking,
Ms. Mockingbird’s not mocking,
And I haven’t seen my young squirrel friend today
Then I missed the opening of the Morning Glories,
Cuz you were standing in the way.

But alas
These things to my dear sweetie
I know I’ll never say

Cuz my loud baby
Loves me
And THAT,
Much more than my early morning walk,
Is what gets me through my day.

Sweetbitter kiss caressed
lips. esophagus. stomach. chest.

inaccessible 'till death.
untouchable--so close to the chest.

unable to put out fires, burns
will have to rest
where they lie smoldering, watching
eyes walk bye.

I close my I.

Carry me, now--not home
not to neverland
not over the rainbow

Just carry me softly in sweet-smelling acidic things.
--a little corrosion does a girl a world of good--
sing me songs, wolf-in-sheeps-clothes, that my mother used to

and bring me gifts on angel-dusted wings,
nothingness never before made greater feeling.

Our lives themselves strived for meaning while we strived for the reason for being
the way the great cold faceless hands created
our unyielding . . . softness
separate from and not unlike a feather
equal both in whimsical light, lack of value, disease and helplessness
great beauty, plainness, and utter insignificance

Us little things are great only to those with great imagination--
light in the clouds,
break in your fever
blip on your radar
the fast one before the flatline always seems so much shorter than it should. Shorter than they said it would.

I relax
sweet relief
sweet goodnight

we'll wake up and try this one more time.
we won't get it right-- you can't
get it right

give me this bip, this sleep, this chance.

*******, we'll still try--
to get it right sometime.