of the four children, three are spies.  their father was put on this earth to look for the fourth.  their mother is the amateur photographer I am a one-sided representation of.  harder lives like yours continue.  statistically and in person.

perhaps there is or isn’t
a thing lonelier
than a naked man
looking
at his privates
while kneeling
beside
a globe
at the tail end
of a spin
but I don’t
care

marvel at the complex-pattern
painting such a span of swirls
light-panels less than shimmer
in the afternoon shadows on the wooden kitchen-table
biggest fear - your leaving


1.
beautiful summer-days lost in your eyes
oblivion dances like a wily-***** at hypnotising fire-licks
from our languid-bed, I'd lazy-feed you lox-on-crackers
and everything you liked
heaven never had it so good

........................till

woke up and *you weren't there
where'd you go to?
no letter, no call.. for days


2.
to overcome this fear
I brought in a  b-i-g-g-e-r  one
that used to drive me to serious-pitfalls in the past

off to the exotic pet-shop, my toes marched me
and I got one - very toxic thing on legs
without a natural terrarium

once home, I set it free
I set free.... my biggest fear
        to blot out your absence
        to overcome your presence
        to forget you

it crawled around and made a home
while I hardly breathed nor slept
and moved about on ginger-steps


3.
I kept feeling strands of your hair
          in my sleep
          on my cheek
          inside my cry
and woke to moonlight bathed in sweat

I did not wash your pillow, after weeks now
I bury my face in olfactory-memory lingering
and pine for you, but I see your missing set of keys and..

/ scratch .. scratch /

I hear a sudden scurrying
heartbeat jumps out cage
eyeballs to the parquet-floor

nothing.


4.
I'm getting used to this new pet
and she doesn't mind my breathing
                    oh, I swear she's a brain-scanner
                    when she looks at me that way
                    like she can read me.. through and through

I dare not pet, I dare not touch... ohhhh no!
       I leave her the daily-bowl of delicious, fresh worms
       to find it empty in the evening
I guess, thanks for freedom.. of sorts

one day, I left the window open
as I jotted down some poignant thoughts
at my antique-escritoire
    espied her legs upon the solar-sill
    thought she'd be running... a leaver, too
but no..    
                 she was sunning all her legs awhile


5.
the season's changing.. leaves are falling
crackle of wind in the air

now, I'm making me some coffee in my silver whistle-***
hot, solo beverage to calm my settling-mind
when.. ping-ping.. comes a text
lo and behold....
it is you...

you!


6.
delirium / delirium /
(I'm on cloud-nine... you're coming home tonight..
                                      you love me so much, you say..
                                      made a mistake..
                                       you've got something big to share..

I've taken time to prepare a special-meal.. candles and all your faves
but must pop out quick to get some lox...)


I'm back now, got the stuff now
key in lock
but the door.. jammed by a weight.. of sorts
can't seem to push the ****-door open...
shoving hard, I see........







fear compounded by a minus
simply multiplied
disaster




S T - 4 dec 13

boy, you will think smoking makes a pearl in your gut.  there will be three doctors like writing shacks constructed from memory.  to each you will deny the existence of a one-way baseball.  prognosis is a curse.  when you are curled by infancy I will toss objects through a tire swing.  by the way I am your father no one likes.  pain is not the last room the world has.  to be fair, pain is the last room

with a toothbrush.  knowledge is a sick woman.  she takes out her breast in a snowstorm.

my brother is the safe environment I’ve created for the history of my lord.  political awareness, I mean, I mean, is a darkness.  my eyeglasses tell me you’ve been to see a train station.  do animals wait?  several impatient years later, two blindfolded mouth-breathers walk cheek to cheek in an Ohio fog that combs forward worms the length of a screen name on craigslist.  I am nearly pronouncing krokodil until my tongue disappears so I can pronounce it correctly for my mother’s not frostbit ear.  as for the two, they are mistaken by the disembodied poetics of local policing as the trophy nose of an odd-for-these-parts moose.  any re-enactment is my father the victim of a spirited birth.