I wanted a man's face looking into the jaws and throat
     of life
With something proud on his face, so proud no smash
     of the jaws,
No gulp of the throat leaves the face in the end
With anything else than the old proud look:
          Even to the finish, dumped in the dust,
          Lost among the used-up cinders,
          This face, men would say, is a flash,
          Is laid on bones taken from the ribs of the earth,
          Ready for the hammers of changing, changing years,
          Ready for the sleeping, sleeping years of silence.
          Ready for the dust and fire and wind.
I wanted this face and I saw it today in an Aztec mask.
A cry out of storm and dark, a red yell and a purple prayer,
A beaten shape of ashes
               waiting the sunrise or night,
               something or nothing,
               proud-mouthed,
               proud-eyed gambler.

citing citations for professors
alm and palm in hand

My buddy Todd set us up.
Her name, I knew her name:
Isabel Fienne.
I met her outside of Byron's,
drinking a 40 out of a brown bag.
She wore black, black spaghetti strap,
black Memphis skirt, black stockings.
I told her I liked the color of her eyes.
She said her dad just died.
And asked me, "What was your name again?"
I asked her, "How about a little of that drink?"
We spent the night throwing rocks at passing cars,
dodging police, and talking about how
we liked the anonymity of night.

We woke up in an alley.

I whispered the word stockings.
She bit my lip.
We get married the first of June.

I
Here I am, drinking in my local bar.
There's a sadness in the air,
Relaxed,
Aged with the whiskey.
Cheaper.
Guy Fawkes night fireworks
are some forgotten war,
Flash bangs,
We're all in the trenches
Fighting
What exists in the smudged
Moonlight
And ages with the whiskey.

II
I've quit my job -
I hate these walls
I hate the brick dust that sits
Like an ash cloud.
Keep spinning
Catherine wheels, rocket cases
Fall from grace and tell me
Did I love these friends?
Let me hold you
My
Shallow
imprints in the mud.

III
Am I just hungover from
Halloween?
It's macabre.
Melodrama
full of the rich scent of rotting
Dead leaves,
And what the dead leave
Costumes, an ecstasy of
wanting to be watched
touching myself.

IV
I hope they know I love them.

people keep telling me
not to be like this
the way i am
don't do this
dont do that
you know nothing
its said don't hurt
because see 'hurt' is bad
and bad is bad
how can you convert it into good
or welfare
no matter what you do
and how
people will still be rude
acheful
and deceitful
its not in my mind
to see what they see
they say you know nothing
accept other people's view
to understand them
even if they are outdated
kindless, rigid, heartless
we are asked to realize
especially if it hurts
so what if you are hurt
i am asked
to re-evaluate myself
x-ray and realize
'i am wrong'
they are all right
see..they hide well
i am asked to conceal as well
but see
i can't
i suffer because of this
of my sheer plainness
of my brutality
of my severity
just to be a real
in a world where everybody
does nothing
other than hurt'
yet again
i am asked 'don't think, don't feel'
'you are good'
not knowing it's my heart
that get hurts in the end