'literature has a way of owning you'--
(the author said, after the book-signing;
and taking me behind the shelves, showed me
what possession meant, riptide trough and swell)
---much as the sea lays claim to one adrift,
to drown or hold aloft, then pin to bed,
displacing breath; choke...release...toss free, choke;
lungs drenched: retching silt, pelagic darkness
spotted with the faint transmuted sun.
whether full to glint a myriad in sky,
or blind to evanesce in foam and spray...
an atlantean crush of symbols: lost--
my inner mythic fades to distant waves
revising how i write of self, sunk

i might continue on with that trauma
i might subside.
violation carries with it sensate boons of empathy
blue sky overrun with thanks
arched-back breath

you're afraid to ask me
are your tears painful
but i spear your question with a surplus love
shouting joy
as if there weren't a plea
tremulously groaned
share with me

it isn't just release
sweet freedom laughing out of doors
you and she regaled in bursts
iridescent meaning
hung in curve of lock
nape and open palm

he tickled me with love
i imagine
behind his merciless
IBM grin
sadistic chuckle

my grandfather loved me
built me a swing
a wooden airplane
gave me a bicycle
a cape to wear
he taught me pong and pitfall

wielding a brush-broom
handlebar-moustache
a favorite game of his was giving raspberries
testing limits
his iron fingers
wringing squeals of laughter sour
under breathless ribs
tear-eyed begging fits

his old white t-shirt
too small to hide his plump
hairy belly,
i'd tickled him there once
poked him where my cousins pointed
giggling

when the kick came
i felt it in the heart
more than the back of my knee
bent from the sudden
sneering force

when i asked him
years later
for a book from his dying bookshelf
he joked with a growl
the last emphysemic sentence i remember
he said to me
you gonna bring it back when you're done?

i remember
the rules of the tickle game
and love him back
for his sarcasm
firecrack generosity




.

the one i write for
is the one --
i write for one,
the one among --
the only one--
one lonely solitude
i write for one.
you are the one;
i write for you --
the one who reads
and knows i write
for just the chance,
that one among
the many, that one
i write for,
that one
that you
who reads and feels --
the one who knows,
the one,
the one i write for
is the one you know
as you.

a confessional screen
chambered in opaques
                        the pearly gates would sport
checkers sovereignty with grime
between myself
               and the other side of this poem

another acolyte had founted
             from our species-widened narthex-maw
                              the answer to the test
                                    the answer i have tested since
despite the veto of a roshi's sleeve

while adults justify in frowns and threats
commandment-etched
i am a child still
           aghast at drawing lines in sand to mark the living
                                           from the soon to die

one i knew who drew such lines                                  
             for whom a line was drawn to mark himself as well
not just in votes and homeland hate-speech
you see
he crossed the line
                        no unadulterated childhood can cross

he shot  his  own  face
                              or at least his face was shot
                when he was found
who can read the final lonely moments of another
                                                 when mistakes are easier than ownmost acts ?

bombing bullies politicking death
                 can sanctify the safe
unpunctuated traps
                     dividing moods in swallows
pills
swilled with undigested fear
                                   of nozzled death
mercilessly sudden





.

"then i'll tell him where to buy a cheap cell phone  and when
so that it can't be traced to our  beautiful weather today

perfect for the beach  don't ask where this C-4 is from
we have plenty  azalias are in bloom

this is all the electrical wire you will need
and in here that's for the fuse  my wife will be here
to trim the roses this afternoon  she shouldn't need

to come in the house  some batteries  ask if you
need more  electrical tape  a thyristor if you want
should be enough for the circuit  help yourself
to whatever's in the kitchen  i'll be back in two days"

awakened cows chewing
a mountain pass
dawn warms their massive eyelash rows
clinging drops of dew
spark in rhythm with the cud

darkness rumbles distant now
clouds dispersed to other nights
while metaphoric bull unhinged resounds
the cosmic rut

must i hide my love for this
unweave my judgment from my sight?
what in me defies all sacred holiness forever sung?
bees will ravish even newly opened buds
who am i to battle with the lightning's surge?

presumtuous coverings
can net me willing lustful
stars i see a field i open fertile
ecstaticly unblessed enough

lost heroic i had thought to know
pretends a second thrum
i see in random eyes the breaking sky
and lightning branches over snaking crevices
a sound of faultlines folding free
tectonic sexplay deep
in lava belly
far behind the summit mount--
there i see the sun a base as well
earthen seedbeds heating heights of life

space is cracked!
vast width enwombs the narrowness i preen
in nervure's shine,
a sponge mycelial with soak of raining
carbon underground
the drumming hoofbeats shake and settle
days dehiscing spinning sun
to somber eve in active rest
dreaming pasture real
within a trailing effort's ease