horns squawk
   rainforest avenues
  
  exoskeleton
of cars
   arteries clogged
with unlovely   taxi cabs

fat  green  fruit
for sale
     five languages
merge into a knot
hisses    kiss    vowels
   kiwis apples pears

   black guys   basketball
debt rises like      blood pressure
stocks tumble
    but we walk
brogues clop on concrete

count  brick after  brick
sun cascades
   over roof slates
mind cracks in slabs

   (you say
Monroe      stood here)

   heat quivers
men are dominoes
suits    for the office
   a funeral

designer sneakers
   daddy paid for
pigtails   cheap thrills
  violet octagons
  on a stranger’s neck
(behind the closed doors)

today
I drink purple water
     aubergine lips
remind me
of a Tuscany Superb

   list the names
Houston   Charlton
Leroy   Sullivan
Perry   Cornelia
Dominick and Jane

(ladders lead
                away from me
                close to
you)

and back again

Midair captures me
And I don’t care
I wrap up in rapture
Exploding every flare

Afraid of a dark alter
Stomping up infinite steps

Dissipating under me
I am kept

Octagons and windy signs
Captivate me
And my dark eyes

Midair captures me
Exploding every flare
I wrap up in rapture
And I don’t care

Running to forms streams
From race to race
I yell for screams
From face to face

On a plane of peace
Worries and despair
Gone today
But always there

Midair captures me
Exploding every flare
I wrap up in rapture
And I don’t care

Hey! What a cool man you are!
I sit here and realize for the first time.
Looking at the red horizon of the sunset
Tunes of red flights in my ears
make me flow along its fumes
Peace in my heart and  yes I realize
only now where I finally am
Fully one with my red *******
sitting cross-legged on a red carpet
noticing the red sleeves of my shirt covering my wrists
expressing the redness of the nail-polished finger ends
stretched playfully
above the blue green octagons
holding a physics of the invisible
as if a ball made of color
pushes blissfully towards the interiors of my palms
contrasting the red squares of my long colorful winter dress
I see the red almond heart on top of the last heart shaped dark-chocolate
left on the table just and wonder if I should eat but I leave it
as a memorial piece of my flowing composition
while I polish the red of my favorite *** with my thoughts
accommodating a gloomy **** before the fractured rays
As if I see the reds that she once saw
before her eyes got blurry somehow
As if these reds haven't been red for ages but now
where I fully am - as I now - can see again
So I take a mirror and put on a blood red lipstick
wiping hopelessly the gush off the irregular contours of my lips
till it fits perfect
somethings never change I say relieved
I still don't know how to put on a lipstick
and hurriedly grin back to check
if all sits okay so that I can start looking at me now
with your eyes and lip
Hey ! What a cool woman you are!
I sit here and realize for the first time after sunset now.

Chained,
To walls of a white board,
As 1+2=3 narcissistically nibbles at the slowly decaying thing,
That was once called my dignity,
Because you see the school dreams of a hundreds,
Crisp red check marks, pressed on paper like a machine,
So when the teacher asks Does any one need scissors?
We all get up, slowly and solemnly as she cuts our dreams,
of circles, squares, diamonds and octagons into a...
Crisp..Red..Check mark.
And what was my dream?
for my son to look into his ****** cup of coffee one day,
and say "I'm different, and that's okay"

In a town like this
I'd rather be completely alone
Than be surrounded by you people
I can't walk/drive through this town without getting ******
That's a really bad sign
I don't think I'm better than you
I don't have anything better
But your tempers and your drama
Needs to stop
I know it's ya'lls way of entertaining each other
Heaven for bid
We can't get along
What the hell else would we do with our valuable time
Without drama
What else is there
Hey uhm
Why not try sports
If you wanna hit someone
There's a thing called boxing
Or....
Throw some ball around
Exercise
Read books
Educate yourselves
Do drugs
Get wasted
Get along
This town is only so big
Your ex is gonna find someone else
That's all this town does
Is date in triangles
Or octagons
We all know we're ***** and *******
Why not tell each other what we don't know
Like all those facts your teaching yourselves out of those things called books
Get a job
Support yourselves
Fighting and complaining is an awesome way to make money
Good job
I'm so proud
We all
ALL
need to find better for ourselves
This town
We're gonna die here
If we don't get out
And I don't want to die here

The smooth, clean guitar floats out of the speakers,
Out of the open windows, and through the night
Air.  It crosses the street, making its way to
Quiet and empty storefronts, abandoned for the night.
Two in the morning is usually pretty empty.

When you can't see any other cars out, it's easy
To assume there aren't any at all.  But when we just
Missed that blue Scion, so close I could see
Her eyes and her mouth wide open,
You'd think that would be a reminder that those
Red octagons read STOP.

You even told me that.  “Just because you're
Mad at me is no reason to ignore the law.”
But I didn't need advice from you, no passenger
Seat driving allowed.  And neither of us
Saw the black Expedition as it exercised its right of way.
And I was the only one to see it afterward.

you loved me in the color red
told me my skin was made for it
you loved anger down my throat like
color compliments
coating the most insecure parts of myself
learned how to roll grass into wraps
it was always packed
thats the only way i could relax
molded the words “naive” into my molars
when i wasnt sober
made me melt with gullibility
it was a routine
like saturday morning tv
you hated being outside
i was in love with the trees
you were in another womans sheets
but you loved me in the color red
lathered me in rose incense
made me taste red
stained the color in my head
now i can only see your bed
fire passion
ignited by my love
now i know it was just your lust
zodiac compatibility
gold meddled for accuracy
this is a color factory
using oil pastels
smearing each other
with color coated feelings
you loved me in the color red
broke red wine bottles
over my head
until i bled
dipped your fingers in the pool of ink
and tattooed down my chest
i love you in the color red
but not when your dead
i love you in the color red
flushed away toxicity
into my red wounded heart
i forgot what made my heart mine
i’m taking her back fully
opening her to the color yellow
every morning
to opportunity
to self love
to happiness
to more hurt
full bloom
to the world
an abundance of guidance
swimming through my blood
spiritual whispers stamped
on my cartilage
a kaleidoscope of dreams
our future laid out in
mysterious coded octagons
bursting with beams of blue dreams
collections of doodles tattooed on my
journals spine
and a new color a new lover imagines me
floating on

What I've Learned:

Go be what you want to be.
Octopuses live in gardens.
***** aren’t meant to be that big, anyway.

I love who I am.
**** after school.

***-wiping is important.

Consistency is for the norm.
Octagons will serve me no purpose in life.
****** isn’t a good word to say in public.
**** isn’t, either.
Except for *****.
Parents aren’t there to hear it, of course.
Things happen for a reason.

Batteries lose their power after a while.
Your wallet will not always be full.

Wearing clothes is good.
Hiking naked is good, too.
Indoors, of course.
Curtains closed, as well.
House is also empty.

Weird people get things done.
Excellently, I might add.

Music is the ultimate healer.
Eating is good, too.
After going to sleep, dream good dreams.
Silence is a gift, but so is sound.
Uranium never benefitted me.
Radioactivity is a force to be reckoned with.
Elements are of the past.

Oil is running out.
Uniqueness is a treasure.
Rock n’ roll will never die.

*** isn’t an alternative to joy.
Acoustic guitars sound nice.
Intelligence only goes so far.
Nukes are a symbol of everything I want to rid myself of.

What if the earth sat in the palm of my hand?
Like a baseball on opening day
Flashing pictures on a white screen
Like a kaleidoscope I played with when I was six
Octagons of different lives intertwining as I spin the slide

Watching souls collide like dominos
Each time a greater butterfly effect awakens
Seas becoming hurricanes
And Countries becoming combat zones

Projections of the young girl camouflaged in sarcasm
And caked on black eyeliner
To the “perfect wife” caressing the neighbor
In her husband’s study
To the college girl following the stars barefoot
After a dazed night that fractured her soul

Spinning to find a fragment of perfection
like the teacups at Disney world
Dissecting each cup of life
Becoming vertiginous with disappointment

Looking down at the world clenched in my hand
Tears streams down my cheek
Causing tsunamis in my palms
Oh how wonderful I thought it would be
If the world sat in the palm of my hand