my state of mind is in liquid
drip onto the hardwood floor

i could find love in mushrooms
growing from my palms
before i’d find love in my
blood

voices outside the hall rattle this cage
like tree branches against a window

i’ve got a hole in my body today
losing all of my substance
but i can’t find it anywhere

i keep writing and all i want is to leave
and put light on a mannequin
so at least one of us
can feel warm.

When I say
that you are my Sun,
I don’t mean that you are
Luminous,
Brilliant,
Gilded,
Beautiful,
Bold,
Warm,
Or even the center of my universe.
I simply mean that
I cannot look at you
Without hurting

lightning may never strike twice in the same place
but i hope you do

right where you make me feel alive

People only ever want to ask me about
the poetry -
those verses about
busted up noses in outer space;
about the pros working
way down passed
the corner of Broad and Main;
about fistfights and hard, hard drinking.
But I built a flowerbed this weekend...
Twenty two tastefully irregular stone blocks
in a crescent moon shape,
filled with the blackest of soils.
The sweat of toil.
The digging.
The planting.
Exotic grasses. Asian maybe?
Purple and yellow flowers.
Zinnias or some **** thing.
All covered in a thick blanket of brown mulch.
It's a fine thing to have dirt on your hands
instead of blood.
No one ever asks me about flowerbeds.