the pain

imagine if I had pain in me
all through, unidentifiable
pressures and spasms and shooting,
piercing, throbbing pain
pounding with every pulse and I went
to the doctor and she was like TAKE
YOUR CLOTHES OFF. ALL OF THEM and I'd be
like BUT DOC, THE PAIN and she'd be THE TESTS
ALL CAME BACK LIES! There is nothing wrong with you
EXCEPT the pain! You're FINE!

many people live this and I'm
not one of them. Don't think
for a minute I'm not gratified,
grateful and

eventually
afraid

grown wise

people tell me
I've grown wise. Actually no

they seem to think I already was
wise. I think
I've grown wise enough to see
how wise I've grown
since before,
when I rebuffed their appraisal
of my wisdom on merit,
and now, when
I accept it.
Really,

it's probably
likelier I've grown
unwise enough to accept it. However,
the barometer on crap like this
is subjective. I prefer
to honor the benefit
of the doubt
in such case.
Wise,
arguably.

spiraling strong

Whoever kills you, if
first, they made you so strong
that it could take you years
to die by the blow,
just spiraling down -
so strong, any moment
you could pull out,
you know.

Might as well
call it even. You know
you never were that strong
before. In your whole life,
the strongest you've been
was the moment she
walked out the door.

frequent and fond

A disturbing pattern
begins to emerge. I look back
on my life of connective drift.
My attempts to reach out to someone
lost - and explain how I care,
and think, and miss,

and

it's always the same. I assure them
how

They come to mind, now and again,
as friends - and I welcome them in
and we reminisce. But

I never do call, despite
keen wish. "You are always busy,"
I chide. "In my mind, and I don't
want to interrupt your stuff. I suck
reaching out. I'm bad at it. But

frequent and fond

are the times I suck."

My attempts to reach out
are not carried through.
So no one is reassured. Things
change. They probably know.
They could easily guess, but
they probably suck as well

at being estranged.

like lists

If I made a list
of the things that I like about you,
half of them would be me. Because
of the things you do, and what they
bring out.

Just the person I always was,
but with far less doubt
in these ways and subjects
touched. Risen response and honed
so much, and grown
to the point they can bear
much more
without groan or protest, except
possibly - in attempt
not to run up so gaudy a score.

The rest
of the list
would just be you.

But all of it
is to your credit,
dear. In all
of these points,
you are ever true.
As each becomes
ever so much
more clear.

matter at hand

Whosoever
Took a turd
In hand and squoze:
It hath occurred.

Precaution.

I forgot the last thing I was worried about,
but I feel like it happens a week from now.
There were mental notes of something to do
- foreboding forearmed by a month or two,
but it's gone now. Only a feeling, perhaps.
A definite memory, caught in the catch
of a worry that's flown, leaving only a sense
like a bodiless chalk outline on the floor.
No plea, no defense, no idea who's meant
to lie down and let out their blood
for the clue - and patiently wait
for a knock at the door. I suppose,
next time I should jot down a note
so I'll know what to worry about,
just in case it's you.

curator

It is not the past
we're nostalgic for,
but the masterpieces
that memory stores
of moments with flaw
tastefully painted out.
We stood facing futures
and mucking about
in the joy of a now
that has gone so bright!

It's not worth recall,
disappointment and doubt
- but so much between
those omitted details
glowed so right.

With a once-treasured
friend, we can mount
in a flash, exhibits
and galleries stretched
for hours. From spare
back rooms, stacked
crated and safe, indexed
to an inch of our lives,
we have kept our fate.

It is ours. It is just
and fair, we omit
a few lesser works
of our cares

and truths
to fit.

Now when we look back,
there is no other place
that we'd rather be
than this version of it.

free

The face on the storm. There wasn’t a
fell into the teeth without
nineteen-seventy-eight, between two
and green - a timidity.

approaching breath

The stealthy breath
and soft approaching
step of death is
killing

me

or maybe it’s
the thought of how
we used to be

or maybe it’s
whatever’s left.

still holding

Still holding on
to the sense memory,
in muscle and nerve
more than brain, I see

and touch you again. The
smell of your hair.
The warmth
of the glow
of your skin
in water.
I told you
so.

"I'll never forget
this moment," here. Right
where we both finally
belonged. We're

clear.

fishing expedition

The most lurid lures with the sweetest barbs
were strung at the ends of our lines entwined.
We yanked and we tugged at our clashing rods,
and finally decided to give up on fish
- and just pair ourselves with the wine.

“The it of”

It
ugh
uh
I
don’t

exquisite specificity

I love you with exquisite specificity.
All your sharpness is smooth curves,
presenting to the world the harmlessness
you would have it deserve. A touch
of pity, only just. Cutting edge
and points rotated inwardly
to play in light and bite
no hand, except and only
winningly. Such bite
is quite a prize I feel
I've won a time or two;
I thank divinity. But
really it's just you.

Prepared to be fair

The people start fighting
before the war, declaring
as if it to save face,
or reset the score
for the planned new glorious
vicious charge. Supposed to be
over before too long, but
somehow it never
goes that far.

shining noir

With all the swank jazz glamour swagger
of an age when integrity was cool, he
manfully squared his shoulders and strode
into a world of black and white, wrong
made right, to play the fool card
with one hand

while the other just rode.

The plot
knit together like broken bone,
all set, isolate and let rest
to groan and grow in pains
taking months compressed

into running time messed
with loose ends, knotted up
like a Gordian tourist attraction
and cut. Some test

for the hero of law. Proves
everyone guilty as hell himself,
then takes the fall

in coup de grace. As usual
his impunity proves
immovable.

Back in the day,
that act could play
ball.

body above

Yes, it is
one weird mystery
how a great good thing
- by elevation
in importance to above all
other great goods - is diminished
in state and neighborhood.

The physical aspect of us

is demeaned by being enthroned. Bizarre!
It makes sense. Whenever we disparage five parts
of what's best, we bring down the value
of good itself. Of everything blessed,
in our eyes at least.

And so the sixth part
we’d venerate (some try,
for sure) we find
has actually been bled
of its good. Reduced
in state. If we wish

to get it back,
we can only do it
by letting belittled good rise
a little bit more, stretch out
back to its natural height
and depth. Then

the physical again
becomes sublime, restored
to glorious highs, deep breaths.
It cannot live,

you see

chopped off at the root, cut up
into trunk and limb and crown, and set
on immortal pedestal, for a bet.
Life can imitate art - but
it can't live it down. No,
life cannot live

reduced to art.

Day at the Beach

We are soap, we are water
We are clean
And our minds are rings
dipped in wind,
our thoughts are iridescent things
We are salt
We are water
We are foam
We catch wave back in
Wash up on sand
We are home

the reasonable grasp

If you do, I will personally see to it
that you are permanently inconvenienced.
You will find yourself removed from
further consequence. A sort of impunity
free from cares, if that appeals to you.
You won't be in position to object to
how it feels to you. It isn't a threat,
just an observation of my intent. You
can do as you please, but it's best
to proceed with a reasonable grasp
of what's consequent.

edge of slumberland

The things you say soft
while you fall asleep, breaking
in upon your own thoughts
as they trail and swim,
and seep, and sink, breaking off
and back on, are pieces
of secrets I know
by heart, all wrong.
With each time, each
slip and wordfall
that has come soft again
as if ever before to fill in,
to clarify, to let once
be known for all time: and why.
My breath held like a glass.
Your breath like a page, your voice
falling like pen,
and drifting pressed
indelibly into
memory, telling me
you are mine
in illegible scrawl.
Undressed, and
Incomprehensible.
But it's fine. I'm
beginning to know
by now, for some time
just how to decipher
what you mean to me.
You're falling asleep
again, that's all.
I am still waking up
in moments like this,
in this dream. I'm beginning
to trust how this goes. Let it
be.

the jutter

I jut
suddenly
forth into the sky
across the same stretch I always,
over and out above
the sea
washing in beneath me
in ever-eroding crash
and spray, in waves
eating waves.
They are carving for me
a feather-bed
wherein one day I will lay
my dashing and broken head. But

for now, I jut. Irrevocably.
Immutably moved by my inward
thrust into outward hold,
immovably held
in the negative space
that surrounds my must,
my need, my savagely
cutting jib - and they say

I strut!

Don't believe one
lying word
of it.

I jut.
And jut.
And jut and jut
and just as if carved
from living rock, living ever since
in a state of suspense, surprise
and a start of sudden
continual shock,

I am giving myself
in habitual pose
like an innocent cock
in a doodle of dithering fret
and sketch, of constantly weaving
background noise. I stick out bright
into ratio, calling signal to me

in a static grace of dynamic poise.

Autoantagonism

The autoantagonist
antagonized himself
using bits of others'
innocent gift to seed
rain around, hang lightning on,
without ever really
seeing the wrong,
or the need.

He's done fairly well.

He only was sure.
He only could tell.
This person was
fucking with him so well.
"Oh well," he fucked back
"If that is the way
they intended to play" - but was it?
Was it?

Was it always this way?

Ascribe bad intent
without any wrong
to actually pick?
And call it a catch!
And make it a fit,
and throw it at them?
You're their problem, now.
It isn't much match,
and no fuel to be lit.
They're free to protest
their innocence. Hell, if
they can do it surpassingly
well, you'll admit their gift
of concealment and stealth
to yourself, and accept
their apology - which
you supply - for what
they protest they did not
imply. But you know
you were sure. You know
you could tell. You
don't need to find

actual wrong

to smell.

Atlas hug

ignore it while you can,
you two
hold a hope for the whole wide world
when you
come together
to show it something
more, you know - the moment, now
can be ignored,
if not deferred

the moment, then
will fly straight through
and into memory's
treasury
always seems so rich, so
empty
always seems more than it
can be

ignore it 'til you can't,
you two
have known a truth
that cast the real into the shade,
and played an all-star sky
across you each in alternating
night
this world has made.

you hold the world from both sides,
and squeeze. It gets
much bigger still, but still
it lifts
eternity

and makes a space
for time to kill.

and if the worst
can't come to pass,
because we weren't there to meet up
and cast it down -

who will play our part?
I guess, whoever's left
in all these empty towns. And if

the best can't come to pass,
or worse - we find
it's come and gone -

who will play our part?
I guess, whoever's left
to get it wrong

inviolate

The line

around self is absolute,
and ought to be inviolate.
Because it's not the prettiest hue,
(indigo might be) but it's
a better fit. Above, beyond
we shade into invisible. Ghost-lit,
our stains and whites aglow,
and higher still, x-rayed to bone
revealing something miserable.
But underneath, within that line
sit all the colors beautiful,
'til we hit red. Below, beneath
we rise and surge in furies,
freak and pound and burst
from groin to heart to head
in urge by instinct cursed,
keyed-up and beaten down
until we have become

divisible.

"Note to Self"

I am going to take
your life and shove:
step carefully along the bluff.
Do not doubt promise, threat
and wish. I’m going to take
your life and kiss
- air-kiss it ‘bye,
buh-bye, ha!-ha
I’m going to take your life
away.

I’m going to stick it
where it goes. From up
on high, to down below
ten stories down,
so happily ever
all the way:

on broken rocks
a-frolicking we go
in breaking surf.
Your broken toes
and fingers, neck
and ribs will twist
in breaking hurt
through gaping rents
of parting flesh.

Let blue green salt
wash bright red salt
into a rusty broth
of brown. Let fishes
far too small to see
gasp wetly in this
coming out,

and coming down.

a lifetime is like

a lifetime is like
we all deserve to be killed
by being dragged behind
fucking snails. Onward,
we cry, without stopping
taking time for tea, for beer,
for a quick bit
of bite, for company
and for finding good.
Building lasting foundations
in each other
designed
as we should
fit
for eternity
upon this ever backward shifting ground
some stand the pace, as most
fall down

"Prep time"

Softest palest rose expanse,
cordoned off by strap and catch.
Shoulders, neck, hair gathered up
splurging white in palm of hand,
turned to slather on your back.
Slick and slide and evened-in
Glisten, polish down and down
- skipping over boundary string
Then slide up under, evening out
and doing rounds, as morning sounds. Now
further on we go,
like so.

Here we have
the small of back! No one
speaks this guided tour,
every sight is aching lack
and covering uncoverage in greasy,
sliding handsy streaks - so much
as can be neatly done, before.

We've reached the border, now. Do not
impeach this blue-bright line, unspoiled,
fun and slightly taut - but loose
as well! This flimsy scrap
of fabric screen for modesty
and style and hell, for such
a pretty thing as that?
Let's hold our

peace.

A peek or two
was not our fault.

There, done. Almost
well-done. We've reached
the bottom edge,
and covered each
and every naked inch (apart
from strap) above.

Well, to be safe, all bets
to hedge? Go underneath
to length of fingertips, so let's
be sure
we don't get burned,
your skin
so innocent
out on the beach.

We come correct.
And just a little smidgen
more, which after all
is earned. Respect.

last

I'm the last cigarette in the pack
you crushed, when you gave up the habit
of using us.

I lie in the dark, it's crumpled close
and I know I am bent, but still good
enough
to be bad
for someone

I hope.

“Relief Duty”

The watch stood guard o’er golden dawn
to bring in day with solemn song, and then
the guard took up their watch to sing the rain
across the crops and shift the sun on westward
course, ’til dying day relieved their chores.
They then could skulk to some dank hole
and cheer, and hoist their beers so cold. But
it was yet but four O’Clock. The watch caroused
down by the docks, and wouldn’t show for hours
long. The guard stood on, and cursed the watch
and cursed the time it had to tell, until
the watch came on.

nothing succeeds like

The devil's a succession of undersold souls
Each passes the job to the next, as catch can
They drive a hard bargain through a well-looped
hole, and the next thing you know
you just can't understand.

"charmed I'm sure"

Of all
of the men
in the universe, I
am the one with the
weakest curse. The
brightest dim to the
widest depths: a surface
of infinite shallowness
it's a birth defect
of decrypted code
just lucky I guess
I don't even know.
Don't ask how it is
I believe I've seen
the eyes are the windows
of soul gone green. You're
mistaken, there though. This
is no picnic. More like a buffet
for the ants, hand-picked - and you
dear and I are the caterers. All these
things that we planned, but there was
something

else

we forgot to do first.

the trick pt.2

You never know how close you are
to give up on your dreams, after all
that far you've come on fumes, believing
in stars - has it ever occurred to you
that you are? Yes I know, no one knows
your special trick - except
lucky few you've turned on
to it, to their great amaze
and a rave in review, but
that trick's not the only
thing you do.
Is it?

"Sunday Morning cartoons"

“Sunday Morning cartoons”
The gist of Jesus
went out to play
in the world of fallen
leaves and vines. He did
magic tricks and said
magic things, that the rest
of the world thought were
just fine, eventually. But

they did not heed.

So He
gathered the apostles
and sent them forth, saying
"In time of great need,
assemble yourselves
into a giant Robot Jesus
made out of humans
with superpowers! And I
will become the light
behind the eyes, to shine out
and steer, and fire laser
beams!" So they did, and
they all fought crime.
And the people were saved.
"Thank you Super Jesus
and the Apostle Force!"
they said! And it pretty

much
went
on

just that way.

"we still doing"

Are we still doing
this? I could have
sworn off a dozen times,
but I thought
you would. It isn't
as if the good
we found
in the early on
has gone bad, just not
kept good. Kept
fresh. It stales the air,
and sours the breath
of the one we loved. For me
it was you, every
time, all the way. For you
it was me, and
not enough.

smack trash

You make me want to talk smack
and not get smacked for all the
dirty trash talk I call "all that"
with many oh so cocky a brag
and boast, how I'm going to go
to town and eat smashed avo toast
off your lap, you thought you had it
but I'm happy to say - girl, you do
and I'm a give it to you anyway
you like, and absolutely no way
you don't! Where's the fun in that?
I don't see it, and won't.

revocation

To myself, I
mouth the words,
as the sentence expands farther
than the air it shaped, dying out
in the stilling

of my breath.
The sentence
goes on,

but the words left off
can only be read, or guessed.
They don't
mean

or make
what they could
have made, or meant - if blessed
by the sounding voice
I revoked

when I sensed
the rest. I suppose
in the end, we have
had our choice.

case by case

I kinda want to be the corpse
in the tv detective episode,
an easy acting job for me. Just
show up on an angry press conference
on a screen, in the background - Then
sat in a chair, looking dead
for a shot.
And a reverse shot
- the reaction. As whoever came in,
and discovered me: shock, grief,
probably remorse - maybe they
feel guilty about it. I was
killed,
after all.
And they did nothing. Well,
cut you some slack, people! You just
came in. Discovered me! You have
to call in

the main characters, see

what they think. Yup.
It's a case. That's the last
we'll see of me,
except
some photographs, evidence
materials, maybe - one detective
spots something canny
- what can it mean? I think

we might need me for a few
flashback scenes
in case they get hung up.
I could interact with
the main characters,
you know, it could be
the psychic episode. I
could solve the case

and marry the sexy detective
which

would outrage the fans,
okay. All stuck on the whole
will-they won't-they aren't
they? But,

it's a plot twist. No show
has integrity if what you expect
is all they can give.

"division of labor"

I can't complain about the job
the service I provide is good
- not perfect, better, best
perhaps, but welcome, and
misunderstood. Still, either way
we give self up, it's just a choice
of how and who - all others being equal,
I would rather give it up to you.
Not give up in surrender, no
Not give up in retreat, or loss
- just give up certain power,
though. A mighty servant
is the boss.

"iced blood"

The secret held and hid away
itself in closet, shivering
and liquified and gaseous
reduced to masses quivering
and shifting phase from form
to state and back into
some back of mind -
That held it there, too
long, too late. Some one
has come
to secrecide.
To plot and track, to
open light upon our secret's
sensitive and life-drawn
clamped, vampiric skin!
Who opened door, left
window jarred, who
let it in?

survey plan

the alien came
with a survey plan
entrusted to not upset
a thing, but to find out
what makes us tick and tic
and whether the bomb is
worth worrying. It watched
several days, then sent
back reports: on love
and war, and everything
fair. And then the armada
came to evade. They only
escaped by the skin
of their hair.