There is no solace,

no eye in the storm,

just a wildcat with a lost mother.

The more I try to soothe her wounds,

the more ferocious her defiance,

until I weep just the same,

whimpering beneath the thorned bloom.

I might as well give up,

and so I did,

and though passion withers,

crumbling brick by brick,

love sleeps with one eye opened in the cabin’s glow.

The once crashing cymbals are now but whispers,

of spring-dried bedsheets,

of swallows.

Echoes of the mind I’ve left behind,

like window blinds on a rainy day,

like summer rain that never stays,

the horizon I’ve spent a lifetime chasing,

always within reach,

far, far away.

In my embarrassment, you were there.

De: composed, dignified, absolved - as it were.

At my lowest of lows, you were there,

orchestrating my demise and rise.

Sweetened brow of onyx wit, 

through this faceless, shameless venture,

seeing truly, the and how of must;

divine illumination, reciprocation.

In my wayward stumble, you were there,

the stretch and snap.

Ribbons of my youthful locks,

tied there pointing.

You were there.

Angst compelled switch blade and marble artillery,

thus preserves the well-aged gratitude.

Lock-jawed and whips awaiting tender wrists,

your authority banished the coward's ossifying weep,

as sun upon waxed confessions.

My dear, you were there.

The centuries' rattling inside many dried pumpkins,

you were each

seed,

each curl beneath my chin.

Dis: posed, enchanted,

I vowed and broke vow,

you were there

in the spider web shatter of my widowed faces in dark places.

I heard the shriek of your hollow limb.

Though wintry breath s-o-o-thed and perhaps skipped and missed the depressions of placid waves,

you raised your arms in a morning yawn

like lotus

and held the lake beneath my feet.

Then with the petal blossom sucking up all the soothing,

I fell into your bossom at noon.

Large gulps; manners of our forgetfulness,

remembered on the sunken sofa beneath towered comforters.

You held my spirit and mane while I purged until Africa,

where Sahara rites came into material as cubs,

where I still fought my fathers and wronged my mothers.

You were there to paint the victories white.

You were there to chime

steel and oak -

virgin song of barbaric roaming omens.

I opened the house when I heard the knocks in three,

obsidian rays innumerable,

cloaked as one, 

the wide-brimmed shadow foreman.

We ride into slumbering horizons.

And when my blood turns to gold.

I know

you'll be there.

The best days come with the perfection of a cable-knit

sufficient for ecstasy

like the three lives of a skipping stone

three eternities, still short-lived

on a day like this, insights bounce around the inside of my

head until I open a window for the butterflies to go play

“Be home for supper!” I’ll shout over the vibrant green cascade

of a nearby imagination

Down below and far away

the feathered creatures

the ruffled, baffled, hungry again creatures

lug the chainsaws from office to office

cutting people loose

They wish for siamese twins 

but all they get are severed limbs

dreams maybe

but not a chance

just branches until the forest is left with bare poles letting in

more light than they should

there is a haze and I am no hawk

inside I find my refuge

inside

a tiny thing

sees itself through the mantis eyes of the city

this day too shall end

this day too shall come around again

Just for fun,

let the imaginary LSD flow freely,

in complete control of the children’s dominion,

knowing full well the undeniable supremacy of the place outside the playground

bend trees, ride flying pigs, walk with fish outta water, put your 

head into alligators and check for cavities and put back wisdom

teeth, step in piles of shit then realize it’s just mud, step in mud

then realize it’s just dirt and water, write graffiti on garbage,

stop time.

Just for fun, take a trip to a boring place.

Bend spoons, race alongside snails, pretend you’re a leaf and learn

all there is to know about life from the weeping and the willow, talk to

assholes like they’re saints, watch out for hot lava, put on your crown

of sun rays and walk among the royal subjects of your kingdom and

treat them as your treasured queen and her faces of joy.

Just for fun or perhaps no reason at all,

pretend the world is a big island flying through space, take the 

captain’s seat on the bench in the park and navigate us through

the years. Take your broom-hand not the eating-hand, 

the broom-hand, sweet away the night clouds and leave the

stars, sniff them all up and speak the words, “I am.” Entertain

the very probable theory that children know more than adults do and

old people are the closest to new life. Everytime you turn on a ight,

someone gets a new idea somewhere. Buildings wear makeup they 

rarely ever take off. Walk through the grassy knoll without shoes,

then without socks, and then without skin. Know that currency

is a choice, float down the river and feel the wealth wash over

you. See the sun setting over volcanic Hawaii, patches

of coral and blue ocean, all happening just above the rooftop party.

The magpie has a message for me. It’s going to take a lifetime to decipher.

Who put the moon there? It always just, appears when I look up.

Make real the hunch that there is at least one other person watching 

over the moon. Make believe everyone else is looking for the moon in

shopping windows.

Fo the sake of humanity,

walk like there is music and roses somewhere nearby singing.

Goosebumps are simply natural when new skin needs room to grow.

Listen closely to the clunk soothe over the web of light.

Listen to the distant train taking gifts of the rich to the poor.

The red and blue of patrol vehicles drive around all the neighborhoods

to celebrate peace and understanding

For fun, for your soul, for your wrinkles and grey hair, for me,

live like life is a dream and weave us a good one.

With Love, You

Safe in the bosom of my dreamweaver,

and you in the flight of yours.

We leap from our cliffs onto pillowed clouds,

never doubting through the fire,

not holding our breath in the deepest ocean valley.

Cobblestone shire leads only to glory.

A red carpet that grows like rose petals.

Troubled not by ambivalence,

haunted not by ambrosia dusk,

believing what we wish,

and we wish only true

to heart: beat and flutter if you may,

warm inside the spinster’s web

until heaven cracking roars down the vine,

the great moth shadows our cosmic gem,

rolling down mother’s face.

Salutations at the very end,

the Word, the first, of

an act compelled to start again.

I won't write two poems in one day.

I just won't.

That was never part of the plan.

And if I do,

the second poem won't mean anything or have a title.

And if I do,

I'll take on a second name,

because I refuse to write two poems in one day.

I have undertaken the thousand plus page memoir of a man whose happiness seems like a chore, though he knows the fine unknowns of the world and he could tell me otherwise, but he’s no good liar.

I have undertaken an expedition unending, though the maestro turns in his grave for one more minuet, but I’ll persist, wading through impenetrable silence until I am the wind’s favorite instrument.

I have become the offering plate and simultaneously bread basket for sinners, pillaged from both ends, with no means of giving up.

And that is my blessing, a bush-whacking machete through the jungle like a palette knife on a canvas that grows faster than I can think.

I can end contemplation and get started on dusting the shelves of the great library, find Escher-like downward escalation of tension and mystery in a single unified act of orchestra, a note is all.

A dab, dollop, splash, smudge, spill, stroke, whipping stroke, smidge, twist, rip, brush, gesture, not in vane, but inspired.

The self-sabotaging measure is always short.

Shakespeare is born dead.

Einstein is a child.

Never have I been so satisfied with the lies I tell myself.

I’m a fallen falcon who has finally learned to swim

until I am the undertow

right where I need to be

the good part in the unfinished symphony.

Create, on paper, fabric, hide, windows.

Create all over your parents' pristine white walls surrounded by their white pickette fence.

Create ideas on the toilet. 

That tends to be a creative location for some reason.

Create in air waves and pump your nerves through it.

Create with needles and pins; create with pain.

Create with delight; create with shadows on the wall.

Create with sticks and stones in the sand.

Create with abandoned turtle shells and coconuts. 

Create by the blade of your hand and start a food fight.

Create with blood, sweat, tears, saliva, cum.

Create in the pouring rain; dance.

Create funny shapes with your arms and legs that extend from the lines of your limber frame.

Create enemies, create families and children, even though most of the time we just create more strangers.

Create complications then create solutions then create conversations then create understanding then create peace

then create greed then more

then create jealousy.

Create the future in mirrors.

Create confusion on purpose.

Create a mess in the living room, bathroom, headroom, mushroom.

Create increasingly until all is unified

in oneness.

Create a reason to get up in the morning.

Create a reason to stay out late at night.

Create happiness on Green plates we feast with our spirits.

Create hunger by just breathing; create gratitude from nothing at all.

Create God.

Create another God.

Create the devil to help you forget that all is God.

Create runaway institutions to imprison growth.

Create prisons to institutionalize tyranny.

Create walls one brick at a time, one hateful remark, slanderous condescension, bullet, dirty dollar, rusty shank, preservative, automatic milking machine, backstabbing, molecular, financial, familial, meaningless, religious, terrestrial, interstellar

war

at a time.

Create boredom by creating expectations.

Create ecstasy by creating depression.

Create comfort; create lies for yourself.

Create separation and throw the blanket over the metal springs before the heavy clunkers hint at the meaning of slammer.

Create horror with irregular heartbeats.

Create shower drain blockage with age.

Create invincibility with youth.

Create youth because you know we are all children.

Create in sickness and in health.

Create by nodding your head.

Create intelligently, foolishly, brazenly, hesitantly, absolutely.

And when you're not creating, you fall from grace.

Create - eternal moments strung together to light our way through the dark woods.

My dad has a cat, and my mom has a dog.

These are animals I do not eat.

I remember a farm and a piglet that rubbed against my leg,

and a cowlick that made me smile.

These are animals I do not eat.

Once stranded in the rain,

the sheep kept me warm.

Starving, I tried to chase a chicken

who led me to a garden of turnips.

These are animals I do not eat.

I walked up to a pomegranate.

Before I plucked it from the branch, it said to me,

“Please, Mister, I have so many suns to see.”

I pick up a fallen date.

Why eat something dead…

I sat on a rock in despair and I heard its cry,

for I had split it in half.

Out spilt a stream of water,

also teeming with life.

I lied with the dates

withered until I fed the grass

and born a sheep

who ate the silent grass

That's not exactly how it works.

The rules are always just out of reach,

as if you change them yourself right when you get close enough,

as if you're both magnets facing north.

So you need the guidance of someone familiar with cosmic law,

Jesus, Siddhartha, Ganeshe, your mom on a good day, new borns, the bum,

shirtless, always shouldering the world in his burlap,

always smiling at his superimposed self-reflection and unattainable fall fashions,

a grin that takes the 36-hour marathon from Maryland to Santa Monica in one go.

The world is better off because of it.

I see the white on white wallpaper-floral quiver with my heartbeat

Baboom - Baboom - Rustle - Rustle

A miracle is surviving alone,

a moon drifting off in space

Woosh - -

The shriveled up squash beg for a way out.

They beg for more poetry than rain

while the wildgrass rampage on.

A boy laughs uncontrollably while the  adults

seriously slam their eyes, 

page left, page right,

pingponging,

then relaxing and squeezing some kind of grown up joy out of every unoccupied second,

also very seriously,

contorted laughter and such, 

flagrant abuse of their God given faces,

because life gets seriously heavy.

When you hoble up to the attic,

you hope someone left a light on for you.

You want to get back lost time,

believing the thief to be one with an anatomy similar to your own,

hoping he's not much bigger,

hoping he's not smarter and more persuasive to the throne people.

You go chasing marbles when the truth is told,

run around tail hunting.

You set your sights way up high because you heard someone say it.

And that's all you wanted to hear, "Higher, higher."

Halfway through Revelations, pages start flying out the binding and joints are rolled with them.

That's one way to read the manual.

You want life but don't know how to breathe.

You want safety but all you do is fight.

You want peace but you can't stop fighting.

You want beauty but you listened to ugly people tell you what it is.

You want love but everyone's watching.

A set of stairs stretches in front of me,

painted black, railings to match.

At least there are railings. 

Thank you.

Unsure whether they go up or down.

Actually, unsure if there are stairs at all,

but I know there are railings.

Thank you.

I'm taking the time thief on a ride now,

across the promised land to try and figure out what it was that someone once promised.

Then maybe we can find a way of going about and getting what was promised to us.

We were the last to get to the ocean.

Apparently there were others, lots, by the celestial order.

Not so much bothered by the quest to understand who put the dominoes all over the floor, not that I stopped looking, I still don't know, but birds keep flying into the glass door.

Poor things.

I knock one tile over, and there goes the afternoon.

She puts the phone up to her ear.

The message is muddled,

passed down from father to daughter,

teacher to student,

friend to friend,

lover to lover,

filtered by the dust in the air,

left by the previous tenants,

bouncing off the chipped paint on the walls.

Seeping through the window panes, the street down below hums a dull racket, loud enough to cause the maniacal agitation of a soft incurable itch.

The afternoon’s enduring stretch is no match for grandma’s 3 am purges by cough. 

Afterwards, the lighter flicks and the flame flickers.

The room fills my baby lungs with smoke.

The chair starts creaking and rocking.

Next door, orgasms are mistaken for loud breathing.

The stomach grumbles selfishly at all hours.

I can hear my intimate head, scratching itself with my hands.

The mug’s thud falls with a sigh.

Nothing comes through the line,

just the streak of sun sneaking past the blinds,

hoping someone will put down the phone and notice. 

The diamond star rings for the lonely heart

The boy does not cry tears of sorrow

The girl does not see beauty

anywhere

for it is

everywhere.

Having traversed the winding river

and mended broken bones

they return home

where the diamond star sings

an eternal lullaby

and life begins once more

with slumber

and the dream of a fly

that you thought to be Jupiter.

Here’s a man who never brings tissues to the toilet in a country not keen on providing it for its public. Thus, he most often relies on the used, terribly used sheets of those before him, resorting to the sacrificial underpants or socks here and there, but he gets by on luck and the unintentional “hospitality”. 

Here’s a man who believes in the flow of life so instinctively that he dares not act in its defiance, allowing its passage through him as wind, as the foul unspoken stuff of civilized dinner conversations. He didn’t get the point of whoopee cushions. He didn’t get the point of a lot of things you and I make dirty habits. He picks his nose and slips his fingers down, tending to an itch, then shakes your hand, unknowingly to you and him both with the same hand.

Here’s a man willing to jump into the sewer for a chance to buy back time a penny at a time. He will become flame for your nights if you wish. 

Here’s a man who needs us to stop trying to reconcile the magnets and let them be. Here’s a man we chose to see with eyes closed and do not accept as even a biped, like a limping chimp or an old tree with two branches like a slingshot. 

Here is your father, your son lying in the ghostly street for your weary feet. 

Here is a cockroach snuffed and found flight from the balcony because the hotel is full of nonsense we call absolute beauty when the truth will bend our knees and dip our heads in the river, where there is a man, waiting to walk us home. 

Under this scorching orb, a world is born.

With utmost sincerity, I've detailed my life and yours,

precisioned, without error.

Proud as I am, I take my leave

through the door at the bottom of the waste bin,

into disbelief.

A past time I must stow away with the plastic army men

half melted and chewed

this will too perish

before I am whittled by my own hand

until there is nothing left by a hand

to gesture a farewell

Don’t let the dust of me blow into your eyes

I promise I’ll try my hardest to stay

Freedom is this broken promise

I’m dying, slowly dying for a taste

Find me alongside roaming manes

whizzing through the canopy of a forest to dark

I went to reefer rehab to live better days.

I started painting there,

Got clean and kept painting.

Then, I hit the reefer to paint better.

Now, I’m back in reefer rehab

and a jail for artists.

A questionnaire for the master slackers, the time killers,

a template for creative online dating personal profiles made more

intimate through self-reflection and more vitally, its perceived honesty:

Question one - why do you paint a landscape that is already there?

Questions two and onward -

How do you weave the Universal Fabric with full-spectrum fibers of light, when all that you are is paradox as well as all that you are not?

Do you consider the spotlights in the ceilings of commercial coffee chains stars in some bizarre galaxy?

How many trees constitute a forest?

Is a furniture store a forest?

Are you a crab?

I wish there were more hallway dwellers and doorway dwellers. Everyone wants to be in a room, living, great, bed, yet there’s just the foyer, the king of hallways.

Have you ever made passionate love with yourself instead of just knocking one out and getting your rocks off? That question is especially meant for those who constantly tell others to “love yourself.”

Have you noticed that reflections are just really clear shadows?

Yet, shadows get such a bad rep. What a bunch of snobs.

What do you make of the whole impossibility and inevitability of juxtaposition in light of the theory of progressive contraries? Nevermind.

Yes, I do think Jesus and the Buddhas deserve Nobels.

Would you like to help me organize a post-mortem ceremony to award all the greats? We can make jello-shots.

Everyone checks themselves out in public reflections opportunities, right?

It’s not just me, question mark.

Is your inner voyeur-soul at least a little jovial when you catch a nose-picking or wedgey-fixing?

How many dead people have you personally know?

How many dead people do you personally know?

Have you ever ran up the escalator in the opposite direction?

Are you into anal play?

If not, have you ever… ran up… nevermind once more.

Questions onward plus one -

Have you ever lifted the covers off the public toilet to see if people do use them to exchange packages? If anyone finds the “champ” stickers I left in a toilet somewhere, don’t bother, keep them. I made a lot in anticipation after I experienced the internet.

Just a few more exercises in imagination before the food arrives. Are you hungry?

\Do you like skipping stones on water or concrete more?

Wouldn’t escalators going down be more fun if they were slides?

Don’t you just want to put on a tux and lay down in the middle of the mall and see for yourself how afraid people are about confronting the unknown?

Have you?

If anything, you’ll get to see enough to write a poem about it.

People go to great lengths to show they don’t care.

It is imperative that red socks be worn tomorrow -

life would be completely derailed from its course otherwise

Like the mischievous butterfly that destroyer of innocent villages,

flapping its gentle wings, only to lay waste to hopes and dreams

of another galaxy,

a rambling ping pong of gasps and sighs

would raise from the dust

then raze them back to the ground

Beware of the pebble throwers

though they face Pacific

Make sure you wear the right colored socks each day

for the rest of your life,

because it depends on it

A millisecond defines a million years

A wink can kill

The pebble in the road launches me into June, past 2 seasons of 

hospital beds and papier-mache casts

The pebbles in the shape of a thousand kisses I’ve yet to taste.

and. each will set fire to all other possibilities.

encircling me in their unified conflagration

Angels embrace and fall to the ground in rain drops,

then bid farewell and shout their sorrows in furious lightning

We’ve made great progress today and have nothing to show for it

except tomorrow and its tomorrow

The hawk hovers over the constellation of fireflies and

wonders about God

Liam Van Busee died last morning. After dormant 

twin decades of unappreciated refinement of character, he 

finally, poetically, reached the climax, the apex, of his miraculous

blossom

he laid at the bottom of a giant pile of thorny

roses, happily bleeding for his fans, crushed to a euphoric death

outside a lover’s house

igor,

you sly devil you…

to claim surrender as your triumph

and build the palace mirage

defeated even by foolish hearts, still

when the reflection settles, it is always perfect

neither push nor pull

just a thin puppet string

from crown to king of kings

anchored in shameless defeat

sink, for a brief moment, now

rise, forever as the volcano that neither yields nor rains

down its reckoning

a beacon for the angels

a homestead for clarity

a merciful force

you sly devil you

I’ll see you next time,

and the next time,

then the next, 

the next,

then…

..

.

hello, igor

igor will have you believe 

nothing grand comes without fury

grand ventures are miracles 

gifts that knock on the front door

when they come

graciously invite them in

and be a good host

until then, be a good housekeeper, gardener,

and neighbor

for the temple within

that belongs to the lord of the believer

where igor goes to stay

and wanders no more

On the day they’re birthed from far away seeds,

they only know the way of up.

All spring-like and cute with their tender sprouts,

soon to be giants among the loT.

Each rooted beneath a different sun,

each sings a different song.

The wind will swim through them all,

like a snake in the sky slithering along.

Either shine or work the dues,

at times they shake until branches bare.

The fate of leaves paints the river blue,

What was once green,

home with the prism hue.

It may take the thousand sons,

Of a thousand sons,

but gently so they bow.

Willows even dip,

so far to touch the trembling moon.

Winter comes for the mighty with axes,

razor sharp, the young are spared,

to stay naive with reaching limb,

dream of shading secrets shy.

Meanwhile, they pay no mind,

someday, somewhere,

a sparrow’s nest is shot to stars.

They smile one smile, it’s one big joke.

I feel their message taking root,

as I laugh with them from gut to throat.

Hats off to you, who planted rows,

for i may stand,

at the very end.

I miss you when I step away to take your picture

your smile is all I’ve worn today

lost in a green cloud where there’s no tomorrow

hide in a lily field from tourists

skip the shower and stand in the rain

after I lost it all in a dark basement

found you in a maze

and you got more to say

about the mistakes that opened the gate

You don’t have to mangle your body to near total paralysis to learn the patience of typing a book with one finger, one tap at a time.

You don’t have to wait for death at the dinner table to appreciate the lion’s share.

Say your graces with the mind’s eye.

You don’t have to wait until the old man dies to miss him.

Kill him before you go to sleep.

Go to his funeral in your dream and wake up with the loving surprise that he’s still here.

Imagine a wonderful world.

Give the realists preaching practical matters a run for their buck.

If you must…

Jump from the plane.

Seek the shaman, the priest, the dogs.

Dig your love nest and plunge.

Excavate your soul from the carnal remains.

Swallow pride and ego pill after pill.

And though I’ve felt the heart shedding its petals,

those who have transcended by the liquid sword

perished not for the show goes on.

Surrender I heard her say for the first time

a lifetime ago when the word was uttered from where she sat

across the treasure map.

I’m not the one for you.

Your eyes capture the wild thing,

feathered chieftain of decorated martyrdom.

How I must reach across the cosmos,

through brighter nebulous stations,

I hop,

but impervious is the empty table,

the narrow aisle between our kneecaps,

assumptive eons that cut

our transparent bond,

luminous in death and greater death,

regret.

She is the one for you,

as is he.

One inescapable fate,

the heavenly chain,

tin cans and string tight,

undying is the love,

forth toward a soft tap of your shoulder,

emissary of my undecaying word,

gentle daybreak breeze,

from the wind of the ebony waves,

remember your jaded sun,

born of the night ocean.

     itabea shame to leave the pie in the oven

after it’s filled the room with buttered crust and melted

granny smiths

it’s done that          itabea shame to leave off the

stairs to the high rise

proper view anall but I really hafta get home for dinner

always complete

  the only difference between lettuc and salad is the bowl

itabea shame to just stop and

  itabea shame to rid of thirst before the glass empties

but the river is always thirsty

and critters are always crawling over half eaten hotdogs

       you’ve made it halfway its a hotdog not a t.g. turkey

    finish the dam grain of rice in your bow

itabea shame to find the last chapter of Grand Saga missing

morova shame to keep it sealed up and never give it a chance

cheers to all the missed graduation

    ruined orgasms very short long-distance relationships

table coaster that never became scarves

peached with nothing but bite marks all over and no bites

promises yet to be broken, fulfilled through hope

    makes me thinkatha apple tree

  that never gave up one apple, not one

the hellam-i gonna do with all these lemons

 Al (don’t remember if it’s Albert or Alex or what have you)

  but Al, after his whole life of blowin glass

one day just decides to retire and says breathin is enough

  I asked him why

and he just sat there

smokin somethin whistling laughin yawnin

wishiwoulda zipped this jacket all the way up

wishiwoulda finished closin the door

now imma top heavy snowman goin home to an empty

apartment

         I stop talking before I make an ass of myself

I quit while I’m ahead

There’s more things I don’t even start than ones I don’t finish

There’s even less things I do see to the end

when I think of that “Jack of all trades” saying

  I never bother finishing it

my heart

     breaks when the gum starts tasting like rubber

      just as the bruised cherries taste of divorce

the professionals   call this disorder deficit of attention

you’re either obsessive about the new stuff or

  act compulsively in trying to make the old anew

teeter tottering

between past and future

    between sweatpants and stilettos

between the truth and the dark

      floating in the sky with your legs hanging in the ocean

   a stone flipped is a stone left unturned

    three lefts make a right

mushrooms eat and mushrooms feed

laugh until you cry

  cry until you get the joke

      then meet me in the stairwell between 10 and 11 

and tell it to me

Ripples ripple from memory’s thunder,

as they do atop landscapes of skin,

and old photos.

Uncertain of caress,

momentously shade the aching hail of summer,

worry free,

crow free,

as wars’ cadavers domino in ever expanding octaves,

black, white,

black, white.

Soon they will pass by;

soon they will pass.

Whisper a blessing and send it on a swallow’s way,

“Line their marches with my peace,

cadence beg til lover’s gaze.”

Slept in the hall for oh so long.

It does look like a room stretched out,

in a fun-house of mirrors.

Jesus sitting in,

no one’s care.

They’re peering out for signs.

Eastward is Eden;

westward is eastward.

On the way to and fro,

perfection, alone.

Woken by her lullaby faint,

the diamond star sings.

When I realize I am what inspires me

a light turns on

I see the invisible people of the shadows

some think they’re cooler than others

some think they’re cooler than cool

the others could care less

I wouldn’t bet on an appearance

He’s busy tending to his garden and trimming the overgrowth

into lush thoughts

I’m inspired by people who think the world of an LV bag

I am uninspired by the bag

I am uninspired by Mona Lisa

her mysterious smile

DaVinci

I don’t know them

Impressed with but uninspired by the place where the painting is framed

A boy runs by obstructing the silent inquiry of baffled minds

I dig him

the countless people who talk about the things that mean the world to them

deemed menial by the intellectuals

who call themselves the intelligentsia

wise and disconnected, cute

writing poetry

about their

literary

prey

thirsty

for a 

satisfying

self

obliteration

mortified but numb

I’m inspired by clouds and people who live

with such a resemblance, signing their names

with silver linings and riding it into a

tomorrow that is always too far

I find comfort in the 9pmers and 5amers

burrowed as he rest of us do

yet with cat-like nonchalance

reactive, instinctively scratching X’s here and X’s there

There’s as much God in Jesus

as the gossip dirt that humps like dust bunnies

Fleeting gestures usher me along the merchant’s row

where I seek the perfect selfless purpose

Home

is

this park that park

   with these bad thoughts pleasant thoughts

      her black hair blue hair green hair red hair pink hair

         weaving through the aisles the sales going on for the overpriced groceries

Home is with these crooked cops good cops mindless idiots

   my forgiveness my family

      being true to God

         while understanding temptation and learning the

         tricks of the trade

            like how to impress you by screaming fuck the world

            forgetting where home is

Dance until exhaustion

   until the joy that comes after all that

Home is too much coffee

   my liver quivering

      a stroller for babies a stroller for old people

         sitting still until

            a mosquito bite that leads to

               a tunnel that opens to itself

                  trying to do too much

Home is my shadow my story tomorrow

   a raging rapid called headrush

      down at the watering hole

         waiting in one kind of line or another

            getting over myself watching you watching me

               before I find a place to lay my dizzy head

               where the pigeons fly overhead

Home is bite size

Home is full of stories of youngins pedaling too fast for the chains

then smearing their smiles along a good two seconds in the cement

   Home is a little bit of that

Home is with my limits and total disregard

   shading your eyes from death

      chugging along then turning around then telling yourself

      “damnit, I won’t”

      then turning around

Home is strawhats beaten sneakers

   warm hands cold feet sweaty palms ashy elbows beer’d up potbelly

      picking your head up then putting it down

         where you say “did anybody else see that”

            where you let the thing you judge most teach you

            the biggest lesson

               spiraling out of control and giving up way too easily

               Home is smiling through all that

            going crazy

         about what you thought love was

      because once, you forced yourself to get up there and stay up there

where love used to be

Home is the inevitable fall

   the kite up there (or is that a plane?)

      the questions and scornful glances that seem to say

      they will never understand until the day they die

      they try to try

   I close my eyes to

      a black and whie ocean of night that we once thought blue

   I open my eyes to

      the upside-down pine made of clouds

      wedged between the right side-up ones

Home is 

   a while life spent trying to be yourself

   on a leash

      walking up and down the street and smelling the flowers 

      wearing a broke watch nosebleed missing tooth

      bad dream itch on your ankle a rat you love too much

      a set of twitching wings a slaughter a chip

   putting on a dress and giving them a show

      while the floaters sway when I shut my eyelids tight

Home is

   country grammar and its crutches

      and the little girl that won’t stop jumping

         when the wind hits a wall

            total surrender

               here

Home has always been right here

   where these old-timers talk shit because they’re the shit

      taking the time to inspect every leaf and cutting them up

      with the kind of freedom and care that mortal man cannot refuse

         savory

      taking a good ass bite out of the pie and saving the rest for later

   seconds

There’s always an old home

There’s always a new home

   the first time

      in the distance

         somewhere

      where faith is

   then you go and take that one PM out of terminal two

and leave me here to discover what home is

   all over

I am the lone hawk that wrapped you in my wings 

and fell from the sky.

I learned legs can shatter 

and the shattered mended.

Wings can do more than fly.

So many locked doors and keys,

bent out of shape.

Forbidden this, forbidden that,

tempting with its impossible allure,

until the mind grows absent of the unreciprocated anticipation,

no longer a nerve-wrecking romance.

The angst is forgotten.

Seeking out the emptiness of horizon,

all we see is the mangled grip of something ancient that refuses to submit its inevitable resignation.

Offspring are murdered.

Spirits are bottled and shelved in paradox.

Spires to heaven are frozen in time where fresh grass used to grow and grow into the mornings.

I pray for their gates to succumb to rust and old age,

as new attempts are made to reach great heights,

until they too, freeze in the dead of winter,

never able to reverse the hands of time.

The cemetery of dreams flourishes.

Cradles in the aromas of our sanctuary,

I watch the soda fizzle above the glass,

against the backdrop of hollow silos without entryways,

smokeless,

pretty to some,

phallic, too honest for some.

In my hypnotic observation, I too have become the unapproachable statue.

Overcome by parting flocks,

unclenching brow stretches beyond imagination: the look of acceptance.

For the unabe spires,

I willow and wither,

onto the backs of worms and beetles,

to hidden pillars painted green with vines,

lush of surrender,

where shadows are fairytale creatures who guard the lonely,

tapping on shoulders of giants,

and wrapping them up into cocoons that will one day emerge as the peaks of our voyage, from heaven to elsewhere.

even when the ink flows not

yes

leaves, they shimmer like breaking waves

even when the ink flows not

the cauldron whistles time after tune

lava gives birth to new palms

awaiting wayward souls

made gamblers by the sea

even when the ink flows not

the sky is blue

even when the ink flows not

the sky fades from blue to lighter blue

into glass on skyscrapers

facepaint of a shy turquoise

washed away at end of day

with unsettled minutes by the seconds

tick across the pine planks

as she learns to walk, then crawl, then slumber

even when the ink flows not

windows shatter from the inside as much as they do

from the outside in

we take without knowing that we do

we don’t know how to give, so we do not

when the ink flows not

even then

yes

leaves who brave the sun

yellow til wilt

shimmy the upcurrent stream

and become the canopy’s envy

ceaseless blinking lights,

ignored until night

one and two and

all the numbers

shower on behind closed curtains

where there is a voice I can not yet reach

unsure if I’m out of my gourd

even when the ink flows not

even when the sun burns out

and the world goes blind and deaf

a heart beat yearns for attention

and within the cosmic breath

the ink begins to flow

onto twice folded parchment blessed with vigil wax

greeted by the empty chimes

the lover croaks

across from her better half along the raging rapids

of a river that will never, ever

stop its flow

There’s always a plane in the terminal waiting for its passengers.

Terminal, but really a beginning.

Some are afraid of flying, so as to say they’re afraid of dying,

so they sit there and think about why they’re here.

Some are afraid of judgement and think they’re too fat.

Some are fat and think the fat ones are too fat.

Some have minds that get violent when sitting in confined spaces,

especially next to people they don’t like immediately. 

They focus on those people, hoping to find a miracle in every irony.

Some are sleeping and have slept past their flight,

and they continue to sleep.

Some are lost in a good book and have forgotten the difference between an airport and a library.

Some are lost in a good conversation and have forgotten to return from the smoking lounge.

Some are falling down the stairs trying to get back up to the terminal.

Some drunks are still getting drunk at the bar and have had a change of heart about their destinations and the rest of their lives.

Some had been praying for safe flights.

Now they’re praying for all the new guests too,

and they’re still praying,

kneeing on the clean carpet recently vacuumed by guests who had been waiting for their flights for so long that they’ve eventually started tending to the terminal.

Some went looking for lost baggage.

Some have found lost baggage and decided to go home and enjoy the presents in their new baggage.

Some are waiting at the door of the plane for someone with a name-tag that reads “works here" to open it.

Some got on the wrong flight and are ok with it.

Some got on the wrong flight and vow to never fly again.

They sit full of resentment watching planes take off,

hoping it’s full of people who also got on the wrong flight.

And some get to the airport on time through heavy traffic,

check-in with an incompetent manager,

hand them their cherished baggage,

find their seat on a full flight,

between a man with long elbows who smells like french fries farts and a first time mother crying over her crying baby,

who asks them to hold her baby every time she pretends to go to the bathroom just to get away for a few minutes.

And they put on some static-y headphones with one side busted and a chord you have to hold to your ear to make sure the sound comes through on the one side.

And they watch the world slowly fade away beneath those wings,

knowing so sure,

that there will be nothing but clouds soon to rest their weary heads on. 

Director of smiles,

Conductor of waves,

lost woodland citizens are found,

held high in fluorescence,

vengeful palms smiting,

fold like petals

waiting for love prey.

It is I, the wrathful hammer

that does strike in the hearts of his enemy

ecstatic joy.

For every angel, a demon brethren brings forth

Miracle cumulous as the rolling thundering,

each step upon the dead of ends.

Though mightiest of monolith peaks alive, still,

crumble with my winking lash.

Stammer-harp that can’t be heard,

who dare believe in beauty false,

but beauty true.

Topmost ladder rung, authors not yet born

drafts her eulogy to dream,

the shapeless Word speaks

between Earthly gash

deserved thrash and throb

Cain and Abel as the cannibal twine

the very same noosed hand of shore

who urged for leap before the fall

who grow tired of “I told you so”.

Now, dip below become the “river is red, blood is red,

how many must bleed,

for my head is waterfall, my feet another.”

The raging sea against the beaten cliff,

‘give me night or my desert lover’.

Awaken…

The maiden waves kiss and kiss the lips of shore.

Awaken…

The creaking dance of the wooden carpenter,

The swelling sheen of the blowers glassy lungs,

The molten tongue of what we’ve become,

The goose-feathered pillow maker,

in search of life for departed hunter

skinned, stewed, sewn, and sold

all but one who has resigned such trying

wonder why the dying man smiles.

Crushed by my sword too heavy to wield

Deafened by praise and accolades

Blinded by the evergreen fence

Forgetting today for the god of tomorrow

as I pray for air, lifting the world over my head

treading for dear life

I remember the mustang

shedding its saddle at the gate

someone must have found the rest of me at the foot of the climb

Naked, then wrapped in quilted shawls

patched with triumphs and mishaps

Goodbye to all my lovers

I have found myself

something worthy of all possessions

novelty, memento, heirloom

Each morning, the doves flock to my bedside and shatter

I sweep the diamonds up and hide them inside toys of the orphanage

crows fall by my feet

suddenly obsidian gems

the boys cart them away for the teachers’ blackboards

It is the swallow that remains true

I spend each day weaving through the intricate notions of pursuit

circling as the swallows circle

into the marmalade softness that is surely bound for the mist and gloom

that is surely bound for the seraphim ball

that is surely reborn into the bells, trolleys, and rooster shrill

the irony of empty hands

I long to be held

I am scars for ink

I am your amateur painting class nude model

I am beside myself beside myself

I am the mustang

I am the vulture feeding on my own flesh

waiting to be freed

though in this moment I am freedom

leading the migration

shedding our polychrome feathers to the dark snow below

before we arrive

to a warmer place

When I breathe in,

I hear cicadas.

When I breathe out,

I hear cicadas.

I wonder if I’m a cicada.

four generations on the battlefield

cradled, naive, wise, great

and a woman ready to bring another

into a hot war

baffled by the difference 

between retribution and justice

forgive the child 

and his reflection

the red sky that burns brighter

lacks not love

I. Breathing Stone

The warm sun-basked cushion led me astray.

I never made it to my usual seat by the other window.

The light gives form to the shadowed ink

that seeks permission to tell the story of soul.

I refuse.

It spills nonetheless with temper.

I am not bound as the pages,

but when gusts reign, I am slave;

I am an instrument of love,

carpenter wielding roots of mind,

willows dipped in their reflections.

A woman looks for a seat.

"Here, take this one." I say.

She pushes me aside and smiles.

Better -on the way- than -in the way.

A nudge from God's elbow and off I go,

nice and slow,

snail's pace in a turtle race.

I am but the same fool of different truths,

lost among the found ones, so they claim.

Looking to breakaway and unskilled in art of compass,

my buttressed frame on needle spokes.

In the land of faceless planes, one remains.

Those who stand against the omnipresence are sent to lay with the valley prince.

From their Earthly flesh the mushrooms roam

in search of both friend and foe.

A marsh for every crocodile.

I wonder where my marsh will be.

Alas, red bricked trees.

I swoop down from the mossy blue,

cock my head to see a stone.

"Are you lonely?" I ask the stone.

No more than you are.

"I wish you have ears so you can hear the wonderful rustling of the leaves on the trees."

I wish you don't so you can know where the wind comes from.

"I wish you have eyes so you can see the gardens of rainbows."

I wish you don't so we can be close to the sun together.

"I wish you have a nose, or several, to take a whiff of the spring rain."

I wish you don't. Then, we can walk along the ocean floor, where the rain is eternal.

"But how do you walk without legs and feet?"

I reach across all the world.

I am as small as a grain of sand.

I go where and when I wish.

"It must be divine to be everywhere all at once."

Yes. I am even yesterday and tomorrow. But still, the most beautiful thing of all is to be here with you. Please, let me sing you a song.

"That would be grand. How do you sing without the muse's pipe?"

The land trembled in its vitality far and wide,

until I felt as it felt.

Held within its rounded edges,

a picture perfect Universe

casts a familiar silhouette.

II. Sleeping Stone

"Please come with me on my journey home." I ask the stone.

The stone no longer speaks.

All there is

is

the babbling brook and my baffled youth,

pitter patter through revolving doors,

the drum roar that reminds me so much of its song,

Sonata - wind chime,

and waves ashore, then off again.

I open my eyes to an empty space

above the concrete canopy.

The stone is nowhere to be seen.

All there is

is

Cross,

the fading smile of a daydreamer,

head on hand on elbow on table cloth,

Grace,

the straight line herds passing each other on revolving mirrors,

the square,

the possibility in the distance between every white lily and watchful aspen,

frozen fires, grey and black,

and the light that spells your name.

With fervent chin, I call to the heavens,

"Stone!"

All there is

is

the endless echoing of the bay.

Ideas too rot, like fallen persimmons hidden from the stray cat

overabundance kills, drawing out the intense competition to

winter when none blossomed

those who have reached glory drowned or starved

The perfect rose waits patiently

alone, in a deep forest

someone tell the anxious gardener to just sit

on the blue grass that gives beauty to all above it

and wait patiently

for miracle to crack from a seed

when the emptiness is ripe

and all hope has died

Someone took a bite of the moon.

In my confession, I am he.

Lies grow from seeds I'm told,

by those who sowed and smudged their souls.

Lie and lie, lie I must.

Fancy me a rubber tree.

Mistaken sorrow, my tears obliged,

cosmic grin flow to and fro.

Greedy blade lay its wedge,

softly held in familial grooves.

Neon rings, they speak of age.

I took a bite of each the same,

another moon pie just for me.

Your kiss' thorn, my morning dew.

My hope is bare, for all is true.

Stray your gaze from the pink balloon,

not til all my heavenly prayers

pull my rush by every hair.

Now that the stage is swept,

forest of sage, watch my breath,

all the lives I've taken with a sigh,

justice due.

Mother smiles, clutching blankets white.

King of kings, bottoms up.

Starfalls fill my telescope cup.

Broken and worn, it speaks once more,

my rebuttal anew as the day is new.

Ballet on, crooked toes.

Butterfly kisses of sun lashes

speak the language of flickering hallways

expressing comparison

always a slingshot aimed high

toward serpents nearing the robbin’s nest

halfway up the ladder to departure

awoken by the flood of light that lies

no warm winter

candied hawthorns sugarfrozen

by the roundabout superhighway

nevermind the dust

eyes of strawberry lies

fabled lost generation

who fight over how to bicker proper

we moved for the eternal august lake 

of perfected sun

on knees and elbows

welcomed by a howling wall

gust that once saw skin

looking for wind veiled hair

among the familiar frost

A smile pierces through all the walls we put up for ourselves.

A smile reveals the truths behind all facades.

People who don’t smile, smile.

God is always smiling.

Flowers are made of smiles.

Winters come when the sun is tired from smiling.

The sun is never tired of smiling.

I imagine drab faces are just what smiles look like on those people.

Everyone is smiling behind their sorrow and anger.

Every moon has its star,

ever carnation, a smile waiting to be held.

Crows in the sun almost look like doves

baby Jesus Christ grows up to become Ganesh

then he dies according to the wrong prophecy

and rises from the mud like a Buddha

He is not a Buddha but a lotus in Mary’s hand

until petal by petal

he becomes nothing

She places her empty hands over her heart

and Jesus is born again

The wind brushed my face the way mother does,

full of memories. She travels across time, taking me with her

even in her bitter cold gust, I remember that yesterday is sweet

those hands push the corners of my mouth up to a grin.

I don’t remember if smiling was a thing of the past, but today I smile.

The arms that hold me with firm, warm grip are the sun’s.

I see father’s radiant face shining over the towering decades.

I feel grandmother’s hand leading me from grandpa’s stoic gaze

and his unbreakable silence.

There’s a saccharine tenderness wafted this way.

The popcorn kettle pusher lives on in the wind

And as the afternoon mountains paint the planes with their shadows,

someone watches over a feast of the 30 some odd me’s A butterfly hovers over a leaf

I didn’t know butterflies lived for that long

She looks smaller than I remember

Shrinking like the ceilings and park squares that used to feel like

heaven and earth.

The revolutionary romance still sings its rosy hue through the crackling

metallic radios

she rests her chops while the earth-eaters munch and crank their 

levers to try and get to the center

I hear the crow’s raspy yok in everything

unfading because it’s truthful

undying in everything