The Apocalypse Pipe

A Divine and Valiant Tragedy

This is a divine and valiant tragedy I thought

as I leaned on the cold wet rail of green

looking out at the tumultuous sea

the smoke billowing forth from my mouth

the oddities of life spilling from a pail at my side

The black rain poured down

I hunkered beneath a canopy of rubber

and moved serpentine to the smoky joint

the vibrant, dancing heart on 7th and Riverside

to hear a guy named Quinton play jazz in the bar by the bay

The fried mannequins gestured lightly

smooth wax skin reflected orbital rainbows

and motions of dope sickness

caramel paint with light red

oozed down the walls, into the light

into the fear framed within my own eyes

It was getting late

but I didn't care

I was here to bleed

and wonder why

I shifted my position

stick dangling from my lip

and moved to play her

as she leaned on

a dirty brick colonnade

sipping a drink

thinking about

getting stuck by a stranger

on the wrong side of town

Quinton was picking up the tempo

the deadline was near

the girl and I were laughing

under the smoky plaster sky

and she rubbed her knuckles in anticipation

of a naked night savagely calculated

from the room where her heart ticks

and all is red wine and white roses

and blood tracks across the back

It was a muted journey home

through rain curtains and bees

the sidewalks were wet

the cafes were dripping

children were riding magic carpets

over sooty smokestacks

and terror-filled voices were

belching angst from the rooftops

I turned the key

she came on home

to the drone of electric lights

and cinnamon spells cast by kitchen witches

I poured her a drink

she fell on the floor

and I walked out

onto a sidewalk mirror of parting clouds

I fell down some dirty stairs

my vision all nonsense now

into a den of thieves

listening to the howls of the night stalker

They invited me in for tea, a smoke, a rail

there was a girl there

all burnt and crisp

staring at the ceiling

from a point on the wall where she was tacked

black and sparkling

eyes gaping wide

a crystal cathedral dead and gone

It was a night of walking gone bad

a wrong turn on the messy runway

and she paid the price for being born

for living once

breathing once

but now no more.

Jalapeno Heart

There is order

There is disorder

There are purgative drugs

And there are clouds to sleep on

It was a day that was easy to dance to

It had a beat

and a really good rhythm

with her standing there like she was

some great gift slipped directly from God’s palms

and she didn’t even begin to sing

she just stood there

a microcosm

a star

a California thread

beating down my doors with her eyes

and a long highway lust

stretched as taut as the yellow line

from which she had just begun

the long-toed tip toe

with valleys of grain

whipping by her temples fast as light

and she waved goodbye to her scar tissue

as it flew out the window

and died in the past

for now all she had before her

was the whitest milk

and the blackest nights

snuggling a cold mattress

reeling in the chill of it all

as does he.

They’ve shed blood together

they’ve shed tears together

and they have shredded miles of smiles

so how does he say

his blood is for her

without her laughing

and walking away

My chorus ran through the checkpoint

my liver was aching something fierce

on that Arizona wideband

that Calypso horizon swimming like a fish

across the rusty pinnacles sprinkled with salt

and I dreamt of snuffing it and devil tattoos

calling to me from the other side

and I begged for the lush

of some green island adventure

with vodka and bright vegetables

canopies on steel walkways

and jalopies with no wheels

a theater show for the man on his homemade bed

peering out a broken window

watching all the wealth rain down on him

and he was indeed the meek

and all he wanted anymore

was to inherit the Earth

she being queen sun

and he being king moon

and he would lay out carpets of stars for her

so she could step over the puddles of empty space

ever so elegantly and precious

like a newborn baby

kept clean and pure

behind a bell jar of glass

He stepped on the white, feathery scorpion

and it played the tune of a harp when it squealed

and he wondered if he were in Heaven

rolling snake eyes and sin

across green velvet lawns sprinkled by the belch of a

crisp hose

he pondered fame

he pondered glitter

he pondered perfection

and the price you pay

for not living what you feel

when all is a cool, light, tapping reverberation

and your soul feels as empty as some wicker basket

beside a raging river run dry

think of the music inside you

think of what smells good

think of letting go

and feeling for once

with that wrecked soul

He was playing a baby grand

cigar crunched between his teeth

the whole of NYC bouncing around in his eyes

and he looked around at the clean carpet

and all his plush interior

and he felt as dirty

as a slaughtered lamb in Baghdad

he was too cold to think

and too hot to cool down with ice

he was wrapped up in all the fornication

society was performing in front of him

and he climbed out the window

and started to fly

like some great bird

startled free from a bush

all around the world he soared

like a rollercoaster of flesh

and all he saw was her

standing there with her small feet

planted firmly on the long, yellow line

Everything must go

and no one reminded him

the clash of titans was near

and her feet still needed to be rubbed

Love is porcelain

fragile and thin

like a membrane so easily pierced

so I say to you

if you have love this very second

think lullaby

and take care of it

He dropped the porcelain figure on the highway

it was crushed by large wheels and

scattered amongst the tacky asphalt and cryptic roadkill

so he knew now it would be a mad journey

to hell and back

with an English girl

and an American man

and he rolled her on the dandelions

in some London park

and they ate squares of cool, orange Jell-O

making glasses out of them

and seeing the world through a

wobbly, amber glaze

the antiqued film made them sentimental

the statues and cobblestone

had a look like one would find on Mars

not the planet

but the god’s personal person

and he pulled out a slide

and the world was indeed an orangish hue

and the English girl

and the American man

never wanted to leave London in the summertime

And steered his teary-eyed red rabbit

near Joseph City, Arizona

gunning it hard toward Gallup, New Mexico

and the museum

of green pharmaceuticals

but the meditation gave him a vision

like a small film painted on the cold, white wall of a

motel room

and this particular film taught him about writing letters

and the waste of getting wasted

because he knew the angel would return

in one form or another

and she’d be happily holding out a plastic pendulum

filled to the outer rim with jalapeno hearts.

Lime From Another Time

Isaw limes twisted and sucked dry, void of juice

lying loose, tying the noose, the end of the drip

all roly-poly on the counter

like a cradle

bedding down for the night

dreaming tight

to the missions of a windmill baby lost in my arms

I heard the howl of my own soul

begging for a reprieve

from all the space junk

I took a stroll on the midnight drive skyline high 

a view from Plaza 8 bricked-up town

and the mesa where I talked to the cows crossing my

path and the aluminum clowns were all the rage

And I crashed out underneath the sky, beneath the eye of

the butter melt sun

I didn't care if the tarantulas

or the scorpions

came home for dinner

to devour me

as I wailed in my state

for the water of my life

the wind of my life

the distance that has devoured all our pasts

the soul crimes committed, remitted

that will leave us forever stranded on the wings

of a bleached thread struggling for life

underneath my morning glory sky

The gory story of all that is consumed through a

backward tick,  brass pendulum chime of my heart

swinging ever deeper like Poe through my bones

Perhaps I should of stayed

in that beautiful torturous L.A.

blasting my ride down DelAmo Blvd. at 80 mph plus

the wind ruffling my feathers for the night

taking a right at the carnival mall all bright

blasting my rod up Lakewood Blvd.

in search of another streetlight, another fight, another tip of the hat

to the deli guru at Alpha Beta

does he remember he has broken feet

the causeway of the midnight beat

before I shoved my hand like Superman

through the ceramic stall of some Ceylon grotto

that place of the double vision hall, the green mist

The jungle land harbors trickle down my wrist

blood balloons full of question marks and Listerine rain

and the boom of a heavy dungeon door like black magic

and the shaman of L.A. wonders—is this what it has come to?

Blackness in the sun, teary-eyed stumbles in the great

desert void with no warm chandelier bed to hear my pleas for

rest of the on-holiday dream kind

This all just a ramble, a bramble of ghosts

a filtering of a fractured fractal in the dead of night

walks across barren fields decapitated with wine

and the songs of a cuckoo clicking across the wires

uttering unbelievable tales of ocean liner fever

on a sea of burnt sienna glass and the wounds of town

Hush. Can you hear the whisper of the Pecos?

the vein pumping the blood mud of our sins through another

hole in the desert plane, underneath the machines hiss

And I'm off the mark this nochy (night)

my arrow is like melting rubber remnants of old dolls in cardboard attic boxes

the barrel of my stun gun like a spent erection flapping in the

harrowing winds of copulation nation

The other planet smiled so sweetly today

like it was so glad to see me

I don't even know where it is

but it had a salacious memory

like a Hollywood Blvd. lime from another time.

Mauve Imperfecto

AFrench ghost of a holy war

sat in a green iron chair on the veranda

she was smoking candy cigarettes

and wiping the sweat from her thighs

the champagne was warm

and the memories were cold

like ice cubes against her white stomach

tender glaciers

effortlessly gliding across her skin

she listened to the rough shuffle of Sunday feet

skirting across the plaza below

startling pigeons into the air

the screams and giggles of youth

the pointed gestures and grunts of adults

and as she rung another orange

against her plastic juicer

she watched the liquid run fluidly

like rain against a window

or blood down her arms

and thought helplessly

about when she was a little girl

and her head being pushed into the wall

She went inside her apartment

looked at the tangled sheets on the bed,

the spill of red wine,

the glass bowl once full of ice

now merely a listless pool

that shook like a baby’s smile when she walked

she ran her fingertips across her wall of photos

smiling faces of loved ones static in a memory chain

she put her burning lips to two fingertips

then pressed them against her mother’s moment of time

she traced the outline of her father’s face

with the tip of a chipped red nail

she stopped before her very favorite portrait of all

her husband, her children and herself

a different piece of history, a different place

when she knew how to smile

She went into the kitchen

and ran the juicer under the faucet

she looked at the bottle of wine

two-thirds gone

the orphaned cork crooked by its side

she looked at her high-heeled shoes

kicked into the dusty corner

just before he mauled her

with his strong American arms

she remembered how he had pinned her

against the door of the refrigerator

thick arms like bars right above her shoulders

and she thought about how he had stared into her

with those steely eyes

how she felt his unshaven face

when he kissed her so hard

she saw the tiniest puddle on the floor

where one ice cube had slipped from the bowl

and landed there

she saw his dress pants

hung over the back of one of her dining room chairs

the belt still looped through it

and his shirt poised like a sail

across the shade of her favorite lamp

she saw his shoes and his socks

strewn across the carpet

his boxers near the foot of her bed

She found his shaving kit

unzipped on the bathroom sink

his tie hung over the curtain rod

his set of keys on the coffee table

She found his wallet on her nightstand

his watch beneath her pillow

she remembered how she had asked him

to take it off

for it was snagging her hair

when he was pinning her hands

behind her head

she found the condom wrapper

roughly torn in haste

she remembered how he struggled

how he was shaking

as she tried to help him put it on

she remembered how his skin smelled

like his wife’s perfume and cigarettes

she bit into him

as he moved recklessly above her

and how he came all too quickly

for he was starving deep down inside

She remembered how she had knifed him

with a shiny, new butcher’s blade

as he clung to her after climax

his salty sweat running into her eyes

and the knife didn’t go in so easily

his back was bony and thick

she remembered how she had to push hard

and move the knife around like a stick shift

she remembered

how he winced and moaned

asking her in a quick, shallow breath

What are you doing?

And now she stared down at him

dead and cold

a stranger’s eyes propped wide with disbelief

with terror

with the wonderment of betrayal

she kicked at his foot

ran her hand across the hair on his chest

kissed his chilled forehead goodbye

she washed the knife clean

put it back in the block

she called up the police

and told them

about the dead stranger on her floor

We’ll come in a hurry, they said

and she rushed out the door

She withdrew a candy cigarette from her purse

as she sat on a bench in the park

She watched the children play with a colorful beach ball

she watched the rainbow twirl in the air

strike someone in the head

and she heard them laugh

as they kicked and ran

beneath a platinum sun

she heard the sirens

growing louder and louder

she heard the screech of tires

and the rapid slamming of cruiser doors

she smiled when she felt they had found him

when the body bag zipped up in a final, fluid motion

and she tossed her candy cigarette to the ground

got up and crushed it with the tip of her red shoe

and joined the children playing

maniacally laughing and smiling

slapping at that rainbow ball

beneath a platinum sun

the mauve blood

caked beneath her nails.

Neon Karma

Iwas sipping neon karma from a chipped cup

on a hillside overlooking a rainy funeral dirge,

the silver trumpets blared, the dead one stared

from out of the center of the box with locks

that held his corpse in nice and tight

The rain washed over me, soaked me

as the gloomy troop marched through the slop

and the joy boys lowered the casket with clumsy speed.

My finger slipped directly against the chip, a moment of clumsy stirring

the blood mingled with the neon karma

my blood mingled with the rain

and I ran to the nearest club

for a warm wet towel and a cascade of hermit vibes

I sat at the bar and it was like Saturn,

rings of smoke swirling and twirling

to the rhythm of the chocolate clocks

gender-fluid barflies were drowning in warm wet circles

dialing up centrifugal force against the grain

and the rain came down like rubber sheets

spilled in through a shadowy doorway,

a stranger stepped through

shook like a dog

coughed out a fog

and motioned to the nearest conflagration

I turned away and sang a song to the barfly maidens

a song I had heard a while ago

where they buried the man so far below

they laughed and pawed

tore the coat from my back

and I ducked away to the nearest coma

a dirty carnival rambling rough

a hidden room way off from here

a place of stone idols bathed in the grasp

of spindly limbs

beneath a wet canopy of gold and green

scattered across the stratosphere

And when the midnight shook

through the glass hallways of this dream

all my hopes and desires

became breathless and tight

I wanted her below me

creamy and shocking

bellyaching in the limelight

of this nightmare life

flicking ashes on a wet lawn

hours before

another stifling dawn

the moon cradled in such a tilt

as I screamed out

the agony of my loving guilt.

Neverland

When you want to be someone

but no one knows who you really are

when you're living in the worm

that lives in your own belly

drinking dirt

and eating poison wine

crying to live

laughing to die

and everything inside

vanishes

and you feel like

you’re living in a Neverland

with a never hat

and a never coat

and you've spent every dime you ever had

wasting time strolling on the sun

with a hip pocket full of memories

sprinkling them on the lava like seed

counting all your bad deeds

all the dirty visions you've seen

all the air you've breathed

that was never meant for you

and you want God to do some CPR

but you haven't been filling his plate

He looks down on you with pity and shame

rips the angel from your veins

deserting you in a Neverland

wasting away

like a dead urchin on the road

as jets fly by overhead

pissing fuel and exhaust

to clog it all up

crawl into the can man

drink your way to the cave

and follow that light to the other end

to that great big grin

and a candy-apple red Neverland.

Grapefruit and Stars

Tarnished and solitary

microscope the gods to the bone

the Rubbermaid ache getting more desperate every day

darkened spirits grow more onyx

with each ocean passing of the sun

there is no carnival high-beam in my life

only shadows coaxing another sparse scream

when I walk through the wooded lands

clutch the trees and their dirty hands

the reeds like spears, like knives

a natural morsel of Easter Jesus candy

cutting the jugular jamboree in the egg garden

the neon blood spills silently onto the plastic grass

the bees and the flies and the gnats gather for a swim

they don’t recognize that the moon’s fluids

are completely full of marshmallow burns

of the oblong and stretched native aliens

and Earth leaves them rancid and shaky

someday

any day

every day, all the way

flipping through the advanced-tech screen

washing away locked-down dreams

with laser beams and rabbit feet

to just dream inside a dream

where reality oozes through so sparkly distorted

yet so real and prophetic

the greasy heat like silver fast-food cell

the hotness of commerce rising off the souls of the unblessed

the air of a constant panic

what does waking and moving mean

anything, or delicious delusions again

sleep baby your pumped-up dreams

pay at the pump baby dream of sleep

broken down bag of checkers and bones

paralyzing love attacks, hybrid kisses

a swift kick to gravity and we all fall home

no rhyme or reason remains

I am sparklers in heat

a hose without a hand

a car driven by someone sleeping

a pounding at the door that will never be heard

lost and cast away on sand island at sea

like a dime store comic book dug out of an attic

blow off the dust

wipe the cover clean

what does it mean

merely trapezoidal trash

lonely counsel with the wind by an open window

the bees curve and dive

they make life, they churn spice

honey drips down broken wings

tears caress the memories of a painful way

pain inside out like custard mirrors

lavish buckets of discontent

the meat of a green cactus with flowered eyes

pierced by the thorn of the sun god

begging big blossoms to bloom

and then they are done

one last flaccid cough of color

and a gentle float to the earth

to disappear

to turn to dust or rust or unwilling lust

to be trampled by a new life

maybe not so nice

carrots or cartoons

negative nothing a laugh

negative nothing on a salad ranch

nothing for miles and miles

means anything close to porch kisses

pressing to this hollow can

this rusting skin

this decades-old man of aluminum foil

stretched thin and stuffed full of it

in a nation that loves to hate

in a world longing to dance and escape

in a universe of grapefruit and stars

memorizing every tick of time there ever was.

Purple Verse

One sip and I am drunk

One footstep and I am clairvoyant

through an unoccupied hall

occupied by the eyes of night

nestled neatly in the paneling

One nail driven through the falsehood

one more spike splitting bone

one more telltale sign of a bruised thump in my chest

where can I rest the anguish

that thrives on my well-fed mood?

Spider webs between my fingers

spider webs between my legs

spider webs weaving, bobbing

through the dried crevices of this heart

suffocated by the mist of it all

tarnished by the guilt of it all

the flotsam and jetsam of dreams and hopes and

warm touches

the delivery of nothing now

head hung low

eyes studying burn pocks in the carpet

what now? what now? what now?

My life being a turnstile

grimy, chrome arms recklessly spinning

tossing bodies and souls

to-and-fro

and what fame could banish

all the damage

flying windward like lead in a coffin

silvery minnows tagged with formaldehyde zippers

bunt cakes poured like liquid fire

into cellos at sea begging rings of rescue

hopscotch on buttons

in greener than green forests

large, white rabbits

holding signs of large capital letters

and this is confusion only

compassion all wadded up inside me

like a thick, wet piece of gum

and I am too tired to blow bubbles anymore

too tired to chew on another day

without bazooka love

and a warm hand to hold me at night

This is my purple verse tonight

my violet confession

my trench coat provocateur

clutching the dossier of genocide

while sitting on a park bench near the river

watching icehouses float by through black and white

rainbows

the senseless bastard

waiting to explode

scribbling crib notes on the sidewalk

with freshly sharpened rubber pencils

bought anew in the five and dime store

that metallic grandmother’s paradise

where they can buy thread and fabric

to make all the clothes for children to hide in

and a finger is pinpricked

and a large swath of blood splashes down to Earth

why do sunrises have to hurt?

yet another purple verse.

A Mail Slot Groveet

Shards of grass, comatose glass, liquified emotions in a cage of all the rage baked and sliced and handed by. Replicants rest by water drip. Sleeping with window veils pulled wide, the city outside, aglow in its ambers and blues, the steaming hues, the pink bruises, the cottonmouth blooms, the glistening tombs.

Azio turns his head to see. The sleepers are holding him down. A witch arrives in a gong gown, right through the wall she comes, like a whisper in satin. She numbs the air with her voice: The dreams you’ll need, the dreams you’ll feed.

There’s leftover coconut cake in the refrigerator. Azio in lonely robe looks at it as it sits on a plate in the overbearing light. He grabs a carton of Dutch melk, pours a glass, thinks about shapely ass. He grinds on the coconut with his teeth. It feels good to him. A plate and glass clink. The refrigerator blinks, then says goodnight.

He lies back down, the symphonic band plays in his head. The bed sucks him in like quicksand, the sand man has a noose, Sleep, forever sleep, he too whispers with sinister intent. It’s during the night the beings really crawl out from inside his oversized mind to take a bite.

And he remembers riding the silver snake through High Dallas. The things man has made, he wonders. Or was it men at all? He likes to think not. The machine swayed as it moved on its elliptical course around the city. The people there swayed with it. He recalls the frightened eyes, the dead eyes, the dumb eyes. All the eyes full of lies. He remembers the moving mouths, the lazy legs, the twitching hands, the Easter eggs from outer space.

See, the egg is a symbol of life, Azio thinks in his cyberpunk bed suit. He turns to look at the invisible her. Why don’t you ever want me? he confesses. She’s 100 billion miles away, running through a green meadow of PR glitter, hand-in-hand, with a perfect robot. The insomnia devils stab at him with red pitchforks now. They torture him with these scenarios of lust on a ship. A buttered orgy ensues.

Aquarius Sanitarium

Sinister sisters are solace

Silence is alabaster

The creeps roam the roads at night

I see headlights that pierce the warm fog

Guttural engines, high beams, red eyes

The steam of a summer day, from the narrows it rises

Like snakes on bellies, ravens in the window, vultures perched on hay loft metal wanderings

Babes that begin with J

Her scent lingers like toast or English muffins

In a breakfast nookery, the cookery, clay cast by broken hands

Milk is here, melk is over there, across the oceans we number

The maps we draw, the lines we force, the people we cage

Cultural imprisonment, the other side of a jackass wall

Taos and Laos, hybrid honcho burritos and fish stew

The words a jumbled arroyo mess on a hot plate

Sometimes stupid stories are merely stupid stories

Binary therapy in a terrarium

An aquarium

Sometimes I just like to look at fish and get lost in my barbaric thoughts.

Blue Bells over Dublin, Georgia

Gallo came to the house

with a rocket and a bottle of pills

told a tale of blue bells under the knife

surgical masks and the warmth of a candle glow

and I awoke to an open door

some empty floor

a dry heart scattered by the wind

the lonely call

of a heaven’s fall

and angel with her silly grin

she shackles me to my restlessness

it’s all a pinball game inside

she’s igniting my wants and my wishes

the ones laid out on a fine line

to be shot out one by one

like little yellow carnival lights, strung out like warm bruises in the queue

If I don’t figure out

why my heart races as it does

when her ocean eyes shine like they do

and isn’t it true

you have to let your heart go sometimes

like a kite with a spider’s tail

hoping the hands it lands in

are strong enough

even for a while

won’t curl like a fist

and knock out your face

but a second can make a lifetime

and I want to trace how beautiful she is

with every life motion left inside me

I stopped at a ratty joint in Dublin, Georgia

somewhere between Savannah and Atlanta

the reek of the paper mill there

blessed the trees with a sunny smell

of vanity for sale

paper hearts stapled to chalk outlines

heavy trees forming green archways over the road

the causeway to S.C.

tiny little islands with devil names

shot ahead on a rubber band

coming back to Dublin land

blue bell sirens pierced the air

soft petals of emergency felt everywhere

rutty mill folk inside that ratty joint

reading books merely for the paper

NYC java steam

rotting the timber beams

upon a cloud of emerald mist

warm whiskey splashes

the raw back of my throat

someone broke into song

story of a lad burning his barn

mad beekeeper with a torch

couldn’t stand the famine anymore

a whiskey splash repeated

chasing rainbows with his fingertips

through the warm wet circles on the bar

I went out back to the yard

stone walls and wooden benches

I started standing in the swing

heading for the great escape

heading for the life house

playing partners with a dime

a gift shop novel

collecting dust in the window

waiting forever to be held

by anti-anarchy gravity

washed ashore this timeline

how she makes my heart swell still

when I think of her

and if that smile were a habit

I’d shoot up every night

I learned the history of vision

from an old bourbon shooter at the bar

it’s all in the glassy gazes he told me

and the line connected to your heart

see everything as beautiful

and nothing can be ugly

but who can do that

unless everything was Eden and her

and I was God on steroids

juggling every menacing void

with sloppy, drunken hands

So I leaned in and kissed the jukebox

she was playing my favorite song

Blue Bells over Dublin... Georgia that is

slapping my swelled hands over the nails

and how in the hell did I end up here

at this perfect time and place

only to meet her

halfway across the globe

a paper earth

colored politically with stars and stripes

the patriotic right to kill

to burn the innocent ones

fry them clean on through

not in this ratty, beautiful joint

the blue bells tolling like mad song all glory

where the good men hide

beneath rafters of laughter and old coats

to remember golden eyes at midnight

to remember all that is beautiful

and forget all that burns.

Where Do You Go?

Where do you go when the light switch flips?

When Romulus scratches from beneath the ground or flies down in a hollowed bulb of burn-stained glass, like those stinging eyes you hear, like those burning sounds you see, like the crickets in the thickets that just aren’t there, and the air is electrified with these Hong Kong highways of thoughts.

Pink paper lanterns and bullets in school hall walls. Parked beneath a banana tree in the summer wind, wasps red like thinking, my dreams tangled in the sheets. Where do you go?

When the questions arise, to take a dive, in a dirty downtown Vegas dawn, before a thread-like walk to the golden palace of pools, to swim in burning light. I can smell her on the train—her dress, her perfume, her lip stain—the angel of that high light wheel set to spin. But where did you go?

We cannot find you beneath the lights or crashing waves. No one can find you in the circus night down by the ocean. It’s that loud place you don’t really like, there are no friends in that green parrot bar bathroom stall. Stop writing on the walls. You’ll get in trouble for that, and we know you are used to trouble. Everyone will know when you go, when you go to the stall at Mile Marker end of day.

And you sit there like evil, twisting the tales in your head, the forceful wringing of a white towel in some place of loneliness, the balcony on level 11, just kiss me like you mean it before I fall. Down into the sandcastles. I’ll be so buried—you’ll never know, where did I go.

The Air of Crows

Amisty green jungle glow

leaves me melancholy high

at mid-morning sigh

the curtains in the kitchen

hold back the ashen stare

of this cell block

with eighty tiny windows

and hands reaching out to pray

for the immoral justice to fade,

fade with the orange gassy glow

of another wet night

of multiple ampersand weddings

and lonely shuffles beneath creaking porch lights

and I cannot stop thinking of the wandering crows

in those tiny black clothes

and how they blow through the air and into a fractured face

when the hobbling world is overworked or tired

as I light these mystic candles all alone

the mantle missing pictures of all the seas

of you and I at the shores of blue water space

and it's blessed to imagine

the days we are tightly knit together

our lives wrapped around each other

like newspaper on fish, like wings on wheels

and it's fun to play life with you

for without you

this game is already over

and I am merely a wedge

stuck beneath an open door

letting all the air out

forever and ever.

Beloved Fury

With blood

with guilt

I scurry beneath yet another moon

another field of grasses

swaying in a nighttime breeze

howling and empty

like a heart away from silver rains

a fate too hard to swallow

force fed, like a bullet from God

like a train feeding on my guts

and sleep so distant now

dreams too clear and bold

the unreality called