And Lastly; It Could Have Been Anyone Else.

I breathed out
And let go your name.

On my lips
Kiss swollen, too plain.

I breathed in
And cursed that name.

Cracked, wind burned
Corner dwelling former lover,

Oh, I cannot speak of you
Never think of you.

Your name here,
And Your name here.

Resigned To The Suburbs, After The Fight.

City rooftops and
black tar heroin
sticking to feet
like flies on filmy paper
dirty wastebin condoms
wheelchairs to hold the booze
the one legged man
the cockroach smiles.
dumpster dove moldy bread
rat knawed apples
dirty fingernails
defected.
caught in the turnstile.

Listening In The Alley.

Bare womb,
except the still child
rotting along the walls
Shrieking cat,
drawn out wails like nails
against a board for chalking.
What lays
inside was alive and murdering
rupturing on its way out.
predicted storm
the likes of which never seen
and had never come before.

Not Home For Dinner

not flailing or sinking
but sunk in fact
the gritty taste and glassy substance
of sand already found its way into the
crevasse between molars and gums
underneath the tongue
salty and chipping away.

we all were driftwood
searching for a beach to land
and at least be buried.

some shore, somewhere
smoothed glass lays among the trillions
of specks being home and gently rubbing
until the top of the once broken bottle remains
lovely after submission

I can see, I am not blind.

your patchwork tongue
can keep you on dry land forever,
but it will never be home.

Institutions.

Alright, Sammy said.
Give her the diamond
with the moon inside.
Whatever she wants,
he says,
pulling his credit line,
losing his laughter lines.

But Doris,
she is never pleased.
She doesn't just want the moon
but the stars inside
And the gold leaf forks and knives
with matching napkin rings
she wants it all.

Sammy sighs,
he knows to give in
is better
than being alone.
If he was,
he'd probably eat with
silver
and know no such thing as love.

Cricket

these knuckles turned white as
ocean caps grabbing your locks
in both scenarios.

flat and precise as a dartboard
aiming for the bullseye.
bullseye, you can always call.

wheat grain hair falls in
your face, i can't brush it away
without fingers

I know you sleep in duck
feathers, and deeply
never thinking of me.

It's half past eight
still awake and wondering
why my knuckles are so white.

"Romance isn't dead, it exists elsewhere"

amnesiacs claim their love runs deep
by the smell of your hair
toil the city
graffiti the stairs
write: love can not live here
when it's alive over there

I Was Sure I Was Alone.

No one can see you, but i have felt those fingertips
I can just feel it.
You are shorter than I remember,
But you still come up behind me,
I am always surprised:

Remember the day, in the city
I started to cry when they took my bag
You had a twitch,
You never could handle it
I bruised my knees.

No one hears you, But i have heard those footsteps
You clang and clack
It gets louder every time,
You slapped me in the face.
Do You Remember-Of course you do.

I remember the first day I saw you.

I started to cry when I didn't know your name.

I started to cry when I couldn't forget it.

It sounded too medical.

I bruised my knees.

The Tents

All sleeping on the block closing
in the crooked eyes of men
into the seperate cells.

Violent, cowardly kind,
the michievious boys,
the mis-led boys.

Thick be they their brave scars
tattoos that praise mother
luminous hearts with thorns.

Violent wardens bold desks
reigning their night sticks
their useless hammer.

Thick be they yet useless glass
The crooked, sullen block
Waiting for sullen lights out.

Great Divides

I spy another don't drink and drive sign
Thinking if our mothers were here
They be getting high too
And sniffing glue on this block
Just like you.

The Sands

Time slipping through the sands
So Leap.
Leap and I will find you,
Wrap you up like you needed
But couldn't when I tried to.
Bled myself in trying to bind you.
Ah, A short rope, each grain
Making thinner the knot.

None Of Us Spared

Walking by firefighters
Trying to save the dove
Stuck in the branches.
A small girl twirling ballet
As graceful as the cat purring,
Licking whiskers waiting for dinner.

Punch-Drunk

Hitting wood like the anchor hits the sand
blood crashed against the coast

We Had Big Ideas.

Find the pearl in the clam shell
A woman more valuable than language
making water of out sand
and grains into man
Is forgotten like the child's
scribblings on,
discovering loss of time
as if it meant anything at all.

Dreams

Shaking, long hair freed
Curling against a humid sun.
These words,
Hope to reinvent the world
Most, A smudge in the eyes Least.
Dreaming of being the paint
That marks,
And marks the earth.
Brave even to end in a textbook,
Courageous even to be words that
A little girl may see.
May it open her eyes, Whether
Blue or Brown,
Let her imagine she is anything meaningful.

Veterans

The one armed man
Still rides his motorcycle.
His shirtsleeve waves freely.
You may be afraid
But he has held his best friend
And dreamed of remembering fear.

Steps

A million miles on this water,
Steps made out of glass,
Searching, for a single stone,
A place to call home.

Days spent thrashing,
Waves crashed up shore,
A shore that I have never seen
But am always looking for.

Liar Haiku

Half past the moon and
My dichotomy only
Lets me see so far.

Spoonfeeding Affection

I wish I could hold his naive hands,
Without thinking of ways to break them.

This Says A Lot About Us.

Dim light on the shoreline.
The watchtower shines its beacon warns the sea of it's presence. Ships are ignorant like flies, land on rocks if not guided slowly. The light shines briefly on me, and lights his face while he sleeps. he doesnt notice this; hits rocks in his dreams.

Deaf Ears, Fallen On

They say I do it to punish myself.

I know better.

I know what it's for.

Not some cliche.

I do it to reward myself.

I do it 'cause nobody else will.

I do it to know I'm fucking here.

I do it wrong.

Thoughts On The Moth

For Stephanie

I recall when I let
My eyes flutter shut,
Dear Lord,
Protect me from butterflies,
Daytime Moths,
Just a facade of color,
Of flowers;
I know their real name.

By that orchid, There lies
God and the Devil
Battling and shrieking
About leftovers,
There are never any once the ground
Can take us home;
Back to the soil,
Back to the deep, dark pebbles
We came from and we become.

I know you're all nervous,
Shielded under awnings of leaves,
The same we use to cover the
Chilled and stiff.
I won't put you in a box,
I'll stuff you in a flower pot
So on your tomb it may read
'No, we don't all go to one place
When we die, It's much nicer than that,
I swear.'

Plague Years

Contusions, her thighs
And calves, tops of
Her feet;
Muddy and spotted
With sunflower color
And wine stained hills.

He believed in tolerence.
She could only believe
This was the practice of it,
how much she could take.

Michael, Saint Of Insecurity

I wanted to cut off my
Breasts,
Thighs.
Michael said
"Babe.
An hourglass is just fine,
No matter how much time
is in it."

I Won't Be Famous 'Til I'm Dead

The kind of poet, the soul, the girl.
She worked backwards.

Her teachers always told her,
"Never start with the title, write what you feel."

She never listened,
Of course she wouldn't;

What did they know
About creativity?

About the process?
Nothing, At all.

The evenings she worked on her titles,
at night built up her scars,

But she'd never suceed,
Not really, not yet.

The critics didn't agree
'Til she was gone, of course.

"What a soul."
"What a fresh new voice."

The Stamp, The Finality.

It was as if I were a letter,
Away! He sent me,
Mailed me to Mumbai or Darfur, or Bogata;
When I arrived, Stamped Express
(He couldn't do it fast enough)
Shredded me into mulch, packing peanuts
You, You, You,
You mail me away, marked "wrong address"
You are my home no longer-
back to the dark where i came,
to the bins of solace and
untouched breasts,
return to sender, ha.
from then to now, I am disowned, I know.

Cake Batter

So certain to contain me,
Be sure that the coffin you pick is
Air tight and
Nailed shut.
Because, Baby,
I
Will
Come back for you;
Take you with me if I could.

Random Artwork 4

Random Artwork 3

Random Artwork 2

Random Artwork 1

Self Portrait 2

Self Portrait

Borderlines

I did not seek you out,
You sought after me,
I saw you in the eyes
Of my mother,
And then I saw you in everything.
I did not intend to give in,
But violently the earth moved
Only behind my eyes,
And then you changed it all.
Taking my bravery,
You can not let me leave,
Make it misery to stay.
And in moments when I give in,
The earth stills,
Yet my insides are blended
Out of my mind.

Too Cold To Go Outside

I feel shame for being in the world,
Like a theif stealing time,
Stealing sunlight
From all others.
From one other only
From anyone at all.
Taking crisp fall air
And keeping it too long
-If someone should
Pant beside me,
On me,
Do I turn myself in?
I pray someone will
Catch me and take back
The time,
The wind,
I feel it even now as the winter begins.

The Air, The wound, Suffocate.

The apple lets the air in,
Breathes
-The air is poison
and turns it brown;
Rots her
As if breathing is
The cancer that kills it
-Kills me.
But it thrives with
It's skin hard
On the apple tree.

1939

All my friends already died,
The old man laughed
The young one cried
The children played
The flaws were stoic
The coffins weeped
The urns were poets

When all the bells
Had had their tolls
The women filled their
Washing bowls
The men threw rocks
At window panes
The children slept
On mothers manes

Their skirts blew west
Above their waists
Young boys whistled
Remaining chaste,
The world was simple
And bombs away
When young boys drafted
Their young girls stayed

We built their planes
And sent their baskets
When boys came home
We chose their caskets
A simpler time
Though bombs away
The women weeped
On holidays

The urns were poets
The coffins closed
The flaws were stoic
The children know
The young man laughed
The old one cried
All sons and friends
Already died.

Psycho Haiku

They found her playing
In her menstrual blood all
By her self, laughing.

Love Haiku

I'll never read the
Words because I could never
Write you off, away.

This Is Love

smiling at myself
stretching the skin
across the skull it covers.
I would erase you
but then you'd be
forgotten.

trouble down the line
fools apoxyed to the
barstools they'll die in,
listen to the symphony
of gutter rain
just like me

I changed who i was for you.
For you, amor, for you.

My Mother, When Older.

After ten, lights out
just as they do since my arrival,
often wondering, does the girl in
the next bed feel heavy as i do
when breath escapes, rising up cold
revealing itself in desperation.

Has anyone ever slept in this bed
My eyes rain like hurricanes
fast and meaningful but no one comes.
I am still my fathers princess
locked in a tower.

Creating this prison
it took work, choosing to walk these miles
it is black now, and the only sounds are
the jingling of keys
Against a free mans belt.

No Glory In Battle

Being a child,
I'm reminded of a time
When my own mother
Would Tongue-In-Cheek
Whisper about the ascension
Of death
And the hell on earth
When she forgot
To take her medicine.

And this glorious time,
When I almost forgot that
A child of my own
Existed
And I alone was teacher her
Lessons that possibly executed
The reasons she died.
I killed her-
Clutching,
Scraping,
Twisting,
Spooned out with a ladel,
And no one will ever know.

But how was I to know
Such an error was a sin
To the mother, To myself.

One Overused

My heart feels full at thoughts
That stars I wished on guide me
The same stars I wished on lied to me.

I wish I'd never wished the day you came existed,
I wish I'd never wished that hopefully you missed me.

So hard to disbelieve in wishes
Won't come true
So hard to wish that I could still believe in you.

But I wished for you
And I wish you...

Hips That Face Towards The Door

Rushing Something So Inevitable;
I Can Taste What The Air Will Be When You Are Gone.

Portland, Oregon

In Portland, Oregon, we only say things
That are politcally correct,
Like 'Pan-Sexual' and 'Gender-Queer.'
We use sign language to talk
And incorperate the Non-Hearing.
We construct a diet of brown rice
and green beans
And so much coke we can't function.
We chainsmoke cigarettes,
For intellect,
In Portland, Oregon.

Wreck

I saw a train derail once.
It went around the track three times-
I burst with panic
When he was struck
On his big toe.

I Am.

A Myriad of disease;
A vessel for your fear;
The angriest of widows;
The fucked up inner-queer;

The darkest corner of your mind;
A long awaited suicide.
The loniest of abandoned
In this big forsaken sea.

Everything that's here-
And no match for me.

Chapel Symbol, Message Sent.

And I prayed and I cried and I prayed.
I was told that through prayer I'd be saved.
What savior is there for sinners...
Leading to an ending-blank.
He was just a man.
And I hear someone say
"Go In Peace Child."

The Ocean, 3.

Why did I let you lead me to this water?
Tried to make me drink, I sipped, I regret-
-It was the poison, after all.

The Ocean, 2.

I taught you to swim,
You teach me to drown

You can't make me jump in this ocean,
But push me hard as you can
And hope I'll trip.

The Ocean, 1.

In my dreams I'm swimming and you,
You are laughing at the knife in my back.

Virgin Leda

The Flower blooms and rots;
A war of seagulls on forget-me-nots.
I wonder if they notice,
They're ruining Everything.

Persephone Never Missed Her Mother.

A sad whisper from
The place
She believed made her a woman.
A stifled cry, the hole that
Might have been her heart.
Lustful eyes the only warmth.

Taking comfort in the weapon,
The Weapon is broken.
A diamond through glass
To anyone else.
Charred pieces on the inside.

Cut Off

Sometimes I feel like I'm disintegrating;
Disapating,
Integrating.
I'm screaming,
Anticipating,
But I don't want to become that.

It's Been A Long Year.

Toast to the worst ones.
Make love drunk, stupid.
Pushing hard.
Nights spent wasted, wasting
time, money.
I swore that we'd be different.
And you swore you wouldn't lie.
But we all swore things before.

The Party Is Over.
Toast to it.
Toast to better times ahead.
Drink fast, forget what's said.
Wake up sore, another year
I spent with you.
But in the morning;
The mourning.

What Happens Then?

"Have A Sense Of Humor"

People are dramatic these days.

Artists wear scarves and slap
their hands against their canvases,
proclaiming something like "no one
knows my genius!" They laugh at
people who make money and gather
around the soup kitchen.

Writers drink their coffee or their
red wine and smoke and think " no
one understands me." They look at
the artists and mock them for
being "tortured souls." Writers
will always offer the spelling of
a word, even when you didn't ask.

And there's the Investment Bankers,
who laugh over fourteen dollar vodka
and cranberry drinks when the writer
says "We have the most power, the
control over the written word."
Bankers always laugh when you're
trying to be funny, but they never
mean it.

People are so dramatic these days.
Exaggerated.
Super-Imposed.
We are no one special.
Sculptors do not have different
Eyes than me.
Doctors are not God.

Have We Become So Greedy.

a stranger laid yellow roses
-a friendship emerging through realms of this earth
her favorite was always red
-though should she be here, she would make the exception,
gracefully accept in a flowered dress.
demolition next to the cemetary
-it never mattered, they were dead.
its going to be a minimall
-with a flower shop, to boost the sales,
and it makes me feel unfinished too.

The First Stage, Losing It.

into memories,
in comes a place upon where ghosts are the night-
my mind forms the fog
turns the sky to angels
and stars to traffic lights.
frightened
by the satisfaction
of this space where
into memories
they're deep and shapeless.

My Mother, When Younger.

her legs struck still into motion
it stomped thunder out
and began the million riots.
the others clubbed out,
she danced until the sun came down
crashed onto the disco ball
and convinced to stay,
mesmorized
others still caught in the rain.

Have Another Drink Darling.

its because i hate you.
if you'll touch me i'll scream
with such a force
i'll crack the sky wide.
i want to forget every moment.
let the others have you.
they miss you, they want you back.
there should be a tonic
to make love get gone.
when you drink it
you cease to feel
and like the bark on a tree,
with another added ring
you can peel away.

The Day I Believed

As broken as the locks on the coffin
Family near his skull
Riding off away from their fortune,
His fathers faith emaciated,
Some other planet
There is God and the Devil
Snarling at one another
Mumbling 'I wish I'd never met you.'

I Don't Want Her To Die.

tinted sepia glass,
photographs aged from dust,
They all leave the frames
when They're old enough.

Fireworks In The Wrong Direction

Why should anyone care what they see
when what they see is me.
Running far from conversation
Huddled in the chaise
Have I damaged all that much?
So unrecognizable to you all?
Maybe it's just winter
the brittle branches sleeping
everyone will be all gone
for spring when i wake up.

The Kidnapped And The Cold

Did it start as love?
Whatever it was once,
It ended as some
stockholm syndrome.
You are the problem now,
the seconds in the morning
between sleep and waking.
when its over,
i still wonder who i am.
On one of our last days
when the shackles were tight
but i had found the keys
you said to me
"this was the kiss,
but you shifted.
this was your chance but
you missed it."
Did it start as love?
In any case,
i'm better now
disoriented
and indifferent.

Breakdown Near The Met.

My brain jumped on the next train to stay sane;
But my eyes, all graffiti and flecks of light,
Stuck to the pavement, the fly paper.
Why was the sky all blue and grey today;
And the silly jump rope kids complained
Pulled on their A-shirts, their sweaty flesh.
My hollow canals felt the rush, the surge and flush;
All the silly jump rope kids complained
When they called the ambulance, no one came.

Electronic Harmony

He took me to dinner.
Some french place that wouldn't serve me a beer.
"We only have wine, and all of it's clear."
He told me about his hairplugs.
he wanted me to run my fingers through it.
After, i washed them until they were prunes.
We fucked against a hand dryer
And he drove me home in a rusted car
with a hole in the floor on the passanger side.
I saw him the next night
and sighed over his financial advice,
watched his tie struggle against rolls of skin.
But when i took my high heels off
he laughed at how tall i was still.
That was when i sent him home, all that it took.
I'll wait again for the next computer generated match
and tap my fingers against my water glass
listening to the beat of some sort of battery operated heart.

The Backwash

She made me afraid to eat apples,
I always think, Who will be there
after the first bite, and will i turn around
and find that all my choices, even the good ones
were for naught.
So I smoke cigarettes, and have sex with people
I don't even like, narcotize myself through cheap
thrills and finish the bottles in the morning.
I'm a week late, and botched another change;
But I never eat apples.
I would hate to think it was too late.

Do As I Say But...

I pissed in a shoebox and the toilet
was ten feet away.
"I just couldn't hold it."
The next morning i spanked my son
when he shit in his crib
then i went to throw up
in the garbage.

Not In Memoriam

He misses you, and wants to know you're well.
Wonders if you steal time when it's free.
fathoms you trying to make collect calls
from a payphone with no dial tone. thinks maybe
you still wretch over television
and cry during dog food commercials.
wants to know if you still believe you're
invincible, now that you can't touch down,
hopes that you walk on clouds.
There is silence at home
And he wants you to know.

The Piano

Black keys.
All encompassing black keys,
Something out of another universe
Won't you help me.

Give up to surrender
All of the things ive never done,
Never played the black keys,
All encompassing black keys.

Paralytic,
The mind, my mind,
Wheelchair bound crippled,
Bone dry.

Idioms are swallowed up.
Delve into what you can afford to lose
And watch you lose yourself.
Maybe play the black keys.
All encompassing black keys.

The Moon Shadows

Vaguely lit by the autumn moon
Through Italian villas speared with shine
Flows out love ablaze enchanting as fall
Like Butterflies twining;
He coos and the trees move.

Her shadow follows pulling light and new dew
Their bevy of wild coupling
Making even angels blush
All flowers bloom on this satisfied earth
The sweet brows riddled with brilliance of truth.

They face their realm, their own frontier
This courageous devotion against all worlds blue eyes
Ignoring murmurs of love never lasts
Knowing all of love is forever.

She steps into the rip tide
He saves and the world stays
Their tenderness bronzed against human flies
An always love glazed under horizons sky.

Mary Mallon

Churning the mutinous pot
Under quarentine,
Though never forgot.

Locked in this body
Still serving the wicked that
Always seem to infect;

Withered.
Velvet.
Hanging.

Skin dripping off to syrup-
I find them wretched, when supper's done,
Lungs bubbled up.

They all died, abruptly,
And without cause.

But I knew what made them ill;
And I know still.

The carpenters came in to
Stretch their skin
To lamps and curtains
-Winter hats for the rest of the pack.

Their bones were cut down
Chisled into candle holders
-Ivory doll molds.

Never a thought where to put the hearts
So I served them,
Bloody and cold.

Love Poem

He had so many stains
-That I bleached-
-I kissed.
With decomposing lips:
That I loved so.

Though She'll Feel Nothing

Here is my vessel,
At dawn lies the wake-
The shuddering impact,
A long waited quake
Though all of my heart's there...
It's suffering still.
The once been's since gone here
The promise until.

The vessel, so empty,
The heart full of rot,
My creature so lovely
Though loving it not.
For moments of pathos;
In pleasure she cries
"But you're not the one!"
As the orgasm dies.

Splendors

Mental illness is contagious;
Even the dog won't get out of bed in the morning.

Begotten Souls

Oh, begotten souls!
When will you learn
Love exists not in this capacity;
Real only in your minds farce;
A solitary joke on yourself.

Bury Him With His Blue Collar

He wakes too early to watch
The dog run and dew dry.
Bitter coffee and latin music
That picture of his mother.
A mop, a bucket, good knees
Wasted in rush hour traffic.
The winter snapped at his shoulders
'Til his hands fell off.
Veins bulge, too many cigarettes;
He cries with his daughter,
Laughs with his son,
And remembers his mother.
Kharma disproved by a man
Who only loved to water his lawn,
Catch fish with chicken.
He will expire when the lease is up.
No Thanks,
Only crows feet and a smile.

How Do You Save A Political Agenda?

The dogs in Darfur starving
Master's dying.

Angie saw herself on screen
Tried to save the world.

The U.N. won't touch Korea
They will atom bomb us away.

The children with flies on their face
Eat skin for breakfast.

Mothers with H.I.V. wait
To become never were.

In Darfur the dogs go roaming
Master's never there.

Searching For Prideful Fools

Don't save Icarus!
Mafia said sleep with the fishes, does he.
We found feathers on the shore
And swatted at seagulls.
His father weeps in pawn shops
And looks for his body in boys
Flying kites in tangled power lines.
Foolish little boys, don't fly so high!
But these young ones scowl
continuing their wings.

Mahoney's Funeral Parlor Across The Schoolyard

There's an African Proverb.
'When a man dies, a library burns down.'
Somehow unfastened, reminded of the specifics-
-A dowager in stripes, distended with child,
Maureen in her magenta blazer,
The mourners chuckling.
-The middle school across the way,
So many, so much youth
Unsuspecting or already spoiled.

The glue on his lips choked back some vindication.
The gloss, pink cherry smacking
On swollen lips stuck
Forgiveness to the front of the teeth.
Great men die every day.
The world mourns their memories,
Cherished like the words from a book.

Losing him is not even a typo in the words on a page.

1:28, Realized.

My God!
I sold my Books
To buy the shoes you're wearing.

Feel less candescent,
More translucent-
The longer you're waiting,
Baiting,
Breath thats shady
Pine trees roaming
Through me you feast
And Tick
Tick
Tick
Your fingertips
Say Yes! I'll have another
Please, If I may cry
Or Scream
Or Hope.
Through prayer your blow torch
Singes off my wispy hair-
But should you cry for me now,
What will I look like when you get there?
An empty vase or row of
Unsolicited chairs.
You're supposed to climb
On Top of me to lay?
Legs draped like flowers
Over our grave-
Worship this meaningless pump
Results
Nothing but regret and torment
And

My God!
I sold my books
To buy the shoes you wear

-And I'm the one whose never made love?

New Feminism

Would you believe the heights of collars those days?
These skateboards with breasts,
Trophies for the phallic sex-
Have opened their mouths
Closed off their entryways.

Our Gentlemen scoff and pat
The hands of women stuffed up
With children and chiffon;
Later, to be choking on his pride,
On her suffering-
-Her sufferage.

They dreamed
Of power-
Oh...did they.

May we confess our womanhood?

We have fought to replace it
With higher heels,
Plunging necklines,
Bigger Breasts,
Pin thick waists...

Here I think equality
Wouldn't you know?

I was getting my nails done
When I forgot to vote.

A Dedication

Wounds of the flesh heal fast and stop bleeding;
The vessels of the heart can't mend and keep seeping;
The captured mind can't focus,the chemicals still needing;
All scars may fade; but love knows no seceding.