tell me

a mind’s eye
captures sight and
color and my mouth
remembers tastes like
the salt of your sweat and
my nose remembers
the smell of your hair
and my hands on your
soft bare flesh before me
where we used to share
ourselves and connect as
whole and remember how
it was to be so alive and
enthralled in one another

tell me
if you remember nights
in each other’s arms and
how i taste and how the
laughing and sweetness
stand so prominently
if you could
would you erase it all
would you condemn me
to lost history, would you
have it in your heart to
reconnect and re-establish
i don’t think

please
there’s no way to come back
from disaster
but i beg you
i beg you be kind in memories
be kind to me in your dreams
and don’t forget what we had

truth

we cannot spin our threads around the spool any longer,
lazy susan. last chance romance, dance around the fire
burn our hands and hearts when we tumble, stumble on in.
turn it around on its head, its heel. break your ankles, fall down.

negativity is the sore spot on this sunshine.
your head is full of dead moths and cobwebs.
open your eyes. there’s nothing left to burn.
your scorched earth program worked perfectly.

now you must face the consequences of it all,
you must stare me in the eye and tell me it’s over.
you can turn your cheek and say you still love me
but i won’t ever believe you again.

and how does that feel?
being shit on is never the easy way.
talk is cheap, actions “speak louder than words”,
but you couldn’t hear me screaming.

let the wind blow me away from you,
perhaps it’ll be the best thing for us both.
if i can sever the thought of you and someone else
from the part of me it hurts the most
i think we’ll both be better off in the end.

she is not you
but not pretentious, like you
not self absorbed, like you,
rather fearless, unlike you,
and rather much
unlike you

and never did we think
not even for a second
that it’d burn down in such a hurry
and now my fingertips are blazing
the match i’d been holding
now ashes on my knuckles.

betrayal

in my years, never have i felt
so loaded with despair.
never have i seen such hate
build up inside these hands.
betrayal, desire, disaster, denial,
what good is burning at both ends going to do
it all adds up, it all adds up and i’m telling you

in my days how long i’ve been
turning round in my premature grave
my old hands they’re burned and chafed
but i don’t have the time to waste for
you’ve stolen everything i had to give and
you’ve taken everything i had to live and
you’ve been the stake through the heart
that puts me down

before sunrise, not much longer
til we lapse into the day,
sitting outside smoking weed we
muse on what it is to be alive,
and you say ‘what good is living
without a little deceit’
‘what good is living without the
thrill of the hunt’ you vapid cunt
there’s not a reason for lying

never let alone

the last light goes out

one light in the darkness and i’m
over my head

it’s as good a time as any to change everything
into the deep end, into
the unknown
for it’s all you know.

i break my fingers in the door
clumsy as i try to close
and through the bruising and the swelling
they fit yours like they did before.

moonlight over normandy, 1947

it hasn’t been too long,
the smell of death still seems to hang on foggy nights.

but i dance with you here where others gave their lives
toes in the sand where blood spilled and you in my arms
in our wondrous splendor.

i can’t believe the love i’ve found.

i get lost in the memory of what i’d been through here but smile

because she is here and she is alive and she is

is.

commander thompson had his intestines ripped out by shrapnel
and colonel baker didn’t make it ten yards before he too
was eviscerated

here where we lay
here on the beaches.

the archaic

blacklight, freeway,
six am and the motor’s idling out.
without, again.

sixty one things to do before you’re dead
isn’t it strange she looked at me and said
there’s got to be a reason for all of this pain.

and i’m now i’m finding comfort in a deeper hole
than any i’ve ever dug before

and i’m waiting for something to keep me floating
waiting for something to come and save
isn’t it strange, isn’t it something
isn’t it beautiful, she says… then we go and leave it all

red light, morning
sun is rising over desert landscape
and my mouth’s still dry.

sixty one things to do before you’re dead
isn’t it just swell she looked at me and said
i won’t get these done if i just roll over and die

and now i’m finding solace in other arms
helplessly like i’ve never known at all
just what it meant to be alive.

and i’m waiting for something to keep me floating
waiting for something to come and save
isn’t it strange, isn’t it something
isn’t it beautiful, she says… then we go and leave it all

never, i said,
i’m almost out of time.

spider’s elegy (a pantoum)

as strands of gossamer surround me,
there’s numbness beginning to set in.
captive in these spiderwebs,
i lose myself within.

there’s numbness beginning to set in
to my heart and my lungs,
i lose myself within
the constriction and the pain.

to my heart and my lungs,
you were like breathing in fiberglass dust,
the constriction and the pain
and the consumption of my flesh…

you were like breathing in fiberglass dust,
you were the parasite that enslaved me.
and the consumption of my flesh
to remind me that i am no longer my own.

you were the parasite that enslaved me,
your guile led you to betray me
to remind me that i am no longer my own
and all of the coldness that you have shown

your guile led you to betray me
and how i wish, how i long for escape
from all of the coldness that you have shown
and for every breath you’ve deprived me of

and how i wish, how i reach for escape
when all the life has been sucked clean out of me
and for every breath you’ve deprived me of
i hope you choke it down and suffocate

when all the life has been sucked clean out of me,
captive in these spiderwebs
i hope you choke it down and suffocate
as strands of gossamer surround me.

observers

watch the explosions in the sky and the debris fall around their feet. catalyzed.
so much under lock and key blown to bits in one fragmented instant
break apart and burst at the seams and come crumbling down

sonnet (1)

the black hole at the center of the sky
is me tonight and i am reaching out
to you my dear i hold on tight for i
must pull you in and know you have your doubt
every star will shine and flicker for
the one that i know i will never hold
in these my fractal fingertips so sore
my pull is gravitational but cold
at my event horizon no escape
just nothingness and pressure pushing you
and though you beg and plead you lose your shape
transfixed tongue-tied held tight and turning blue…
but freedom comes like a sunrise today
and in the morning you just run away

valentine’s day

is one big commercial joke.
and guess who’s not laughing now?

valentine’s, demonized.
sadistic and twisted.
swallowing up hearts
in stormy seas of red.