This written kiss is in and unexperienced.
It cannot carry the weight of softness or urgency,
it cannot breathe over pickled pores
and it cannot stand in place of you,
who has not met me yet.
Perhaps we might meet in a library,
combing through the teeth of dead masters.
Or maybe you might be in the crowd
as I strum a song about someone else.
Sitting at a white oak table lined with stuttering blue Duties,
I can't help but wonder what you might feel like.
Or if you're wondering about me.
But how could you be?
I am an imagined kiss
and carry no weight.
I fear those unafraid of love.
It is like a coil, orange and fiery
and we, with the deadness of black pepper,
come to explosive life when our forms touch.
Like sparks.
Glowing kisses cast like rice.
So much fear for those who need to be told
what other purpose butterflies can serve.
Though callouses form
and minds turn to face forward,
this most terrifying love does not forget us.
Like upside-down movies of flightless birds
or fish who are born downstream,
the wickedness of love keeps our hearts dreaming
and I fear it ever so.
Agony laces my censorship.
Burning words off my fingertips
and scraping my tongue
are Black Bar measures I have placed over our
Former Privacy.
I am trying not to hold you back
(as if I even Could)...
Selfishly, I wonder if you've scrubbed your brain, too.
Or, perhaps, the sliding gray line glides painlessly
over years of careful etch-a-sketchings.
Quite selfishly, I ponder the meanings of birds:
Free, caged and otherwise.
Inexcusably selfish, I want to make verse
out of how Much I truly miss you.
But
poetry is no longer safe,
so says the love that bites my tongue.
In the hollows lays our forgotten love.
That draw of flesh like winged things to flames,
that thick and coppery smell.
It is curled like an unashed afternoon,
waiting for the light of our occupied eyes to begin at its base
and work feverishly across in broad sweeping motions.
We are to it as runaway children.
Foolish and hopeful in a frightening new world where poetry dies like everyone dies.
Where skin and bone make wild accusations.
Where others make earnest attempts to love us.
We have abandoned the birthplace of our finest hours,
let the fruit ferment and tempt the desperate who would try and return without you.
It simply cannot be done, I say.
And the darkness grows.
And the bubbles burst.
And one day, I fear,
we'll no longer be welcome.
Oh, the bootless life without love!
Rows of hidden teeth,
like the sun before the singe,
gnash and gnaw out love's painful birth;
as sugar unto darkness,
so scars unto ready bark.
Those too young to understand
ask me why it is I cry.
"For beauty and for loss", I say.
They laugh and I never see them again.
Not this way.
Not free from it.
Oh, to be buried beneath that living landscape!
The flesh made sweet by the stings of honeyed bees,
eyes cast into oceans forever deep...
I have never known a more troublesome slumber
than the body apart from the adopted heart.
Then let the mind forfeit the wheel
and love run all ships aground.
Love,
shed the blood red cork
from whence you were born,
that imagined and soporific confine that hums,
"You are this and nothing more!"
Come to me rapt in fond thoughts
that I may crawl inside
and be lovely.
Come to me free
from circumstance,
free from Our Father's example,
come.
In you I will bury
the seed of myself;
I will cultivate the land
and you will know me.
Let the fat rain drop
envy our explosion!
Let Neruda wish he had seen!
Let us give inspiration
our whole selves
and let passion kiss whatever remainder.
It is this and nothing more, love
for nothing more exists.
Steam
on nights like this
tends to curl up and around
like a suggestive gesture,
or a lazy drag.
Frozen slips of the stuff that "won't stick"
reflect in the light of cultural traffic.
A sort of disco ball effect
that dizzies me until nightfall.
Sun down -
guns up.
HD separates like morning-after pasta
and LQ is just good enough
to make them out.
Them.
Those young lovers straddling the cold Italian stone.
Here, the freezing wind
turns away the homeless with months-old laundry.
It bites at the ankles of twice-a-week cowboys.
It keeps knocking my fucking "No Loitering" sign over.
Yet here.
In the crosshairs of a Texas winter.
He rests his back against broken marble
while she sits
fits
perfectly atop his lap.
Their kisses mimic the freedom of birds
and the bitterness of the night
breaks around them.
Every so often, she rests her head against his
and mouths something that looks like "Pits Jew Ant Meat".
His smile consumes my pixelated view
and they resume their crusade against a life
Impossible to survive.
Overcome with emotion,
I stuff my mouth with crackers.
They always did remind me
of you.
Somewhere
between the incessant chirp of my death-obsessed roommate
and the uvular r's of this particular shade of blue,
beneath the ghosts of twelve hour misfortunes
and the downplayed explosions
of a drip that won't quit,
somewhere in all of this
are the words to bring you back.
Not to me, though.
No, not to me.
Your head has been placed
among the makings for mythical horses
and with my knees against the ropes,
I can only just make you out.
Enthusiasts caw
and I burst binoculared bubbles,
saying, "He loved me, once.
I tell you, he loved me."
You are not without arms, my one-winged thing.
Your words can still pierce
and thrust and fill.
I am merely the vest lined with innocuous pockets,
and somewhere are the words
to find you.
The innumerable divides of his loving mind are to be expected, I suppose.
Hoses run the length of his spine,
and we, with the savagery of newborn tigers,
suckle and spit
into our own tawdry vessels
appropriately labeled, "Things I Thought I Heard Him Say".
Reminiscent of a ribbon
awarded for mere attendance,
his signature looks spotty
where the ink must have missed the stamp.
We clamor.
We claw.
We wrap ourselves in blank paper.
And while the trail of our former love
sits boldfaced in his letters,
there are some who would say
the ink looked too spotty to tell.
I cannot love others.
I can want them
and hold them
and kiss them goodnight,
I can trust them enough
to swap secrets, in time,
I can make them like family
when timing is right,
but I cannot love them
[Because I love you]
I can browse them and find one
I like most of all.
I can fit them and fix them
forever, if they choose.
I can cultivate their being
and watch happiness bloom,
but I will not love them
[Because I love you]
In the nights in a whisper
or in the day with resolve,
I can tell them I love them,
but it will not be so.
It could not be so
[Because I love you]
You, who feels your beaten heart may be doomed,
take comfort, my friend, for it isn't true.
It couldn't be true,
because I love you.
you
my able one
you are a sudden burst
of captured strides
thumbed through with care
and watched closer than warm water
you sooth(e) and you burn
and your writing is proof
that the stature of death
is miniature at best
you can be whoever you'd like to be
a lover
a drinker
a lover of drinkers
a still life hung loosely
on the back of a map
i will watch from a distance
as you shed our skin completely
and i will love you
no matter what grows in its place
Familiar voices tread the airwaves
leaving concentric ripples in my heart
where stillness once disguised itself
as peace.
These voices are shuffling their feet for me.
Dragging their toes and digging their heels,
squeezing clods with their electric palms
and using the rocks to dam the sweet thoughts
below.
Friends and lovers,
lend them your ears.
More potent than liquor
and less obvious than words
it is the surest way to find you
happy
again.
It chips away at the stubbornness
we have harbored and hardened
and made ready for winter.
Striking hard at odd angles
it continues to shape us
into everything we already were
in verse.
Collecting the dust,
it spreads itself across time
and your night sky
just a bit behind mine.
What we're left with are weapons
and blunt-tipped solar flares.
Let us pierce and ignite.
Let us become the light
visible from great distance
to the naked eye.
Disenchanted with the company I'd chosen for the evening,
I collected handfuls of gravel
and began spilling the plentiful pebbles
into shapes on the concrete.
First, a "J".
It was too beautiful a day for chatty adherence.
Thoughts of comically large teddy bears
gasping for air as they were packed and shipped
doggy style
and mailboxes marauded by sentimental insects
played tag with the part of me that really did miss
having a partner.
Next, an "I".
He liked puns.
No, not this guy. The Other guy.
The one who'd spun my heart in the first place.
We'd spend entire days coming up with ways to sneak golf lingo or Bible books
into everyday conversation.
The Bible books were the toughest.
I think the highly underrated porno "E. Cleese - The Ass Tease"
took the Blue Ribbon that day.
"N".
I don't know what it is about this stupid holiday
that always makes me feel so tiny.
Like a pimple on the face of a crater.
Like a tear drop in the eye of a storm.
Like the misshapen blip in a new mother's eyes
suddenly crossing off half the names she liked.
"X".
Loving is such a conditional affair.
I'll give you poetry and short-distance dreams
IF only you'll meet me there.
IF you'll just follow the patterns.
IF you'll simply be everything
I've decided you always are..
"Y".
Why, why
indeed.
Please accept this
Coital exchange of supposéd prose.
Verses laced with a water base
and pooled in the grey clay gouges
time has mistaken for art.
I swear, I have never meant you harm.
Kinks tangle your chain of thought
and while your stubborn heart
folds its arms and turns blue
I plead with you to let me pull
and show you that you Can be taut.
With every pulse, our stories rise
and blush beneath the surface.
The circus left us years ago
but I, with dandelion dreams,
can still recall the tune.
Sway with me, brother Elephant,
and together
we'll both forget.
"What pain could parallel falling out of love?"
Nothing, I think.
Except the pain of falling out of touch.
Knowing that every book
sits on the shelf,
unmoved and forever patient.
Every song continues to dote on it's lyrics,
holds it's breath until we sing again.
The pang of never having broken a promise
is equal to falling out of love, I think.
Though it is full of finite agony,
I recall that there are
worse pains.
I am an hours long glass of yesterday's yearning.
Sights and sounds
still stick to the walls
like frightened children
under combat fire,
and Nowhere
are my wants more evident
than in my continued use
of the word
"you".
I am a child drinking from a mother's heart.
Visions of violence keep me up at night
while my bellicose body just wishes it could help.
"You're still young," they say,
"Things'll change. Just you wait."
It's a rubber sentiment
that fits well in my mouth
and while I suck on its promise,
I keep going
for you.
After all these years,
we still, sometimes,
pass notes back and forth
beneath state lines
with all the casualness
of a morning stretch.
Words, like a secret handshake
rehearsed to the point of madness,
commingle and kiss the knitted caps
and bone-in ribs
and whatever else makes here
so clearly not There.
Even our voices spoon the laughter
as it dances over your flaming brick
and my tangled cord
and the unassuming midnight hour,
grazing me on its way to you.
Somewhere,
I think I saw the wheel spinning.
Before the power went out
and metal pins dropped.
Before the windows became foggy
and the powder turned to ice.
I think I saw a spinning wheel.
And you know what That means.
Don't you?
There are days of intense loving.
Days where I use every color pen I can find
to make each letter of my First and his Last
Spontaneously Permanent
against the blackboard I continue to call home.
These days are dimples on the face of God.
Evergreen roses.
Dogs without leashes.
These days are sprinkled with blinks of doubt.
A moment where True North doesn't quite add Up.
I look down at our clasped hands
and find magnets spinning in hopeless pursuit,
pointing any which way the eye decides.
Over time, these doubts make a pile
like overzealous confetti in the dot of an i.
His arms become like Santa Clause
promising viewfinders for the One eye I have left.
The days of intense loving are sparse.
The doubt has risen to the back of my throat.
Any minute now,
I'll say it out loud,
"Being in love isn't any of Love's business."
Loving is none of Love's concern.
Now then
the summer has done away with me.
In the early morning
I count the sounds before your voice drags my name.
It's quite tattered, that thing,
my name.
So many bumps and bruising nights
before my eyes open and your mouth makes a sound
like a whining child
Unhappy with the grocery aisles
who's highs offer bitter relief.
Shapes take the place of your permanent vacation
and I think the summer has done away with you, too.
After all, there are seeds begging to be spread.
Plots who's holes are gaping mouths
declaring their love and lust and longing.
Forgive my assault on those hoping to Shade you.
Their colors are pure
and I am Anything but Clear.
Lover,
I am terrified to dream.
The spark in my heart is no longer your doing,
And this feeling of betrayal is a lump in my throat.
Why should I feel I've abandoned you?
Like this Trip to the Store was sinister and planned?
I search your eyes
Desperately
for Falling Stars or Life on the Moon.
And sometimes, I think I can see a river.
Rushing and Crashing on the dips of the Plane.
Cool. Clear. With Certain direction.
I want So Much
To fill my hopes with it's Promise.
But an empty illusion falls flat on my tongue.
All this time, Lover.
All this time....
I'm terrified to hang my hat
Allowing pats on the back
For a better "Next Year".
I'm afraid I'll look back
On everything you said you wanted
And wish I had settled
For Wooden Nickels and Fool's Gold.
Lover, listen to my dream:
A Hawaiian sunset on our Hot Tin Roof.
We two, drinking to it's death.
Our lips silent in the swoon of the view
Save for the glugging of Tribute to the Moon.
A Man with my silly pen in his hand.
Tell me, Lover,
Could this Ever be you?
I have bloodied my hands
peeling away the hard shell, love.
In spite of the polite pauses.
In spite of the new
and quite permanent color
of your eyes.
I have taken the thorns of (y)our upbringing
and chipped away
tirelessly
at that cask around it.
Me.
See here.
I have exposed the fertility of the seed.
The wind threatens to carry it away.
Heroes covet its smoothness.
It is small
and it is yours, you fool.
You need only look after it occasionally.
It is self-sufficient in your absence
and all-too-capable
of mending your broken
heart.