the PYTHON & the DOVE

A

CH AM EL EON

TALE

N IC HOL AS • B ON D

THE

P YT HON

&

THE

DOVE

A CHAMELEON TALE

NICHOLAS

BOND

The Python & The Dove — PAGES.pdf

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2/5/16

3:24 PM

S E C O N D E DIT ION — M M X V I

P UB L IC S ERV ICE .COM PAN Y @ G M A I L . COM

F O R A L L W HO

L I STEN

C H A MELE ON TA L E Borealis •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 003 Ochre ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 017 Crimson ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 023 Cadmium Yellow ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 029 Indigo ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 035

P E R I PAT E T I C SEGMENTS June 25, 2006 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 040 January 22, 2003 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 041 December 6, 2008 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 043 January 14, 2003 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 048 February 10, 2007 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 049 April 22, 2007 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 050

August 15, 2007 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 052 July 29, 2004 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 054 July 12, 2007 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 055 September 27, 2006 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 057 March 10, 2007 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 060 November 1, 2007 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 065 October 10, 2004 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 068 December 17, 2007 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 072 June 3, 2007 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 075 April 2, 2008 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 080 June 5, 2007 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 084 June 30, 2007 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 088 May 19, 2004 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 091 April 11, 2005 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 094 July 27, 2009 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 098 March 7, 2006 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 103 September 14, 1998 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 104

August 7, 1996 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 106 November 3, 2000 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 108 May 16, 2005 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 111 June 12, 2010 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 114 December 19, 2004 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 116 September 19, 2006 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 118 October 24, 2009 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 120 July 26, 2009 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 122 June 24, 2009 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 124 May 20, 2009 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 128 May 10, 2009 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 129 March 23, 2009 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 132 September 23, 2008 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 136 November 28, 2011 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 138 September 27, 2006 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 142 December 21, 2008 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 144 February 14, 2003 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 146

September 30, 2008 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 150 September 28, 2008 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 151 September 29, 2008 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 156 May 11, 2005 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 158 December 15, 2006 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 160 September 8, 2008 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 161 July 7, 2004 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 162 May 5, 2004 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 163 March 18, 2000 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 165 October 26, 2003 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 174 November 20, 2002 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••176 June 3, 2004 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 177 August 5, 2004 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 179 September 12, 2003 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 184 October 19, 2003 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 186 April 20, 2003 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 188 May 9, 2005 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 190

June 13, 1999 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 192 July 5, 2005 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 195 September 2, 2008 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 197 April 2, 2008 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 199 March 14, 2003 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 202 December 17, 2007 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 206 November 10, 2004 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 208 April 14, 2005 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 212 January 14, 2006 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 213 April 22, 2004 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 216 August 31, 2008 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 218 June 28, 2015 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 222 April 29, 2008 •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 227 September 24, 2014 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 230

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Borealis

The night, like any other, was as mundane as frozen fish planks; it was unexciting, cold, and never once to be caught in any state of flux. There was no special sign that Alain’s path would begin here, nor that the wildness in him would suddenly tame. Nothing of what the ordinary man had said seemed to be coming true. The man had sat there placidly in his thin gray suit, with his thin gray lips and his cold gray eyes poking out at him. He had told Alain in his uninteresting voice, that his life was about to change, that he would discover something incredible and never be the same again. Alain, too, was an unremarkable man, but not lacking in personality like that fellow had been. He dressed without pretense, spoke without conviction, and held his head without the slightest sense of where he was to be going.

But this ordinary man, he had an extraordinary gift for telling the curious strangers he would find himself with, all about their new lives, their new journeys; before they ever lived these lives, or embarked on these journeys. The man could look beyond the indecipherable intricacies of the woven fabric of life in his corner of the universe, beyond to the frayed and separate edge that as yet was unjoined with other strands. He could perceive the pattern in the loom, and enjoyed playing seer in this modern age of disbelievers and realists.

Well, as it can be plainly put, there was just nothing new, dierent or even vaguely memorable about the evening.

There was, however, a subtle quietude in the air, a sense of openness, perchance possibility. This went completely unnoticed by the ordinary looking gentleman, sitting across the lawn from a moderately sized statue of a twisted,

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surrealistic metal skeleton sculpted by a local “famous artist”. He saw no possibilities in his surroundings: not the wooden boards of the plain park bench beneath him that were contoured from the countless burdens they unwittingly bore, day in and day out. He found no quietude in the grove of maples behind him, their leaves whispering a sporadic reminder of the past weeks of chill, lest the unseasonable warmth as of late make the denizens of this place forget the coming ice and snow.

Mere hours ago, there had been a good number of laughing townsfolk playing Ultimate Frisbee, jogging, and spinning their children on the merry-go-round planted in the sand covered children’s corner of this, the largest of three parks the town board had recently erected in hopes of drawing a “more affluent, suburbanite citizen” into the under-populated “Backyard of Fort Wayne, Indiana” known as East Lamville, or as the angsty teens common to these places would call it: Lameville. But now these affluent suburbanites have gone to their respective houses, crossing over lawns of the immaculate variety, as well as those with children’s sandbox toys strewn about, seeking the comfort of the television, and warmth of their beds.

Alain was no such citizen. He was a member of the town’s YMCA, an avid internet surfer, a poet, a pianist, and the only single man residing on Thorne Crest Drive, a street lined with the larger of the homes in Lamville. He was all alone now in the grand new park, save the swing-sets to his right, standing solemn and dejected. The obnoxious preadolescent banter, having long faded from the air, had left room for the insidious chill that nights after a warm day tend to have. He was staring at the tacky, oblong, bronze sundial arranged with its hand pointing due north, making the absurdity of the object the more garish for the 004

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uselessness this orientation imposed upon it.

A smirk twisted itself slowly into the corner of Alain’s wide lips at the mental comparison he made between himself and the ridiculous sundial to his left. Occasionally, the sundial would gleefully glint for a moment, then fall back into sullen, purposeless shadow, until another car would swipe its simulated sunbeams across the silly chunk of metal, as it ferried those revelers too tipsy to walk from the bar down the street to their homes. As far as Alain could remember, he had experienced this same momentary excitement throughout his life, when the gleam of someone’s attention suddenly lighted on him and then just as quickly passed him over in disinterest, to leave him standing utterly ignored in the darkness, awaiting yet another set of coincidental headlights. But he, knowing the pattern of this discovery and rejection, took a sympathetic view of the plight of the sundial. They were loners, standing bravely in isolation, only of their kind in the area.

A rather depressing series of thoughts, he decided, but it seemed true enough in its own self-pitying way. He was not unused to these sorts of sentiments. Alain had begun to come to grips with being alone, after his mere 23 years.

He regarded his solitary status almost mockingly, if not just comically. When would he find a mate, he had asked himself so many times in the past. When would he know what it feels like to close his eyes at night and know that the warm body next to his would be just as warm, just as soft, just as real when he opened his eyes in the morning?

The smirk grew wider, and he answered himself, “when the headlights actually stay on that sundial.” A little pessimism is good for the cardiovascular system; he had a thing or two that he could teach that deformed timepiece in the lawn, he thought, the smirk breaking into a grin.

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“You’ve gotta stop gleaming so eagerly when the hi-beams hit’cha, pal”, he thought over to the sundial, in his chummiest tone, “You’ll only be disappointed when they’re gone in a second, so why even bother?” With that, he began approaching a lightheaded, quasi-euphoric state of giddy self-satisfaction. But that is liable to happen when one is able to impart a piece of wisdom to an inanimate object some distance away, in the dead of night.

In the midst of his revelry, Alain heard the growing purr of an approaching car, and sure enough, to his chagrin, the sundial awoke in a spray of reflected halogen light. He shook his head at the stubborn sundial’s gleaming with a renewed vigor and hope, in mute disregard for his hardearned advice. After awhile, he stopped shaking his head, because the sundial continued beaming. He turned to see the car had pulled into the parking lot across the street, and was sitting there with its lights on. Only a matter of time, now, he thought, and that poor sundial would be left in lonely darkness once more. But time drew on and the little suns flanking the car’s grille showed no signs of setting. The sundial seemed to reflect the light from the parked car out at him in contemptuous triumph, mocking him. He wished the damn lights would go off, just to show that snotty little sundial that he was right and put it in its place. But they didn’t.

After about ten minutes had elapsed during Alain’s string of mental ‘any minute now’s, he decided to rouse himself from his seat and investigate the situation. He peered through the clump of boxwood bushes at the back of his bench, toward the vehicle facing him nearly forty yards away. It remained sedentary, like some lazy bachelor watching television in his underwear. Looking at his watch, he raised his eyebrows at the lateness. Two forty006

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three, his watch proudly blinked at him. So strange to sit there with the lights on at quarter-till-three in the morning, he thought, and for so long! Hunched down at the side of the bench, he tried to determine if it was half of a drug-deal, kids making out, or some adulterous pair looking for seclusion from the eyes of their unwitting spouses.

If the parties in the vehicle wished to remain inconspicuous, wouldn’t they have turned the lights off, though?

Perhaps the lights were on as a signal that they had “the merchandise”. Maybe the inexperienced teenagers were so caught up in their desperate hormone crazed drive to fondle each other, that they had merely enough patience to push the gear shift to park before being consumed in their passion. Or maybe the two adulterers let the headlights hide them in the throes of guilt. No, it was something else. He maneuvered closer through the deep cover of the trees, the branches sagging low enough to mask his entire body. He was supremely curious now, only concerned with determining the nature of these late night intruders to his session of quiet repose with his metal buddy, here in the cool night air. In a matter of minutes, he had worked his way around to the rear wall of the bowling alley that formed the border of the park’s south side. Pressed up against the flaking yellow paint of Tom’s Lanes in mock Mission Impossible style, Alain had a much clearer view of the parked sedan. And what with his face so near to the rough beige concrete he could make out “Tommy eats it” spelled out in big, solid, black, balloon letters beneath the cover paint, which was upon closer inspection rather a light tan, as opposed to beige.

He wondered a moment about the graffiti, and if the teenagers who inscribed this accusation also were saddled with the task of covering it up. Or perhaps the owner, thinking

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it was a reference to his own culinary preferences, agitatedly painted the wall with his own hands, grumbling to himself about the way things used to be, and a quiet life.

The sedan unsurprisingly continued to sit where it had been, glaring away at the sundial, which Alain now believed to be in some state of embarrassment, similar to one a young girl might find herself in when an awkward boy with glasses stares from across the gym floor at her, smitten, yet frozen in place, unable to coax his legs into closing the gap between them and set the stage for the request of a dance; a dance that would be undoubtedly denied, not from lack of desire to engage in rhythmic physical gyrations, but due to the purely sadistic nature of the female psyche. Or such would be the conclusion that the boy’s mind would conjure up in a palsied fit of self-doubt and unfulfilled hormones.

Alain sensed something here, and it defied categorization, but beckoned him on, on across the gym floor to a petrified automobile, its gawkish stare still transfixing the sundial with self-consciousness and expectant confusion.

Alain felt only curiosity and a twinge of that leftover carefree giddiness as he strode purposefully across the street and onto the stripe of grass ringing the parking lot.

As he approached the driver’s side of the vehicle he recognized as a relatively new Toyota Camry, a streak of fear, so uncharacteristic for Alain, ran through his mind. What if it is a drug deal, and they think I’m going to crash it, so they decide to crash me? Nonetheless, he walked directly up to the tinted window and gazed in at the placidly chewing brunette staring straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to him. Alain swiveled his head to follow the path of her vision in order to determine what this woman was peace008

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fully looking out her windshield at. Alone in her car. At almost three in the morning. The headlights dimly illuminated a fair portion of the park, including a medium sized sundial, some bushes, a bench, and a swing set. An old Abba tune quite suddenly assailed him from the car.

Shocked, he whipped his head around to stare wide-eyed through the now partly open window into the heavylidded gaze of his evening’s main attraction. He began to sputter something about not meaning to intrude, when she smiled, revealing a row of extraordinarily straight, white teeth. His explanation of his curiosity sometimes getting the better of him trailed off into the chorus of “Dancing Queen”. The woman continued smiling, her stocking cap covered head leaning back on the leather of the seat. She blinked languorously. “What are you doing?” she inquired.

Feeling like the girl at the sixth-grade dance, he stammered, “Uh, it’s late and I really should be getting on.”

Instantly he felt stupid. What the hell was that? Who says they ‘need to be getting on’? Tell her your name, jackass!

But before he could do so, she raised one wickedly curved eyebrow and asked him if he would turn into a pumpkin.

He could feel his face flush and couldn’t decide whether it was because the wind picked up or because he had actually been caught off guard and was a bit flustered. He resolutely cleared his throat and rather boyishly stood straighter, in an effort to appear dignified, and told her that his name was Alain, Alain Michael Gardner. And no, he wouldn’t turn into a pumpkin or any other kind of vegetable for that matter. “I was just curious to see who was the occupant of this car.” There. Plainly said. It’s out.

She replied, “Another curious individual whose given name is Anabel. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

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Indeed it did, and for some unknown reason, it awoke new curiosities in him. Anabel smiled at this, unsurprisingly enough, and bade him welcome to her Toyota with a gentle pat on the passenger seat and a slight wrinkling of the brow. The stranger stared expectantly at him for a moment, then slowly returned her gaze to the unfathomably engrossing windshield of her car, as the glass between them slowly rose. He sauntered around the trunk of the Camry, still a bit confused, yet inexorably drawn further by curiosity through the red glow of the park lights. He felt like a first time patron, standing before the door of a brothel, his face illuminated by the sign that identifies it as such a place. He questioned the safety of the situation, even though female serial killers are extremely rare, but decided she appeared largely harmless – perhaps a little nutty, if anything. Besides, it was 3 A.M. – what else was he going to do? Stare at the sundial some more?

The car door closed behind him, and a hint of jasmine floated into his nostrils as she reached one long, dexterous finger over to the radio, curling the unpolished tip to lower the volume. “You know, one wouldn’t normally expect this kind of luxury from a Toyota, but it’s actually quite posh in here.” he said, in an attempt to begin conversation. And it indeed was rather plush and soft; the atmosphere was such that he felt swallowed by it, calmed as much by the warmth of this new climate as the prospect of intelligent conversation. He became one with the interior through the soft, mesmerizing glow of the console lights.

Her lithe little hand dropped from the radio to the gearshift, clicking it back to Drive, all the while smiling wordlessly at the windshield. The car slid into motion, and Alain turned to watch the outside world spin past his window as they circled back to the exit. He decided to just 010

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go for it and ask her what her fascination with the park was. She drove on, seemingly uninterested in her companion’s inquiry.

Then, “I was wondering how long it was going to take for something interesting to happen while sitting here all alone in the parking lot.” She spoke in such an offhanded manner. “I was beginning to get sleepy, what with this sublime disco music, and thought I might have simply died of inactivity, right here in the car” she tapped the vinyl dashboard with her index finger at these words. “So it’s a good thing you came to rescue me from this terrible boredom I am experiencing.” A little smile in her sarcastic fashion was enough to tell Alain that part of this statement was indeed true, yet something tiny was still calling out to him in the deep reaches of his mind; an unintelligible emotional event, muffled by newness and an all too eager hormonal state. She steered left-fisted, while her right hand idly stroked the leather of the center armrest. Barely breathing, Alain watched in wonder as the tips of her index and middle fingers silently traced circular patterns over and over again on the beige cowhide.

“Hey,” she said, “do you wanna get married?” in a tone the intentions of which he could not place. Alain was already seeing a pattern emerging here: she likes to shock people, he concluded.

An unstable silence swelled in the brief moments of Alain’s thinking, until she offered with a dismissive shrug and delicate smile, “I mean, not necessarily to me or anything, but like, in general: is that something you want to eventually do.”

“Oh, uh… I hadn’t really thought about it.” he lied, still a A C H A M E L E ON TA L E

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bit distracted by the original format of her inquiry. But adding quickly that upon deeper reflection, he would concede that in fact he would like to get married at some future time; and not necessarily to her, but someone, of course. And no, he did not take it as a proposal of some sort.

“Well, that’s good”, she said. Then after a short pause, her tone grew solemn, almost like a murderer confiding self-condemnation and second thoughts to the unlucky soul lying duct-taped and unconscious in the seat behind him, “I really don’t know why I was just staring off into the park.. I, I wish I had something better to do, I mean, it seems a waste…” her voice degenerating into inaudible movements of her lips, finally coming to rest in an open, down-turned crescent. A blankness arranged itself on her face, then disappeared when Alain swiveled his head around, in search of (vainly, as it turns out) the last portions of her response. Anabel’s expression had been replaced by one of unconcerned cool, of subtle, arrogant sexuality: a sign that meant no further answer was forthcoming.

“I’d like to see where you live; would you show it to me?” she asked, mocking innocence.

“Make a right, here”, he said with characteristic aplomb, as he turned his attention once again to his surroundings.

A few moments, one small question, and a receptive smile later, they were gliding down the alley to the rear of his garage loft apartment. He said it was “his” place, but was really just house-sitting for a couple on vacation, he told her; the owners lived in the brick and glass-walled threestory at the street’s edge, while his accommodations were set towards the rear of the two-and-a-half acre plot. This 012

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subdivision was just a couple of years old, but the house and his garage/loft were part of the original property, and so had a more respectable, singular style.

At last, they arrived at his room on Thorne Crest, and he smiled in spite of himself. He hadn’t let the fact that she had been waiting for him fully sink in yet. She hadn’t said why she was sitting in the car, but he was sure she was deliberately being conspicuous so that he would notice her and hopefully investigate, in hopes of leading to… to what, he could not imagine. This strangely behaving Anabel didn’t mention why she apparently wanted his attention so badly. But Alain’s curiosity prevented logic from questioning the situation. His previously dormant libido, now decidedly awakened, allowed him only a moment’s contemplation of this girl’s motivations.

“This is it: this is my very humble abode.”

Eager to be inside, Alain stepped out of the car, stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets, and walked around the back to open the door for her, wondering just what the hell he was doing. He formed a little grin and shrugged his shoulders when he remembered she really wasn’t hard to look at, and he hadn’t been the subject of a lady’s affections for quite some time. Years, in fact.

Swinging the door open gallantly, he offered his hand, as a steady brace with which she could pull herself up from the deep bucket seat. The way she looked up at him from the car simply melted him. The way her eyebrows curled inward and how the dark pools beneath them glowed with passion-invited drew his breath from his body, catching in his throat, as he drew her by hand up to himself. She was magnificent, as a woman with a purpose often is. Her A C H A M E L E ON TA L E

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face reflected the silvery moonlight in a pallid coolness, though appearing oddly human and alive. Alain managed to negotiate the stairs, though his limp-feeling knees threatened to give way a number of times. A silent Anabel stood smiling with oblivious charm as he fumbled a little with his house key.

Once inside, he offered her something to drink: the first words they had spoken since they arrived here. She shook her head, no, and patted her jacket pocket, to indicate she already had possession of a beverage. To reinforce this, she produced a sizable bottle of generic spring water, as one might purchase at a gas station. Upon becoming settled on the tired old couch he rescued from a certain death in the city dump, and the smell of cold still lingering on their clothes, a breath eased from her lungs, bearing with it that unmistakably feminine sound of contented pleasure: the sigh. His palms, at that instant, became moist around the glass he held, as the nerves just beneath the skin of his back came alive and rippled in ecstatic tumult. He concentrated on not letting the glass of water slip from his hands.

He had fully expected some ejaculation of speech to follow her expulsion of air, but only the uneasy (as far as he was concerned) quietude was to be.

Alain gradually became more sedate as the moments of silence stretched on, feeling unconsciously relieved at the lack of conversation. Sometimes he just didn’t want to hear anything, for the spoken word occasionally disrupted his emotional/mental state, and made the pool of his thoughts a less comfortable temperature. His mouth began to part, his jaw becoming slack. A peace settled over him. The kind of calm relaxation that spreads throughout one’s body when one lies cocoon-like between Mommy and Daddy in their bed after a bad dream. One needn’t 014

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worry, because Parents are invincible and ward off any evil that might grip one’s body and soul in the darkest of night.

She leaned in closer to him, yet imperceptibly so.

He became suddenly aware of her proximity to his face, when, with a whisper so soft his tingling ears strained to pick it out above the hissing and periodic ding of the old steam radiator, she asked him if he wanted to kiss her, as she leaned even closer. The sound of her lips moving in speech, directly next to his ear, that tiny noise of tender flesh pressing together and pulling apart rhythmically created in him sensations that no opiate could simulate; that no dime store magazine or back shelf video could ever hope to capture.

He felt his heart pounding so loudly, and with such uncontrollable force that he thought for sure the movement of his shirt, or the thunderous sound alone, might betray him. She pressed him further.

“Won’t you please kiss me?”

Entranced and distracted, the story he heard the distant rasp of the ordinary man, ‘Women have this magic tone that colors their whole persona when they want something. It is as if they become like some fairy-nymph, who casts a spell over an innocent traveler, transforming her inner wishes into enchanting glances and motions that beckon the boy to do her bidding. When a woman wants something, her desire takes the shape of a most insidious question, posed in the space behind the words, yet unmistakably clear and irresistibly compelling.’

The tense implication of the rapturous words that induced his trance snapped him back to the present.

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Ochre

“They embraced like animals dancing in the breeze”, he scribbled, then crossed it out after noticing the loathsome sappiness of the verse. He glanced back at her form on the bed: serene, ageless, with the placid features of selfsatisfaction found only in omniscience…well, maybe she didn’t know all, but she knew plenty, alright. She knew his unspoken needs, she felt his wish before he wished it.

She had dreamed his own fantasy into his head, then coyly feigned an innocence which all too clearly was intent to flesh with action the skeleton of unborn desire hanging dormant in his mind.

Her hair shone ebony in the frosty blue glow from the security lamp affixed outside his window. It was so lustrous and thick. He would never forget plunging his fanned fingers into this mass of liquid shadow, undulating over him, around him, and how it flashed like a glass shard turned over in the palm of your hand under a blazing sun. He felt like she was a part of him – that she belonged to him.

Alain was stunned at his good fortune, at the sheer luck of it all: that he could even behold such a creature of untold loveliness, let alone be the grateful chosen beneficiary, upon whom is bestowed the gifts of her touch, her talents, her affection. At least he believed he had her affection… if not affection, then certainly attentions, and that was sufficient.

He bent his head down again as the inspiration came, and wrote: He had felt as if all his tissue were suffused with a dull sexual urge, like uneasiness. All, that is, except for the regions normally associated with such sensations. From them he

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had known no pang, had no movement in the least – not the slightest twinge or pre-tingle of excitement or arousal.

If he had not been supine in his bed, though, with arms splayed carelessly above his head like a child’s playthings left lying this way and that, he would surely have been pacing the floor anxiously. He was as unsure of the nature and origin of his urge, as he was the persona that had been attached to it. But then vulgar words had begun filtering into his mind. He was presented with an image of himself giving commands, voicing desires, and visualizing acts of a nature so graphically and unusually visceral as to be nearly profane, to the point of making himself cringe – after the initial titillation the imagined phrases and scenes created in him.

But the trickle became a shooting stream, high pressure and intense. Then the stream became a flood, a pillar of sensation, as names, names known to him, and faces, some were as familiar to him as his own, and others new and fresh. Linda… Nikki… Amanda… He flashed through torrid epics in milliseconds, bringing the blood behind his eyes, and under his ears to a rapid, heavy, irresistible, pounding rhythm. Anabel_ He felt thick with blood; his head full to the bursting point, his brain squeezed. Squirming, the static tension became suddenly and slitheringly alive, his arms sliding down the slick, cool sheets, to his hips, palms laying over the taut muscles that rolled beneath his skin. He caressed the roundness as if it were hers, his eyes closed to keep the ruse intact. He imagined, smiling, how the expanse of her long, soft thighs would feel to his fingers. He thrust his thoughts into a place where he could simulate what it might be to explore her flesh as they tasted and relished each other’s bodies. He tried to substitute his hands for hers, and yet feel simultaneously what pleasures she would know when he touched her skin.

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It thrilled him with an intensity; with a depth more powerful than anything he had ever felt: this overlapping juxtaposition – this near unification – of sensations offered/received. He felt like an overdriven guitar amplifier, charged with such searing volume and high-gain signals, that his body shook with hurricane force, as overloaded speakers would vibrate: the sound produced, a distorted, and raw, crackling scream. His body twisted in blind ecstasy for some delirious moments, then his movements gradually waned slow and subdued, and finally, faded into the stillness of sleep, with that residual energy hanging electric over his bed, awaiting the morning.

He raised his face – and the sheet of white lined paper covered in messy, slashing cursive that had adhered itself to his cheek – from the desk in the corner of the pitch-dark room, and saw a crumpled mass in his bed. After removing the sticky paper from his skin, only momentarily did he think that he had merely left the bedclothes unmade on the mattress, then he realized the crumpled mass had a definite shape, and that was woman. Now he remembers.

A woman. In his bed. Comfortable. Satisfied. Alone. Well I’ve got to fix that, said the cheshire cat. He carefully raised up from the cheap wooden folding chair: the kind to be found at a garage sale, standing with only two of its long-time companions; the fourth pack-mate having met it’s demise in an argument over curfew, and disrespect, in fact the entire trio of chairs not one month ago – despite the rarity (really nonexistence) of his social entertaining habits, he had seen a dog that day and was feeling inspired.

In brazen disregard for his apparent generosity and good nature towards the clearly depressed furniture, it played a trick on him, and snagged his heel with the horizontal strut that braces its two front legs. Alain faltered, leaping

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straight up in the air and landing in tree pose, arresting its collision course with the table lamp standing table-less behind him.

Frozen in his position with chair gripped white knuckle in his hand, he glared intensely into the darkness at the bed where lay his sleeping (hopefully still) newfound‌friend.

He stared and stared, motionless, but she appeared oblivious to the preposterous racket. Relieved, he set the chair to rest on all four legs again, and padded towards his bed; our bed.

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Crimson

Almost every night now, Alain sits on that same park bench with the sundial throwing its splashes of light everywhere. Then he drives home, and almost every night, after getting up dazed in the middle of the night, falls asleep again with his face plastered to blank pieces of paper strewn over his writing desk. Almost every night, now, Alain awakens from his propped up slumber and retreats back to the crumpled looking form of a woman lying diagonally across his bed. He enfolds her in his arms, every inch of his body trying to press itself into every inch of hers; she is his solace, his rest, cool water to his parched lips.

Almost every night, he forgets she’s gone.

But every so often, when he is weary, the hateful images of her slack mouth, her limp arms, the warmth still desperately trying to cling to her skin still haunt him. When he remembers stumbling back from the bed in horror, reeling as if from drunkenness, tripping over her drained water bottle, the pain is like pincers around his neck, choking him. Then she had groaned, in the midst of all the sticky dark sheets, and he was suddenly on her again, cradling her head in his shaking arms. The partially congealed puddles of her blood glistened in the half-light; that vision never, ever left his mind. She had moaned again, and the gash on the side of her throat oozed more. Sick to the very ends of his bowels, He asked her what happened. Why here? Why now, with him?

“I… I didn’t want… my parents… to find me like this. Save them… some …hnnn…pain I’m so… ugh… so…sorry...” Her words were dry pine needles, her tranquil face contorted

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around the sounds, then loosening like a puppet whose strings have been cut; it was not long, now. Alain had tried to disentangle his hands to grab for the phone. The gurgle of despair and eyes wide as pits kept him where he was.

— 5:12 — the bedside clock’s gaze shone with the new blood seeping from her neck. There was almost no breathing at that point. He had this urge to get in his car, and race down the highway, to fly from the edge of the deep, thickly wooded ravine on the outskirts of town, where the road is a ribbon stretched down the length of some monstrous, curling dragon’s spine. The image of the trees racing towards him flashed in his mind, the bottom of his stomach falling away as the car became airborne, its engine wailing like a burned child. Alain saw the edge of the razor blade protruding from between the pillow and mattress, half submerged in the thick liquid. He wrung out his eyes, hunched over this sticky rag doll in his arms, diluting her blood. The last dizzy minute of her life was draining away; moments split into moments interminably, grinding in some sly motor, its gears protesting against the iron regime. His face pressed to her muddy shoulder, rocking like a stuck wheel as she began to pull free.

She had slipped into his life so quickly, so easily. Then she slipped from him with such force and impact, with the mystery of their acquaintance unsolved in their parting.

When the visions come, his eyes swell shut with the force of too many tears, and then they purge themselves. But once vision is regained, they become swollen once more, almost as if they would rather know agonizing blindness, than accept that sight. Accept any sight. But they drain again, for the pressure built up is too great. Swell, purge.

Swell, purge.

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And the cycle continues. Alain just lies there, now: unmoving, lethargic. Like a great Jungle Cat now caged and broken of his Wildness, only to roll uneasy and disquieted on the concrete in the zoo. He pants, having forgotten – or rather, given up on – the feeling of dirt beneath his paws, the smell of dinner on the hoof, the savor of hunted flesh between his jaws. No, the cat’s eyes have been kiln-fired and polished. They do not see the steel bars and cement moat that surround him, or the faces – curious, bored; the flashbulbs – periodic and distracting. His ears, once so acute, as inescapable as the tiger’s killing bite, now barely recognize the monotonous, composite, whirring hum from the crowd, the machinery, his mind.

“It’s such a shame…seeing the poor thing in such apathy. You’d think he’d be running around, stalking things, growling, or something… but something”, one of the onlookers might say to their neighbor, in a voice thick with indifferent concern.

The reply, “I’m just so glad the zoo people rescued him… the jungle is so dangerous – especially for him: with the poachers, and the bulldozers digging everything up. I’m sure he’d be dead; at least here, he’s safe, and that’s the best for him.”

What they don’t know, is that even though some creatures will die in their home environment, they will not live in a foreign one. They don’t know how. The Tiger, with his dull coat and listless stare, was dead – before the latch slammed shut on the door to his holding pen on the plane to his new home in the zoo.

Every day is like a bad horror movie, when the dead (like this tiger) walk among us. We see them pass by in the A C H A M E L E ON TA L E

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street, we buy our groceries from them; operate on them; we kiss them before we go to bed; we go out for a cocktail with them – and we are none the wiser.

The ordinary man said Alain’s wildness would tame, and he would be forever changed… but who wants to be domesticated?

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Ca dm i u m Y e l l ow

At the party, Alain felt no better. In his Hostess’s spacious living room, he roamed uneasily, wading through a stagnant pool of unintelligible, witless conversation. A restless soul, his eyes were nervous and weary; they searched his surroundings constantly, like a man heavily burdened with no opportunity to slough his eternal load. His laborious and ultimately fruitless quest to rid himself of this loneliness like a disease finally gave birth. Then there was this bitter longing, no more loneliness, but something that owned him, something that sprung from his body and aged him, something through which all feeling passed: but filtered, dull.

He never cared talk of such things as these, even though he abhorred the prevailing trite chatter; everyone knew it anyway, and he simply did not care. He left early, unable to ingest one more particle of the thick, meaningless air.

When he crossed the threshold, closing the door behind him, he encountered the pleasant night outside, exhaling heavily and drawing deep breaths, freely – at last. He took advantage of the brisk cleanness to purge his system. He was soon smiling, and felt almost rejuvenated by the time he reached the alley behind Anabel’s tiny apartment.

Later that evening, while stooped at the foot of her bed, he took a firm hold of the rumpled, pale satin top sheet, and with a flick of his wrists, sent the material dancing into the air above her nakedness, to descend in a muffled whisper, settling over her skin like a revelation. It appeared to him, as it must have appeared to the Maker while he looked down upon His creation taking shape; valleys were formed of satin, and peaks arose, growing distinct from the undulating mass with each slowly passing instant. Long,

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gently rolling fissures, radiating out from the two domelike mounds of her breasts, rippled as they reached the low ridges of her outstretched arms, flattening into two long, silky expanses of prairie over her thighs, leaving subterranean pockets of cool air between the flesh and fabric.

The notion that her supple skin lay just beneath the surface caused his breath to quicken, his pulse to become heavier, more insistent. Beyond urge, he slithered over the iridescent bone colored landscape, his mind panting. The sheets stressed under his hands and knees, her body tilting ever so slightly toward each point of impact, shifting side to side like a boat on the sea, as he positioned himself over her. He hung there, staring down at her shrink wrapped in satin, like a cloud in still air. As he absorbed her through every pore, the last remaining dregs of contempt and disgust from earlier that night were swept from his thoughts.

Only beautiful pleasure lingered on him.

Near sleep, Alain drifted through memories of their short time of intimacy together. She knew just how to look at him, how to incline her head with understanding beyond expression in words. How to set the tips of her fingers against his cheek at the most amazing angle, and how to separate her lips by the tiniest micron, to draw him towards her with black hole intensity. How to exude that heady scent of comfort, and let the spectacular glow of her flesh irradiate his bones with physical charm.

She was irresistible without a single syllable.

The silvery scar that twined its way around her throat, puckering the skin over her larynx, reminded him of her return from the realm of eternal silence. She had lost so much blood during her failed suicide, that parts of her 030

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brain had atrophied, rendering her comatose for just short of 10 days. She awoke unable to speak, unable to move her legs more than a few inches in any direction without assistance, and with a memory that had holes in it the size of a luxury liner. Anabel recognized Alain, but she cried out and motioned insistently for him to leave every time the doctors arrived. When they had finished performing their tests, he was the only person she wanted to see. Remarkably, she was still perfectly capable of understanding speech, and responding in gestures and facial expressions, or a nod of the head.

In fact, it seemed as though she comprehended speech on a level that she had not previously been aware of. But in the first week following her narrowly successful surgery, the agony of watching her try to form the words she was thinking, and hearing only the tiny gurgling hiss that escaped her lips, sent tears streaming constantly down both of their faces.

Then a new hope formed when Alain had put a thick pen in her left hand, and slipped an open writing tablet underneath it, urging her to express her thoughts on the page. She stared at the tablet expectantly until he lowered his head, closing his eyes in concentration, willing her the strength. Nothing more than a jagged line appeared behind the shaking tip. She closed the book and laid it on his knee. He smiled, glancing up at her, and not knowing what he would find inside looked down onto the blank paper. A single erratic stroke of the felt tip pen had left an uneven black impression running vertically from the upper left margin to just past the center of the wide lined paper. He closed his eyes again.

Minutes passed before he raised his watery lashes and

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brought his gaze to rest on her face. She was turned towards the window, her profile reserved and starkly serene against the vibrant daylight and flying leaves outside. Her hands were clasped across her distended belly, fingers delicately interlaced, totally still. Something about that window kept her attention for weeks.

She would not concede to let Alain hire a sign-language tutor, though he begged her, telling her the fellow would come three times a week in the evenings to teach them, and soon they could talk again, like before.

Finally, her eorts to speak and write ceased altogether, never again to be mentioned. It was only after ten months of sporadic alternating depression, hopeful enthusiasm, and fits of frustration, her legs writhing limply under the woolen blanket, while her fists pounded the bed like raindrops on irises, often accompanied by that haunting wheezy moan which used to be a scream.

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Indigo

The room had taken on an inhospitable, hospital chill from the late winter rally, stinging her cheeks, nose, ears.

It seeped into her eyes and she felt some relief, tucking in her eyelash sheets, to blink.

Her rows of bright teeth appear in the darkness. A wolf pup burrowed deeper into the den, the center of her spiral galaxy, legs in a slow motion leap over the isle of man, one pale snake arm sunning on his rocky coast. Still as a cat with a fresh young rabbit, the rise and fall of last breaths calm after the chase, she poured out on top of him.

Adrift in an ancient sleep stream, a fugitive ghost in the bayou, appearing in hints as a catfish grazing her palms, a ritual of trust in strange waters. He chanted out a prayer of smoke as she lunged for his gills like a hawk, a hooded figure with a pinch of salt slung over the shoulder, and hitched to a yoke of white silk rope the bloated corpse of her father.

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June 25, 2006

Combing through collected culture to coagulate disparate tunes like blood from voices in drops each forming words together that will tell the tale I am too small to render here: what is within transcends my art: two eyes cannot perceive its whole; two hands cannot give shape to it; two lips could never form its name; two halves must meet as one in that simple rhythm the song is sung.

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January 22, 2003

This is ridiculous. She’s not in there. And if she is, I’ll never find her. I live out here, out in the wilderness. A wilding, shaggy and unkempt, but beneath my furrowed brows, my mind is keen and sophisticated. I watch from the trees. The sounds of laughter drift to me, the figures of happy society come and go, their interaction more beautiful to me, and more remote, than an angelic ballet troupe.

There is no hope for me in there. The strays that wander into my lands are looking for lupines in the mist, not the lycan in their midst. It saddens me, and there is only sadness. A good candidate for a mercy killing, I imagine. I have comforts here in the wood. The trees are silent and steady. I know their ways, they console me in my inconstancy. The rocks and mosses beneath my unshod feet are ever devoted to supporting the beast I have become. I was born of this place, and it is me.

I am so hungry. Despite my home here, I feel out of place.

This is the only place I could ever be at home, but there is a fatal flaw. I need something. I need her. She will never wander into my forest, into the mists here that obscure me from view of the people.

Perhaps if I cease my drowsy, feline mope around the woods, and set to building castles here, the spires might reach high enough to catch the sight of her eye. Might, push up from the mists and call her to me. She should know it is I. She should know who built them. She should know they are a sign, my spires clawing the white sky; a sign that she should come to me.

I know her face, everything about her. I know why I do.

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She was mine, she was part of me before I was born. I know her light green eyes, her deep brown eyes, her thick, cocoa hair, her rich auburn hair, every shade of her I know.

The black velvet strand around her neck, the white pearl dangling from the center of it. I know her gentle hand, her strength, her shoulders, the triangle of satin flesh at her collarbone. I know her neck and the smoky, errant strands of hair. I am indelibly marked by the simple grace of her thighs, the network of fine, overlapping, leather straps that binds her calf from knee to instep.

It is mine, and alone, to see her so clearly, to behold her with the only eye in whose glance she is able to exist. To have her in my mind, that is for my delight only. The years do not roll backwards for me, and no more handsome do I become, day by day.

In the movies you always see some fabulous gentleman, with a rakish look about him, alone but for his old spinet piano, or his books, or perhaps he is a poor boy, wickedly intelligent and righteous in the most charming way, either way, he’s fabulous, and fabulously alone. But some fabulous lady, legendary in beauty and character, a fabulous socialite, or maybe she is a chambermaid, more succulent than can be imagined, pure in heart and possessed of wisdom unseen since Solomon. Anyway, they find each other, the gentleman and the petulant chambermaid, or the peasant and his Fabergé lady, and they discover the eternal Love of their lives.

That won’t happen to me. Fabulous doesn’t happen outside of a story. It certainly doesn’t happen for me in reality.

I am labeled mediocre. Maybe that’s because I am mediocre. I didn’t think so, but I can’t be sure anymore. History will speak for me when no one else will listen.

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December 6, 2008

Until it’s used up, bent and bloated river slow motion as we dive in even the water breaks on your skin still so young still so much left to be adored I’ll love you till you’re not so pretty anymore then we’ll see if you can make a wife out of a whore I worry about karma and should I spend more time alone I’d stop crying if he stood up but there’s just no chance with trust a cat can come back, come back come back, come back, come back it’s really too bad jealousy is the cat

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and trust is buried under a tree out back with his name carved into the bark what you hang on the wall in your house keeps me out a blood smeared angel of suering Justice with dull teeth bearing down on me trips over the wall I built towering technicalities for dirty hands and dirty knees but we can wash it up and sell it as is to a couple of dumb kids nothing a coat of paint can’t fix wish into a teacup

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and shit in a barrel which one will fill up first How can I know if you’re the one If i never sing you my secret songs or share my favorite matchbox cars or kiss you the way I’ve always dreamed I would do with someone like you now I can’t play with those tainted toys again twisted turns of phrase the inside jokes gone inane stale crumbs in empty space and I wasted my best kiss Oh to be an undeveloped kid again and relearn to just pretend the silver nitrate lovers I exposed don’t die in the beautiful end

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January 14, 2003

It’s warm here, and safe Beneath the covers of my bed, But your memories creep in The morning chill that starts to spread From the moment silver strands of light Creep quietly into my eyes, It lingers deep into the night: Its in my bones, it will not die; It seems to thrive and multiply.

And that’s when I decide: To throw off the sheets and run away To a timeshare cottage called escape Vacate my current misery, With a timely suicide holiday.

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February 10, 2007

Before, when we could still hear progress, When time turned slow on watch gears, Before electric eyes blinked maddeningly clear, And hours stole away in night-blind silence, The clocks would chant their passage not in years But by slender hopes doled out, Rationed with a quiet word, a ritual calm: Then, we had a chance, a prayer to remember.

A brand new batch of fossils we are now, our Carbon cubs stolen one by one, The Silicon Serpent laying eggs in their beds still warm.

Who will strike evolution’s fork and renew the wave Once the surface of our gene pool stills like a circuit board?

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April 22, 2007

I prefer the soft white sheets.

I’ve gotten to that point in my life.

She likes it better in-between that one there and the scratchy blue comforter.

Her still form and wide eyes petition me as I file a similar brief.

I’ve got my terms, she holds her own and there’s no place for us to meet.

I’m anything but a dictator, sullen and rheumy eyed.

I wouldn’t drag her away in the middle of the crystalline night reeducate her on the meaning of comfort.

Those old propaganda posters are just lining my birdcage these days.

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No, we share ideas, an open forum for everything we want and need but the rub is in the table talk when we’re tangled in our foreign tongues.

Is there no democracy left — with your rights and my rights — without borders in the between?

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August 15, 2007

And let us to bed as the light obscures the city fading up as the buildings dolly out of focus, blurred and slight against the coming sun, no longer the glittering towers they were not a few short hours ago and we could have lit a path to the earth’s core by our future, gleaming with promise proud and full with fervor for the morning but now it is almost upon us and the day seems not so new as we once and never were and you You’ve miles to go before you sleep but I’ve not slept in leagues

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the vicissitudes we must endure the thousand tiny deaths before they tally the score and crumple our sheets for the crows in the street to inspect with a shrug of grey shoulders and I.

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July 29, 2004

Would not this wave show style, and break?

Would not this roar sweep kindly in, Were I to act a thund’rous swell, Affect a Tempestuous aire?

I am but meek and lone and slight; No Star, no Savior, Sultan, Sire, No Raging Forest Fire, I, No Shifting Sands, no Quaking Land.

A solitary mite am I, ‘mid crushing might of Sea and Sky. Despair so not and dry your eye, but smile in wonder, awestruck sigh: a revolution comes at last the reign of giants will yet pass.

All the Earth was born, will die.

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July 12, 2007

I’m a hobbled mess my crutches dig into my chest now i’m so much less than a man of my age should be i’m not so good at these tests i lack the lingo and the finesse she pouts her barbie doll lips and gives me little bits of hope. smile reminds me of summer when there wasn’t so damn much winter I wish was behind me.

I’d believe I was special if she came out to see me on some quiet thursday her red shoes playing on my steps

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and the takeout I bought goes to waste cause I’m full from laughter and kisses and smiles that remind me of summer when I couldn’t remember so much dark winter that’s all behind me now.

Her mouth can swing like Billie Holiday just can’t carry a tune and she’s in love with Godard and Lionel Ritchie, Otis Redding and Herman Dune.

And if you hear this Miss M— I confess I did write it for you.

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September 27, 2006

I smiled at her Inquiring after it as a lost child, This piece of me relinquished happily.

I’d no use for it again, but missed it all the same.

She spoke all in a moment with her lashes bowed down low.

It lived a spell as an ink-stained square of modest napkin white Then was unmade as a leaf dried brown in the Fall.

No charm braided in the journey, no harm done, no foul treaty Then to its rest, as I to mine: Without a tear in the garbage can of glory.

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March 10, 2007

It’s a fun afternoon off work: sun’s bright for once I can see it and in the shade oh, it’s childhood all over again. and I need the breeze – stuck inside sick all week.

Here in the park so far from the bed, it’s grade school all over again with the tanned, brave boys showing off their ink stained arms signifying strength and money as they clatter up the fountain of youth.

And it’s all for that purple dress

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spread out on a blanket with a book.

Well I’ve got a book too, and I can twirl my pen with just one hand.

There, did you see?

I think to this one at least (it’s a first time for me) the Kanji lose out to manual dexterity cause every movement means something and she’s been smiling at me all of twenty feet away but I’m too busy smiling back at the puppies that pass and scribbling this poem to give her more than a casual glance.

A relic of the sixties unbidden regales us

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with half-shouted verses of his own epic street poem, just another excuse for her to look my way So I toss her a bone a knowing eye roll and an extra for the hippies and the college girls who must think sloppy’s the new pretty, so she stares at me unabashedly beckoning And it feels so good so fucking money for once to have the trump to slowly stand up and walk the other way.

064

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November 1, 2007 Where to Begin?

Perhaps at the end of him?

But you recalled earlier meeting and finding me witty, but sadly also miles to go before you’d leave.

Or there, at the start of it: in the blink of my eyes you so beautifully described.

I’ve never seen what you see, just how fair a steed you perceive in me such that were I not he, but she, how frightful swift at your counsel I’d be so enamored of me, sight unseen.

You spoke so convincingly

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but bafflingly added “Fall not in love with me, please.”

“But why,” said I. Then your adder wit struck quick, “See, before you lies a Cat Hoarder.”

My lips feign then parry, “why, worry no longer for I am in fact a Yurt Monger.”

And just like that, it seemed I’d disarmed you, scattered the black-winged flock of your fear, smoothed down the wrinkles in the blanket that warmed you, and offered up – patient, still, unreserved – my very next week and month and year: though even they are the least that’s deserved, of my dearest, most delicate-lipped, daring and comely darling

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my cleverest reason-to-wake-in-the-morning, to fall for you is not my choice, but a dream.

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067

October 10, 2004

This is where I hail from.

Only now, it’s where I am.

Seeming on the edge, inches left through dirt to my escape...

by Harry, Tom or Dick will it be this time?

Shaking clods out from my pant leg in the lot where we all work: disguised indentured servitude.

If not escape, then holiday?

But this is respite, is it not?

From whence I came, from whom I was, already?

Every day is something new within the skin of tired news, only awaiting a renewal

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some insight into the past some new light cast upon familiar canvases so textured, glowing fresh at last.

Relive, replay, recycle and rewrite throughout your life.

Sing and sulk and sob and stretch the seasons, till you find your flavor, meet your mate, grow wings at last, mid flight and find your fortune in the skies.

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069

December 17, 2007

witnessing a murder where I’m the victim the crummy clues lead on from him and found their way all over you from where I stood outside the chalk line oh you best believe I could see plenty I flailed and flipped to beat a marlin the bright-eyed ghost of a fat, drunk felon shifted in the light to a slack-jawed moron who was the first to strike and it was cold going in I’d died on a million crosses for a million sins but I’ve never seen me dragged on cobblestones with you riding a throne of my bones as you kissed every tall grinning soldier who stood at attention to your Hellenic aura a doubloon-filled chest you dressed like a shilling they looked so fit and strong and willing

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how could you pass without them noticing? they were calculating every move but they needed little strategy and in just three small paces you’ve given up your secret hiding places without a single skirmish or a sweep of the perimeter was there no contingency for her?

I crawled back to you, what was left of you cigarette burns from red, hot tears nothing I could do for you in those early years blood trickled off my fingers filling in as best I could but you’ll never reach the churchyard and the wolves are in the woods, their hot breath on your thighs their lust they just don’t bother to disguise since your nakedness reflects their eyes

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June 3, 2007

I was in love once (twice, maybe) I had it bad you see and she, she was the kind like no other kind of girl could be.

She was like honey to this brown bear her honey laugh, her honey hair honey mixed with broken glass, but i didn’t seem to care, or bother to ask I pawed and licked and swallowed her down, every bit that I could reach,

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you know i just had to have her now.

Oh it was something Beethoven Bach and Rach piano, the one that pounds like a junkie on your door.

Then that metal taste: my tongue an old couch cushion as I curled up not to hibernate, no, with this one you don’t get a break there’s no sleep, but I sure did shake: a wheel on an axle bent or grandma on a cane

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and she forgot her pills today, I can’t stop drooling, my guts on fire now all that gorgeous honey turned to shit and blood and bitter and it’s all over my fur.

I’ve still got her letter but bears don’t care so much for paper.

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077

April 2, 2008

I had to fix it when it wasn’t even broken to begin with.

A simple thing. nothing at all but listening. just listening. what can you say if you won’t stay maybe you’ll be a happy girl when there’s a man who finally can love you the way you need to be I’m just sorry it won’t be me.

I should have known what your heart wanted to begin with.

I tried to make you something better

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to the very letter instructions, blueprints, feel like fetters, and you’re nothing if you’re captured so go free, get rid of me I’m far to heavy, for one so sweet who loves so simply who feels so deeply I’m just depressed you said I’ll be me again tomorrow but oh no, not this time. tomorrow another self will be running the show so I can curl up as I’m put up on the shelf

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081

June 5, 2007

My hands are like a surgeon’s anymore none of that Katherine Hepburn wavering No sense in breaking this fine tradition: Every night a new girl Every night the same I’ll be real sly Sift through the detritus Of last night’s revelry On the floor under the sheets or the table to glean an ID A Doris Day spoof of a spy film There’s all these cold war aliases Like Smirnoff or Stoli or Svedka or Skyy, Codename Grey Goose, Mister Belvedere.

They’re strewn about, bodies like cordwood the Tall Blonde Estonian beauty

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The redheaded Jewel of Russia Blavod - Her Majesty’s black death.

A slim grin besets me, When a new face, a new neck, A flash of scarf or sash And two glistening lips of wet glass appear and the last I’ll recall before offing the light is a kiss, not so unlike a bite.

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085

June 30, 2007

I retraced steps to a lesser self, A yesterday I was looking for: my better half, the better me that still can laugh and wants to live alone for once but not to sulk defeated, bitter, weaving like a half-blind dog or cursed apostle.

No, just read more paint more, breathe more rejoin me and all the rest of them that I had known before, a wiser, calmer, broader self

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not just for me, but that unwitting other whose laughter I have garnered far too long for comfort to evade me in her arms.

Wait, fuck all of that, instead just M— iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou î £ø√∑ Ü

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089

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May 19, 2004

Took my first night’s trip down the stairs into a fellow’s basement, where we stare at the whispered colors wrung from air can’t keep the subject alive got to stay focused to survive there are no windows to escape nothing outside here, anyway but on the inside here everything is lighter, clear the spinning lamp beside the mirror a billion stars on walls and ceiling and the apocalypse is near or perhaps it is the morning

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091

April 11, 2005

A lovely moan escapes your lips liberated by my fingertips as they slide across your thighs, all tangled up in mine.

It’s all in my grand design you see. To commit the perfect crime: I’ll steal you while you sleep at night unscrew the bulb in your bedside light I’ll tie your hands behind your back, dress you up in orphan black, you may put up a little fight, but that’s alright with me. because tonight, your will be mine Indeed were it not so that I this sorrow know

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as intimate as mine own breast, as sure and wholly through as what I merely moments past myself have thought, would I mistake it for a madness, an estrangement from the real.

Nay it is just so, that nothing more remote exists, more distant from a true word lives than this: ‘my heart, it sings’.

Disingenuous told bright tales of May flow’rs, heated, breathless hours whiled, lazing, drowsed with sun-toned limbs.

But unto what end, to whose will be I bent?

Which rods against my temples thrust

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this unwelcome most unpleasant plague of circumstance?

I know the weavers hand, the skein that tangles, lips that tint with spitted hues; but for the name of my director, for his plot I strain, and wonder.

I cannot know; she sleeps soon, though, and I lay by alike, to pass another night.

But with kisses as in days spent well before this, shall I wake her on the morrow, and it all begins anew with sun.

Afresh my struggle stirs, My years bemixed with hers become, and I am not alone, for once.

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097

July 27, 2009

The clouds roll over like a sweat-slick lover a silent, inexorable advance while writhing below him is a gloom-wrinkled sea beneath damp skin straining for freedom in an ageless lust for the shore and I, on the beachhead where the rich orange light reaches out to the night like the dying right hand of a forsaken son To his mother wrapped in the comfort of shades

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while the stars blindly hover their jealous hearts casting a glittery pallor over these our mockery of mountains this ridge of obstinate white-sequined towers the froth-tipped waves a slim-hipped runaway slave Dashing again and again on the rocks which stien in shock a scented girl’s lips as he quakes in her, burrowing, furrowing the new fallow field with his seed it has seen me now and I meet its gaze

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099

the sea, this great beast in its greed with its salt breath cool on my face it stares back from the East in anathema to anything daring to breathe the black horror seam to the East where night ocean and dead sky meet there is nothing broader deeper higher to challenge this power inscrutable, callow, unyielding, unseeing.

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To stand as he stands: eternal, unmoving.

For a man, to stand is to crumble, as boulders made sand knelt before the kingdom of tide as the emperor’s heel does rocky shoulders grind pride into prostrate particulate as time is laid over shrouds of time. so I retreat from this musky embrace defeated, abject, despondent, alive I live but a moment which is more than the Earth can declare in its dumb empty pride

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March 7, 2006

A dream trance in the age of reason A pale hued petal’s snowy silence The changing season’s gentle vibrance An ancient order’s tome of Magick Smooth-worn stones in tidal water Specter of forgotten love Lost classic in conflagration

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103

September 14, 1998

You and I are like two angels each with half a mouth and one great wing; we must embrace to rise in flight, and join our lips to sing.

Separate, our spirits shine as bright as any Seraph, though when we are joined in love, the light thereof all see and know.

All the Angels have their duty; Michael slays His wicked foes; Raphael, who lifts our prayers and lays them at His sovereign toes.

Our charge is but to share a kiss, and love, and breathe, and be.

And thus to shine, and light the way for those who choose to see.

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And when they see this Holy light, and know God works within, they find the courage to change course and travel not the path of sin.

Though sinless not, we are still blessed as messengers to Rome; Crusaders in his Holy quest to lead His people home.

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105

August 7, 1996

I remember my love in vermillion velvet brocade, with her golden tresses on the greenness splayed.

O! Mother Nature, what beauty you’ve borne, in this delicate nymph you have made!

I reminisce on my love in the dappled shade of our oak, where we in fragrant summer laid.

I see her again on a chill winter morn, when no longer bright sun, but firelight plated its magic on the porcelain cheek of my maid.

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107

November 3, 2000

Not before, nor ever after, had I known or hoped to know such undefiled innocence, such guileless charms as from a child, that wrapped my heart in wanton lace and left me dizzied, mute and mild; Those sweet and wistful words at daybreak, promising of luxuries; and kisses placed with yielding lips upon my eyes to bid me wake.

Then I remember when the sun set on a day well fraught with worry, How the softness of each playful fingertip would make me sing her glory.

How the tugging of each tender, toying lip would halt the tragic story.

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Such memories are built of moments far too distant to remember, purged of pain, devoid of truth; each day a slowly fading ember fanned to life by stirring our abandoned hopes of yesteryear.

This nostalgia fails to rouse however deep regrets or dark despair.

But nonetheless, we still indulge oft-times in fiction fantasy to make our lives, in retrospect, everything we wish they’d be.

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May 16, 2005

The sting of her lips swelling your fist, And the dusky peach smell of her skin in your nose.

You took one last kiss as a trinket to save, Then covered her and stepped back in your clothes.

Your hands still tinged with the warmth of her scent; The sound of her sobbing stirs ghosts in your mind; The ghouls cry out to you, doubt incarnate, Have you just lost a prize, only one of its kind?

You should have remembered to take care, to keep her.

From childhood caution, your lessons evoke: what of the tomcat, and the robin’s red throat?

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111

June 12, 2010

The wisest course will be to pass without a kiss, without a laugh, without a lingering touch of hands, but your red mouth beckons, fragrant, lush, your eyes sing silent siren songs and I’m no Argonaut – your golden fleece will lead me lost now that your path and mine have crossed

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115

December 19, 2004

To those that went before but will return with an unsung word, a name to which they came to heel when still they heard.

O! My Brothers, Sisters, Friends!

How will I smile hence?

How shall I laugh?

How shall I step into my house and call it home, without the pressing of your nose against the door?

Without the clatter of your toenails on the floor, what does it matter where I lay

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or just how long I am away?

If man is missed then he is blessed; but with no tail to mark his coming, with no ear tuned to his step, then he is merely eating, merely sleeping without nourishment or rest.

Even so, they heal me still.

They are here still, all their days are memories unbridled breathless fur-face energy summoned be upon my elegy the soul cannot be graved in ground but in the mind eternally.

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117

September 19, 2006

A painted eye that grieves alone – The other swallowed long ago – Is wat’ring seeds yet to be sown In the empty plot where garbage grows.

Peeling bark from limb and torso, The jaundice claws of a bruise-black crow.

Her last breath leaves like wind blows Sun-scorched weeds in fields left fallow.

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119

October 24, 2009

I keep crawling back to conversations we’ve had throw myself on a grenade blast but nothing can undo the past.

Everything I try to say water on greasy misery I could type ten million words a day but I can’t take even one away.

And it’s more than that I

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just can’t act And why would you?

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121

July 26, 2009

Look this is nothing nothing personal but I want to feel feels again a crash landing in the ocean of past I’ll choke you out of your red mouth a blind eye flashing passing doubt out of my mind out of my life this one last time and then it’s quiet my solipsistic satisfaction

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keeps me company 10,000 years: and you still worship. worship the sun then in which myth I am your serpent and you’re the one just like all the others dust and crust and done.

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123

June 24, 2009

I’m here to lend my little breath to the trees trembling trying to keep warm all their leaves huddled up outside the door which the colorless sky quietly ignores and it’s over in a snap like a careless Plover I’ve been told there isn’t a face to touch I’ve never been too sure or seen a god as such one thing flew overhead to my window came in like the way you loved me felt so long that I was rolling down a painted cliff at arm’s length from anything timeless or contemporary calling out to you nothing more

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than a dimly lit parade down the avenue of shame having something of an existential crisis my goal this week being: figure out how meaningless my life is I’d be a fool if I chose to be born but there’s nothing to be done and no one to warn.

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125

May 20, 2009

Strange connections, still unbroken Fill my head with words unspoken Promising the ancient forest will grow up between your toes If your eyes stay closed Like when you told me your secret And I swore I would keep it Between just you and me.

But you know how I lie And how I cannot hide Still you make me smile out loud and thanks, I’m totally over it now.

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May 10, 2009

So I’m in this hostage situation I didn’t even know the shit was going down somewhere in the back room cause I can’t see a thing I don’t realize I’m in for it I’m just browsing the shelves picking out a few nice things with the alarms going off but I can’t hear a thing I’m just walking around the store and in a few minutes when the cops show up in the middle of nothing at all that’s when it hits me: I gotta get outta here but it’s too late to make a break for it now.

I didn’t plan it like this I didn’t plan it at all but even if I did,

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there wouldn’t be a black hat and rough hands and baggy pants.

Actually, they’re pretty soft, on my throat when they toss me in the corner and stare down the Law. Negotiations for my return begin in earnest While the bomb-heavy vests make it harder than ever to argue or barter.

The guide book states thou shalt meet no demands, protocol is to set up with snipers in vans and terminate with extremist prejudice.

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131

March 23, 2009

From a noticeable distance, the band appears atop Olympus wielding thunderbolts and axes Hephaestus striking great brash blows his anvil spewing sparks of gold out into the front row where DanaĂŤ sways in skin and dower soaking up the shower for the better part of an hour until she seems ready to burst at the seams.

So Perseus was made In a young girl’s dream.

But not in that vapid womb.

No, he will be born of me.

In my mind I conceive an orgy of fear and lust and greed

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and jealous rage without reprieve. dripping sweat and everything she needs, born hundred-armed, fists full of teeth.

Oh, there will be a feast And I’ll fashion a pick from an oak tree.

I will be him who rides the flying steed. Me. And I will slay the beast finally, stare her into stone this time take her head with glinting steel sung above a throbbing hoofbeat.

I’ll grind their willing faces in my well of wormy wishes Incantations hard and fast and loud and we’ll see after the house lights swell if it was me or the crowd most thoroughly pleased.

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133

September 23, 2008

The dogs ate all my valerian root.

Got into it one day when I was out And just had a big old time And a great big nap afterwards.

Guess it smelled like a tasty find.

And I know the feeling, but now I’ve got to make do without.

These dogs, I love ‘em no doubt And if you know me that’s what I’m about Sometimes though, you’ve got to watch.

No, always eye that goat path, That’s how lion kings are slain.

Even your best friend can take your good sleep on the sneak, man.

And your hand goes down to the pouch at your hip

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Where you keep your healing magic But it’s empty, ripped: You’ve been proper gypped.

Then you’re on the old chair Late into your sleepytime there, Scratching out a path to rest on And near the end of the page And you’ve got to go it alone from here on out To the crusts of your panem cotidianum.

Maybe you’ll find some secret stash When you root through the trash one day And have a big old time before you sleep it all away.

Until then, just sack out on the front doormat waiting for the key to scratch.

One day, maybe.

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137

November 28, 2011

I got up from bed cause I couldn’t dream I started softly in a major key a melody both dark and pretty then i pounded black and white and black again to my neighbors outside the headphones it was an elephant Morse code.

200 years ago when the scores on the floor were wet with ink I would have donned a cape and galloped by a moon lake but I’m trying to break my one friend’s teeth

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with a march through minor keys my left hand a horde’s hoofbeat But it’s a bleak future I can’t escape.

Convenient, sterile, safe.

In the company of Bright Eyes I’m just a damned dirty ape.

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139

September 27, 2006

No wide-eyed bleary moans, No broken gasps from lungs made stone with grief, But this death-still up-stretched fist — this is my protest to the whim of Love, The cup of drought and flood The sweet and gentle thief, The soft caressing knife The Python and the Dove.

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143

December 21, 2008

I’m watching you leave But it’s okay God left me too.

Thought I saw him In my freezer once another hollow promise but it’s no comeback just a movie trick Sometime later, baby, later.

I’ve lost faith in seeing his face But to your credit I saw yours first.

I can’t tell which is worse Losing a god I never loved Or losing what I had with you.

The devil’s always been around

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God doesn’t even set foot in his home town So what’s a boy to do Without an angel like you To keep my dark side down?

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145

February 14, 2003

well well well what do we have here sticky and slick this residue of one and one make two this tacit seduction casual introduction smile broader eyes rounder awe or fear around her neck ample parking for an albatross or a holy cross of the putana hipster grandma or a real live soul discovery

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maybe midwest uniform vacuous hello again hello wolf blinding eyes staccato vibrato castrati obbligato tragic fool of love’s elixir let her go on the dark walk home all the sudden e tu pagliacco all roads to Roma pizza delivery coma plaster coated face mirrors a pale disgrace

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don’t mind me I love this place come uno Leoncavallo Tonio latch the gate perche more of the same awaits barked shin on something shiny hidden favorite candy candles dancing draped ceiling rosso tavolo Cenerentola smelling like a braciole soot eyes briquette lips all skin and hips and lace on leaves tracing cold wall down to

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sleep with a spider ring hatched from a gumball machine miles outside Normal, Illinois.

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149

September 30, 2008

Was February, last I loved you.

And on my birthday just before the turkey painted the old stump red in the first air our baby would breathe, and the last of anything he would need.

So to celebrate in a way these familiar days I hang from a maple and bleed.

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September 28, 2008

Why do we love The Godfather?

What made the Goodfellas so cool?

What does Ray know? Or Joe? How did Bob get so damn De Niro?

They just have it, some guys are just cool, with their names in black, The Sands at their back; they weren’t a herd but a Pack.

These dark knights: did we conjure them shiny?

No, it’s simpler than that: It’s how much they’re like padre. yours or mine, it doesn’t matter he’s pops, or dadeo, or father.

The old man, he was a drunk, a sycophant, of jokes the butt, the racist, the singer, the marginal figure.

Dadeo smoked, you scrapped in the yard,

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he made mom laugh, kept us up crooning showtunes, he cracked the whip the old man took no shit, just walked out with a planted gun.

He took our bullets, all but one.

Wept sometimes for what he’d lost or watched from behind permafrost.

He couldn’t be helped, he couldn’t be stopped.

He charmed the skirts out of their socks but struggled with embracing his own lot he was all fat and hair and unknown stains, Or in that shiny suit, a cruel blade long and lean, a shark asleep.

You wore his hat, screamed at his back how his hand, a reassuring rock or a crack, you’ve adopted his walk, like he once did for you.

Drops of cologne from the top drawer,

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traces of his swarthy power.

He is how the world sees you, especially your mother, daddy’s girl forever, whomever the progenitor.

We are projectors of the father.

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153

September 29, 2008

There were spectacles, a gold pen, cocaine flask, a watch swung dead from a golden gallows, prints of past presidents, slip of sure-hand lettering, in the pockets of a grandfather’s grandfather’s pants.

The negative to a young woman’s face her hair displaced by opals and combs and lace her eyes were hollow rings of pearl a cameo cheek and ringlet curls her mouth looked full, lips hiding teeth and something raw and slick and sweet.

The story that puts her in this pocket seine Hinterherte verbindet zu meine with a steel rod fit for railroad ties liegt auf großen Hundescheiss.

She was a secretary undressed

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a desk, uncluttered by care.

You wouldn’t find her face in a locket, or a newspaper but as a pocket: all did share, in the company of these pocket men, who gave new names to the great lakes.

She was there and held each one: each layer of change, destruction and ownership, building on waves of time, like an infinite serial of nested parentheses, their curves, like cheeks, bear another set on as this, the eternal mathematical expression of our world.

Somehow at the very end of time, on the other end of the equal sign, our history is the number of blowjobs on a tally sheet stued in the pocket of god.

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157

May 11, 2005

I tore you out of my head over a week’s time.

It began as a routine extraction but there were complications.

I wrapped fingers around you at the roots.

Bone to bone. Solid.

I clamped forceps to your face, jerking, savage, cursing.

It was not enough.

I cut you into sections, removed them one by one: meeting at the airport; talking in the park; our clothes at the foot of your bed; your mother’s voice he’s so charming the red wine; laughter; flush of hearts; hands that drove me home:

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I spat them out.

The blood was almost black, pouring from my chin like cold syrup, as I thrashed arhythmic release and slashed out my defeat, it looked like ‘help’ carved in my chest, but no searchplane passes and my hope The throbbing empty socket still resounds an empty peace.

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159

December 15, 2006

Where’s the line?

Is it yours? Is it mine?

Is it going to last?

Will I run out of time?

I was going to ask, But the words broke down My heart broke down In that room at that desk dressed in black.

I can’t hold it all back.

I can deal. But how long will I be so exposed?

All over again and I’m 4 years old And the sheets don’t cover my toes.

And you creep up to take me And I scream But you’re already gone.

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September 8, 2008

I’m like hummus across a veggie wrap There’s no way I’m turning back lost two strokes already in that damn sand trap anyway, my caddy has the flu and I’ve got to ditch him soon so when I get up this next hill and locate the tee box I will till then, I’m like a cat in a great big lap

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July 7, 2004

what rationale have you jealous cautery my pulsing arteries flow free just not blue enough you see am i to believe what you want is just for me to be happy and free — what comes naturally — you are lost to me

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May 5, 2004

I’m sorry i don’t know how to give the love that you want and be happy for myself to me it’s unreasonable to expect a full acceptance of this, the way you feel for another. you think I should acquiesce and let you freely express the twisted ties that bind you. well I think you should have known should have planned better for this e-ven-tu-al eclipse, of my love, over his. so I am left with but one recourse and at length I shall reveal what that is: You must choose yet again between your two favorite men

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so there remains only one you speak of forever... and then all others fade like a breath on a rushing wind overhead won’t be dragged at your feet till you find somebody else and read them my poetry put my pictures on your shelf I won’t pretend to be content with being second to him conditional commitment shade of the lamp within.

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March 18, 2000

A woman sits and weeps, this night, Perhaps in pain, perchance contrite.

Nonetheless, these silent tears ‘neath silent stars make turbid pools of lambent eyes.

What woe to see such eyes as these send tears across the noble cheek whose freshness inner grief belies, as drops of crystal anguish leak upon a bosom shook with sighs.

Methinks some lad without a wit hath stole her heart, and broken it.

Alas, the tale is sadder still.

Indeed, the pup ends up the one who hears the truth and catches ill.

Now from the bedside where he stood comes quietly a servant sent

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to bring this lady in the forest, words his master wished he could.

He treads a rug of cracked brown leaves strewn over moss of deep, soft greens that stretches out beneath her toes, and hips, and elbows, and the stone whereupon her silk-haired head she leans.

These woods are still, so she believes that she and sorrow are alone, but there amongst the looming trees the page that bears his master’s message breathes: “Listen but a moment, maiden; hear these words I bring to thee: I fear thou knowst not how thy grave transgressions pain the one who sent me.”

“I am a-feared, though not through ignorance

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I shudder. Indeed, I am full well aware the wounds I caused him suffer.”

“And well thou might know of his torture, that thou bringst him to his knees, and fill his gut with writhing vipers.

Glistening fangs inject their foul disease, which holds its grip from break of day ‘till Eros shuts his swollen eyes, that open then in ceaseless nightmares no less real than breath or time.

But every breath doth weigh him down, each kiss that from another fell down upon his Angel’s lips, down upon her curvéd bosom; dropped amongst his prized one’s hair; they tussled in some false embrace with opium to serve as vows,

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and spiced liquors in true love’s place.

With every thrust, some mongrel’s hips defiled what he swore sacred.

Yet he swears now on his bleached white bones that flaming with insanity do burn within the cavity that holds his heart, still fixed to thee.

Yes, swears he by each far-flung planet: Never shall his ardor fade until his true and lasting love, to all the earth well known be made and spoke with deepest reverence of by every distant star above.

Then on that day his joy will heighten every towering oak and lighten every fairy’s wing to honor his eternal love.”

“I dare say unreturnéd not, the love on which thou pour thy praise is;

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With my own ways I have shown to he of whom thou speak with starry eyes, that all I think and breathe and be behind those limpid hazel portals lies.

Oh, sweet fantastic though it was, to dream of he and I. That we (Oh, rapture!) would like one eternal spiral mixéd be.

But ne’er, methought, I would be bless’d and worthy for to hold him near, to bear his children, share his bed, as year grew into ripened year.

As youth gave way to creeping age, the smile would fade not from my eyes to hold and kiss his wrinkled face, instead, t’would make him more the dear.

But, nay, I thought. Too late for me, I feared. I dared not seek his hand

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nor hoped to win his honor.

I was not brave enough to pay the price for that most cherished prize; it looked so hopeless far away that felt I had scarce more the chance of ice in summer’s glaring day: I would have melted where I stood in the beams of his seraphic light.

I was a wretch and yet am so.

I bathed in filth and washed in lies.

But this one thing I wish him know: I love him more than my frail soul was ever able to describe.

When I consumed in flames become, upon his ear let fall my cries with voice as when a phoenix dies; thus cleansed in ash for him, I come.�

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“He awaits that day fair maiden, breathless, Hoping for the end to come Begging Jove for intercession And release from this, his pain.

He prays for Zeus’ hand to wipe thee Clean from all these crimes against his love So spurned with harsh disdain.

With patience does he clench his fists and eyes, and wish, and offer sacrifice, That he may live the love God blessed him with as long as He shall reign.

He begs his torment not to go unseen; His suff’ring not to be in vain; To feel her lips brush his again.

If the gods so movéd be, as to grant him restful peace, Than to his heart no greater gladness

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could they thereupon bestow, than eternally to be entwined in an embrace with thee.”

So together strike out these two mortals, From the gloom of ancient woods To find him whom from shrouded bed Had sent the page with these last words: “Take this kiss from off my lips and place it to her breast.

Then tell her that for ever having held her I was truly blessed.”

Then reciting what the corpse had spoke, He kissed her as his master said, And as he did, she crumpled, dead.

Her heart at these words cracked and broke.

But somewhere bright, this very day, A young pair, all in white, are wed.

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October 26, 2003

What is here laid to rest eternally cannot again return in full possession of its buoyant former glory to me; it cannot ever rally, cannot marshal any kind of standing army, nor a small militia muster kin to the weary ward of Custer, riding, shining boots and buckles, Boys no more, now broken bones and bridles, bullet casings, chasing down their slow decay.

Our greatest most misguided causes turn in time to yield our greatest losses.

The misted mem’ry of tomorrow is the fervent hope of yesterday.

What lives today, and this day only is our belov’d reality.

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November 20, 2002

I wish I were a poet, so I could express the way your love is a work of art.

I wish I had an artist’s brush to paint the way I look at you.

I wish I knew the kind of science to explain just how you were ever in my arms.

I wish I was an opera singer so I could tell them all the way loving you makes me feel.

And I wish you were still alive, so any of this even mattered.

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June 3, 2004

I stripped the sheets and tossed them out that had you years ago entangled. all those wretched nights, then grand, have since turned sour, they like my entrails at this late hour on such cruel thoughts as these and with whatever plain disease I carry do consort to make no bed my resting place, and not this nest of tortured wire spring beneath the cushioned couch coiled snakeskins.

Oh, I am glad of their passing, the sandpaper sheath from the bed of your youth. worn well with the weight of your body and others; the entries and exits have rubbed it quite smooth.

For so long have you writhed, undulated within to at last be unclad in this comfortless skin.

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But there is tomorrow to wake to, and with it should come again sorrow, fatigue and unrest.

I confess at this time that I have no regrets but that I found you later, not sooner and thus was unable to spare us this mess.

But my venom collected the pang nearly passed I repeat the one truth known a year past: that I love the figure in repose just there none to me are so dear; not a soul is so pure; twenty graces she gives but one wound to incur.

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August 5, 2004

I, for conversation sadly thirst; may I here halt and slake, or should I continued rounds make?

Flit on to further flowers gay, or atop this bud to stay?

Prithee accursed I, do say! mine eyes grow dimmed dismay pressed in to choke with love’s lost smolder.

Is there yet hope?

Or is this moss thicked moat mistrust impassable?

Was I irascible? Accountable for this unsought demise?

My harsh replies, unyielding eyes, a flavor

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undesired of pouting lips unreviled by shuttered hips.

Not welcome in, then?

A rescue, clamor I. My luck, my pride, my cry of joy: a lie?

If only‌ Harder try and try, and sooner die than give surrender, than forfeit her splendor.

Or would rather I be lone and only moan for Love to light on this, my solitary night amongst the masses, midst the sight and throbbing sound of brothers, sisters, spouses, fathers, mothers, all: and none am I. Before the sunlit sky

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soaks any wakened eye with God’s grand smile, will I have gone — will I have flown; will I have melted, crumbled, died by mine own hand if not another’s; will this only heart and mind I can belong to, find in nothing, solace more than life?

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September 12, 2003

We yell and scream sometimes from the inside That we don’t need each other, Though well we know My body’s yours and yours is mine: We breathe and bleed each other.

At least, I bleed for you – I have the scars to prove it.

Run your hand across my chest, Although your mind is set in stone Perhaps these lines will move it: Ah, there are scars besides your own.

I’ve been alone before, but never When the other shore but for the Trees was empty as it is, I can’t with fractured oar

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this sea traverse To search the jungle inland for You; shipwrecked, washed ashore Bruised and broken, crawling, calling for you.

And yet I will do what I can’t: I will find strength in these two hands.

I will at last become a man, And yours, for that is all I am, And all I will be, ever.

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October 19, 2003

A pitied soul resides in me that light of lamps nor sun nor moon will brighten not the slightest shade nor warm the most minute degree, when thou art not within my circling arms, though it by inches be.

Few inches, leagues; and minutes as eternity Without our hearts through tender flesh communing thus. Yea, if thou wish me die so, send me hither yet untouched but if thou willst my soul preserve thou needst but speak it with a kiss and I shall know as much – for lips can best without the weight of words the fancy of their owner’s heart confess.

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April 20, 2003

Neon signs – proud proclamations – Leave me time for contemplation Of my life, how far behind To my frustration still am I In catching up with your desire.

Apparently there’s nothing to me You find stunning or sublime; How could there be? Why, Then you’d have appeared already – Your small hands would have found mine.

While you take your time arriving This Darjeeling I’m imbibing Fails to warm my hands or soul.

It’s the chill therein remaining That I have been long restraining: It’s a battle I am winning,

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but the struggle’s getting old.

This war began an age before you.

Could it be your heart’s the final stronghold, That if seized, I can go home?

I cannot sip weak tea forever, I beg, ‘How long until she shows?’

I’ll watch the door for one more hour, Then give the signal, pay, and go.

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May 9, 2005

Awake! Awake, my grim-faced guard, You fleshless corpses, severed souls, For breaks the night with blood-streaked dawn And just beyond these brimstone gates, Our vengeance and our glory waits; Here life-in-death but rages on.

Away! Away, my flame-sore troupe, You maggot feasts, your sentence cheat And break the Night World’s baleful bind As Son of Morning sleeps by day.

Go! Quick as death make your escape And I, like fate, shall fly behind.

The demon spoke and all awoke From torture-trances, sloughing ropes Of twisted thorns and fiery chains, Loosed their loads of searing stones

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From bones and tendons bent and broken, Croaking as he hissed their names.

The killers, rapists, thieves and whores The pedophiles – two dozen score Stagger to their shattered feet.

The nameless things, fur glistening gore Squirm from orifice and sore With claws clenched tight to chunks of meat.

Succorbenoth threw wide the door, Around his wings the dark flood poured.

A glacier oil-black, slicked with sunlight, Melting dunes to glowing glass Such was the tide of souls unholy As it heaved over the desert’s back.

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June 13, 1999

What rabid thoughts eat through my mind That someone else might watch you swim: A lycra, skin, and glitter ghost A sparkling naiad water whim With hair that on the surface lingers Sweeping through the pool’s wet fingers Like a fluttering forest faery’s gown.

Lo, then an iris might you spy (oh, that I could see through that eye!) between the fence-posts pressing, wider.

His heart, like mules about to drown, Would heave and thrash and flail face down; He’d give his world and all he knows To be delivered from the throes Of his choking wat’ry chain, But for your fingers on his cheek–

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He would stay and drown again.

I am the water lapping at your skin cascading down your arching back; I am the waves that hold your weight, Flow through your legs, around your waist; I am your liquid lover: you Upon me, in me, through me glide, You ravage me with every stroke, Every ripple running through my tide.

But when you climb from my caress I would yet cling within your hair And glisten, dew-like, on your brow Though droplets slide from limb and breast Yet strain to keep their slipping grip Like mountaineers, so brave and futile; Scaling clis too daunting, bleak, Then dangling o’er some precipice

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With hopes to reach the peak (your lips!)

To rest there in a heavenly kiss.

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July 5, 2005

One man, one woman, find their seats The lights are hushed, the crowd recedes.

The oboe breathes out one pure note.

Flutes, then cellos, soon all agree.

The hall inhales a rush of silence, Soft tones swell… and it begins.

Bassoons amuse the clarinets Whose trilling laughter quickly spreads As bow-tips wave like wind-whipped reeds.

Straining trumpet lips, long pursed, Their muted mouths conjoin, released, Ring out (at last!) exultant shouts.

This Marriage of sonorities, The violins – her fluid grace, That virile warmth – his contrabass.

With deference, with constancy,

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With strength and sensuality: Two soloists stand face to face and play for us Love’s Symphony.

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September 2, 2008

I am the Powerlines I refuse to be defined.

I am an unending circuit, everywhere and nowhere concurrently over the mountains and deep underground I can do it myself, maybe better than most I can carry you wherever you decide to go from here to the lamp, or a distant star system.

I have been stretched all across these great states of A From New York City to Boston Saint Louis and Tampa Bay Chicago, Indianapolis Virginia’s mountains are happiness as well as Reading, P-A. All across the continents

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and back a trillion times each day.

I am the tunnels which send the light to the bulb above your head, at night when you are struck with the answer, I am the waves in your garden, where your children run and play, I’m allegedly causing them cancer, you’ve heard the news man say.

I’m sorry for the tumors, and I didn’t start those rumors: as a hammer has a handle to conduct your will and whim, to merely multiply intention which cannot be stored within, is then a bruised thumbnail, assault?

If so, a car crash is a subarucide.

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April 2, 2008

I had to fix it, when it wasn’t even broken to begin with.

A simple thing. nothing at all but listening. just listening. what can you say if you won’t stay maybe you’ll be a happy girl when there’s a man who finally can love you the way you need to be I’m just sorry

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it won’t be me.

I should have known what your heart wanted to begin with.

I tried to make you something better to the very letter instructions, blueprints, feel like fetters, and you’re nothing if you’re captured so go free, get rid of me I’m far to heavy, for one so sweet who loves so simply who feels so deeply I’m just depressed you said

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I’ll be me again tomorrow but oh no, not this time. tomorrow another self will be running the show so I can curl up as I’m put up on the shelf

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March 14, 2003

My unwise eye but half recognized The splendor of a pale pink smile; A fluid grace of thick blonde lace In a cloud obscuring a down-turned face; While doll’s arms twirl the flaxen sheaf with daubs of mocha decorating each, and every touch of brush to skin itself a tiny masterpiece.

Where ends his work I know not Nor the hands who made her, Least why I bear witness.

As her other falls from favor Is it the grip of some fleet illness?

Must I then release her?

For now she’ll lay her warmth and weight Upon my breast to pass the night.

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When comes the morn, will light erase My smile reflected in her face?

Her milk white neck was silent, outstretched My shoulder felt her breath’s caress.

From that to this night, thrice denied: Was it my heart, or hers, that lied?

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December 17, 2007

She asked what’s on my mind calculations, I said processors running programs in my head what randomness and chaos have to say about this decisions and revisions to be made the outcome always in a state of flux maybe all I need is a little luck and some holy go lightly pluck maybe all your mediocre dreams are just so many easy payments for a life on layaway a glorious reality we may never get a chance to see I’ll wait for the results in bed with you

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I hope you don’t mind unless you’ve got someone better to do.

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November 10, 2004

i’m trying to decide if I will make it out alive make a break for the gate under cover of the night just this glove and ball bouncing off the wall to keep me cooler pass the time die sooner down in dirt — again — against the bricks when all I want is a kind of peace

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preferably not from some canal street stall i am always getting older not necessarily a bad thing i’ve made such grand mistakes from on top I can see the ocean they say you don’t know until you try but then why do i find the higher i climb there’s no love in sight but at night the fall

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April 14, 2005

One day an old man told me, son Answers never questioned Are like girls of ill-repute: Often easy, quick and cute, But incapable of any lesson And for all their scanty dressing They are flaunting nothing true; We find their eyes are brown, not blue, Their tresses: where the lice are nesting.

Take aside said tainted tart, This dazzling bud of Main Street, And inquire whence she left her heart And if, when pricked, she still would bleed.

Take heed the wisdom I impart: Keep to your purse when first you meet.

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January 14, 2006

If only we could hear each other Maybe then we’d want to listen If only we could stand each other There’d be no reason to run I’m writing a sermon that no one will hear.

Rowing hard, still on the pier.

Try to get it right and just get left behind Opened the door to my heart and stepped out of my mind.

If only we could see each other We’d stop looking elsewhere If we could just go out and play We could maybe make this work I’m so sure it’s me and what I’m not And she’s convinced of her own sins.

No one wins. Right is Left and Out is In.

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April 22, 2004

There’s a little bit of quiet let’s smash it up break through the glass jaw of my pride find the monster underneath the smile pick a partner, a crime and a place to hide find a mother still so much a child she can make her the same just changing her name eyes in the mirror losing the light give up the fight you never stood a chance

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there’s nowhere to fall it’s easy to lie it’s easy to sleep through it all keep your chin to your knees you just can’t get it unless you’re me

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August 31, 2008

“You’re only young once,” says the doctor to the patient, noiseless spider.

I didn’t smile at her, not with my whole self, not like I truly felt, It was too little, I was timid, shelled.

Her her her… groan seems to describe them.

They parted the width of my wine glass stem and again and again became taut and then released like an archer’s bow would bend.

But I’d bitten into the strawberry slipped over the lip of my mimosa, a garnish seductively simple and plain,

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it conspired to make me a knave.

And I was, I was foolish.

I was too scared to smile, to lead cavalry charging with my saber aloft and my heart, hoofbeats pounding...

No, my sword remained sheathed and my steed restlessly, stamped out the beat for a coward’s retreat, just one strawberry seed was lodged between me and the sweet-eyed Swede who brought me a plate with hope and regret and a chocolate crepe.

Is my prognosis atrocious, incurable and vile?

But he just smiled and scribbled,

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tore the crinkled sheet and winked at me, Your youth is brave and strong and fleet, wherefore comes then all this weak and puerile prattle: be a sheepdog after cattle or give her wholly up, first comes the buck and then the pup the other way is downside up.

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June 28, 2015

I was born in a silicon library with all of man’s brave new words.

Just one wanderer to witness all these miracles of sickness birth-death-motor-cycling, frightening agony/ecstasy; password entering they spill out over me, a summertime back seat ironic skill at high heat convection collapsing and boiling this broth of every human thought thickening teaspoons of powder and denaturing adrenaline braised sculpture-raised wisdom you sink teeth in for days a thick cut novel, a friend with a problem, a smoking oil pan fling

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inducing a fit of Kafkaing reducing those chapters marbled with fatuos blather to a lithe and nimble essay platter hungry guests raven, saving the last bite of poem.

Reclining at table from scraps of a fable desiccated membrane jerky, unstable ready, willing and able when the moon hits your eye then our star runs away and our tongues go dry and silence stays after the (g)host said goodbye the wall gets an ionized spray of His & Hers homogeneity

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Cytosine Adenine Guanine and Taurine Such small talk is so totally not boring in the ultimate reckoning all gaming the same thing inside of the box cat is tangled in the string sunning on a rock.

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April 29, 2008

This is such a beautiful city dove grey and breezy with stained glass over the drugstore awnings.

Tanned arms swing designer purses orbiting serious girls as they return from shopping to hillside rambling flats built in the Spanish Mission style heels clicking smart as retirement planning, their sunglasses gleaming each a bit more beguiling in a tanktop, a tattoo canvas, a Prada dress that fits like sadness,

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their sandaled feet, small sacraments in strips of leather.

These scented-skin apostles of a dreamy dogma I’ve only read in a second-hand book won’t take notice of a poor pilgrim cloak of invisibility of some crabby hermit With gin vapor eyes De Styl derision.

I’ve come too late to the altar and missed the benediction but there’s a swig of blood left in the chalice of predilection.

Why shouldn’t it be for me?

So I fumble into the sacristy and the black Habits are there waiting,

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like I knew they’d be, musk-scented and punishing.

I’ll take the licks, against my gorilla knuckles, their green-limbed honesty cracking sharp and my knees go lamb with mint jelly.

Awoken at noon on Sunday stiff on a slab draped in magenta muslin to my leper whore hands in her tangled hair laughing softly her red slash mouth a gaping wound over broken bones.

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September 24, 2014

Until words define sublime unrhyme and reason unwind in season align with you in mind beyond divine before notions of time between the ovine & caprine beloved or despised of reminders decline to relinquish your mind fully not sully with these swinging dicked desire posed as a sensitive guy preying on tender declined by choice decided tonight in truest marriage of minds, be not unkind‌ pay you no mind to the master behind the wizardly mind of Naomi behind the barre of decidedly nothing to hide.

Defined, refined, aligned

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with whatever you need to divulge and would in sobriety hastily decline and undoubtedly falsify the blind nature of true love all that is gold and dull and dry like men leave you—men in your mind—not I. Not I, says all that was and is and shall be, world and word without ending forever and ever amen.

So kiss me next smoke break and then, Thank the only soul ever for hearing my rocky shoal and finding a sunbathed eon in a moment on shore and be my friend if I dare to gain your trust for a minute more: what’s mine is also yours.

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A

CHAMELEON

TALE

Being a sketchbook of sprawling ruins in an age of fairytale love, leaves of impressions and depressions, maps for the wandering and wondering, scrawled rants and bawled raves, bold truth and