I Can See Your Sadness And It Is In The Way You Move

shoulders all lower case

eyes look up already ready to close

one foot in front of the other

marching on to a death camp

clothes hang

like damp towels

in showers unused

hair mussed

like moss out in

quiet

unseen forests

man –

I can feel your sadness when you walk by me.

throwing blankets over

everyone's head

hoping you'll blind them

so no one sees

all I want to tell you

is there is a way out

the sliver of light

in the corner of your heart

is the passageway

don't forget it's there

and if you did

well

read this poem,

and remember

I wrote it just for you.

Monday Night

Lights as lush as sound

the bass drum kicking from the other room

2 lovers in the night

drape their arms around each other

They laugh. It's cheap.

So are the shots.

Candles bend, flicker, insult me

their fire, constant

me, getting weaker, confused, losing focus

Sound is hard

the clank of empty pints on the marble bar

shady characters in pork-pie hats

British accents, the smell of BO

the candles,

I'm just jealous,

the fire,

without ears to hear the cackles,

without a heart that will stop beating.

The Crush

You are gorgeous.

No drink could match

the thirst I have

for your golden skin

an ocean that is your hair

would not fulfill

sticking my fingers

into the tide pools

and tasting the salt.

I imagine

before sleep

you are the pillows beneath my hands

my sheets a spread of your skin

blankets that are your fingers

pushing down towards my stomach

this is the crush

the process of finding then wanting

perhaps you would allow me

to express my admiration

in the finest way I know

to see how we move

when there are no other words

but: more

and to make you come

with my crush yearnings

and some delicate

insertion

This language of

the flesh

time's and everybody's

antagonist

these little devious words

a rub on a magic lamp

bubble prayers

blown into the night

and the more I write

the more I can see

you and I in said acts

right before

my thirsty mouth

and my sleuth hands

as we make our

most subtle

pornography.

("The Crush" first appeared in the now defunct Zygote In My Coffee, June, 2006)

Love.

the bed is a soldier

standing out there on the edge

I want to lay down

but the waves won't let me sleep

I can watch, but I can't touch

the metal tells my flesh no

it tells me

it's time I stabbed someone

other than myself.

The Writer

Someone who thinks

putting words down on paper

somehow is going to save them.

As if ink was Jesus

walking on a sea of tree limbs

a paper-salt cross laid on

an ocean full of dead ears.

As if brooding was some

destined possibility

opening up through verses

rather read than said

when logic explains casually

sitting before you

in a business suit:

"sorry sir–but we've foreclosed on any

dream you might have had

–we'll never make a dollar off of it

anyway"

his voice is dead-pan.

You feel like there's a camera

somewhere recording the whole thing

a movie nobody wants to watch

a song people forgot how to sing

but so what?    

the business-man's face is a dried pear

a baked turkey face

full of gravy cheeks

mashed potato hair

butter eyes

and you keep on anyway

putting pen to paper

hoping the next word

will be a step towards

making breathing easier

cause you'd like to hear

the right voices in the theater

by doing this pen to paper intercourse

this verbal sex

this ingestion

putting figures to thoughts

placing letters where the hearts go

writing instead of

loading

suicide guns

pissing off the paper weights

sounding off

when everybody

was already

done

yelling

for the night.