(meanwhile, beneath an intoxicated sunset, some gold gently strokes her curls, sanguine, until dusk snuffs them out, again)

and her future, it’s extinct.

Still posturing for some un-identity
while Brothers & Sisters of a revolution
beat clocks to death,
their rigor mortised Sons & Daughters fossilizing.

(but I’m bent, unrecognizable; chain-smoking chivalry, it loosely dangles on my lips, like lost sentiment. I can and won’t cry, simultaneously)

Hidden by intemperate tremors,
and sudden glances from below.
(so I try keeping natural)
Trying not to stare at stray hands,
who only mind themselves.

(still ill-luminated, I lie awake. Re-arranging the day’s unnecessary accessories on her nightstand)

I’m half blacked-out,
spouting sanctimonious shit,
and it’s making me sick.
‘It’s all empty,’ dawn says,
tucking me in,
her slurred reprieve half-lie half-gin.

-Jan 2010

Now this decade is stooped and dying,
tonguing words they’ve tried to trigger
since before we were young.
Straddling the line
between dreams and nightmares,
my mind unmade.
Neapolitan skylines, cityscapes
snubbed from the maps.
I busted them!
Like cigarettes in my palm.

And with an unmarked breath
I drowned this city.
Slapped the art, like a silly grin
from her face.
And with my arms to above
I felt God like the blood in my veins.
His villainy somehow made apparent,
then vindicated.

Yes, I think it’s true:
there’s toughs still undiscovered.
How bitter a thing, this word ‘forever’!
Somehow our city sleeps fully dressed,
piss-stains and a rotting mouth
burning at her under-arms
like fickle fires from her children –
at once at peace and then to war.
Holy hypocrisies seldom sleeping
for the dull pains of long days.

Daft and incurable
our mother’s hands the only antidote.
but they’re kept tied by her scars,
And she works long hours.
Long enough to
hatch some kind of escape
involving rental cars and nervous tics
from infinite coffee,
left to boil till it
eats itself up and
tattoos a sticky death along the pot’s bottom.

Can you understand the unwanted gist of my seething?
On and off like the tide
unmoved but receding.
I’m a shivering shtick.
Please don’t believe that these pleas are some treason.
Please comprehend the quiet science of my breathing.
I keep pretending these words say something
but I’m betrayed by their actions:
skinny and weak like a portrait you fashioned.
Does tomorrow still come with a blessing?
Or will my speech dry up
when my luck does too?

When the fire of old friends expires
its ash is bitter at dawn,
barely burning while the sun takes torch.
In a basement I loved,
so often re-incarnated by faces,
made alive by faith’s lonely stasis.
The bronzed skin of wrinkled presidents
further weathered by winter’s liquored rivers.

So now I’m diving headfirst into untitled horizons,
but I’m afraid of infinity,
and this scenery is limited
by an untainted, untamed window.
Screeching in to a crash-course climax
collision coming
one way or the other.

Yet I’m trying to recreate the dramatics of motion
but addiction’s excess
takes precedence
so prudence shuts up,
locks herself in the car.
Inspired by a soft stomach
and the fire of redemption
(a word I swore I’d never use
because the chewed fingernails
of pre-pubescent poetry
de-clawed it of meaning long ago)

Just give me an unknown canyon,
bullhorn and a soap-box
and I’ll toss my words
down an unending pit.
Then stand,
screaming away the days.
Re-learning then forgetting
the tired truths of my wisdoms:
slowly starve to death
singing loneliness’ lullaby.

(July 2009)

-June 2009

too much, that

dorothy rests, affixed
against the front-door
she has a polka-dot apron which
matches her eyes (blue and purple)
and

she’s seen the youth
gut this ghetto and soil the city
leaving
young, tattooed hearts sputtering
for love’s last breath
but
she’s cross town, crossing town,
and i’ve seen the smile
(though it’s unassuming)
only younger

i, breaking consciousness,
surrender
my angst and ammunition,
like twenty years of strife –
the cold-blooded puddles
almost
looking gorgeous,
while flowers catch light
under winter’s
double-barreled night

-March 2009

(for you and I        have legs and feet        make us to move        our bodies meet)

I told her
words work
(and they do),
but it’s something
she isn’t really
asking;
it’s her fingers
begging to know
if the trembling
is a side-effect
of the cigarettes,
or the cold.
I said she should
live like a light
in the sky
because fireworks
(and it does).

(but clocks have limbs        which tick and tock        that will turn back         and will still shock)

And will I remember
her fingers again
or is that
lost
too
could not someone know?
I remember them
feeling like motion
again
and crashing
still.

(just remember, don’t:        go on and on     /     like idiots     /      for each other)

That’s when
I had it
that
moment of clarity
before the
surface shrinks by the shadow
then breaks; splashing,
’neath the weight.
Baby
I’ve some parts mechanic.
And I haven’t
touched
like this
in a while –
like lights
flashing/exploding
in the sky.
Realized
maybe
I’m on fire
and it works.

-July 2008

Clinging fast to a world we feel entitled,
though I see it’s undeserved
when those lacking voice speak loudest.
Jealous of earth, who flaunts time
while we weak ones waste away.
In cities my sisters and brothers walk off-step
cause nothing lives in sync,
save prayers
if the accident will.

How subtle life’s harmonies,
how glorious discord makes her melody!
Aging day and night,
born new and dying.
Re-learning and forgetting
the tired truth of lullabys:
that there’s nothing but sleep
to cure the sickness of a modern heart,
but tomorrow’s gonna be a better day.

Born of a clay city,
where art is out of breath,
barely living
in the short gasps of her imitators – You Pretenders!
Rest assured,
universal truths are unreal,
because no painting lasts in new light,
and time has no photographs of existence
which match mine, or anyone’s.

We’ve raised our children for the future:
afraid to live forever,
and unable to escape legacy
because their Television Daddy’s
brought them up to
write novels and films
about the men they wish they were,
conveniently forgetting it’s within reach.
We thought we’d learned
that modern life is making movies,
forgetting with time
life is only its moments,
and to stay stopped is surrender.

-May 2009

seducing clarity
on a map
we
wrestle time’s great
big bear claws
from his side
pinching
nerves and blocking
blood
in the veins

while
broken-fingered spiders
aggressively caress
their new-borns
though not as yet awake
in a
nother life

and i
stifle squeaky tongues
as they repeat
‘unique new york /
i need
unique
new york’

but she sits still
pretty,
sullen and dead-faced
blood sport
displayed
cross her chest
while i
lie unawake
scraping
the city
of its skin

-March 2009

-April 2009

And I will chase the clouds across the sky,
choose the cadence of the concrete
(though it may not be so kind)
and connect the cities like constellations.

Wander on black-top / ponder on roof-tops.
I will make love to my notebook,
then fall for the static of silence.

In the mute light of the road at night
I will find distinction in
lost skins, blood kin, and skeleton.
Then travel back again.

Well, we’re all our own universes.
Like flowers in a garden;
half-dead or half-dying:
I feel like I’m waiting on closed doors.
Kept in ’cause the world’s been made too full
and they’re trying to give us room.
-October 2008