I Hate the Word

Is love not a vile and formless thing?
Is it not all tripped forward in flesh
hastened to punished hearts
and be quickly thrown up
like two fingers down the throat?

I vomit these words up
like Clean Christians
applying hot pokers
to naked pagans

I twist 'i love you'
around snarled lips
with a tongue so bruised
in deep purples
that only spit and bile
come to the surface
and gurgle out around
my crooked teeth

all like a buzzing
of collected bees
under my wane and pale skin
and in silk covers
all wrapped in finery
face applied
and held still like granite
I find no comfort
and spew blood upon white gowns
and smiling sycophants

I spit up love
oh wretched thing that you are
I spit it up
onto the lapsing scenery
the collapsing dreamlessness of morrow's day
where garish sun sinks to Death's kingdom
and lovers become anchors
to my blackened vomitous soul
in the dark depths
of frozen oceans on the point of the known world

tread not where monsters touch
the faces of fair maidens
and in my fury
I am blind
o'er I catch your love all up
in all but these crooked sharpened teeth
and tear it to little bloody rags
on the edge of your fraying mercy

I cough up 'i love you'
in great black chunks
and gouge my green eyes out
for this is a vile and formless thing
this horrible love
that has found its way
to the bottom of my bottomless heart

I Knew Right Then That You Would Break My Dirty Heart

And you might wake up tomorrow
with the strange taste of blood
in your throat

and you might wonder where the summer went.

You might wonder about the cold place next to you
and the strange perfume upon your pillows.

You might bury your head in your arms
and remember unusually cool skin on a sweltering night
curled against you
whispering something
that sounded like a dirty confession of love.

You might think you remember me
but I am just a dusty ghost
on your tongue
that you collected one warm night
from the trash cans in the alley
and I have gone home
with my dirty pitch black heart
to the clean white snows of Winter's hands
and the gentle caresses of Fall's windy tongue
to calm myself of your summery lies,
your heated hands
and your golden shining skin.

When Summer and Winter Were Lovers

With downcast eyes you whisper,
'This is too much;'
but I know the most intimate act,
between a man and a woman,
is to have him take your hand,
and lead you through a crowded room.

You trace your fingers down my wrist,
as you draw me around the twisted throngs,
of careful on-lookers,
locked into their own tragic romances,
slipping shiny little glances at other parts of the room.
This heated night touches our skin,
and we pine for Summer's last days.

Glitter falls from the ceiling and lights upon my skin,
as you wrap yourself around my form,
in rhythm with this tribal beat;
a thousand feet pound the floor,
shaking the false columns of a lost Babylon.
I rewrite this Odyssey sinking into the ocean of your arms,
with my eyes half closed and your lips upon my neck.

This room is full of nymphs turning their bright eyes to us;
in a winking moment of tantalizing breath,
a two-sexed goddess controls the air around the stage,
and all eyes cast upon her;
but your lips remain upon my neck,
and your hands stray down my hips,
playing out the beat of your lust.

When we flee this room,
full of the beating hearts of breathless dancers,
and slip into the darkness of the city,
stealing down the back streets of dimly lit houses,
you stop me and kiss me under a tree,
dripping in the last vestiges of Summer.
You run your hands under my dress,
caressing your way to your own desires.
I feel Fall creeping cold hands into my hair,
and the wind begins to blow from the North.

This big bed is where I am undone,
and slip into a troubled sleep.
You stand in the corner and whisper,
'This is too much;'
I can feel the Fall turning my skin damp,
dieing leaves caught up in my hair,
all passion leaking from me as the Summer vibrates on and on.
I can feel the new Winter now not far,
crying to the dawn in a hushed voice.

They were once lovers as we are,
the Summer, ever bright and the Winter, darkening,
Summer kissing the glistening snows of Winter's soft hands,
Winter's frozen breath grazing Summer's warmed cheek.
But they never touched,
never found paths beyond emptiness,
and broke themselves,
as I have broken myself on the glass in your heart.
I watch your sad eyes as I turn on,
into this blinding dawn of dieing Summer's last wish,
for the Winter neither of us can have,
and the Fall that always keeps us apart.

Out Here She's Already Gone

my words
dipped in heat
and hesitation
come out
and spill down your neck
fevered
sticky
like my breath
all undone
and weak

but you have come here
for only one reason
need in your searching fingers
and open mouth
want shimmering down your limbs
slipping in and out of your mind
my face lost in the focus
of the moment
the skin
the sliding

sheets become landscapes
and words become useless
only breath and clutching
take up the air in here
i close my eyes
as you slip your hands into my hair
to hold me still
i seem to be vibrating in and out
of here
out of your urging
panting

'please stay here with me'

i am already gone
already fading
sighing down the wall
and onto the floor
my shadow finding the door
pulling me to the street below
in between the trees
and blackened out stars
like missing teeth
running jaggedly
outside among the towers
forever

you will feel better when I am gone
you just don't know it yet

Blueberries and Ash

I am hounded by your hands
my evil-throated man
the drumming of your fingers on my thighs
the beat of your breath in my ear
all madness

I have taken your unwillingness up in my mouth
rolled it over my tongue
swished it between my teeth
and spat it out again

you taste of blueberries and ash
remind me of my homeland
where the trees bent at my passing
the grass forming knots as I would go

you called me ice maiden
mad with the cold
you called me
the eternal virgin
and sent me on to arid pastures

you looped my hair over your fist
and held me there
mad eyes rolling, mad eyes
you stood on my hands
and tried to reach God

and I am throat
all calling and want
voice straining for Heaven
past your tilting mind
riding your last thought
to stars just above your head

body now my own
unfettered by your slipping grip
your bones under my heals
your neck at an impossible angle

you forever quiet
and me
with Sun in my mouth
rolling on eternal hills
in the Grace of the Ever Shining All

Altered Ego

I just want you to know
I have found your secrets
and I have hardened myself against them

words fly out of your mouth
with a slickness
that once unnerved me

now I find your sputtering
with your self-importance
a distraction to my isolation

i still seek you out everyday
but with a limit to my emotions
that curls around my head like smoke

your eyes are cardboard circles
on your doll face
and your lips are always open

I have found your secrets
and know you with an intimacy
only discomfort can bring

I dream like a ghost
and only love the wrong ones

My Red Dress

the terrain of your hand surprised me
each vein a road to damnation
a winding movement to my own futility

the twist of your wrist around my ankle was startling
your skin cold like dirty ice
with you at my feet I felt wavering

swooning at your intellect
and subservience

you had fashioned your want into a shiny black reverberation
a fetish for form and slipping;
a slipping of hands up skirts

hark demon! hark devil!
my own erotic trembling the last right of my body
i control all and nothing

in that throbbing moment
i knew
that i had to stop you
before you could reach up
and undo the few remaining buttons on my red dress

i had to stop you before you reached that prize
your satisfaction could only be my undoing
and your eyes hold no love
in the demonic reflection of my glittering soul

close the door tightly when you leave
i need the quiet to go on

insects on a windshield

i see no city

nothing stretches before me
only the reflections of yellow highway lines
in headlights
rushing past my image in the dull glass

and the dimness of dashboard lights
cast upon the eeriness of your face
(like a green halo)
reminds me of

the shimmering distance
that connects between our silences
and the pulsing glow on the horizon
cannot shorten the breath
in between these spaces

and even if i could still love you
the destination would never equal
the sum of where we came from

the lie in blue eyes

i remember your cruelty
washed in ignorance
i remember being neither dead
nor dieing
but folding under the weight
of your blue eyes

your sweet blue eyed treachery

here i made my home

and returned to it again and again
only to find the doors locked
and the windows dark
smudged deep with your fingerprints

if i can remember your cruelty
if i can remember your ignorance

o' god why am i here again?

Gone

i knew
my childhood
had ended

when i
no longer
believed
that anyone
would die
for my love

girl

i saw her standing there
nervously rubbing her palms
over her thighs
biting her lip
looking side to side
her dress clinging at her knees
mud splashed up her legs

i wanted to
i wanted to touch her
i wanted to hold her

but i knew that
would make everything
so much worse

bed sheet goddess

you explored the hollows of
her stomach
and wished for a roundness
to swell there
for her breasts to
grow tender

you lay your head just below her ribs
willing another heartbeat

with your knees on the white sheets
hands on either side of her hips
you mouthed against her belly

a name
a single name

again and again

her fingers may have been in your hair
her eyes fading in the soft light

but you knew

(o' sweet mother of my children)
you will never see Louisiana

Empty Houses

I am trying
to clear this little space

for you

in this empty house
my heart

empty in my reasons

a passing
a particular line of your shoulders

the borderlands of my love
a listlessness of my own wronging
longing to be right

little crooked house
my heart

please let us stand
and move in this one swift motion

please take me home

Hyacinth

you once told me
that you pictured me
in some tropical place
walking a road to a beach
with a hyacinth in my hair


you were probably too drunk
to remember that moment clearly


busy marveling at my willingness
to walk barefoot
on city streets

you may have never known
that single clear memory
etched itself on to my heart
and i feared that it would never happen

you may have never known
how i spent the next year
desperately searching for the words
to tell you
just how much i loved you

i still think of that moment
and mouth those words
through bitter hyacinth tears
to the empty space
where you should be

Armor

on nights
such as these
i only wish
to hold you tight

lest you evaporate
from my arms
as i have
so very often feared

for in my experience
evaporation is unquestionable

here
i would be vacant
little left
but a hollow smile
twisted upright
slashed across my face

your sleeping form
is the only thing
that holds me to this world
on treacherous nights
such as these

i am lying by your side
praying
for the dawn to never come

This Dirty City

my horizon
affected by your memories
standing here

this dirty city
stretching before me
feeling your breath in my ear

i am trying hard
very hard

closing my eyes
touching the cold glass
trying to reconcile
your past with my present

i am here
i swear i am here

if i were you
i would hold on to me tighter