Jan 25, 2012


a whole gold leaf
to cover more than space-
the cutting of air, into & over-
the thrill of the slice
of the sky.

a poem is only a little chaos.
evidence of expansion.
the shadow of the soul.
moss be with you. me without
the farms well I’m mostly fielded.

it only takes four small seeds
to fall, for months under.
don’t make me make
you say underwear.
a silly bunch of leaves is this.

a yet to be raked.
a blade ablaze in
the nimbus of your throat.
purple fruit or close to it.

i wonder even still how Pluto must feel,
to be the 9th man,
 a catcher of orbits
& drift a year too far,
wind up forgotten.

there’s way you know to water from rocks.
even cold, get north to south.

III (or 9.87 m/s2)

you in the middle my arms
are springs uncoiling for such cushioning.
from the fourth floor up the drop
ain’t no fatal Friday but kiss your ankles goodbye.
eye contact is pulling teeth but more obviously visual.
this is a whole letter late.
a very late letter subpoenaed by a paler later rabbit.
if it were up to me, those cinder blocks
are what goes through the looking glass.
just to get the air less still.
its an exegesis of our community, no one
reads these things anyway unless they think
their names will be hidden in ever so.
like unboarding all of Baltimore’s fucked panes on the off chance
someone left the pilot light hot.
you in the middle of the hiss.
me still four floors up, my smoke only rises.
the only thing i remember from physics is how
we can only fall so fast.
oh yeah well who says
point ‘em out

a train leaves Philadelphia at
noon heading south & another departs from boston
half past eleven heading west
at what time do the passengers realize
they won’t ever see those tracks or those almost blurs again?
until he realizes she is on the very wrong train?
how big will the bruise be-
the self-inflicted shin kick- give measurements
in inches, round up to the nearest satellite & jump
it won’t hurt it can’t
the clouds have been such sufficient padding

Jan 21, 2012

lift me up by my shingles.
a million plagues on all the houses of everyone
who refuses to leave a voicemail.
i have been as empty as the ink ribbons
which ought to have been used as wreaths.
apologies in advance for rolling over you
every few hours, it’s just this damn wine.
you see, i’m quicksilver, man
i’m a fatwa called on all the moths, we are
all supposed to be butterflies.
you could be the last lime popsicle.
its only January but I still need
a valentine &a couple more fifths of Karkov.
we could kill three birds with half a bottle
if you want to just stay in.
i’m normally not one for small sacrifices but exceptions
can be made if the prompting is right.
I am nothing but split lips.
bad vision and a worse influence.
the backyard knows what i’m talking about, the tigers
prowl around Manor Park just sniffing sanguine.
of all the attempts made has ever made had reconciliation
with the universe, you would think someone would
have found our frequencies by now.
stool pigeons of the galaxy are we, coming by
twos and threes. half-wired nukes in our socks.
i am detonation.
the last stripe on your sweatshirt, the one no one
really notices except the cool sides of seats.
the history of hip-hop is rooted and a little bent,
where did all the boomboxes go?
the fuckin’ corner is jumping off & you are an alleyway
no need to look for dark it has found what it needs to find.

its like the damn animals want to be run over what with
all the scurrying underneath & the chickenshit games,
so let the squirrels know i play for keeps.
it’s the wine talking.
the grape of time a little older now.
remember when the girls were taller than the boys?
now mostly just wanting us unto them.
peace be with the rivers inside.
someone burned a picture of someone else
and the cops called it arson.
how else can you except one to forget?
a certain requirement is called for charring of things
that ought to be ashed long ago.
everyone thinks that America is some sopping mess
but no one tried to find a dustpan.
we are all going to be cadaverous this is the biggest prize
like getting the pingpong ball in the fishbowl.
baise moi mor

you said you were a chimney & i am drying
out for the year to be firewood.
a pile of possibilities, the jerk in the meat
the kick in the shins, the whole jug of merlot.
enough to compensate for the lacking of me.
a couple million ghosts I must have had.
theres a bushel of something bursting from my coat pockets
& it must have been growing but thanks to my hands
its now just yours.
do you even really listen when i like this so listless?
what you are or what i wish i was, are you the white vapor
that comes with morning or what?
i’m only curious.
unsteady like a horse with half hooves, a little reliability
is all it takes to stilt me.
remember about the tigers in the park, you won’t
be sorry for looking twice past the first feet of thicket.
it just hurts so much to be one thing & know you are always another.
i could be the thickest finger plugging your dams you could
be an entire grove of butterflies & i’ll cut holes in all my nets.
there’s exhilaration to be found in the act of remaining
free, at last there is a chance to view the mountains.
from the mountain’s view, even.
my father taught me not to mix red and white wines
but with you being such chardonnay & i so pinot noir
to hell with the morning to come, already i am three
bottles deep.

Jan 3, 2012

no harbor but our
haboring, a letter less & we
are trees, we are a million mosses
with the light caught through.
no ocean but a sea
but a meditation on
longevity, on stiffness
through seasons. your voice
is rasping but i am
bushels of raspberries
souring in the cellar.
avoid the carcasses - 
only evidence that we
have peaked as far
as species go. you
are no mountain and i
am no avalanche. we don’t
always need to be untouchable
to be dangerous
for one another.

Jan 2, 2012

erald! the fury!
a newness abounding
with horse heads & gallop
like bomb shocks.

lo! land ahead!
hills bristle dark
all our chandeliers shake
all our ghosts removed.

the sinking! a movement!
how brazen to find
the boulder brushed aside,
mountains keeping to themselves.

as dirty as it seems
or empty as the west
a solace found in falling
like waking up drenched.

alas! our king!
the clock at least maintains
faithfulness, the hoax
or so we thought at least.

pluralities as formality
it is just me here.
it has been that way
since the whole cave emptied.

O  Lethe! O Fenestra!
my gulping like drowning
but reversed, an absolute
need for pious haze or

a moment to still.
my hands are quarries.
the whole rock was hollow &
the bloodstains are fresh.

new years

the first line is the hardest,
harder than finding space
between your fingers occupied
with champagne & the entire room.
elsewhere, enter the gap
between two fences where
no one looks where lips land.
someone left the hot tub waiting.
will you follow me blindly
if i promise not to look back
until we reach the surface?
we build things now just to topple
& count how many jumpers
make it. you can't make me
drink myself to Babylon.
i can't make you join me
in suspended gardens or anything
but i am in dire need of tending.
the first graze is certainly
quite possibly the last & these explosions
above us seem to strip us both
of what calm was collected.

then comes the break, an inhale.
the floors are slick with grooves
& dance with me already darling,
shimmy yourself my way.
i will think of something cunning
enough to only use my teeth
on the silk of your skin.
i want to taste you under
my hangover in the morning
for the rest of the week
until the carrion of my love
is found by lynx & relished.
it means nothing that it's past midnight
besides the changing of a final digit
on every check i forget to write.

the third time is charming.
persistence seems to key
every single car on our block & you
left your brights blazing in my driveway.
i'll be damned if i'm left
leaving bruises on my own thigh
should any volkswagons swerve on by.
be punch drunk with me & carry on
or be carried onward. have you forgotten
how close we are to the sea?
O fortune leave me wispless
while somehow i may whisper sweet
canes of luck into any angel's ears.
i will squeeze as much of a fuck
as i can out of tonight you just watch.
there's that hole between the fences.
if you or your friends should spark
veins of curiosity i will gladly
guide you between the wood & welcome
you to a different kind of wilderness.

Dec 30, 2011

strolling several steps behind the most beautiful pair of legs in omaha

when I take few steps slower & eventually
things get vivid. The wanton flash of the moon
amid your radiance tonight is almost
something worth writing about.
I can't sleep without them.
the stars, I mean, not your legs
not the chill of another set of skin
to stretch myself over & let vapor
the heat of friction between want & need,
between around and not so much.
Your ankles match your sweater, can I touch
your nether continents? Kiss me stupid
or awake, or to bed, let me suckle
your heart valves. Our footsteps in unison
practically worth a manuscript. A sonnet
without a volta, sort of unchanging,
my want for you like the steadiness
of my irregular pulse when you get just close
enough to inhale. My want like this moonlight,
not illuminating enough down here to show you
how I would sing to the peach fuzz
down south beyond your navel
between where my hands
read your pulse by your quivering,
would make jazz of your thighs & the glory
lying somewhere in your middle, my tongue
gracing or maybe with a Z
the outskirts of your tautest skin
where I once imagined a blue
silk dress & loving your way out of it.