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 9^th 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

cornerstone

si vous




blood blends in with pools
of liquid; the thickness
of it all is meaningless.
when it comes to drowning
there are only a few pairs
of hands i want wringing.
the peal of heaven, the plunge
of freefall: crystal cuts deeper
than our roots. the family tree
smells like nooses. it hurts
looking up with all the crinks
in these skeletons of ours.
i felt the penny dust on my tongue
before the red even hued
but no one said anything
about the blood on my collar.
some dogs have turned up
missing. by turned up
i mean face down in drainage
ditches & i told you already
blood doesn't matter anymore.
someone is someone no matter
how thick their divots. even monks
tend to jump from their dome stones
to see whether or not they were wrong.
don't get me wrong, i say this
with love and an entire zoo
of tempests, of quiet loathing
i say this that the diamonds
in my teeth do not care
whether or not your blood mingles
with mine in any way: if someone
deserves to have my jaw
snaked around their neck,
i am already wide open
hissing on the river banks.
you would be surprised
how strong the scent of
weak links has become.
i do not think it's the weather.

up

& out on the prowl
the sky is like poop
but the sky is something
i would actually hold
by choice inside me

up & at them
the whites of nebula
no eyes or voices in black.
what about faster than light?
it took twelve years to find
the space between energies
& the fraction of negation betwixt.

up & around, i have
been. i have been
like layers of rock
and will be like
the outer reaches unpaved
with the laser pointer of
god's eyes. don't you
ever wonder what he
looks like when he sleeps?

up & down the rabbit
hole, a bridge through
the apple. if my hands
were gods hands
i would never stop
landscaping. the gardens
of stars tethered to
other heavens heave
without anyone to see.

it would take all of infinity,
both circles and all the orbits
of our galaxy to spin
up & around again. why stop
now when we have
come so far? look
at how much light
we have yet to receive.

certain degrees of want,
the smallest circle around
everchanging numbers like 40
or 136 depending on your hips
on how happy you are to
watch me wander in

not wandering, i know
where we ought to end up:
the glum dumb atlantic
the monster fucking whirling
animal that blacks the shores
with acute departure. not really
lusting either at the end,
it just seems sort of
sad when you think about it.

if you ever think about it &
i want to ask you
while you sleep, where does
the universe end & will you
hurl me off the edge?
i would very much like to see
if fall can find me faster
than i undoubtedly can find
the fall & it isn’t even april.

On Your Porch

Weathered and here
I am, mining your sea floors
for farther parts

of wings and kidneys:
vestigial parts when
all I need are arms,

the coif of your neck.
A freefall into bedlam,
I swear I am inside it.

Ready or not I swear you
won’t writhe away from me.
You are no overblown wolf.

Like I said, been mining
for emeralds or your eyes,

a way to make you tremble.

The lawn feels damp

these few days, I been collecting
dew, building a better cocoon.

caved like Chile
I am, trying the back door,
 here where vultures wait

for men like me to fall
in love with breakers
like you, icebergs

that ruin the biggest boats,
the unsinkable nature
of promise & regardless

I’m outside, now, caving.

I’ll tear down the damn fence
now olly olly oxen free.

Learning

write about bad things,
the fucking devil in everything.
a serpent beguiling, crooning
on high untouched cedar branches.

write about fake ancient creation then,
my ribs maybe ate a fruit first
but dammit if my wrists aren’t emptier still.
or write about the dangling of halos

crooked on crags where manna blossomed
& some glimmering history got carved
in blood all wrong. the bears could glare me
into ghost if i go know their woods a while.

write the luck out of things & coil
tiny problems all tensely:  this one
or that one; write of tending all the flowers

in Eden forever & how bad the snake problems getting.