The Death Of Aaron James

The
cello is a thick, heavy syllable
crying against the shoulder of
a thin woman,

a road of auburn hair trailing down her
spine. She understands value.

Prose is never numb,
it spans across nerves
playing emotions with finger

tips of red wood.
You brought Lydia to me
at twenty-five,
she dripped into my sleep
and led me
on a journey.

For you, she was a symptom of
something incurable. She opened my throat,
expanding me and you
suffocated.

The cello smiles with wide fingers,
thick like its soul.
Lydia takes me on a piano ride
in red wood snow where prose
grows and grows and grows.

Waiting For Death

Or calling her ripe name,
begging for skin to be twisted,

inch-by-inch,
I bribe her with my back
to the sun, my skin is enough,

too delicate for these loose brains
and fast nerves,
but trustworthy.

I whistle her black song through my veins.
I burn like tar, like tomorrow
might choke on sensation –

and push!!

She smells like wet dawn,
tastes like molasses. Deep in my throat she turns

over. Heaven is everywhere.

When It Snows In The Desert…

there is no grace. Each flake is a poisoned needle
jabbing in my skin.

Every sting of winter is a piece of
her blue eyes,

and
his blue lips barely parted in a box.
I imagine his last breath and
wonder if it felt like Winter,
if it felt like the cold prick of
hell jabbed into his veins.

Winter has chained me to the past.
What is lost weighs more than everything
Winter has ever given.  I imagine her singing,
and if she sounds like Summer.

I know that I am here now, and I can never go back,
but still, I wonder,
when it snows in the desert.

In God We Trust

I’ve been digging through past lives for
months, searching
for fingerprints
in five feet, eleven inches of

deceit dust covering everything
I know! How many times did he shed his skin
back here?  Dead parasites are proof!

He was on the roof when it caved.
Climbed  over four hundred days
with water and
a bible.

He left spoons and mattress burns below him,
tribe familiars blossomed following his climb,
extending gratitude,
tribute!

And he climbed, praising God, until he reached
Grace,
humble resiliency…

We sang!
We cried and we sang!
We wrapped our hugs in packages with golden bows,
throwing them to a skeptical world! We danced, twirled
through moon phases, a
fantastic celebration!

Then, a sharp raucous!
Brusque thunder crushing eardrums!

Blood poured from our ears
as the noise devastated. Bible pages
fell like confetti over
our joy; a tearful,
thick pollution!

We cried!
We fell and we cried!
We wrapped our memories in boxes with golden locks,
sealing them, our treasures. Silently, we
remembered, our Requiem,
a tribute!

All we know is that he climbed,

and that underneath five feet, eleven
inches of his dust, it is

in God that we place our
rusted
trust.

Red Rain

Red rain pounding
glass, screeching.

Red wind
screaming with her,
muffling,
burning
red blood lips.

Red man, red
flesh hammer
ready.

Heart sounds
cracking,
red egg,
undead.
Pretty red-head
swelling.

Red rain thrashing,
glass scratching
red lungs,
junkie,
red man.

Red veins try
running
away,
dirty death streets,
stiff beds
under
red beer signs.

Sweet red eyes,
pouring catastrophe,
straight shots,
her
black out

while red man
chases
his dirty veins
through
six, endless, red feet.

Her, swollen
red egg,
bottled up in vinegar
and
a dirty,
red season,

left alone
with

her blue face,
drizzling
hints
of
of a red, red, rain.

Miss Red Jacket Digs

Miss Red Jacket
layered
red threaded
protected

found four chances
dug them
out of the sand
distinct
diamonds

four different
slants
similar

polar opposites
yet
parallel

four unique prints
inked
on
black and white

printed
nearly tattoo’d

she chooses a rock
dug out of the dirt
in
needle park

veined purple
swallow’s grandma’s stew
grandma’s eyes
grandpa’s semen
anything
for black tar
fire spoons
and
a blanket in Needle Park

Miss Red Jacket
misses
firm
athletic
blood tubes
that act as an overcoat
laying
over layers

Horse pipes have
wrapped her
soft  spot
for
the last of
their life time

he
with blood tubes
plucked
from dirt
in needle park

a diamond
uncleaned
uncut
melting banknotes
wages

melting mud
puddles in
metal necks

skinny little pricks
sucking
mud puddles dry

pushing
pushing destruction
deep
into her
thick red
shield

pushing
pushing red threads
to distress

unthreading
unravelling

leaving
a naked woman
with nothing
but a
dirty
rock

You Used To Laugh At Me Like I Was Crazy When I Worried That You Might Die

He called me from three hundred miles
away
to tell me that he had relapsed. He found
a needle and he shot himself up
because he thought he had nothing left.
Anger burned through me and if I could have scorched
his face with my eyes, I would have.

Later, he called me from a jail cell. He told me
that he was clean, had been for awhile.
He sounded calm. He said he found God.
Tears fell hastily to the floor, they had been waiting
for this kind of release! Gratitude was all I could muster so I
hit my knees and thanked God because this was a true miracle!

He called me in the morning just to tell me
that I was amazing
and beautiful
and that he didn’t know he could love someone so much.

He called me at night to tell me
to “dream sweet, sweetheart” and “I’ll see
you in my dreams”.

Then, one day, I got a call
but it wasn’t him that called me.  He
had been called away from me and
all of those that loved him.  Sometimes, I still think
that the phone will ring
and I might hear his voice again.