you should know this

to me – you are just a hallucination
looking at yourself
trying to decide
if you are real

I want every ounce of your phantom
to penetrate my spirit
and break me

but I do not exist

and of course it’s beautiful

In here, out there nobody sees. Pomegranate seeds shred through my teeth and we accept it. He smiles and of course it’s beautiful.
A blood moon grows 10,000 times what it was, in here. Out there, nobody knows.
I count, up to seven minutes in Heaven and wonder, in here.
Out there, nobody waits.
Everybody talks.
Everybody spits venom in the eyes of people they love.

I love him for the birds, he just doesn’t belong in here. 
This desert is mine.
I sleep on cactus beds and wait….with time.
The sun is mine. I’ll keep it in a locket for those days that get dark, in here. Out there, nobody notices.

I smile. He smiles, and of course it’s beautiful.

If We Could

talk about orchard red petals on wood tables
plate upon each other
soft eggs whispering to candle wax and I am

just buried in wallpaper
trapped in a past life
guessing on about oil in still life canvas

on a second thought my eyes shift
to roll back
and he slithers up toward my lips

because if he could he wouldn’t exist
yet here we begin
just two pieces of black ice
melting pastels into sunset

and if we could get it back together
from memory – where it is what it was –
we would pluck tiny pellets from
pomegranates in winter
for juicing

individually

without each other

January

I’ve settled on darkness. Where some cluster of lonely iris might climb through my tear ducts for solace, i empty space and time. 

She is on her way, like last years’ frost bite she brings her shards of cold. One year, I begged her not to go but some things are not always. 

Oh, she is constant. In her gray dress of mist and seasonal affection, she blends in with reality but time doesn’t stop for anything. 

Once her smoke blows over capped mountain tops, I turn away from him, wrinkled from exhaustion. This effort, this tremendous light encompassing mine – I am minimal.

Nothing. 

Lemons Rinds and Jack

It will always be walking through tough cement, lemon rinds and jack-one swift sailor high on a Black Sea 

drifting for eternity, fighting off starvation, making friends with an idea.

Love is not sold on silent blue moons or Ancient Greek mistresses riding them bareback

but deep inside a reflection, an abbreviated determination that divides calm nights.

I watch you pray for those hours. God isn’t listening;

He is creating. 

Let the music play

If we could put it to music
it would be your fingers
on my fine tunes,

my lyrics
finding you
in chords that could not exist
before this night.

We choose staying in,
underneath a thick haze
of purple and green.
Your eyes try to match me;
our deepest rhythms
sinking,
flowing,
dancing

naturally. We slip back –
your tongue laced with black
magic –
and I,

knee deep in daydream,
wrapped up in
this dimension,
several chords playing,
all of them in key.

Gripping to the cadence,
dripping with luxury,
we summon our past lives

we consult the angels
of mercy

and forgive every sinner
who ever has sinned.

This is our music.
Saturday night flat –
my bottle of Jack,
your smoke gliding
down my deep
throat

Like clockwork
here we go.

for me and sarah

Your rage is inverted
a past and a storm
mixing, a cocktail
spiked by Her laughter
_____

a stork blocks Heaven from
any chance of Me
the courts
are eternal in
God’s eyes

so I am the sea now
I am green and
unstable
______

We move in calm procession
a block steadies our
thoughts – Her glass, Her great
fish jaws, and soon We are
lanterns floating high-tide

by every way the Earth breathes
We should meet with dead
shoulders, shrugged
off Each Other
______

I follow beauty like
a shadow, I live
miraculously hollow
waiting on lies
laying on My altar
______

You question every raw answer
a priest walking on
water, take My meteor!
Eat it.
Your world might
multiply if We feed it.
_____

We are Mighty brave
in a rotten state, two Wretches
hard-boiled,
crawling on the surface

They can’t see us as ants –
take my hair off
fate grudges
the snakes are coming
______

I have lost My ending
You beg cold against
the same heat in Hell
I ran away from

What are We then?
We chance ourselves
to nothing –

He crosses Seven
times despite
the waves of Our Ocean
_____

Let’s leave Him to His handsome
His misery is His to drown in

in a moment

a moment like that
like this
is crucial

lightning strikes,
dry heat
radiation
takes place

of
the sweet kiss
on my cold shoulder

I find seconds
in days
that last
forever waiting
to speak

whisper even

because tragedy
has hands
that rip through
this soul

this particular soul
that sleeps
like a demon
in benediction

that opens a
bloodshot
mouth
in his direction –

even the desert would
freeze over
if it knew him

Dystopia

out there
rain lives
and breathes
and falls asleep
the way I want to

instead
I stay

eat cactus

fry worms on black top

undress for men
I don’t want

touch
every
square
inch

like its you

Helios Unconquered

a blue bird twines
of wire
where sunflowers grow

your air is twisted
like she
unthawed
in your
affection

an aroma far
from lonely

i find dizziness
underneath
liquor

we are empty
never simultaneously

the glass is warped
i’ve stood here forever
waiting
for the
freeze to pass

Helios in
a winter solstice
unconquered

I am fire and light

come to me