There you go!

How could I have known
when I walked into this place,
that the gorgeous person leaving
would become my honest living?

How could I perceive
in the milky cosmos of your face
that your lips and teeth could rip
my hopelessness into pieces?

How could I have guessed
that we were engineered for this,
this incision, our slow collision,
unalterable by indecision?

Here I leave all words behind.
They were useful, I loved them to bits.
Three words remain, your signature, melting snow, 
beckoning, lifting even as life wilts: there you go! 

with eyes glazed over

brazenly
i pour bleach over the desk

write brocclie
on the prep list

take a box cutter to the hairs
guttering up the vacuum

polish the perpetual silver
bark up some trees

let my hat fly at close
let my throat lacerate itself on a song

never mentioning your name
though it lingers behind every word

another year and i feel just the same
sweating and stinking and hissing

but loving it
and that's a preposterous claim

in every move i embody you
every face makes me shake my head

i'm too exhausted to finish this thought
so i'll just end with a rhyme instead

not for long

you over there,
beneath the coniferous
canopies of Missouri,
soaking up silence,
in the midst of a shift,

a spoken subtlety

grooms this puppy
for rescue mission,

untangling hair,

effortless & effervescent,
drinking coffee
resplendently,

turning away from

one who could not

even afford oil, or pay
the easy price

of wanting you
happy, I am boiling
in the wings,
unperturbed, confident,
won't dare to disrupt 

the chrysalis, window
shopping far outside
of my price range,

keeping hand stuffed

in a pocket until you reach
for it again, sniffling,
thinking of all the times
I said I would eat your snot,
and it's not just me
being funny, it's that 

your boogers are the best
I've ever tasted,

and the inflection
of your voice when you
say front, or soup,

why, half the alphabet 

sounds cute comin' from you,

so your words aren't ever 

wasted, your efforts not 

unnoticed, for as long 

as you are near me
it is impossible to quit 

lifting you up, so hear 

me out, this mess we're in
ain't so bad, all it takes 

are a couple moves, 

then, if it pleases you,

I am around whenever
you want, disappearing
when you say.

if you are reading this it's time to say hello

after the foliage-text
parts, after the falling
waters and partly
digested dream
sequence, what
is left lives out
another fantasy:
living

my possession-poems
have poisoned me,
their potential spoiled
by jealousy

wishes
splish-splash
on the page,
taking their toll:
how droll

if you are reading this
perhaps you've kept up,
as the visceral sediments
of my existence keep
building up

if you look my way
i pray it's when i'm smiling

well-spring
of tender offerings,
i put myself on the square

no matter how i tilt 
the text it's not enough
to make you care

ain't it time to give up rhyme?
clearly i don't agree

my methods are lacking,
my meter atrocious,
this collection embarrassing,
this season inglorious
                         
if you are reading this now
it's the last bit of me breaking
the surface tension

it's the hundredth time
diving to find a moss-sopped
way of saying
do you love me yet

it's the spinning shadow
of a music-box playing
only the necessary notes

do you take all this
as necessary?

i am eager to buy it,
but not necessarily

this is the way our year ends

you who i feel so close to me
even farther away than before

daywaster

namaste
brethren,
o comfit
comrades,
striking the
quivering heart
of the matter
with deft craft,
clutching it
out of nothing,
our jumpstarts
quickened
to ash, a fatality-
taste of debris,
running out
whatever's left
of me, scraping
barely by,
remembering.
i'm definitively
fading while
you are away.
i hold the picture-
memory of your
face so close
my eyes lose
focus. focus.
the word
like a locust
swarming my
skeleton.
plaguing
the cage
until you
shoo them
away.

Journeyer

In the early-setting sun,
across rivers of melt,
through vast fields

of snow-corn,
an acme of adoration

sleeps soundlessly.

My morning cup,

the afternoon's puff,
up to midnight's scoff
at another day wading
through the monsoon
of delusion.

Whispering,
you are coming home
soon. Forging where
home throws its coat
toward, where fingers
wrap around a red-

hot mantle.

My hand quivers.
Maestro of making-

the-most-out-of-it,

discomfited by 

what-you-seem-

to-get-out-of-it.

Journeyer
through the hushed tale,
cresting over a rural hill.
Following smoke
into burning bales,
choking on the perfumes
trailing behind someone

you thought you knew well.

on snowdrifts & gratitude

the colorado sun
gets to melting
the season fast:
miraculous,
accepting the day
as what it is
before sunrise,
this year suspended
of surprise.
yet,
reflecting the muddy
intentions of a year
bent to the wheel
and peeling,
it seems i have
come much farther
than intended.
the stoic warnings
rarely heeded,
my style-of-ease
sorely needed,
all these ridiculous
self-possessed poems
marking my way
through each and
every day, whether
uphill or down,
weather not pending,
my disposition
depending largely
on faith, on the bright
things you say,
i shield myself
from the festering rays,
i protect myself
from excess of myself,
disintegrating into
copies, carefully
raised duplicates,
an insatiable unit,
my lesser debonaire,
a delectable idiot.
not yet visible from space,
this crossroads expands,
becoming the holy site
for another wishing-well
town. i place the star
atop your smile.
unwrapping my destiny's
drift. squinting
into the sun.

starve the hatred in your heart

it does you no good,
feeding the thoughts
that bite you— 

rage, rage, 
violent & violet
scars across your sky—

the puffed-up face,
that bowl-o-jelly
belly spilling its bowels—

wish no harm, no harm,
but wishes disintegrate
seeing you in his arms—

puff, puff, & pass
through the tortur'd gate—
where fortunes graze

on the hopes you planted
beneath broken starlight
on a plain & private night—

& what you are becoming
is not a step away or into
body-numbing jealousy—

you are growing skin 
where organs once laid bare,
you are growing facial hair—

becoming an animal prone
to silence, shining in the reeds,
expecting you to come feed me.

talk nerdy to me

sweet stratagems
and bending will
toward impropriety
my virtual notoriety
worthless in the world
yet abounding in ecstatic
retelling of reverberating plays
honey you say you love it when i talk
geek it's like another language it's like there's
something i'm alive for even if i am a poor citizen
or an unlucky denizen of your shadow i'm never so rich
as when i'm filling your ear with tales of my perpetual quidditch

waking up

oh what a way
to start a subliminal
day your voice
crinkling in my ear
asking if i was sleeping
then if i was lying
which i was of course
a couple administrative
tasks self-explanatory
and the disbelief when
you said is this really
all i called you for 
i long to wake up
laughing and this
morning's premonition
motions to me
the way it could be
if that's the sort of
rise our sunrise may
bring i'll wait 'till
may and beyond
for you to wake up
beside me smiling

empty house

dropping the fam
at the port of airs
stopped by a poor
excuse for a 7-11
thought about
getting even with
god decided he
wins go figure
eightin through
the stacks lookin
for what i'm eatin
some hot pocket
throwback will
do and a pack
cashier couldn't
believe it i can't
believe it's taking
me this long to
grow up the house
is quiet now
i turn to thoughtless
wreck it won't
be like this
all the time
there's no way
i can miss you
this badly for
very long
even when
you haven't
left yet even
though you
are my elven
fairytale i am
keeping my chin
up thru hell
but god get back
here soon my hot
pocket is ungodly
stale

sparkles

swirling my coffee
outside of the store,
waiting on the sea
to crash on my shore.

your cheeks glimmer
in the december light.
i can barely even remember
yesterday's ominous slight.

some close to me are happy
and some far away are sad.
i've found when you are near me,
it's like you're all i've ever had.

i'm restless, vigilant, looking west,
keeping all cards on the table.
we may never know what's best,
but our smiles are insatiable.

sixth floor

on the phone,

a mother, exhausted,

returned to her hospital

room to find her food

incomplete.

couldn't leave 

her son's side.

all at once 

i felt the weight

of my family,

my father's debt,

my mother's doubt,

your still-silent line.

it was too much

for me to just say

i'm sorry.

so i told her i'd be there.

and twenty minutes later,

i was.

for a mother whose face

i saw only for a second,

wandering the sixth floor

in search of their intermittent
room.

i know that it's hard,
but for me, there is no choice—
can you hear the disappointment
in my voice?—  just do 
what you said you would do.

As Taurus Kisses The Hand of Aries

Once,
your red hands
were my excuse
to look the other way:
as in, she's perfect,
except for those hands,
so forget it. 

Then,
your turquoise eyes
disturbed the lie,
inverting my logic:
as in, out of everything
that you are— bright,
bold, rough, darling—
you are so far
out of my trajectory.

Now,
your familiar hand,
your starling eyes,
every inch of your
existence amuses me:
as in, it is never so easy
to be what I am
as when I am blessed
to be kissing your hand.

WRONG WAY

Went to sleep starved,
playing over and over
that scene of belonging,
your hand held out
in search of mine,
'till I gave out:
beneath those trembling
trees, I received a dream.

Body-bruised
and jonesing,
we stepped outside
for a smoke.
Still so hungry,
soon the entire stick
was in my mouth,
dry, crumbling,
mass-manufactured
dying, the crux
devoured.

Eyes opened
to see you driving:
not beside me,
I was only your
passenger.
Delusional,
I thought we
were going
somewhere to eat.
Looked up
to see the scream
of headlights,
the gorgeous
oncoming,
my protests
falling on
mostly-deaf
ears. We
were flying.

Unfazed,
though a bit frazzled,
we made it back
together.

Brash and beautiful,
you were trashing
the highway patrol,
it was all so real I bit
my tongue, stuck
between compliment
and reprimand.

Then I saw the snake.
And another snake.
And another snake.
And another snake.
And another snake.
And another snake.
And another snake.
And another snake.
And another snake.

In every corner,
beneath every surface,
in the walls, climbing
up the sky, in the water,
in the well, hanging
from the ceiling fan,
some were coiled,
others lay lifelessly
across cold tiles.
I could not move an inch.

Woke up
with tears in my eyes,
trembling beneath the trees,
so hungry
and terrified.

puppy love

chasing ya thru
the kennels lickin
my wounds i'm
rescued the new
addition curled up
on the carpet head
inclined to receive
your scratch behind
the ear counting
the years in bunches
snarling at the ones
i implicitly mistrust
because of the smell
they leave on you
because of the words
that make my hair
stand on end
if i am led away
from home check
the tag on my tongue
it says i'm a guide
in training it says
send me home 
to one waiting for me
it says this pup
can't get enough
and i will sleep
at your feet
if it helps you dream

shower-hug

admit it, you love
being scalded by
your destiny,
so long as it
remains your
destiny

-

thanks for
lighting my
cigarette,
babe

-

i would serve
a thousand
dinners if
at the end
you unfurled
alongside
me

-

we don't
even have
to talk

-

softly
singing to
ourselves
suits us
just fine

drive

it was when they said
drive safe that i knew
i had wobbled,
that choreography
of descent into
sobbing, the blips
and lapses in purpose,
elliptical shaking
of the head, a scratch
in the disk, the anvil
of for the first time
seeing yourself
as villain, as toothrot,
as pedestrian extraordinare,
an offshoot, the darker
way home. the clip
board thrown, the oval
onus of the eye avoided,
i had to get out of there,
felt the sticky whispers
cling to my spine,
the moment he walked
into that room i became
your second most important,
an errand boy mixed up
in the payroll, an afterthought
fixture — worst is
my own initiative, my blunt
betrayal to morality
or whatever makes the most of you,
this fixation to delve
for however far hits the bottom,
to see where it takes the most of you,
all of it, and what these nights
mean to me then, waiting
on the window to defrost
in the dead eye of winter,
how green this night
looks in my rear-view mirror,
and then red again

Uphill

beginning the day in benign
flavor, flicking out
another butt, moored & more
deflated by the day, emaciated,
conflagrated by my willfull
conjurations, stuck in a vibe,
pipe-dreaming, killing off
injuries, jailing my proverbial
felon in a felt-woven cell,
life a suck and a sell, none
adding without subtracting,
no steps taken without
vertigo, nowhere to go
but in your unerring direction,
you cute compass, you adorable
deplorable-magnet, i'm never
so over the moon as when
i'm next to you, sun-driving,
billowing into arms
that unfold for endless months,
charging into the light
like fucking stupid moths

meteor shower

streaks of silver
across the dark
secret sky: we lie
in my car as
the space between
us shrinks into
a conch, a shell
of our would-be-
well, and i, well—
i cry,
noticing it's all
just a miracle
unfolding in
the dark secret
sky of my thoughts.
how many
of life's displays
will we miss
waiting for
our break point?

flurry

comfortably reaching
toward my face
i am for a split second
so out of breath i don't
know the rest of the story
it's a mess we know
it's anyone's guess we slowly
face each other restless
the shy snowflakes peek
around the corner awaiting
the cold-front confrontation
let's make it blunt and sweet
if kisses were snowflakes
i'd send you a blizzard

moist cigarette

got my arms wrapped around
another chance got denied by
the door decided your balcony
was my new blank canvas but
alas you were showing your
true self to someone else alas
you were only being polite
alas i'm an ass for thinking so
clearly stretching clearly
rivaled in monstrous clarity
only by the lake formed by
our moon's tears return
to casual form cease fires
are just creases in the
static how long they last
is a matter mostly of lies

my roses my stars

tripping through dream-
scapes not escaping lies
across state lines i'm
stunned encountering
your adorable past-perfect
self it's an extension of
my perfection that you
should want our lives
inseparable i clear the
table of debris and feel
your breath buoying
up inside of me you
illustrious locomotive
you candy-coated skeletal
celestial surrender me
your insecurities and
please oh please though
i said i could wait forever
i'd really rather not

when you said my name

& curled luxuriously
in my lap— look
I won’t write this
poem again, but
then again, I have
been writing this
since day one
and we’re still
not made,
what to
make of that?

For I
want you
near me
always

& until that elegant
end arrives I will
write this poem
over and over,
don't know how
many ways I can tell
you, when you said
my name it made
me so glad to be
alive.

the poet instills fear & faith in the blood of his enemies

coming up for breath
we can hardly believe
the moon wouldn't pick
a side, that the stars,
struck by our stare
wouldn't dare sit
this war out

say hi to your ex's
and come back 
to me safely

the absurdity
of it all licking
my ear, a conch
in which ocean
sounds like a
low rumbling car

i wake up dancing
an out-of-sorts ballet

preserving
the perfect moment
in which you jumped
into my arms

how could
something so
untouchable
cause so much harm?

second fiddle

frayed & faltering
this prologue prolongs
my sad solo

it's always returning
like a blushing boomerang
with tucked tail

why would you ask how i am

when the answer beats
fine, fine, fine

turning on my mind
all these lightpillars
holding up my trust

i'm so weary of writing
all these proposals
of making them new

torn up, shunned, what to do
which one of these days
will you be mine, mine, mine

ultimatum

i'm not giving one

look at this mess

the fleeting good
feeling of finishing
something arduous
suddenly deserted
me

i'm left
with the same
insecurities

the same disease

eroding my
patience

condoning
my heart's
homocide

i've gotten so stuck
on being the one
you come home to

i don't know
where home even is

i don't know
i don't know
i don't know

stricken

driving in the sun
body all a-tinglin'
wishing you were here
to hear me singin'

can't shake your face
wouldn't even dare to try
counting all the sapphires
that brim in your eyes

you some kinda elven
royalty some kinda queen
or some bottled-up fairy
wiping my mind clean

why you gotta say it like that
why you gotta look at me that way
i lie awake all night
and dreamwalk through the day

it's a certain kind of inevitable
the wind carries your voice
i'm defintely lovestruck
and never had a choice

please don't make me cry

first of all honey
you don't know 
what you're talking about

like an animal
cornered
bleating vehement
denials

my worst fear
materialized
in the mouth
of a bystander

latent truth
or abrupt lie?

i'm digging
deeper into
this hole
i'm loving

not letting
extraneous news
shade my sunny
meandering

if it's true

she sees you
mostly as a friend

i wanna
hear it from you

you sleeping so far away & dear to me

the tremulous convulsions
of your ornate frame 
worry me sick: make
me regret being so apart.
within boundaries 
i stake my claim, 
that you should never
have to carry yourself
through the morbid storm
alone, when i could adorn
your doorway with care-
packages of home-tried-
and-true remedies, least
or most of which packaged
in my presence which 
fights no bacteria but 
the delirium that you are
forgotten— impossible, 
untenable, such a frightful
postulate, O ornate
bed-ridden lightning bug,
these shoulders can carry
the world for us both.

chapped

holding hands,

talkin bout bands
we used to listen
to, but don't
now.

showed you

my song.

i think 

that we're

really getting

along.

saying my

usual prayer,
that i don't

get too 

carried away.