You Are My Only

Hips are happy tonight
along with the flowing fingers that feel flesh in a frozen flashback
and I just missed a moment.
Shoulder rolling to shoulder, and count
two three four fuck it
five six sucks and still the music plays great
and loud in the waiting room of my nervousness.
Brief silence and I just missed a moment and I
just stepped on beautiful toes and you are my only
but someone else can always do the dancing...

Scratched floors shine with confidence like a Chilean smile,
and I must have left mine in St. Paul, New Brighton,
on the shadowy overpasses of 35W,
locked in a cologne bag of ineptitude, which I left the house with
so long ago; it seems like so much more than a moment ago.
Finger licking and rapid kicking wearing fish-scale
flowing outfits, unmatched in the wide open
competition of beautification. I haven't spent a single
penny and my pockets are dimeless, I threw them all
at the epileptic parking meter, in the timeless void of

vocal lesson and arm-burrowed weeping and snow-drift
recollections at the Cosmopolitan.
I am unspeakable, which I dare not speak about, neither
in my midday sanity nor full moon toothache, regretful
of the long nights spent wishing it were the past and
future at the same time,
because now it has impregnated my gut with
sullen suspicions and fragranced rejections, which I taste
with chocolate-cupcake intensity.
It is a happy birthday tonight. You are my only

and what this means petrifies all but my swollen
flickering eyes and thrusting unfathomable unconfidence
in the general direction of Winter.
Can't you see the tango twirls tessellating as if it
were my own kaleidoscope nightmare!
And the hand slips, to tucked stomachs, invisible bra straps
and frozen shoulders, shoulders.
And the clock strikes Not Yet so the ball continues to
sputter down the unforeseeable hill of pathetic, which I
am the King Of! King Of Chapped Lips! King of the Failed
New Year's Kiss and King Of Forever Lean and Miss!

Semi-hydrated particles of liberal sweat and teenage tears of
breathless joy crash against the wall of Time, seeping through
all its weary cracks slow and unbearable, slow and no I don't
know what's wrong so quit asking me and quit dancing with your
helpful strangers and quit leaning towards the ever-present possibility
of Moving On, towards a new river-soaked chapter of loving.
So much time passes when the music moves quickly through
glittering salsa halls and explosive shopping malls though every
single store was closed and I just needed to get the hell out of there
get the hell out of here and debate for a very endless birthday
the sincerity of so many glowing moments, until one two three
friends is what we are and I'm sorry for having missed four.

Can you believe in the exhaustion affliction that so desperately
rears its flustered face in the coldest night of the year?
Believe or don't it is becoming my perfectly acceptable reality,
crossing the inhuman void between My Self and My Other, who
so desperately wants to look across the mirrored room and
flash a frozen grin -- dresses fluttering and prisms reflecting
back the intolerable whiteness of strange and stranger smiles.
Pain and swirling prisms and pain of the past dozen lunar
cycles eclipsed by the holy madness of the full moon, marking
the first day of her period and a series of periods I have
maniacally induced into writing, here on the back of Miss
Hurd, which tonight is bare and flawless and ironic.

Erstwhile the after-party oracles consult each other, smoking
stories between each other in valiant attempts to ignore the
trembling pen with glasses and a chipped face. Spare me of
further restlessness and press softly on my temples to relieve
the swelling. Rid the absolute squid of my incompetence for
Eternity, which tonight means tonight, because what else could
matter but the dancing fairies I see in the mirror? Happy
Birthday. And happy birthday to my dad on the day of
my gentle bludgeoning, and happy birthday to the New Year
for being so productively boring and for inciting hollow
excitement into the steam-boat of January. I can't thank

you enough for your consideration of my un-being. That is
what would be best, after all? To be without the muttering
pen and uncertain glances of certainty. I'm sorry for having
ruined nothing. Perhaps if I mattered more (or less) I would resign
to being all (or none) that you think of, and who can think
anyway when lying on salsa/hospital couches, with flutes and
maracas and romantic guitars boring holes into my open
secrets, and I can't even begin to imagine what that looks
like, but all I see are holes and endless cha-cha into the nest of
them, and even that I cannot see, only the gentle wet-sand waves
of bare arms, and flowing foothills of frozen hair, and all the
moments retreating back into my mouth, where they scream with
hoarse voice, YOUAREMYONLYYOUAREMYONLYYOUAREMYONLY

Hate The Disease

My buddies asked me not to turn into their own personal Springstein.

I said nah man, I'd like to be more like Dylan, you know, get into you

without you even knowin' it. Talk for all of America without

even havin' to give it a name. 'Course I failed

already. I'm no Dylan I haven't even moved to New York yet,

where protest song auroras linger in the basements

and the grizzly one-legged Sam crawls over the Brooklyn Bridge.

I haven't seen that America yet!

My America waits beneath the snow,

teases, shuts away, gives more night than day.

A sick child takes off all his clothes

because it's fucking burning in here,

look how America runs naked through the courtyard.

Glasses-Man

Sat at your table from 11:10 to 12:37,

'till you had something to say:

"Go back to school." Then wiped

off antique eyeglasses with a velvet cloth,

for nine hours a day.

The sun sets at daybreak

The sun dies in the morning-time

on your many precious windows.

I threw my masterpiece back into my bag

and found the nearest bathroom and stared

at myself until 12:48

Go back to school.

Well asshole

I'll see you

hung on the cross of the stage

before I see you in heaven.

Birthday Ode

I have seen farm-girls running scared

through flaming stacks of hay,

I have seen trees uproot themselves

at dusk on evening May.

I have seen sharks grow wings and soar

straight out of the bay,

but nothing I've seen is surprising as

what I've seen today.

Write me beautiful, flowing songs

in the fortress backyard,

Fill my lungs with waves of air

and make me feel hard.

Remind me why I'm supposed

to be a man today,

and show me your unyielding generosity

on my 18th birthday.

We Speak Florida

We don't speak English here.
We speak the sea sounds
And the internet tongue.

We speak to the sun

When it comes up

So near.

What Ceremony IS this?

Take roses, from

just behind the porch,

just behind the ear,

and in her hair, hear

that awful piano tune.

I wish the piano-man were here.

Left with his woman instead,

too kind for unkindly folk.

Take his roses

from smirking shirt pocket

and blow balloons into

the void of his face.

We'll be the ones to entertain you now.

With buckets of water,

and eyes that can't blink

because we were up past 3am

and we sleep in 4 hour increments.

But you wouldn't know that

man,

You slept through both

the Easter hunt

and the phoenix sound.

Living in the Living Room

Weekend full of words, alone, crawling down the dust-choked stairs backwards, searching for the perfect guest to sleep beside my bed, with lonely lamp showering down advice.

When get this bed so empty? Why my ass hurt? The carpet flays, it's really just another invention we would have been better without. Who needs floors! Who needs walls, ceilings, ottomans!

Keep the doors, you'll need something to write your name on, for when ya finally get here, curlers in your hair and spotlights on your face, now you've realized the house has been empty ever since they went to the Dells to get away.

But there you went bowling! cosmic bowling, cult bowling with the rest of those who ignore my fake drunk texts and kick me into the snowy space. I hope I'm having enough fun for you

burning my ass on the carpet and staring at the lamp wishing for a blackout of mind & us.

Sing N Out

Long winter walks down

Into the magma pit of Dystropolis.

Stuffed high with taco meat and perjuries,

Embroiled in a business den of linens

And harrowed upbringings.

They bring their wives to work on their back.

They pace the Capitol perimeter

With the War on their back.

Hungry ego-wardens planting heavy their signs

Into the grass still yawning from sleep,

Afraid of Spring's victory march

And other whoremantic bullshit.

What a way to see the highwaves roll about.

In the food court den,

We and our shirt-collar friends

Rip apart

And Sing N Out.

Frozen To Stone

Ivory leaves

Are back, drifting like

Liquid seeds.

They are nothing sinister.

Just like your sister.

Smiling with no intent,

Seemingly hellbent on tearing

Your body away from your hands.

Chewing your neck like taffy.

She can keep her virginity

If she's even got it.

Buttercups

Dusted with snow.

They pucker before dismantling

The stinger

Of the Blind Bee.

Her

Not Me.

The gargoyle plants a sprig of mint,

To keep the conversation clean.

I envy his stone-gaze clarity.

Blind Pursuit

It will start out as a question,

Innocent. Lurking with metaphor.

You may answer with white shudders

Or a shrug of your shoulders, lips

Forming to an unconvinced 'sure'.

Beluga whale of an evening,

Stretching it's smoothed fins.

Blowhole, shadows on the curtains.

Sometime. Moontime. How long

Have you kids been awake?

Weaving your own mistakes,

Through cobralike fingers,

Eating holes. Like biscuits

And a brickload of coffee.

Dried out, dried out apricots

Picked delectably off of me.

All right, scram, you've had your fill.

What I once stalked like an

Iguana turned out to be nothing

More than a reflection of the rainbow.