I want to remember all the miles
of radio silence on tires as slick
as asphalt. How we sang
through the static of every sunset.
Pushing for a few miles more
until venus and jupiter showed up.
We had spent too much time
in the bowl of that desert,
life gets worn down real quick,
with the danger of never
gaining traction. Now hindsight
is a jangly image changing
in the rearview mirror.
It was the longest goodbye.
Your hand out the window, an airfoil
performing acrobatics all the way.
You kissed me and kept on going.
I’m going to say you were
a bird all along.





.

Watching you run

Nothing much changes, the night
is longer, the sun is hamstrung,
I want this to be out of my hands.

I want the words that are near to you.

There is fruit that your fingers will lift
from a bowl. I would sing the psalms
of shadows after your reflected light has left.
I’m sorry, sad songs are the only ones I know.
Where the sky is tearing itself apart
and the feathers of night are bleeding to leave.

You are water.

You are the siren sown across
this desert. All my footsteps
circling against desire.
My heels hard against the
hoax of monuments, the
shortcuts of open tombs.





.

Lux ab Intus

It’s a love song, the way the needles
of my fingers hold you, this red thread
that pulls through the glint. It is fire and
blood and it scars us both. I only know hunger
and the lies I need to feed it. This mouth is raw
with prayers. I will consume you but first
you will know pleasure.


Art by Jelena Markovic




.

Winter is the held breath, the enforced
silence while the bones settle.

Your fingers are cold. I found
them once in my pocket.

The way your lips moved I felt like a spy
receiving secrets, I could almost hear
the words falling upon my heart.

I remember the signature of every
snowflake that landed in your
eyelashes. The silence entangling the
world wasn’t a blanket for us to hide under.

All the fires lit one match at a time
but your lips never caught. I stopped
being surprised.

In a dream I lifted you
from a stone wall, grabbing you
around your thighs but you
were gone before I could put you down.
I reach for you again; the leaves
rattle past mocking emptiness.




.

.

Medea

You are born of pain, a hungry wound sucking.
Blood red and desperate, your banshee wail only
knows need. I suckle you with poison and ash,
so you will rise in flames.

What have I done to deserve this gift? So much.

Art by Jelena Markovic




.

Carpe Diem

I sing to you mortals, lyrics of flame and
promises of pain. Come unto me on steps
washed of silence. The muffled cries of ecstasy,
the low hum of prayer. No matter how many
times you play the penitent there is nothing to
ease the pain.

Art by Jelena Markovic



.

Stigmata

I can not help but put my fingers
Into the heart of what adores me,
to feel the small life give itself to me.

You are so indomitable in your ignorance,
too bad you never convinced yourself of your beliefs.
Can you feel the rapture coming?
These spasms of devastation.
Scream into me, fill me with your fear.
Such a pleasant little hum.

Art by Jelena Markovic




.

Lubido

Oh desire, you eternal prick of the tongue.
I am the wild in the wood, the howl of life
rampant, the rot creeping under bellies.
I am the flame that is only pain without warmth,
The common thread unraveling, the fleeting pleasure.
Do you believe in judgement day?

Art by Jelena Markovic



.

Last night at 11 I walked
around the corner of the house
to where no porch light shines
and the night greedily swallows
the smoke I do not absorb.
There is a metaphor about
what was sacred to me.
You were every cup overflowing.

I want to confess my sins. I want
to put the knife in your hands,
I want to push it into the
permanence of a scar.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, I will not
stand in front of a Rothko.
I will stand under the tension
of a desert willow bloom in
late October. It is paralyzed
in its insistence after the bees
have already left. There is no
backhanded kindness.
Membranes vibrate against
the edges of a dimming season.

The past makes me a ghost.




.

Would you wear yellow,
under the moonlight it is
white any way. All those
missing midnights on rooftops
we inhabited bleeding
into dawn. Baby step out of the
light, you know if you make up
a word it might make it real.

Maybe it is October and it is cold
enough at night that when I am close
you remember August when the heat
was still heavy. When the flowers
littered everywhere and your hips
like the river curving into my hands.

With the orange glow of your cigarette you are
Jupiter, you don’t even know how large you are.
The brightest spot. I spied on you once, a voyeur
with a telescope, watching you spin. Dancing
with your storms.

The crickets still sing their hunger.




.

Immaculate Conception

I fuck myself




.

What is your name for god?

I am a ghost on half
bended knees, waiting.
Striking matches with
my tongue, the lyrics
licking the door. Sin is soft
and catches easy.
The choir is rampant.

What good is forgiveness without forgetting.

There is a wolf or is it a man
with a book, either way there
are knives and hunger. Sometimes
there is a choice of meal.

I am on my way, a pillar of salt
melting into the sea.




.

Invictus

I can not help but put my fingers
into the heart of what adores me,
to feel the small life give itself to me.

You are so indomitable in your ignorance,
too bad you never convinced yourself of your beliefs.

Can you feel the rapture coming? These spasms
of devastation. Scream into me, fill me with your fear.
Such a pleasant little hum.




.

do you believe in god

The skin of this nectarine gives
under my teeth, it is memory of
buttons and first whispers,
bodies overflowing with joy.

Is balance a function of time?

Once I was a god shaping the flesh of desire.
But I forget my teeth and a drought has found my fingers.

The sweetness runs down my chin;
this is faith enough.




.

grace

1
I’m sorry if I don’t have a flag to
pin upon your chest. These sheets
are white, isn’t that surrender enough?
You have already left messages
in my blood. I’ll forgo the luxury of war.
I shape my mouth around the sound of taps.
Can you translate?

2
I kick a fusee hissing past the edge
of the ravine, the red glare falling
into a darkness newly littered
with safety glass stars.
I sweep the road clean,
pushing the evidence under the
twisted ribbon of guardrail.
It held against the determination/need
of momentum.

3
The skin is complete, a bag
without release, a corpse swelling.
This season it is the plague,
something beyond the knife
but failing to dim the black hope
of this edge.




.

I stand in the sweet spot of the speakers,

equidistant to the slant, swaddled, crucified.

I am a pig at slaughter. The pain drips like

precum, like creosote rising to the sun.
I can feel the knives scrape, I can feel your
hand rhythmic on my chest then resting

as if ready for CPR. I cannot blame you

for my failed resuscitation. Sometimes

it’s about purity in spite of devotion.

.

butter

I have attached a lighter to my zipper,

when I piss the wheel sparks and ignites
a brief plastic flare of white pubes,
your necrotic fingers hold my balls, your nails
are complimentary and sticky. You hate avocados.
The stench is far enough away not to distract
from the corpses washed up in my mouth.

I compress poetry into urinal cakes, torn out pages

of stolen library books, my blood is neon pink
and sticky, it’s probably contagious. 
It is curatorial,  a vaporous beauty dissolving
into the animus of the sea.

This can of lighter fluid is ruined, it is

a breathing void laughing, the rust is transparent.
I can not burn anything beyond recognition.

.

Hammers blow and tumblers

give, you’re so fucking pretty
when the napalm flares blind
the sun. I am anointed.
Can I want you? Can I build
you a cathedral to house
my god, a memento mori?
Whatever death you offer I
would kneel before
the wolf at my throat.
If I could be who you wanted
would I be the perfect gun?
Every desire a prayer, every
atrocity anatomically correct.
Feed me your fingertips before
they are blue, before they are lost.
I know what I am capable of
and I know what burns, but I want
overlap in the replica and realness
of what your voice means.

.

I keep the gun warm
with the iron of my skin.
I sit here and draw
swords with my blood.
I am patient in this debt
and as beautiful as
a beheaded saint. 
It is August again,
my collar is wet where
it hangs on my neck.
I am ready for the cup.
I am ready for the darkness to spill.
I am ready for the jewel
of your fingers to trace the
outline of what I have done.
There is gold in the green waiting.
There is gold in my eyes that
will not ruin with remembrance.
I will chase around the edges
of things that should’ve been
with the fumbled ash of a cigarette 
I always hope the dark will take more time.





.

I lie in the dream of your breath. Your presence
is less defensive than your voice. Slipping between
softening weapons, I dissolve like glycerin
under your tongue. Waiting beneath constellations
with the strings pulled out, I stumble
on lost connections and phone jacks writing
darkness on the night.

The sun has not risen above the cradle
of the mountain. The light is unsure and
I am grateful for the shadow’s noise. Repeat to
me the chemistry of leaving, the misplaced
enzymes, and electrons free to rot.

The pieces of you left in me will
not fester into pearls; there is no luminous
wound burning. I’m sure a saint could make something
of this. I’m sure I could disguise myself.
The fear is you will find a god; the hope
is you will be able to pry those fingers
from your throat.




.

Out

The dust rises to the glamor of the wind,

I want to say diaphanous, I want to say hello.
This season is green but as flat as a
photograph.  I remember the dust devils
marching off the wall of the mesa strung
together like ballerinas, a determined violence.
The sun has clotted the salt of my eyes into
a crystalline glare.  I see auras of light
shifting red and blue.  You are moving in glory,
your howl will find me long after
you have come and gone.

.

Clinch

1

The 3 am highway is wet and darker

than the clouds hung with wasted light.

Headlights barely hold onto the

white paint. It is silent, the road noise is

missing. I am okay with the lie and the

smudged detail. The churning treads

of miles is lost between the middle

ground and the horizon. There is no

ritual to this, distance is a way of

holding onto time.

2

These sheets don’t remember shit.

The topography is soft. There are no fire

razed hillsides but the erosion is there

with its waiting for the skin of life

to start. This water like tendency to settle

into silence. We struggle to tear each

other apart, to reconfigure us into

something that can endure.

.

These days I craft the forays of my ghosts
into the vessels of my hands. But the iron
rusts even in this dead river.
The nails are borrowed and when
the claim comes due I’m not sure
what will be left of this wooden sky.

I can’t remember the blood I was boiled in.

Desire is a vast wildness; how could a man
only wander in it for forty days. Does not the
wound of water scour a madman to purpose?




.

The sinner in you can eat the sinner in me,
what would I do with this salvation but burn down another church.

I seek the gardens where the bodies are, the reaching
of life into death to pull out the stillness of hearts.

Secrets sewn into the corners of your mouth, bees and birdsong,
bitter roots and apples fallen for the mistaken smile.

open like a flower, like a coffin, hard wood and satin hiding the nails
holding you together. Glassed eyed and tongueless you know it is not me
who will climb into that perfumed abattoir.

I used to be a god, now I want to eat my ice cream sandwich in silence.

.

There is an errant sunbeam that lets me count
the hair on your arm. I want to count the words
that are left before should and have to. It is a
way of impressing the present into some future.

I pull a fuzz from your coat sleeve, my hand
trails down the wool until the hard domes of
buttons, a warning. I stop for your fingers, 
pressing each one briefly, so they are noticed.

I smile into the absence, your eyes smudge
through the sweep of your hair. I pretend the
number of footsteps away equals the number back.

I count the raindrops enough to know it is
raining. The hours shift into shadow, unless they
have given up. Even a blank stare renders numbers.
Nothing never adds up to nothing.

.

A hard nub of time, a divot of wire,
a catch, a place to rest, something to push back
against the hunger of my hands.

I feel the birds inside of me flying laterally across the tide.  Silent.

Your fingertips cajole the brittle
fuel of my blood.  These ragged bones
are vaporous and ready.
It is a quick fuse to hell or ecstasy.

Mumbled gutter mouth, fumbled fingers dropping the knife
already found slickened.  All too soon blooming mercurochrome eyes.
Bright sun shining, blinking clouds.  How many years is it now,
7 x 7, who the fuck made mirrors so fragile?

I’d like to cancel my reservation.
I would like to talk to you.  I’ll write you a note.  I’ll take a powder.
Would you slow dance to fake plastic trees?
I want to know when it is okay to not get back up.




.

I can feel my lungs unfolding
in the box of my chest, there is no
consent. This wind cries
through the corners.

I wish my mouth was mild,

a yellow rose, a May morning.
I would sift through your
petals, lick your collar bone,
remember the thorns.  It is soft,
the blood you draw in these early hours
of dew. Does it matter who grabs the
knife first? Can you measure the loss?

How many times have you

been in love? My heart breaks
every day, isn’t that the same thing?

There is this pain that will not allow

me anything beautiful, I know there
are words to evoke, but I am not whole
with this desire.  I want to thank you.
I want to write something everyday
that you will like. It already hurts and
I know this little about you.

I pack peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

for lunch, or in this case apricot preserves.
They are misshapen things, wounded.
The bread absorbs the sweetness until
saturated like gauze, a wound not ready
to heal, seeping. I remember trees
heavy with nostalgia. I remember being
jealous of the light that found you.

.

Your shoulders gather freckles.

I know where to find potsherds, there is a place

by the river where abandoned adobe melts.
Polychromed geometry discarded near the

broken bodies of trees and the wire strung from

rusting iron crosses set to resist the siege of flood water.

The light sings through the fabric of your dress,

throwing curves into silhouette.

I know where the illegal dump is, the road veers

left but if you turn right onto the dirt road you’ll

get there. Look for the signs both for and against it.

Three friends died when they couldn’t make the turn.

I could find a home in the air of your smile.

Every day I wrap desire in a new package,

I get tired of dissecting middens for voyeuristic

pleasure but sometimes there is ketchup

when you need it.

.

I kept your lipstick print on a demitasse

for years. It has faded or is gone, I haven’t looked
at it in a while. I’m not sure who you were.

The house is full of small hermetic rooms that I
never enter. There are trails that lead to safety.
I’m tired of reading stories in the dust.

The spiders bring the spring, they are hungry
after a long winter sharpening their desire.

The flowers have come out everywhere. They
are not shy with their sexual intentions. I am not
as bold as the rain; I will not touch their softer skin.

It is a picture postcard stuck in the frame
of a mirror, the season doesn’t pass, it is a
memory no longer noticed.





.

Come on baby, I got the pig sticker lined up

between two ribs, all you gotta do is push, it’ll
slide right into my heart like cupid’s arrow.

Pulling a trigger is as easy as picking your nose.
Every bullet a guaranteed winner.  A shotgun is a
buckshot blast of hard candy kisses.

Wanna get hitched?  Put that ring on your finger,
count to three and throw the rest away. A hand
grenade will splatter me like a bug, I’ll be in every
nook and cranny. You’ll never wipe me off.

Love ain’t no pretty thing, you gotta spill some
blood, get your fingers sticky, wallow in it.

.