Thoughts in light

She has written herself off

or so she says

watching youth inherit the mantle

she stares at her own flaccid chest

in unforgiving morning sun

and tries to convince herself to gently let go

light pouring in through the bay window

creating a halo effect in surround

she is bathed in unexpected warmth

her pores absorbing hungrily

that urging intensity, a happy blindness

as if the world paused in its toil

to tap her on the shoulder and whisper

it’s not near over yet girl

go out, gather your arms full

live

live

live!

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Not a lot

Some of the forgotten towns

circling big cities, lone wolves

warming fur against bright lights

wear their bleakness like a flag

the emptied streets at night where

no merriment is found, kids have

climbed aboard their bikes and motored

through snow if necessary, to escape

into the cold clutches of wine and euro-pop.

The touring people who do not live in these towns

glamorize by proxy

their little steeples, the preserve of history

how charming graffiti looks in a foreign language

they do not see behind the doors

into a teen world of preparedness

all who will flee when time comes

somehow, make their empty pocketed way

to bigger cities, offering the solace of

24 hour misery

surely it beats

sleeping in your childhood cot

listening to your parents snore

inching closer to a local grave plot

they put their heads in bags of glue

just to feel like they are from somewhere else

finding it a marvelous irony

when their frigid mountain town is named

‘best hidden tourist spot’

by those who are also in their own ways

trying to escape

their stifled lot

The fixation & the vexation

Sometimes there is an unbuckling of

temper and fear and loathing

mixed into indigo and strewn

in furied air

we pick it up as

a smell long forgotten

taps long dormant senses

and despite the years, regain

a moment mislaid

your arms doused with powder

glittering like another being, turning,

you, spectral and otherworldly

an afterglow of fiesta, a street

littered with signs of party goers

their tossed colors, a mélange of remembrance

we grind and mash and rearrange

clothes strewn in multi color love letters

on unpolished floor

seeking to find in electrified connection

that dizzying light

buoying briefly from surface

telling of depths few venture

where usually we rest, bobbing and sailing

absent of passion, thinking like the face of a clock

about slow steady movement, predictable pauses

spasms only in the imagination

or when a familiar song stirs a disquiet

whilst below, in regions beneath our reach

gained access through mutual need

briefly like the flick of a match

sets sulphur stalking cold corridors

only there, unbeknownst to the world

and her grave tick-tock visage

we earn closer, sloughing skin, molecules

separating individuals, ages, castles, skies

until on the windswept summit we fall

clutching each other in entreaty and relief

fading from sight, resisting wholeness

becoming starlight

only then, your damp hand caught

somewhere inside me, my bruised

lips smarting with the pressure of

cascading into earths center

do we know a place that is only ours

where we are pre-Denisovan and

holy, beneath the candle of a human’s

little watched life

that shallow wick, curved in entreaty

for meaning, for Gods, for monsters

and your rounding stomach, wet with tears

salt and oxygen and loss like a tableau

of everything, a table set for two

we sit obedient and fatigued

the lines of us, drawn before we arrive

breaking outside the cast, little cracks

small fizzures

with the fixation and vexation

of mortal love.

Unfettered liberate

There’s a place in me

despite it all

where contentment lies

fragile

a guttural home

of solace and loathing both

for joy

not found where others

locate easement and meaning

you will not discover me

spearing a whale or

circumferencing your fattened

demand to chain my needs

for more than this routine of

sorrow.

Indeed it will be likely,

on Tuesday you find me

supping with strangers

libation undulating in my wine

blotting out focus

lighting humor’s wick

on Thursday just as likely

the ledge and its cold

grey slate, quivering beneath

my teetering weight

as I rinse myself beneath falling rain

and the impulse to let go.

This is the clatter of a discontent soul

made such from before recollection

no excuse, no explanation,

sometimes in mendacity

surviving without living, only

able to get that far, past and future

not present tense, as if vaporized

an empty window with no view

the back handed slap

a ruined chemise in your teeth

for whom of us really knows?

How discontent works into the marrow

the trickery of sorrow leaching

satisfaction as silent hemorrhage

I could point to bad habits

reeking of gluttony and a switch of

madness or else

modern world’s awareness

calcifying our retinas with

24/7 neon lights

nudegirlsnudegirlsnudegirls

I peal my sins off one by one

leaning into you with regrets bosom

and suffocate the very spit from your lip

until you are blue and unmoving adjective

like my fucking heart.

Maybe it is the torrent of rejections

piled like sawed off limbs

miniaturized in pill boxes

for Ash Wednesday’s cross

I may expect too much out of poor, dear life

rickety wooden hope almost burnt to a char

but what fancy isn’t ecstatic joy?

Indulge me, or write me off as

vagabond hedonist, but never

was a math class or week sitting at

office desk, an ounce the pleasured

meaning found between your oiled legs

and that as they say

is the naked truth.

you can condemn me a coarse, vacuous being

malcontent and ululate, and you’d probably be right

especially on Friday nights

when displeasures wick burns low and

all hallowed souls gather to

seal their profligate covenant

to dance flung mad beneath kilowatt moonshine

arms outstretched in varied postures

of abandon and short half-life glee

sticky with fevered imprint, they

shuck off adornments and expectations

grown over with moss

and when it comes to lapsing daylight

dive nude and fluid like seals

into the sea’s very throat and its briny acceptance

of traitors and rebels and girls with

too many bed fellows

where all but the sheer furtive birth of freedom

glimpsing off unencumbered skin

chewing the skies

with effervescent glow, is sate

as if mermaids were beseeching

tender men and women of houses

and diaries, book weights, lapsed vibrators and bottled ointments

leave your rules and your sadist alarm clocks

set for 6am

abandon the car you upgrade every three years

before it’s lost its new smell

to impress neighbors who give you no heed

retreat, retreat, retreat

past scraped plates of burnt lasagna

fox tails, lube and licked spoons

to this emptied isle of underwater

solace and lay your wretched superlative

disappointment in our laps

that we may render you

lost

and because of that

unfettered liberate,

eternally

blushingly

free

Wisteria

Older people used to tell me how time goes faster for every year

I think it is more that we let time go on, doing nothing to change our course

where before we would have done more to reach the point, we were seeking

what causes this I don’t know, maybe youth is intense, more packed into a year

maybe we stop believing we can change, or get lazy, or preoccupied or led by fear

I wasn’t very old when I learned fear can stop the neediest heart and leave her all alone

staring at walls in a black dress

eventually a day comes we see we have spent a long time watching for ships

as years passed by and we got into a rut of our own invention

it stuns me we can stay still for so long, neglecting our wants, our needs

as if they do not exist, pushing them down, hiding their force

just as we deny their existence, they surface and it’s like no time has passed

we are the same passionate creature we were before we forgot how

only older without much wisdom, just the feeling we didn’t do enough

for some of that may be vanity, our finite lives, the idea of a beginning and end

some of it may be true, who we thought we would be, or never considered

I envy those people who set a straight arrow and shoot and never seem to miss

not all of us are that precise or insightful or calculated

I drifted, partly because of distractions, partly out of inertia or sadness or a feeling of loss before I gained

acting like I had all the time in the world, that things would come still come my way

when everyone knows as you get older it gets harder

to generate that spark, that kindling, that damn irresistible flame

I’m also guilty of trying to assuage fear and you cannot live for such things

you must be bold or if not, pretend you are, for nothing, nothing was ever found by a coward

I have been afraid a long time, I have not trusted myself or my ability to survive without safety nets and hesitation

there was this picture in my mind of me

old and alone in poverty and I ran from that as if it were the cross

so much so I didn’t consider if my choices were really mine

or I was just responding to anxiety about something that may never come to pass

and you

the attention I gave you

all these years

were not spent wisely

for when it ended, I got nothing in return

nothing at all to show

it was in that way, a real error on my part

nobody likes to pour themselves inside out for someone

only to find it all goes up in smoke

I can’t say you were my undoing because

we have choices, but I definitely wasted myself on you

who could cut me out of your world like I was a paper doll

all the emotion I had, that was wasted too

there is nothing worse than feeling you gave everything and still it wasn’t enough

so forgive me if I feel bitter about that.

…

When we stand still, we calcify but don’t always turn hard

I still remember the feeling of dancing and wanting and longing

I remember thinking maybe life doesn’t have to be so beige

and un-passionate, that it can be wisteria

maybe life can be the way I feel now at this exact moment

imagining what it would feel like kissing you until our lips grew sore

despite so many people in this world it is not easy

to stare across a room and find

your familiar, the one who moves your blood

but I thought I found it in you, from the very first

Probably I was mistaken, it seems like risks are only suited to certain players

but tell me, if I was wrong, then why do I hold such indelible feelings?

why do I not walk away when it seems, the logical thing to do

when I close my eyes I see your face

I long to hold your hand and feel the light pulse in your small wrist

except if things were meant to be

they’d fit and you’d feel the same way, not be unmoved by chemistry

perhaps it is the story of my life

to find it so hard to fall and when I do, land on my face

perhaps I am not meant to be in someone’s arms

held, worshiped and adored, as you once said

was that a brush-off or just the truth?

who knows anymore it almost doesn’t matter

because I have tasted disregard many times in my life

to the point of knowing all the flavors it comes in

and if you don’t share my feelings

if I don’t make you want to jump up and run to me

if you don’t stay awake at night, your heart thundering

then I am not going to try to woo you

and I don’t want to be the girl, who has to try twice as hard

not when it comes to emotions, they either exist or they don’t

it just seems an irony, I pluck up courage and make a fool of myself

I was once told I should go find someone who’d be crazy about me

if that were possible maybe I would

but you’d be surprised what exists

and what does not

in this funny world of

lonely hearts

Guts & Garters

The violin

Then piano

Galvans to

Those unsaid surfaces

And they said to her

You’re a woman of sulphured words surely

Everything you think and feel is written

She smiled inwardly

Wanting to reply with busted teeth and a ripped out shirt, screaming

Hell, you assholes know everything, don’t you hot shot?

Some of us who write

Have more inside than any forest

Could become burning paper

Like an iceburg you think you see our entirity

We are mere dancers on the tip

Of a very deep sink of ice and water

Where undertow and mania pull the marionette

In gizes of wellness, denial, sorrow and unquenchable thirst

Which do you want first? The knife or the open legs?

Don’t dare presume you know how heavy I bleed

Share a slapped drag of my pain

I’ll writhe for you across landscapes of shame

Hit me with something harder dear

You ain’t even close to exposing me

The core of this unchained symphony

Here, let me show you baby

Look in-between, past the guts and garters

What I had to do, to get even equal

When scars are words and stars

But wounds?

No they don’t get put in a book and closed

You can’t see me in that private torment

4am pulling on the leathers of my sleeplessness

Do you know why I never learned to rest?

Remember the feeling of violence caressing your bruises?

Kiss them for me darling then pour the gasoline

When your own hand fondles the blaze it’s too much insanity

Fucking by the scold like the last feeling on earth

No you don’t know what words reveal

Until you see them scratched deep into skin

There you go again, thinking what I write lifts the veil

It was shredded long ago and hung on a Deadwood

The pinpricks of my ache fertilized nothing

Dust to dust, sometimes there’s no fucking translation

Into water

There was grief in the last time I was myself

long-faced, retroussé nose, thick hair

broad shouldered from swimming away

cutting through water, weightless

not carrying your stare, your aprobation, your disregard

if ignored, let us ignore better, make an art of failure

suck the pipe, squeeze the last drop, inject, pop

those blue pills, as blue as you made me feel

psychiatry says nobody can make you feel anything

you choose

did you choose to feel nothing and by nothing

cause my center to crush softly inward

like the river flowers we press in our books

before you were born

carried over generation from generation

I laid in the grass wondering why

no lover had sought to please me

and the boughs of the trees revealed themselves

as my hand wandered back and forth

drenched in sweat

for who can satisfy a tin box with its lid hammered shut

who can know the heart of a girl who is told before she can walk

she isn’t enough, she’ll never be near sufficient

then you walked out of the river

green and shining like forested afterbirth

you did not care about forms and structure

spelling and photographic reproduction

you had a tongue and eyes and hands

like a thought with action

you claimed me beneath alders and pine

stretching so high, embracing unseen faith

I became a woman that day

crying out beneath your stones and mud and lillies

as white as an urge

with pink in the center

craving to crest in sun

and fall wilted back into water

Beneath your coat

Losing your mind feels like

Slipping your chaffed hands into a pair of rubber gloves

Plunging them into hot washing up water

Hearing the chink of porcelain, knocking against glass

Impossibly fragile.

Soon the water grows murky

You cannot see, nor reach the bottom

From the top of your head to the ache in your feet

Standing wooden, bones imploring, knitted sweater itching corner of your cheek

Passion in contrast, hot freedom, dusty legs slightly parted, cold between

An urge as you stand beside the sink

To dive in

Silent impulse on a cold day to keep your hands deep

As long as the water stays hot

That feeling when most of you is dry and clothed, but part

Is submerged in warmth, feeling like fingers working their way up

Stockings, underwear, the electric wire beneath wool

Into the mirage of your longing to let go, absolve yourself of .. it all

If you could release, lie back in kneeding waves

You might let your weary cracked elbows

Then shoulders, sopping, sink beneath

Climbing into the sink, patent shoes slipping

Brassiere faded by multiple wear, a grey strap, a bulge of apricot breast

Hair loose and dripping, reflecting against dull tin

A buttoned up woman trying to gain admittance

All thoughts stewing in your head like vegetables boiled in water lose

Their flavor …

As politely you wash and rinse, checking against light for water spots

No one shall ever know, the devouring urge beneath your coat

When

You used to cover your mouth and blush

At my ability to be frank and scathingly honest

It was not a quality and you were not an admirer

Yours was the shamefacedness I didn’t feel

Whilst you, were a well of loneliness

A secret not to be discovered.

When did I become

A crass innuendo girl?

The kind I’d be ashamed of

Was it the first time you turned away?

Or removed my seeking hand?

Or the fiftieth?

Cockroach

Woman

looked up in to sky

saw there

her future

we are cockroaches

she told her husband that evening at dinner

as he sat trying to eat fast so he could check his messages

annoyed and perpetually irritated with her queries and words

he wished momentarily he could seal her in an Amazon Prime box

and return her with a free print it yourself label

if only marriage were as easy as that to dissolve

okay I’ll take the bait, why are we cockroaches?

he replied eventually with a weary voice, if only to get her to stop

standing with wet hands from washing in the kitchen center

unaware of how absurd and unattractive she was

with her rolled shoulders and sagging bust line

why can’t she look like the girls I subscribe to?

a lazy thought passed behind his eyes as he vainly tried

and failed

to show a modicum of interest

we are cockroaches she repeated

her face blazing underneath the low hanging light fixture

he’d installed badly

because bees and frogs and bats

if they die out we all go

BAM!

She slapped her red hands together making a strange squelching sound

her lips twitching oddly

But if we

with our Sistine chapels, Leonardo’s

drive-in Sonic Burger, Schlitterbahn water parks

Round-Up, teenage sized tampons and driverless cars

if we die … IF WE DIE!

Her voice raised an octave and dominated the quiet room

he thought her shrill and unbearable

a streak of sweat

began to gnaw at his calf as it ran slowly toward his socks

socks she had to bleach after he left them unwashed and yellowed in his cupboard

resisting the urge to itch he tried to stay motionless, could it be if he blinked she would be gone?

If we die NOTHING HAPPENS!

But if we live … as we live … when we have lived

such a short time comparatively if you think

watch the years before us, long and steady

now watch the timeline unruffled by menace

as we come into being that trajectory takes on an awful shape

the shape of destruction! Not only will nothing happen to every other living thing

on earth if we are not here to witness it

but the damage we have wrought in such a short time!

so much damage!

we breed animals and slaughter them inhumanely in abattoirs

we condemn Nazi’s for gassing Jews and gypsies

but how are some of our actions so different?

we deny basic healthcare to our most vulnerable citizens

and call ourselves progressive or worse

blame those who are not able

to defend themselves

He wiped his face with his meaty hand; This isn’t going to be another vegetarian rant is it?

rubbing the sweat from underneath his eyes

it seemed to be getting very hot in the room

there wasn’t any chilli in dinner was there? He asked as

something seemed to stick quite determinedly in his throat

feeling nauseous he reached for the glass of water

it looked like it was sweating too

the room was too hot

turn the damn air conditioning up he raised his voice and began

to sound as shrill as she had

you know nothing you say will stop me eating meat

and I don’t agree with you but then thinking about it

I rarely do

you care about abstracts

you point to diagrams that show ‘evolutionary’ destruction at the hands of humanity

and even if this is so

look at our progress

look at our knowledge

What knowledge? What mercy?

We still can’t cure the common cold

she retorted with her back turned to him

she appeared to be drying the dishes he couldn’t remember giving her

the room was spinning

I don’t feel well, he said

lurching slightly in place

I wouldn’t think you would

she replied, he could not see her face

only the stains of sweat underneath her thick arms

reaching around like hands behind her

you always felt animals were equal to us and they just aren’t

he tried to modulate his voice but it had grown

distant

as if he were contained within glass being slowly

pressed

like a spider you find in the tall grass and collect

for Monday’s school project

I don’t feel well, he repeated

his eyes rolling in their waxy sockets, his tongue lolling

ungraciously

that would be the castor bean oil

I mixed it into your dinner

she said

as calm as if she were saying out loud

Sunday’s grocery list or tonight’s TV programming

and shutting the kitchen door

she left her husband

who by now was unable to speak

a small mercy for them both

and taking off her house slippers she stepped out

into the back where the mature trees reached high into the night

and began

very purposely and with great care

to dig a hole

deep enough to bury

a cockroach