Wednesday, December 31, 2014

The immortal touch





Wednesday, December 31, 2014

We touch shoulders in the dark
But I want more
Like a luckless down and out beggar
Rubbing his hands on his lucky stone
Desperate to make something come of it,
A boy scout with stick firmly gripped
Between his sweaty palms
Stroking with the hope he can make fire
Only I am no boy scout,
And the first I ache to make
Won’t keep me warm, but will consume me
And I don’t care, desperate to turn
This tiny smoldering bit of smoke
all my strokes have caused
for something more intense
something I can throw myself into,
a mortal sacrifice for a chance
at the immortal this touch leads to than
until we rub together so hard,

we cannot help but explode

Saturday, December 20, 2014

On the tip of your tongue





Saturday, December 20, 2014

You feel it first
On the tip of your tongue
Before you taste it
Yielding then unyielding,
And as moist as a ripe mushroom
Making you ache to sink
All your teeth into it
But you plunge your tongue
Deep into it instead,
Circling the place
That makes you ache the most,
Lost in the depths of the forest
With no yearning to escape,
Waiting for the wolves to devour you
When you are the wolf
With the world on the tip of your tongue,
Doing all you can to ease the ache
To prepare this holy ground
For more of you to enter,
Your unyielding core plunging
Deep into that abyss
Rubbing more than just sticks together
With the hope of making a fire
That will consume you
Even as you burst,
So that you can no longer feel or taste
Or think, but merely keep on.


Sunday, December 14, 2014

Going deep



Sunday, December 14, 2014


I fall into your eyes
With arms outstretched
A deep sea dive
Into an abyss I know
I can never escape from
The dark depths of it
So filled with doubt
I’m sure I’ll drown
And do not care
Feeling the warmth
Of it as I break the surface
The press of it against
My flesh as I struggle to swim,
No break this deep in,
And yet, I try,
Breathing in something
Far richer and thicker
Than air, heat
Searing my lungs
With each gap,
I am scalded
Head to toe,
And even then
As a drowning man
I do not despair
Fingers feeling for the soft of it
As I reach, and reach again
Outstretched and vulnerable
Exposed to it all
The chill of not being here
More terrifying than even sinking
Too far down to know
I can’t possibly survive
If I do not dive
So I dive all the deeper
Seeking what I know is
Really there,
Something I need

Far more than I need air.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Daylight savings



Nov. 2, 2014

The cold touches the morning
For the first time since spring,
Coming a full day after a heavy rain
The chill of wet still lingers in me
Even after the streets have dried
And so I stumble into the new day
With an extra hour, limbs stiff
And an acute sense of feeling old,
Each season decreasing
The time left on this mortal coil
And paints my consciousness
With a dim shroud extra daylight
Cannot possibly illuminate,
For a time when what I do
And changing seasons will cease to matter
We bundle up against a chill
For which a coming spring cannot cure
And we prepare for an afterlife
We know nothing about, only guesses,
If only we could turn those clocks back
As easily as we did today, live backwards
The way Merlin reportedly did,
To know the exact measure of our existence
So we might parcel out its pieces better
Letting far less of it go to waste,
I have already outlived most I thought of as dear
The curse that comes with survival, if not old age,
And how lonely it becomes when one
Has seen the last of those who have come before
And have no one left to comfort me
When my time comes.


Thursday, November 13, 2014

Free bird




Thursday, November 13, 2014

I hold it up in both my hands
This trembling, feathered creature
I can identify only as a bird
Because it has wings,
Broken wings on which it
Cannot fly away,
But will the moment I mend them,
The way it must
Its soft touch lingering
On the tips of my fingers
And on my lips as I wish it well,
Aching to touch it again,
And again feels its softness
Against my calloused palms,
Feeling its warmth against
My warmth,
It breathing my breath
This precious moment
Caught in an instant
And release, this heart break,
This lasting gift that
Must be given away,
Real and unreal,
Previous, but not possessed,
A dream dreamed
But not forgotten,
A memory so vivid
It always seems real,
My wings broken like its are,
My heart throbbing
With the same need,
My gaze fixed upon it
As it sails into the sky,
A bird with wings
Then just a dot
Against the brightness

And then gone.

Friday, November 7, 2014

Sugar and Salt




Friday, November 07, 2014

When they take you over
It is never for good purpose
An iron fist hidden
In the velvet glove of love
Nor is the salt spread
As sweet as sugar
But rather like Rome did
To Carthage under Manius Manilius
Designed as conquest
And to spoil the landscape
For future growth,
They needing you to need them,
Shackling you with mind-game chains,
Shaping lies into images of truth
Until you can’t tell the difference,
Turning love on its heads
And loved ones into enemies
We are not,
So that you have no one else
to turn to except for them,
no one who can help
when the fish finally shows
from under the glove
and you realize that this is not love
but something mean and evil,
by which time, it is all you have
and cling to it drowning
in Sugar and salt
convinced that
bitter is sweet
until you learn to like it.



Saturday, November 1, 2014

The void inside



Saturday, November 01, 2014

I dress up each time in my mind
A carved out face with fixed smile
I don’t always believe
The sawed teeth of the carving knife
Still evident on each deep slice
A candle lit inside of me
Making my eyes glow
Filling the empty space inside
I hope each time to fill
With something more substantial
To replace the substance removed
Not love or lust, but existence
The day to day of it,
That face that is a real face
The heart that does more than tick
A life that is more than a jack a lantern
Propped up to scare kids
As they come to my door for trick or treat
We living our lives with fixed expressions
Actually believing there is nothing else
When there is always so much more
Out there just beyond our finger tips
Something to fill the void inside



Friday, October 31, 2014

Astray



October 26, 2014

The soft air kissed my cheeks
As I stroll here this cold morning
In late October, the end of season
As haunting as Halloween,
Filled with ghosts and goblins
Of a life I never meant to lead
The misdirection of misplaced steps
We take when we meant to go
In another direction, and yet
No so misguided as we believe
As we are shaken from those
Early morning dreams when we
Imagine the worst and come to realize
That our steps lead us not so much
Astray but rather where
We were meant to be,
And accepting the path
We find ourselves on
Is the hardest part of being alive

And yet, the most fulfilling.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

In the silence





Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Rain drips down the wooden fence
Leaving dark scars on its face
As the trees lean over waiting to change
This pre-color time of year
When we ache for change to come
Cool air swirling around us
With just enough hint of summer
To remember it
I hear the voice of winter
In the distant rumble of surf
And in the altered sound of traffic
And the sudden quiet
Of end of season brings to the seashore,
These things stand out against
The usually hectic soundscape
So that they seem loud
When they are not,
Our lives are like that,
Loudest in the lulls,
When we can hear ourselves thinking
The way we hear the tick of a clock
Always there, but never obvious
As we search for meaning,
No more nor less than they ever were,
The ghost in the machine
The moving parts
We do not wish to know about
But get consumed with

When all else falls silent.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Echoes



Saturday, October 25, 2014

History repeats itself inside my head
Like echoes in a canyon
Long after the initial shout
Losing at last what the shout was about
And so we read into what we hear
Imagining what it is we felt
When we let the fell words fall,
And translate that which we thought
We said into what we need said now
Feeling from it what we need to feel,
Not exactly what we felt at the start,
Thinking the whole time
How nothing has changed
When everything always does,
And when we shout again
Our new shout falls on ears
We know might never hear
What is we actually said.



Sunday, October 19, 2014

Sea Side Asbury Park





Sunday, October 19, 2014

I dip my fingers in this salty foam,
This sea side slick water beach
Stretched out before m
Timeless until I glimpse
Over my shoulder at the shore
And the grin of a boardwalk
With its missing teeth
And the sense that it
Can never smile again
Air thick with the recalled screeches
Of kids on rides long gone,
The tilt-a-whirl with caught shirt
And the kid who never thought
The ride would vanish
Before the people did,
Or that the decay
Would strike so deep
or leave holes no one could fill
With only the sea itself the same
Coming and going,
In and out,
With perpetual sighs
And the salty residue
Of some love vanquished
The end of the world
As we know it,
The roar of engines
Mere echoes of a past
We can barely hear
Over the snores of the tides
And we caught
In the mists wondering
Where to dip our fingers next.


Tuesday, September 23, 2014

The life that never was




Tuesday, September 23, 2014 (Asbury Park)

We cast characters in our heads
as we walk this walk that Springsteen walked,
these institutions that linger at the edge of darkness,
the artist offering portraits for passers-by,
whose civil war era Union army hat
covers his eyes against the sinking sun,
his previous work stretched out
over two sea-side benches like a rogue’s gallery,
if not quite life-like then like life
in that we cannot duplicate ourselves
or those times we ache to repeat
regardless of how many times we stroll
these old boards and seek the images
we have only come to know in song,
Perhaps we can get help from the magician
Who sets up shop near Madam Marie’s,
Telling no fortune but apologizing
To the crowd when some of his tricks
Go wrong, his cards filled with holes
He can peer through at them,
Maybe the old men who gather in the old casino
Still have memories of that time
When a different life percolated here,
Getting caught on rides that have long been demolished.
Thinking they might never get off,
But now, in this lingering limbo, this twilight
Sea-side city of dreams, they really can’t,
Like the old carousel building or the sewerage plant
Serving as icons to a glorious past
Nobody thought were glory days
When they transpired,
Or the equally ancient old man 
With an equally ancient guitar
Strumming out songs that no one hears
And people stop to pay him out of sympathy
Or tribute to some god they knew
Once traveled in his company,
That he saw in the flesh and could testify to,
And who in strumming tuneless tunes,
Gives a different, less distinct soundtrack
To this life that never was.





Saturday, September 20, 2014

Ah Carol



Saturday, September 20, 2014

She sat on my knee at 23
Short skirt hiding the lap
She rode like a steed,
As she rubbed my leg
between her thighs,
an old Chuck Berry
Rolling Stones song
Reverberating in my head,
She pretending to be
A little girl seated
On her daddy’s lap
While glancing over
Her shoulder at me
Laughing, talking
With a mutual friend
Pretending not to notice
My growing need,
Looking my way
Just enough to
Turn me into butter
She knew she churned,
All of me oozing
Out of me
Turning me
Inside out,
A wax man ignited
From within
By her rubbing
Of sticks,
An internal flame
I could not extinguish
Until she stopped,
An eternal anguish
I feel even
All these years later,
So near and yet
Not near enough,
Always on the edge of it
As she came close
And then moved away,
Each stroke stoking
The fire as to make it
All the hotter,
Until she was certain
She had seen every
Drop ooze out of me
And then, only then,
Did she smile

Friday, September 19, 2014

Scorched



Friday, September 19, 2014

I bleed you
With both eyes
Not wounded
But scorched
The way
All mortal men
Get when looking
At a god
Sweet Athena
Infecting every
inch of me
no ointment
Oozed over
my tight skin
Can bring
Lasting relief
The ache
Is too deep
To reach
Regardless
Of how far
I go
Each inch
More than a mile,
A huffing and puffing
Plunge into the dark
And no piece
Of mushroom
And shrink me
As the world grows
Rigid around me,
But I bleed
Even from a distance
One glance
And I singe my soul
And bubble up inside
Bleeding from every
Orifice, especially
My eyes
Crying out of joy
The way all mortal men
Must when they see
What is utterly forbidden
And always lethal
Yet always lusted

After.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Pointed shapes



Thursday, September 18, 2014


The sudden chill
Brings out the best in you,
The pointed shapes
That haunts men’s dreams
even fully awake,
The nape of neck
The sudden fleck of wet
The lick that tips it all
Into so much more
And makes cripples
Of men like me
Who hobble on imaginary canes
We did not intend to create,
All too obvious
But not so easily contained,
When the chill air comes
We overheat, and seek
Just a little peek,
Or touch with the tips of fingers
We know will scald
Despite the cold,
Palms curled around
The whole of them,
While our minds plunge
Deep into places
We only dream
Of reaching


Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Nefertari’s slave



You wrap me up in silk threads
Until I am bound tight
In your cocoon,
This squirming worm feeling
Every bit of the soft warmth
Around me,
The cut of cords against my skin
Telling me how far I might go
Without permission.
I am a mummy bound up
For some goddess’ pleasure
To live or die,
To serve as needed,
To be or not be
As you see fit,
The silk bitter not sweet
Pressing the air out of me
A suffocating sucfocofus
From which I am not
Expected to wake
Again in this world,
But sent with you
To do for you what
I did not do here,
To be what I should have been,
A pale worm squirming
And yet tied to this new promise
Of an old thing that will
Explode into something grand,
Something different from
What I was before,
If not beautiful on the outside,
Then marvelous within.



Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Madam Marie’s



Tuesday, September 16, 2014

I pass it on the boardwalk
And then again in town,
A granddaughter taking
Possession of an institution
Made famous by a song,
We live in a world
Thick with hints and omens
Trying to read tea leaves
When we need it spoken plain
And nothing ever is,
Life is always a mingling
Of coming and going
Green or red
Walk or don’t walk
When we need to know
Which we should do when
I prefer the blue neon
Of the boardwalk Marie’s
Because it is so near to the sea
So if I can’t get a straight answer
From one, I can seek one in the foam
Flowing up at my feet,
Hoping against hope
The cops don’t bust the waves
For telling fortunes
Better than they do.



Monday, September 15, 2014

Melted metal



Monday, September 15, 2014

It rumbles through you
Like a late night earthquake
The back beat ripping
Open this thin civilized veneer
To expose what we all are
Deep inside,
The tsunami rushing
Through out vein
To some primitive call
We thought we had
Long evolved from
We breathe deep breaths
And drink deep draughts
And still it comes on
A fire in the belly of a beast
We all become
the screech of loud guitar
Like a hot poker
Stirring up slumbering coals
Until we turn into melted metal
Aching for that moment
When inspiration makes us
Solid again,
This life gets into the blood
And then lays dormant
Even after all these years
All pretence at being
So prim and proper
Until the first note
Like the first light of dawn
And we crumble
To the rumble and shake
And we become what
We have always been,
Swept up and consumed
Inside and out,
The floor boards vibrating
Not from the bass drum,
But from something inside us
Pushing its way out.



Sunday, September 14, 2014

Asbury Park 9/13/14




Sunday, September 14, 2014

Autumn falls on the boardwalk
With a gush of rain
Like a stage curtain coming down
On what was
To leave what will be
The creak of wood moans
Under my footstep
As I make my way passed
Madam Marie’s,
A slick, precarious trip
But no longer scalding
As it was
Not extinguished
But a mist rising
From each crack
Like steam
From a tea kettle
I feel the bubbling
Inside of me
Even as my brow drips
With the cool broth
Of this changing season
The vacancy of the place
Only making the urgency acute
Winter forces it all inward
Putting pressure
On this frail frame
That stumbles over
This sacred ground,
Aching even now to be
The savior that rises
From these streets,
From the spidery web
Of the ruined casino
To the crumbling art deco
Of the once and future theater
And back again
As rain washes over me
And through me
To the sound of the nearby sea


Saturday, September 13, 2014

Zen



Saturday, September 13, 2014

I press the button
And hear the distant sound
Of machines and cables
bringing up or down
The cage I need
This vertical lift
We ride to and from
Destinations marked out
On no road maps
The elevation marked
on no altimeter
But rather inside my head
Where I leave marks
Of my own importance
The way my uncles did
In pencil on the dinning room
Door frame when I was small
To see how much I’d grown
Though now I am no taller
Yet still need to measure
How high I stand,
If I have lost stature
And how to get it back if I have
Who I am reflected
Not in any mirror
But on the faces of those I see
Through the small window
Of my cage
As I travel floor by floor,
My life measured
In the groan of cables
Above and below
When all I really want
Is to be where I am
At any given moment,
Free of the need to be
High or low,
Rich or poor,
Powerful or powerless,



Thursday, September 11, 2014

The heat of it



September 11, 2014


I kiss the air until my lips bleed,
And I can’t breathe the overheated sky
That scalds me with each breath I breathe
No smoldering from mere sunlight
But hot lava scorching everything I expose,
Leaving my tongue and fingers blistered,
And still I reach for more,
Grasping hot coals in the cup of my hands
Feeling them quiver against my fingers
And then against the tip of my tongue,
Making me ache all the more
For what I know only causes me pain,
And still I plunge headlong into the fiery plume
Knowing I can’t possibly survive,
Knowing it is the only way I can stay alive,
Knowing this kiss I kiss is all there is
And all there can ever be,
And this touch I touch incinerates me
From the inside out,
And like a fool I let it happen,
Beg for it to happen again
Kissing air that seals my lips closed like wax,
Breathing from a fiery sky a fire I can’t survive,
Touching molten lava until I have no fingers
Or toes or tongue, only the urge to press on,
Pushing myself into the deepest and hottest parts,
Aching with every bone for more,
To kiss even without lips to kiss with,
To breathe more deeply and feel every bit of it

Before I go up entirely in flames

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Full moon






Tuesday, September 09, 2014

It is hot and wet
When I get there
A moving target
That closes in
Around me
And shifts
This way, then that,
Up and down
And sideways
Until I’m drunk
On the movement
As any sailor
Something stirring
In the depth of me
I’ve not quite
Felt before,
A rising to the tides
As if you were a full moon,
And I change
On your account
This hard and soft of it
Commingled
And always shifting
Like wind driven beach sand,
As if to cease moving
Is to cease to exist
With me wrapped up
In all that you are,
The need of it
Burning in us both
Making it impossible
To breathe for whole moments,
As I hold onto your sides
This ride, this rise and fall,
This ache and release,
All there is to think about
Or feel,
The perfect Zen moment
When time stops
But we cannot.



Friday, September 5, 2014

How deep is too deep?



Friday, September 05, 2014


There is only so deep you can go
Before the air runs out
And the more you reach
The less breath you can take in
And must measure pleasure
With survival and whether it is wiser
To withdraw or die there in bliss
Our lives our circumscribed
By such limits, that place
From which me must leap
Or take a step back,
Reevaluating what it means
To go on after being pumped up
So much we do not often
Understand the consequences
Of coming or going,
But we ache to continue,
To come and come again
To breathe deep when there is
Nothing left to breathe
But our own expected breath
And yet, when all is said and done
Sometimes, that is enough.




Thursday, September 4, 2014

Brush fire



Thursday, September 04, 2014

Our fingers brush and something sparks
A device in me Tommy Edison barely imagined
Turbines turning with that first contact
And once begun unable to stop
I can barely move without feeling it poke me
From the inside out
So scalding I dare not touch it
Or expose it to air
Knowing that like phosphorous
It will explode into a flame I cannot contain
And barely kept quiet as I stagger around with it
A hobbling man with burning fingers
From a touch I never intended
But cannot take back,
I can’t even find the fuse that touch lit
Only hear its hissing inside my head
And sense its growth I cannot long handle,
Sitting or standing or stumbling around,
I can only suck at my finger tips
Like a child hoping to suck away the burn
Wishing I could taste something,
Wondering if the rumbling inside
Leads finally to something else.


Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Milk and honey



Tuesday, September 02, 2014

It is enough to fill you up,
I pour it all from the pitcher of milk
Into a glass filled half way with honey
I just don’t know when to top
To keep it from running over
And oozing down the sides.
I know don’t know if I can stop this
After having stoked this up
And caused it to flow,
You don’t stop a boulder
You set rolling down a hill
By running in front of it,
You just let it roll
Yet I feel run over by it anyway,
Feel each drip of milk
As it slips out the spout,
Wondering at what mixture it makes
When it makes with you
Do I stir it or let it settle?
Do I keep pumping it up?
And pour it in?
Should I ask you to taste it
To see if it tastes right?
And do I ask if anything else
Came come of this –
Some higher purpose
For all the energy we expend
The milkmaid and the milkman
Churching up this concoction
To make butter,
Or perhaps it is enough to church
Both letting the stone roll
Or the broth drip over
The edges.


Sunday, August 31, 2014

Laying it on thick (from My Little Book of E)



Sunday, August 31, 2014

I smear it on with both hands
Just for the excuse to lick it off
To feel the hard and soft of it,
To linger near the top
And delve into the bottom
To know it all with the best part of me
To taste what I touch,
To feel each inch of landscape
By having moved over it,
And I move slowly
As not to miss anything
Each flaw a treasure,
Each ripple a luxurious side trip
To fit with the tip or lip
As I move on,
There is always too much to
Take in all at once
Too many tiny places
To slip in and out of,
Too little time
to know as much as I should,
And like a road-weary tourist
I vow to explore this or that
On my next trip
Aching for the chance 
At least one more encounter,
Hoping beyond hope
That I have done enough
To deserve another lick
Smearing it all on so thick
I can’t possibly miss

My next try.

Friday, August 29, 2014

The salty haze of uncertainty



Friday, August 29, 2014


I breathe the scent of salmon
As the net scrapes against my thigh
And I think of you
And the sea we all sale in
Waiting for the mesh to drop
The panic in the up-churned waves
The up and down and sideways
That leaves us perpetually confused
As to which way we have come
Or where we should go,
The tight ropes that bind us
And scrap our sin with a mixture
Of pain and pleasure,
The lost of the unknown
Mingled with the lack of free will,
The prickly coarse entwinement
Containing us as the moist fingers
Beats around us and over us,
And yet we somehow remain secure,
Wanting sure hands to haul us in,
A warm touch to rub those limbs
Where the ropes chafed
To ease the ache with bliss
And until we cannot tell
Which is which, nor care,
Only that we are no longer lost,
No longer drowned
In the salty haze of uncertainty.



Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Smoldering




Wednesday, August 27, 2014


The leaves cling to the ground
With the first autumn rain
Skins slick with wet
As if churned from a summer’s sweat,
The rubbing of limbs
The moan of pressing trunks
The expired sigh of each breeze,
All lost in this afterglow
Of changing seasons
And the expected chill
That makes limbs shudder
And press even deeper
To retain bits of warmth
And keep it all from oozing out
Winter being such a long
And exasperating time
That makes us cling
All the closer but without
The rage of heat,
we rubbing together
like stick against stone
expecting no burst of flame
but a slow and steady smoldering
we hope will keep us warm
until spring springs upon us again,
bringing back summer’s bliss.



Saturday, August 23, 2014

What I live for




Saturday, August 23, 2014


I melt in your hand
AND in your mouth,
A stick of butter
Injected into scalding heat
You cool me
Only just enough
To mold me,
An oozing mass
Of hissing steam
My thoughts evaporate
When I think of you,
I never learned
The most fundamental lesson
I touch heat
And it hurts so bad
I always have to do it again
And still want more,
I’m like one of those trees
Whose seeds pop
When set on fire
I can’t get out of the kitchen
Even if I wanted to,
Stirred up on your stove top
Until I’m all froth,
You drink me up
A bit of slip clinging
To your upper lip,
You sip, I drip,
The ever melting man
Aching for you
To melt me
To mold me
It’s what I live for.


Monday, August 11, 2014

Vampire love?



Monday, August 11, 2014

The wind weaves
Through the meadow grass
Like fingers through
Strands of hair,
The palms of my hands
Moist in the chill air
My breath near your ear,
The nip of love bites
Always leading to
Blood lust,
My lips brushing
Your neck
Always with the deeper
Hunger for more,
Always struggling on
With the eternal debate
How deep to sink my teeth,
To satisfy this that rises
Up inside of me,
Not done until buried deep
This flesh that seeks
A moist sheath,
To draw in and out
Each blow matched by
The blow of breath
And the moan of this meadow
Wind as it stirs,
This vampire love
Leaving me to wonder
How deep to feed
To sedate this insatiable hunger
My lips pressed against soft flesh
And with infinite impatience
Seeking solace in twin peaks
I can easily reach,
How deep do I plunge
And will it ever be enough?



Sunday, August 10, 2014

The right combination



August 10, 2014

He puts two hands on her
And feels her tremble
Like a flower with each
Delicate leaf vibrating
And wet with morning dew
He can taste just by touching
His fingers reaching deep
To places the rest of him
Aches to go
And she is all eyes and mouth
Beneath his face
So his breath breathes
Her breath,
And his gaze sees only
What she wishes him to see
And like a boy trying to find
The right combination to a puzzle
He works his fingers to see
What he can unlock
And make those eyes
Open up to him,
So he might reach into her place
He cannot reach now
Without her permission



Thursday, August 7, 2014

Better than nothing



August 7, 2014

She tells me to kneel
And I kneel
Her jaw clenched
And her fingers,
As if she clutches a whip,
I didn’t always do
What I was told to do
And that was the trouble,
But I do now,
Knowing that it’s her way
Or no way
And no way is unacceptable
Since I do not exist without her
This is not just love
It’s physics
Like a Star Wars movie
With two sides to the force
And my hands bound
By the all powerful
And my mouth gagged
By the fear that I might
Bring down doom
If I think too much for myself,
So I stop thinking
And do what I’m told to do
Regardless of how much it hurts,
Accepting my fate
With bowed head,
Knowing this is better than
The nothing I would be
Without her.


Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Voyeur



August 6, 2014


I am always the voyeur,
Taking sneak peeks at your soul
To see what’s there,
Truth as naked as a new born
And just as frail,
my long rough fingers,
Caressing its forehead
And then it’s thigh
Trying to squeeze out of it,
The last bit of sweet juice
Before it all seems like a lie.
I have no shame,
I feel what I need to
In order to feel alive,
Throbbing head to toe
With need I can rarely satisfy,
Throwing open curtains
Plunging through,
Laying truth on its back
So I can have my way with it,
And it always lets me do
Whatever I want,
Tasting what I need to taste
Touching what I have to touch,
Letting me rock it to sleep
As I lay down beside it.




Sunday, August 3, 2014

Dripping



August 3, 2014

Beads of morning rain’s residue
Lingers on the lips of pedals
Of meadow roses
like tears cried from
And overnight storm
I only dreamed about
The aftermath of a shaken world
I feel as I stroll
This meadow path
Air heavy over me
And inside of me
My thirst barely quenched
From sipping these lingering leaves,
The pink pedals spread
To expose their yellow insides
While all around
Green and purple thistles
Make it impossible to touch
Each kiss I attempt
Bringing blood to my lips
Not bliss as I slip
Through the tips of leaves
To linger and look at
Those pink pedals
But not to touch,
Blisters of thirst on my lips
Instead of a kiss
As those pink flowers
Drip, drip, drip.



Saturday, August 2, 2014

The Emperor’s new clothes




August 2, 2014


I feel you right through
All these layers of cloth,
Sketched out in public places
As if we both wore
The Emperor’s new clothes
Everybody can fully see
But us, or maybe merely me,
Seeing what I ache to see,
Feeling what I need to feel,
Each brush in public
Feeding some hunger in me
I can feed in no other way,
My life caught
On the frayed edges
Of my sleeve,
Rubbing shoulders too hard
And too often
Because I can’t rub
In any other way
Trying to rub off
Every bit of that
Invisible cloth
So there is nothing
Between us

At all.