Fallen leaves

The old bank

Reeks of money

And greed

Swirling with the

Overhead ceiling fans,

The imaginary masses

Of the past filling

The downstairs where

The tellers used to sit

Cashing industry pay checks

for blue collared

The ache for cash now

Mingling with perfume

And petty schemes

Stamped out on faces

Rather than the backs

Of paychecks

Always looking for the

Easy way, when the right

Way is always too hard

And always thinking

This is “earning” a keep

When it’s just a cheat

While out the windows

Sunny skies defies

The season as if

Part of the scheme

With me, curled up inside

Waiting for it all

To unravel

Like it always must

The best laid plans

Ruined by the inept

Who keep picking

Losers to ride

While abandoned

Dreams flutter along

The sidewalks

Like fallen leaves

The end

I keeping hearing the old Door’s song

In my head about “this is the end..”

But it never is, like old horror movies

The monster keeps on keeping on

More energizer bunny than scary

Just a pathetic collection of crap

That some make up artist has

Assembled to resemble something

Fierce, all smoke and mirrors

Wire and paper Mache,

Designed to fool for a moment

Until the camera turns away

And this thing, this ugly contraption,

This Halloween scheme

Collapses in of its own weight,

Such as all things do

In the end

Heat

The seeds do not fall far

From the tree in my front yard

Leaving seedlings to spring up

Among the dead leaves and roots

The early chill filling the air

With a last gasps before the
plunge into the deep freeze;

We squeeze out these last days

Along this long river before

The cold falls and we must

Cling to places where

We can generate heat

For ourselves.

This ghostly thing

It swirls around us like a ghost

Howling with the change of moon,

stirred up over lips of grave stones

time has cracked like hearts

Past, present, future

Swirl into the same spirited mist

Until all seems indistinct

A haunting presents that lingers

At the edge of dreams

But won’t expose itself

Except in tea leaves

Nobody can read

I want in the rain and wonder

Where to turn to next

Feeling the drip of it

On my brow, dribbling

Down my cheeks

As if I am crying

And maybe I am

Over what I can’t fully

Define, or find in this

Swirling around my knees

As I stumble over

These grave stones

Watching the spirits

Rise up and take flight

Not even waiting for night

Passing through me

And my clutching fingers

This ghost of a thing

I can’t grab onto

But desperately need.

Temple

We are all gods and goddesses,

Feeling the warm space left

As rising in the midst of night,

Unable to tell which is dream

Or not, and lost in the trawl of

Talk that stirs the heart

And makes it beat, and keeps

It beating long after the

Talk has stopped,

The bell ringing in my ears

Not from any church steeple

Or anything outside this

Temple of flesh I live inside

A throbbing, trembling

Temple on whose alter

I am the sacrifice

Every bit of me

Exposed, unnerved

And vulnerable

Cool fingers in the night

The rain came

And went in the dead

Of night

Without my notice

Except for the cool

Fingers that swept

Up from my thighs

To chest stirring

Up in me

A storm

Dreams could not

Sequester

My head fogged

With visions

Unrealized

When I woke

To find

The world

Hovering over me

A hard world

Aching for soft

Places

And the chill touch

Beyond

Mere

dreams

Breakfast of champions

I ease open the melon

With both my thumbs

Letting seed and juice

Ooze out the gap

Then press the flesh

To my open mouth

To lap it up

With the tip

Of my tongue

Feeling deep inside

The soft interior

Where the sweetest

Part of the fruit

Shutters and spills

Even more

Into me, this truly

Is the breakfast

Of champions

And all I could

Ever wish for

Boiling point

  

In moon light

Everything changes

The boiling point

Of blood

Rising tides

Can not extinguish,

Because the fire

Is on the inside

Like a volcanic

Reaction building up

With moon light

The flame under it

Making it boil

A heat not from

Any global warming

But from some

More primitive instinct

As fundamental an element

As found in the cave

And we either learn

To released it

Or become consumed by it,

Waiting out the cycle

Of the moon

Until we can breathe

Easy again

The sea inside and out

 I seek the sea

That flows

Inside and outside

 Of me,

Aching to dip

My oars

In that dark depth

I know lies

Beneath me

Slow water

Vibrating

Against my keel,

Rubbing my

Skin raw

As I grow

Full

And seek

To come to it

Again, and again

Always

Wanting

For more.

I forget to breathe

I forget to breathe

Each time I come

This close,

This pain that is

Not a pain

But steals everything

Out of my head

Which I do not miss

Except for the breath

I need to breathe

If only later in relief

When all I have is that

This whisper of memory

This lingering scent

This soft touch

Against my palm,

My mouth, my thighs,

I forget to breathe

When I need it most

And yet

I hardly miss it.

On the inside

The rain

Drips down my cheeks

As if I am crying

The summer heat

Gone now

To a chill that

Makes my bones ache

So maybe

These tears are real

On the inside

Heart

It beats

Even when I

Don’t want it to

That savage

In my chest

That spreads me

Open to reveal

All that I

Am about,

Beating hard

When I need

To breathe deep,

When I feel

On the brink

And can’t think,

Every bit of

Who I am

There for

Anyone

To see

One beat

At a time.

Flush (with video)

(content slightly changes from the original notebook stuff and video)

The blood rushes through me

To my face, and I cannot

Breathe or think but blush

And gush out in hushed

Sounds words even I can

Not comprehend – so much

Huffing and puffing

I can’t stuff the stuffing

Back inside so that I am

A stuffed doll unstuffed

As my insides come out

All sides at every seam

Dreams bleed out of

My eyes as I start at

Or around or avoid all

That I want or need

To look at most I

Flushed out like

Old leaves from

A rain gutter – utterly exposed.

Lost in space

I circle it like an astronaut

Searching for a soft place to land

It’s curved surface intimidating

Yet provocative

Sloped sides leading to a hard peak

I need to mount

My mouth watering in anticipation

Of what I might find there

Or below where my spaceship

Might plunge

Deep into the moist valley.

I am lost in space

And always will be

The earthquake inside

I grip the arms of

My chair because I’m

Scared I’ll fall

Off, whole city blocks

Shifting under me

Inside of me

In my mind, and I

Eye the walls as if

They will crumbled in

On me while the

Real disruption is

Inside of me, not out

A siege of something

I can only hold on

To survive, steam

Fogging up my eye sight

So I can’t even see

If and when the

Quake stops and I

Can let loose

Of this chair

Squeezing hard

(inspired from reading a book Passionate Hearts)

I squeeze hard

Until something comes

Out that I can lick

And then I lick it,

Wrapping my lips around

The tip I just squeezed,

So that I can taste it

With the tip of my tongue

My fingers wrapped

Around the base

Pressing to make it

Come, needs to feel

It come out, needing to

Feel in all inside of me

So that you can taste me,

Too, from the inside out.

The simplest thing

April 17, 1989

How can it be that the grass comes again, springing up out of the holes of worms, grass blades with joyous faces climbing towards the heat of the sun after months of death, and winter's crush?

How can it be the leaves return, as if crawling up the bark of trees from which they have fallen, shedding the brilliantly colored death robes they adorned in fall for the pale yellow green of this cold season, their graves unable to resist their urge or cease the ever gnawing roots that feed them?

How can it be that fish swim again after living in ice caked waters, stirring back to life after the frosts of winter fade, digging themselves out of the mud, their faces still stained from the graveling hardships of devouring bits of stuff from the dirty river bottom?

How can it be that planets and stars blew out from their single cosmic egg, reaching, ever reaching, only to contract again, to return to the soul of the egg, only to erupt once more, in a cosmic love-making that creates new realms, new heavens, new life?

How can we think ourselves different – that we along in this huge universe live and die forever, lacking something in our soul and intelligence that is not denied the simplest blade of grass, the weariest fish, the small speck in the sky?

How is it we dare think we, too, do not come again?

Morning coffee

Morning coffee

I brew coffee each morning

Though on mornings like this

I drink it cold to

Wash down the remnants

Of sleep I carry behind

My eyes, the playful

Remembrances of some

Sweet scene, the

Touch of warmth so

Scalding my tongue dare

Not sip hot coffee

Or get scaled again,

Tip I burned in

My dreams, the tart

Taste of the previous

Day’s brew teaching me

Life’s fundamental

Lesson that

Sweet and tart

Come back to back

And though I sleep

With one

I wake up with the other

Regretfully.

Flat tire

The air hisses out of the

Tire with the sound of a

Snake I once encountered

In the desert but did

Not get bit.

The man at the gas station

Had warned me not to

Over inflate the nearly

Bald tire or it might blow

Out – and it did.

Who knew you could

Get so deflated from

Too much of a good thing

After so many miles of

Not having enough,

Life seems to be a

Delegate balance between

Too little and too much

And trying not to get

Stranded on the road

Side from either

Extreme.

Consumed

I don’t taste anything

At first

When the tip of my

Tongue eases in –

It’s the moist

Softness enveloping

Me as if to take

The whole of me

Inside,

My roughness

Oozing over

This smooth

Deception

I can no longer

Resist,

Aching to be

Consumed at

Any cost,

Aching to keep

Feeling what I feel,

Aching for one more taste

That I know

Will never

Be enough.

Entwined

The sheets blow in the
wind like angel limbs

Growing tangled, then

Untangled in a dance

To which no one knows

The steps, the ache

Of contact, the

Tender touch tuned

Violent with a gush

That yanks limbs

Apart, only to plunge

Them together again,

A kiss, a slap

A wrap around

Each for the slow

Release, every bit

Choreographed by fate

Or whim or gods,

An every lingering kiss,

Twisting and untwisting

Until we are undone

Forbidden

(This is one of series of poems inspired by recent reading s from The Book of Eros)

It is not the apple

That drips of sweat but

My fingers as they curve

Around it, my warmth

Contrasted against its

Cool as I imagine another

Shape that fits as well,

But feels warmer in

my palm, my flesh

needing that flesh

if not to feel

whole, then at

least to feel real, and

so I pretend as I

take that apple to my

mouth and let my

teeth sink through its

red skin that my tongue

tastes another fruit

much more forbidden.

Turn here

Yeah, I know – we all do.

Turn left here.

A leaf deserted by summer, fall,

Welcomed by winter wilds,

Yeah, I can see the need to decide

Whether to fly

Rustling in cool desperation

Pushed and pulled

Or stay, to bury deep in the

Crisp, fragile, smoky ice,

All gets distorted by the ever

Widening circles of falling rain,

Frozen tears

Turning red from rubbing

The mud – like blood.

I feel my heart beating hard,

Cracked open, spilling my life

Onto this dismal gray,

As the slow read rises out from

The horizon

I am a leaf locked in winter’s

Embrace, unable to flee or fly

Waiting for sunrise to thaw the

Ice and set me free,

But these days never get warm

Enough. I get tinged with hope

Before all goes grows cold again and

Then I can feel my fingers move

Or my toes, but they do not

Move for long before I am

Frozen again,

And when it gets warm I

Still do not fly

Nowhere to go, no one to

See, nothing before for me than

The endless cycles of ice and thaw

And the endless flow of the river at

My feet, a river that will at some

Point rise high enough to bear me

Away to somewhere I do not know.

This mess called life

God help me if life ever punished me for all the mistakes I’ve ever made,

That pile of crap that I pack in the back of the closet where nobody can see,

You’re not supposed to get crucified every little wrong turn, twisted thought

Erratic or erotic act, life is supposed to be a journey from which we learn,

A kind of adventure game where we guess the riddle and move on,

Unscathed by any permanent injury or injustice or sense of shame,

Just a matter of finding out who we are in this crazy mixed up world

Where nobody knows who they are and we bump into each other

Always asking: do I know you? Do you know who I am?

Can you ever guess what my purpose is and if so, can you help me get there?

I guess we’re all in the same boat, each with a tea spoon to keep it from sinking,

Each of us needing all the other tea spoons to bail us out of this mess called life.