Untitled

I left a lot to be

desired, I realize

that now. I left

out how good I am

in bed and how

easy I am to kiss

and how much I love

the rain and how

well I treat women.

A Man's Love

We all dreamed about Love:

some far off place where

there were angels and

diamonds, limes as big

as a fist, and all the talking

pretty you could want

on a saturday night out.

Leave it to me, he said, leave

it to me, to leave you

in the dustbowl

of my heart, like some owl

hooting way in the distance,

a little reminder of what

could have been and should

have been, but couldn't be

because baby, you left

it all

to me.

So he cries a little bit,

stinging everyone around

him with a little zing

of salt poison, leaving

out of conversation jazzy bits

at small-time bars, maybe

so we all pity him a little more

or so he doesn't have to commit

to the promise of a boy

anymore.

Either way, the little laugh lines

around his eyes disappear,

and it all comes away tired

and tiring, and the same thing

over and over again, but what

does that mean in that still

night dream where he

thought love was a lemon

to be squeezed and fondled

and rolled around his tongue

until lemon made sugar salt

margaritas down his throat

and twisted up his insides

so the world wouldn't know

his dreams and thoughts

and desires and beauty

because he left those with a boy

who drowned in the duty

of being a man, who crept back

and was hardly seen again.

Quiet

I lost myself in the figure of a coat

being animated by a clown:

a simple flick of the wrist

and it had a life of its own.

Cautious small glances,

the saddest sad advances,

scribbling understanding,

and a tear fell, landing

on my khaki. I needed no

hesitance to see the genius

of this presence.

So I watched it again.

The immediacy dripped

its way into my head.

Not a word was said.

Old Angry Poem

Unenviable mix of drinks

clang and clash to the slighted,

hip-hop hop-scotch beat outside,

wondering the days away

in such a massive lilt:

conjuring images musically intoned

and stripped of essential elements

brought on by the last time

kissing. Wouldn't it

be a wonder to shift the petty

political stratagem small-talk out;

the last word only a day away

and the easy trip-time speeches

that conclude a veritable

nothing, a switchblade something,

a twisted metal drumming, all

played out to screams

of drunken sisters

and sun-dried brothers,

mashed like potatoes

with milky mother underclothes;

sapped of strength and sitting in a whirlpool

of their own garden-hose shit.

What it means to grow up

I dreamed

and when it was done

I sat up and found the on

switch

and drilled great pillars into the ground

to keep me in one place long enough

to realize I was incredibly unhappy

any time I wasn't with you.

I left the world then

tried to dance a little

among the ether

but found only gas

and air and conifers

made from fibers

of my long leg hair.

Nothing pretty about that image.

Nothing pretty in the dingy streets

that echo when I walk through them

late enough at night for it to be

the only sound.

I could dry the ground up?

I could work the earth more?

I could find something beautiful in store

for both of us, and then you wouldn't cry

about being scared anymore.

So don't

cry about being scared anymore.

Just don't

cry about being scared anymore.

Don't cry

from being scared anymore.

I still love you.

Depression

I write little notes

all over your back

in permanent ink

and

while you laugh

I sink.

Vaca-tion.

We danced,

and when it was over,

I looked and saw

the tail-lights of a great

oceanliner going

over land and coloring

everything in

as it cruised past. Your

lipstick drew semicircles

on my chest, as we lay

on the grass groping

and moaning and simmering.

The color arched your back

sending red into the sky

fire-working its way up

your spine, as my hands

found a blue-deep inside

and stole away thought

for a week, then brought

you back to earth kissing

green and gold into your eyes.

I saw stars and you saw waves

and I exploded like gauze

on a beach in the middle of the day

and then - we emptied

the sand from our shoes

and walked away.