[to be refined]

heartbreak november
you pull me in
    one side falls into
the redemption of a meltingman, the
other back to the glowing eyes of
saints, where i will not be saved even--
avemaria
      -- then 
will i return, or tumble forward

amnesia heartbreak

someone told me,
      we are alive because we forget the moments when we died.

... so why do i remember you so well?

Shameless

  Stamp your feet on
the dirty floor, bare feet, bare mind (simple)
flung back--bare--
at least you’ve gotten your diamonds
 (completely naked)
lying on the floor, lying
to me saying Never had it this good before--
now where’s the money haven’t had a smoke in
Ages ten twenty where, save me
two-edged sword double sexy
 (twice as achey-breaky)--
Choking on your artificial bones, where
Does the silicon end where
do you begin?

disproven

unedit this 
un        
                         poetic thing, try to 
make it worse, unpolished--
      unpretentious tihsllub on the page--

unintentionally naked, soul-baring, honest. 
   you cannot be something you intended, for
once you start out, you'll never get
to the end. 

I wonder why things
have to be so difficult, so stiff, so guarded; 
all 
              I asked was for an unassuming  prayer to you--
don't know who I'm talking to. 

I'll try again tomorrow, when
     everything is new and the dry strands of grass push up
 into the sky again, determined
to prove they are alive. 

suddenly

you look at the ground, and
drown in

(except you're really thinking about poetry, aren't you-- looking from the outside in, revelling in the way you cannot see the coffin, words pouring like old coffee from your pen. your hand twitches, but you make a motion to lift your Kleenex to deadened eyes again, every second too poetic, too tragic. bask in it. you're a fool, a poet, but then what poet isn't a fool trading food for ink, crawling on the ground to post graffiti on it-- no wonder writers get jackshit when the money is inconsequential, and all that matters are the)

words
unspoken, no matter how hard you stu-
tter, like an old car, trying to jump start and 
falling
into 
graceless darkness
(it served you well before).

overheard: 
none of this makes sense. 
 

fragments of ego

do you ever
wish
you could just take a knife
scrape down
into your soul
find all the bad things and
cut them out?
(if it doesn't hurt
it's not real-- wake up
again)


rhetorical questions are
the best when you really want
some answers.

[dream of consciousness]

I was standing under the canopy when he came by with death marching on his face-- his wrinkles all curved into his grim mouth so I couldn't see if he was smiling or not daring. I thought the rain would stop, but it kept on as he went by. He didn't have an umbrella, but it didn't matter to me because I knew this was a test of will, not memory.

--He shouldn't have been that old but the losing aged him. I didn't have to know to understand; it was my waiting time as well, knowing I had so much time but wasting it here instead of running to catch the taxi. Too much time. Not enough.

I wondered as he receded into the blur if I could be him, if someone would look at me disdainfully, I'll-never-become-you-fully-- coming full circle until soon enough our eyes shut and fade. Wondering, would I ever realize that I had become him at all.

The bus did come, but I thought so hard that I missed my stop and went around again while the driver stared at me in the mirror as he made the turns. I didn't look at him-- I watched the streets blurring with madness, red traffic blurring into the blue edges of skyscrapers into the black of womens' tight skirts into the glitter of their copper shoes.

Everything changes but curves back into nothingness again, spinning inevitably on the precarious axis of fortune. No matter how many times I read the story, I'm never ready for the ending when it comes.

(Fortunately, it never does. We'll never learn.)