a red so deep

floating above it:

fantasy of flight,

swinging through the skyline

of your mind and swimming

deep, buried, in the caverns of

your soul; or at least,

at the very least,

diving head first into your eyes.

pools of ever-changing sighs,

murky with foreign scents.

the phantom of color,

a red so deep and bloody,

faded, beauty via cellulose and waves:

still reaches out and grasps my throat

so hard i can’t help but breathe you in,

across the valley of youth and

not-so-gentle truths,

until the imprint of your words,

sharp like the knife that’s twisting

in my gut, takes over:

losing control,

will you take us over the edge?

this is the ether of forbidden genesis,

what sorrow i wrought,

and to what end: real lies,

fake friends, earnest, heartfelt, passionate - apathy.

so the mask and the wall

and the ever-present other,

all conspire with joy, to encroach

upon my sanity, leaving any trace of

who i was before

lying on the side of the dirt road,

muddied by your damage,

weathered through my onslaught,

and to top it all off:

just as swiftly as you came,

you are already always departing.

tempt me with rhythm,

ensnare me with your sultry voice:

me, but a servant to beauty,

and wisdom and all the things

that live inside us and outside me,

a man can scarcely envision

all the pain we have yet to offer.

all the screams unsung,

all the moans and tears,

every single synapse firing for

one fleeting glimpse of the otherside:

a girl fades into me, but,

whatever you do, girl,

don’t look down.

keep strumming on my heartstrings,

teasing my flesh with your breath,

here with me like a revenant,

brought back from the precipice,

only to descend, nonetheless,

into an abyss all our own:

let us writhe down there

just for a century or two,

and then resurge, uplift,

and burn away everything that is,

all the woes that were,

incinerate the future where we,

forlorn strangers,

never stumble into each other,

never fall face first into
this beautiful agony.

thot experiment

restless ego,
chase away the image
of the one that was promised;
replace it with the one who was found
but only when she was lost.

metal grinds inside your heart:
can you even contemplate
the chasm of confusion
and conspiracy you've created?

she writhes apart from me,
while this drips down my chest,
and out my fingertips,
sticky and malicious,
envious, heaven-sent deliverance:
do i deserve this?

behind a mask of liquor and
intimacy: are you anything
but a part of me? twisted,
beautiful, destroy us and,
just like a dark moonrise,
light up our nights.

stir crazy, for the heart wants
what it can't have
and the mind craves
what it can get:
pragmatic romantic,
this is an exercise in mismanaged expectations.

the time for reaching so high
above your head that your arms
grew weary and, just before you gave up,
i fell directly into them,
your web, my cradle.

this is it. it is what it is.
sobriety is a phase and happiness
is forever, if at all.
choose this, this final age of man:
catch a buzz, cyborg lover,
take my hand and come with me forever.

you'll never die

muse, o, where have you gone?
the days drift endlessly and so
too, the cavalcade
of perjuries and injuries
some otherworldly, some homespun,
and never do you whisper
(your cinnamon breath caressing,
every neuron, firing, again, and again:
never EVER stop!)
just what i need to hear.

flow on, drift further,
almost as if nothing at all
had happened. almost as if
your lies had not been found out
and you, not but half of yourself,
wandered again, the desert of the
oh-so-real. the other half, decays not,
ascends to the place where all good fading
memories go, forever,
and in one brilliant moment:
it is here.

some kinds of animals, we are,
psychopaths and mercenaries,
saints and sinners,
cheats and saviors,
addicts and the kind of person
that always never says no,
to love, to hurt,
to fall off the edge of the earth with me,
just to see what's down there.

i hope you never EVER stop.
because i am not done with you,
oh no, we have unfinished business.
you, muse: oh, i don't even remember
what her face, and incidentally yours,
what majesty of flesh and spit,
tastes like the sweetest nectar,
but, look fast, she is
transforming.

i see them coming,
they're stalking me softly, like i'm
some kind of animal,
and not the kind i actually am,
but the kind that cares and loves
and hurts no one but the ones around him:
caution:
morning is upon us.

turn a new leaf,
each day is the last, but,
OH, MUSE, THE FIRST!
you'll never die;
you're already dead.
rescue us from ourselves,
ecstasy of eternity,
and never ever
EVER
stop.

in bloom

forth, from under muddy, dead ground

comes life, breathing, new

life into rhythm and

desecrating this world's

holy rite of death

so many greens

like so many shades of west,

of youth, of birth and

rebirth forever

until it never stops

gushes, from above the blanket of the sky,

entrancing all the little things,

all the nuance and forgetting

what it is to be alive

yet living, breathing, muddy

fading are those shades of love,

the hues of her, the tone of one

blurred night among the rest:

sins forgotten, words seared

into stone tablets, scorched, bleeding

beating, waiting, heart

sun rays and ocean waves

waiting, for the frost to melt

her arms snake down like rivers,

floods of life and death

her face is fading, muddy,

blurred like sins remembered,

words said; and new little things,

joyous, clever little things

with a face like all the greens of spring

olympus

if this is the first day of my life,
let the doctor off the hook,
for he knew not what he did,
never mind the man and wife.
if tonight's the last night,
let us drink until your face,
red with blood and white with grace,
is upon my righteous lips;
all the lies that i've told
wiped out by all the ones you've sung.

let's go for a drive;
i'm sure it will end in tears.
these things always do until they don't.
the gods, they always flee;
unfold the drive;
escape alive;
put me out of my misery.
and melodies of far away
appear to you in better shape
when all there really is
is here and there with different apes.

your soul, like some gem with no color,
radiates a tearful nature, full of beauty,
bittersweet green, o lush Gaia before us;
tremble as her hands touch skin,
retreat into the music still...

once, the waves moved us so far
we knew not who we were;
if only for a lion's heart,
my lips might have to burn
and yearn forever in the dark,
across the mountain, plain and stark,
with love and grace lost from the start,
the need and thirst remain.

the fault is mine for leaving, believing
the fault is yours for living, as if
the ones who love you the most are
far too precious to love in return;
better, then, to love those sculptures,
beautiful and cold,
infused with souls,
and just as soon vacated,
leaving you alone and wasted.

rest easy, Athena, because instead
of the wrathful vengeance, all i have
is more of the same:
more longing looks and sighed goodbyes,
more merciful than your whole body,
clothed in Elysium's finest,
flowing in the scorching winds of the sound,
so sweet and all too perfect to admire,
until the temples crumble and decay,
until our woven bodies are cast into Hades,
until this feeling...

summery/summary

o monotony,
her hideous face allures me
so much that i might leap into the abyss,
a mediocre fall, in truth,
onto a springboard for disaster...
and not for want of false trying.

i watched a movie today that made me cry.
i can't remember the last time i cried in front of anyone.
i looked over at my mom's tear-soaked face and as
she looked back at mine,
she did not see me.
because i don't cry; right?
i'm sure she cried some more just at the sight of me.

i've gone and done it now.
exiled myself from the one thing i want,
the one thing i crave:

the one thing i need,
or else i'll wither, for a little while.
like a tomato plant that's been out
in the muggy alabama summertime;
like i forgot to water her for just a few days;
like the leaves are wilting brown, and gray, and i think:
i can save her.

and i water her day after day;
and i sometimes think i'll drown her
the way i drench her stalk.
and her roots.
and her leaves;
like i want her to live so i can live
and through her love to live instead
of living to love her.
and i have to wait and see if she'll pull through
and save me in return.

and at the end of this day,
of whatever kind it was,
i sang some songs of old,
and smoked until the ash
and dreams
were too soaked into my clothes
for my tear-soaked mother
not to notice.

the sunsets tick like a time bomb to redemption,
the seconds, like so much sweat,
mere atomisms,
symbols of this world's inconceivables,
indecipherable nothings,
whizzing 'round your halo;
rushing to drip down your fading silhouette
before it's shattered by einstein himself.

still remember

still:

remember that it's all a game

and when your heart shouts wealth or fame,

remember that it's all the same,

remember we have much to gain,

and nothing to lose but hope.

still:

remember the way she looked,

and the way her throat strained at the hook,

remember it's your heart she took,

remember you're an open book

and your pages won't last forever.

still:

remember the shape of punk to come,

and how you used to be so dumb,

remember when she pulled the gun,

remember watching black ink run,

and the stains on your fingers forever.

still:

remember that he died for you,

and the years spent trying to pay that due,

remember that your human, too,

remember language is so crude

and the world is so...

still.