I went to the place of high sands,
the place of paper wasps swarming around my heart
looking to sting, to puncture another hole
in my already bruised organ.
I walked among the hibernating cottonwoods
and the mulberry bush lapped by the setting sun
I saw a great owl rise quick from his post
and the noise and speed startled me, really startled me
like a pan noisily collapsing atop its pile in the cold
kitchen
of my romance novel abode gone sour
every niche cold and silent
every breath weeps lonely
and I cry out for childhood again, dumbfounded
and swimming in the hopes most likely false
and it kills me inside
wants to make me kill it all around
tired of this everlasting ache
constantly welling up, then subsiding
welling up again, never subsiding
as I try to ignore the complications of human existence
as that bird outside my window
takes a kamikaze dive into the crooked steeple
the church bells toll
toll through my soul
golden gongs of everlasting love
echoing of destiny derailed
and the sands of time don’t spill quick enough
it’s already all flubbered and flucked
and I want to get off, get off, get off.

---

The days here now are cold and polished
the gray sky like some sheet of ice dangling from the
ceiling
clouds like membranes all pulled apart
everyone flying south
and I just want to go north or east
to feel her breasts press against my chest
as she goes down on me in 4 a.m. lust,
the sands of time, the sands so smooth and arched
trickle down with gravity
filling in all the spaces
that I’ve stepped in before
erasing me, erasing me from the palette
all color blank and void
the purity of her pronounced speech
fading to a cold, silver shimmer
sand and shotguns
blasting me all away
to another day
where my memories do not thrive and poke
where my past no longer plays magistrate
eternally swallowing the key
if I knew not love I could triumph in life’s wars
not knowing love I would be without a soul
where do I go
without a soul
I do not know.

---

When life has ended at the midpoint
but you are still waking up,
still breathing,
what memento have you become?
what cherished scrapbook do you yellow within
what guts are you released from ever so violently
wicked violets leaving purple bruises on the hands,
on the cold glass of winter dusk,
on eyelids heavy with sleep,
on dreams inked by the utterances of self-depravity,
lost in all the spaces melting together that crush
crush me, crush me, crush me with charity
and the goodwill of electric casual sex.

---

I am the canvas stretched and splattered,
splattered with the annoyances of modern artists
of cave dwellers
bar dwellers
bedroom noise dwellers
and the sinking feeling you get
when you break a bone
and you are all alone
and starve helplessly
gnawing on carpet fibers in your very own home
but no one is really home
the doorbell is disconnected
the knock is dissected
the blessings never resurrected
like Christ tied to a goal post
and everyone kicking the shit out of Him
just because He is who He is.

---

Everyone gasps at his philosophy
he is such an atrocity
how can he be allowed to live
mumble the Pee and Em
as they read from the good book
and hate and kill just the same
behind turned heads and silver tears
candy is the only one left on Earth to me
and even sugar is drifting away
sometimes it seems
though not entirely elegantly true
throw me another bruise God
wipe my face across the broken glass once more
kick me breathless
beat me senseless
stuff me back into the womb
and cut me away
why won’t you save me for another day?

---

And everyone walks on eventually
can’t stand the sight of me
so what is my reason today
to breathe, to walk, to slide away?
To put on shoes
or arise from slumber
I’ll only be smacked around
with a piece of jagged lumber,
a beer spill down the shirt is cold
and I want to be washed away to a bar in Denver
hyped up and comatose
with a drink in my hand
and a smoke plastered between my fingers
talking to the broken bodies of bones
who pass by me like nuptial ghosts
and I never rode a hotel bicycle in a wedding dress
phoning cock-throbbing villains
fleeing the scene like sand
carving away another piece
of forgotten history, tucking it neatly in a pirate bottle of glass.

---