To Boys Holding Hands.
Each time I want to say this
my mouth becomes lead.
I saw a boy
holding another boy.
To be another boy's lover here
is what might drain you of your breath.
I cannot say,
if to lock lips with a boy
is bad.
I cannot say,
if to lock soul with a boy
is a sin.
You might walk into your grave,
get lynched, stoned
& as you scream in pains
to be left alone,
your father might be
the one to cast the first stones.

The First Time

The first time that I
remember thinking
of suicide was in my
mid-twenties.

I remember being
around 18 years
old, and a friend
saying,
" If I killed myself,
that would show
them ! "

" Who ? " , I asked.

" All of them, the
teachers who put
me down at school.
Al of the girls who've
said no to me. "

I felt like I had to say,

" Most of them would
never hear about it,
anyway. "

So I did.

I don't think he liked
that.

But it's the truth.

I mean, killing yourself
just to prove some kind
of point seems idiotic.

And very self indulgent.

If you really, really, can't
take the pain, anymore,
then I don't honour you,
neither do I judge you.

Or me.

I prefer to believe that as life can always get worse, it can also get better. 

Midnight Blues


away from the bars for a while, swilling 
cheap wine that allows for trips 
down memory lane.  

saving money, trying to figure out the bleak future,  
a way to make it, somehow, alive out of the whole damn charade.  

as cruel mornings dawn, and drinks flow,  

the blues come back with an extra 
vengeance I haven’t seen in a while.  

bitterness returns, I see faults everywhere around me,  
on everyone, including myself, and there’s no light 
to illumine the crepuscular rooms of life.  

even in strip joints I fail to feel at home anymore; 
a constant reminder of how things were constantly 
looms over my head.  

dark rain floods the streets, the emptiness of the world  
engulfs me once more; exhausted, trying somehow to disappear. 

always remaining still, unable to react.  

more drinks are poured and downed. the dry bottles withhold 
no real answers. 

 


Late Night Embraces


she held me tight, when we were both high on high octane rotgut 
and fortified wine; “I love you” and I couldn’t mutter it back,  
my heart resided my throat blocking all words.  

going cold turkey and someone else held me tight, refusing me bourbon 
and junk (that had momentarily sent me to the Bar); she, too, said “I love you” 
and I had no voice to reciprocate.  

few years apart, the two long late-night embraces that kept me sane;  
one from my whiskey girl, the true love that was taken too soon from the  
merciless spike.  

the other, I did love, too; she couldn’t take the madness any longer. went  
through too much in too short a time, all the bourbon insanity I relish and in which 
I feel alive.  

too many other embraces came and went; none significant. 
temporary escapes from the mist, vain attempts to glimpse at the sun.  

more are to come and I know the ending; wordless poems on  
yellow napkins, while Wild Turkey and Four Roses water my withering heart.  

it’s all right. barflies will always be there, bars will never cease to exist.  
home, the corner booth of a dimlit joint 

and a broken down angel in whose embrace I’ll lose myself for a night. 

The Hereafter


After my last breath
Let the river sing through me

But give part of me back to the earth
For my ashes yearn for roots

Invite the wind and rain
As my dusty bones seek a new Zion

After my last breath
A place with no fairytales or preachers 

 Monsters of Legend 


Bigfoot lives on skeletons and mud, 
Moonwalks through the meadow.  
His heart is a fist of crawling crickets. 
There is no limit to his awesome evil. 
His feet aren’t the biggest you ever saw, 
But they’re goddamned big enough. 

Middlefoot lives on bacon and eggs, 
Prefers the shortcut past the meadow. 
His heart is the common array of valves, 
His bark and bite just a joke someone told. 
His feet are not a topic worthy of discussion, 
So small and normal. 

Littlefoot lives inside of Bigfoot, 
Glides free through every meadow. 
His heart is boundless and filled with love. 
No violence salts his sweet dreams. 
His feet are not a burden to him anymore, 
Bigfoot does their walking, and that’s fine. 

What is life?                                                              I don't know what is life                                        Who designed it for what purpose.                      I am esoterically flabbergasted                        for not being able to understand it.                                                                                                          If we were to die                                                      what is the significance of being alive.                I wondered about this tantric saga                    because it created the maze of curiosity.                                                                                                when the elixir of imagination                             gives me a philosophical emancipation.            I will celebrate the reason for why I am here.

Rocks

None of us even knew God had been dying this whole time until we got the news He was dead. A flash mob forced an old Jew to climb a tree and chirp like a bird. I was inside, tinkering with a machine I’d built for testing the concept that rocks communicate with each other. Despite a series of less than successful field trials, I wasn’t ready to say yet whether it was the machine or the concept that was flawed. I removed the outer casing, replaced the circuit board. A choir on the classical music station was singing something John Milton wrote when he was going blind.

 

 A Short Musical Interlude

The piano was already burning on the white sand beach when the virtuoso sat down to play. On the boardwalk, couples of all classes and ages began to twirl to the music. Even the undercover angels watching from a discreet distance tapped their feet. Just then an olive drab van accessorized like a mobile gas chamber screeched into the parking lot. As if that were some sort of signal, the universe suddenly disclosed itself – one stray black shoe lying at a precipitous angle at the edge of a mass grave.

Cloth of Choice  

Some days are spent in imagination
Some melt the pride.
Powerful and ticking seconds do not wait.
There is a feeling of waking up late
And performing the improper choir of time.
Metaphorically, rising is a gift.
The world has a makeup
Its wounds are scars of passing hours.
We open our arms and embrace
We stand the test of passing minutes
Till we become a tested blowing air
Gone directionless.
Finding the way is a meaning
Clinging to the last cliff of difficulty.
Let’s learn to breathe for one more mortal life,
Let's forgive for one more accepting while.
Tempests teach a lesson to the sea
The torch bearer knows the night.
Direction is not a void unless
Determination is a cloth of choice. 

brutal days ahead
 
there will be brutal
days ahead
 
the bodies will stack
up and the streets will
smell like a different
slice of hell each
passing day
 
war is not for the timid
 
or the weak
 
or the rich
 
war is for the ones
out of options
 
out of time
 
out of place in a society
that left them behind
decades ago
 
we're all going to die
someday
 
some get to have
their names in lights
 
others are for a dog
to piss on

NIGHT GENTLE

Stood in the doorway,
framed in dim
lighting,
the night, gentle
with
Lester Young
blowing like a
stoned
hummingbird,
she stood, crying,
quietly,
not in sadness,
she stood in the
doorway
and I wished that
I was a painter
or
composer,
she looked up,
at me,
her face wet with
our kind of love,
slowly, I moved
forward,
kissed her tears
and darkness
fell asleep.

 

SUNSET

Like she was injured,
she lay draped
over the stark sprawling
concrete landscapes
and the debris
of love,
strewn like
abandoned planets
or the memory
of slaves,
she lay exhausted,
spent,
her breath
darkening
the skies.

 

JOANNA, A POEM FOR YOU

It wasn’t the
ravages of time
or
the drugs and
alcohol
or
the harshness
of
homelessness
and
loneliness
or
the absence
of affection
or
the violence
of crazed
strangers
that killed
her,
no,
it was
life
that
took
her.