Actually

They say it's about love,
      when it's actually
just a sound:

repeated, over and over-
      hidden, sort of-
and comes back around.

Peanut Butter

Opening jars to homes undecided:
the wooden door seems dead to me,
from the street. What is it about
taking things slowly? Some never know.

It's like peanut butter, except
you have a choice; only, there
is a difference between warmth
and vacation. And as far as

Wisdom - clouded moon above -
which occurs as often as does
the moon in its fullness (as well
as clouded), having as much to
do with location as with time,

It can be explained in the circular
movements of your gentle thumb,
thinking, pausing, and expressing-
like a warm, unpredictable clock,
being simple and without thought,
perhaps.

honey

When he's not there-
    when the windows stop
Crack, and stick
    you pop-and swear
Waiting through
    the best
Is yet to come
    this point of view
Is sticky
    and will not do
The best
    is for the best
And the best
    is for you
When you
    Tennessee sing
And the breeze
    blows through
Scream! honey
    and it will be true

1985

You never smiled when you were supposed to.

Where does sincerity travel. Loving you, and all

your fears, trusting the night - every day.

Your untimely smile thieves my futures

limiting variations.

Closing those I was probably dressed for

I dress for you - you steal my clothes

striking me with solemnity.

But the jokes still tickle, hands still tremble.

America - and your ubiquitous reasons,

you were never a man

were you.

To be inexperienced and aged through relation-

the blues without music, your beats are only

big business. The back of my head, but she

still loves me. Disregarding your tributaries

and your lakes as grains of sand

but they are salt.

The consolation of the stars that you don't

believe in whimper, while constellations

of thought that you no longer understand

smile and wait. I am only one chain reaction.

Shy with undiscovered love - nervous of 

The Big One - you sing to me,

sweet as you are.

Tumbling down the newspapers, only catching the headlines.

Your smile will one day be seen or you will die.

Ladies and gentlemen: the distance to Heaven

by the way of railroad tracks, reflecting Revelations

in the moonlight - cracks in fresh steal black-

it is still the same.

Still I find newness in you every day-

and when I look, I'm left in the dark

staring. If every heart is the same,

you've created an exception in me.

If you haven't noticed, the poor 

don't even work anymore; their

opium is distracted, it seems.

[Aging infant in solitude - new wave fossil.

A moment in your mind and I would die

for you - but we already don't exist,

it seems.]

rifts

A rift, unintended
    a change of heart
Changes blended
    and stripped apart


    How does it happen?
        this burning concoction
    The airs between blacken
        Breathing soft toxin


Whose smoken memories have I
    swapped or stolen - and
Must you get so dressed up for this?
        unexplainable rift
Beaches between us, mirrors along the way
    wedding cake connection
This does not mean anything, here or anywhere
        my twine is frayed
And continually fraying - impossible rifts and summertime bliss
    coexist where devils dance
And angels blues. Put your little hand up, fingers apart, feel them both
        weaving each - rifts and bliss
Making each other plural, once again. Here: it's better to hold on through this.

suckle

The skies, fake upon our departure
Sightings of your inked sign upon
Existence - fearing only your perception;
Rather, how you are perceived.
Can one change her identity, or
Only how she is perceived?
We are artists of perception
Idolizing identity, squabbling with
Death's one true xanthippe. Our departures
Somehow signify the constant conception
Of identity, only if we choose to remain in its womb
Suckling existence as it comes.
Remaining in our identity
Rejecting the open palm of perception perfectly-
Existence cannot be signed without blood
Which has more colors than any ink
And is erased quicker than lead;
Blood is as vicissitudinous as being
And is being
Which is an ethereal eyelash of existence.


The porous moon
Feigns its supposed relation to the sky
In common sightings necessary to departures-
Unconcerned with its perception;
Pure, brilliant and ever changing:
Unrelating eternity.

skinny

Can you call? I was mighty
Moonbeaming my antebellum picture shelf
Brighter than light. My participation flighty
My pencil skinny and sharp. I shelve
The season - the kissable lilac - behind


Believing. And what is better?
A cloudless straight-shot to a flowerpot;
A rainbowed riverstone could not be wetter.
I am hunching, listening to the landscaped plot
Envious of the loved-enough and the left-behind


Flakes of aquamarine whatchamacallits pop
In and out around the umbrellad vista-scene
Like unshackled joy firecracking, oh!, from atop
A jovial passage from an extended kindergarten dream
Gold and jade katydid keepsake left behind


I am not your hailstorm emporium
Meandering epidemic muzzling of television sets
Flooding your hopes with paraplegic comforts
I've unlocked sadness and death and still
Have restless feet. Every wasted joy relaxes.

Cost

Charming simplicity

How often I forget

Renewal

The more susceptible to loneliness

The lesser the cost

Upon the window splattered

An announcement of paint

Yellows your reflection

And the rain.

I was acting in such a way

Out of defiance, to not look

Like him. He became like me

Making me like him.

Love responds characteristically

To the silent air with the complexities

Of the fading horizon. Swearing upon

Life like a believable boogie.

Costfully denying reflection

With honest sincerity

The cost of a soul

And its intentions

Stranger

Stranger, dangling from hidden escapes,
Mistakes, understanding. Hairs of vibrating
Reality. Sometimes, I can feel it. The night
Nice with adolescent inhibitions. Your


Sicilian hair is vibrating reality, lip syncing
Undiscovered cerebral caverns and the ex-
tremes of possibility. Magazine eyes. Twis-
ted dollar bill in your black shirt pocket,


Gulping. In the original plan we were both
All strangers and none strangers at the exact same
Time. Breezed away down the hill like an old sea
Hat, taken away by round-waisted newness.

Elegant Windows

My regrettable loves, my elegant windows -
Against my window knocks a crazed flying
Creature with its entire brittle being
- And now I have burned my finger -

Less fortunate fingers do not live amongst the aloe.
It makes me look real cool.
She's such a sophisticated tip-toer
A simple never-regret-it,

So the present screams. The Ghost -
Caught him talkin' to the milk jug.
The flutes make him jumpy;
True Love, the bug no longer crashes

Into what would be...Mexico.
He's dead. Replace with: cello
Praying legs - cricketing mythologically
Air conditioner ransacks this sound from me

- Gongs - their rebellion is made
Monotone, undramatically.
Life among the horns;
My First Sight - pricking existence.

Riposting gongs! Now, numb!
One must now burn the film
in order to see. My Artist -
Their is life above the thorns.

I can taste it: that sugar
Doesn't settle. Window, if you must;
Elegance burns with regrettable ease,
Bugs ash, violins close.

Rope

The amusement of lips and

The anxiety of everything I

Always forget balance the

Seasons of all, tearing be-

tween each other, creating

Elemental anomalies inside

Of me, where life is night,

And in night: cold is lack

Of direction; peace is ease

Of distraction; love is in-

somnia, neither with dis-

cretion; footsteps of 

Fluttering black water

Are either unassigned

Fate or lack of will to

Create; every empty

Frame of snow melts

Upon arrival. The days

Are pointed - know-

ledge and sight. The

Wind in me is death.

Blood moves like 

Veins with sticky

Permanency, burned

To be free; whirled

Round bones, buil-

dings, and history.

Fabled, forgotten,

Or both, tossed on

Table - perhaps

Placed- placed

Under table leg

Solely to stable,

Propped on table

Applied for its

Aesthetic label;

Blood is hope;

Liquid, unfray-

ing, strands

of life, 

learning

to rope.

Night

The night, absent,
Knifes through itself
Spinning cotton,
Reflecting light,
Refusing to believe
All to be understood.