Yestersoup

Lunar Flora

2011-04-17T22:47:00.000-07:00

You are the sweat on the brow of a mother in her thirteenth hour of labor. You are the fickle fingers of a child grazing a splintery fence midday. You are a sixteen-syllable sentence uttered by a woman with beautiful lips. You are the thousands of end-of-the-world kisses in constant exchange at each terminal. You speak and rain falls upward. You blink and butterflies dissolve. There are shells of people out there trying, each day, to become an atom in the vast dance of your movements, to seek the mode in the range of your emotions. You are bottled nebulae with a cork that is waiting to pop.
You are lunar flora: prickly pear cacti which fill craters steeping in a celestial marinade hailing from the Horsehead. And should you stand beneath the sun for too long, the land which surrounds you would recede into the dark recesses from whence it came, and the soft luminescence of your eyes would suffice to lead your way.

Subduer

2011-04-01T15:04:00.001-07:00

You placate with

your palms, your

fivefinger tactile

psalms

And extinguish

with your lips:

two slivers of

cowardly koi fish

The Performer II

2011-03-31T17:34:00.000-07:00

Into a tree you carved
a message with a knife

"IF FACES ARE TOPOGRAPHICAL

YOURS IS A RAVINE

SITUATED SOMEWHERE EAST

OF MY COMPLACENCY

WEST OF WHERE I DREAM

NORTH OF ALL THINGS WHICH ARE NOT

BUT PAINSTAKINGLY SEEM"

And you walked back to your car
dead leaves flying backward

beneath your feet
you drove all the way home with
the emergency signal on
singing the same song
your parents played
the night you were conceived

While You Knelt

2011-03-17T15:40:00.000-07:00

What is the history

of regret?

It doesn't want to talk about

that. Trust it, that was a mistake,

it should have known better.

And if, say, that magical

memory jettison corporation

from that one film

with the blue-haired girl

actually did exist, yeah,

it would most likely

opt for that. Instead,

its head is reduced to

a pendulum inclined

to encumber a neck

too frail to support it.

Sure, it had fun,

but it's a Catholic, see,

and guilt became the

new pink as soon as John Paul

tied a rose-hued

chiffon scarf 'round the eyes

of his subordinate,

whispered redemptive

prayers into their ear- "Pretend

it's your favorite

candy," five times,

for posterity.

The Performer I

2011-03-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

An octave prickles

the tongue which

cradles it and

buds bust into bloom

as the need for

projection is expressed

with a single

coo

Yesterday failure fulfilled you

lips lubricated with glue

the thousand-headed

monster of the crowd

lies ravenous

its eyes cast on

you

Count the Colors

2011-03-08T08:41:00.000-08:00

O you

with plaid-clad

residual cherubs on your cheek

and pastel-planked

suburban scripture

How often does one pass

a leashed mut

on that stretch mark on the thigh

of lady lone star

In what manner do you display

allegiance to your

ever faithful

drag queen?

In what vein?

Hands

2010-10-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

People tell you

you've got the hands of an architect

Do you fancy the space around walls

at a professional level

or do you dabble

like an amateur pornographer

devouring each mediocre column with your eyes

like an A-cup

waiting to be enhanced with a nipple tassel

scrutinizing each paint swatch like a tit in a crowd

wondering who the fuck would assign a name like

Aphrodite's Menses to a hue that resembles

charred bologna

but you sit at your unused drafting table

and spend hours

staring at your hands

Estrogen & Tonic

2010-10-10T20:28:00.000-07:00

You listen to a voice

for so long that its sonic appeal

evanesces

And you walk to the park and sit

by the tree beneath which you

proposed

Eyes welling up with wet cement

you try to recall when

the novelty began to slowly whittle away

And how long the transient splendor

of novelty even existed before humans

compulsively hammered a word onto it

Did there ever exist a time in which

the things that initially felt good

remained that way?

Death is her pillowcase

her lingering perfume that pervades

the musty space of your apartment

the disgusting condiments she would

always insist that you'd stock up on

"Who the hell puts Worcestershire sauce

on a tuna sandwich,

anyhow?"

Dialogorrhea: A Love Story

2010-10-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

"Gosh, nature is so incredible! Isn't it? I mean, look at all these rocks! They have this amazing scent. It almost smells like a really nice men's cologne, but it's completely natural! Nature is amazing!"

"Um, I think what you're smelling is probably laundry detergent. There's a coin laundry across the street. You'd be surprised by how far that scent travels."

"When be dat bus at?"

"Oh, 'scuse me, sir. Hi. Just a tip: You might not want to mix tenses like that. You'll find that when connotes Time while at connotes Place. One should choose the former or the latter lest one send the listener into a mottled linguistic frenzy. These are the logistics of the English language, you see. Do you read me, sir? . . . sir?"

iii

"I don't have many ambitions, nor do I harbor any large-scale dreams for my future. And truth be told, I don't think I'll ever intend to."

"Then how is it that whenever I see you, it's as if it is always on the best day of your life? You seem content for a man without any dreams."

"Oh, but my life's a massive mosaic of 'em! I'm not a dusty, unimaginative machine. Every day is another dream and every night's aspiration is to wake up. Waking up always seems to suffice, too. I only wish to continue on this dreamtrain, to ensure that it doesn't derail, y'know? Am I confusing you?"

"A little. How about I sleep on it, and get back to you?"

Line Breaks, con sal.

2010-08-03T22:18:00.000-07:00

By sundown,

I'm but a million morsels of decay

as atoms reverse their tap dance
in a delayed orbit
around each eyeful of almonds
two salty caverns

This brand of torture is as exclusive

as it is elusive
swift, comparable to
a mere drizzle of honey;

it's funny
But not in a healthy way

Stream of Consciousness

2010-03-17T19:25:00.000-07:00

I stood at your grave,
with fists full of change,
change in the form of words,
words I couldn't previously say,
due to tides of time,
ebbing and flowing in the form of
change, change in the form of words,
words I collect in a felt hat, as
I busk for saplings of change,
change in the form of words,
words written in ink, exchanged
between changing strangers,
in the rain, on the bus, in the
train station, as people change
hats and faces and trains,
trains in the form of thought,
thoughts I collect in a cup,
a cup I keep above my bed
with a straw, a straw in the form
of a speaker, a speaker moving
voices, holding song, above my bed,
talking about
change.

A few servings of Haiku, in bed

2010-03-16T00:44:00.000-07:00

This is not the end
We are despised, yes, but hey-
There's always the sea

I make no judgments.
But, sonic aesthetics? Well,
that... That doesn't count.

Cornucopia
Of wild, elusive facets
You show none but one

"Lay Lady Lay" looped
As we made love until noon,
Wish this bed were brass

"I only have eyes
for you," he said, she pondered,
then gauged, whispered, "Thanks..."

I am constantly
Coming up with new ways to
Say I do not know

Glukupikron

2010-03-16T00:39:00.000-07:00

Slice onions with your shoulder blades
Pummel you blue
Made promises amid fits of laughter

You knew not to believe them

Didn't you?

¼ Haiku, ¾ Whimsy

2010-03-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

There's something about
Cacti and fresh paints that gets
Me hot and bothered

Photograph not my intellectual property

courtesy of "Native Body Art" by Fiorella Podesta

1973

2010-03-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

I may turn this into a longer short story, flash fiction OR I may just let it stay a short-short. We will see. Regardless, please fling your criticism forth.

Growing up, my mother always worried about me. She would say things like, "Honey, you don't have to take the stairs. There is an elevator, and the chances of a fire occurring are far slimmer than the chances of you falling down those stairs and breaking all of your frail, little bones..." Her voice dripped with saccharine concern. I could tell that she prized me, and not in the typical motherly way, but in the same way that she prized the dozens of collectible figurines she kept in the glass case in the living room. One night, when I was fourteen, I crept out my bedroom window to catch a 10 p.m. showing of American Graffiti with my best friend. I could tell you that we were wholesome, angelic teenagers but then I would be lying. Innocence is mental and behavioral, and while my behavior was charmingly meek, my thoughts were crazed and wildly rebellious. Daydreams of mine consisted of intermittent bank robberies and hordes of hormone-crazed teenagers painting each other's bodies in layers upon layers of pheromones . . . real kinky Bonnie & Clyde shit. While watching American Graffiti, a sudden electrifying urge burst forth within me involving Richard Dreyfuss and copious amounts of leather. And I never was the same.

Prosetry I

2010-03-09T13:38:00.000-08:00

That was the night in which I traversed several roads to get to one, the only one that welcomes me in the same, uniform way every time I cast my eyes upon that weathered, dual-decked vessel. After further mummifying my wrist, I scurried inside and could smell the holy dilapidation of something so loved that it’s destroyed. Even the surrounding sidewalks remain enamored with dirt and mud and muck.
Do not bother wiping the ugly remnants off your shoes
allow them to be danced
shaken
jumped off

"Who sings this?"

2010-01-10T11:15:00.000-08:00

What happens when a bigot

falls in love
with the fervent cream of
a black woman's singing voice?

It snows in Miami.

Suburban Swampcity Blues

2009-12-08T17:32:00.000-08:00

This is a fragment from a short story I'm currently working on. Constructive criticism is welcomed, as always.

When Santiago removed the knit skullcap from his head, he felt a blanket of goose bumps rapidly form all along the nape of his neck, as if Aphrodite herself had been the one making love to him all night. The sensations his mind had identified were nothing but vertiginous pleasure spasms; he could not make sense of any of it. Rationality was a tiny vessel of mute seamen, and it was long gone by now. He tried to compose more thoughts, but this only made him dizzier.
He laid down on his bed and began tossing a hackie-sack up toward the ceiling and with his thumb and index finger, catching it each time with ease, as if it were the stem of a feather floating back to him. His hands appeared to be rough and aged, unlike the rest of his body: an immaculate machine throbbing with a youthful urgency. Then again, this was commonplace at the studio. It was filled with the buzzing of the young, and each palm was scarred and calloused. The people he shared his space with during the day were there for the same exact reasons. They, too, were thirsty for malleability, for creation. And they loved to sculpt, just as he did.

Five Dense Minutes

2009-12-04T11:22:00.000-08:00

2:58 am: My feet are almost as calloused as your hands always were. These hands are virginal apparati with a texture similar to that of honey or warmed dough. Virtually unscathed. Clearly, they do not make nearly enough.

3:02 am: My head is buried in my pillow now and I'm thinking this can't be healthy- being reminded of your life by the faintest sound of music that you will never have the opportunity to hear. I'm wondering if I'm sick for never wanting to forget; for fearing Alzheimer's at age seventy more than death at age thirty; for wishing for any physiological malfunction over amnesia. I'd like to always be able to recall the inflection of your voice when you would ask what it was I had learned in school that day. At twelve, it posed as a hideous question. But at twenty, not so much.

"What did you learn in school today?" Now, that's a poem.

Well I guess it's more of a Science anyway

2009-11-23T20:18:00.000-08:00

"I want you to gallop past my periphery.
Prance across my panoramic scope,
so I can practice the art of
refusal, as I clench my teeth
to turn you away
over and over again," he insisted.

"I'm hoping it will get easier
after the six-hundredth trial..."

"You should be kissed. And often. And by someone who knows how."

2009-11-20T20:49:00.000-08:00

you could say what she had experienced
was a bout of magic;
a strange ephemeral burst of wicked
confidence that could seemingly give one the ability
to blow dozens of shiny, prismatic bubbles without a wand,
to make billows of smoke dance when the incense
burns too quickly,

but there wasn't anything magical about it.
it was the stroke of a guru,
a transient cluster of divinity's guise:

a lie,
cloaked.

He was a Sailor

2009-10-24T18:34:00.000-07:00

Look onward, psychonauts!
Scrape the paint off the gilded cage,
as you murmur your melodramas through
the straws in your mouths
and then softly ask,
"Where is my ego today?"

"Dead!
Dead!
Dead!
Dead!"

Inked

2009-10-07T19:50:00.000-07:00

maybe tattooing
old, wrinkled skin
feels like writing
on wet paper-
don't want to
rip you, you:
so fortunate
to have survived
the rain,
the time.

but watch as a grandmother
sits in a parlor

age seventy-two,
abiding in agreement
with her twenty-something
granddaughter.
"nothing you'll want to hide
when you're my age."

see her flinch
from the needle as it
traces lines on her
leathery, brown flesh.
"i passed four children -
there isn't a pain i can't bear,"
she keeps repeating,
not intending to remind
anyone but herself

bandaged, they walk out,
and under each bulk of
thick, white gauze
lie tiny etchings of
Sahara totems:
an itchy hieroglyph

Ducts of Whiskey

2009-10-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

you cry tears of Dewar's,
and lick your lips when you speak of the past,

how do you do it?
gesticulate with all four limbs
like that.

you speak of things
you've seen that
i cannot even dream,

infancy is strange,
when it lasts for
twenty years.

maybe these memories
were meant to be
discarded,
into the Great Lake of
regret.

right now,
a poem will sound good
to me only if it was written
in anything but
first person perspective

but today, i am
fine with being
mediocre.

Variation on a Theme/Deviation

2009-05-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

I've been ostracized
by younger men than you,
but none who carried
the heavy sandbags of hostility
so far
without shattering the glass
of their own gait.

No.

2009-05-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

la luna sabe que
la practica es necesaria.

A Nutty Ode

2009-05-01T01:20:00.000-07:00

Your shell was shed
so I could find you,

I'm an addict on a binge
for your love, as I scrape the jar
of your body with a spoon,
scouring
your beautiful remains

I slide you between fluffed
yeast,
welcoming your comfort
when my lover ignores
my needs.

As your aroma plays the banjo
with my senses,
your rich contents ride
the contour of my tongue,
begging for a fuller,
less irregular commitment.

Knees buckling at the sight
of Jiff, I recall that fateful day
in aisle eight,
where a five year old
fell in love.

But I don't kiss on the Sabbath

2009-03-31T01:28:00.000-07:00

"Synchronicity," she said
as she poised the single,
lit candle between her pursed
lips,
passed it on to yours,
whispered-
"Look!
No hands."

The Jackal of Carnality

2009-03-20T01:49:00.000-07:00

As you tiptoe
through the corridor of her senses,
you listen closely
for the revolt of her Id,

expecting
riotous sensations
to shove themselves
through each of your pores-

any moment now.

Praying to the god you don't believe in,
that just this once,
the jackal of carnality
will roll over on its back,
to expose
its soft underbelly

Catapulting Nostalgia

2009-03-17T11:14:00.000-07:00

Machine-washable love,
continually laced with sensory spices,
brewing into nostalgic catapults of
when you stood on Time's shoulders,
and made deals about the infinity of your
protection.
About how far it could go,
and how long it could carry us,
until we eventually fall,
and claw away at the walls
of our own will.

meditation on the lip of a volcano

2009-03-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

starving for calm,
you fold as crisp laundry
atop the
plane of silence
you religiously scour,

kneeskin wound
tightly around
the rock
of your bones,

you sit vigilant
with closed eyes,
as the darkness
vacuums away all
thought

nostrils quaking
with rhythmic
inhalation,
these moments
keep some small
part of you safe

Tottenham Street

2009-03-09T12:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a story that I wrote when I was pretty young. I don't like it much, to be honest, but I like to read it every now and then to take notice of how much I've improved.

I
It's a Tuesday morning and Kila Steffenson of Middlesex, England is sweeping the livingroom floor. Kila wakes up to an empty house every morning. Her younger brother, Jon, sleeps on the large, wooden deck built betwixt the branches of the back yard Oak tree. Kila likes to think he’ll soon grow bored of his own aloofness, as most prepubescent boys eventually do.

"Come in an' get your breakfast, Jon! And while you're at it, come look at what I found on the coffee table..."
Mumbling in half-awake babble, Jon pulls his t-shirt over his head.
“Bloody hell! Quit shouting, will you? I was in the middle of a dream." Jon rolls out of his make shift bed and proceeds to fall into the swimming pool below. He swiftly swims over to the edge of the pool and pulls himself onto the gravel. As Jon drags his dripping body into the house, he notes a stench so putrid, he instinctively runs back out.
"Where are you going?! Ignore the smell for just a second, and come into the living room. Come on!" Kila insists.
Jon reluctantly shuffles back into the house with his fingers clamping his nostrils together. "What is it, Kila?", he inquires nasally.
Jon shuffles over to Kila, as his dirt covered jeans are dripping pool water all over the flooring. "Oh. What---"
Kila covers his mouth, "Shhh. Don't say anything. We shouldn't tell Dad, should we?"
"Well I---," Jon musters two words before Kila interrupts him. "No.. no, we definitely shouldn't. You're right."

She runs upstairs to her bedroom and quickly finds a hiding spot for what she just found. Jon follows, "Where are you putting it? No... Kila don't put it in your drawer, you know Pop goes in there ever since he found your birth control pills.
"You're right, the nosey bugger'll know to snoop in there. I know exactly where to hide it." Kila reaches under her bed and pulls out a large wooden chest.
She opens it. It is full of nostalgic trinkets from her childhood. She reaches underneath all of them and places it at the very bottom.
"I guess that'll 'ave to do..." Jon says, as he lights up a cigarette. He enticingly waves the pack of Benson & Hedges in Kila's face, and she plucks one out of the pack, places it in her mouth and sparks it.
"I'm going to school, now. I'll see you later," Jon walks out of her room.
"Don't forget your breakfast!" Kila remembers.

II
"Kila! Open the door! It's your mum. I have groceries."

Kila reluctantly trots down the stairs and opens the front door to her mother. Her mother, Winnie, has three paper bags in her arms. Kila takes two of them and walks to the kitchen.
"Go on, empty it onto the table..." her mother insists. Kila unloads the bags only to find a large, heaping pile of unnecessary products. She raises her gaze to meet her mother’s, whose face is full of oblivious delight.
"Mum, what did you get fish tank cleaner for? We don't have a fish tank. 'Ave you gone mad?"
"Darling, you are the one who's gone mad... Jonny's got a tank in his room."
"You mean his nursery? The fish tank that he broke two years ago with his baseball?" Kila reminds her.
Kila's mother quickly glances at the box of fish tank cleaner and then back at Kila. She walks upstairs to Jon's nursery only to find that her daughter was right, there was no longer any fish tank. Her surroundings consisted of plants. Large, luscious green plants. Everywhere.
Kila sifts through more of the groceries and finds a large package of dog food, a wig, and twenty-six packs of multi-coloured shoe laces. All of which Kila deems as absolutely useless
Upstairs, Kila's mom is sprawled out on the floor in Jon's nursery. A film of dew has developed on her face from the humidity of the room. Her cheeks are ruby red and she appears to be sleeping. When Kila finds her mother, she immediately calls her father's office.
"Steffenson Psychiatry." his secretary, Doris, answers.
"Can I speak to my father? It's Kila"
"Oh, hi. He might be with a patient right now, let me go check,"
"Hi, um....Kila?" Jasper Steffenson seemed more uncertain than usual.
"Yeah, Pop. It’s me. Didn't Doris tell you I was on the phone?"
"Yes, uh, I was seeing someone. She said you sounded a bit frantic... what's going on, sweet pea?"
"Well," Kila inhales deeply to begin her long rant about her mother’s insanity, "Mum got home an hour ago with dog food. Dog food! We don't own a dog. She brought home wigs! We aren't balding. We certainly don't need two dozen packs of shoelaces. She has lost all of her marbles, every single last one of them. I swear it! What are we going to do? Why have a mother who can’t even mother herself!"
"Kila, calm down. Your mother is going through intense withdrawal right now. Empathize a little, won't you? She's been clean for five months now. There's a bit of memory loss. We've all got to bear with her."
At that moment, she feels her stomach tighten with conflicting emotions, and she drops the phone on the countertop.

III
The Poplar trees are whistling outside. Peering out the window, Kila notices a storm rolling in from the distant sky.
She then sees her next door neighbor pulling his car into his driveway.
Kila Steffenson is no longer crying in her kitchen. She is now crying while sipping tea on her neighbor's back patio.
Everything she has kept inside is going to flood out right about. . .
"Now, let me get this straight. This morning, you found a crack pipe laying on your coffeetable. You think it belongs to your mother, who happens to be a recovering crack addict?"
Her neighbor is Isaac Mulligan. A twenty-two-year-old Irishman who she has harbored an interest in since the day he moved into the house next door.
"Yes, and she---" Kila can barely make out a coherent sentence in between her wild spurts of hysteria. Isaac takes the tea from her hand and he sits beside her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders as he gently scratches her back.
Kila, in a state of desperate despair, looks up at his freckled face and moves in to kiss his cheek.
Isaac's eyes grow wide and he quickly picks himself up. He walks inside and comes back out with a box of tissues for Kila.
‘Thank you,” Kila says, with desperate sincerity.

IV
Next door, Mr. Steffenson is trying to wake up his wife. Winnie Steffenson has been asleep on the nursery floor for three hours now. Her skin is damp and prune-like. Their son, Jon, is rummaging through the refrigerator ignoring the scenario completely. Mr. Steffenson walks downstairs and comes into the kitchen to join Kila and Jon.
"Your mother's awake. You all can go on about your day now," he assured.
Kila’s drained eyes shift over to her father's face and then to her brother’s sandwich.
"You can stop worrying now, Kila. Jon? It's alright. Everything is alright."
Jon picks up his sandwich and takes a large bite, blinking at his father’s assuring face.
Kila and Jon then walk upstairs and head into Kila's bedroom.
"Mum! What are you doing?!"
Mrs. Steffenson broke open Kila's chest full of stuffed animals and gotten ahold of her crack pipe.
She is sitting on the floor of her daughter's room, surrounded by stuffed animals, taking hits from the pipe.
"Shit... Jon, go get Pop! Now. What're ya waiting for? GO," Kila demands.
Jon bolts downstairs to retrieve his father. As he makes his way into the kitchen, he smells an odor similar to that of burning plastic and cotton candy. He hears his father talking.
He walks in, "Mum got ahold of her pipe." His father turns around, and Jon notices he's holding a pipe in his left hand.
"What-- Where'd you find that? Is that another one of Mum's?!"
Mr. Steffenson coughs as a large cloud of smoke is released from his mouth.
"No, Jon. This is prescribed for me. Hedwig advised me to use it for medicinal purposes, it alleviates the constant chatter."
"Constant chatter? There isn't any such thing as medicinal crack. For Chrissakes, Hedwig?”
Defensively, his father places the pipe down, "Listen, everyone is always talking in my office, I tell them to be quiet, that it’s my office, and that I’m entitled to peaceful working space, but they insist on blabbering away.”
"What about?" Jon inquires.
"Muffins. They talk about muffins. And me."
"But you don't share an office with anyone. I don't get--"
"Yes, that's the funny part. That's why Hedwig tells me to use this!" He holds up the pipe, and takes another hit.
"Hedwig? Pop... Hedwig was our Labrador, and he's been dead for three years now." Jon harshly breaks it to him. Mr. Steffenson then looks at his son, and feels like any man would feel after he's just realized he’s been quarreling with nonexistent nobodies. After he’s just concluded that he’s in fact a schizophrenic psychiatrist.

V
Jon runs to get Kila, and explains what ‘s just transpired.
She responds to the news by grabbing Jon by the arm and she starts to walk next door, to Isaac’s.
They don't bother to knock on the front door, Kila gazes through the window and sees Isaac sitting on his couch reading a newspaper.
She barges in. Isaac jumps up in a panic.
"I'm sorry to bother you... I just-- This is bollocks." Kila stammers.
Isaac runs over to Kila and hugs her. "What happened?"
Jon, feeling a bit confused about his sister's relationship with their neighbor, sits down on the sofa in defeat.
Kila stands wrapped in Isaac’s long arms, silently trying to shake off the day’s occurences.
"Call Aunt Jenya. She'll let us stay with her. I'm not living under the same roof as those two for another second." Jon says in disdain.

Hours pass, and Kila is asleep in Isaac's arms on his living-room carpet. Jon is snoring loudly on the couch.

The next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Steffenson enjoy bangers and mash with Hedwig.

Mint Biome

2009-02-19T12:44:00.000-08:00

peppermint on tongue,

I suck the sugar from the air

through the cracks

between my teeth.

blizzard in my throat,

frost bitten

apple of

Adam.

external Rain forest,

internal Tundra.

Today's Lunch Menu

2009-02-19T11:02:00.000-08:00

Vegetable sushi

Served with your choice of Indecision soup, or Pad Thai Ambience

House beverage:

Distraction Sake,

on the rocks.

Psyche Rack

2009-02-19T10:46:00.000-08:00

Lamb on a rack,
  melting, smelt of
   plastic in the sun,
   expanding North,
propelling South.
  the West reels in my limbs,
   the East--a wreckage of
   my skull.
Me, the lamb, living
  by means of escape,
   screeching at a wall,
   expecting a listener.

Zapped. [condensed]

2009-02-19T10:41:00.000-08:00

dancing with my lobotomist,
and running through lightning storms
strewn
in aluminum foil.

i would feel
as our hands
first touch

love ulcer.

2009-02-19T10:38:00.000-08:00

my belly---a throbbing orgy of dragonflies, mid-multiplicity.

variations on a theme.

2008-11-20T21:57:00.000-08:00

I remember your lips: a sliver of pink angelfish making love.

Dreamsiren.

2008-11-11T21:54:00.000-08:00

you walk around
as you scatter your petals
of pressed hydrangeas
from your father's bible

in polyester paradise
your hips swing like the bell
at Notre Dame de Paris
and pardon me if I notice
more than what meets the nerves
'cause I came to observe you
not to touch what I don't deserve

it wasn't real, nor was it wrong
but I saw it in my head
under the looming moon
and I felt I was a pistol
firing out of my bedroom

zapped.

2008-10-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

I'm reminded why I was slingshot
through the waterpark of my
mother's reproductive system.
Through each and every tube and tunnel,
wet and wild with fluid and feeling my mothership
doing the lambada with all of her
confusion. And so I knew genetically
I was wired to master flamenco dancing
with my lobotomist, and running through
lightening storms wrapped in aluminum
foil.
Yet any bolt that could pass through
my bones would never amount
to the electricity I would feel
as our hands would first touch.

I am You are

2008-07-17T23:08:00.001-07:00

I am swooning,

hot air ballooning over the Potential energy of your Passion
I am dying,

I am sighing, and testifying as you whine
I am bleeding,

pleading that you please me

I am slowing this down,

mowing around, throwing away The Crown

I am pulling the table cloth out from under the china

I am pushing and swooshing,

   and rushing to feel that Rush
   I am writing to the person responsible for this plight
   I am this fear personified,

I am this Flickering Light
I am no one,

and no one is never someone
I am elsewhere,

and elsewhere is not right here
I am gone, on a trip,

to some worn out, torn down place
I am happy,

   in my static electricity and
   I am warning you about those damned socks
   I am not who you assume I am,

I will never be who I was back then
I am smoking your carbon dioxide and

I am enjoying my feather-like bones

I am watering your words,

so that they will someday grow
I am expecting to have a garden

that will somehow survive the snow

"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt." (K. Vonnegut)

2008-07-17T23:07:00.000-07:00

There's a magnifying glass over everything
that is beautiful,

and everything beautiful

reminds me of you---

everything you are,
everything you do.

desire. [lost and found, from 2006]

2008-07-17T23:06:00.000-07:00

Spinning on the dizzy edge
She almost wants to fall
'Cause when you give her what she wants
She still feels one inch tall
She's not sure how long it's been
But her time is growing tired
Her car is fast
On the shortest road
And death is her desire

Neptunication.

2008-07-17T23:05:00.000-07:00

Upon meeting an extraterrestrial,
one must toss aside all preconceived
notions and potions regarding
foreign life forms.
Aliens are not slimy,
or scaly or anything unpleasant, you see.
I made love to an extraterrestrial
and it was the best damn
three minutes and twelve seconds of
my dwindling life.
It beat that time at the University
Library, where I slid through rows of
encyclopedias searching for my
collegiate prey, and landed amongst
the all-stars of Pre-Med fornication.
He was a beauteous beast, full of
precision, but alas, a mere Earthling.
I was a man-eater then, ferociously gnawing
away at hearts, mutating them to fit my
muzzle.
But I can now say without any qualms
that I eat Neptunians now. I am a converted
Neptivore.
It was tender in its musings.
malleable to each curve,
adjustable to my valleys, and I lived inside
of it, screaming out to the cosmos
through the tunnels of my pores.
What a night it was,
on the Eight ball.

written in 2006

2008-07-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

It's raining in your eyes,

and I'm in disguise,

of who you dreamt of last night.

memoryland

2008-05-13T21:58:00.000-07:00

A million times a year,
the same place is renewed with
a brand new film that chips
away at the nostalgic souvenir it once was.
Growing greener, more ferocious.

The alligators linger along the hiking
trails like the fragrance of a morning
glory during a sunday picnic.

Bull ants decorate the trees
as if December is too far away to wait
for nature to be jeweled.

Sitting at the base of the giant hill,
your purpose diminishes,
and you're humbled beside
the gargantuan size of this green slab.

At the faintest rendering of boredom,
you climb the steps that lead to
the very top of the hill.
Sixty-six steps, and a whirling ramp
that dissolves into the grassy patch
at it's forehead.

You lay down, aligning your body
with the ground, and proceed to roll
down the spine of the hill as you're lathered
in a million suds of momentum.

At the base of this hill, you are but a human.
But at its top, you are a god.
Invincible,
faithful in your need for speed
and the feeling of the grass at your ankles.

Children bask in their youth in the grass
and adults try to regain the left overs of
what once was their youth as they walk
along the paths, tracing old foot prints
with new shoes.
Look to your left,
paddle boats chase after ripples,
ripples of time.

A dormant winter. [written in 2006]

2008-03-30T00:04:00.000-07:00

The truth is anything I could say will never suffice
Anything I could do will never bring you to your knees
Anything I could show you will never change your mind
Everything I feel will never be balanced by a counterpart
Such as yourself, and
What pains me,
What strains me,
What brings me to my knees...
Is while I'm remembering you,
You're forgetting about me
And I miss what we never had
I miss the words that were never spoken
And the thoughts that were always mere
Never more

and antiques. and U-hauls. and Walt Disney. and noise.

2007-12-05T09:13:00.000-08:00

our ears flew us around like Dumbo,

as we tried to remember these promises.
that piano in the living room, you know the one.

   antique mahogany, withering away
   from all the wrong sounds.
it wanted Bach, Chopin, Beethoven.
  instead, it got rage, betrayal,
   and the slow, heavy racket of a moving van.

The Cadillac of Cancers.

2007-11-11T16:14:00.000-08:00

You watched me eroding

through your hazy periphery,

with Canon in D Minor sliding

through the speakers.

Exhalations.

2007-11-11T15:42:00.000-08:00

Heart jumping hurdles with no saddle.
I slid through book shelves, rode
the hours of time
barebacked.

And was hurled off of time's spine
into a concussion of surreality.

I'm not a smoker, I'd rather
take hits off of your CO2 anyday.

Lies, yard sales, and the lack of a clue.

2007-09-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

The key to life?

Beats me.
The only key I own, I found juxtapositioned between
withered blades of grass at a yard sale in the summertime.
It was silver, or at least tried to be.

Old, in my young hands.

I picked it up, and brought it to the owner
of this yard, asked for a price, a bargain for this "antique."
He told me to take it, and was shocked anyone with
a shadow would offer to pay for such a worthless
piece of tin.
I thought of it as an adoption of some sort.
I wanted to foster that worthless piece of tin and
shower it with love and attention it never knew.
I put it on a string and tied it around my neck.
Told myself, "If anyone asks where the lock
to this key is, I'll calmly mutter 'In my lover's rectum...'
smile mischeviously, and walk away."
The key to life?

Beats me.

Anatomical Religion

2007-09-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

Thy body is a temple, and I am an orthodox creature.
I remember when we'd spend days at a time worshipping
one another's mystic realms of flesh,
finding new paths to old places.

You'd trace the constellation of beauty marks near my right eye with
your fingers and land a kiss on the Big Dipper.
You were Haley and my pupils were a single, long-awaited
comet. It had taken sixteen years to surface, plunging
through each atmospheric plane like a suicidal scuba
diver. I knew how it felt to be "In Danger."

You were the James Dean of my adolescence,

my rebel without a single cause.
I understood nothing of your nature, except the feeling
I'd get when you'd expose the palms of your hands
sprinkled in the rarest form of vulnerability.
Who knew it lived on inside such a wild, untamed spirit?
Eventually, I came to realize that the wildest spirits
are in fact the most vulnerable. Each bite of vulnerability
is like another shot of moonshine to the soul.
My pain was your gain,

your gain built you to the sky, after you had
been knocked down by your own pain, in times
attempted to be forgotten.

The Three Month Itch

2007-09-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

Your eyes are midnight-flavored almonds,
my favorite.
There are no euphemisms for your kind of fire.
The kind that you can see, hiding under your skin.
It makes you scream and deny your anger.
Sling shots of melancholy whiskey across the
room with your eyes and then kiss me above the
speed limit.
Pushing 90 on a 55 mph highway.
When I'm annoyed, you can tell, by the way
my entire body begins to itch like a methamphetamine
addict, with crystals farming themselves
under my flesh.
It's worth it.
In the mean time, I photograph your being with
each glimpse of my eyes.
My eyelids shudder.
My fingertips sail across your face, getting lost
somewhere along your spine.
The Bermuda Triangle.
Your bones are my foundation,
My bed frame,
My hammock in the desert

The Roman Empire.

2007-09-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

Knee-deep into my past, I came down with a rare case of the
'I don't give a fuck' syndrome. I fell in love with a disease
called Music. It eventually ate my flesh and melted my heart valves.
This 5'10 bag of skin drove his tank into my immune system and began
the rise of my sentimental suction. The dissintigration of my
independent rationale. I was a clever fuck, but lost my wits to
something I couldn't see or touch. After the rise and fall of
my love life, I became the Annie Oakley of heartbreakers.
Perfect aim, every time. I had precision. For crying outloud,
I certainly perfected the art of crying silently.
A Roman Empire lived inside the furnace of my soul, and
I felt every joust of a sword, in the colluseum of my eyes.
Poking through my pupils. Julius was my right arm
and Brutus was my left. I'd have fist fights in my sleep.
I stabbed my own back, perpetually.
I was a shrink's jackpot and a patriot's
worst nightmare.
I had cigarette burns on my neck,
and in the end,
I learned to enjoy the pain.

Louis Braille on Viagra.

2007-09-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

Seni Seviyorum? What the fuck?
I don't speak bilingual madness. I only love with my eyes. My voice dissipates in the presence of a lover.
I feel my way around like Louis Braille on Viagra.
Let's be honest, here.

We're human, yeah, we fuck ourselves over in our nine-to-five lives and then we go home and fuck our lover. It's nothing new.

Ancient Egyptians did it, the Romans did it, you do it. Yeah, I do it, too.

Never mind celibacy- life is too short to be pure.

The last ruckus I caused was in February 1989, I finger-painted on the walls of my mother's womb.

I wrote: "To my future siblings, this one's for you."

My past lovers liked to wear their genitalia on their sleeves,
While I tried to pretend we were problem-free.
Jeans exploding. Eyes flooding. "No one is perfect."
Man, was he right.

I love you.

2007-09-27T19:53:00.000-07:00

That night, I bled onyx pebbles,
and my limbs grew limbs.
Your eyes liquefied my tongue
into orange magma.

"No, thanks."

The silence fell like a boulder

on our shoulders.
You and I are dying so beautifully.
The melodies of asphyxiation
drown out all worries.
Man, do you have any idea how long it took me to get to this place?
"I didn't think so."

I don't want you
to take this the wrong way or
anything---- but I'm not who you
think I am. I'm an -ING maniac.
I don't stop for a second. I observe
dying bumblebees after they accidentally
sting inanimate objects.
Please, tell me you love the freak in me.

Tell me it's okay to enjoy destruction.
Tell me it's not wrong to fall in love with yourself
while showering in the afternoon.
You gotta admit, life is pretty fucking ironic.
Too ironic to take yourself too seriously.
Woe is me. Yeah, fuck you. And you.
And you, too.

Oh, but not you,
You ravishing beacon of beauty. I love you.

The chandelier broke on my head last night.
And now, I light my own way...

miami.

2007-09-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

There's something about this city in all its

attempt to be culturally colorful and the fact

that it remains home to me, no matter where

I go or how much I claim to hate it. I've

metaphorically spat on this town so many times,

the next step would be to hock a loogey of

chewing tobacco off the bay, and let it fall atop

the heads of the manatees. The manatees

here, they all have scar tissue on their skin,

from boat propellers spinning into them, creating

puncture wounds the size of sunflowers all along

their sides; when they wail from the pain,

the sound waves disappear against the Biscayne

current. All the while, young girls with old minds

strut across the street, looking for validation.

"You're lovely" is all they want to hear.

Of course, the cat calls from nomads and

beggars and the corner bus stop full of

sheepish pedophiles don't scare them.

No, this city is filed and polished

like a royal fingernail.

The roads are stained with Pibb's

Root Beer and Sunny D-Lite dripped

from toddlers in speeding strollers.

The sidewalks are cracked from pressure

from the sun and steel-toed boots and the

South Beach elite, this city is warm

and cold-hearted. The skyline licks the

horizon, or maybe the other way around.

But, it's so vibrant, it makes you shake,

and think: "Could I survive anywhere else?"