Lunar Flora

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

You placate with

your palms, your

fivefinger tactile

psalms

And extinguish

with your lips:

two slivers of

cowardly koi fish

The Performer II

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

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

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

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

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

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

i

"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."

ii

"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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?"

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

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

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

"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..."