It Was Nice to See You

I thought I’d never see you again
But here you are
Forming in the air
Along dusty roads

You part your lips
To speak pure poetry
You'll need a lot of tools
To cultivate the land

Did you know
You’re a poem to me?

Your sapphire eyes sparkle,
Your scarlet lips smile

You’re forming here like dust
Or sugar in the air

I see sugar all over the air again,
Over skin, pale and tanned,
Dust flying all over the air again
On country roads

LoverMuse

I am a poet,
and he is my lovermuse.

his limbs fall into lines,
his fingers roll words to rhythm,
he drinks down history,
he tells me policy,
he sips my beers.

his brain is deep,
he talks and talks,
his eyes gaze,
his arms ripple and curve,
he says he takes it easy on the drugs now,
he has things to lose now.

he heats up next to me,
sleeps like white noise next to me,
his heart is beating
like lustlove to me,
he sees right into me,
knows how to lay his hands
right onto me.

I am a poet,
and he is the poem.

Acorn Falling

acceptance she thought she
saw/felt/heard
as an acorn fell into her lap
from the oak tree

later drinking/talking/crying
watching videos on her phone
she revealed her regret
at not coming home sooner

Drenched/Drowning

I wake up
to rain drops
fallingbeating
on the tin roof,

the sky is an even grey,
on the path
brown pine needles
create a new bed,

acorns dropping
sound like gunshots,
the moss on the rocks
will be slippery later

I turn to look at the sky
out my window, raindrops
one after the other,
like drops in a can

when the rain stops
we'll step on acorns,
soak in the forest as
the damp soaks into our skin

each drop of rain
drenchesdrowns me,
but I am on my way,
will be renewed

you'd like this morning
(the sounds on our tin roof)

Subsist

the pandemic
broke me.

hardly surviving by summer,
I subsisted on
books,
weed,
writeread,
island peace,
oak leaves,
wind on water,

the soft sound
of canopies above me,

swaying
twinkling
leaning
snacking
drinking
sparkling water,

light dancing
on the ripples of waves,

the wind,
and the vastness
of the sky,

clouds swaying by
altocumulus

Nobody's Perfect

there is sugar
all over
the air again,
sapphire eyes,
scarlet lips,
and golden skin,
your laugh echoing

Across the Acres

she is fleeting,
she is healed and whole,
she is looking for a love
as bright as the cotton candy sky,
she is looking for someone with a soul
as pink as the clouds tonight,
someone to watch the world with
as the sunset fades into midnight.

she is whole,
can be seen
just as she is,
she knows
he is not enough,
but she still wants him.

she is already organizing him
into the parts she will want
and the parts that won't work,
but you cannot have
half a person.

he is looking to be his whole self,
just for him,
he will not be kept,
he will not be categorized,
he will walk the land,
he will stop to stare
at the sky.

In the Heat of July

sugar baby pie,
I'd still live in all your lies,
falling into sparking eyes,
can't see through all this haze,
your eyes are grey just like the bay,
lingering in all my days,
I see them shining through the waves,

and you're my quartz below the sky,
I'd build a cottage in your lies,
staring to familiar eyes,
I'd take up all your days,
kiss your skin in all the ways,
learn to navigate this maze.

baby you've got me,
looking up at you,
wondering if this lust is true,
this sugary sweet daze,
killing me in all the ways,
in these slow and sparkling days.

my caramel baby pie,
I want you safe between my thighs,
we'll both be breathing in the sighs,
I'm wishing for your salty taste,
your fingers wrapped around my waist,
through your grey and sparkling eyes,
forgetting all these earthly lines.

your eyes are shining in the sky,
midnight lies between my thighs,
the bay glistening sparkling wet,
since the first day that we met.

Eyes Like the Bay

pretty guys with pretty lies,
reflections of oak leaves in their eyes,

your caramel skin,
that twinkling sin.

the more I try,
the more I find
so many traces
of familiar lines,

and you’re still
selling me,
your pretty lies,
and eyes,
and lines.

the bay is twinkling in time
with the rhythm of these lies,
the sun is shining high
making deeper all the lines,
and making pretty
all these times.

that sparkling sin
reflecting in
clouds whisking by,
across the sky,

within your grey-blue eyes
you sell the prettiest of lies.

Waning Moon

My heart is a cottage,
waves wish washing,
trees rustling,
loons calling in the night

My heart is an island,
gazing at stars,
fires crackling,
sand even in the bed sheets

My heart is a cottage,
moss-covered rocks,
oak leave silhouettes,
gardner snakes slithering

My heart is an island,
the waning moon shining,
midnight rhythm of the bay,
painted turtles bobbing heads

Goodbye City Lover

Our hearts are empty rooms,
You didn’t notice a single clue,
Sat alone to watch the city sunset,
Sky warm and ombre

You’ve been cabbage growing,
Ivy browning in the sun,
You’ve been shining in the blue light,
I hardly thought you were the one.

I asked for diamonds love,
But they weren’t enough,
I asked you to stop with the names,
But it took too long,

I asked for family,
But mine was broken:
A mean mother,
Ranting sister,
Dead father,
Wandered brother,
Selfish stepmother,
Pushover stepfather,
It won’t be you, love,
It won’t be you.

I may have been broken
But I’m healing now,
This apartment was our home,
but it’s empty rooms now.

Perfect limbs
In the golden light
Of the late afternoon,
Curled up head to toe,
It wasn’t enough
To save you.

Escaped, Got Away

The bay glitters in front of me,
The wind is calm, but cold.

Little successes:
An email sent
A half hour doing yoga

And little failures:
90+ messages, texts, and emails from you,
Mocking female empowerment,
Telling me I’m not strong,

Saying you want money for the earrings,
And the Netflix subscription.

You don’t matter as much
As the sound of the waves,
Calm and constant,
The moving of the trees and clouds
By the September wind.
It shuffles and shakes the leaves
All around me.

You still have your spot
Under the skin of my chest,
But the bay glitters in front of me,
The sand warms my calloused feet,
And on this island,
I am safe from you.

I finally left you,
while back home,
the bay glistened.

Do It, Don't

here i am tripping all over my feet again -
stop, you will stop, you will stop me.
here i am tripping all over my words again.
stop, you will stop me.

the life of a student is a sad one,
the life of a poet is a sad one,
the life of a lover is a sad one.

(you have taught me to want write to again,
i thought i'd never want
to write again).
she says, do it.
i say, no, i don't want to.

Extinguish the Sun

There was that one summer
When I tried to extinguish the sun
Was so determined
I could leave you,

But you only stayed burning.
You and me, hot red cheeks
Sweltering in the heat
Of a golden afternoon

That summer we tried
To extinguish the sun,
We thought we'd watch it,
As it turned right to ash

We tried to stop its bright burn,
But we are still waiting
For billions of years to pass -
And you warm me still.

The sun is golden this morning
As I scan the shoreline
And feel the heat of you,
Shield my eyes from your glow

How to write a poem

You have to start with where it hurts the most. And if it doesn't hurt you have to wait.

brain hurting mad.

What would you like me to be?
I’m trying real hard to be myself
And you don’t like it.
Lest I should forget that all my words
Too hard to swallow
Are the only things that tell me in all the lost of
North or South or West or East,
That I still am
And still am somewhere
That I don’t mind being at all.
What is the difference if you like it or not?
I picked a life to become
And you said you wanted me but now you’re making me
Chili-tied, wide-eyed, brain hurting mad.
I don’t want a single thing
that’s so brain hurting mad.
And especially why
Would I twist and try
To be less of what I only know
of who I simply am
For a simple man
with an embarrassing shortage
of a half simple plan.

Poor Dog

finally, at some point you're sitting in a room
with a bolstered, crass old man and he says to you,
"you're so fucking lost, it's a joke,
you'll never escape and if you're not careful,
you'll let them eat you.
they will continue to laugh at your stink
if don't start sneering more at them, or join them.
there are pictures of gods dancing on your fucking walls,
and you can't dance. there are stone rubbings in your bathroom
but they, fool, are not stone rubbings
because, as they'll tell you, that became illegal before you were born.
there are pictures of people on your walls that you consider to be key fragments
of your tired and nearly broken-down soul, and they don't even like you.
look -
here is a picture of your young-skinned, yellow-toothed mom,
here is a picture of your drunkenness,
here is a picture of the cigarettes,
here is a picture of your poorness,
here is a picture of your slobishness,
here is a picture of a man living gleefully between four very weak walls.
here is a scar from when you ran into a cement wall.
that's the only thing that isn't real. the only thing unsmellable.
here is a picture of the lust that didn't help,
and there is a picture of the love that will not save."

or maybe he'll say, after spitting out his whiskey on the ground,
"fuck, kid. there was a second there I thought I liked you."

A Portrait of the Young Woman Going Mad

The portraits we have of this artist, are photographs.
These photographs were taken (somewhere)
and were developed by the artist
herself. Only photographs.
Modern attempts to capture young woman's
nature are weighed down with
truth-like details (realities - insanity is a different type
of reality). The inability to sketch out what is not (important).
Portraits, only some of the time are apt at capturing madness.

The photographs you will see are infiltrated with descriptions
of the artist losing her mind. Some may attribute this madness
to lack of nutrition. Some may attribute it to an affliction
(intoxicated, starved, starving, desperate pain in her limbs
caused by a block of blood flow to her brain). If you look closely,
you can see. If you were to meet her (somewhere), you'd never ask.
You'd just look back at the photograph.

This artist's madness was in her hair. Her portrait was kept in a room
with precious treasures from land of the Orient.
If I were to take her portrait I'd do it in oils (given there existed money,
skill, time) Only a camera was available at this time.
A good artist steals (has been stolen, is stolen -
sometimes by reality, sometimes by the realities)
A good portrait of a woman or a woman going mad steals
(what you see is not truth, it is madness). Steal from her
that which was at one time and is at once.
Kill the moments that stole from her the right to be
so mind boggling insane. Her insanity is so.

She is not mad in all of these photographs. As you will see,
she is only mad in some. Losing the mind is a gradual process.
You will find that some of these portraits are slightly ambiguous.
You will have to decide for yourself when her mind goes.

Cock-heavy underneath things ---

You stumble into the room cow-heavy. I'm sure if this were a different time, I'd stick my head in the oven for you while you continued hanging your cock out of towels.
I hang out of my nightgown. That's my towel. I try to think past dizzy, night-screams.

Girls love getting fucked.
Stop talking to me, I'm randy.
Fuck you, you fucking cunt.
I can't think straight.
You could sit straight.
No.

I smoked a cigarette earlier. I know you can smell it. The heat, it doesn't let these smells escape us. Forty degree plus, in the second week of June. I know what it does to the stink, I've been down the street on garbage day, watching old ladies sort trash. I've been to your room.

Get closer; look me in the teeth,
vinatab-stained and crooked.

I'm reading and trying to write and I can see your cock rising. You're a strange breed, hopefully a poet.

Maybe when you're back from the gym,
I'll have found the reason I want you.
Maybe I'll be cleaner then;
Maybe I won't inadvertently say something abrupt, or suggestive, or awkward;
Maybe I won't guiltily think of that small cock I accidentally latched onto during my holiday from your drunken, dick-mouthed, slim-panted bed;
Maybe I won't barge into your room when you're sleeping next to that tree trunk of a baroness;

Won't breathe in the heat
of your dirty-underweared new bedroom.

You are a strange Scottish man with bug eyes and muscly arms. I think you're a beauty even though your beauty is all covered in grime. You're fucking twisted, looking up derogatory terms for every minority on the continents you've traveled but when we came up to lesbian, all you could think of was slut.

You can do better than that.
I'm going to break this fucking jar and eat your pickles.
Enjoy the glass as it cuts your throat.

I'd like to sit with you for hours, chugging back shots of the black label
you encouraged me to take more litres of.

Don't even think about drinking my whisky while I'm gone.
I need it to loosen me up so I can slander the world,
and then tell you that I'm absolutely partial to trees
and would never let you catch me near a fucking oven,
even if this country offered them to daily filth like you and I.

Coffee with Condensed Milk and Cigarettes

there's a sparrow in my head
somewhere
telling me
come home.

wouldn't that life be as brown
as his feathers?

exhaust fume headache,
she sighs.

she has three big pins in her head
and she is wondering about all of them.

one sits tightly behind her left ear,
digging into her neck.
one sits parallel to the downward cringe
of her right eyebrow,
just near her her hairline.
the last, between her eyes.

she does not know
how they got there,
but she is stacking the clues:

the empty field;
the men in matching clothes;
the imposed regime of rice.

(she makes weapons out of things now,
she once used as tools).

she takes each tiny
piece of rice

and glues it
carefully -
carefully,

over the scar
she got from straw.