After The Run

sweat beads down my forehead


trickles down my nose


splotches onto my clothes

A Slew of Lines

We were beautiful when we met.


Aging is the toll we pay

for the greatest gift.


Walls are nothing without a roof.

Shelter is a creature comfort.


My mind waits

for inspiration,

my hands write

without hesitation.


Fragments free of worry.

Hello[ ]Goodbye

fill it with jokes

fill it with promises

fill it with silence

fill it with embraces

fill it with tears

fill it with long days

fill it with short nights

fill it with beating sun

fill it with waiting

fill it with music

fill it with kisses

fill it with shared meals

fill it with evenings at home

fill it with your body in my arms

fill it with time

fill it with nothing

fill it, or don't

it doesn't matter

it will be

will be will

be

First & Last

When I wake the first
thing I do is look
for the right song
to play as my day begins.

I do this because
there is a tone that must
be set, though, this is not
always accomplished.

Some days deviate
wildly from the stated
thesis, others stay on mark
like an A+ paper.

As I get ready for sleep
I repeat the process
because of my belief
that music will effect

my dreams. I am not
certain that it has any
bearing on them but
I like to think it does.

In Her Room

She kept a painting of Christ, and the Pope,
on the wall opposite her bed.
Things had been hard,
the answers were always wrong.

How brave Christ was to die for us all,
but how did it help her now?
She was not yet dead, though, she could
feel the rot take hold.

Every now and then the Pope would
be in the news, the footage of him
would often be of him in St. Peter's
square delivering a homily or blessing.

How strange it must be to be the Pope,
she thought. No one else would be able
to understand the loneliness of divine power.
How often did the Pope hear God' voice?

What if that voice stopped speaking?
She prayed for him daily.
She always wondered if God, the angels,
and saints could hear her.

Affection

What will
possesses us

before we 
abandon it 

for a new 
whim?

I want you to feel beautiful.

Boundless Arrow

creating belief

Improvise a memory 
and write it down,
pass it off as truth.

Create the scene,
remember the tear
before it rolled down.

Tell everyone 
the story, fix narrative
into firm ground. 

Forget the truth of your
fiction, mourn deeply.
Illusory state of being.

You're too pretty to feel insecure.

We have grown older

but we haven't aged.

Selling The Past For Profit

Welcome to Summer

It was the first heat wave of summer to hit the city,

windows were open everywhere there wasn't an AC

unit. Fans recirculated hot air.


He was sick of sitting around the house and feeling

sweat for doing nothing at all. He put on a pair

of sandals and a shirt and walked out the door.


The key slid into the car door with no effort.

A small rush of hot air greeted him as he sat down.

The seatbelt clasp closed as he let the parking


brake go. There was a stretch of empty road by the

beach that was going to be perfect for this drive.

The dashboard said 11:16 p.m.

Losing Everything

The house collapses


like a punctured lung.


Wind scatters the remains.

When Present and Memory Disagree

We were young together
and then we were apart.

We are now old, though,
we are still apart.

Your beauty was a passing
phase, my vigor dissipated

with the years. My weathered
skin is best suited for use

as a handbag. Pictures and
memories turn away

from us and wonder who
we could possibly be.

Night Skies

A mechanical predator cuts through darkness,
hovering loudly as it scans back and forth,
back and forth, it's eyes peering through streets
and alleys as it hunts.

It wants you to know of its presence, wants you
to hear, become fearful. It's eyes will see what
it wants, will find its prey through direct action
and pure chance.

More Than Human

My skin began to itch one day

and I thought nothing of it.

I scratched for some relief,

but it persisted. Days

marched in file until they 

became weeks. I began 

to scratch harder and harder

until I drew blood. Soon, 

even that was not enough. 

One day I began to scratch 

past the pain of the blood, 

my skin began to crack 

at my arms. A black sheen 

peered back. I pulled my skin 

only to see more and more 

of it underneath. I touched it
and felt a furred luxuriousness.
I tore at myself until I could see
a pile of skin at my feet as
my body felt the ecstasy of relief. 

Every collapsed Utopia.

Boa

Constricting flesh

and air, 

the scene turns

to night,

falls away

to permanent

darkness.

She Is Not Your Wife

Faded pictures were scattered across the coffee table,

years and places reordered according to no chronology.

The half-empty glass was mostly filled with melting ice

that had diluted the brown liquor, the ashtray next to it

had not been emptied in days. He finished using the rest

room, flushed. He threw the old girlie magazine onto 

the couch, a few pictures blew off the table and landed

soundlessly onto the carpet, he didn't bother to pick them 

up. His back ached as he reached for the glass, his left 

hand shook a little. It used to worry him when it first

happened, now, he tried not to think about it. He poured

liquor to the brim of the tumbler before setting the bottle 

on the counter by the refrigerator. The couch was soft 

and yielding as he sat down, for a moment, it seemed 

to sigh. He dumped a shoebox full of pictures last night

after coming home from the tavern, he had been there

since he had left work. In the light he could see years 

spread across like confetti spilled out of a broken pinata

at a child's birthday party. There was a kind face that 

looked out from many of the pictures, an earnest smile,

eyes that spoke with precise clarity of heart. Children

were beginning to walk home from school, he could 

hear them outside. He locked eyes with a picture of her

at the beach, he could no longer hear the children.

     

Birth

This is a facsimile of thoughts

from a specific date on no specific

subject. The thought is incomplete


because the writer had planned on

jotting down a few words in hopes

it would jog memory the next time


it was read back from the hastily

scribbled piece of paper. Instead,

moments of frustration bloomed


in lieu of a full-term child. It could

not cry out, only move its grasping

hands for a world beyond its reach.

Always Lost

How did we lose Paradise? Was it through clerical

error? We weren't so good with bureaucracy and

paperwork, it often got in the way and made things

easier to be lost and forgotten. How did we not notice

the difference between the mortal and the divine?


Would we recognize its gates if we were to ever

pass through them again?

Write until your fingers bleed

and then keep going.

Uncertainty

I don't dream every night.

Have you heard

the fable of the dog

who stared at his reflection

in the water? He held

a bone in his mouth

thought to get the bone

in the reflection.

How foolish he was

to lose it all

for a passing complexion.

What am I saying

to myself right now?

Am I dreaming

these words,

the sensation of my hands

moving in time

with the words

in my mind?