hold
your breath
easy now
that’s good like that
i like it when you
tense up and move wildly
oh see there the moon blushes
together let’s hold the dam back
slow down some don’t give in too quickly
in a few moments the lightning will strike
Chinatown
my Paul
just tonight can we stare at the lamp lights
gleaming on the surface of the puddles in the street
tonight ange triste will you stand still
so as to peer upon your waifly silhouette
without it floating from my bandaged hands
can i be your Paul and place my ear atop your heart
and etch in little kisses i love you on the
renegade palpitations there about
tonight no wine no smokes no laughing hard
no sucker punches no living the life no mosher pits
no altered minds
just a little silence with you ange betwixt my arms
instead of me amidst your legs
you don’t always have to run away scared little bird
pecker and picker of my nerves and priestess of my vacuumed
universe
one time before i leave and i lose you to the vampires
stolen nectar
you blue humming bird
i orange blossom opened
satisfied you go
Aaron
when our palms met
that balmy Chinatown night
a little lost canary
from the corner pet shop
sang a melancholic cord
switching his little face
from right to left
he looked at me
and flew away
i had fallen in love
the kind of love
that makes you scrutinize
your breath your weight and even your thoughts
the kind where
you leave your beloved
friends pets and dishes
behind just to think about him
the kind of love
that makes you check your phone
fifty times at two in the morning
you know the kind you lose
your soul to in the encasing darkness
and nothing feels the same
distilled death and i churn my spirit
but you danced with me
for a few years
you are no longer Aaron
i am no longer me
i don’t recognize my smile
its erased forever in your cusp
my heart has melted away in your hypocrisy
my common sense buried under your peach tree
and Aaron he no longer lives here
and i don’t recognize
the song of the canary anymore
complication
tempt
me now
your raw heat
on my begging
lips tickle softly scrape my skin with your
chin take your fingers pulse them low inside
let’s look away
nothing lost
when the
heart
is
broken
tossed in the
rain of remorse
pelvis to pelvis we dance on the floor
desperately clinging to whatever
we should forsake
to avoid
being
loved
unlike Joanie and Chachi
the side of your salty neck
was black with my eyeliner
your purple nails tore at my back
while i tried to pull down my pants
you had insisted on wearing your dad’s kilt
to a Circle Jerks recital
and with breathless whispers we gave up
i pulled up and you pulled down
but as a consolation prize
you let me grope your jockey ass
as the first riff of
“I just want some skank” started
Wm. Mead, holmes
Photo by Hunter Kerhart
the blinking sun saw
lines weighed with school uniforms
clothes of mechanics
kids pink and purple sneakers
mail boxes stuffed with worry
alternative ending
a wishing well
the red door smokey
music of any generation blares
curtains coil in the caress of night
the sunken eyes cheeks moist with the dew
truth you are a liar gospel im lying to myelf
regrets im sure the devil had some scorn ive had my share
smoke puff he loves me ash flick he loves me not
clinking glasses last call some hearts stutter
can i bum a cigarette another asks halo moon
bamboo jade blackflag germs window mirror
fleeting time biting nails taxi drive
the way of good intention blocked
to the tunnel one more time
flick flick flick shoot
i guess i love me not
tiny dust bowl doll
hey, Adam Smith?
drops of rain fall hard
red sweater by the side of
the road crushing cans
mad house
in a mad house i shoo my heart away
i don’t know why i stay
in the hope that you will feel
or think in your head to
need me
the yellow of the walls
suffocates me; I get held
down against my will
but it is not yellow
it is dimness and fear
i see a tender brook out
of my third eye window
and the idea that i could
be free is unsettling
for letting you go
means being without
in my head i look into
my eyes and i see empty
inky dread such a quick sand terror
in the night where did you go
from me
madness at all hours
stuns me; soothes me; makes me weep
cruelty beyond all naturalness
of human spirit
the cell is silent
the day is come
the brook is muddy
