night is here thank the heavens
your face in my mind quiet and rough
your hands calloused from life
your breath with no warmth
language rusted in your throat
the times are changing a Dylan song
you’d hum on your side of the room
i was not unique enough to worship
your love the accolades of poets
smithing words then catapulted into skies
to let the satellite cast your ego widely
and now we’re old but i not enough yet
the patina of good living never tarnished me
i too have a room no satellite just memory
no accolades just words fertile with thoughts to be
Loss
cyber Monday
cyber Monday tired long drive
random Target children crying wanting
mothers sighing fathers walking behind
cops strolling looking for something
not in particular looking plain
inside partly broken hard times
we all stare out far
our thoughts hidden polite smiles
riddled with worries this that
crimes in our head saddened
skies blue clouds fluffy right
still deepening in the heart
a desire to be upright
while looking inside of grief
snow is fake elves shelved
Palestine hurts Israel bleeds here
America sinks as she steps
on heads backs shoulders hands
the people we hang dangling
Betty Crocker’s ads cannot repair
the damage of those here
walking shopping pretending most wonderfully
to be free to do
to love to speak openly
but we’re not just drowning
underneath raging mad correspondents with
all the lies that linger
here at a random Target
on cyber Monday we are
como las muchachas
la dulcura de tu cuerpo
finalmente me mato
por las noches ciega por la fogata
camino sin orientacion
ciega por las calles locas
mis ojos cerrados miran
mi alma morir una vez mas
con cada suspiro de la luna
el la selva de la Broadway
despues de la media noche
las animas de las muchachas
salen a bailar
como si fuera 1942
con sus peinados y labios llenos
de vacio infernal
transformation
i miss you
the smirk when you’d teased me
the boyish giggle
the curls on your forehead
i miss your hands
constantly incessantly writing smithing your tales
i miss the weather your shoes and hunters coat
the Italian deli and posing on Kerouac’s road
i miss following you into those portals of City Lights you and i there
when Allen died
i think he became a butterfly
i miss your passions for beauty the people and their pain
i miss Sunday morning sipping coffee at La Boheme thinking of ways to make you love me the way that you loved them
my heart my soul in silent pain it was so much so that i couldn’t see where my place in the world was
i’d like to think it was in all the flowers that you lay your eyes on
for the Parrot
esperare la mañana
skyline in November
when you died four days went by
until the living souls found you
grimace on your face and in the spirit comfort
you are gone sometimes awake at dawn i wonder where you are up in the skyline of the last picture i took
on our first train trip together
poetic in your cries for help you were
you’d cuss us out scream in ignorant hatred
then you’d say “you want a porkchop”
when soul one called it took 3 minutes
i thanked her she thanked me
we hung up wrote your final moments
as an incident report
no more angry calls or wasted lies
no more interrogations with misty eyes
about why the demons at your door don’t show themselves for me
i do remember our trip to Mickey Ds
you wanted cheeseburgers and OJ
we got our order and took our seats
while your eyes fled off in wonder
i did not know it then although sometimes i knew
that the more i pushed you to live
the deeper you fell into the belief
that your troubles would be over
after you visited the other side of that skyline in November
in our face looking
running from time outside
chased by ruin and stain
deep a vault secrets
tell of themselves
two lights we are
far apart unexplained
Horus sees his eyes
in our face looking
inward by the outward pull
p312
no here no there
no peace no air
just You watching me
revolting soul both knees
weak frail not knowing
but understanding too well
madness only You see
me gone from clay
breath taken given away
slave to this world
pollution no control ugliness
takes its righteous toll
energy in the black
energy in the white
dark horse pale horse
hurry to my jail
rush me through valleys
carry me on the
trails leading to something
unimaginable star nova supreme
last night heard screams
tis was i son
for MP find peace, brother
i knew the rainbow
im not ready to write that poem about pride i want to hold on to the last withering rainbow tufts of our youth
even as society judged you even as i relied on you as your own life hung over the cliff you gave me love
im not ever going to write about the goddamned rainbow and flags and house music and all of what you were pigeon holed into
i ache for you when i see a live pulse in the inside of my scared split wrist
i feel burning shame as if i could only gut myself out the several times you bought my junk when you needed life extending medicine
no i cant write about the marches and those vigils and political farces when i miss you so much
you were my mother my father my sister my brother my protector my guide you were my life choice accountant my guardian my saint
remember the time i was raped and you found them out and morphed into holy rage for a moment hell closed up while your fists rained down fury upon them we both wept
remember the morning when i knocked on your door and your mother answered with a face wet with Mary’s eye dew
from behind your favorite Japanese screen you called to me wondering if i brought you Thai iced tea
i navigated my shock to see your skin and bones when two weeks ago you wine and dined with joy at the Tenderloin
you said come kiss the queen and as i neared the top of your hand lowering my lips to your cool forehead
i melted next to your neck and received the final tear from your left eye and i knew the rainbow wouldn’t ever light my path again
*for Asa, i miss you so much friend say hello to Freddie for me
anticipation haiku
the thoughts are balled up
pulsating and cruel they come
tonight my eyes weep
words less spoken 