I write so much poetry these days. Seriously.
Why are you dancing, or: I wrote this without looking at the paper
[the] diamonds I look through
swirl and blur,
harlequin quilt shapes like Dalí bricks,
haphazard window structures hiding green eyes as your fingers
flee along steel corridors long since boarded over.
[the] holes are almost small enough to step through,
onto rough gravel churned a thousand times by building tools
and tank treads.
[the] rusted girders bend like bones in vinegar,
like osteoporosis set in early
with no hope for a cure.
[the]
ruins are cordoned off by velvet ropes, with gilded end caps
and rope ladders reaching to nowhere.
Witness: rock chimneys blowing human smoke rings
across an orange river-city with
moth-flocked streetlights, abandoned rail ties,
and black venom oil spills that no one [ever] sees.
end times
All the stars fell from the sky,
so we made our own by burning paper
crushing fireflies
into Day-Glo footprints—
step in my shoes and take my hand,
and we can traipse through
the Milky Way,
relighting distant suns and getting
lost in the swirling nebula maelstrom.
I will fall asleep with you in my arms,
watching the suns behind your
eyelids as they burn,
and I will wonder what grand sacrifice I must have made
in a past life to deserve you.
There is a woman, carved all of
oaken and pine.
sap glistening in the corner of her eyes;
and from our fire a spark will
alight on her finger,
and she will burst into a million licking flames
(dancing in poplar shadows and keeping time
to a volcano heartbeat).
Second time, same as the first.
A jig in 4/4 time but I cannot figure
how to dance along.
The newness of the beat is stamping gleefully on my toes
and folding my fingers into origami,
and its chaotic score is pushing me out the door
into a new life on the street.
Something unexpected, or: the turtle around your neck is holding the world on its back
The angles of the stairwell match the cut
of your hair.
(Looking up from inside a guitar, with the strings like jailbars across your face--
but who is inside and who is out?)
What's in your head, in your head,
zombie, zombie, zombie?
Are you asking me?
Because I could tell you:
on my mind is a kiss while you climbed over that fence,
your blue shirt waving like a flag
as we monkey-scramble towards the bright clouds;
on my mind is the way those ripped jeans stretch over your legs
like industrial solvents melting through to your bones.
On my mind is the chorus gathered 'round the piano,
and I feel very 30's.
It's swing night;
will you come into my arms?
You can wear a polka-dotted dress, with a black sash
and leather pumps,
and I will be splendid in my pinstriped suit--"very Mafia"
you whisper against my cheek as we whirl,
and then you rest your chin on my shoulder.
The night is still young (when we leave the dancefloor,
and flee barefooted to the forest),
and so I still have time to gather my courage.
But if this is a continuum,
and we are quantum lines,
we won't intersect.
Someone else is doing the math,
so my rules don't apply.
The stardust that falls by the wayside
will be scooped up with my empty milkbottles in the morning,
and the doorstop will be vacant by the time I am ready for breakfast.
Lots more
here.
