German shepherd

As you led a dying bird

on the back of your

throat,

to a stream of water

and I could not bend

my tongue outwards

to bite how much I

love you, not

bark.

Or a paper cut as shallow

As it smells the last page on a book

as exact as the first one.

Like drawn to it. You moth to flame

tell me is it you or is it we.

Like undone, I dog to bone bitting not

barking at these jagged walls

your collar bones. My jaded bones

your treasured pearls. And words

for you in the afternoon. How slow

your iced tea and your periods

and your sinking in as I disappear.

Like hair, spit, like hallmarks

Sleep, combining death and tourism

as furniture discloses itself

Undressing now, like an apprentice

matador as distance equals time in flames.

We're both naked. Drinking like a house on fire.

I had never slept in a bed before.

Grasping knowledge from chairscapes

all too new and sudden were sheets.

Now you are naked and I have been here

before. This skin is rust and a phrenological

map of rooms in myself, into the lining of my coat.

The white handkerchief stuck in my throat.

Pirate ship with a broken mast bending space

and forgotten words coming from somewhere

else meaning absolutely everything.

Shelf Life

Talking about the days eyes

pink, herbaceous, double blooms

and the kingdom of bondmen

or the use of weird [fate] ziplock.

The canny lasses pass us by

leaving faint traces of smile.

We are interesting mannerisms

to the eyes of night, in the mixed

behavior of genetic produce or

lait caillé, MA. Dust settling on

a lightbulb in the supermarket aisle

[dreams of pushing my son around

canned food that does not expire].

Smoldering tobacco trance, the waltz

of fumes and days like old jewels

laying there as if digesting mice.

Expiry dated, unadulterated good,

a chapter of bringing charm to nether

perfected as the summer ends, sibilant

in the dairy section of a ghostly train.

Obviousness

Things speakable and things

unspeakable, untiring and

un-painful strife, battles and

slaughterings of men. Piercing

[cries?] of horses, mortals [on

the beach?] warms good things

[mixed?] with evil... two to me

both. Gold greatly angered being

burned by blazing fire, having

kindled. Sea-faring the wave

[or the noisy sea?] in war and

might. One after the other and

these things... Gold.

I never talk to strangers

Era você que cheirava cola a beira-mar e

me oferecia o paraíso numa latinha de Coca-Cola?

If yes, onde estão os meus 100 dólares pela uma

hora de conversa, Sing-Sing?

Questions of matter

What is it you like, short legs,

keeping my arm from moving

like that, in groins or your head?

Was is it you want, red head,

when you move in closer to

the warm palm of my hand?

What is it you do, upper lip,

when you open up in smile

not telling me the real kick?

What is it you are, John Keats,

always there in my throat

like a lump of meat?

Whatever you are, these things,

questions of flesh, blurred vision of old?

I'll have to find out by another means.

Breakfast

Here we are - 135 north 5th St.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York,

for your first heap of freshly picked

strawberries from south Jersey

and 2 eggs, any style. maybe Benedict,

and a side of grits. Above Mason-Dixon

caramelized grape-fruit with mint.

Some milk? Dairy or Mimosas? You

do like sparkling things [this month?]. I know,

fig jam and brioche. Few words for breakfast

and something about the light in June. "I'm

not hungry" - I frown as you examine the

plate for any leftover food. I'm hot, I'm

the dad [the silent type]. And you look

lovely today, napkin on your lap, as the

sun flickers over the butter knife.

You know who I am

You do right? Time and walking lengths

some of the fear of Spain, you have none,

you chose the living, at a very young age.

Who is leading anyway? The dog or thee.

The very understanding of the world, me

the cloud-dump, the cancerous lung the

vent frais of yet another matin inbred.

You know who I am and you like that

and I like that, oh how I like that. You

know it by heart, and the shape of recasts

regurgitate. For me, at me, from to place

is now, peut-être. You know me. Maybe

you do. I have the dead, you eat them,

your move, but I guess I ate them too.

You know who I am, this winter icing

over powderburn [that was confessing]

to the crime I've earned. Guilty to have

led you here, turbulent, induced body,

translator of one language to other than me.

You know who I am, nickel and sweat and

copper. C'era una volta, you know that too.

You know who I am and I like that your seas

are as black and as deep as the ones I can be

in this place where I am and you know who.

About face

Drizzle would work for Keats, I'm sure.

A beautiful thing made more beautiful

by being reflected and put in a mist.

Drizzle, I shivered. So hard there were two

of me. In lanes came virgins in track suits,

headed towards a rose garden where no bike

would dare enter neither would we.

The thought had crossed my mind

already poisoned by the lead infected

water fountain which I drank from,

where I drowned once, twice and before.

Am I talking about the weather?

Invisibility could be our personal forever

Or am I talking about myself and you?

In your knapsack, a book full of vowels

[that's what you sang about yourself].

That is what I have in my sang, the I's

the O's, the E's and U's. Not an A in sight.

But I can't see Scotland from here, no,

nor do we merely feel it for too short are hours.

"Thy lyre shall never have a slackened string"

Crosses the mind of one running virgin

headed towards that rose garden where

Apollo is said to be resting, not you.

I'm loose myself, my spirit flies before me.

But comes back in your gentle squeeze

in your golden hair, in your golden fire.

Thy lyre shall forever invisibly whisper to me.

Drizzle works for Keats, I'm sure. A kind of mirror

and mist in one without making any distinction.

I could deal with that, I could. This beautiful thing

made more beautiful by being reflected and put in

a mist. I am not a virgin [as pointed out over breakfast].

I maybe a belle dame sans merci. No, not really, no.

See, what I'm trying to say here dear Keats is

something about the weather and that rose garden

something about that bike and something about

you and the invisibility of slackened strings and I.

Am I talking about the weather? Maybe the image

in a ditch turned mirror by water [poisoned with lead]

is really more beautiful in reflection and mist.

Or maybe I love you and that's just what it is.

There, I said it, Keats.

Torture

is a few days. the waiting

to be in you for a month

set to vibrate, watches

closely as the screen fades.

Is also sick. At least,

struck silent. Prior to crucifixion

[nothing rhymes with month]

if conducted in secret.

Alive and unmarked

victim. What good is it

the damaging position?

Take it.

here's my confession

inflicted.

The woods

Now that the night begins, there's

Something you're not telling me.

I speak of foolish things

Like lyrical evocations or

the very sense of kitchen at 4 a.m.

Here's my tongue for a word

Skin me. Get rid of the fur.

Watch the juices gush, the body drain

to the center of the flesh eating earth.

Obscure oracles came to me, three.

You know the story by heart, remind me

Double, double, toil and trouble.

Your grey pants too tight and your hip

down in the lake of my favorite question

I am called sleep, hesitation and so on

down your throat as your hands fumble.

Tell me off in your silent speech

a coward covered in hair, whatever

splits or breaks like glass infected pathos

torn between the clock and the bed

between waking and sleep. My clock, your bed.

I bring bad weather

Yours is paler than grass, twig of willow.

The light wasn't helping either

Nor did that night, equilateral heart.

In lambent silver, a delicate knuckle fight

I'll touch yours, you'll touch mine

paler than grass, kindling willow.

Leave me some of your mother's tongue

And allow me in your binding Eos

So we can always undress in the dark.

Wrap me in limbs, igneous willow

Ignore the weeping in our first name

and the ashen breath of our little death pyre.

You're pale again weeping willow,

no wind now, left to squirm in the mire.

And yes, I forgot to mention the rain.

Dear Weldon,

The ground here is wet and the sun is always set.

So, maybe, words sprout like moss, close together in clumps or mats.

Moss is found in areas of dampness and low light.

Words are found in between whites.

This, dear, is a stone cold fact.

You either do this or you choose to do that.

So I try with all my might to choose words over blight.

*

This water...

I'm afraid of it for I can't see into it.

When you weight into it

It's like being dismembered.

No fish dwell in it as far as I remember.

For half of it is the sky.

To a Here and a There

An analysis of space leads us not to a here and a there,

but to an extension such as that which relates here and there.

Or rather crudely - space is not a lot of points close together;

it is a lot of distances interlocked.

These distances, no matter how interlocked they are,

are nonetheless distances. Distance may refer to a physical length,

or an estimation based on other criteria.

In most cases, distance from A to B is interchangeable with

distance between B and A. In most cases.

And there, in the distance, not a promised land, but the in-between,

the waiting that happens in the space between one e-mail and the next,

one trip overseas and the next. Midnight January, February, May...

It can go on for years, the way we move through time and space.

But,

tell me we'll never get used to it.

And when I say this, it should mean laughter, not poison.

Ariel haunted

They are drawn naked,

some with penises,

tormented by storms,

tied to trees,

and eviscerated.

Redacted Stage Directions

[There is a suitcase sleeping beside that mattress I'll call

my bed, there's also a morning standing at about two hours

away from this scene]. Exit stage, wrong:

- Twice today, I had the impression of being home.

Maybe the weather... Dunno. [Walks around. Still alive].

The exit signs blink for a second. As if the building knew.

From Cowboy Mouth

I mean I can't be the saint people dream of now.

People want a street angel.

They want a saint but with a cowboy mouth.

Somebody to get off on

when they can't get off on themselves.

The Genius of Kander & Ebb

I don't care much, go or stay, I don't care very much

Either way.

Hearts grow hard on a windy street, lips grow cold

with the rent to meet. So if you kiss me, if we touch,

Warning's fair, I don't care very much.

I don't care much, go or stay, I don't care very much

Either way.

Words sound false when your coat's too thin

feet don't waltz when the roof caves in.

So if you kiss me, if we touch, I don't care very much.

I don't care.