(working title Mordor)

 Nothing but the grey effaces

That walk with me and

The bestial faces

Of the animals that shout at me

A prison of fools

an untutored school

I want to escape through that tiny hole

And let the movie run out on the ground

I tried to get the ashes off of my feet

Tried to save that wild dog

There were broken teeth of glass on the street

I saw yellow flowers of flame through the fog

I felt the weight of the world in my hand

Ten plus one in the chamber

The weight of mountains while I stand

My shadow belongs to a stranger

I’m thinking of you and your ocean eyes

A daughter of the wind and wild spaces

Beloved grower of flowers and secrete surprises

The works of a love that time never erases

Razvedka

 she makes her stately way

when the day is new and the sky is gray

her dark hair frames her fair face

as she floats above the ground with wispy grace

they say she'll not speak a word

unnoticed by fallen leaves and singing birds

sometimes if your voice she hears

she turns and smiles, then disappears.

small talk

 If we don't 

try harder,

all we have is

the jargon of now

marking time with 

"how are you?" 's

and the distance between

things 

like the shadows of

fence posts

as we go,

the unfelt 

"I love you" ''s

melting us away

until there is nothing

left to say.

We should and do

talk about anything,

the taste of 

that herb we 

can't remember the name of

the wild plants that live in Texas

the shape of Etruscan

pottery

Sometimes the now 

is plastic and 

broken

and it is the only 

thing that

keeps us from being

who we really are.

Just a sissy

My heart is not nearly as strong as

    my love for you

It's like trying to swim an ocean

   with just a pizza slice floatie

and a rubber ducky toe ring

 

  I live in a matchbox

in your purse.

It smells like sandalwood and rose oil

   chapstick and chewing gum

I'm all yours

When you hold me in your

   hands, I am a flower.

cover me in clouds and 

  kisses

   When your shadow 

covers me, 

 I feel mighty

Brutus Van Gogh

 

I am jealous of the lives of ordinary people

of their rolling achievements

if only there were a way to paint them

turn the light upon some of  these

common gardenias and 

 hold them still in the placid gold

One of the boys 

sitting next to me in the VA

had a tattoo of 

Barney the dinosaur on 

his ropey forearm

I want to know

I want to know why and 

what the fuck it means

My own scratchings are 

ugly dull and mostly free

never get a tattoo a judge 

is going to see

that's  what Dad said to me

There's a redhead down the hall

who looks as tough as a little truck

  but has little rainbows

and unicorns on her pelt

  The little pictures should make 

thinking people keep their distance

I went walking the other day

and a woman gasped a little

when she rounded the corner on me

I had a shirt on, but she 

probably saw what's 

under all this

bullshit

 

 A silky poet wrote

that Love is a Death Wish

  That hits like a pillowcase 

full of doorknobs

Love is about

turning yourself into a ghost?

Love is the destruction of 

your dreams and self delusion?

Love is that feeling I get 

when I feel you are there

even when you're far away.

twenty three and we

 

In the ground and stones 

there have been a hundred cities

so why then, do we keep looking

for a home

Over in that place, they speak

of the crimes of the blood

oppression, enslavement,

violation, 

   da da da

those who win are

the ones who whine

in this parlor game we call 

history

it is said that the suffering of 

your people is locked 

into our bones, the crushing

push of the slaver's chain

the terror of annihilation

but nobody talks of the

joy 

of the Bacchanal or the

sacred orgy

of the victorious swell of the heart

standing over the mangled 

bodies of our foes

the evening visit of perfumed 

ladies seeking the sweat and

cock of the gladiator

Some there are who

keep talking about chains and 

the whip

 forgetting that you are also the 

hand that wields it and locks it