harvest

weekends of pleasant distraction and distant dissent

explaining my religion to the son of a preacher man

through telephone wires, but he already has his sorries

lifted from a proud chest and picks pennies from my eyes

a harvest of bright and bounty. he whispered in my electronic ear

i followed your small words for a month, the month after i left

and i wonder, how many months are left in you?

your tabs that my phone thinks i like to see

feed me reiterations of feeds i’m reading

please tell me it’s because you feel nothing and want something

tell me your heart sings while it is throwing up in an enflamed elevator

tell my you’re wrong and not sorry but you’re ready - i’ll tell you i spent my time waiting

by dancing in the autumn leaves, my petticoat, perfect flower blooming at the tops of stairways

and they are strong enough to carry me flights and fights, to leap, lovely, open the tops of skylines

spindles tickling toes, but what ten tender tendrils want is to splay, displayed and perfect

on your sheepish skins.

warm flop

i love you and i know

you are tired but you still

tend to abused bruises

in the concave tabernacle

of your bathroom

and you lay me open with

hard healing hands, say

we never need to be sorry

your hands heal

they are old and you use them

to dry my back and you say

you'll catch your death of cold like this

and you ask who he is and i ask

who who is and you give me the look

you have given me fifty seven times

and i say you are crazy but you know

how many ways this road goes

rituals

i am certain my true love

is an aquarius.

i do not know when

my shower head was born, but

as an air sign with a cold empty house

we get along far too well to

ever be apart

i don't need to justify anything

do you spend your days walking and withering and wondering

how do i get the guilt lines from my face, sorries from my wrinkles?

i can take your fingers and put them near my fingers and show you the in between:

it is the wheat penny

you can rub it and you will think of america

it is lost but it is warm and it is okay

the stalks of wheat are oxidized but triumphant, forgiving

we say together oh hello hallow wheaties

we hear her trumpets call

and we don't need to be sorry about anything

we are missing the men who take magic from young girls dress

and we know they know we think they

shouldn't be sorry about anything

we love our long lipped harborers of hearts

and we think they know we think they

should never ever ever have to be sorry

the wheat penny is a totem with variables

dali had the back of his wife

and her, her ten tiny hanging bulbs

and i wipe the silver air off antlers

and horseshoe crabs off drift wood and

i think about america

it is cold and edgy but it is nothing

and never has to be sorry

the shame spiral

my shame spiral starts with a top drawer

makes a detour to our footstool

and tapers to the tops of toes

the only thing is

it is recursive

and she, flips over again

until my room is all upside down

and repeating myself to turn sand sides

where do you want it?

i want you in the rays of sunshine

that fall on my bed in the morning

we can stretch our limbs together

and feel sugar racing through our veins

beating against gravity

i want you in a big bigger pot

the best one. it is thick and

white and has naked greeks

on it for reasons of credibility.

everyone will know you are a

worthwhile plant if you are

rooted in classic phalluses

i want you like you want water

i want you to want me like water

i want to want water like i want you

i want you in my homework

i have no control but, would

love you as my science project.

i will tilt my cassette player into

your bowl and see what music makes

little leaves tremble.

that old chestnut

sweet bellied baby

let's get back to boring

my eyes have been so

wide for too long

trying on excited

is just so tiring,

hard backed honey

let's stay in our song

stubbly lipped darling

let's backtrack to stagnant

you know i can't love you

i know that you care

but remove my new clothes

you sweet bellied baby

and my thighs will find

an old home for you there

hello hollow hallow

the second best whistler in the city

wore his skeleton like a victory

you're a psycho

i wake up and

my body takes nothing

my veins are so calm that's

how i found out it's wrong

it's not a panic attack

i'm just in attack mode

and when i take my time

not with timelines or lines

its prime time thighs and

high blithe hips unwinding

and it's fine find me twisted

all tied in your binding

i'm heading ahead like

heads of lettuce in bedding

let us rush in and

i'll be russian dressing

don't you worry i

saved all my hurry

for someone who

can hurry up too

we'll press fast forward and

head more toward

a home like us non psychos do

you're out of excuses

and don't think your clueless

i know who got to

have you clued in

so don't think your planning

will give you a hand in

releasing the jam that

you jammed yourself in

what i'm thinking is if

you stay put without blinking

the thing that you think

is so great is unwilling

and unwitting is fitting

but if you get found out

i'll hear all your shouting

but can't help the drowning

what a gay ass pantoum

i want to take the world by storm

but only from my bed

this need to be so nice and warm

will not escape my head

but only from my bed

can i hear voices of our dreams

will not escape my head

now, i keep them bursting at the seams

can i hear voices of our dreams

within any other bedding

no, i keep them bursting at the seams

they'll explode me where i'm heading

RE: 1

synthesize touch/sight

seeing neon non petals

open behind closed

eyes. electrifying

legs slick shaved down

a first time for fall

and i press them against

your back i think about

all the layers it took

between getting here.

smell me smelling of

rain and leather, and

a weather and half hour permitting

you want to help me and you take

take my hand and it is small and

smooth and warm and yours is

big and cold and hard but it feels

like mine and its no surprise that when

i peer into where you keep your secrets

i say i love you and i'm not sorry we don't

need to be sorry and you take

take my hand and i feel like i'm

crossing the street but when i get there

there is no earthquake now but it is still

the same fuzzy humble low moan just

holding me under like a corduroy pillow

x-ray

some days

you find videos

on the internet

of an ex lover

playing a song

from when

you spent

your first night

together

and some girl

is singing it

with him

in a guitar center

and you reread

and reread and

you know

that people change

but don't forget

the rest

how to fold cardboard in three easy steps:

1. fold

2. rest

3. rest

i have been

i have been

many people to you

please believe

they have all been true

some days

you eat goat and wonder in the rain

why i should be walking under awnings

you honey blonde baby

when she stared at herself in the mirror

her skin glowed like honeycomb

her hair stared back from ants in amber.

her breast hung like a happy hammock

vacationed, ethereal, white cotton woven

waiting for swinging on seasons and seasons

boo please back to action, a boomerang boon

come again

tuffets a pubes.

buckets a lube.

no greater

the space between us

is no greater than

air containing galaxies

or

the holes of our pores

the daze blur

we are good at sleeping

it helps me forget

he is somewhere else

and you can't remember

that i cannot be here

not really

panic: calm

our religion has a call and response

'i’m so sorry about everything'

'you don’t have to be sorry about anything'

sometimes we switch parts

but there is always sandalwood swinging between us

i walk through between around linoleum tiles

so white. sucking me in

i rub the relic of our religion

it is a wheat penny

fondling the stalks, think about america

it is wide and yellow, asleep and nothing

in my dreams there are vampires

they tell me i suck blood, i am a vampire too

no no, i say, i just drink ginger ale and eat gram crackers

in a recovery room with a dopey grin on my face

sucking that hard is against my religion

nobody has to be sorry about anything

i offer them ginger ale and gram crackers

but they think i should go to a vampire party instead

i politely decline and spend the rest of my dreams in bed

art of losing blah blah

i have gotten so good

at losing things

that they are gone

well before arrival

still, i walk in slow circles

pacing eulogies, wearing soles

making sure that the things

that never knew they were

feel some beauty, love

and let stardust sprinkle

sleep in stillborn eyes

candidate for worst ever

on the night she was born

the room was cold

and she thought

about the gifts shed return

for a blanket

say it's so

take all your fatigue

lay it down on me

like a lead blanket

i’ll be so still

keep me where you want

i won’t say one word

until you told me

to speak i will

it was a nice day

write a nice poem for jeff will ya?

you depressed sack of shit

mature

poop hole pooed in poo pool

honkey

i hope all the trumpets and colors and dancing and crisp air

were a distraction for you

but sometimes i think

you need a distraction from

colorful, blaring, dancing, fresh fall me. i am wanting and living too much.