how to play for keeps for just how long do we remainourselves when summer ends?how pass the sprawling hours intocalendar days and now (in june we broke because we could) we fumble to amends?there’s something in the brain that leaveslike gold slipped through a sieve.the crabs have caught our toes and no, don’t shake them freedon’t whisper like you do,perchance the sea misgives.and what betrays the high tides?another lie? a chardonnay at one a.m.,hotel rooms and discarded ties?these hallways, bread crum trails of hearts leave bloody carpets,indentations in the skin and allthese half-baked consu
666 Everlasting Lives He’s a loiterer, entering the room with soft smoke-stack eyes and a releaseof lazy formaldehyde from his cigarette. Death in his pocket and bloodin her veins that wants to taste danger. He comes to the kitchen just as the powergoes out and the television snaps into darkness. Match strikes (her life is an electricwasteland) The corpses of their kisses are preserved in the woodwork, eyes openand staring at the ceiling. The dead darkness says: we lose opportunities. We ache.It’s taken fifty two sips of Pepto Bismol this month to try to cure the stomach acheshe feels when he kiss
Icarus Eats at Joe's Diner French fries in the pouring rain, cheese and gravy, split the bill.Say something about howMotown music is overrated butshake your shoulders anyway.And make a wish on our three cents ofchange because all of the trains aresleeping in their stations. All thingsmove to rot, the milk that’s three daysspoiled, the cake that’s gotten stale.We’re foiled again, we’re at Joe’s again, making airplanes out of napkins and packets of sweet and low.Aretha says she ain’t nothing butyour fool.I say we’re done with diners.I will salvage sugar from the cracks in our kitchen floor.I will flip
Positionary Tale She is dancing on tiptoeen pointe when she sees the clowns purse theirartificial lips to whistleinto the nightshe isn’t supposed to be here past midnightbut the allure is toogreat and the clownsteach her the ways they positionfeet face torso one leg over other arm in airItaly at night throws romance over watersand unparallel rooftopsand when she listensit feels aerial and whimsical like awaltzsecond arm uplean forwardturn sideways chin uplie on your back and try bending tumblethe twilight whips aroundher and hits her on her thighs and her hipsquickly, lingering for maybe a m
The Anti-Dedication You're sixty-four years old and livingin pixel-perfect technicolor in a universeyou created where there's some kind of conspiracy about the rainforest or what'sleft of it anyway-- who'll own it,Macintosh or Microsoft. They ask you totake a quick look-see and judge for yourself.So it's a long trek through the forest,greeting the bulldozer men on theircoffee break, moving with the calculateddeliberation of the sloth several thousand feetabove you. It's a stroll at first, soon a light jog, but it doesn't take long to become athere-are-wild-animals-chasing-me-and-I-like-my-ass-where-it-is-thanks b
Autobiology You shoot me in the headwhen I oversleep, move thecradle of the gun from yourfingers to mine and spendtwo hours mimicking theexact dip and curl of myhandwriting.And you flee the scene andlight your evening bycoiling gas lines andcursing the fact that Ikept a garden until theday I died.inside me when the reactionsstop I find that there arestill scorch marks on myskin and the man at the gate of heaven thinksI’ll burn whatever lives.so the angels chain me toa swingset where I can onlyfly as far as my ass can carryme, and water pools with industrial waste at my feet.there’s pollen and gunp
Haiku frosted octoberkeeps rivers stalled at the seawe’re landlocked like this.
Castaway Sings Love Song There comes a time cast in September’s seaDesirous and near drowning in the windBy chance just strong enough to carry meAcross the muddled mornings that beginWith pigtail braids and lipstick smeared and softThat tracks our histories in skin’s slight hollowsFor love, like stars, we hoist the sails aloftAnd every trail the dead men spin, we followBut never in mornings have I thoughtOf golds and purples strung around the neckThe devil grown within me, I have caughtAnd trapped within the boughs of this ship’s wreck But I have kept some mutterings and swears Undone like faded ribbons in my hair
Sta.sh
