give and take

they want it from me
they taste my way
they feel my words
they steal me away
they wear different faces
they say their own piece
they feed me tomatoes
they find some release
they take me from me
they know that i’ll give
they milk me for moments
i’m learning to live
we meet in the mornings
we walk in the street
we drift through each other
we sit in our seats
we build this together
i forget sometimes
equations are equal
this isn’t mine

samsara

every day
it happens
eyes open
head hits the ground
running
here again! and hungry
give my brain a banana
see if it's satisfied
every morning
i'm amazed
at the crust in my eyes
and breathing
while the cat sniffs
my face
every day
it happens
until one day
it won't

morning meditation

sit
in stillness

find the Bo
in breath

draw air
into grey

bring peace
into noise

forms

i don't want to be a geyser
flashing in and out of notice
everybody either waiting or forgetting
until - oh!
and then - oh...
it's not the fountain life for me,
either. all that consistency
and peaceful put-togetherness
and so it flows - ahh
and tomorrow again - ahh...
i would volunteer to be the ocean
but when i peek my head beneath
the waves, the depths strike fear in me.
i shiver
i surface
rivers - too poetic
whirlpools - too nihilistic
lakes too rife with mystery
sewers too unsanitary
it's easy to forget the water in me
formed in the shape of a human being
i start yearning for greater liquidity
forgetting the moon has its way with me

art if facts

i fooled myself to looking on creation
as something greater than distraction
it was a good trick
had me going
getting tangled
in a hedge maze made of legacies
all my artifacts in shelves and files
the things that humans
left behind for me

writing is no Titan, friend-
it's just another obstacle to
getting something else done
it comes down to a matter
of how you'd rather fritter
whither and whether you care to
leave behind an artifact
for someone else
to find
down the line

scrap paper

mountains miles deep and where am I?
dodesukaden dodesukaden
tunneling through evidence. I want to  show you
all the greatness in the solar areola
lickt erect and prickling gooseflesh
burning for the roughness of 
earthen skin. all of this is meant to
anything or trees make sounds and no one needs to
care. one way or the other I am always
hungry forest breathing thirsty city
bleeding drumbeat blistering. valleys
to the sky and where am I?
dodesukaden dodesukaden

steam

radiant alone

or so i hope

amidst the puttering and worry

i submerge in liquid crystalline

a timeless ticking

lifting me into a reverie

yawning in the eye of the storm

medium

the Hanged Man smiles at Death
beneath the World-
the Hermit takes a breath
beside the Tower-
everybody's waiting for the Chariot

I don't believe Bukowski.

I don't believe he never struggled for a word.
I don't believe it always roared
Or burned like the sun.
I believe he meant it as a challenge.
I believe he wanted to scare
Those of us who could be scared away.
I won't be.

girl on train

all dolled up in candy apple
plastic wrap accessories
blowing bubbles to stay young.
ignorant of memory
the sexless drip of readiness
leaves no room for mystery

cacophony

the figures in my head are easy to ignore
until they're not.
the clamoring begins under the rivulets of water
running down my ribs
each morning. a shouting match that no one wins
until I lift a pen.

Terence's haiku

knee high milky socks

overcoat of stripes undone

soft white belly droops

sunrise

i am the honeycomb!

exclamation points are

divisive issues.

(mar 19th)

pillow

life is thick

the moon is big

and we are mostly made of water

chemicals

at any given moment
i am filled with jet propellant
pesticides
the refuse of a million pills down drains
diffused into my drinking water
a Prozac cocktail with a garnish of
carcinogen.
our mother's milks are soiled
inescapably. even the Inuits, remote,
have poison in their breasts.
we eat what we were never fed.
i have a friend-
they found some molecules inside her car
tossed her in a cage
and made her drink from the tap.

loose-id

you showed up the night after thanksgiving

pushing sugar on my tongue and filling me.

you say it started earlier? a year before, perhaps,

the night my dendrophilia was fungal born and everything went

loose-id. sooner still? yes, there was the

nothing-badge and there was being born and sometimes when

i am awake but half-alive i can remember meeting you

inside a cavern warm and safe. lately i dream and,

even stranger, i remember. running through a valley

warped by urgency along a stream of vehicles all jostling

and then it hits me, fender up against my back. i walk to the

side of the road

and cry. my friend sits beside me tears like diamonds

crusted at the corners of his portholes. then i am running

through the aisles of the grocery, spiky fruit protesting my

squeezes, naked Anubis skinned and hanging like a three piece suit

in the meat aisle. you were all of those.

rolltop

in thirteen steps,

the Russian women shrink.

their bouquet becomes a bud

where my sister and I laugh.

it is there that Shiva dances

casting his shadow on a flower,

overseeing crystals

creditors

and my scattered creations.

what a mess.

i carve a space

and work.

la la la

the post office closed at 4:58 today.

i was standing on the other side,

holding two envelopes

when he locked the door.

there was a woman there beside me.

she shoved her parcel

up against the window

rattling the door and Fuck!

yeah, I thought- Fuck!-

then turned and walked up 3rd street

writing a melody. words came out-

it feels good when i sing.

Owsley

take a deep one for the Bear

tonight

a breath to help him bring the curtain down-

i remember Lady Stardust

Larry staring through a camera

that had no film,

awakening

my first time.

sidewalk galaxies

faces in the tablecloth

graffiti faded messages

You Are Alive

I had been unaware

raise a toast to the Bear

tonight

for all the care

he channeled thru his hands.

nine fingers in the air

tonight

for more than a man

for more than a molecule

cheap excuse

writing
for the sake of
writing

young

this creaky frame protests

i feel its endings

reaching back through time

transmissions in the fluid

elbows knuckles vertebrae

i see the ways

they will betray me

another fisherman

i see you, brother, pen in hand.
i feel the furrow in your brow.
tapping your pen expectantly
against the blank white space
you cradle in your palm.
i know. i'm searching for it, too-
inside fluorescent lights,
within the rhythm of the rails,
etched in the face of every new arrival.

i study you. you study us.
the shape
her sleeping face
has carved into my shoulder.
these newer trains, they feel like hospitals
blue and polished.
the words are harder to come by
than in those old orange carriages.

it does not come.
you look angry
(i feel guilty. i've been bleeding into notebooks.
i come close to opening my mouth, to lending you
a sentence, just to help you on your way.
nothing comes out.
i tell myself it's just because i do not want to wake her.
but, really,
i am greedy.)

what happens

(it is my hand along your hip that

curves the bend of you

against the headboard,

grace and sweat and noise,

the friction of our fur,

the tinder of our lonely shores

ablaze and damp)

crystalline, she spins into the urgency of

bedframe clattering against the

radiator orchestra, her

emphysema neighbor coughing down beneath

the floorboards of our whispers

letters and numbers

i know you're there

concealed weapons

delicately labeled

and

inanimate.

a constant consideration.

wrestling with possibility,

i putter around the apartment

write a poem

brew a cup of tea.

forget you.

what can you offer me?

an ounce of simplicity

for a pound of complications

sediment

the Buena Medicina Social Club
invites you to let go.
the sediment of present tense can be a bitter drink,
we know,
and doors like these are hingeless,
never to be closed.
you have been expected
in a place you've never been.
the hiss of molting humans
a caravan of kin
carried away-
be unafraid



(march 7)

second impressions

the train screeched into the station-
through scratchiti windows
i could see my traveling companions
their loose clothes and loud logos
four young men in fresh sneakers,
and i,
well, i know everything about everyone.
with their wild expressions
and their skin
their voices booming through the yet unopened doors-
great, i thought,
already nursing an infant headache,
bracing myself for vulgarity and the ignorance of youth.
i stepped in.
from the other end of the car,
their conversation carried:

"Naw, yo! Time does NOT exist!"
"You crazy - yes it does!"
"Naw - time be an illusion!"
"Nigga, how you calling time illusion? It ain't yesterday no more. I be gettin' older, my hair gon' turn gray, so how you sayin' time ain't real?"
"You ain't listenin'. Yesterday ain't exist. Tomorrow ain't real. The only real is right now."

-

is this selfish?
sometimes, all i see in anyone
are lessons
i am struggling to learn

something brewing

i wept this morning - over nothing -
crossing Essex with the mailman,
freezing like a pane of glass
in every gust of wind.
the sun was a scalpel.
i felt trapped in my infinity and opened
my esophagus-
sometimes, i make noises
to remind myself that i am still alive.

i walked past the Creperie,
making eyes (as I do each day)
with the mustachioed Israeli opening the gates.
she returned my smile
hesitating less than usual.
in-between the corner and my coffee
my cheeks ran dry
but something lingered,
reaching down into my chest,
leaning up into my mouth,
grasping nothing
my personal Tantalus.

i purged my hurts into a bucket
i washed them down a basin drain
but the sadness still clings to my throat

my unfinished things

there she lies
another stillborn tale
blue and bloodless
smothered under staring at the walls

and all around me, hands that push
and goad
their fingers on my lips
inside my mouth, insisting

"just a breath; just one breath
and she could live"

attempt

my voice, through tape mechanical
afloat
in the space
you're calling home-
i've never been.

my body, caging quivers
just below my throat,
buttoned to the cold
of Fulton St.

measured words in
careful tones,
sincerity,
erasing silence
stretched across
the years we've put between us.

i was called a man today
and thought of you,
who lets the line lay silent still

purple bones

i like the thought of you

going about your day.

the textures and

your purple bones

their elegance

along the avenues

the worry and the care

and when and where

your eyes go.