Our rough white eyes watered down the rosed cheeks,
we follow the path like shadow's silhouette.
Awaiting twilight as if owed some debt,
I had learned his breath as synced days of week.
See night curl in with grace, mem’ry divine
Watch it filter clouds slightly singed, now blurred
He was a teacher though his speech quite slurred

say it is beautiful then look away

Soil rich and eyes vibrant, I gave you a kiss that sprouted wings and danced upon eyelid before it enveloped into the slits of your dogged eyes. You said to me I stare at the sunrise too long. So I am sorting clouds and buying syntax, to become a meticulous machine you would have let your lens linger upon.

"kisses are for faking"

i remember wanting to die! the word doesn't sound as simple now.

the longer
it followed me sounding like something falling
hell i cannot create
help i lost the words

ten hairs sinking into the pores of my leg in the cold
hair ends are icicles.

your bed is an ashtray

"The Giraffe" by Laureano Albán

The giraffe is a serious matter,
like a great wind,
like the two hundred blue poppies
that tumbled down your hair
when I kissed you,
like the way, far from dying,
afternoons have when
they open the door and wait
and wait until six o'clock sharp
to hurl the serene
aromatic night over our bodies,
which are still alone.

The giraffe is a serious matter,
irreconcilable and spotted,
like swallows silhouetted
against the distance.
With those large legs
of towering sugar,
with that neck of a solitary star
rising toward its dream,
who could have brought it into this world
and set it loose
to nibble on clouds and the flood?
And who gave it permission
to look at us from that safe height
full of tiny amber-colored birds?

--Because I'm sure that man
and his vigilance of eternal midnight
will arrange the bread
and thirst of the rivers,
will allocate the earth
illusion by illusion,
will dispose of death
and its red outrages,
and will even be able,
perhaps, to distribute prophecies
and gods equally among everyone.
Ah, but the giraffe--
that creature who falls constantly as he walks
but never falls
(as if somebody invisible were lifting him
at each high step
of bells and neverness),
the same creature who wears drooping roses
on his rainy back--
the mobile giraffe,
lord of absurdity, him
we'll never understand,
never, because the gods decided
mystery should smile
in him.

(Translated from the Spanish by Fred Fornoff)

clasped refracted displaced ashtray spliced erased

i realize repeating words may sound truer to me in some flawed way perhaps i am actually learning, hearing: clasped refracted displaced astray spliced erased. do you think that means anything.

gazing lovingly is almost foreign

mid-state trail is the path we walked on i swear there were ten ants in my shoes but that seems too perfect of a number maybe it was before bear meadows burned that i felt like i had a place among the forest in the moss covered plush i could have bounced off of it then but the idea is only coming to me now seems periods are too final and make me finish things too quickly rather a string of endless jabber will fit quite sufficiently

"you have children everytime you go to the bathroom"

i write and write and write with broken claws to find some sort of meaning in the days they are slowly but surely definitely i mean i believe that they are passing no longer weeping, attached to nothing but myself and my body and my tired eyes they still seem so vibrant limbs are threaded in warmth of comfort happiness lovage nothing else maybe the smell of gasoline is reminiscent of car trips with my father when he was that person you would never expect to leave cups on top i think it's good to keep going and not stay in place i am content in making my fingertips into tiny composers writing the notes

last of the 6

What happened to the slight laughter unforced,
When you are gone for nights, what was unsaid?
The other love is blind for which we're coursed
Limelight hallways into which we are lead.
We breathe off balance, exhales out of sync
What has become of us, old tattered fool
Sheets cover your head, wait to even blink
Since when has our love turned into your tool?
Thread yourself with my yarn, we are woven
Unable to possess scent of morning.
You, your hyenas; intact as coven,
The tight hinge to prevent us from forming
May you remain as nimble as wet clay
Until they realize, send us both astray

What sorry excuse you are for a muse

Cringing, held his hands between my shoulders
My eyes seem to be near out of focus
Dripping into ear with sorried blunders
You are the scent of a springs plague: locusts
Fingerless joints, your hug didn't hold us
That of a father to unfostered twins
Our hours orchestrated full of fuss
As if someone new was birthed and sprung fins
Bond now composed of dusty narrow tins
We remember harmonies slightly off
Offered shelf to put everything unfin
Debate lines from stupid psalms while they scoff
Yet still fatherless, I remain turned true
Hopeful of your call and fevers from blue

shitty sonnet

the CAT

Scruffle best picked feather fur is perfect
Your cat kisses are as good as the sun
Love you far too much to ever neglect
Body more complex than that of a pun
Oh the secrets you do hold tight, my friend
Whiskers are that of something quite divine
You fix words unsaid with a soft tail bend
Lovage does seep from your snake end, feline
Kitten I pray you make me feel too blessed
Eyes blink so poised, an elegant small cat
Paws await the smooth of blanket's caress
Wait like sphinx, delicate, graceful you sat
Let us cuddle until the morning, can't we
Beauty makes me gape with delight to be

a girl called mary

watch only you,
follow marched lines into dark unlit caves
then become an assembly line of cigarettes.
your mouth as dry as it was yesterday,
failing to balance your brain while balancing their brain

annual force-fed advice
finding false beauty in the rain
baptized in bad coffee and ash lung
wasted potential
pseudo callings line the lids:
the supposed truthful eye.

rearranged into sonnet:
Watch only you see beauty in disgrace,
The kind of scene with good morals astray.
Follow marched lines into dark embrace,
Wait for untold demons until it's May.
You still cling to the past despite your say,
Marking of face as if wanting to be singed;
Become a cigarette spliced in ashtray,
Is our friendship lost, you have made us fringed.
Yet I hope this heart is not ever tinged,
Your gaze not holding just to be erased
Our mouths to be as dry and cringed,
All the other joint-hip girls turned unfaced.
We accept ourselves as lovers unhinged
Convenient kinship, hold on to the mast
Baptized in the mem'ry of feeling's past

lady of your thoughts

listen, wait for crack of singed sliced leather
and rub sleep eyed white crust from the mind's eye
we still remain shackled, seized and confined
await hard forced touch, not graze of feather
prevailed bodies contracts to each other
choose to hover clasped though detached: a lie,
to wish your derailed joints away from mine.
i was to be suitable as mother
yet the more we entwine it grows to true
longer we swindled the words like a lump
at the height of the throat, intact as sphere
all while we grew the woven tight glue;
encased, stay like a crease between your rump
can we stay as two bodies without fear?
but perhaps you may weep far too much, dear

"my darling, my darling, my pipe"

e

a mirror conflicted with compliment
verses
seeing a way from the hole
your smile smells like rotting milk
voice the same crisp as history's past
maybe only its smirk
i knew you didn't remember if i had bangs or not

float

we have grown changed in the wind
spit up chewed out done wrong
i remember breathing without making myself

barely legal

this is the door i snuck in and out of like swings facing the wind or some sort of pendulum making snaps cracks and leans slightly tilted but reliable as ever i don't know if i'll miss tip-toeing and it sure doesn't seem so close but it is and it's real and i might be finally free.

"We"

recollect force of emotion conjoined with careful detail
what other name would sound like truth?
framed composted ideas
seems the better half of a lie
see yourself as me but delicately composed

that name pushes and brings to life
a resonated sound of old times and ancient relic
the throated force of senses divine
it's that digging melody
feeling without words or mention
i have now two stones of the life having passed
remarks cold blooded, recites it back
despite our supposed clench-jawed clasp

we were somewhere else

we count sea shells and made room to breathe
lives proposed a designated rift
still i lay close to await the graze of your fingertips

An Atmosphere of a Minotaur’s Tomb

We now become delinquent splices of Gemini
Love:
the happiness of picking a scab.

Courting Pluto

Remember thin lips sealed closed,
turned backs
hearts glued shut
Our eyes becoming frozen fish in a pond,
Arteries no longer your wires.

I recall times greater than those

Like your angled back catching and keeping the sun
making it stay
Letting only heaven’s light refract
Before you punish your spine to retract
Our lungs climbing together, in sync with breath
(you then curse it for blooming off track)

How you grow, accept, and learn from death

When did our arms clothe something fragile?
Legs locked it was now difficult to tell
Between the sacred labyrinths and layers of heart
Until the day I was caught counting backwards with the tile
The sky cracked open,
Clouds screeched and told us,
“Stay more than awhile”

Is there a proper measure of distance to stand from a stranger?

spatula

but now i can't even force the light of day

the person

an exercise from my creative writing workshop:
tell me your name
tell me your real name (what you feel your name should be)
what animal is inside you? explain.
what is inside your heart?
what is written on your forehead?
what sound do you love?
what sound do you hate?
what smell do you love?
what smell do you hate?
what is your favorite time of day?
if your hands could talk, what would they say?
what is a memory from your childhood?
a saying you remember from childhood told by your parents or grandparents






mispronounced yiddish saying, careening towards forced meaning
but no other name would seem as fitting
none other as true
a cat, halted before domestication, climbing, clawing
claws
retracted, fur refined

fishing net cased around the heart
supposed protection from fumbled expression
unaware of open, without force
almost quite comfortable closed

"patience" is written on the callous of skin
the horizon of the head
always a day before
(or years, decades, even more)

the crunching sound of leaves,
bites into metal forks
firewood burning, coffee brewing
rubber tires screech and burning
twilight, when sun hits
the yellow tree in the yard
before the darkness of night

my hands already grasp at words
reaching for the door
childhood under tables
wanting to be more

Shana Madel
wear it in good health
(but nothing more)

s

love has almost died off, she said through teeth
as she raised one more eyebrow to the door,
when the elbow sank to the cold steel floor
then the widow comes and turns you to thief
what can get you off without turn to beast?
now incessant action forever more
her eyes never tried to sink past the lore
i tried my very best, to say the least
what cannot get you off not even head
standing, wanting all of me, nothing less
you thought we almost fell far off, instead
was i abiding by your sweet caress
when dream of feelings divine as if fed
gape at narrow eyes that purchase the theft
our love can seem almost quite meaningless

out

splices refined, our hours were practically orchestrated,
time passed: snails found eagle's wings to be flown.
remember the smiles unforced or touched kisses (not blown)
see yourself as me, now every sided snake eyed and ten-fold
a collection of blatant remarks, elegantly told

forever ago

the love
has died
no above
all benign

b

boots,
i don't really know you at all
sometimes we talk about nothing
is that substantial?

a

once had a dream you were giving me head
realized it was a mistake to mention it
we would then be called dykes
our affection went out the door
it seemed for you,
i did not care anymore
your neckline is soft
your smile seems lonely
i hope we were the babysitters in the poem

your tiny wrists

now you love
what you think
you know now

but now it's
nothing like
you've dreamed of

father, brother - lover, friend : a collection of shortcomings

father:
decaying decrepit
delayed
slightly blistery, fubbed fingerless joints
they were skulls fearing the umbrellas dry shield
careful not to dismay

brother:
still wasted from tomorrow not carrying sense or dimes
believed every word they spoke, breath almost in sync with mine
the solid gaze quantified to be erased

lover:
cold-blooded crucified held his waist between thighs
we held this position til the blood drained insides
until our bodies became suitable (almost) rhymes

friend:
salt now only reappears with the tide

compressing

i have found myself to be substantially lacking any sort of motivation to continue this waste of time. it felt good to see all those countless, meaningless, numerous attempts at poetry i have archived for the sake of novelty. in reality i think i am just fooling myself, but i'll probably be back when i become overwhelmed.

borrowed sisters

i've begun to compose my days
establishing space, conjoining decades

i've become delicately erased
among agonies, but so conveniently displaced

i can't hold ties much like "joined at the hip"
or borrowed sisters
craved people become blisters
welcomed then blasé

good riddance

"And now the clown is gone from our lives
Good riddance"

poop

kept up pushed out like
cutting creases of your lips
i'll never be clean

tony

you get it, tony
i think you know what i mean
but where are we, now

rt

this is among the countless times
i have made you sleep on the couch
so you wouldn't touch me
because i would probably let you

m t

i wish i could show you what i have created

ryan boyd

you make every girls thighs sweat
disneyland beneath their diaphragm
i admire your perseverance

notch

this sure is turning into, "my little black blog"

t

i'm sorry i push you away
your eyes are too inviting
i want to do more than look

d

you fingered me with your trigger finger
i felt like i was raped
but it was sexy until i bled

ryan

you are sad sometimes
i wish you were less lonely
maybe you should start loving nature

as of lately

there is a lack of meaning in everything i do
i push everyone away
nothing is tuned right anymore

today i woke up

feeling fucking refined and dazed
although still jaded, the separation displaced me
confined to spaces
still beneath your basement
as i contorted your body to fit the frame,
suddenly selfish wave, tormented plane
the true nature of feeling was pure disdain
traded your life for that spade, some new charades
a day gone, we are now undone and misplaced.

max

you are cleaner than flossed teeth, an aura of cuddling beast
sun soaked lines mark each of your faces, each one covered with pavement
from when they set up some kind of charm, then erased it

d

trace the chalk outline of your body
framed with mine, blueprints of
the sleepless nights and exhausted days.

tips

you speak in riddles
with, "i need an odyssey"
offered endless thrust

t II

you have become numb
seven months since your face was the horizon
although now it has been just the same
shadow out-casted
a tired brick stacked on a wall
birdless cage

j

bullshitting jazz sounds,
truly the princess and pea
whispered nothing at all, did she

e

you have become nothing
i want to be around anymore
convincing we were still sisters,
bound to shapes of familiarity
but separate just the same
i do not live with your aesthetics
parting fake smiles and half-witted charm

you should just get a puppy instead.

john/jon

hands do not know no
please take your hand off my thigh
you said we were friends

t

dear my good hearted friend,
"i really just want to fuck you"

coalesce

"i had a terrible time at work,
but now my head fits so nicely in your shoulder blade"
isn't it strange, the days passed
as if they were slugs across
very large plains

it almost a common displacement,
how my eyes can see for only 16 miles
the earth lurched just the same

t

you love drugs

s