when you remind me

when you say it, I do.


I remember when you remind me.


a flood of words, of sighs.



Behind this dam you made me build.



Hoover be damned.



when I feel it, I’m scared.



I find I feel scared all the time.



a flood of words, of sighs.



You don’t hear or remember.



Love be damned.

Flower Wine Armor Bird

Trampled stem, torn roots, beautiful flower
At least for a little while
It just doesn't know better
Swollen lips sputter and hum around a petrified kernel of truth
This violently cracked cup is an insult to the wine inside
It fills in a flash; empties just as quickly
Layers of oily armor keep everything safe from those who want a bite
There just isn't enough to go around
I let go of your hand, but that's OK
I was only holding onto your middle finger anyway

Haiku 4

Waiting for the rain
My face lifted as I sleep
Cleanse the dust of heart

Corpse Rose

Not unchanged
Not broken
This is just how I am now
A deep breath of acceptance is better than railing against alteration
A word mirage leaves a mouthful of sand
The blood exits when the scene ends
All of these dead things are gone when I can no longer find them in my heart
When I remember dates but don't feel them
Corpse rose blooms
Corpse rose wilts
Heart pulled like taffy with the shameful, unstoppable pain
So cruel?
So bare?
This is just how I am now

More Like a Nightmare Than a Song

As unforgiven as Christ,
Next time you wear your heart,
Make sure your sleeve is not made of paper,
As for me, the fragile things,
That could burn are gone,
I'm fireproof now, baby,
Mediocre emotional pudding suits you best,
To me, it is far from just right,
And never hot,
You will always be number two son,
Completely full of shit,
There are lies that were and lies to come,
Store them in an anvil shaped box for god,
I sit in my brain's silent places,
And find comfort...find myself,
I'm OK but you will never be,
More like a nightmare than a song.

Five Fortune Cookie Poem

In music one must think with his heart and feel with
his brain
Patience is bitter but its fruit
is sweet
People make plans fate makes the
plan successful
At the touch of love everyone becomes
a poet
You will be hungry again in
one hour

Bitter

I might puke
The cellular wobble of panic leaves sweat
on my brow
The pile of stones I swallowed
as you spoon-fed them to me
won't pass either way - I know this

My eyes are bone
Every muscle contracts around bitterness
bile that boils instead of blood
Heart draped in stillness, furious lungs
I am both peeled and armored, all Achilles - I know this

Love is a duet
Hate, a monumental solo act

Haiku 3

Deliver to me
a perfect shiny sentence
then flatline away

Roots

Such strange fluidity
I could not move
so I lingered in it
and felt it rearrange me

I am light
but my roots are dark
I am lush
but my heart is stark

Grand mal
that is enough to take in
I wish I spoke
whatever language you think in

I am light
but my roots are dark
I am lush
but my heart is stark

The etcetera is underpinned
a molten vein
leaves fault lines
and cave-ins to avoid

I am light
but my roots are dark
I am lush
but my heart is stark

The ache lifts off me
like steam
then settles back on my skin as mist
like it always does

I am light
but my roots are dark
I am lush
but my heart is stark

On the Bank

Three surreptitious little deaths
One loud one
Lighting from the tips of sticky fingers

Old tyme movie images used to
flicker one card at a time
The digital screen is wiped clean
Hands are hands
fingers, fingers
Faceless, but I know your name

Something brazen climbs up on the bank
rustling, poking alive
My eyelids made it too dark to see
This face could seem to be pain
but it's not

Drain

There is some
relief
in the aching possibility
of him
leaving the coil

She will not
say so
instead she sits dutifully
by him
smiling with strain

Watching the drain

Fly Butter

Two summers gone by now
I spoke to butterflies
They came when I called them
Soared around my head
And fluttered hope into my hopeless heart

Two winters to now
A bright yellow butterfly
Lands on stone at my feet
Facing me without fear
And flexing its wings so slowly

As if it wanted me
to believe
All was real and good and strong
That I was not altered
and stiffened and falsified

But I do not.

And I was.

Do Not Trade

They say you wouldn't want to trade
But what is this?
Anxious folds into waiting
Smiling through it all
A fucking optimist
lubricated with realism
and stuck up the ass of a sarcastic mother fucker

For the rest of my beautiful life
What is this?
Scraps of paper single words
Jangling musical notes
Dripping over my tits
into my cunt
with a hum and an eyedropper full of sting

Arrows of ephemera