Freak Hiss

I freaked my way

through the space

between your heart beats

and the stained sheets that

lay on your dirty floor.

Unnerving I know,

but my supernatural pulse

would not permit me

to stay in these

rundown bones of mine.

Dragonflies lost on the subway,

I never quite felt

the sense of belonging,

rolling my eyes at the sputtering lies

I heard in coughing crusty crowds,

sighing to the tune of my

senses dulling,

dreaming damned,

I hissed inferno and magic

which was misinterpreted

as snake songs and graffiti.

Frowns of forefathers

and sobs of our earthen mothers

in the time that passed silently

backwards,

we habitually settled

for hasty hiking up of skirts,

dungeon detail,

gravel eating,

and the sour tastes

of ghosts in our pained periphery.

I craved instead-

staring holy hallucinations

in the eye,

taking the metaphysical plane

in our dripping mouths,

sex teeth glistening,

laughing at such a ravenous freedom

that could be ours if we so choose it,

birthing luscious melodies

and banging on the furniture

with frenzied fucks,

an eroticism

so intense,

so very deep,

kept me in a constant

state of orgasm

which I learned from the moon,

how to quiet my howling head.

I craved to have your skin

throb and ache

to the rhythms of my own,

feel my bones

wake up in the night and shake

hearing your voice

whispering me back to bed

when I went wailing and walking

in my restless sleep

through the ether tremors,

your subtle stroking

soothing the seizure visions,

soft and sultry,

stealing me away

from thundering nightmares,

lifting my body

up through the dark.

Wrap around me again

and hoist bright lanterns

above my wicked forehead,

illuminating even the creep places in my

screaming skull.

Show me any goddamn reason to give

this sorrow earth

another chance

in the morning

whilst I just

want to lay in bed all day

and drown my memories out

with my molten tears.

Yet as I cringe at the thought of the dawn,

another stifling day

without a hand to hold,

a glorious cold

swept in,

slinking inside me

through the open window,

I moaned

with the pleasure

she brought down,

my brain alive

with predicate possibilities,

sizzling desire

ricocheted through

my bloody veins,

reminding me

hope can always be found,

even in the murk and the mire.

Desires of the Phoenix

September came with

a sting at the back

of the throat

and such a harsh longing,

deep,

vibrant,

kept me up tossing

till 5 in the fucking morning,

hungry for

the night’s sweet touch,

for she was the only one

that seemed unafraid

at the prospect of my

fire skin consuming her,

phoenix licking my wounds,

even though sometimes

she couldn’t find me

through the storms

I formed and

circled round my eerie head,

hiding me from view.

Slithering through

the open window,

you flitted over

my aching body,

I sigh to the

north and east,

patchwork paces,

haunting on a continuum,

re-tracing soft footsteps

of my childhood Michigan winters,

magic frosts flowing to the rivers,

through the trees

we gather together

our senses,

hot sex rhythms

thumping the

top of the skull

to the base of the spine,

echoes repeating out

vibrations from the vocal chords,

sounds that came

up through the belly

to the head and

bursting out the top

of the brain

in moans erotic,

top hats taken off,

roughly thrust

to the ground who indeed

got a rush

from the thought

of hands and

fleeting frenzy fingers

stretched out to the angels,

gasping in pleasure,

casting me out of my

sorrow bones

which kept me

looking downward at

my bloody toes

most evenings.

And then there was the Sphinx ,

ever watching,

woken up on a Thursday morning,

to feel a sandstorm

round her waist,

and she thought to herself:

the wind seemed angry as of late,

a tinge of tabasco on the tongue,

vinegar dripping down

the earlobes.

Frenchmen leaning

out their windows,

shouting down

to the ladies in the street,

they turned and

gave him the finger.

Seduction should’ve been

a sultry swing,

Thelonious Monk

on the phonograph,

candles oozing and winking

in the cool twilight,

tender lips run along curves,

breath slow but then building

to heavy orgasm sounds and electric quivers

that shook the rafters

of even the most sturdy houses.

But in these tempest times

we settled instead for harsh tire squeals

and a short siren thrill,

pick your poison,

chug it down,

slosh around,

fuck hard and rough

without a hint of passion or embrace,

slink out from under him

when he fell asleep

and squeeze through the floorboards

before he remembers

what he whispered

to me

in the undertow.

You were a unimpressive liar:

women faking stupid,

men faking apathy,

the joker was the only one

found laughing

at the weary games we play.

I watched

cigarettes stain teeth,

apothecaries abandoned

with a shudder

for to bend and contort

to the idols of pharmacy

and forensics.

Media mayhem ate us up,

spat us back out

as gnarled stick figured blond barbies,

to mouth agendas for

Halliburton and Disney,

tango with the demons

of industry,

then tossed aside into mass graves,

screeching for sanctuary.

Oh please,

break the veils of ego

honey,

it isn’t always

about self-promotion and

what you can get out of

every sinkhole situation,

vampires in their cages,

gnashing teeth together

in time with the organ pipes.

Poor dear,

I could tell

in less than

the time breath took

to sink into the lungs

that you still loved her,

a flash of thirst in the eyes

as she walked by

and didn’t even care to notice you.

I could always recognize

a face hiding heartbreak and

it tore at my insides

to see the pain

you hid

and thought only your nightmares

could see,

but no,

I wept for you

in my dreams as well,

kind stranger,

and hoped for healing

in the dawns to come.

Tis so strange and wild

the way heart valves betray us

and how we are really all the same,

wanting to hear our names

shouted out loud through street crowds

with love and craving,

and hands on my hips

in the early hours of the daytime.

Living in the Mind of the Alligator

Living in the mind

of the alligator,

I crunched down hard

on strings

that tied me down

to the underworld

as she grinned at me in my sleep,

tossing my brain,

back and forth,

oh so back and forth,

creating harmonies

from my miseries

that had a language

of their own.

My stinging head

lay somber and sober,

and an empathic stare

from a stranger

undressed me in my

well hidden despair,

understanding me more deeply

in that fading instant than

most people who pretend to know me well,

seems these solar flare moments

are occurring with gathering speed,

ticking backwards on a pinwheel.

Shrill screams

shattered windows,

glasses melted down

to their insides,

the mirror was the only ghost

who saw my tears,

heard my haunted moans

from the graveyard

while I danced the Charleston,

swung round and around

by the sly tombstones and trombones

who tried to get me drunk

so I would take them home

to fuck and leave quickly

with the guilt stained to their faces

in the middle of the dawn

who draped itself on our skin

without a whisper

or any explanation.

As the black and blue butterflies

flit to and fro

in front of my hindsight,

the only patterns

that seemed to repeat

were the reaper’s raspy tones

skipping on the phonograph,

and the steam that

enjoyed soaking and clutching

my windows

in the early yawning morning

when I took my youngest brother

to school

so he wouldn’t have

to ride the sticky seated

yellow jacket bus

with its scissor sting occupants,

bumping and smashing

into each other with hormones

and vengeance.

Though I tried to

choke down my insidious pain,

it seeped out of my aching pours

anyway,

not giving a downtrodden damn

or waiting for permission,

alchemy taking tea

with the monsters

I slept with,

watching the people

who I had been there for,

time and again,

wiping their tears away

with my bleeding hands,

they then to leave me all alone in my

retching,

howling,

sorrow,

to hitchhike back home

without even a hint of compassion

on their vacant faces,

just cold stone staring back at me.

So instead of waiting around

for you to be done with your cigarettes,

your lie stained teeth,

your liquored up false promises and

fake adorations,

I wandered away weary by myself,

talking with

the sky spirits,

singing to the tree limbs

in their waking hours,

mouthing words

to the water

flowing down

my temperamental skin,

praying with my face to the earth

in hoping reverence

that grief will leave me be,

even for just a breath,

so I can rise up

with the moonlight

in holy ecstatic pleasure

to forget who I am. 

The Magic and the Mystic Intertwine

Talking barbies

took the bait,

makeup oozing

from drowned pores,

bones and toxins

were all that remained

of the screaming soul

that just wanted

to be “pretty”

in a world where

plastic dolls

are lifted up

as idols,

poisonous mythos

of beauty,

funneled through

our bleeding ears,

taunting us in our sleep,

beating us down

to the asphalt,

chemicals and self-loathing.

Could I waltz

you away through time?

Kicking the empty glasses

and rusty newspapers aside,

tumbling down sultry staircases,

we dance

through the gaping eye

in the candle flame.

We may falter,

for a moment,

swaying too swiftly

in the grass

that softly licks

our ankles

with the dew

from the morning,

my tongue tasting

the energy

passing back and forth

between us

with an audible sigh

from the outdoor furniture. 

You and I

crashed together

like lightning striking earth,

as it zips and splits

through the sky,

thrusts himself deep

into her holy ground,

she moans low and rough,

responds with

shaking and resonating pulses,

her voice vibrating

the air like a fury,

the Magic and the Mystic

growling and grinding

into each other

so that the dawn

could brings us

to wake and rise

maybe one more day,

in the heat of the dawn

and death roaring,

slicing space

like a switchblade

cutting tinsel.