Licking Fire


The crow’s urgent call
woke me
from my haunted staring
into air and time
bleeding by.
Fits of such a violent melancholy
kept me in a perpetual state
of holding my breath,
waiting for the sorrow to subside
as high tides do
after the ocean’s
been weeping in chorus
with the moon.

Could I not just drift
inside your head for awhile?
Forget my woeful weary,
the horrorshow I’d seen
played out in the daytime.
Mmm though at night,
I watched death and the engulfing fire
that licks her lusty skin,
she flits and twists round,
ripped up fishnets held together
by bobby pins
and a loose t-shirt that fell off her shoulders,
making crop circles
on my clean carpet
with her dirty bare feet.
Between you and me,
she was such a tease,
and I loved it.

After she had her fill of me,
slipping out into the dark,
and just as I was closing my windows,
he snuck in between
my mouthing nighttime syllables,
shaking self loathing,
crawling into my bed after
visitation hours,
and I couldn’t help myself,
craved to hold his shivering bones
together
until the pain he howled out subsided,
his tears drying on my cheek.
We swapped no words,
just breaths and skin,
for that cold boy
who had lost his way,
again,
tossing in the storm
that he blamed me for,
though in truth,
we were just two hurricanes
bumping into each other,
ravenous desire
to feel something,
anything,
besides that dank suffering lonely.

It occurs to me
that I had the habit
of falling for broken angels
sewn up inside
with grit and smoke.
And do you mind?
Stop trampling through
my dreams,
stumbling amidst the scenes,
hungry and impatient.
I beg you for a moment
without your tongue’s wet stutters
gnashing  and lashing out at me.
Twilight took great delight in sinking in between my legs,
just to hear me moan. 

Days of the Heron


In the days
of mumbling saucepans
and sanity,
I was a heron,
drinking down dirty daydreams
and lavender teas,
slurping loudly
through my pointing bill
in coffee shops
while the regulars stare,
squawking out stories
on the subway,
ruffling my
untamed and unframed feathers
like the jostling sounds of newspapers
by the old grey men scrounging round for
the stock market stats
and sports scores.

I tend to creep
in and out of people’s habits,
smuggled in with the groceries:
cinnamon toast and juicy grapefruit,
standing awkwardly
in the cobweb corners of rooms,
watching contagious
interactions,
hearts bleeding in rhythm,
then slip softly
between the window panes of
dark purple bedrooms
with swords hung on the walls,
red dining room spaces
where the piano sits,
uncaressed for years,
yellow kitchenettes
collecting dust on the picture frames
of happy faces by way of trips to the park
on a fourth of july,
and moldy peppers
in the bottom door of the refrigerator.

Oh,
and if I could just
be held by the night,
it sinking in between
my shivers
till the yawning dawn.
I took myself
away from here,
in the eerie morning hours,
after getting out from under purple fleece covers
and giving up on sleeping.
Careful tiptoes,
out the window,
face to the forest line
til she sings in my ear,
into the moon’s naked riptide,
inhaling one beautiful
burlesque breath,
exhaling storms of ice. 

Winter's Smile


Nina Simone
and static rain crackles
from the phonograph speakers.
Between the windows
we float
with the smoke,
licking lips,
the shaking fits of
harmonizing bodies,
giving sex tips to strangers
in the parking lots of liquor stores
while I watch
the future and past
intersect,
skull and crossbones,
lists of predictable chores not done,
lusts for raunchy rhymes unsung,
as of yet,
due to televised hypnosis,
the pyramids in Memphis,
wailing ghosts
on the sidewalk
that you so carelessly pass between,
nods of recognition
between old lovers,
spitting swear words that delved deep inside
the bruised breaks in the pavement.

I washed you down,
lime and tequila,
embracing the luscious night
instead of your warm skin
on my cold veins.
People leaving my life
through thick doorframes,
forgetting their keys
next to coffeepots gurgling and hissing,
humming to themselves in lonely long grocery lines,
opening mouths to speak turbulent truths,
deciding against it,
crunching tight,
teeth to teeth,
crooked jawlines ache
with heartbreak pulsations,
canceling dinner plans
at the last possible second,
flipping through
worn out pictures instead,
just for a chance to recall
my dad’s knowing smile in the winter.

Night Heat


The mist,
our hostess
for the evening,
sang out burning notes,
thirsty chords
stuck at the back of the throat,
were freed,
found wanting,
to pleasure roam the
highlands and hemispheres
of our staggering psyches,
unimpressed by belfry fears.

Temptress night,
I ache to be opened,
commune in voluptuous fire,
sink deep into sultry waters,
wrap the earth around my hips,
air becomes breath,
sucking it down,
between the cracks
in the ethers and
my shrieking skin.

We healed ourselves,
then raptured each other
up and out of this hell plane,
backwards space and sound,
forward in rhythm,
angels in awe of our
magical bodies,
grinding down the
writhing watchtowers,
crunching through
concrete chessboards,
drenching the beats with
sex and sweat,
ecstasy tears,
wailing sirens,
lifting heated heads
to the moon,
bringing in the dawn
with our howls.