Wine

Its rare to hear coyotes in the suburbs.

or trains.

or have a nearly fully waxed moon beaming in the sky.

or return home to an empty house that usually breathes seven.

or have a full bottle of wine, for myself and myself only.

I’m tired of happy and sad,

but mostly the debilitating limbo in between.

My muscles ache from the stretch over the canyons.

searching for that green grass,

at the bottom of the bottle.

The cork breathes as deep as I do,

when its uncorked,

undone,

removed from context.

The inside is dark and moist,

perfect to intensify and ferment.

Like I am a grape, 

plump, succulent, fresh,

with so much potential to poison,

wither, secrete;

something so bitter and sweet.

I’m tired of plucking myself from 

sun-ripened branches,

and falling into dark misery.

Casked, and corked.

Contained

in polished sorrow.

Vomit

I can taste the fire spit before I throw up,

and see the love stains still left on our blankets.

Even after the vomit, 

the pit of dread hasn’t left my stomach.

The whole thing feels like the airbag exploded far before the accident,

like driving over a sheet of metal,

that destroys from the under carriage,

and slices within.

Where do you begin to help yourself when sickness isn’t only coming from within?

and the aching isn’t just from the alcohol,

but a weakness of the heart,

and somewhere deep within,

starting from the delta between your legs,

and seeping through to the marrow of what you know,

where do you begin?

Mixtures of Elixirs

Insert [complacency] here.

The quest to contact and connect,

its tough.

With the mixtures of elixirs.

I can find distance and dissonance

in static sounds and smiles,

He says, 

“The only alienation is you,

alienating yourself.”

He means by what I feel, not what I do.

He asks,

“What’s holding you back?”

Insert [distraction] here.

I don’t have an answer, or direction,

utter to myself, “stupid shit.”

Its all just excuses and illusions.

Left-Eye-Lazy-Love

I track my ups and downs,

but not my lefts and rights,

or my rights and wrongs.

I get caught staring at my shadows,

and crawling towards the sun.

On my eyelids are hieroglyphic imprints

from longing for the stars, whether it be something pure

like a dream or a vision,

or a scar from some UV cancer

that feeds on my skin that makes my hair stand erect

and salute.

I’m begging for, desiring for

some warm atmospheric touch.

Staring at shadows, exhaling dirt and secrets

to a doctor or something divine--

Searching for somewhere to cry, whether its appropriate or not.

My shadows cast vast across a barren desert.

The heat. The crust. The dryness. The crackle. The foreboding.

Somewhere so desolate that a shadow stands as an unwelcome stranger;

sometimes we make love here.

Sometimes our love making doesn’t show our love,

but it is in the left-eye lazy-eyed gazes,

and that is where I forget my rights,

and my ups, and my lefts, and my wrongs.

Cigarettes and Bells

She laid in bed and counted,

not sheep,

but how many cigarettes she had smoked that day;

knowing that not only did the surgeon general not approve,

neither did her parents.

She brought what she had promised.

Bells to tie around her ankles,

so that her elders could tell

if she’d missed a step in her ritual dance.

She learned then that

acceptance and approval are two different things.

She promised she wouldn’t be naked anymore--

she wouldn’t victimize herself to scrutiny.

Dances are done for the approval of others,

and she wouldn’t step into those bells again.

But she missed the twinkle that followed her feet

and couldn’t accept herself 

with a silent serenade.

She smoked more cigarettes than ever.

Became less nude, more naked.

Breathed pleas, and wisps, and questions, and

ultimately, just smoke.

She learned that liberation can be lonely.

Her ankles didn’t bleed,

but the cigarettes started to make her choke.

Agony and Empathy

Agony and Empathy

Hanging on a dusty road,

looking side to side.

They rejoice in the harmony,

between peril and paradise. 

Agony and Empathy

walking down a dusty road, 

matching stride for stride.

One singing merrily,

and one is torn slowly 

between death and gravity.

Agony and Empathy

skipping down a meadow drive,

Empathy takes

it’s life.

Ferris Wheel

We’ve forgotten what it feels like when 

our stomachs clench as we go 

over and down the arch. 

Life is a circle, and the view never changes, 

sometimes the light fades or brightens 

but we’re on a ride of stationary momentum. 

We’ve been watching the roller coaster, 

and carnival kids for so long that 

the strobe lights and gleeful screams of 

panic or excitement 

sound exactly the same. 

Spinning and spinning--

Restrained on our axis,

making a full tour around the sun 

waiting for a supernova. 

Maybe we should enjoy the show. 

The lackadaisical dizziness and moments without form-- 

the perpetual party and destruction going by, 

orbiting on a ferris wheel 

we go by unfazed.

Monsters and Marvels

Humming monotony

and radio waves

that flood through your ear drums,

like rain drops gathering in

iridescent

puddles

that shimmer

in the fading

moon-beams,

causing ripples of chaos

and a high pitched wailing--

of a mother wolf

that bawls and bawls

into the silence,

and is silenced by

silent oppression

that causes each of us

to be quiet.

As each person drowns

in oxygen

that flows down the trachea

and floods each passage,

as icebergs melt

and waves capsize

and the world keeps spinning

perpetually,

and the sun that judges

and scalds,

blisters each of our 

existences

in attempt to wake us

from our eternal slumber,

where the bombs crash

while flowers grow--

the sweet contradiction

of glory and glamour

that goes and goes and goes

in cycles

that tumble

in the washing machine

bleaching the colored fabric

of humanity,

fading the diversity

of each stitch in time

as life-times repeat,

but the music keeps 

moving 

and pulsing 

and writhing

in contractions

that bear both 

monsters and marvels.

Russian Dolls

A bird fell.

Dropped out of formation.

Had a heart attack.

Fell from the sky.

I don’t adventure far, the sun could swallow me, and the dark--it lurks with shadows. Jets travel so fast, their trails escape them. I’ve seen birds die from the tipping of a paper crane; the anxiety of falling and failing, in front of judging stares. 

There’s stacked Russian dolls cozied up inside me, and they bicker like siblings or generations. My therapist suggested a misdiagnosis, which cracked one doll out of another, creating a dispute over my identity. I folded an origami crane, with my otherwise idle fingers and observed it on the windowsill, like a sun dial, or an airplane,

and waited for its decision.