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.