#13: You're always unhappy, she said.

Why?

"Because the world's full of music-
Beautiful and brilliant and beyond my reach;
And I'll never understand how to make
Love in Spanish.

Because the few moments of utter comprehension
Pass between my fingers like so many grains of sand-
And my words flee me before I could
Capture or enslave or ink or kill them.

Because television promised me too much,
And the novels these days are promising me too little,
And I understand little of postmodernism,
And nothing of microeconomics.

Because I forget everything worth
Remembrances, and every Sun sinks
With an ominous promise of a day when all
Will be forgotten or nonsense or both.

Because I was allowed
Everything that light ever fell on,
Yet there's so much in the world
That's beautiful, which I shan't lay eyes on.

Because every second of my life
Witnesses poverty and cruelty and unfairness
And the instinct for survival will never let me
Wallow in empathy like I probably should.

Because tonight I'll promise myself again
To tell you that we can't keep seeing each other,
And that your cooking is bad and your poetry worse,
But I'll just smile politely at dinner and nod at all the right places."

#12: A Day Away

We went to the beach last Sunday-
Him, me and the spaces between us.

The clouds seemed to swell in the sky
Large enough to squeeze themselves
Into the nooks and crannies of
The darkest corners of my mind
And wipe out whatever's left
Of you upon me.

And the road went on and on
Like Mrs. Rosama's lecture on Herodotus
And the black tarry wormy line
Piercing the horizon seemed to
Be pleasantly comfortable
In its interminability.

And this old little piece of shit
That pretends to be a car
Whined and groaned and moaned;
Complaining with age and disuse,
But not loud enough
To drown our silences.

And when we reached the overcast town
And he sighed and I laughed
At the sight of the sea
And the first drops of rain fell
Just as the first wave crashed at my feet
I swear, I almost forgot you for a moment.

#11: Remembrances.

:

So turn off the cheap yellow light
Standing on the side table
That threatens to topple
With your every moan

Slip inside the almost-white almost-clean sheet
And hold your breath until you choke
Upon tides of black memories
Or the stillness of black air;

Wait for the demon under the bed
To rise and claw your insides out
Bring back black memories-
Of all you pretend to forget-

May it force out our kisses:
Burn my touch on your skin:
Whisper my voice into the Night:
Cry into the hollows of your shoulder blades.

Let the dark moon rise over
The sight of an almost-there Love
And the bruises of the memories
Of all you pretend to forget-

Leave the demon under the bed
When you flee from yourself tomorrow
And hide the marks on your arms
So that they'll never know.

#10: Forgive My Ineptitude.

Nights like this-
     few and   f a r     b e t w e e n
With the full moon
Revealing all  that it's seen
To the blackened streets
Where we had once been.

So tell me if
You could dare once again
To turn the pages
And take me in the rain
To my storybook land
Down a forgotten memory lane.

For I crave
With a hurt chest
And a ragged breath
         halfchoked halfgasped
To have
  a night more
     a minute more
       a moonbeam more
         of what was once You
           and Yours in Me.

So don't wake the demons
Hiding behind my shadow tonight
Leave behind nothing
But an almost-not-there remembrance
That will hurt
On cold winter nights
Like a wound that never healed
And a man that never left.

#9: Of Tainted Skin and Sin.

A pale map
Of crisscrossed
Scars
Of juxtaposed
Realities
Of stark
Ugliness.

This doesn't fit me
Quite so well;
So tear it off of me,
And burn my shame.

From scar
To scar
To marks
To ruins:
Of what
May have been
Beauty-
So many universes ago.

Flay off this
Unwholesome undesirable
Loathsome layer
Of lies I live.

Hatemesomuch
Detest and despise
Look with distaste at
My decrepit desolation.

And when you
Leave me tonight
With three soiled banknotes
Under the broken lampshade
            Don't SLAM the door-
       Darling, even noises
     Make me ache sometimes.

#8: It Is A Beautifully Drugged Night.

'Tis a beautiful night
Too restless for silences
Too heavy with truthtelling:
So maybe it's time
You told me things.

Then

Tell me, sweet love
Of the first time you kissed
And how crimson stains
S
   p
       r
          e
              a
                  d
On all your unsullied soul.

Tell me of nights
That stilly stole sleep
Away from the eaves
Of misty murky memories
Of runny black ink.

Tell me what your fears are
And I will feast on them
Ravenous beast that I am:
Nibble and bite and tear
At the edge of your dreams.

To make you feel
Twice-bought, thrice-owned
In my need to devastate, and to
Possess and consume and devour
Satiate my appetite
           for you, and You are
    Afflatus to the dead dried
           husk of bad poetry
    Elate me, delight me
           with your ecstasy of notknowing.
             
So come over,
The night's young
And I am quite unfinished
At the art of self-destruction;
And I love you so,
And tonight, babe,
You are going down with me.

#7: Blocks and Bonds.

She walks on
She walks alone
Treading the razor's edge
Cutting too close.

Like a piece of paper
Clutched too tight
And then set adrift
Hollow emptiness.

She sways along
The tides of the
Cold winds that blow
From nowhere to nowhere.

Withering, withering
Feeling the fingers of the breeze
Pick and pinch and pull
Bits of her soul away.

With eyes glazed
That shy away
From every unkind
Gaze of pity.

She swayed
Then swung
Then swum
Then flew

Along the tides
Of winds that once
Wore away a soul
And gifted her wings.