Writer's BLOCK

Blasted nothing!
Rancid haunting vapor
Eating away at the bones
of my skull
A headache of empty memories far too sincere
Like whiplash in my brain
Thoughts want to move but they sit idle
as though they have been authoritatively deactivated, disempowered.
A trap trapping a trapper

Without the advice

Without the advice (I need)
I speak out (of turn)
but now
I bite my tongue (until it burns)
And turn around to find you gone
A long way off resting on the horizons of yesterday.
Gone from view are your face and body
Taking with you my mind and heart.

Adopted in a determined self-rescue
I slap on a ne’er care façade

Feeble but fresh,
Forced and frantic

Upwardly mobile in appearance while flat on my back
Bare naked except for the sleeve for my heart.
Under a quilt tacked together with a stitch here and there
Letting escape a view while retaining enough heat for me.

Win or Lose

Whether it is said that I win or lose
you will remember the bruise I left
just left of your emotions
and south of your thoughts.

New territory or maybe terror-tory?
Recognition of a place in your heart
where you seldom allow a thought to go.
Different from what was typically central to you.

Viewing stains on my soul as proof of experience
of times best left to time
Too old to be new but to full of you to be cold.

When my final breath left

When my final breath left
I felt my soul creep out of my body
I stood astride my waist thinking
“What a waste” with the feelings of a smile filling my celestial space.

I felt gold pulling me up
Pulling me out.
Sparkling prickles of gold to grab your attention like nothing else can.
Growing larger, my space was taking its place among the order of things
Resting at the edge of complete emotional orgasm. Pure.
Filled with exponential happiness.

Jolted back into my body, I check my surrounds and remember what lead me here. It is because I am now without you. I am missing you like I miss the gold.
your melody, your hands.

The Frog In The Pond

Splash!

secrets

I crawled inside you
And told your stomach
Succulent secrets last night
Urging your hunger for me

Release my fear

Frighten me in a way
To make a day of mine
Be replaced by flange, fringe
Decorating, replacing my simple oddity.
Resting every niceness
on doubled and triplicate edge.
Bent to ripe tense of acceptance
Bounding melodramatic paramount
Screaming heart
to explode my mind
in stretched vein
seeming narcissistic
to my lack of twenty nine hands
One hundred forty-five special points of touch.

My wet tongue for a moment
sets in your cleft.
Your distal love made present
by your summons of God
and penetrable heaven.
My need sabotaged by
my only two hands,
my only two legs.

Patience

Patience,
Mother Fucker
is a god dam virtue!
And you have immersed yourself in a world of hurt and pain
and broken promises based on half-truths
which are what they are only
because you can’t accept the panorama of truth
that does not allow you to come out
as clean as you think you are.
So take your time and suck on this and
Oh baby, the batteries in my watch are running low
so this blow might make time stand still
Let patience be your lover because I love making you wait.

Pasture

Untitled

Cryptic thoughts encroach upon the crazed
Set the stage.
Create appeal,
and reel them in.
Visualize rivers, pastoral scenes
and grazing animals, a bird in the sky.
It whizzes through my view.
The tang and musk of death enters the air
peaks this ten year old mind.
Escalating to putrid as I near,
The corpse is old enough to scarcely interest the flies.
Hollow and concave
the death juices no longer filling the corpse
slurped up by flies in days gone by.
Two yellow jackets and a few small shiny beetles
dine on the near dry leftovers
I look back to the pastoral scene
putrid air in my nostrils
I walk away with intrigue in my mind
I return retracing the path I took
to get to the corpse
The air carries the rot
guiding me along
wafting stronger at times
I view pasture
forcing peace in my eyes
rot in the air
I view pasture
this view is a lie
I view pasture
fighting the view in my mind.
I view pasture.

one more day

I held the tears in one more day
They began running down the inside of my spine.
The distressed pressure
It began to build inside my brain casing.
The pressure pressed out and down my spine.
Infecting my body and breath
with every thing hurting and sharp.
Like a chemical catalyst setting off a reaction
the hurt and sharp scoured away at life
leaving a fantastically perfect
outer shell.
Not impenetrable
but more like a sieve
that flows both ways and
straining out only what was needed.

Necrophilia

I have been thinking of you often
You are lying in a coffin
It is bizarre, I know
but I crawl in there with you.

I guess it is necrophilia
because I feel ya
and you are cold
You have rigor mortis
throughout your body.
But I don't mind
because you are mine
and I'm not letting go.

Is it passion or obsession?
Don't be offended
It is just a question?
No need to have a coronary
unless your intention
is to get in here with me.

My sister

Was she once a child?
Beguiled by life in a romance novel
making her aware of what a woman could be,
what a woman could want.
Made parental at 10 to resent her lot
and so not taking it too seriously.
Placed on her the touch of a man at four
to frighten her burgeoning youth to be leery
of alone time with the familiar and trusted.
Was she once a child?
Carefree and unconditionally loved
recalled so much in novels she once read
rested bitter in her head.
Memories of responsibilities inappropriate for 10,
dinner by 6, dishes too, keep him out of trouble, no hitting please
and for him just “listen to your sister.”
Memories all now a whisper
in her adult life of professional responsibilities
with thank you’s duly noted.
Was she once a child?
Was she ever young enough to be self indulgent,
at ease and never alone?
Suicidal then counseled, divorced and rebounding,
he got the house but she wanted the couch.
A legacy on the make to take her where she has always been going.

Murder by suicide

Murder by suicide

And on a day I wonder, I wonder of a blunder on the day I died.
Your gold trimmed gun seemed like a lot of fun for one final moment.
No moment for atonement or to wonder of a needier time.
My time was now and wow what a moment.
His piece in my hand and her cocking her cock.
If I missed she wouldn’t; her grip tightening ‘round her revolver.
Worlds revolving ‘round the revolver as she molested her handle.
The sweetest hand hug I’d ever given.
My hand flew back as the bullet went in.
The sight in my eyes went red.
The pain drifted from the back of my hand after it hit the table.
My trashed face fell towards the trash.
The smell of the plastic bag rushed past me.
No angels, no hell just the smell of carpet fresh in my death.
My final sensory waft.
No sight save beautiful blue eyes as far as time can be.
My minds eye seeing your final glance peering at me.
Your beautiful eyes staring at me intent on closing mine with death.
Nothing like my colorless blunder to not ask if you’d please miss me.
Cowardice moved your gold and silver gun to my hand.
Her thoughts poised for human poison; murder by suicide.

intrude

love my rounder rendering
of my hatchling lament.
angered grossly stomping my plea
faked it well
you faked it well
well and truly faked it well.
You make rise a realization
that lack space for enough intrusive spaces
to force reality that I must only feel.

intention empathy

Ineffectual touched rhythm
I cannot drag you into fantasy
I reach for you in thought
And you arrive kicking and screaming
Drained of interest and use
I am lucky you stay long enough to spit in my face

I dreamt yesteryear of mapping your body
Tasting my way to cartography
Every forest to every canyon.

Cavernous expletive

Empathy offered to relieve the pain
To help me stay away but which only worsens condition

Convulsive friend, friend, friend
I’ll take your best to induce nightmare
I tongue-less scream.

So no my precious little project don’t cry
I’ve clipped off your head so there should be no pain
I promise intention empathy.

In my inner ear there is a tickle

In my inner ear there is a tickle
developing, enveloping my mind
because a rancid thought will whittle
the much maligned.
I shake like a dog
to rid myself of the rank.
Nasty wig biting at my demeanor.
I’m fighting for a clearer
state of mind.
A focal transition to
the lack of equilibrium.
My first mission
providing a moments freedom
from the tickle in my inner ear.
Stemming from my mind
my heart is growing weak.
A growing colder place,
molding with time.
I pray for a peek
from the sun.
Stemming from my mind
feelings causative of angina.
Fear of being left behind
sprouts another tickle in my inner ear.
A whisper not so quiet.
Only if it were asking trite things like
“Why are we here?”

I wish for a kiss

I wish for a kiss where I could taste my sweet pungency on your lips.
From the tip of your tongue I would taste with the tip of my tongue
the tipping of the scales between build-up and release.

A point that is primal primed
to provide what is primarily mine
to be privately yours.
So just a kiss,
a kiss where I feel Heaven
passing through my mind.

I don't recall

“I don’t precisely recall. It must have slipped my mind.”

the way you opened the bottle and poured the wine and looked at me with a clear expression of want.

“But really, I don’t remember. After all it was such a long time ago.”

the way your fingers pressed the stem of the glass as you passed it on to me. i was a bit confused. it was all so new. i was surprised the way my heart raced and my shoulders tightened when your warm hands touched me. i felt nerves of excitement.

“How could I possibly. All those many miles and many many years ago. Really it’s not clear. I swear I don’t remember!”

the tiny spot that you missed shaving. it was on your jaw line. the sweetness in the air and the opening at the neck of your shirt.

“Really?! That never crossed my mind. I hardly think about way back then.”

and the way you would lean casually against the kitchen counter looking at me.

HIV

A dirty needle, a dismissed condom
that ties me to my fate.
At any rate
here we are, our numbers growing.
Did I throw it all away for one night
to forever be feared
and seen as a question.
Could a cold be the end of me?
Will I always be questioning my end
or should I see it as an awakening?
An awakening to wear my red ribbon
to remind people to take care
to be aware that life is not
business as usual.
Would that be so unusual?
To have today as both routine and novel.
To whisper my hope for tomorrow to an
awesome sunset. The clouds catching my radiant light
sure to keep my secrets and tomorrows sun welcoming me
to ‘morrows morn’.

--Written in first person for effect. I wrote this because a positive friend asked me to write a poem about HIV and make sure to mention the red ribbon.

Hawaii Poem

The city is crawling
with all colors and sizes,
odors and afterthoughts
Flowers and coconuts and
seafood and sunshine.

Walking past a bar last night I
smelled the sweet pungentcy
of fresh and stale smoke
and yeasty alcohols and
a distinct white mushroom musk
drifting off mens shoulders
mixing and mildly masked by
citrus, berry, floral perfume

Hard drives

You and your hard drives
and floppy disks
Copper wires and fiber optics
Your gizmos and gadgets
running you every which way
pulling you into a thousand bytes
of frantic information

Electronic information; tiny
pulses of light
or at least until someone
turns out the lights

Hang in there

A dust storm told me to hang in there
A spilling cloud said, “I have plenty to spare.”
A finite mind thought there is a world to know
While lacking the understanding
To understand what it thought.
My hallucinations apologized with a lament
That his hallucinations are back
As he stumbled away to void his bowel
To toss back a pill to medicate me away.
My hallucination returned to dictate his hallucination
Into a voice recorder for later psychological review.
“why can’t he do me the favor of hating me.”
Click. Pause. Click, “he looks more vivid this time.
Bronzy blonde hair, his vaguely cauliflowered ear,
His thumb print dimpled chin.

Gossip

Hen pecking, cackling, wretchedly knit picking.
It sizzles some and can burn in your ears.
Rich like sweetened condensed milk
With olestra-like digestibility to the sensible
It’s a mouth full all mounded on your tongue.
Weighing your jaw open like only hot gossip can.

First and then but after that

First and then but after that
but wait that’s not right
and then and then and then
between here and now and there and then
there was once a then
who’s now was previous
and their there’s were not mine and my mind was wincing at the wonder of it all.

There, there dry your tears because that was then and this is now.
Now then!
Back to what really matters, but then again, oh anyway.
Because their then
that was then was there
then and right then
I was there at the very moment
our simultaneous now’s back then were several then’s between.
However, there are other opinions.
You see, now that it’s known that I was there then and that their there had a difference based on similarities and a convergence between then and now.
(Don’t blink. You might miss something.)
You see, let me reiterate. Then plus Now equals Now because Then was Now and Now was Now or is Now and Then will be too or is too.
Semantics.
And more or less vice versa. If Then was Now then the “Then Now” would be Now and then their Then would be THEN from Now but their “Then Now” would be Now for them, then.
Got it?

one more drip

Jealously, I watch the drips fall
Rolling away down the sink
To undeniably, uncertain futures
Adventures
Lives
To experience destination
After destination
After destination
After...

Anticipation for departure builds
The intrinsic turgor pressure
Indeed, a momentous occasion
To be leaping off
To be soaring though air

The pull, the stretch,
And finally the snap
Sending reverberations
Coursing through the parted
Painful like a pinch
But as desired as a long awaited kiss

You stabilize
Prepared for the journey
The descending ascent
To greet the likely
To shake the hand of Time
And impatiently say
“Where have you been?
I’ve been waiting!”

Meanwhile, those you left behind
Prepare to do what they do
What they have done
What they will always do
They produce.
And without thinking,
What will my actions produce?
What have I done?
Are there consequences?

Individually, each of us are a consequence

With or without consent, encouragement, or praise
I graciously bow my head
To give thanks as a consequence
To a consequence

A drip among drips.

I’m not going to you can’t make me
I don’t want to please don’t make me…
why’d you make me now you’ve hurt me
don’t you like me you must not like
me what made you mad I cleaned my room
and my homework’s done I walked the
dogs and put out the trash I did the
dishes while my sister stacked I love
you so much you couldn’t know so much
and I took my bath and did everything
right but just like last night I’ll
see you late tonight you know it’s not
right and you have no right at all why
can’t we play a normal game where
my hands don’t touch your balls don’t
you see the fear on my face and the
tears in my eyes I’m tired of home
mom surely knows because yesterday
she saw me tell you “let go” I don’t
think she cares because I’ve seen how
she glares at me not you like I’m the
one who’s not true who’s cheated and
lied and spread a little girls thighs
it’s creepy you know I swear this winter
I’ll pack myself with snow and then
maybe then you’ll stop coming at night.

Dearest Lie

Dearest,
Lie still while I tell you a lie. Quiet now! I am about to start to lie. Before the rugged and noble Prince lay a journey, a quest of great potential, the beginning of salvation.
There lay at the end of a lane a river of gold. Every pebble of the lane had been lain by a liar. Carefully, the Prince studied each and every lie lain down on the lane while lying on his stomach. A path to gold that no one would admit they told. Paved with cunning deceptions to tickle the edge of your brain and extend the limits of your mind.
A funny, a farce, a sham, a scam, a scheme, a tale so twisted that its knots were knotted. So cut it off, sever the problem.
Let dead dogs lie.
But lie that you did that too because after all a lie is a lie. Now lie down and hope to dream honest thoughts about the lies you lay in the lane on your journey to salvation.

Daily Grind

Grinding it into your face at a pace that’s better for me than you
Too taking what I will what I can
Damn man
Damn
No wasted time, this leaves me breathless in the night. Despite
The hurried pace, this race is won only when all are complete.
The heat in my heart lub-dubbing to a cool down
Where tongues are synchronous swimmers
And an ecstatic whimper indicates this race may have only just begun.

Coming of Age

My milky maturation
my coming of age
Fantastic point of completion

Grabbing for one
groping for one
groan for one
You want one like you’ve never wanted want before
that rush of silver and oxygen
Warmth and
wonder if beyond this point lies Heaven.

It is like liquid electricity
swirling around in my inner ear
softly inviting with primal
familiarity.

Christmas Quarrel

'Tis the season for a Christmas quarrel
With a jolly temper and a short fuse.
You slap there hands and tell them 'No'
Send them to the cookie jar and then
Wonder 'why won't they behave?'

Shiny lights put out on display to energize us all
And remind us of our training --
averted eyes and detached quick change smiles.
Our hearts pound with strained patience
as we push our carts full of gifts
piled up and over a teary child
confused by the offering of a gift and
The gentle advise of “don’t touch”

With the hustle and bustle of the Christmas holiday
Working to wrap us all in a potpourri of
Cinnamon and spice and designer perfumes,
the scent of department stores and cash.

The sss-click of your credit card being
Run through the scanning track
And the ca-zzzzz as your receipt prints out.
You scribble down your signature and grab for your bags
As you hurry to your next destination followed by
Children, frustrating as it may seem,
that bare a remarkable resemblance to you.

The smell of a Christmas cookies
All crusty and brown
Soon to cut my gums.
Piping hot coffee to ruin my day
To scald my tongue so I don’t taste the turkey dinner
that will catch in my throat and
I’ll wonder and gag.
Do I trust you to save me?
To squeeze the lump out of my throat
just to offer pecan pie and peanut butter fudge
to induce suffocating allergic reaction.

building inside

building inside,
I feel it building inside
It builds my pride
not to hide and bow my head
in front of your insistence

You may have broken me
but I have rebuilt.
I've been tested
and biopsied
Drilled and poked and drained
Scanned, screened and poked again

I have crawled out of that dark cave
with dark sunken eyes
only to find the darkness
in people.

Screaming at the top of there lungs
"Do not succeed!"
"Do not be better than me!"
"I'll keep you down because
of my deep seated selfish nature."

I'll ignore you to the point where you
become suspicious of my sanity
I'll be schizophrenically under responsive
and manically over responsive.

I kept my cool
When you said that you wanted
to make me mad.
Believe me when I say
that I know what it means
to be angry
to feel physical and emotional pain
I want to whine about the unfairness of
my life but where the hell does that get me.

My understanding is my burden and my redemption
My extreme empathy has resulted in apathy
and cold chills in my heart.

Build My Temptations

Build my temptation breath in my ear
undress me slowly first taking off my
mediocrity then my vulnerability.
Expose me to the world. Show off
my bare sin. Bite my nipples to arouse
my superficiality. Bare my insanity.
Unzip my jealousy and let it drop to
my ankles. You pull off my medications,
the elastic hanging on my heal. A muted
thwuff sounds as it releases. Lay me
in a bed of complacency and kiss
my abdomen. Lower now lower,
smell my toil and disregard. Taste my
tepid emotions. Taste the hollow dignity
leaving your mouth musty. You pick up
all my short comings and pile them next to
my shoes that have been tossed to the floor
between the bed and the wall. Love me
again. I won’t redress. I’ll stay bare;
exposed. Painfully open because I know
you like my pain. I’ll allow your sadism
to be able to live through a less lonely
moment. You attend me well returning
to the bed. Undoubtedly being just
another one to you. You go through
the paces of what you love to do.
This sticky situation is leaving a heavy
humidity in the air of the confines.
This act is refined. In the morning you
will be gone. For you it will be just
another night. For me another nightmare
that leaves me dreamy, that leaves me
dreamy in the morning.

Break away

I hate my skin, my shell, my closet

Damned irritating man,
I hope he dies.
He should unleash his energy
On someone his own size.

I’d slice him,
Hurt him,
Cut him
Down to size.
Yet, I know
This would not be wise.

Inside me, it hides.
It rears its head.
I don’t want it to kill me.
So, I pretend to be dead.

Oh you reluctant seed.
Why won’t you sprout?
Peel back and through off your skin.
Split open your shell and let out your light.
Take from my grave so that you may push back that rusty hinge.

Untitled 2

Didactic ways of approaching
Or rather encroaching still waters
Born in convergence
Of currents and undertows

Question: Why carry such woes?

Breach Birth Life

Breach birth life
Dumping trouble at the start
A forward directed backward progression
It’s a damned mental recession
That steers my heart to question

It’s the nature of things
And so I am bruised
For cruising down that path
Ass first

Bitter Lover

Bitter lover
Sweeten up.
I’m not begging saccharin
Just now and then
A bit of honey
To balance out that bitter
You’ve left with me.

Between right and wrong

You have crossed the line between wrong and right
but I doubt that is even quite right.
Your vengeance and rage have paved the way for my degraded ways.
So I raise the flag like I have done before
white for surrender
waving with convulsive snaps in the wind.
winding itself tight
wringing its frantic mad self into a placid rag
hanging futile
The wind providing a twitch of life to the worried fabric
I am observing the quiver of a leaf as a sign of hope
A reason to hold on.

Assault

a smile
a wink
a pat
a stare
a love?
a touch
a smooch
a wince
a caress
a squeeze
a lick
a shudder
a grab
a push
a tear

Nauseous confusion
Suffocating realization
Righteous Indignation

The comfortable grip
A beautiful bullet
A simple squeeze

As I

Do not speak of multitudes
and loneliness.
Seas of people in an over populated world.
You as common as I,
lonely as I
as crowded as I.
We have nothing in common because we choose it.
As light as I,
rigidity fuses my spine
with resistance to believe

A tempestuous water bead

A tempestuous water bead
dancing upon a settled puddle
of previously powerful water
undoing it’s river’s bounds
speedily skirting ‘cross puddles top
making micro-undertow
weak to even non-present tadpole
though urgent enough
to spur it’s legless perfection
into vigorous twitch.
Mud lightly swirling under
my dancing skate of bouncing water.
The friction builds to drag and slow
my dancing skate of bouncing water.
Grinding. It spreads its base side wide
to revel in the continuity of wholeness.

A Smile in Your Eyes

A smile in your eyes
Expressed throughout your torso
Raised brow to the height of happiness
Above furrow and doubt
Above concern and lust
Above temptation
Below surprise
That’s the place of happiness
A punctuated lack of concern
A reprieve from stress and pain
Far gone remorse
Far gone morose
Far gone grief and sorrow
Distant to tears
Though holding Tear’s woeful hand
Siblings in strength
Enemies in cause
Twins in result
Twins
A smile in your eyes

Untitled

A paradox in rhyme
is that in time one’s words will
be loved
BUT
Immediately, rhyme is reason enough to think one
mad and irregular and far too inwardly mobile.
A regular social misfit
Mass senses demand external proof
outward actions of deeper thought.

My grand internal expanse.

A Counseled Experience

A clinical stance coated with empathy

I sat down to breathe

I eased into the soft chair in the gentle room with a tender view

through the hard glass.

Definitely unsure but clearly ready to see with clarity

each day anew.

I sat down to breathe.

I spoke at length of loving lost loves

and loving the lose of love for life.

I mentioned meditation

and marvelous moments

and a torrent of thoughts came pouring out.

I sat down to breathe.

I spoke with hope and hurt

honesty and my understanding

I am sitting and breathing

I’m reflecting on fractures

fragments of infidelities

underhanded thoughts delivered with a backhand and a smile.

[clearly not my experience]

I hate this poem

9-volt

Nine-volt transistor radio

Don’t you send me one more signal.

You and your beautiful package

You are a complex device

I’ve memorized your angles,

Your shapes and parts;

Those that twist

And those that turn,

Your lines and curves

From every angle.

Above me and below,

From left and right,

From in front or behind.

I hope you don’t mind.

You’re up on that shelf

You’re just out of reach

You can play Adam and I’ll be Eve

But this time, a peach.

[Now all I need is a battery!]

Dale

I miss Dale

Whether heaven or hell

I cannot tell.

It’s up to God and not me

that places me on my knees

with pleas

to open His gates of heaven.

Tangible, touchable, finger tipped moments

to hold my thought

through and through.

Pleased by pleasing you

you've left me with regrets all my own.

To own up to the lessening of my humanity—it’s insanity.

For fleeting time is no panacea, no painkiller, no remedy.

Angry and scared I’m far less than prepared

to delve into the harried tendrils of my fragmented life.

Such turmoil such strife

such is life.

Assuredly not numb just too dumb to express my gratitude and 

too weak to miss you completely.

My spirit will not allow it.

My heart cannot take it.

I sit in this empty house 

listening to the sounds it makes

thinking you should be home

anytime, anytime, anytime.

By and by another day will arrive

bringing with it only time.

A memory of your sexual sensitivities,

your turn on's and things that made you laugh.

I’ll remember you because I want to, I need to, to have you near.

To peer into the quiet night

to be forced into another moment

all alone.