March 31, 2020
We already lost this unbearable race.
Overanalyzed and unverified
numbers chased us through
twisted tinted mazes,
painted eyes melt into blue lights
destroying our shape
from head-
to toe.
Self-rejected
flaws fall insight.
We search—we beg
for meaning
In the shallow depths of a glass lens.
Frozen like statues—
Heads titled – bodies twisted
Hollow games—
Lonely friends and monuments.
We’re perfectly aesthetic
social butterflies. Through empty
rooms we fluttered,
electronic connections—
barely touched
Anything.
Refreshed feed
never felt complete.
300 likes and 30 comments
fill our hollow gaps.
March 31, 2020
Something abstract,
immaterial assumption
bursting breathing
in color.
Rainbow eyes.
Wicked psyche
and the curvature of ink blots.
Associative breath in the ether
makes a murderer of you or I
or some passersby
on a street corner.
Breathe me into essence
or some feint vestige
of reality.
Whisper the world
to sleep.
Inhale lest
you asphyxiate.
Unsteady hand
of a jitterbug.
Jitter jitter and
fritter away
all that time you made.
Damn we’ve got a great gig going.
And that eternal eclipse
mutes the sky and
rainbow eyes.
I see the vague portrait of a butterfly
up here in the ink awry.
1942 and they decided
to lobotomize me for it.
Ain’t that crazy.
January 29, 2020
Bright tinted giggles build up and crack into sunlight glows.
Squinting forward, our delicate fingers tightly clutching metal chains.
We bend and straighten our little legs,
begging the recess bell not to ring and
pushing ourselves into the bright sky.
The distant treetops wave at us
Midair, shrieks of joy explode from our throats.
The polished middle school kids curse between words,
glaring at us up and down.
We try our best smudge and blend,
but crowded classrooms fill with sharp chatter
and reverted eyes; suffocating us whole.
Whispers travel and break into chains.
Jeers multiply and tangle us in knots.
Our changing reflections shatter emptily.
In our khaki pants, we stock grocery store shelves,
between beaming rushes
and blushing laughs,
ignoring the blur of fluorescent lit aisles.
Exhausted from endless shifts
we fall into each other’s casual gestures.
Our brains releasing golden magic
with each perfectly formed sentence.
His soul...
January 29, 2020
Remnants of twisted pine
Cling to sticky fingers like ash
Stains on white t-shirts.
Kiss the plant with flames and
Swallow its smoky soul!
Maybe your skin will singe
And you’ll both simmer,
But you can’t water cacti
With cooking wine
And expect flowers to flourish.
I dreamt I was a street sweeper;
I didn’t like it that much.
A trashcan tumbled down
A flight of concrete steps
And told me, “I’m the bin,
But you’re the waste.”
I was late to work,
Going top speed,
Godspeed,
Passing empty receptacles
And barrels of guck.
I’m a streetsweeper,
No, a bartender,
No, I don’t have a job,
I’m a quarter spinning
On a cloth tabletop,
And somehow I never topple.
April 30, 2019
Cafe at night
Steel cages rattle
Slam the stones
Over every store
Each painted pretty
in a different flavor of graffiti
Like a theater wait
And hush our voices
The sun drops and
Fingers of light recede
Lingering in the old town
Rainbow hues fade from the city’s crown jewel
But deep in the streets the embers remain
Sun baked tiles grow cool in streetlight glow
Shadows toss up across wrought stone facades
And lamps bathe the bustle in spotlights,
The cobblestone streets a new stage, and night’s curtains drawn wide
Burst of song drift around corners from street performers
And squalls of laughter spill into the alleys like beer running in the cracks
Decorations of thousands of crenellated lights erupt across the street
Draping the city in every color, like a splendid gown awash with neon
Through the main strip people pack and pearls of revelry come from every restaurant
Blood pumping through a dancer’s veins, giving life to the old bones of th...
February 13, 2018
Hickies
Sometimes I miss
The wine colored stains you left on my skin
As my neck cringes in protest
The blood vessels on my collar bones
Exploding
Leaving violet and violent galaxies across my chest
As I watch the purple fade to yellow
Only to fade back into my bones
Fingers tracing where my bruises once were
As if they were the last I had of you
But then again
What kind of a grown man
Still gives hickies
December 7, 2017
Who is the owner of that black wig floating around in my dream?
Is it the old woman,
who always walks in my store,
wearing spaghetti stained tee-shirts,
who skids worn out Chinatown slippers
down linoleum isles,
and fills her basket
with velveeta and cream?
Is it that young woman on the subway
who nurses a child in one arm,
and cradles laundry in the other,
who worries a thread on a wool knit sweater
unraveling at the seam?
Is it Gianni’s wife
who waters the petunias each morning
in her pink satin nightgown
who warms her body
on the edge of a sunbeam?
November 3, 2017
No, no, I’m glad you called,
I actually wanted to reach out to you.
I don’t remember that, but I saw him the
Other day, I motioned but he didn’t see, what a dick, right.
No, keep going, I - No I interrupt - I’m loud, it’s a problem.
It’s just that I smelled a waft of some old fragrance a couple days ago.
Yeah, like the smells that trigger some nostalgic hallucination,
Except I wasn’t tripping, I was just smelling.
Honestly it kind of had that moldy, sarcophagus odor.
Yeah I really don’t think bigfoot’s dick would smell like this.
Okay, then yeah depending on bigfoot’s game I guess.
Yeah if he’s got big feet - but anyway I remembered an image with it.
It’s from a movie, but obviously an old one - in color.
Some suit playing guitar in a chair - a man - and when I thought of it,
I felt awful. Like the feeling when a teacher yells at you as a kid.
No, worse. Nah we Jews always knew Santa wasn’t real.
Okay, like as if I had forgot some...