When the saints pray for me
With all of their tears,
Oily pearls upon my head,
In hopes for my soul,
I will love everyone who tried.
Wide-eyed creatures, long faced and placid
Cool robes of blue and gray,
Holding one hand up to revere me
Deploring the paintings of hell fire,
Devouring by devil-birds, blackened-steel talons
And serpent tongues, gnashing teeth on bones,
A stewing pot of sinners in unison
Singing with their agony-
Repent from the eastern minds of Philosophy,
We love you; there is no need to suffer through
Eternity alone.
Golden halo light of adoration,
I’ve felt the beams of prayers perhaps once before.
Forgive me, I no longer believe.
The truth has been piercing my side.
My greater sin is to lie.

All the fuzzy polka-dotted mist on the screen,
In between the lines the aliens are talking-
The dial is tuned to the pop and static
When nothing else is on-
Smoke has been filling my head
Within white walls, white noise of saws,
Through blood-shot rimmed eyes-
All day has been some awful song
And it was time I decided to trade in
This bloody smog for air-
I can’t keep my dinner down
No matter how hard I try
Nothing stays in, my hand is raw-
I’m a Gemini, I can’t keep hold of anything
For long.
Why I can’t get myself to sleep,
Live a little in a dream-



I once thought of a city floating in the sea-
I’m sailing away to be there
Alone and miles from everything
Familiar and wrong-
To walk along avenues of anonymity,
To breath in the fog-
Prayers are on the phone, the other end won’t
Answer, if not in time-
I’ve been calling,
Are you going to be there when I arrive?

Please stay home.

Child like toys in the hands of a twenty-something
Calling it art, nostalgia and product abandonment,
And now you’re calling it cool.
Like a rained-in lunch inside the class room
Playing heads-up seven-up, mad-libs,
And scribble too.
You’re too intelligentcia for me.
Twenty-odd years ago is not history.
I was hazy with the details,
The spiky hair and untucked clothes
Distracted me, if you had something unabashed to say
Beyond the toilet-bowl words on Christians
And Republicans and the anti-Christ,
I might have agreed with you, if I couldn’t get
Over your hair,
Queer-eye was so-last year.
We all hate Bush, too.
Nothing new.
Tell me again about your record collection
Because I really don’t care.
I’m imagining scanning the dial on the A.M. on the way home,
Hoping to catch the drone of a signal from some odd star.
Shut off the phone in case you call-

I’d ask you if you’d like a drink;
Would you stay?
I put on my dress
And in the mirror I saw
A phantom blue-green shadow
Along the ridges of rib on my chest; Seems
It was ages ago
You were looking at that bruise emerging
On me.
You broke the conversation with a kiss.

The air is warm, unseasonably;
I’m outside, barefoot in the production
Of a what feels like a summer evening-
The dress was a cover I didn’t mean to wear
Seriously,
There is nothing underneath at all-
My legs are deep in an imaginary scene
Of sea spray and sand that’s clinging-
Still laughing, raising the skirt
So you might think you’ve seen it all;
All is what you might be missing
If I imagined such a thing to be possible.
Assumptions are always wrong.

But it’s blue, and spills over me,
Falling on every curve I show-
I break the surface through the slit
And every part is free-
I’ve emerged a woman from the foam,
Knowing where I’ve been, knowing how to go-
Your rimmed eyes are on me one last time,
And that will be all you’ll know.

I’m only naked when in love
Or else it’s just the nude-
And I’m not in love with you.
I’ve taken off the dress, and fallen asleep
with memories; a fever pitch dream.

autoflash


red-eye reduction flash


no flash