VIVIAN

I’M A COFFEE SHOP NARCISSIST,
ALL THIS WASTED ON THE ATMOSPHERE
SO I TAKE ANOTHER SIP, AND IM THERE
IN THE CUP, FACE IN THE SURFACE TENSION
EYES NOSTRILS FOREHEAD CEILING,
I DRINK AGAIN TO THE INCESTUOUS FEELING…
THE CONVERSATIONS NO ONE HEARS,
ME LUSTING FOR MY SISTER SELF
KISS THE BRIM, SUCK MY LIP…
HEY LOVE YOU’RE SO WELL EQUIPPED
TO FUCK YOURSELF INTO OBLIVION

POUND OF FLESH IN JARS, MY TWIN
ANTISEPTIC FOR THE SOUL DISSECTION
WASHING MY HANDS IN THE SINK,
SHE SMILES FROM THE MIRROR SAYING YES,
SHE’S READY FOR THE PROCEDURE,
AND TALKS ME THROUGH THE VIVISECTION
STRETCHED OUT ON THE TABLETOP AND FLUID
ON THE PAPER, AN ELASTIC UMBILICAL
AND STATIC IN HER HAIR, HER WILD EYES
OPEN, AND SHE NAMES HERSELF VIVIAN

NOW MY HIPS FEEL FUNNY, MY NIPPLES STICK OUT
AND WHEN I BREATHE IN I CAN SMELL HER ON ME
SHE SWEARS LIKE A SAVAGE, FIGHTS FOR CONTROL,
AND I STARE AT MY SKIN WITH NEW CURIOSITY
I CALL HER LOVELY, AND SHE CALL ME BEAUTIFUL,
WATCHING THE WORLD, WE WALK US AROUND
DOWN ON EACH OTHER, AND FITTING LIKE FROGS,
WE LAUGH AT OUR CLOTHES ADORNING THE ROOM
LEGS EVER OPEN FOR HER SOFT ADVANCE, WE
BREATHE SAYING NOTHING: THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT
OUR HEARTS SAFE IN SECLUSION

ALONE EVERY NIGHT, ALL THIS SPACE TO OURSELVES,
ME IN A DRESS, AND VIVIAN INSIDE IN OUR LOVERS ARMS,
AROUSED AND RELAXED, I SURRENDER ALL SENSE,
AND SWITCH OFF MY MIND. I’M WATCHING IT HAPPEN
WITH A THIRD SET OF EYES, SHE WANTS ME,
SHE WANTS ME INSIDE. VIVIAN KISSES WITH
AND THROUGH ME, A LOVE ATTACK IN TANDEM
WE DUEL WITH EMOTIONS, TURNING
SOMERSAULTS OF FANCY, AND DRINK
TO ENHANCE THE ILLUSION

SHE’S DRAWING IT ON ORANGE PAPER:
LOVE IS WEIRD AND SCARY
THERE AREN’T ENOUGH WORDS,
SHE DRAWS A BURNING DICTIONARY
SHE DOESN’T WANT TO LOOSE US
AND SHE DOESN’T WANT TO NEED US SHE SAYS
SORRY SO FAST, AFTER CRYING FIT TO BLEED US
IT’S NOT NICE TO ASK THE QUESTION OF WHAT’S LEFT
AFTER WE PUT OUR CLOTHES ON
SMILING AT ME WITH WET RED EYES

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO THINK
WHEN SHE SAYS WHAT I SAID
MADE HER FEEL LIKE A SLUT?
WHEN SHE’S SCARED IT’S ALL OVER
CAUSE WHO WOULD WANT A FUCKUP LIKE HER?
I FEEL IT IN MY THROAT THAT I’VE JUST BEEN
A TREMENDOUS KLUTZ WITH HER HEART
AND IT MAKES MY HEAD HURT BECAUSE
I KNOW HOW SHE FEELS THE LITTLE BITS
OF OURSELVES AWKWARDLY EXPOSED
TO SOMEHOW BE DEALT WITH
SCARED OF WHAT IT ALL IMPLIES.

~flying over collage~

THE BRILLIANT MACHINE

blowing grease with an air-gun
staple-tacking the seams of this box
cranes east west south
my derision, metal in motion

strapping burnt plastic
snapping the metal band
what do you call this?
pings with hammer, sparing nicks

angles, black paint
gun at a distance
bad bad wrists
and ankles

trivia, oh trolley-slag,
details belie you
lover never a fighter
arms testament to lift and repetition

hot metal, strong back
thighs sped forward
spirals like razors
cutting through nail-beds

smoke the doldrums for
honesty in quick syllables
what is a man without balls,
hot lips, and presence?

the dragon red
hovering beyond us
arms-length and will awaiting
the song of liberation

my meditation
this lazy sun busting through clouds
the mindless slogging
fucking money

you know what violence is?
priss subjugation
against the elation of letting love rule.
there are wings hidden in our backs

grace and steel shoes slide
along a heartstring’s bass strum
there are no floors, only fingerprints
and the humming of hours gone

when the sun goes down alone
vice is forgotten in the night wind
your lover’s voice
on the phone

held fast in the balance
of gravity and momentum
overcoming inanimate objects
and the unknown

i green an aluminum can
mainline coffee in great gulps to breathe, shimmy,
and breach waves of streets
to receive

the future unfolding like a soft letter
an alphabet falling
an endless scroll
unwinding

gaskets round my wrists
the earth element magnet flipped over
well who am I to want more
when this is all a dream?

this ‘morrow will find me
eating the opposite of stress
…a soft landing for heaviness

auto-work braced in a box
motor-sped down the freeway
18 wheels hit the tarmac
whatever happened to revolution?

strong hearts
feeding strong minds
in strong bodies…
small hands turning the face of time

paint stripped,
weather-worn,
bolts rusted.

a belly rejecting water in dim sunlight
vomits ash into an empty sink
eyes leak like green grease in the seams…
just show up and work.

a shipment manifest
numbers turned over on a screen
light refracted, safety plastic
the mass and gravity of light

…eating meat on the bus
…joints raw

my fucking hands…

knuckles…

my body…

the brilliant machine.

~true myth zoo spa~ {live reading}

###moth#11###

the texture of pink against blue black scales
the flash of fear in the water. her voice like tigers
in the net. forget looking weird, these cats are way
beyond. the voices of dancers who would rather not
speak. porange queen of moths will not wait for
severance. irreverance her only tune. in the pitch
light glistening off her spit she sees a dragonfly and
whistles her outfit is louder than the permanent boy
she ran away with. this one with the click rythm and
the fits only wears black slips. she just wants to
dance. you cast a shadow with your thigh. when will
another moth come along. the lenght of love not
listening. if slumber party is the only band that
makes you happy well why dont you send it to me baby?

sleep another day for me love. do it one more time.
get off pandora and dig up some ufos in 2017. bring a
marker and draw on my tights. in 2017 you are famous
for eating moths. so get off the screen and sleep
with a pen for the morning. and stop reading what you
write. you have drunken yourself into poverty and you
tell yourself you cant go out and this is all you have
left, well your wine stained lips will look good
smirking over the felt for 25 cents. oh wait, i forgot
that’s all you do. besides eat moths.

not even a haircut makes you sneer like when youve
been writing. or listening to the sounds. queen of
apogly. for a good phrase, you hang around here. yes
love, i would say there is something wrong with you,
but i’m not there to see you through your phases, and
if this is desperation for the absense of me… keep
working on that lens. one day you will see me and i
will burn your eyes out with my smile

if you didnt weigh a thousand pounds we would shove
you off the ledge. but you flick your bangs and sway
your heavy hips and i cant resist flicking some ash
off your shoulderblade. go home and choke on it. you
would love it if i did this to you. go on looking at
me that way and i will. wring you out like a dirty
shirt. the inverse of you is me. i want this whole
equasion to burn. in proximity. scissors and you and
me. inside you she has alot more sway. so go on
pushing your shelf and those shades will eat you.

imagine someone over you shoudler caring. i give up,
baby. i just smile when i think of you not slitting
your wrists. saying something self effacing soaking
up fries with mustard and ketchup. licking it off
your jeans when you spill. the way you throw on your
overcoat. 9:33 am. i eat a moth and stop cutting this
letter to ribbons.

who am i anyway in your tiniest world? i stay up
nights thinking about my lesson plan. you imagine a
giant green apple sitting on my desk with emormous
black ants crawling out of the stem and up my tights.
imagine me not being able to stand anywhere without
calling attention to myself. i dress for the floor,
to look my shabbiest when i come off like a nun
ordering gin fizzes at the luna. you give it to
yourself and you have the leisure to complain, when i
have these moments to respond, i hold my breath.

like a moth on a light.
dont tell me why.
your eyelashes are wet

i thought you would tell me something
sleepless in the morning light
you took a thread from your sleeve
and left it on the cactus

so devour the line
the mermaid eats
the fear of feeling better

the melody
wouldnt leave you alone
you wouldnt even leave your home
if there wasnt the off chance of annihilation
white belly up in the sun

so eat the page you wrote
kill yourself over and over again
all the ink and paper in a ball
you swallowed it with your wine

you make your knees hurt
crossing your legs
listening rapt and sorry to be seen
what is it about these girls
that makes you so mean?

every dot in a clear mirror.
dusty as a cat in the weeds.
falling in and out of love with me.
you were talking about yourself.
i wanted to love you constantly.

i told her mermaids crack viles with their teeth
to rid the fear of the salt beneath the square fucked
roof of my lip died for lack of flavor on the tinfoil
princess’s last goodbye. she fell asleep on the
milkweed parsol for spite. listless and growling all
night. the shades pulled in and carved my number up.
i smiled only when they
said something they thought was funny. my twittering
black shoes were made for
running away with the point
like when you drive by a radio tower
and the people in the car are being defennsive and
dull and you wonder what wraith knows the
wind up there where the red light is blinking. and i
would come for the girl who is singing

all the ways i try to paint myself lovely
in the light for the times i am a shallow dish with no
love for you. split me. split me and you. stuck in
a room. we wished for this and they gave it to us.

you decided not to eat so you could mindfuck us into
money with no eyes with no mouth. i like it when you
move unpromted then you lie back and act inadequate
when all we want is the next thread. something in
your voice makes me giddy and wet.
avacados in the shade are not
so blackened yet. you pour me water in the morning
like it was holly golightly. and you tell me hearts
aredangerous things but i dont beleive you for a
moment
because lovely i want nuthing more than you. can eat
moths and you can eat flowers and they wont make you
sick like you make yourself when you arent listening
to the sticky side of your heart.
so eat another moth for me love
you could call yourself alot of
things but i know that youre not. doing anything
wrong. you were right though when you said hearts
will tell you need something and then wont let you
have it. take tylenol for instance. i think you
look cute when youre looking for what isnt there. you
call it hating yourself? im always here.
falling in
and out of love and life
and you worry your outfit is vane.
these made up thought traps. i believe in you. and
you believe in everything. except yourself.
moments when you
held your breath in the pool light wondering if she
would really swim away with you gave her eyes
and held back what she wanted to hear you tell her
her eyes are made of lavender and lime twist. but all
you said was fuck with your lips. so she swam away

vantage

her green eyes cast out
a mile through the
tinted glass wall
in the arrival room

our first son marvin
flying up from california,
he sent pictures
holding fat stringers
of brook trout.

i remember the summer i thought
the whole world was mine to eat,
i demanded she fuck me
with whore spit on my cock.

the same night marvin,
weighing all of 113 lbs
shouted, up the stairs,
i’ll fucking kill you.

me in my prime, full of fine
sauce and late lunches, ambling
down the stairs one leg at a time,
lead belly of a hundred mile pond,
tall like every elk, every writ
mounted, downed, dressed,
old boys and hand shakes hard won.

grain towers, whiskey nights
out-lasted, the quarry, the grange,
long in the tooth, tongue smooth,
the light in a charming man’s eye.

bypasses, blue laws, water rights
the drink too busy, afternoons
my suit, my roots sunk
in the court typist’s panties.
the taste of her candy-drop lips.

i came home smelling like
fucking, in my stupor,
i thought it any other night.
down the steep stairs to piss
i would hold the banister,
and turn the corner,
sit down on the toilet
a chisel in my temples
sour mash mouth dry
burning eyes closed
a swimming

from the bottom of the stairs, marvin
screams like a horse in lighting
leave this house, devil,
you fucking die.

marvin, all sinew and virtue
knuckles like a maple knot, hard
summers spent splitting stone,
penny nails pulled from busted pallets,
knocked straight with a claw hammer

he punched me in the bladder.
then he punched me in the throat.
he kicked me in the thigh.
my legs gave out, he
clutched my hair in his fist.
gave me a blackout thump,
for good measure,

i could smell it,
my scalp split on
that same damn nail,
i hammered down 20 times,
it kept coming loose
that warped floorboard
i never should have tacked in
when i built this house.
it always squeaked
at the base of the stairs
when i snuck in at night.

i beat the shit out of marvin,
one last time, later that summer.
my heart almost gave out, i split my
knuckles. bruised for three weeks.
all these years later, my ring finger
still clicks just lifting a fork,
the lord blessed that boy with
a granite skull and cheekbones
even my gnarled fists
couldn’t crack.

that summer i left rachael, my wife,
mother of our five daughters, and three sons.
now i live in this double-wide, it smells like dust
and microwave dinners. i prick myself and soak up a drop
and i stick a little paper tab into the monitor
it beeps a number. my damn blood sugar.
i sit on the couch with a popsicle.
this woman on the television
is waxing her legs, with nair,
white lily and desert rain.

now i tilt at windmills
like a one eyed bull.
and i will drift
down river
forever.

was it bourbon,
or my own black soul
possessed me…

last reunion, i am
sick this late summer, 76
driving my old lumber truck
up this narrow road blasted into
the cliffs along the reservoir

my daughters and sons gather
in the yard of that old blue house,
their daughters and sons from the city,
gutting fish, and running through sprinklers.

cake stuck in my throat,
rachael’s green eyes,
curls still falling
like black grapes
from her forehead

smoking on our stone porch,
she cuts a green stick
for our daughter’s daughter’s daughter
to hold, roasting a hot dog
over the coals.

i think a little later on,
a few more sunsets to reflect,
i’ll take a good long
nip on the old bottle
and point the barrel
into my temple, and
pull the trigger.

PSYCHOSEXUAL SUZY

Suzy knows she’s not like other people. What she fails to recognize is that her mere presence is enough to render most men and some women paralized with lust. She just doesn’t get it. She graces the sidewalks on her way to work and some poor sucker walks right into a no parking sign. No wonder she thinks people are weird. At Joe’s, the coffee shop where she works, people are constantly spilling, or pouring obscene amounts of sugar in their cups, their minds slipping like a frogs on teflon. She worries alot that something’s wrong with her. She gets fired all the time. It usually takes about two weeks. Busboys drop dishes, bosses get hard-ons, and delivery men run dollies into doorjams.

After getting in three minor traffic accidents in as many months, she gave up driving and started riding a bike, which turned out to be an even bigger hazard. She got used to the sounds of honking and tires squealing. She would just murmur at the fucking clumsy bastards, and get herself to work. I go to Joe’s to write. I remember the first time I saw her. The whole town was off center for five clear minutes. The thick spring scent of lilacs mingled with motor exaughst already had me in a kind of frenzy. I walked through the door and saw her. I thanked god like five times and approched cautiously. I got my hand caught in my pocket trying to get my money out and started sweating because she was half smiling. I grabbed my cup and went to sit down with the book I always write in and began to compose this semi fiction.

The sound of customers streaming in and out of this place that looks more like a yuppie deli than a coffee shop sooths me. The sound of the espresso machine and the cash register and the lousy music station makes me feel like I’m in the belly of a beast. I love it. I sit here buzzed and obsessed and spy the dance she performs behind the counter. She moves effortlessly in chunky sexy black leather shoes with buckles just like the ones I wear, and hands over lattes and mochas with her perfect hands. I get to hear man after pathetic man try to order without slipping. They end up tipping like they just put a few quarters in a porn reel machine. I watch them come in and lay awkwardly delivered compliments at her feet, while I imagine things not fit to mention and try to assult her subconscience with the most delicate of lude suggestions. I get the notion that what she wants more than anything in the world is a freind. I’m still just this guy who writes furiously all the time.

I drank so much coffee, I had to piss four times. I finally realized that this was kind of ridiculous, and that if I was going to do anything about capturing this dove on paper, I’d have to be careful. Looking at Suzy is something like being pistol whipped. I got used to it after awhile. I made a point of not saying anything remotely like a compliment. I almost slipped one day when she had her hair in a bunch of knots with butterfly clips. My plan worked. I acted numb. I pretended she was about as appealing as a cop. I didn’t give her eyes the chance to warp my face into an auto fear smile. I knew if I fucked that up, I would be just another customer, instead of the only boy in the universe who can stand looking into her eyes honestly. I’m still working on it. I’m just happy that I’ve made myself mysterious enough to peak her curiosity. She actually looks at me.

I thrill myself with the idea that she wants me. I’m the reason she dresses mod. It’s me when she slips on her shoes. Me in the morning when she washes her face. She walks around her apartment brushing her teeth, following her cat named Nancy…fake kicking it from the bathroom to the hallway to the kitchen, thinking Max. Max. Max… I bet he’s writing about me. What do you think Nancy? Meow. Yeah? He must be. Then she spits.

I hear all the static in her head, all the fuzzy threads from half a mile away. She hates dirt. She hates the couples who come in and talk stupid lies at each other. It’s so simple with her. I ask what she likes. She likes the feeling of soft wool on her bare nipples, but it’s too hot now, so she has to wear a bra and tank top and the four straps are always competing to be the most irritating to her skin. She has a violent side. She thinks about the scalding water and what she could do with it if she got pissed off enough at the sporty looking guy who stares at her ass too much. She wonders what the hell I’m doing in the bathroom. I tell her I’m fixing my hair for her. She says oh., and wonders if I wash my hands and I tell her I’m cleaner than the bathroom knob, so why bother? At least I don’t piss on the seat. All this happen in channel mute.

Being psychic makes you wonder if you’re just psychotic. It’s a strange game we play. When you find someone who you can feel, you are like a spider with all your legs splayed out, feeling little pulses. You don’t actually feel a fly… that would be a complete thought. You feel the vibrations of the web which your brain turns into a fly. Suzy is so strong at sending. The weird thing is that she doesn’t even know it. There is a stark contrast between what we do overtly… all the things we can actually observe in the concrete, and the subtlties of mind fucking. She hands me change and our fingers touch and I pick up a sensation of her sucking the roof of her mouth. I follow her lead, and the contact gets more complete. That’s pure linking, nothing seen, nothing said. But when I say thanks and lick my lips, thats obvious flirting. Its the line we skirt. In combination, we compose a whole array of cues and clues. That’s pretty normal. It happens all the time. And friends know this when they finish each others sentences and drink on cue and smoke in a rythym of call and response.

You should understand that this thing with Suzy is way different. She’s a monster made of contagious sensation. When people encounter her, they unwittingly walk into an aura of psychosexual chaos. She explained to me over the weeks without a word that she knows full well she could have any man she wants. The last few days, she’s been in a fury. She’s like some pissed off computer, hitting the fuck button in an endless loop. Her movements are hurried with every customer, and the half smile is gone. All she wants is to have nothing to do so she can clean things and obsess about fucking me. Now I’m the only one in here. And a sort of actualization is happening with every word I write. She glares at me and I just keep on writing. She’s coming over here. She’s sitting across from me watching me write this and waiting for me to finally look at her.

Suzy, I think if I kissed you I’d have a stroke. I think somehow we have hypnotixed each other into true love.

That was when I looked up and into her blue eyes with the yellow stars in the center. I didn’t die when I met her at ten that night, and took her out to drink. Sometimes luck can have its way with you. The moon was at like two thirds and the night was brisk and rather windy. I watched her close up the shop. Everything in it’s place. After she locked the door she slammed me with the softest and most powerful lips I’ve ever had the opportunity to ravage.

The kiss was fast and vicious and tasted like hazelnut syrup. She framed me in the door like I had just saved her from the coffee nazis and now she had a valuable prisoner. Leaving the battlezone where we had dueled for a little more than a month was liberating. Now we could breathe together and walk the same stride holding hands, disarming each other with honest bits of disclosure. We both knew how much we had won with cold war tactics. Now it was down to bodies and damage and issues which were really just nonsense because we had a wicked case of true love. I wrote the words on paper. I dared her into this. I guess she wanted to make sure I don’t taste like an ashtray before she commited the most fatal of sins by saying I love you too, Max.

She seemed so happy just walking along, doing what we’ve been doing for weeks, fucking each other’s minds. Now there was the touch of walking close in the dark and very cautious language. We didn’t want to wreck what has been the most important relationship ever, no matter the fact that it was virtually anonomous. I couldn’t figure out what to say. I asked her how old she was. She said how old do you think I am? I said twentyfour and was right. She said I had exaggerated alot but was oddly accurate about the kinds of things I wrote about her. She said she meant what she said and just kind of shut up. I kept myself from gushing and saying I mean it too. We’re very used to saying alot by saying nothing. She had no disillusions that we were in it for anything other than perfection.

Writing while she sleeps is interesting. She moves when I write the truth. I want her to be still so I’ll fabricate something. She’s wandering down a hallway full of people dressed in the finest of Victorian threads. She’s sleeptalking, answering yes and no with varied enthusiasm like she’s having trite thoughts hurled at her. I watch her eyebrows tense and twitch. This is like picking apart a bug under a microscope. And it makes me wonder if this is detachment or entanglement.

She doesn’t mind. She’s a space cadet. We laugh alot when we fuck.

She makes fun of me now when I go to Joe’s pretending to write furiously when all I want is to make this last forever. It’s like spending the same quarter over and over again for free. It’s like being made. We keep the ruse of being strangers for the sheer thrill of knowing what noone knows. I act like a customer. I want to scribble nonsense and know she’s swiveling her spine. It’s an understanding we have. She’s the only person to ever really believe that this is my job. Most poeple seem to think its just a hobby or a malady. She works. And I mine her. The price of beauty is going up and I can’t pick without hitting paydirt every time. One day we will leave for nevernever land , half smiling and won’t tell a soul where we’re going.

{song without music}

with the rain running down my face

i watch her tell it out the window

with her lips to no one

she says i feel it all the time

i wanna live a life

a little less deliberate

or run away from here

with the point of getting near it

the way we’re falling

in and out of love and life

flickers faster everyday

fall asleep tonite

or it will leak from every pore

is this gonna make it better

or only make me feel it more

wear it till it just wont mend

the billboard speaks

a sickness that wont go away

with the rain running down my face

i asked her a question

with my lips pushed in a corner

and she said yeah

nothing lovely makes me laugh, it’s

just the sad things that take you back

and there’s nuthin ugly about you

so if you turn around again

i’ll tell you, boy

i feel it all the time