Running From

My thumb picked raw,

My heartbeat slows,

I left my thoughts on the floor

Last night

For no one to find

In the strobe-light

Smoke-screen

Blanket of modern noise

I tried to hide

From myself and everyone else

And needless to say

It worked

(that’s what I tell them).

Intermittent short-term

Accusations

Meet the same response

In repetition,

Shrug and raise my arms

As if they care what I tell them.

All this practice makes it worse

To bear,

Self-contained Atlas in

My own little world

Where I play both

God and Devil

Equally, and they are equal.

Your pity is my shame.

I saw the half-spoken glances

And the nods and gestures,

I was made aware of

Your discussions,

Your judgements,

No different than the

Pointing fingers

Moving lips that said

“Forever lame”

(that’s what she told me).

Once upon a time

It hurt to hear those

Sticks and stones—

Time never healed my wounds

But at least I’m now

Immune to almost

Everyone,

Not myself.

Third stop,

Let go of the rail.

In the cold and dark

At the end

I ran.

Ink

This ballpoint pen cuts

Deeper than a razor could,

Leaves black instead of

Red—just another

Shade of blood.

“...I promise”

If I could take it back

I would.

Lyrics and lines

Leave temporary scars

But still less so than

Scissors,

Never the same satisfaction

As that slow and

Simmering pull.

Head down,

Eyes down,

Sleeve rolled up to

Just above the elbow,

Hoping they’ll see,

Hoping they’ll ask

So he can shrug it off

With a laugh and

Nonchalance.

I’d take it back

If I could.

(I did.)

There was never

A choice, not for him,

Not when she begged

Crying and breathing,

Tears and a

Stuttering breath

Forced his tongue

And his hands

For a time,

Though he still

Keeps a pair on the desk.

Not when he reached

And they were there,

Inevitability because

He planned it.

Not when the words

In careful layers

(one side only)

Started to burn.

Not when he

Picked at his thumb

And fingers, peeling.

Not when he shouted

Whispering to himself.

Not when he broke it.

Head down,

Eyes down,

Stepping over all the

Cracks on the ground

Trying not to fall.

“I promise...”

With a jittery heart

One hand on a shoulder

Head up,

Eyes up, then down,

One hand brushing hers,

Followed by a moment’s

Breath of air—that

Sweet inevitable laughter.

He gave it back and

Disappeared.

Asp

I am Cleopatra, not a woman,

Not a lover,

The dust-clad figure of an age

From the neck up,

Eyes like once upon a time and

Hollow, beating with a

Fainter pulse than seconds on a clock,

Frozen, baited with the promise of inertia,

Gross contestation of an insect bite

That should have forced a movement.

The snake and the Nile are one and the same,

Just as I am wont to be

With a starry night sky,

And if they are out of reach

I might settle for the ghosts

They leave in a midnight pool,

Phantom strokes of light

Brushed across a canvas with a Master’s skill,

A temporary art,

And I cannot grasp the waves or their definition,

Forced to throw a line and reel it in,

Empty as the gaze of a

Hundred billion faces trapped in time.

Sublimation

The Prophet’s in the morgue,

Six feet is a long way up and

Further down,

About as tall as a man can rise

Above his peers in a standing ovation

Of praise and gratitude,

Deafening applause in the sense that

No one hears it anymore,

Not since the red skies and nightfall,

That night when Civilization

Grew up in reverse, or seemed to,

Now scolded in the infantile prose

We all so lovingly fostered

In a playpen holding ones and twos,

“Me” and “You,”

Called brothers and sisters but

Quick to reject such optimistic binaries.

In place of names we chose places,

By choice or by force is

No longer relevant, though once it was—

Why the substitutions?

Does the present tense not stand alone,

Does it bow to the whims of a

By and gone scholar,

Discontented with the world and

Ravishing the memories of a generation

He cannot begin to remember?

Making love to a faceless crowd in a

Passionless, sexual conjecture—

The world is sublimation

To the poet.