but why the smile?

undressed, yes
hidden weapons check
the smile
open, I cannot glimpse
defiance
yet
no other explanation
suggests
ghetto rose
you bloom
inside a document
plucked beside the firing squad.

punishment

when did you learn
to let go? those days
of struggle with string,
sticks and bone

long gone. coffers
emptied, treasures
lost beyond walls
of  brick and stone.

Imagine An Ultimate Blush

your face is on
fire, little strumpet, little liar
and I long
to skin you alive,
expose your bones
beyond marrow.

StarFish Shoe

You hoped it could not
happen to you, a conversion,
a pervision, starfish shoe.

Let me save you
time, within your watery shrine,
salvation was not fashioned
for the likes of you.

magie

your words,
my carpet ride
air teased sweet
by moths in flight,
the moon a street lamp,
stolen light.

death and the maiden revisited

did you kill her, the girl
found tagged and boxed?

a November 30th
pre-paid gift,
uncasted, untasted

left chastely to taunt.

inexplicable

Light dims
as is
its wont

The connected
stay connected;
the disconnected
melt

down until
your meager want
merges with my colossal
and monstrous doubt.

your eternal bogeyman

the bogeyman gnawing on your shoe
once lived
in terror
just like you.

once again

this dawn the fall
jerked me from a ghostly dream
steel-toed shoes broke
my trusting feet
at the end of it all

I cajoled three ghosts
to visit me
once again
once again
once again

my pale repetition
converted them
I am old
I am tired
I am not even dead

there is no excuse
for the life I have led.

cornered vs. boxed

we are left
dispossessed, the squatters
upon your exemplary life

messy progeny,
growing horns and dragons' breath
smearing your legacy
with impostor theft.

oh Elaine, it's October again

missing twin, I tend
to dread to die
to dream about

your colours bleached
under slate October rain.

ghost view

how stark to be forever
sliced from you. all the darkness
in my story eclipses
the flooded sunlight
of your view.

Bullet Taster

 

Once you taste metallic, there is no biting back.

ghost fleece

is it all
about me again or is it finally
After the Fall,
and I may
alight, moth-like upon your window veil?

carnival crossing

grim carnival
with its swollen stalls
of bruised umbrellas and sun-stroked fruit

each event is now
entertainment: campaigns, rallies, processions.

one who would trump them all
trout-lips the words "not nice"—his wet pout sullen.
I watch, listen, mouth stretched
to an uncomprehending O; it's all too much.
Dystopia wasn't invented to be on parade.

My Pretty Fish

sniff & sniff
three days later
you and Putin
are discreetly unwelcome

the houseguest
who never left, the fish
who once caught
could do nothing further than rot.

a somewhat lighter shade of dark

dog owners scoop multiple now
the canine conspiracy of sniff
and dump

I predict a ludicrous plague,
but confess to never having been a fan
of rut and stink

tempo: retarded.

moving along to felines.
at least there are no
teacup varieties

oh, sweetest genesis.
I've been blocked, expunged, denied

reviled, celebrated
in unlikely places.

lipstick should always be rose
tinted. Should is suspect
yet humility somehow inevitably
manages to reinvent.

Dismaland II

Babel returns; our tongues
impaled upon the highest stakes

little rituals demolished
with bricks and bats
spell checks in chaos

like stroke victims
thrashing with
undelivered consonants.

Dismaland: I

they have travelled so far
just not to be there

where memories combust
spontaneous yet spare.

Disengagement in Athens

I see beyond
the funny clothes, the wizard hat
or perhaps I do not view
deep enough

your debt, your outrage
disturb all thought

I want you
solvent; I want you out.

more or less by happenstance

we are parachuted
onto the same carousel
more or less by happenstance

never grasping the ride
only clutching for a treasured life


One
that promises no free
fall as long as we hold on
with delicate might

unborn

and every utterance a poem
touching lips of the unborn

hope as rumour

it grows
in hushed corridors,
the speculative unspoken:

if it should come to pass
in a wild card circumstance
the elegance of happenstance.

should you subject me
to an inquisition, I will likely say

I want to live another day.

Waiting for July 31, 2015

Are you waiting
for the next blue moon, the one
that will cut
quick your hubris and elevator ride,
the one that will change
your dates forever?

Are you the uninvited
guest, the one who lingers
after the last waltz,
the one who sees
white nights as wanting hosts

and longs for the confession
that may release
you from this once in a
lifetime loss of chaos?

short person in a funny hat & bad clothes

from a distance,
each  dawn
you trick my failing eyes:

same squat surprise

a short dude
in bad clothes and a funny hat

rusty red attire
and a doodle smile

on a faceless trunk
the wind calls:

Elaine dies, is dying, is dead,
my chronological twin forgive
me for still being alive

but never, not for one
heartbeat thriving.

elain again

meeting you again wayward
twin, left me stranded

under circling birds,
memory predators.

respectabilia

for Once, I want
a statement worthy of respect not

a mantra and certainly
not a signed complaint
or petition on behalf

of the disinfected.

my beautiful shoes
can wing me only so far

until distance becomes
impossible and jealousy

sharpens its polished tusks.

Every word almost
is so achingly beautiful,
perfect in its own peculiar box

yet always overthrown
by better, brighter, sharper,
newer

paradigms. cunning ballerinas
who count syllables, punctuate
dry spells and green the silver
of my parallel ex-world.

the jealousy of veronique rough

jealousy storm-troops
my languid senses,

boot stains lip
whip smears glass

You, who have everything:
home, country and life

cavort like an immortal;
purchases are indeed important
when currencies collapse.

the donor and the boat

Here, I lie, escorted
to donation number four

the final shore

stitches open
blooming holes
that deepen and grow

The boat  a metaphor,
something lost, something more
than a completed lifespan,

a donor's timid lore.

Foreign Accent Syndrome

demon-monkeys wore
ancestor masks, chattering
in a language

so thick on my tongue, ears
polished to a sheen of pressed
apricots

memory tenses, then assaults
all these stories, embellished
crowned, transcribed

maliciously collapse

postal code error

I yearned to send
you pieces of my life:
hat boxes, cardboard cases,
but I was entirely wrong.

Dying takes so long.

twice upon a time

hold on to a thought
which has not yet lapsed,
a notion fenced by forget-me-nots

a field of wings and gold
parched bridges, chipped steps—

a war zone twice told.

excitable deadpan

excitable just after death,
a final twitch invites
my attention and something close to love

going vernal

what ever is the matter
with your viral heart,
this vernal equinox
will blot it out

the pinkest kabuki brush
poises then thrusts;
lands softly
upon a palette of roses and dust.

What I've Learned About Patience

it must last
a lifetime
and far
beyond

Dancing At Treblinka

Master caresses your
throat, lips, waist;
you have finally arrived
at the dancing point of self

shudders and collapses,
a moth without a match,
a wish within a bone

Waltz on.
This partner and he alone will
rename your lasting home.

Snapshot from the Warsaw Ghetto

Time trains derail
every now and again,

stranded on a sand-ended track.

Atavism prevails.
Ghost riders grasp
satchels, parcels, envelopes.

Eighty years later
no birds fly over chimney tops,
their detour  a permanent imprint.

I recall
the girl in the photograph
that snapped my unborn heart.

the way of the wolf

landscape is a feast
of scent; flesh an invitation
rent from milk

and fur, lupus luna
miscreant.

prayer for a walking stick

May your words and steps
stay kind throughout
these shoeless times

paper shipwreck

I know time
as paper discarded
under rainwater

that slipping scent

grown pungent
after a shipwreck
when each word

counts as something
more than its scant self.

lovely in death

oh, darling you look lovely
in death, like the rodent
sentry who sacrifices itself.

Spend a lifetime
discovering the beehive
of queen and drone,
give and take, save and invest.

Uranium glass fingertips
reach toward a calculated distance.

 

 

You have, as always,
my undivided attention,
pity and reverence.

Angel In Palestine

Do you suppose you know
me after all this time?
I could be anyone; I could be you.

I slept with visions of Schindler
in my pre-memory until checkpoints
burgeoned in Palestine-Israel.

How is it
that we shapeshift
mercilessly?

What must have been you
eroded into my own stone self.

halcyon hall

you linger overlong
until the execution
of that brusque moment

when everything fails
yet you persist
in knowing it all

truly
your frailty
is hopelessly stalled

je ne suis pas charlie

timidity
stains your hands
a ghostly shade of clean