Alighieri's Allegory

The day that cured me

was unremarkable;

abstract and sedentary.

I pressed my ear

to your lips

and I swear I heard the wind

cold and sad

whispering fragmented

and fractured

tales of loneliness.

I pressed my ear

to your chest

and I could've sworn I heard the ocean

violently pulsing

and thrashing me

back to shore.

And I’m sad like the wind;

“not today”

isn't the snow

that binds me here.

Cliché

Hackneyed

Egregious

Alone

Trite

are my only names.

All my best thoughts

are floating

above me

and out of reach

with ghosts

I don’t yet have

the courage to meet.

Your atlas

is crooked

and misaligned;

I jizz on your dewy meadow

and today’s forecast

calls for isolated suffocation

with a certainty of overcast

above an open and desolate field.

It was then

that she approached me

and said how handsomely dapper

I was.

But my soul is fractured - 
like the wind -

I replied.

I broke her

with a patented distraction
and quickly crept away.

Shades of Staccato

The bridge

was a tourniquet

broken

pretty you

had trouble crossing.

The south Bronx

to our north

and out of view

the upper east side

still out of focus.

I was strangling

some smoke

triumphantly

near Midtown

but dreams

of the Midwest

had me mystified

estranged

perplexed

and perturbed

drifting listlessly
off the lonely bridge.

She Lied You Blue

This cigarette

is my last drink

under just one

more

exploding sky.

I jumped ship

to a sinking town;

I thought you

among the wreck

misplaced.

It suits you well now.

I skipped town

to a sinking ship –

it’s saddening

it’s maddening

it’s cursed;

betrayal filtrated

over crying ice

for me to swallow whole.

Don’t lose the chocolate

from your charm;

you’re no daisy, darling,

I was once your huckleberry.

Pink Roses II

As I cool off

in the twilight

waiting

for this gridlock

to open up

like the skies

that one night

late

last November,

like the spider

trapped in his own

black self-made

maze

and cannot find

his way back

to his prey,

my canines

are aching

for blood;

I’m snarling

growling

here

here without you –

and you’re the only

only
I need.

When Midnight Drugs Turn Sour

Accept that she

is a syringe

and that you

have a very

serious addiction.

Embers dancing

all around us –

the firestorm

will keep us warm

and we need this now;

no sun

in this cracked

marble sky.

An inevitable cold wind

rising to meet my fingertips

before they whisper

to you;

be it Death

or shadow

I could not tell.

You’re wearing off

and the needle

of your arms is distant

but optical illusions

on the far end of August

and we’ll make

the most of it

until then.

The Boy with Empty Mason Jars

There was nothing out there;

          sky, street, trees.

I looked further

and there was a you

slipping away from a me

to greet me –

a place that existed

only in the furthest

reaches of sleep

and frailty

          and goodbye

where the sunlight

feels colder

the desperation

greater

than winter’s

chilling embrace.

The girl I love

in the front seat

behind the wheel –

my heart

lost

somewhere in my throat forever.

She looks at me

with eyes that long

for something more;

some thing

I’ve never had.

Something she needs to find

on her own.

And then maybe –

          I hoped –

you’d find me

in the other realm

in the other sky

above the blue

above you;

in the other

that I acquired

before you awoke

from the sadness.

I’m the storm

in front of you

you want to chase.

You’re the storm

in front of me

that gets away;

a supercell swirling

in the swaying hail.

And I wish

you could feel me

here;

the suffocating drops

of longing

I can’t keep

from spilling out

of every pore

to my name.

And though that ever-present

shimmer in your eyes

is blinding

there is a sickening past

and a future uncertain

you’re just not willing

to let go of –

to envision –

just yet.

And so these stars

will extinguish

the sun

on this

the coldest day

on earth.

You’ll bury me

in the backyard;

you want to bury me

in your grave –

in the ashes

of a heaven obscure.

Somehow, you’ve been

deflecting all the love

I’ve been throwing

in effervescent cyclones

towards your unseeing eyes.

Your love –

          still forming

cumulonimbus massacres

in spotty crashes –

an unsubstantial rain

and a drought

that has plagued

my aching claws.

I’m losing my strength

while my will remains

bitterly intact;

please touch down –

Juliet Oscar Romeo Delta Alpha November –

on the runway

before the snow

returns…

and so love

is synonymous

with scary dreams

that end

beforethe end.

Contact Binary (W Ursae Majoris)

We’ve been gravitating

towards each other

for lightyears

unbeknownst until

it was too late.

We touch

softly

through spaceless

dark

for the first time.

A supernova

on the event horizon;

we’ll create our own

moving castle

forever howling

into infinity.

Your soul

is fractured

and tired –

let me mend you
with my broken arms.

Up, West, Sky

I thought

you’d be the one

that saved me.

Pass out-

side –

I used my hat

to catch the sunlight

before it rose

to shine upon your face

and send me into

a dizzying trance

starry-eyed for days.

And you’re always there

when I close my eyes;

if you’re my dream

please come true

I still think

you’re the one

(that can save me).

Dante & Beatrice

I’m gonna finish this song

and listen to this cigarette.

Notice the rain falling harder –

almost blinding

the last mile to my house.

My love for you

is second

to none

and like heroin

I feel at home

in your arms

spinning dizzy

concentric circles

up into the majestic.

But you’re allergic to love…

A cigarette

in the cold gray

A Chopin sonata

and you’re off the map

spinning dizzy

erratic circles

up into the majestic.

Call it in the Air

I was half-expecting it

to be nighttime

or for every

dawn

still

pitch black.

For every you

another mourning

cause you’re volatile

like Tampa weather.

And in my dream about you

I was telling you all about

my dream about you

how every flower

I composed

carried by the wind

went flying out the window.

Toss a fair coin –

tonight you’re nothing special.

But tomorrow

and ever after;

          the thing I love most about her

            is how she notices every starkissed color

in the things she loves.

The Fire in the Fog (continuation of SkyFalls)

Sleeping

with your arms

under your head

is violence.

Rain

like dimes kissing

the window

above your head –

the same rain

that has put me

to bed

just as I

had put you

to bed

in the same space

where you put us

to rest.

I scared you

you scarred me;

like a cigarette:

left chasing

a freebase buzz

that will never

materialize.

The First Critic

101

Black out in the sun,

leave your ligaments behind –

you’ve fallen and

you deserve some rest.

I could lend you these

wrist accessories;

your character may want

some borrowed attitude.

This angst is stagnant,

and you can’t spell

“volatile” without love.

Find me in the isolation tank.

His heart hears signs that

are so often misconstrued as a pulse;

(but) his heart is broken chalk

in a rainstorm.

10

Black out on the sun,

blood spills from

the clouds like

a meteor shower.

I thought I wanted

to ask you something,

but I can never seem to

spit it out. Soooo……

“How was Easter?”

mine was quiet;

I want to tell you we belong

somewhere at the same time;

I think I want to ask you

somewhere.

1

Black out the sun.

Ice slice your eye sockets

as your heart slips

into its red giant phase.

She’s fleeting faster

than spring semester.

Sad to say –

no progress has been made.

The glass is half

broken and the remaining

shards are slurring their speech

in suspended liquid.

So dance in silence;

I’ll miss you from afar.

A Forest of Wolves and Dark

Chase the smoke;

          you’re unlucky.

Sunsets dissipate –

blue-grays

coagulate;

you’re softer now.

Or at least

I envision you as such.

But dark

darker

darker still.

You’re my last leg

to stand on

amongst the filth.

You,

lost and lonely.

You,

soft and only.

You,

like the perfect sunset:

          too far behind me

just out of reach.

Tryst

Why?

not you.

Why not you?

It may

have been slipping

gracefully past morning.

Grayer than

your silent films.

You.

And why.

Headless angel –

          eyes

          nose

          mouth;

          dialect

hovering above your neck.

Delicate.

Your nape

cool and soft.

Morning without you.

Y. Not U.

U and Y.

Once Upon an Oversight

Give me a day

for you to treat

these fresh spring 

wounds of mine

I've been collecting them

in secret

in passing

by the roadside

where you once walked.

The pale

sick

sky

screaming overhead

and underfoot;

we don’t know where

we stand anymore

and you've exited that

dream of mine

a trillion times

where one of us pulls away

just as the other

becomes too attached

to breathe

or sleep

or slip further

into safety

or slide further

into the guarded

arms of regret.

Ego Dominus Tuus

There was a void

instead of the horizon.

There was a storm

in place of the sun.

The new sun

was a storm.

A black hole

with a cloud outline.

Handling the hail

we held on to hope

of better days coming.

There was a void

on that horizon.

There was ungular

damage to each sky.

The new end

to the new tremor.

A windless summer

in the breath.

Breathing in

ballistic barbs before

letting go of you.

Missing Sarah Tonin

Emergency opening

through the side

of an aluminum can

into a forest

of wolves and

dark.

And between six

stars staring

I’m watching hundreds of words

come falling flailing

or pouring

or streaming

from and out

of your eyes.

Trying to induce

your seismic fever to

break

using plastic spoons

and lukewarm water

until the sky cries open

snowing millions of shards

of glass down –

small enough to breach

your grimacing fingertips

undetected;

drinking spiders

‘til dawn.

Pixelated Virus

The smoke was dancing

as it left my lungs

and just like that

45 memories

that never happened.

One more drop of blood

to extinguish

or add to

the ever-screaming inferno.

And despite my windows up

it’s still snowing

in my car.

Here

it’s odd;

outside is even.

The river runs

diagonally

and you’re halfway

to December

through August.

Nothing could kill me;

nothing killed me

except that final shot

of absinthe –

too much laudanum

all on fire.