To Little; To Late (An Ode)

When she called

over a year ago

from a hotel room

in Chicago

and say no more.

She had hips,

          not too much;

incandescent.

She was the acme

of smooth

delicate traces.

She stared

at a foreign headboard

and I withheld

the true depth

of an engrossing sentiment.

Say no more –

shades of green.

The People v. Existence

She sleeps

beside me

but I have no idea

who she is.

I knew her once

very well

some time ago.

Maybe a week

or 10 years

have passed –

I don’t sleep anymore.

As a shadow

of my former self

she is merely

an apparition

and as real

as this night

falls upon the crooked earth

in a gold car

with the windows up

she sleeps beside me

but neither of us

are really present

here.

The Doomsayer

He stands with the sign

the one that says:

the end is near.

He knows every fear

and every moment

every moment

every moment.

He took a temporary leave

a little over a year ago.

When the sun came out

in the bleak of winter.

Biding his time,

he broke a shadow

and found his old sign:

the end is near.

A grueling pace

for a now dying summer;

a snail’s pace

for the new face of humidity.

And the dreams here

repeat

repeat

repeat

repeat.

The sign’s color is faded

and dusty:

the end is near.

You cried once,

and only once

on a gorgeous summer morning.

Unseasonably cool,

and the last day

before the world stopped turning.

the nightmares here

repeat

repeat

repent

repeat.

The sky holds its breath

and the furthest you can get

is dead where you stand.

The sign is your only forefront:

the end is near.

We lost everything.

Well one of us did;

scrambling to collapse

at least until the plague has passed.

But the death is all around us,

and he speaks in confident whispers

before a world upside-down.

He knew before it was gone.

He has reprinted a new sign:

the end is here.

Sadness with Mustard

Nowhere

but in the alone

and vast

where nightmares don’t end

after you awake.

Might we all assume

that this sobbing

means sorrow?

But this crushing

it rests on my tongue

behind my eyes

and entwined

in my stomach;

left me talking to any specter

or apparition

dumb enough

to haunt me

in the alone

and vast

and we need help.

Listening to Vanna in mid-December

If the roof caved in

eight years ago

then where have I been since?

Dreaming you back to life

in the most somber

of states of being

on the most melancholy

of nights.

And every middle –

I just had to die.

Sickening deep depressions

with the intensity

of a teenager’s broken heart.

If the rain had only

skipped a night

If you were merely

a memory

if you weren’t even that

when the roof caved in

eight years ago.

Laying Down Blue

Brazenly proclaiming

            it smells like

            the world

out here.

Wandering against the sun

I watched your eyes

melt down to

(the semblance of)

your cheeks.

And then goodbye –

the sound of

the wind

splattering

against the trees:

art imitating explosions

screaming

and falling backwards.

Orbital Teaspoon

And I open one eye

every now and then

in floating silent dark

to interrupt the delirium;

it’s like thinking

without dipping your soul

into

the craters of the moon.

You make me

delirious

when I close my eyes;

maybe that’s what heaven

is like –

skipping artificial rocks

on the manmade pond.

One more

delirious

drive down

the deserted cul-de-sac

closing with the

ever-cryptic

I’m close,

bring a sweater.