Death in the Woods

Ah, to be the ceaseless beast
heart thumping, pulsing,
hungry, humping
just because,
not needing anyone or love
not a thing sucks,
no words worth
repeating
when the Blue Jay
sounds alarm
300,000 leagues away
closer to life and death
farther from anything
neighbor Doe will ever know.
He knows no better
but you're just a piece
of meat
it's teeth
locked on your throat,
dragged to the ground
spewing blood
gurgling
suffocating
seconds from the last pulse
miles from cliche
fading into mystery
you smile
knowing this was how
it was truly
meant to be

Death Wish

Hold me tenderly in your arms
I will one day return to dirt
covered in a grass pelt
fur rippling in the wind
forgotten by all
save the last murmurer
of eternity

White Sands Morning

A woman dreams


a breeze


across her body,


a lover's finger


glides up her calf.


She wonders,


should I wake?


Dreams die,


Reality sucks,


but possibility


awakens. Yes,


The Doomsday Clock


creeps closer to Midnight,


but that warm touch


makes her glow like


Uranium 235.


Let isotopes leach out into coolant,


allow subsequent failures


to breach the last layers.


"Hello, lover."


She arches back


silent


ready for meltdown


forever.

Song of a Fool

It sits
above his head,
a dark question mark,
he asks, "why
does this deliciousness
hijack me whole,
vibrates nerves,
balls, brain,
libido." He can't say,
stars wheel and turn,
and he, a desirous dirigible,
ready to burst,
dreams of that picture,
her legs,
thighs down to feet,
landscape of black diamond nylon,
fishnets,
a road less traveled, again.
Beyond,
the horizon is blurred,
uncertain,
fraught with pain, possibly
pleasure. His tongue
dreams serpentine,
slithers up a landscape
of salty skin,
happy-sad,
doped, drunk, hopeful.
She is a river of bliss
he swims down,
drifts in her current
in acquiescence,
surrendering
to the falls,
empty,
alone.

Hernia

Help me, I've fallen

into the pit of mortality,

the rot of the body,

the ruins of a being

I no longer

recognize.

I'd be happier, freer

as a Paramecium in

a Petri dish.

If only my skin

was a cocoon,

I'd wriggle out

into a new form,

not butterfly-beautiful.

I'd settle for mosquito

or amoeba.

Everything is enemy,

the sky, my work,

my memories

infest my hippocampus

like determined termites

burrowing into knotty pine.

Heaven is closed

and so is my colon.

Open, Sesame, please,

deliver me to dreams,

from nights of fearful,

fitful sleep.

I make my own music,

bark hard syllables

from mouth to feet,

a kick, a plead,

a cry over the commode.

My sphincter's frozen,

my bowel's busted,

my urinary tract's backed up.

I'm sick of being in pieces,

a cesspool of yellow and feces,

waking up five times a night

while the Moon limps along

like a broken hobo under

coffee stained clouds

and the wind blows sand and pebbles,

polluted music, across silvered stones.

I pray: Poke me, probe me, prod me.

I'll denounce beauty if need be.

Turn me hideous or Homo Habilis,

return me to some semblance

of what I was. I'll do anything

to live life again and pee freely

like an unobstructed

garden hose.

They Sent A Photograph

Oh, happy family,
silent and bright, smiley.
The oldest boy, thirteen, wiry,
a lean bean plant growing
at his father's side.
The younger one, Afro-ed,
exuberant, almost leaping
out of frame. Mom,
coy yet confident,
doing what she
must do - succeeding,
so she thinks.
Dad,
the pillar of dreams,
stands in the back
looking taller than
Kilimanjaro clouds
that push down
on the world.
He holds them at bay,
Atlas of the Suburbs,
but only for seconds, until
the shutter snaps open-close,
and he can no longer
hold that pose.

Monday Morning, Somerville

I rise out of body lighter than hydrogen,
avian, I leap from uncertainty, strife,
fly unhindered on fluid wings
like a Crow disappearing
into the distance.