torpid toad, fat as a parasite
i held it in, held it dry
kept it hidden, secure
through the long cold dream,
child's head in my arm
sketching gray images
from an anticpated moment

waiting for the knocking to cease
and long after they had left
to move their hunt uptown
i sat in the shadows of your room
playing silent night on my guitar

i should be outside rolling around in the snow
before it stops, while the flake-filled winds still blow
and the temperature falls and the drifts like white waves grow
packing more poems than i'd ever have time to throw
i should be outside rolling around in the snow
out in the blizzard, that's where i want to go
they give me some snow job response that really means no
if i do as i'm told, yeah right, like some quid pro quo
they've not plowed my head, so to speak, so the traffic is slow
staring at the white outside through its frosted window
i should be outside rolling around in the snow
but i've always been good at getting along as though
i've always been good at getting along as though

our therapy today gets seasonal:
to sketch a memory of christmas past,
the reasons our rejoicing should be full
and what it takes to make that spirit last.
i draw it like you want, the child and all,

then pencil in king herod with his sword.
i make his face look just like doctor butch!
do you see what i see, bloody lord?
the mother cut off from her baby's touch
and locked up through the season in your ward!

you'll file my christmas card away, no doubt,
and act like magi sniffing on your myrrh.
i'll celebrate for real when i get out
then haunt each christmas right, just me and her.

the hole in your side
has been my bed
since i turned four
and turned my head
to play your bride

and not much more.
i lay undressed
and learned to move
through sweet incest
of scars you wore

with those i will love,
those i will cut
to share your death.
my flesh is put
where your bones approve.

i hold your last breath
to give it voice,
your last desire
my willing choice.
we fall in step beneath

our own hell's fire
locked tongue to tongue
as though we both had died,
your old skin strung
to mine on barbed wire.

surely there are more
that are worth the time
end our little war
sorry for not trying
sorry for neglecting
what the song was worded for
there were times i didn't
surely there are more

surely there are more
and this one not our last
you will see right through me or
i won't have to ask
i won't have to issue
invitations by the score
i have felt your kisses
surely there are more

surely there are more
brightly colored dreams
lover, come restore
what my living means
what my dying moments
would without you find me poor
those breaths aren't spent
surely there are more

and my heart will wait
as it always does
yours to give to and take
as it always was
i will wait forever
for your footstep at my door
for another night with you
surely there are more

i gave you some time in my memory
memory's what my time is for
you've no need to choose between them or me
they can't reach us anymore
though it seems like our dreams are incomplete
incomplete, never near enough
the chance romance that's where our hearts meet
that's the dance that is gone for love

you say you don't want to go into it
that our timing is not quite right
but there's other ways to get intimate
you don't have to stay the night
when you come back again i will still be here
where my promise assured you of
so go as though your lover lay near
it's as though we were gone for love

i can't go on borrowing off someone else's time.
it's too much like his, not enough left of mine.
he still might come pick up where i leave off:
if it's dark enough nobody would know
except if you were to hear it when i cough
and watch how he put his hand to his mouth just as though.

tell him for me i appreciated the lift,
his patience and all, yeah that took a real gift.
it's not like i regretted having his address
for my own mail to get sent back to,
just it never was home and was usually rather less,
ok while it lasted but better now that it's through.

don't lay any of this down to his account;
he helped out with only the smallest amount,
a word or two here, a transition there,
and a spare set of keys to the place,
though i said all along i didn't much care:
his best mask never matched my worst face.

that old snapshot never looked all that much like me,
had all its scars out there for anyone to see,
but you know every room where i have been
and when he was here, with whom i hung around.
check back in there every now and again—
they might see for you where i might be found.

my tongue does its impression
of an indian summer sun to
a white chocolate snowman
revealing his almond heart
to the bite of my
brisk november
breath

you never leave marks that are permanent
only vague empty promises
as though random scratches, even so sent
like this like this like this like this
like this like this like this

there's rumors spreading how i'm damned by god
that judgment's entirely yours not his
the road to my hell is not quite so broad
like this like this like this like this
like this like this like this

i'm not blessed by what you call your love
i don't suffer from your prejudice
fill in the blank, here's what my dreams are made of
like this like this like this like this
like this like this like this

i've bloodstains on the sleeves of all my best shirts
what a nuisance cleaning up after you is
yet i'm the one accused, oooo that really hurts
like this like this like this like this
like this like this like this

funny i'm the one who's charged the crime
you kill me the way you always try to kiss
it cracks me open every time
like this like this like this like this
like this like this like this

at every step, i freeze in agony
retracing where my feet had wandered lost
to posture locked in place to disembark
from hidden stages off the beaten track

exchanging for a casual walk of ease
as though we were not racing for the win,
and lose a fragile balance, slipping down:
my dreams hurt like a bunion trampled flat.

i wish i could be a bot
a perl routine set loose
with no need to sleep or eat
tracking down obscure leads
organizing scattered bits of pieces

you would want to pick my brain
to follow where my path had gone
to see the visions i have seen
to hold the world in your own hand
where each horizon meets the dawn

a stranger i'd still remain to you
locked out like a telemarketing call
unwanted company politely asked to go
you'd hide invincible behind your walls
preserving your bed for lovers who are real

i would be immortal, i would survive
with what i have on you safe in my cache
i'd live to learn then keep on learning to live
great great grandchildren would catch a glimpse
and feel your deja vu in that brief flash

i squandered most everything on you
there was no good reason why
it made sense at the time
it was something to do
you can't make it up to me
don't even try

i was having trouble with fourteen back then
wasn't ready to have me a kid
money's not all a girl
can get from her men
but you don't plan on getting knocked up
not like i did

good thing i never let them tell you my real name
nor left behind a forwarding address
wherever there's a moving crowd
that's why i came
think what your brainless face says
i couldn't care less

i've done something here i'm not that particular of
got two chords left worth seeing my guitar
a song and a scar
it's what's left of your love
alone
is the hole that you are

this keeps me going like a bit of weed,
this private little ride into my head
on any piece of pain that i can catch
from when it breaks the skin, from when it slides
beneath the surface, in below the storm
into the private harbor held reserved
for this alone, this way i know to save
the heart and soul of me he tried to kill,
to give it breath, to make it worth the time
to live again, and all his rituals gone,
their dim formalities like paper cuts,
his instrument some rusted piece of chrome,
a stammer in his curse.
                             and let's all laugh
at how his thing stayed up once i went down,
uh huh, that would be him, all limp and dry,
yeah that's how it's supposed to feel, that pain:
it's just the side of life you have to lose
to ever see, to break to have it made,
to pay the toll and never look away,
to give it all my face and all my word,
with this to make it real.
                              i ache to strike
the nerve, that nerve, i ease into that space,
i push it further through, i touch the vein
and feel the pulse like waves upon the bone,
like beating hearts upon a virgin shore,
and all my secret hells just melt away
like a mirage, the edge so light, so deft,
so hungry for its fill of raw desire
for touch, for everything that feels that touch
and gives its blood in sweet return, in grim
reflection of the game he taught me well,
in well-intentioned traps and honest bait,
the cut that i would always make instead
of what was told to me i had to take
to get innoculated, sanitized,
or saved, whatever took, the stinging lash,
the numbing bruise, the red and blistered burn,
he never started it, not even then
back at the first: my flesh became his vice
as nothing but the channel to my voice,
and all along that's all it ever was,
there wasn't any more for it to reach,
not like this always did, this special sound
all rough, all smeared, all blurred except to me
and me that sacred word will never fail.

you would have loved it had you been here
walking the streets this time of year
wind blowing the fallen leaves around
not letting them yet touch the ground
until they were crisp and fresh as breath
so as to reflect what's become of your death
days like this i can still feel you near
you really would have loved it here

god i miss your touch so bad
the first i knew to the last i had
traffic all bundled against the chill
but you laughing shirtless at the open sill
then joining me back in that borrowed bed
with some joke of how cold you might be to be dead
and tickling my thighs for acting back mad
oh god i miss your touch so bad

that was something you said you knew
we'd meet up back here when we were both through
you no less eager and i no more wild
you with your conquests and i with your child
but my hope will find jewels in the fall's first ice
as each new love echoes your sacrifice
i loved you
               yes and
                            i still do
i wish i could say that was something you knew

ditto. last year we were sent to the gray block. alarms went off,
but we had our own reasons to have the episode shrugged off,
since we knew when we are not alone. we knew where we stand.
we made it through the halls like misty rain. we understand
the pieces that make up what we will change to be.

only near the death of a chance, only then do the winds freeze up
and twist each other moment as often floating down as gliding up.
ours is not the only life on which futile attempts have been made.
escape is only an option. other ways have their futures ready-made
as though we were phantom masters of our own destiny.

our bodies are gray. our words are gray. gray challenges stream out.
our poems were memorized and whispered secretly and one by one sent out
to carry our reflections to streets and rooms where we wished to go
with the gray as deep as blood clotted over from cuts made years ago.
like attorneys parsing each precedent, so intrinsically intact are we.

heavily trafficked stretch
cold gray and showing its rain
covering over places i've lain
with traced scratches at each edge
tinged with hints of red
another morning opening my head

as far as this sidestreet can reach
new eyes see aging stone
half-in half-out a world for its own
my home survives the siege
of words timed to the constant heart
dying to be called to play the part

my sin is not the source of my ache
nor you yet jealous enough to earn my rage

pagan hummingbirds
flick open wounds, consuming
femented nectar

one way, one final broken word
pursued by scattered leaves

gutters fill with melting regrets
like black ash running off your eyes

no merciful fire, not a spark
to push dawn into its own open wound

any rain left today will be new
bereft of your sound, absent your touch

don't carry
the pain
you took
too far
from me

malicious memories
alienated from their
lacerated sleep:
infidel visions of
grotesque acts made
nul and void within my
anorexic heart.

unlock the doors, disable those security alarms
protecting what precious valuables you keep,
any piece of trinket with a gleam
like headlights riding out a power drive
or glowing embers scattered on your bed
where fortune ends and random chance begins.
the corner peddlers watch then make their move
to channel all new business to the park
where those who come to buy come by to look
and something feels familiar of the place
as though how it is taken had been guessed
yet done a second time, then done a third,
repeated in the talk from man to man
then passed around to everyone you know,
all seeing what goes on behind the drapes
and taking turns to peer inside the crack
to know they do it just the same as you.
the ladies at the stairs in just their slips,
each set to be the first to do you right
like those who came to look might look to buy
a segment of a wasted afternoon
responding to a city siren's call
until the repo finds you and retrieves
the moment when your heart stepped out of bounds
outside the comfort of our neighborhood.
pull the blinds, let some daylight in
outlining shadowed memories intact
relaxing on the couch like nothing wrong,
like last night's promise didn't mean a thing
and love proceeds according to the law
with no regrets worth getting left behind
in rooms where perfect strangers meet their match
the flesh and blood become their bread, their wine,
their pointless sacrifices on display
controlling what gets saved by slow degrees
believing something sacred once it sells.
how does one blend that song to the city's noise?
promises of glamor, subtle threats
of bondage to the fire and for the wheel,
recitals of the favorite lies of men,
demands like screaming brakes on subway rails,
excuses for each hero of their loss
avenged in kind, the brass of backup bands
leaking through the floor, the walls, the roof,
as though your ghetto landlord held the drill
attacking private closet shrines to shoot
infected clips of art into the clocks.
as crowded as a weekend open house,
as public as a junkie aiming one on one,
there's that market for every night you give me to spend,
just notice the way i lay, i will show you how.
my bedroom dreams are that easy to befriend.
got some time? let's flash one for you now.
pull me closer, reach up under my blouse,
don't take things so seriously, we're just having some fun,
it's not as though i had forbidden fruit
stuck between my teeth, all the young jocks
as notches on my belt providing proof
whatever someone asks of me i will.
i don't turn into a slave girl and you're no boss
just because i yield so much to the touch of your hands.
i love you like i love a fertile pen,
your ribs like rhymes tickling under my fingernails,
fine lines in me the artist in you pets.
the words i breathe become the skin you feel.
i sing from the wounded heat of twenty four hells
with the key to the painted souls of twenty four boys
for the twenty four resurrections i had me today
each one fathered by the same god i came here to please.
as though a player in each game i watch
the score is told as though the win were mine,
the mirror showing every move i saw
reflecting backstage moves i had in mind.
come morning though, who stays to hear my song?
the room is always empty when i sing
surrendered praises to that final sin
outlasting curses filmed and paperbacked,
the pauses where the traffic rush surrounds.
all power of the prayer flows through the blood
revealing flesh where steel and concrete fall,
that long goodbye as something in me leaves
awakened to the calling of a driedout cry
left homeless wrapped in solitude and ruin
and left to find its way between my hips
as though my thoughts were mother to the night.
i'm victim to some commonplace attack
that grips my throat until my eyes go blue
as bandaged as the stars midnight might throw
across a vacant parking lot, oldnews rapes
retold as though they held the holy word,
a holy draft from that three-in-one ceiling fan
and i got left behind, the only trace
to damn whoever might then have confessed
and lead them to my place beneath the dark.
i have it written down in my pocket notebook.
i died once already and have not had to since,
same goes for work and fighting and driving and love,
once it's been recorded i don't need to do it live.
my streets have got my gray, my skies my red,
seduced to vaguely drawn whispers from my sleep.
come to me, firstborn soldier of my dream,
come take my thighs, take the whitest skin left on my arms.

my dreams are made of dreams
bent back over themselves
like wild brush fire sent back
to taste the aftermath
by thick chinook smoke driven
to find in its own dirty heart
more ashen love to burn

i can't stand another fat barb
or not fitting into my garb
this girl's giving in
no bone is too thin
i've had me my very last carb