body parts

if you were the sleep in my eye
i wouldn't rub my face when i woke up -
i'd let you hang around until
at least
the early afternoon.

or maybe even longer. maybe
i'd let you crinkle there the
next night, and the next night -
you'd accumulate, at first just microscopic
building til I wore you-goggles and
my world would get kaleidoscopic.

if i was a booger in your nose
i bet you'd pick me, but then
would you flick me? or would you peek
each way - the coast is clear! - then tuck
me right back where you found me?

how i spent my day off

breakfast; then, a sweaty walk
to museum nipples rendered
vibrantly in colors like nihonga blue.
carded at the bibliotheque but
no bouncers keeping me from
Rumi and Talgrode, names I chased
and didn't know would lead to
Sufi mysticism at the oriental
pavilion in prospect park.
after mango nuts and salsa i
ascended rusty ladder
shaking sawdust flakes into my hair.
the sun, a diffuse spotlight
rained magenta solar grey; if i'd known
someone was watching i would not have
sunk beneath my headphones, dancing
like smoke out a sadhu's pipe
across the silver rooftop stretched
along 7th avenue.
you caught me naked in my clothes!
with eyes you eavesdropped on my
conversation with my
self, and now i'm sitting
in a whipping wind, gluing
words to paper
so i can remember.

concrete

I can never remember things
like argyle
until I see it.
sort of like poplars, thrushes, walpoles, and asphodels.
all usable words, meanings unknown.
i weave ideas, i stitch notions, images
of my life
of your beauty
i know nothing of nature
i can't identify the trees
clueless to the flora and the fauna
all their many names
elude me.
i'm a creator birthed of concrete
i buy what i own; i earn what i eat
Whitman has a mile on me (or more)

i sing bridge songs
landscape lullabies
beneath a sky scratched emerald, yellow, pink
before the sun, behind the smog.
i tunnel-crawl and plunge
beneath the river
but never am i wet.

Not before

Not before the other shoe drops
We'll wade among people
like saltwater
mouths closed, eyes wide open up above
the crests
Not because the sun is spinning us
But because the passion of our blood will always
out-
weigh the push
and pull
of infinity around us.
Gravity
has nothing
on you
and
me.
Time is a mosquito.
Space is beneath the thrust of our bodies.
For us, the sour can be sweet;
the intangible is malleable;
the straight and narrow dips and curves;
we are technicolor grayscale.

a glenn gould kind of lover

nimble fingers
rip roar blanks
undoing buttons
flimsy against flesh
and pressure
curling digits ending
feet - first, slide
so safe at
home with you.
melodious in all your
expectations/baroque
are my expressions
this love of mine
has variations
tempo pitch andante
revving your
undoubtable bends.
bombast gives way to
splendorous pianissimo
a whispered hum
the notes are sharp

s'wet

hashmarks on hot paper
pressed between palms
s'wet
i'm on all fours on the
dusty floor
my unkempt unswept
cerebellum. bella,
you confound my senses.
i keep smellin' loneliness and
feelin't he waft of clean dish scent.
believe me, i am mostly harmless,
i'm just overstocked on
sentiment. love makes of me a
sentinel. it challenges my
sentience.
i've got automatonic love
you've got automatic allure
meet me halfway
draw a line in the sand
then dare me to cross it;
your body is a beacon

your absence was a presence

fire circles intertwining
eyes and hands and love,
communion
every splinter vibration,
every well-worn welcome
streaming from the center
this is coming clearly
from a straight place
o, so arched and curvy

is it here not dark
but missing light
indulging in the connection
of a frozen companion
stillborn into sympathy
yet wriggling

I'm not choking
not asphyxiated
by a lack of your
you. you of many forms.
you are elusive.

knuckles clench
the sigh heaves
door swings in
and mind blows out

it's the radii
between our eyes
that send mine
crossed in circles

yes, there is a pathway carved out for all my words before they actually get there. they fit between the lines. i make them. i fold them.
i run away into a sentence
i hide inside a word.
let's pick a word.
anaesthetic
masculine
feminine
athleticism
precision
mutuality
love
there's no shame to be had in holyness