Demimonde

Pale skin under the shock

            of silver moonlight

            halts my wandering eye.

In night's day, its breath

            blows chill off the sea

            while other souls sleep.

She smokes by the window,

            moon-gilt. Sable hair

            falls over bare skin—

clouds cast shade on snow white sand.

            I rise, extending arms,

            touch the smoothness there

at her waist, and feel the soft

            panties cling to curves

            like skin. She shivers.

The arch of her back accents

            soft, boyish breasts which

            steadily rise and fall

and catch the ghostly rays

            pouring from heaven

            on her and the town.

Wind on rooftops and treetops

            laughs coyly at our

            tryst and dishabille,

and none hear but us two, wrapped

            in wane wisps from her

            cigarette ember

that glows all red as it fades.

            Then we fall away,

            back through smoke tendrils,

bare, innocent as First man.

            Here, in this half-world,

            I inhale her all.

This is Not a Poem

I had that recurring dream again last night;
the one where I find myself in the dimlit
streets of some seedy, shadowy metropolis,
where unremarkable phantoms float past
on bike, and on foot, looking on in passing
as if they know me, as if I've been there.

Only this time it was different. I knew it.
Never were the streets so dark, shadows
so long that they smothered the city blocks.
Two girls rode past on bike, staring back
momentarily with hollow eyes, faces
expressionless as they drifted onward.

 And this time I felt different. I recalled
the scene to come, as I began walking
down a long, empty avenue. No cars.
No lights. Just alleyways on either side
stretching into infinity. I'd seen it before.

And so I began to run. I felt labored
breaths and the pound of my heart rate.
I could feel the cold night air and smell
the stale city musk surround my body.
And as I knew they would, out came
the muggers who had repeatedly caught
me unaware in my thoughtless reverie.

But I was prepared. The phantoms
chased me down, as they had a hundred
nights before. But my feet ran some
path they already knew and I leapt over
a low wall, escaping my pursuers,
landing on the lawn of a house.
It was Her house. My approach
was measured, slow, hesitant.
But I felt a certain calmness knowing
that She was there, inside, and so I knocked.

J. answered and I stuttered out three words,
then three more, and I cried because the welling
of emotion took over, within and without the dream.
She kissed me. I kissed her back. I felt complete.

And then I woke up into the pressing night,
stared at my cell phone, the time reading 3:14.
Loneliness crept in. The poorly mended heart
ripped jagged, jagged, jagged.

I want to tell Her. I can't. She won't accept it.

Do not dream. 

To Helen Cameron, October 2012

Dancing, vociferating,
demagoguing, boasting,
hosting, toasting,
oscillating wildly,
leading, following,
fighting, showing,
proving, domineering,
warring, quitting,
are not my nature.

Rather...

I've not a stitch to wear
as I stare madly into
irises of palling teal.

Praising what I see,
feeling where others fail,
fantasizing over
us comingling--
a sweaty, passionate,
versicolor coitus;
making that fecund
gaze and those obscene
pink lips more than
passing niceties, instead
reserved for some late,
intense evening when
I recall the things I
actually do so well.

And then, perhaps,
my nature blooms from
latent potential.

Speak Low

We are

two ships

adrift.

I pray

to find

you--there

amidst

the waves

--again.

Dashed

upon

the rocks.

Embrace of the Sea

Relationships change you like a river.
Rivulets, springs, and streams pour into melt
and headwaters rush onward through obstacles.
Things upstream build the meandering course
as it flows through craggy valleys and caverns
where the passing time is lost in darkness.
At times waters still, placid or stagnant,
while just beyond a bend rapids roil reckless,
unchecked, carrying flotsam from the past.
Debris, deadwood, trash, dirt, refuse and tears
are born from glacial headwaters down, down.
But for all the waterfalls and white water
the river knows nothing of its destination.

Only when it reaches the wide embrace
of the salty sea is it complete,
able to disperse into one at last.

Fat Ones, Skinny Ones

I want to
know you intimately
smell your fragrance
strip off your jacket
expose your physique
stroke your spine
lay you down flat
spread you open
finger your insides
contort your body
fray your edges
leave indelible marks
toss you aside
forget you for days
use you at leisure
devour you entirely

and replace you
with another book.

Iatrophobia

It's always the same when I shock someone
by ignoring animals on the menu:

"You don't eat meat? Since when?"
"I don't count."
"You wanna save the baby chickens, right?"
"PETA's a joke and I admit meat
is pretty damn delicious."
"Then why?"

Call it the 'Gandhi Experiment'.

Doctors scare me with florescent whites,
steel tools with icy prongs, lithe and sharp
syringes, and cancer diagnoses post-
-metastasis. Male or female, they prod
with smooth and cold phalanges looking
to prescribe a sense of security.
Crush your breasts for an x-ray. Relax
the sphincter. Feel for prostate enlargement.

Eating too sweet carrots is self-ahimsa.
My motto is: Be the change you want
to see in your proto-oncogene.

A Cautionary Word

Playful twins, focus your mind,

peruse your heart with object

criticism, examine and circum-

navigate boundless walls that enclose

a wild, temperate verdancy.

Perch, like a cormorant scout,

in the highest boughs amid

plump, mauve succulents, pregnant

to bursting, and gaze across

that vast, uncharted garden

of the heart, with rivers like

arteries; a criss-cross intricacy

at once ablaze under Apollo's

rust-orange charge pulled in tow.

Half the life therein exists

fruitful beneath blazing skies,

And, yet, lunar radiations

follow closely at the heels

of the life-giver, denotes

separation as the string

of the Ramadan fasting

juxtaposes evening to day.

Twins, serious twins, alight

your lofty perch and freefall

like one too close to the sun,

rushing instead into familiar

darkness, like inconstant black seas.

Prowl, as the hunting panther,

amid the familiar brush,

serenely blued by Luna's orbed eye,

a pale and shadowed lunacy,

twisted but well understood.

She makes each step new—foreign,

though this vastness, belonging

always to the sly hunter

is unforeign. But the earth

is wont to shift, to shudder

and admit that unwarranted

but cool and refreshing mist;

it creeps in via unguarded

estuaries, roiling calm

upriver, then billowing

over sandy banks, coating

the trails in diamond dew drops.

Foolhardy twins, sated on

bright and free daylight of the sun,

embrace the ensorcelling,

bewitching nighttime moonlight

before it succumbs to harsh heat.

Prize, like first man did woman,

the chance to share in paths walked

solitary, yet freshly

viewed, altogether different

beyond the sullen predation

instincts and the lone wolf's howl.

Solidarity, basking

in eve's placid radiance,

makes that ensconced forest live.

For a time the beast will not

rule over this uncharted Eden

where the fruits of Love withered

in day from unbearable heat.

Instead, rejoice in moist, wet,

and pattering rain falling—

a life-sustaining blanket

renewing the soil for dawn.

Was

She dipped her quill in permanence
and stained a blank heart.

But the manuscript has burnt
down to gray, dead ash.

For Emily on Her Birthday

Yesterday, a vague and distant
memory of a moment in
time when the possibilities
burgeoned beyond vivacious dreams,
resides in the past where it belongs.

Today, a day to smooch beloved
companions wetly as if spit
were for sharing, and squeeze breath
away with wide-armed hugs as if
tomorrow were some abstraction.

It may well be; we cannot know
until it comes, or it does not.
For now, focus on what exists:
a sharp mind, a promising smile.
Live again, older and more loved.

Live again, and again, and again.

Still Life

Above Crenshaw smog hangs heavy

while hectic buses putter by

wheezing out thick clouds, similar

to weed smoke from the swisher tip,

opposite the end where we press

lips to suck down serenity,

streets where colors make enemies,

where power is represented

by crack sales, shell toes, and cell phones,

by jail time, tattoos, spitting rhymes,

blocks where vatos sip Agave

tequilana, with heads shaved bald,

voices that roll R's and speak of

the grimy smog of poverty.

Ode to Physical Books and Digressions

I peel back the dog-eared outer layer.
A musty whiff drifts languidly up

off the dull pages, yellowed like cracking
paint, yellowed like the ghastly wall-
-paper of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's mind.

Spatters of ebon ink mottle jaundiced
skin, daubs through sheaves like black melanoma,
black as was the night in Robert Browning's
heart as spiteful winds brought elm tops tumbling
near to vexed lakes when glided in Porphyria.

Imperfections limn the pages, rips and tears
which turn, spider, wind and disappear below
words as waters often rush underground,
like Coleridge's churning, sacred river
running through caverns measureless to man.

They power on vibrant, illumined screens.
Thoughts appear in mutable forms, shifting
pixels boxed together with the brightness
and uniformity of a Warhol
which girls love, neither of which I understand.

To A Nunnery

 “...Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds /

Or bends with the remover to remove: / O no! It is an ever-

fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken; /

It is the star to every wandering bark...”

~William Shakespeare, Sonnet #116

“Get thee to a nunnery. Why, wouldst though be a breeder

of sinners?...I am proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more

offences at my beck...”

~William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Je te déteste,” she said.

I rubbed at the wrinkles

marring my strained and

weary countenance and said,

“Headache today. No French, 'kay?”

She roared with heat like some

balmy squall over the Indies,

kicking up waves of white

sheets, hailing down expensive

pens and pencils, tossing

eyeglasses violently like some

wandering bark in turbulent seas

until it crashed upon jagged land;

then down came the books, frail

walls toppling under duress.

I hunkered down, tried as a grizzled

sea captain; lowered the main sail

and battened down the hatches,

for I'd seen these devil winds

before. No brubru nor bull's eye

surprised and they would end

just as quickly as they'd blown in,

dissipating back into a warm

breeze, swift heading, and calm seas.

Soon enough she, with hair a wild mane

telling of wind and eyes dewy from rain,

spoke again, “We need a break. I

need a break, Anthony. I—”

I cut her off, “You should have one.

Go out. You should chill.” She

started to speak, her right

hand diddling with fingers on the left.

I cut in, rote, “I've got some work

to finish, some stuff to edit.

We will talk more later, honey.”

I turned back to the desk,

began to clean the mess and

pulled out spare glasses from

the drawer's recesses.

Rain and wind ceased to exist,

up went the rigging and sails—

But I could not have heard as

She wandered darkly down

the hall, halting pensive

at the door and choking

back tears as she tore

the ring from a slender

digit of the left hand

and breathily whispered

in the tongue I fondly loved,

“Que sera sera, que sera sera.

Je ne t'aime plus, mon amour,”

as the ring fell to the floor—

And I puzzled at the helm,

for then down dropped the breeze.

And we did speak only to break

the silence of the sea.