Crimes of Passion

I watched you sleep
But it didn’t seem that deep
The worry was clear on your face
Something you know,
But afraid to show
Here in this sanctioned place.
Why are you hiding?
In me you should be confiding
What your father has done is a disgrace.

I thumbed through your diary
Finding everything about you inspiring
I keep your conquests as my own
I’ve been there since you were a child
Since your daddy went all wild
Your delicate face has matured
And I am enchanted by how much you have grown.

I wonder if you feel me near you,
As I keep you in plain view
Locked in my gun-metal cross hairs
Really I just want to be inside you
Do the things two lovers do
Prove to the Kaiser that not all is fair.

But as the days mark you older
My trigger finger is reaching for my holster
Thinking I’ve got a job to do.
This killer is getting bolder
And every winter seems a little bit colder
I am in love,
so now what am I to do?

Reflections of youth

First memory
My earliest memories are of my sister. I am barely old enough to pronounce her name, but I know to hold tightly to her canary yellow blouse as I travel the speed of light on the back of her banana seat. My excitement rushes out of me. Honeybees fleeing their hive and I want to go faster! The concrete beneath the tires glistened with jewels as we sped by with the urgency that is always youth.

Have to gone soon
When he was 5, he packed all his belongings into a red plush bunny named Duplo, which doubled as storage for his most beloved items: A few scratched plastic Legos, a Big-bird sing along cassette and his favorite books, The pokey little puppy and Where the sidewalk ends. He kept Duplo, by his side since he never knew when he was going to have to leave. By 6, he was obsessed with the written word. He became enchanted with creating circumstances that never happened. He was enamored with creating a reality that would allow him to be human. He started to memorize street names and hotel names and city names. He never knew if one of these streets or towns or buildings, would be his new home. The place Mom and dad would leave him when they found out what he was hiding. He knew not when or how the day would come. Only that it would.


Tree of knowledge
Alienation in and of itself was home to me. I refused to play sports of any kind. As soon as I stepped foot on the course I felt lost among the countless others, running, jumping, playing, and enjoying their activities. ‘Keep your eye on the ball,’ yet somehow I couldn’t. ‘Come on August, guard em’ guard em,’ course I didn’t have the faintest idea what the coach meant. I knew the other children were aggressive and limpid and that meant I didn’t want a thing to do with them. Amongst all child hood memories, I dreaded forced group interaction the most. I didn’t like the other kids seeing me up close; I didn’t like them testing my boundaries.
“You don’t know how to play football…Even my little sister knows how to play.”
To which I would dryly reply
“Maybe you should call her instead.”

Looking Back

He knew he would never live a life of norms. There would be no Indian summer days, searching for tadpoles in the creek. No secret handshakes would be exchanged between grade school friends. There would be no grade school friends to speak of. The sun would not shine down on him through puff pastry clouds, warming his naked toes as the cares of youth wisped by him. No. There would be no glass-front curios, lined with little league trophies. No tiny gilded figurines trapped in gold foil poses; sliding into home bass or making the game winning touchdown. There would be no junior high school sleep-overs or trips to CAL Skate on Friday nights with the church youth group. There would be no church. There would be no picket fences to line a perimeter around the house where love lived. No ethereal willow trees to hang a swing from or cut a switch. No father-son picnics down at Lake Perris with the cub scouts. No gooey smores and leaky river rafts or children’s voices. There would be no ‘experimenting’ with the pretty girls that offered candy lip-glossed kisses. There would be no girlfriend. There would be no pregnancy scares or discussions about ‘when the time would be right’. The time would never be right. There would be no high school activities to fill his afternoons and weekends. No Prom to reminisce about in years to follow. No memory of accomplishment to trigger a smile. No Graduation photos of esteem held high, in his mother’s eyes. There would be no bed to usher in sweet dreams or moments of calm. There would be no moment of rest for him. No moment of rest.

Assorted Sundry

Split personalities

Wanted you to love me
so I could be all that I could be.
Became what you needed
in desperate hopes of reciprocity.
So I hung onto your every word
like a precious memory.
And when I would drink too much
it was of you I would speak.
I even made a home for you,
wont you come lay your head beside me?

We didn’t end like I wanted
So I kicked my own ass,
Thinking ‘I should have tried harder’
Screaming for you in vain
Baby I sang your name
like it was my Alma mater
I got angry
I started throwing things and breaking glass
and all I got was hotter

2 years later and here I am,
Still confused by your duality
I beg to see you
hoping we make it through
While I sit alone,
Stewing in my own sentimentality


Nina

Who knows where the time goes?
You were loving me but now it’s not so.
Praised your name in my usual bravado
Your response just aint the same.
You told me I was sweet though
Now I’m trying to figure out
Where the time goes.

When we hugged and kissed
I knew the one thing you’d ask is:
why do I always taste of sadness.
I said:
Its what happens to joy when your heart isn’t managed.
(Knowing love gives one the advantage)

Seems we just reached our peak
Now were falling down a slippery slope
You’re ignoring the words I speak
I should give you up
Let you go
I know its time to head home
So who knows where the time goes?

I was enamored with you
But I see it aint that deep
What am I to do?
When I’m a promise you won’t keep
Now I’ve got the ‘Billie blues’
My heart has sprung a leak.
Who knows where the time goes?

I guessed you figured me out…
Seen all the best parts there are to see
So what’s all this distance about?
This just can’t be…
I sit here trying to figure him out
but I’m lost in his mystery.
Baby, who knows where the time goes?
When it takes you from me


End of an era

Left upon the valley floor
My wayward soul is fleeing
Too many tempest winter nights
Now my roots have no meaning
So how should I know
When it’s time for me to grow?
The soil has turned to sand
And all the nutrients are leaving
But oh do they know
My weary body is still feeding?
Far across the starry night
A thirsty gust carries the seedlings
But how could they know where to go?
As I watch my hope become fleeting
Tempered flame can’t warm this heart
It just flickers about
I’ve been broken down piece by part
So now the endeavor carries no clout
Left upon the valley floor
My wayward time is fleeing


Temptation from lesser deities

I have searched throughout history
I have toiled over endless faces
Searching for eyes that will meet my own
Encountered apparent dangers
Still, no cave as my home.
My skin is thirsty
All its tissue has folded
Im puff pastry Flaky
My lips are chapped
From living with a forked tongue
My words aren’t enigmatic
But I only think in ab stracts
Flashes of color
Opaque windows
Demons with no shape
Luminescent Mephistopheles promises trinkets
Like greasy burger wrappers
But to I who have nothing
Its tomorrow’s news received behind the times

___

Since that night, Joel.

I want to wrap you up in vanilla linens
and embrace you.
I want for our lips to never part,
Except to flash a smile
I want to leave you with a feeling on Monday
That will last you years from Sunday
I want a little sugar in my bowl
That’s as sweet as your eyes

What I want
is you.

How the day starts

Morning is here, so time to function.
I get up and go to work and as usual the day spins by me.
I sit quietly at my desk looking deep in contemplation
Dissecting weighty thoughts of you, until they are broken down into dust.
I have little wiggle-room to indulge in much else.

Builder’s Lament

We became confidants with hugs evolving to pressed-lips.
From our kisses bloomed robust ardor
I became cognizant of your beauty
And even though you still went home to him
I was willing to brave the cost or wear your cross
The seasons changed but my dedication did not
I wanted to build our foundation so we could settle our roots
So I became your architect and you were my blueprint;
The proof I knew how to remodel.
I built a bridge but you feared crossing it,
Positive it would carry you only to more crossroads,
When really the path led to me.

A note about a bourgeois man I know

You called at 3 am
There was only one thing on your mind
And it wasn’t how I’ve been doing.
I fell asleep early last night; I must have missed your call
The robot on my voicemail said you would be in town this weekend
But proximity doesn’t matter; you are always a million miles away
The next morning you wanted to know if I got your message
For a moment I thought about ignoring you,
I decided to respond with exuberance
‘Can’t wait to see you’
I feel like a sucker sometimes, the way you left me.
I saw you at a bar but you were too self involved to formulate conversation
You called again at 3 am
I knew there was only one thing on your mind
And it wasn’t how I’ve been doing.

Often a LOVE fool

I Met him
on a Monday.
we made love
well through Thursday.
Felt like a fool
by Sunday.

Now the patience thing
Playing the waiting game
It's been too long
I think he
must be dead

Shoulda placed a call to me…
by now.
I sent a text: no answer.
stated in writing: I dig you.
Left a clever message
(Don't think he understood)

So whats up?

re: Everything is Everything

I made an emotional decision
Sacrificed a saintly man
Let you leave as a martyr
I should have tried harder
I let go of my greatest friend

You've learned what makes you happy
While I'm still searching time and time again
It was never resentment,
I kept u alive in my writings
I figured 'how else am I to see him again?'

But then Saturday night there you were,
the love I knew by heart.
With your arms wide open,
before any words had been spoken.Can you forgive me for tearing us apart?

Distractions of mind through doubt
(for those appreciated things).

This is to a man
with big dreams,
chocolate skin and kinky hair.
To you for causing
life to change that summer
we had all the afternoon rain.
For all those 'How are you doing?' messages
when 'heys,' were all I was used to.
Its just a thank you,
for the kiss at lookout mountain.
A poem of appreciation
for holding my hand
the whole movie.
Breaking my heart,
then keeping it
all these past months.
For promising to mend it,
by building a foundation.
You tell me I am beautiful,
I am anchored to your touch
(I am not used to hearing that).
Walking in the park with me,
understanding my stories about the trees.
To a copper-hued presence who laughs at my jokes...
both good and bad.
Who feels/fills my enamor
but knows not what it means.
A Kudos for the night we lay intertwined and anxious,
searching for each other’s meanings
while gelid drips of mutual sweat
became our scent.
This is for you,
who rides me like a motorcycle
Revs me up
causing me to accelerate
in quantity & activity,
then calms me down
hindering me exhausted.
For bright eyes
in dark night-light.

Book of the Phantasm

Phantasm pt 1

I do not want you
its needing you
But for now I do not live...
I am separated
from you.
I die because only your
Presence sparks my pulse.

Your scent trudges my
murky blood from one artery
to another.
You send alarm to the meaty flesh
of my swollen heart
Deep beneath my surface
your touch has laid vein
where only sinew was sewn
The idea of your caress
allows weary feet to become...
weightless.
Your voice is like thunder
in my ear and I run,
searching for it aimlessly.
needing to know its origin
I am in awe of you.
Like a child is in awe of nature.
But you are not here.
You are a phantasm
The ghost of possibilities lost.


Phantasm pt 2

You were introspective on our walk home,
as if pondering the impossible
bouncing ideas off of me like monogamy and matrimony
telling me I am the man you respect
I licked my chops in anticipation-
salivation akin to when I ate pomegranates
on my granny's back porch in my youth;
always making a mess of things, releasing all discretion.
Only focusing on the raw ruby corpuscles bursting in my jowl.
Feeding on my flux of susceptibility, you gaze in my direction.
I beg to know your secrets.
'Just relax,' I said, (as long as I never met him he didnt exist)
feigning to myself you were unclaimed.
An anomaly overlooked was just what I wanted.
My brave new path to lie.
But I am a nomad in the continent of your embrace
your care is foreign to me and I travel abroad wandering...
Knowing I should go home soon but, how do I turn away?
I find my Dogmas unraveling.
it’s my frayed edges of loose-leaf paper, or a poorly wrapped package.
Clever words escape me and I dare not tell you.
I have saved a place that houses the truths
I insist must be verbalized but you have a defiant nature.
You move in closer, I flinch away.
I cannot gamble our touching.
I am still healing from the last time we bonded.
Your hands shouldn't learn of my flaws:
The many curves I wish to hide.
I want you to view me as I see myself,
(complicated but worth it)
we make eye contact and
your perfection frightens me
I am scared and bent on ugly
I forget to breathe
Veins collapsing like empty sacs
I think of dank tombs with rotting flesh
As the place I belong.
Doubt plays dutifully in sallow lines around my eyes.
You become impatient.
And though your index finger has no voice it speaks to me.
Grabbing my attention and focus tapping on your thigh
it bounces down up, my intrigue follows...
up, down, up.
I yearn for teasing on a bright and sprightly day...
Instead I sink back to reality where I have adjusted to avoidance.
My uninspired mind ceases to reveal anything worth witnessing.
In hopes you will forget me,
Since I know there are too many factors or variables in this equation.
And though I'm aware of your formulas
still nothing computes.
Maybe you have a supernatural element.
You are the Phantasm I'm enchanted by.
I believe you must be sacred,
made of precious metals and stones,
valuable and hard to keep.
Like mercury flees from naked fingers
If you know what I mean
It is a pointless persuit.
since it's all meant nothing.
You have remained beyond my grasp.

Phantasm Pt 3

Maybe I should rest?
I lay down with my thoughts
and watch the ivory blades of sunlight penetrate
through my blinds and onto my bed.
The same way it did the day I awoke next to you:
The Strips of morning lay on your exposed ebony back,
forming piano keys.
But the connection is of little use.
I draw the blinds to cancel out the memory.
Thinking to myself
‘I should probably get dinner started,’
But I have a drink instead.
Enchanted by the burn it brings.

The older I get the more I fade…
I spend hours;
Nose in book, mind in thought
Heart and bottle in hand,
Needing your touch.

When you phoned I didn’t answer
Your message was up-beat but I am aimless.
I don’t know how to be your friend
Only how to love you.
and since you won’t allow me that
I do nothing but remain in suspended animation.
Waiting for you to see me for the first time
but you never do.

Phantasm Pt 4

Leave me
So that I may forget
All that you have done
And did not do
To undo what you have done to me

So that I may reinvent hope
And reanimate the cities
Your presence has destroyed.

So that I may gain my bearings
And restore my faith in life
Replenish the gardens
You have lain by the wayside.

So that I may return to my kingdom
Where your malice can cast no shadow
And my heart can seek the light.
That your darkness has blanketed

So I may swallow the seed
That reaps anew a once diseased heart
And gives it courage to brave its bloom

So that I may seek the strength of ages
And spend this season free of your iniquity
And the next restoring my foundation

Since my best person
Has done the worst thing
And is no longer any better
Than the worst thing he has done.