The pale empress

Scatters crimson egg stars

Against a rippled mirror moon

And weaves nightshade loom

Darker than her bruised blue mood

Across the seductive divide

How the stake hearted harpy

Won’t stay lanced to disintegrating ground

Her pin pricked fingertips

Seeding blood orange droplets

That paint such beautiful violence

Behind heaven’s sunset flooded eyes

And her widowed grace

Robed in ghosts

Eats bitter bathed stars

Plucked from hell slanted vortexes

Devouring God’s winking capsules

To black hearted nothingness

And morbid hunger

Spills beyond swallowed snow globe kingdoms

Her targeting dark charms

Set upon souls unaware

As she hatches the stone blind beast

Screaming a night’s siren call

Gripping Eden with phantom reverie

And how we tumble to crushed ruin

Towards oblivion’s razored well

Her acid smile

A massacring masquerade

As death’s blushing ruby pout

On inked cyanide lips

Drains our entire world away

Her palette ripe with purloined colour

This farewell kiss

Such blister skinned sadness

Perfuming her rosehip tragedies

Through a wounded and dying universe.

He inherited chaos through no fault of his own

And the saddled burden bore invisible holes

Into his hatchet hewed heart and weeping willow bowed bones

Where the noise and light would spill out ugly tales

Yet nobody cared enough to follow its telling trails

Except the old man who had survived two unholy wars

And hearsed his napalm scars beneath a splattered canvas of tattoos

Yes, this old man with his blank bullet stare

Gunpowder tongue roasting smoked conversations in the flue of his head

And choking back blurred visions of deadly exits from Khe Sanh

With ashy palms hung down like burnt offerings

Decided that to die a feral coward was unbecoming

So he hobbled his good leg over to the young man

Whose split carmine wrists were laid crucifixion like at the throat of the bridge

And began to sing a childhood lullaby that juddered out his sandpaper mouth

Each cautious note loosed through razorblade wind

Then glued to the trembling belly of night

And the young man who was ready to dance with Mr. Death

Turned back once and fell upon God’s sword of tears in a crumpling heap

As the old man’s eyes burned love’s softest flame

That ate through all barriers both seen and unseen

Like a crushed velvet bird’s numb surrender and spiral

To Hands that tendered impossible care

And when we circled back over that bridge of forgotten sorrows

You could only see one hulking silhouette

Made out of two broken shadows

And with the joy of Lazarus

They shook like a chandelier of stars

As father and son decided that one had enough love

For the both of them.

I heard you were lost

Pressed against California costs

Learning what my brother did at twenty-six,

Out in Houston, Texas

where my essence

Is.

Paranoid

So I mold this clay chest,

push ups

and

bar hangs

Stars

fade

and

I play

Words

From the ancients.

All at once:

I was a Mustang

swerving

off the road,

..… a comet …..

only seen through your

peripherals

The whining voice at the brink of exhaustion.

I carve impatience from my baggy

E y e s

Laugh

again and again

Yet I feel that ache

Thumping like sickly love,

mistrust cycling ventricles:

It's never that simple.

Doctors say I'm stressed

Something chasing my bloodline

Exposed veins shine like sacrificial cliffs

Golden rocks with newly blazed moss:

I am bleeding and burning,

Loving

You

sprinting paycheck

after paycheck.

You

Fall

So

Beautifully

From your family tree

Tumbling rapidly in fields of yesterday:

Green eyes undulating like rolling wet film

Flames like sea walls

d i v i d e d

Slowly lashing as i walk impatient

Talk until my lips shut.

December 2012

At the church

Last walk of my light

Vigils lit with tender glows

As if that night we were invited;

A family torn to three

Granted one last chance at humanity.

Without

a

L

I

F

E

L

I

N

E

I find my honest self….

blood scurrying past my face

slowing enveloped

in your sins

Wonder what you were like at 23,

What you fought for before you

Vanished.

I seek life in every breath

Take steps to my origins

Wish to extinguish

Your

Image

.

. . .

.

.

En mis sueños te veo pa

Alli estoy enfrente de la tele

y tú con el cuchillo en la mano

¡Y la sangre!

El día que nunca se va de mi memoria

me despierto con tu cara

En el espejo,

Mideo ardiendo a traves

De mis ojos.

Escucho tu voz pa

Hablando de Morelia,

Y tu infancia.

Mi hermano mayor es tu reflejo

Y yo

Una sombra de tu personaje.

No sé si te volveré a ver

pero sé que nunca olvidaré

los años que tuvimos.

for better or worse.

Secreted away in a dimly lit corner of the Heart and Hound; a man and woman share repurposed church pews nestled around a worn table. Tall pew sides and low ceilings provide sanctuary from the persistent din of the outside world.

“I was surprised you agreed to meet.”

“I was surprised to get your message, Kathy.”

She shifts in her seat, “After I heard about his death, I—”

“Yeah. A lot of people contacted me at first. That died down, eventually.” He takes a deep breath. “Sorry it took so long.”

“I wanted to give you time, John.”

“I loved him.”

“We all did.”

“No, the same way I loved you.” The words strike like a bolt, “Teenager stuff, ya know. Feels profound, but really, you don’t have the tools to understand. He looked up to me. Asked me how to dress ‘cool’. As if I ever was.”

“You did alright.”

“I never said, but I used to have fantasies about us three living together.” John gathers strength and locks eyes. The sweet, earthy scent of ginger announces a waitress, who places two beaten-copper cups between them. They give thanks in stumbled-unison and are alone again, sheltered in the momentary silence and weathered wood.

“Remember his dog?”

“The Black lab? I don’t remember its name.”

“Her name.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I don’t either.” John fidgets with condensation on the cup. “Whenever he had a problem, he’d lay in bed with her and talk it through. Said that she was always there for him. I think that loyalty kept him level.”

“She died, though?”

“Yeah.”

Kathy shakes her head. The movement is subtle, as if a tense emotion is trying to escape and she shakes to keep it in. John proffers his cup. They raise their cups to an unspoken toast.

“The night it happened, he called me around midnight bawling his eyes out. I’d never heard him cry before and bam, I was sneaking out the bathroom window and running to his.”

“At midnight? He lived near me, John, that’s miles!”

“A familiar journey.” Katherine’s mouth curls up. “We sat on a red-bricked wall down an alley near his, and I listened. He talked until dawn. Well, until his dad came upon us on his way back from work and wrangled him home.”

“Was he angry?”

“At first. He understood, eventually. The frustration fell away... somewhat.”

“Only somewhat?”

“You know how it is with kids.”

“Yeah. Still, it was kind of you.”

“Oh, it wasn’t altruism. I’m not a good person. I just wanted to be the one who was there for him. I wanted to be—” John’s voice cracks and Kathy reaches out to squeeze his hand, “He loved that dog.”

They sit for a beat, the slow silence forces their attention to the warmth of their hands. Kathy gently rubs her thumb over John’s knuckle, then freezes. John’s thumb twitches and they quickly return to their drinks. The clinking of ice and beaten metal chases away the silence.

“Why did you two stop hanging out?”

John blows out his cheeks.

“Sorry, Wanna keep it light?”

“Nah,” a sip punctuates the point, “Do you remember the poem ‘I am very bothered’?”

“No, sorry.”

“Armitage? School?” He asks. Her response is a blank stare. “Doesn’t matter. In the poem, he symbolises his affections for a girl by burning a ring into her hand. And, well, I didn’t know how to express myself back then.”

“John, you didn’t?”

“I know. It’s weird. He didn’t understand. Even less so than the kid in the poem. The school nurse treated his burn and he pretty much avoided me after that. He made a better friend.”

“Stan. Those two were inseparab—” Kathy pauses as John tables his cup a little too hard. She cocks her head low, looks up into his downcast eyes and softens her voice, “Sorry, John. I didn’t think. I—”

“You apologise too much.”

“Now, if I apologise, it’ll make matters worse.” They erupt in awkward fake laughter and share a glance that lets them see the truth. “Don’t do that. Don’t hide it.” The laughter subdues. “Did you ever tell him?”

“Ha! If only I could.”

“Oh my God, you remember Aqua?”

“’Turn back time’? First CD I ever bought.”

“I thought you preferred Barbie Girl.”

“No, but in truth, I like it.”

“Oh, John.”

“Pretend you don’t.”

“We’re hiding again.”

“If only I had said, would I still hide?”

“Insufferable.”

“Hint taken. I don’t think he knew it was a rejection, but I’m still jealous of Stan. Well, envious.”

“That I understand.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I was always envious of you two.”

“Really?!”

“Yes! You were always together.”

“Oh, he spent most of that time talking about you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He was besotted, but you always seemed to have someone. It’s why he struggled to talk to you at times,” John lowered his voice to barely above a whisper, “and it’s partly why I hadn’t answered your messages.”

“Our friendship... This... it’s complicated, John.”

“Always was.”

They finish drinking before the ice has a chance to melt and order two more.

Let’s hold a funeral for the self sabotaging machine

Where raw excellence has been dime store swapped

For vacant penned flimflam,

A business model cock-up

For the smarmy gatekeeping elect;

So wearying to keep one foot above chilled corporate waters

And the other dangling into oblivion’s blacklisted scarred trenches.

Where have all the wordsmiths gone?

Asks the dying dodo

Sounds of a garbage disposal sink system being pushed to its absolute mechanical limits can be heard from every room in the apartment; the floors above and below it wake up to the grinding metal shards bumper car'ing into one another.

Something about letting them all swarm and fight over the fridges molded leftovers over night,

then getting the privilege of waking up to the garbage disposal being so flooded with those little cockroach mother fuckers that I can't even elbow grease another single solitary wing down into the magic hole until death rattling the load that's in there with the warm water running for a bit loosens things up.

Me and these coacsuckers have been at war ever since they moved in rent free (trying to state squatters rights or some shit like we live in a vacationing state where winter only comes after a nuke fails to kill their shelly asses)

Guess what?

"It ain't gonna take me a nuke to get rid of every last one of yous!"

The slumlord did one good thing when piling up this shit shack, concrete walls. No need for a gym just gonna bob n cleave these micro-bastards til my knuckles swell enough to have a mind of their own and tell me what to do next.

This place has become a super-highway and I don't intend on opening any more rest stops.

I flush em. The long wait afterword angers the survivors and the flying ones bounce around the closed lid

like some coked up genies with a dwindling supply.

I had a tub. I left a rather ripe post workout marinade film on the bottom that I added a full bear of honey to.

Once the white'ish porcelain turned to a blackout layers deep, my imperfectly measured homemade pool cover got placed over the top and I use this flesh n bone concoction God gave me to press the pool cover down and juice these coacs until the crunching stops.

I leave the last shovels worth in there to preserve in the clear dog shit bags to have fresh ready for Slumlord when he decides to show up Monday, or Tuesday. His door knob is shaped like half a heart and is perfect for tying bags of presents to especially if you just use the bottom to stab things through so their just barley not ripping apart while dripping through little by little on these hot humid heat waves.

The son of a bitch has no heart on the other side of that door! A genocide happening on his own species under his very roof & all he does is toss the bags out the window that soon enough will be too full of all us resident's gifts and will obstruct his perfect Emperial view of the Alleys many Bum Fights that we've fixed and pay me and a few neighbor's rent from a very mild Vig.

The umbilical cord has been severed,

ceasing the life-giving flow.

I am given to the wind,

directionless to blow.

To and fro, I twist, and spiral, and mesh

into a heap of like souls,

with crisp for flesh.

A crosshatch of veins

marred by waning youth.

A somber descent,

a disquieting truth.

For my days are now numbered,

the hours tick down.

I feel the stiffness encroaching,

vitality impounded.

My color is missing,

echoes of memory taunt.

All the love I beheld from overhead

like a haunt...

And now I am haunted,

hemorrhaging prose.

A violent resistance—

I haunt my ghosts.

All the love I beheld in the park

on those days,

from burgeoning souls

in life's greenest phase...

I watched them revisit.

Their visits still play

in the dredges of memory,

on fractured display.

Little I wouldn't give to recapture

those days,

but I'm aware forward is

the only viable way.

My exit is swift,

an unfelt guarantee.

I shall melt with the grasses,

and then cease to be;

a future green to feed.

Vestiges of defiance

flash in my eyes.

I am wont to feel abandoned,

cannibalized.

Stranded in myself

as discolorment climbs,

chilling my marrow,

scaling my spine.

I fall away at my edges,

trampled underfoot

by the young loves I once sheltered.

I cede my input.

I crunch to catch their ears,

a futile bid for attention.

But my presence eludes both

their minds and their mention.

My voice dries to dust,

as I slowly fold in.

Flesh gathering taut,

resistance pulled thin.

I reach for the mimic-sun streetlamp.

Pain skewing my thought.

I opt to revive

and not fade on the spot.

But the echoes of Fall are fallen,

fading with me, and soon shall impend...

The ground will turn to December's

spotless-white skin.

And the driven snow will drive me

to a place I've never been.

My future cemented, I grapple for poise.

How shall I handle this—shall

I weep or rejoice?

Rejoice that, while unnoticed, I held the rain

from the heads of the lovebirds

who caused me such pain?

That though I may falter, and though I may grieve,

I looked after the homeless

and gave them reprieve?

That the little girl who used to talk to my tree

and cry into its waist

is now hopefully in a better way,

in a better place...

Maybe one day the billboards

in the park will wear her face.

Lawyer, doctor, pop star...

May she never be erased.

Shall I rejoice that I have the foresight

to know

how short my time is,

as the seconds go and go...

One final eve, that's all I ask.

To watch sunset bruise the skyline,

and heal toward a nightfall vast.

And may it pour itself out

onto my bruised heart,

and grant me kindred peace.

May my dissolution bring about

a blissful, soft release.

And may my descent leave

an echo that rings still,

in just one tiny mind.

This is my testament and will.

And if no human eye will blur for me,

may the heavens briefly cry.

For now,

I bid a soft farewell.

thoughts sinking

mind slowing

goodbye

The umbilical cord has been severed,

ceasing the life-giving flow.

I am given to the wind,

directionless to blow.

To and fro, I twist, and spiral, and mesh

into a heap of like souls,

with crisp for flesh.

_________________________________

(Old-ish poem of mine from Wattpad. Some alterations made.)

When I found you

I was looking for a pit bull terrier.

Then the first day I saw you, I asked, what's that funny looking thing right here? I was told your breed was Teddy Bear, an adorable Shih Tzu Bichon Frise mix. I was immediately smitten. I went home without you, for time to contemplate how I could give you a perfect home, and all I could think about was what your name should be.

Your name was inspired by a character in a sitcom that I watched much of with my family, and had been watching with them the weekend before I found you. This character was spunky, adorable, and clever. It just made sense.

Penny.

I returned for you the very next day.

When I lived with you

While I only knew you for a tragically short time, you had enough personality to last a lifetime. Despite the conditions you came from, you had a heart larger than the size of your tiny body. You were playful, loved being held, and had the cutest little bark.

Although initially apprehensive, even Aslan could see what a gentle spirit you had, and you took to him instantly. You loved to hide one of my slippers the size of your body in amusing places. And you loved to dig around in the soil of my plants. I didn't care.

You were endlessly energetic and happy. And Penny, you were fearless.

You had a particular obsession with the little ribbon bookmarks lazily hanging out of the pages of my stacked books, a testament of my inability to finish them all, as if an archeologist keen to unearth immeasurable treasure. Your mischievousness was beyond charming. We had endless fun running around the courtyard together. You would tirelessly chase me in circles around the trees, stopping only to peek around the tree I was hiding behind. You had a delightful affinity for sticks, especially the sticks that were far too large for you.

I searched for your sticks, after you were gone, and I found it. Your favorite stick. I will cherish that little wooden gem for the rest of my life.

When I lost you

I had never been in a "quiet room" before. There were plush chairs and sofas, blankets, and treats. There was a soft light emitting from the lamp in the corner of the room, and a TV showing a waving ocean. It was meant to be a comforting place, but all I could do was curl up in a ball on the cold, hard floor, while I waited for them to bring you inside. That wait felt like years. Years that shouldn't have been stripped of your innocent life.

I was told I wouldn't be able to have much time to spend with you, because you were failing fast. When the doctor entered, you were wrapped in a blanket, with an IV attached to your right paw, that cruel, compassionate vessel that would deliver the substance of your final resting state.

This is what I could see with the tears in my eyes.

As I held you, I could see you trying to open your eyes. You were quietly whimpering, through that special little underbite that drew me to you. It sounded like you were pleading for your life, and I will never unhear it. I'm sorry Penny. I feel like I failed you.

Also, I lied to you. I told you it was going to be okay, knowing it wasn't. But I also whispered to you continuously. I wanted to make sure that if you could hear me, the last words you heard were how happy you made me, how you were so brave, and how much I loved you.

There isn't an afterlife, Penny.

If there were, you would be bouncing around in a beautiful place humans call heaven, which makes sense, given what an angel you truly were. And I will never see you again.

Maybe I lied again. Maybe there is an afterlife, after all.

Because I feel like I'm in hell.

Anamnesis

I wish that I could love another puppy like I loved you, one day. But Penny, you are irreplaceable. My heart is broken, and I have to save the little pieces left of it that I can, for Aslan.

You were bred to be appealing to hopeful homes, held captive by your breeder, ultimately your executioner, until you were forced behind a window in a monstrously small space, on display like a living trinket. And I fell for it. Though, in my defense, how could I have not fallen for you.

Before I discovered your little body was ridden with illness, I thought I purchased you. But once I discovered how inhumanely you were treated, I thought I rescued you. Now, I don't know. I just miss you, Penny.

Moments before rushing you from our vet to the hospital, the store you came from offered that I may return you instead. Return you. Like you were some sort of faulty Teddy Ruxpin I got at Macy's.

It may sound callous, but at moments I think that justice for your companions isn't worth the expense of your life. I wish I believed in a higher power, or even a reason or purpose for bad things that happen, but I don't. Your life was cut tragically short, and no iota of justice, or divinity, exists.

I'm fighting for you. So many of my friends and family are fighting. I promise you, I'll never stop.

#hernamewaspenny

After goodbye

Shortly after I told you goodbye, your new plush toys arrived. I selected more toys for you because you seemed to love them so much, because you loved playing with your skunk and little purple hedgehog. And Penny, I would have given you anything. I set up a playpen next to my desk, so you wouldn't have to stay in your crate while I worked. I wish you could have played in it, next to me, every day. I had plans to take you places to play to your heart's fullest content. You had SO much life to live. And I wanted to spend all of it with you.

That day, I should have been giving you your new toys. Instead, I had to select an urn for your innocent, tiny body's remains. You deserved so much more than this, Penny.

I'll never forgive them, and I'll never forget you.

12 days. For 12 sweet days, you were my little one. Penny. For 12 days, you were finally free, to live outside, in the world. Though cruel, that world was full of people who loved you immensely.

I'll always wish more of those days were spent in our little, cozy home, than in that cold, sterile hospital. A place, I will soon learn, of profound sadness, one that can never be wholly articulated.

I was ready to show you the world, when I thought it was a beautiful place. Now, you're simply a memory, reduced to photos and videos, a few keepsakes to remember you by, and a sea blue folder icon on my computer containing the paperwork that documents the tragic end to your innocent life.

This world, in fact, isn't beautiful. You were beautiful.

You were perfect. Far too perfect for that cruel, unforgiving world that didn't deserve you. I know I didn't deserve you.

Penny, I didn't realize that I had a spirit, until I found myself with a broken one.

For 12 mostly joyful days, you taught me patience, unconditional love, and how to live with that spirit. I hope I was able to make you happy during the time we had together. I hope I was able to enrich your life a fraction as much as you enriched mine. Though devoured in sorrow, I would never give those days with you back, baby girl.

I'm eternally devastated it couldn't be more.

In the shadows of our love,

A secret grew, A tale of wealth,

where loyalty withdrew.

She found solace in the glittering gold,

Leaving behind the warmth we used to hold

The moment we spent together.

Her pockets deep,

her promises grand,

She traded our dreams for a richer land.

The sparkle of diamonds,

the lure of the new,

Blinded her eyes to the love that was true

I watched in silence,

heart heavy with pain,

As she walked away,

leaving love in disdain.

For money can buy many things,

It’s true,

But it can’t mend a heart that’s broken in two.

So here I stand,

with lessons learned,

Love can’t be bought,

it’s something earned.

And though she chose the wealth over me,

I find my strength in what love should be

The hope to find true love although rare.