isn’t it so?
that miscommunication
rides a broom.

 

there’s a girl on my street
twelve years old,
in an abandoned theater.
her parents leave her there: alone,
afraid, in a seat, on a stage.

her gray mother and gray father
see the grinder everyday.

yet she sits
and smiles,
and sings sour;
I’ve been waiting for this moment,
all of my life.

Some nights my mind swells with temptation
to creak open the closet door.
Ideas, fed through a thick libation,
of madness spill upon the floor;
on settled dust and rotted timber
the ghost of love does thaw and limber
and wake once more a shrieking sound
that goads my frozen blood to pound.
These ghastly dreams cause such a racket,
I place my pillow on my head
and pray I make no sound, instead
the bastards enter with a jacket
and throttle me until I weep,
then needle me until I sleep.

 

Between Manhattan and Queens sits an island that's been forgotten.
Yet it breathes; gasps when oily waves recede and spits when cold
green water crashes. Beneath the feet of children plucking blackberries
by the lighthouse, below the tennis courts and apartment buildings and
the asphalt; the island remembers horrors. Centuries of tortured bodies
and splintered minds seeped down through the island’s skin into its id.
One hundred and seven acres of pig shit and guts moistened its soil
for sin, and thus was born a prison that grew an asylum and a small-pox
hospital. The murderer, the moron and the moribund replaced the pink
squealing meat with disheveled hair and wild eyes and scared, hideous,
screams.

All around it buildings rose that needled and blotted the sky, buildings
filled with women and men and happy little children. Most did not know
the island. Those who did cursed it or forgot it or thought it mad as
those trapped in the clawed walls upon it. But there are two who will never
forget, two who will never forsake, for when they were young, they saw the
graffiti wrapped iron lungs inside the boarded up nurses residence.

 

cool, wet, black bough
shrieking in the winter wind
the window waits
chilled, frosty, like a beer

peeping through, three eyes anew
infant plans have yet to hatch
if there's blood upon the shell
let it seep through, renew

hibernating, vitalizing
not vibrating, not disguising
sitting still for all to see
the peeping eyes: one, two, three

and there they sit in reverie
trying to fathom what they see
the banshee screaming like a tree
delivered them, so lovingly

 

was it you
this thing in my room
shiny, sickly, sic

poor red bug
for you I have love
aged pierced high on a stick

my friend
is this my end
perhaps you think me a prick

it's name in French
les betes du bon dieu
now opportunity spent

 

I.
Children's books on dinosaur dictionaries.
A winner and a looser always walk the hallway
with you and I not too far behind.

Save your kindness - we are fine.
We've put on our gloves, wiped our brow
somehow,
ready for the fight
tonight
and tomorrow, and the next.

He sees champion and lover, always wanting to wear a crown.
I beat up beauty queen and fashion model - the big throw down.
(Past lovers too - I don't exclude)

You see, this boy's weapon is oil stick and canvas
And mine are sick - words.

A whore I feel - for real.
I am searching for acceptance after all.
Repentance.
Smells of incense
from passerby's who hear
my moans of pain
from inside body strain, and sheet stain.

I confide
in you,
my deceased boo. You ghost, you.

And right now
I get up somehow
and walk out into the street with you.
We're always in mind and hand in hand
to the corner store.
I need more
alcohol and poison
to subside these feelings of true and
utter loneliness.
I confess
our intensity.

My hair is falling out
and down like snow
that's colored black
like you.

The day before my birthday,
still, I lie here moving.
Legs crossed,
hand clutching pen,
stomach pressed on purple sheets.*
I've started drinking
and it aint even 7.

*purple sheets - Prince convinced me,
you see.

I want to tell you
how disappointed I am,
how mad I am,
how I just wanna yell, but
for some reason I can't.
I'm nauseous and I have cramps.
So, let's forget about me tellin',
and me yellin',
cause it's only 7.

Instead, let's look around
at all the music I've collected,