worrying the wear
away at the edges
while the creeping
drift of sleep over-
comes me...PLEASE

don't just dream with
me anymore, saving
your only and ever
plans until tommorow
or some day in the
distance that never
comes....i will not
wait, i will not pray
by your side and
"hope" again for
a descension, a
hand which places
all and everything
that'll make it all
better...simply and
forwardly into the
palm of our hands.

i am going to start a
REVOLUTION in
which all facial im-
perfections are
covered in bright-
ly coloured markers
and paint, rather
than thick pastes
meant to "blend"
in and create an
illusion of clean.

i don't wish to co-
ver myself up any
more....i do not
care to plaster my
skin with layers
of an image torn
from the pages of
a magazine, all my
pores colliding with
fake beige liquid and
powdery dustings.

YIKES!

the twiggy pines of this
planet, brushing past
and against one another.

they do a dance, in which
some slows and some
quicks pace-make and
quake....almost breaking
fast and away from the
boundaries of this space.

we've collected up so
many memories by now
that the air seems grown
to be thin and our lungs
seem content to alternate
their breathing moments
inside currents of cigarette
smoke and the exhaust of
engines, scrap metal and
the continual burning wear
of sub-rubber tire treads.

what fills me
up too?...some
kind of sour
and sweet, and
a flame that
wavers hot
enough to scar
your tongue on
the first bite.

carving out this baby's
face...(into and out of
my life again). I am
missing you and some-
times still wanting you
to be right inside there,
growing andallthewhile
i know that you exist
because of something
that i did, something
that i once shared for
a series of deeply breath-
ing moments...in the dark.

the fresh face of an old
soul..landed within me,
rooted within my spine.

it seems as though this
feeling has remained,
resting upon the laps
of all the fires i keep
within me...closely glowing
and warming me from
the inside to the outest
side of all my layers of
veins (those winding
traffic tunnels of the
deepest of red fluids)

my heart beats solidly
and straight through
me (each and all the
times) I picture your
carved out face on the
first day and on all
the days of your life.

dizzy me...resting (or am
I waiting?) over here:
where the diagonal
pieces of sidewalk
cement meet and
the curbs of this
city come together.

my thoughts have
gone somer-saulting
away and against
the rusted walls of
beat up and busted
locomotives, railway
engines...caressed
in smoke and the left-
over sounds of a pause.

as i gaze to these places
my thoughts motion, kind
ly...yet abruptly:

"in what remains of
my energy scraps...
i opt to do such things
as clean my face and
remove my socks
before bed time."

it's all become inked inside
me, like a collection of blue-
prints, staining wide to cover
my body bones and muscles
and all those interlocking, over-
lapping little walls...milky slosh-
ing, purple blood unexposed.

this story is growing inside me,
it builds and then rests, simmer-
ing on all the plateaus of lobes
and cerebellus tissues...marked
with a detail for later, some of
these thoughts seem locked
away forever...unspoken then
and maybe never unless there
is some jarring later on, a mental
carwreck or some emotional,
spiritual reawakening...like lifting
up an aged moss covered stone
because it's still there, waiting,
resting, brimming with life.

yes, we did, plant a little
patch of growing things
in our backyard...he and
i and us and some other
speckles of human dust-
ings....and bodies that
roll and stretch out to kiss
one anothers in the suns
and hammocks....inter-
changeable limbs moving,
overlapping, rooting deep
down somewhere in that
intentional place we stag-
gered and tilled....dirt col-
lections under fingernails
and in skin indentations
and youthful laughter
lines (aready formed like
predestination to a future
of good living....meaning
inviting places to rest and
raise cups, smooth, naked
rooms to be clean in and
sun graced grassy places
behind and around homes)
our plants are growing as
we grow...teaching us how
to love them....and how
much better that makes
most things seem as soon
as we pause to rest....as
evenly as we breathe and
as radiantly as we live, this
is what i wanted(what i need).

eighteen moments gone by
and everything's changed
just enough for me to not
notice...for it all to seem
exactly the same, static
and stationary like posts
driven into solid ground,
hard-wired and -wared
around human systems,
inhalations of sucrose
and unlevened oils en-
crusted in bleached
breads and milky, sy-
rupy fluids, sucked down
all our throats like some
essential piping cleaner.

the rubber of my soles
move solidly over the
melted ice, puddles of
water...leftover from the
sides of those barrels,
me, like a milk maiden
swaying back and forth
like a body builder on
ice...again and again 'till
those deep holes way
up high, are full again,
now the liquid in their cups
will gather round them
again, like ants swarming a
hive or children reaching
up for someone to hold
them. i haven't held a
child in a long time, but
sometimes, when i'm
beaming, i'll feel the
world hugging me, and
the child in me feels
held and the woman
in me feels supported.

they're moving like mobilized
dunes...like a series of erosions,
always following the approach-
ing absence of the beginnings
of themselves...i stare blankly
into the thick and thin of it all.

those fur lined boots, worn in
a mist of almost warm rain,
bottled colours soaked deep
down into them...like plastic
toys and fuel tanks...gasoline
becoming something else
in everyday traffic...car windows
fogging...torn seats to replace
or ripped out to use for all those
good times....over there, out at
the property line, where there's
a pile of ash...(leftover from so
many times)...and a stockpile
of burnable things...even some
old baby clothes and used
coffee filters with the expanded
and soggy brown grounds still
clinging to them. we always use
sand to stop the fire. we'll smother
it tightly before we head back
for bed...where we'll dream of a
someday beach in our backyard.