all of a sudden passion suddenly

[sellthecookie]

spending monday




all is underwater
once she dons
her headphones. pedestrians
backstroke to shores, and old ladies
shake excess water
off their hair, before plunging
again. there
is a seaweed
she would like
to taste, if it werent
for continents.

 

[vampiredust]

Excess

For Las Vegas

Certain patterns recur
everywhere in the city.
Cigar throated palms
blister next to a warbling

SUV drunk from petroleum.
The vendors at the drive
thru KFC have the sound
of casino chips ringing

in their ears. Walking down
the strip, rubber sneakers
melt under an artificial heat.
They listen to their owners

hearts waiting for the next
big roll, each ventricle spread
open, dazed and confused
from last night's hit.

 

[Guest]

Youchouli

There is nothing new
about the way you fog my brain;
curling your fingers through my hair,
drawing me ever so close,
so close.

This is ancient, of primordial green,
of the forests, of oak moss,
of fire and scorching wood.

You are a smoky aftertaste
on tongues you are on the tip,
the flavor remaining.

This imprint is worth remembering
with your name spoken over
again through the ashes,
a twisting vortex in the heat.

Someday, I'll be in a crowded room
New Year's Eve or waiting
in rush hour for the next train
and you will be perfume worn by another.

I will catch you on the wind
looking everywhere, reliving
a silent little death, over again.

 

[sellthecookie]

edge

tell me their names
and their tragedies,
and the color of their
underwear, and shapes
of fingernails, and games
they played in gradeschool,
when the world still had lines
drawn neatly on the asphalt
road at 12 noon,
and you hopped gingerly
onto the next block, hoping
no one noticed, it was just you
all along.
i will listen to you recite
their lengths, while we sway
in this quicksand bed,
no envy at all, just nodding
my head, wondering why
i wasn't there with you
earlier.

 

[Preta]

Bloodfish,
dynamite,
an aquatic apocalypto.
Tonight we have concussion bass pâté
with a light hoisin sauce
( and zuchinni spätzle )
or a shockwave salmon mousse
(we make no bones about it)

Once you shock a species
enough
they float to the surface
inert and rubber bodied
they become
a box of Goobers
or Juju beads
for any agressive predator

I wonder who will eat us by the handful?

 

[vampiredust]

A Cranefly Explains The Mysteries of Life

A dead cranefly lies on the windowsill.
I am not sure how long it has been
there. Months, weeks, years. Not sure.
The tree outside, already weakened
by the lopping off of several branches,
watches its invisible body turn inside
its toy-like frame. Wings turn within
wings, eyes turn within eyes. Everything
that had no colour or taste or smell
jolts with the new perfume filling the air.
Our bodies crackle with its passing,
colouring everything neon-blue, pores
wanting more.

 

[sellthecookie]

the ballad of two disinterested persons


the streets are filled
with men again,
eyes glinting, the subtle
curve of fine down
on their nape glistening
as if windblown forever.
deep down, in the dark
of hallways and secret
passages, we all do
the same thing, same
acts, same aftertaste.
I wish i were braver
than my logic. Imagine
the lengths
I can go to.

 

[sellthecookie]

traveling


the moon shows different faces
in different sides of the globe,
here a shivering coin deep
in the Coke vendo,
there, a record chipped at the edges,
playing rhapsodies
by bohemians, (a magical
song, don't you
think?). now, trudging
your safaris, and desert, and tundras,
and ice floes, and marshlands,
all in one, all gravitational
pull of the moon
is gone, leaving us
all by ourselves
at large.

 

[vampiredust]

Railroads


A freight of cloud
chugs along a nail-varnish
blue sky. Discarded
bottles of Bud Lite

lie by the Vegas railroad,
its freight carried
in stomachs. Wind pecks
at the leftover glass,

carrying it in invisible
carriages. The railroad
charges each atom,
renewed with a new song.

 

[Tathagata]

everything is blurred and soft edged
loose limbed
a drunk in a tidal pool
who has no need for his next breath
the wanting has vanished
as a January breath

her legs upon my lap
skirt dangerously
hiked
to her thighs
this way lies madness
they sing

I have heard the madness hymn
and invented
a harmony line
that renders fear
outward
into a beautiful duet
that resonates
the wind through branches
and bulrushes
a hushed advance
what Morrison called " A Soft Parade"

the beloved caisson
draws us near
with maternal familiarity
we kiss the casket and accept
that which is inevitable

the chorus echoes those words
whispered at times of uncertainty
my god
what have i done?

 

[DeepAsleep]

"For Drew"

she says fear she
carves her name
onto red candles
with
(she says)
fear smells like piss and cigarettes
and she says good
she says catch
me, i'm the best at falling, me
i'm the best at she says fear
carves her name onto red
candles are about to
burn
she says burning it at both ends
brings you closer to the she says
catch it in the middle and it won't burn
your hands she says
fear smells like carving
her name into a candle the color of piss
and cigarettes if you catch it
while it's burning, keep your hands
out of she
says
catch
me,
i'm
burn-
ing.

 

[Angeline]

Juju beads will eat you alive at least
pull your teeth out, but they look like jewels
in a dark movie theater, sticky little emeralds
and rubies in your hands, at least
in my little hands one box of Juju beads
was a vault of treasure. Twenty-five
cents and they last longer than popcorn
or malty balls. You might find one
in your shoe two weeks later. Not to eat,
but look at and remember that The Tingler
didn't follow you into that blinking sunlight
where Vincent Price's bloody knife
or Ray Harryhousen's marching skeletons
are a joke, not a nightmare. You can laugh,
but the Greenwood Theater and the Olden
Movie House are gone and there is no one
left like Jack who lets you sweep up
for a free popcorn and a Coke. The dogwood
in the front yard is so much smaller
than it used to be, the lilacs are gone,
and how did we all fit in that house
anyway, stuck together like a row
of Juju beads, hard to break apart
but too easy to melt away once we did.

 

[vampiredust]

Oleander Flowers

Shoulder-height
napkins of pink and white
hang above the walls
of a gated community,

watching the pinhole
traffic lights shift from
orange to white. Nobody
within its path moves.

Not the crushed carton
of Miller Draft, not
the old pine cones,
not the peeling women

waiting for the bus.
Everything retains its place
and waits in line to be taken
away. Like sunlight.

 

[JUDO]

Vegas

On dark night made day by neon signs
I look to the Heavens above float by
No clouds there but ebony sky
The tinkle of money that ply Man's minds.

A quest with guests of a thousand hues
Surrounding the fount of bent wish
I see the want and hear the fear that fish
In a sea of non-existent futures' dues.

Feel it! Find it! Expunge it now!
Ban yourself from the golden cow
To fill your soul with a mighty vow
To flee this place with emptied brow.

By foot or flight, you can find will
From deep within or friends assist
You'll send this now that can't persist
Before you spend your last green bill.

A wise man stops before the fall,
But not at this endless twenty-four-seven Ball.

 

[sellthecookie]

why i am still late for work despite the impending three-day suspension



there is another traffic accident
today, cars piling up, while onlookers strain
to see the heroic young man
atop the billboard
of a young woman with too perfect
hair, and silver necklace, and 10 years
of glittering products. He climbed
there at daybreak, when no one
was looking, and she was still
asleep. Now, he's hauled vans of tv stations, eager for a
newsflash, a newsbreak, a good stretch
for commercials, before his long jump
into conclusions. but he's fine up there,
all right, having learned balance
firsthand from cheating wives with tipsy scales, and
rocking cradles of babies
with no formula. Up there he looks
tiny, almost inconsequential, were it not
for the traffic he has caused today. We look
tiny too from his vista.

 

[Angeline]

On dark night made day by neon signs
I look to the Heavens above float by
No clouds there but ebony sky
The tinkle of money that ply Man's minds.

A quest with guests of a thousand hues
Surrounding the fount of bent wish
I see the want and hear the fear that fish
In a sea of non-existent futures' dues.

Feel it! Find it! Expunge it now!
Ban yourself from the golden cow
To fill your soul with a mighty vow
To flee this place with emptied brow.

By foot or flight, you can find will
From deep within or friends assist
You'll send this now that can't persist
Before you spend your last green bill.

A wise man stops before the fall,
But not at this endless twenty-four-seven Ball.

Once in an airport I stood on the ledge
of disbelief, having flown to desert,
past mountains, and I had given my pledge
a quarter for you and for you pervert
all that is honest in search of a clink:
drop one, two, three, and four times what I had
poured into my hands before I could think
is this fun? Not necessarily bad,
but oh so not me, or the time that I
entered the din of a den. Gomorroh!
Anxiety, sweat, the stink of a buy-
me world. Couldn't breathe and I abhor a
life without pines or the tang of the sea
in my nose, no one tells me who to be.

{My dear Judo}

 

[vampiredust]

A caravan of stars
sidesteps the lightshow
coming from the strip,
downs a couple of Martinis,
trapeezes the high-wire
between Mars and Venus
before falling, and landing
spread-eagled in a puddle
somewhere on Mt Charleston.

 

[sellthecookie]

love letter to a cutter

we are standing in the threshold
of fear, the epicenter
of guilt. we think
we are strong, but not quite
impervious to their binary world,
their bloated one's and thinly-sliced zeros.
the frail end-poles of love and hate,
ugly beautiful happy sad white black.
but you are neon. all blood gushing out
when you breathe and
all borders vanish.

 

[Under_Sun]

we cut pills
half and half again
until our perception slips a centimete ror two to the left
there on the overstuffed chair
I watch from the side
sounds find my ears in fractions
a hand passes through my vision
I feel it
I see it
but the feeling never quite catches up

damn these drugs
half life kicks in kicks out kicks my ass
curled shive let me sleep let me sleep the titration down
let me sleep the vomit down
let me sleep myself into a more familiar distortion
my skin stretching numb
blanjets hold it in
I never believed
that this is what I need
I never believed
I would have to stop

 

[vampiredust]

I Miss You

Sunlight kisses objects still waking:
a telephone full with last night's
conversation, the television repeating

words I could never say, windows
still hot from your breath. I want
to empty each one and hide them,

so I can feel their warmth, stirring,
releasing the words I hear over
and over in my head. I miss you.

 

[sellthecookie]

sacrilege


for you i will walk
on live coals/ eat ice
cream off
your dick/ cut
corners/and play
dead. you find
it funny
that the bible mentions
the word "lovesick",
but fails
to include us.
for you i will
rewrite religion.

 

[Tathagata]

"what happened to your voice?" I asked
her eyes earthbound
her eyes gravity
" Faded and gone" a dying breath
beneath a whisper
faded and gone

she swallows herself
over and over
what was once passion
becomes carbon
abrasive, eroding her core
with every digestion

she has solidified her stance
and become petrified
no longer able
to speak her mind

 

[vampiredust]

I know I am home

Gravel-tongued horses
graze a moon dyed field.
I know I am home. A train
hollers. Cars whoop.

The city dips its head
under a thinning sun.
I know I am home
when it cradles me

and I watch its lullaby
thinning every bone
in my body until I am
nothing more than a

syllable on the wind,
guiding visitors home.

 

[RhymeFairy]

sacrilege


for you i will walk
on live coals/ eat ice
cream off
your dick/ cut
corners/and play
dead. you find
it funny
that the bible mentions
the word "lovesick",
but fails
to include us.
for you i will
rewrite religion.

I stumbled a bit in the middle but I did get it ... it !!!


~ me



he knows naught


of religion. walls fall,
knees knock, trembles
take over. they all ask, give another
a shot. for them ( all ) I shall.
but

they know not of his Buddha
standing tall. pronouncing to all
a free spirit lives here.
listen, as his walls whisper
of one midday tryst. when all,

was clear, as bobby socks lunged,
air born moans, kept pace,
as we two
became one, over and over
again.

the neighbors
heard it all. her announcement
of undying love, his
guttural groans to hit the mark
when heaven was overtaken
and twin souls, spread their wings
and flew
through baby blue skies ...

 

[vampiredust]

Letdown

I once buried
a polaroid camera
inside a snowman,
wanting to capture

not seasons, scenes
or a changing land
-scape, but a map
of the shifting

continents of my heart.
I took out its film
years later and smashed
them with a sledge

hammer. Its shards
are played every day
by the sun's projector,
exposing everything's

hidden guts with its touch.
It revealed a bat inside
my chest, struggling
to crawl outside, hungry
for the black.