Back Into My World

In a Hollywood studio
an actress is preparing
to fall in love for
the third time that day.

and make up is concerned
that her complexion
is too paisley under lights.

and the director is worried
she’ll drop a line and they
will have to re-shoot.

and her would be lover
is in his trailer drinking Perrier
practicing his smirk.

so when he runs into her
and she looks into his eyes
and their lips meet
in a perfect fast action close up
everything will go smoothly.

Back in my world,
there is a half-finished soda
staining a half-hearted poem
to a girl I haven’t met.
And if a camera would pan
across the strewn blue jeans
and t-shirts, my single line
voiceover would cue

“who should I be today?”

Ammonia Death

I avoid visiting nursing homes
so I don’t have to see faces
of the forgotten turned to dregs.

A place where orderlies
distribute medication, I imagine
more placebo than medicinal.

And men follow me, while I walk
the halls, their eyes black,
staring from sunken sockets.

They are little more than shells,
hollow bodies, souls extracted
and disregarded as soiled linen.

I see myself with them, bounded
by steel and wheels, dripping drool,
my dentures on the night stand.

Their mouths open and close trying
to tell me about life, as though,
it will rejuvenate the ones they lost.

To them I seem as hope, a brown
haired messiah, ready to break
them from the pains of silence.

But instead, I am their son Icarus
reborn with new wings. Straining
once again to touch the sun

I push open the exit doors,
the miasma of ammonia death
lingering in my nostrils
long after I have taken flight.

Guju Eyes

[i]through love
one may find courageousness
(Tao Te Ching)[/i]

The first time I made love,
was with a Guju girl who held
the world in opal eyes.
She taught me to pay attention
to the difference of a smile
and to savor delicate breaths.
Each muscle contraction meant
something different under a touch
and to touch without feeling
was as powerful as feeling
without touch.

We learned more in one night
exploring each other’s bodies
then years of reading about
erogenous zones and stimulation.
And as the sun peaked under
the curtains to surprise us,
she taught me a woman
is an ocean, and to win her
you must be willing to swim
across never once stopping
to tread water.

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