Vultures

Vultures

It’s something extra awful

When you can’t even figure out

Who’s lying to you anymore.

And you can’t even catch

A break to straighten out

Your own head.

They’ll use you up until

There’s nothing left to squeeze,

And then pick at the carcass

Until all that is left

Is your bones.

And then, then

They will find some use

For those too.

I once read that the poor class

Has consistently throughout history

Liked to drink and fuck

For recreation.  Squandering

Their pennies for cheap thrills

And keeping themselves down.

We drink to numb the pain

You have pushed on our bodies.

We drink because it is sometimes

The only way we can wake up

In the morning

And bring ourselves to serve you

Once more.

Smoke your cigars and poke and prod

And make fun of us all you’d like.

There’s no pride left to hurt anyway.

Nothing behind our eyes but sadness.

And for fucking?

Well, even us poor need to have fun once in a while…

I Wet the Bed, Like Federico de la Fe

I Wet the Bed, Like Federico de la Fe

Insomnia-riddled night

Torn and tattered soul

Like old negligee

No peace in my mind

No piece in my bed

Nothing in the moon

Or night sky

It’s during these sleepless spells

I feel most alone

Which for a recluse

May sound appealing

But it is also

During these dreamless nights

That I find myself faced

With the only instance

I am not ok

With being without

In fact I’m something of

A child clinging

To his blanket for

Sweet life

Terrified of shadows

Monsters under the carpet

And Michael Myers

Hiding in the closet

How I’d kill for

Long fingernails to write love notes

And draw pineapples

On my back

A cool hand to run

Over my body and

Quiet the fireworks

Bursting in my brain

How I hate myself

For knowing they’d

All be gone in the mourning

With these thoughts.

The Beautiful Flower

The Beautiful Flower

Stretched skin in blood red

And lush pink.

Gorgeous lips just

Torn apart

By burgeoning life.

Sacred home

And alter,

Eternal source of

Warmth.

The loving nurture

Beyond the capacity of a man.

The slick salty lick.

The long stroke

Of worship.

For a puzzling

Conundrum, yielding

Fruitful rewards.

Beauty is perception,

Lacking definition.

Lacking any finite understanding

Outside one’s own.

Though there’s no denying the

Beauty of this:

They say it’s your most

Precious gift;

I say, if anything

It is only proof of

God, and

Her kindness.

For Meena Alexander

For Meena Alexander

I want to own your mouth

And steal your tongue;

To control the words

That lick your wounds.

It’s my language,

It’s yours.

Yours.

We’ll try to possess

It, but we cannot.

I want your mouth on mine

And to dance and burn

In eternal sunshine.

You grasp for straws

All you’d please.

You’ll gasp for me.

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday

The church is dead now.

Dead to me, anyway.

The final nail through my hand:

The stale palm cross in my

Passenger-side visor.

Though I still sing Hosanna

In the highest.

And I still praise and worship;

And I bow my head,

While on my knees.

Regardless, I’m helpless to lament:

Why hast though abandoned me?

Delila

Delila

Your body, baby

is sweet sex and all of its possibilities.

The resonating strum

at the forefront of my mind

throughout each and every day.

You echo behind

all of my thoughts

and are central

to all of my dreams.

That body,

that body, baby, and your neck.

Your neck, sweet darling,

I long to caress that neck;

to demonstrate this vast range of

emotions only you can make me

show.

You bring it out, love, you

make me

true.

My weapon, my muse—

            for this war!

And all I feel

is eternal indebtedness and gratitude.

These fingers are not for foreplay.

They’re for the whole damn show.

And they will make you moan,

Baby.

They will make you moan.

Prynne

Prynne,

I always tease you

When you think that

Every poem is about you.

Now I fear you may feel

As though none of them

Are.

You will always be my

Greatest muse;

You were my rebirth,

My awakening.

You wrote me like Chopin herself.

I am forever

Indebted and grateful

A billion times over.

Yours