Portland Casket Gloom

I. Monaco Morning Delusion

The maids have forgotten to draw the shade for us
While crane labor screams
Old men with hardhats at work on a weekend
wrestle with the warmth of their pockets
Mill around and point to beams
Stable the frames of the shell of the shed
hammering new wounds on graffitied rooftops
Fifth Avenue doom impends throughout
the crane is crooked, bevvied, old
And the ton-scale molds do creak to its fulcrum
Flanked each horizon by jutted parking monoliths
taller than most hotels
And the Monaco concierge implores the
will of the housekeepers to rush the
turning of the bed.
But we're not awake yet
Just tossing
turning
yawning with the maw of the crane.

II. My Father's Place

She reads like a racecar;
sputtering, lightning fast, stuttering
stanzas in sordid soliloquy
in din of dim diner smoke

III. Division Walk

Oh Portland casket gloom,
illuminati peeking through the cloud
to warm my neck but for a second.
Why do I punish myself
on crooked, cobbled walks
to count the steps between the slats;
to trip on root-jutted faults in concrete
where nature yearns to best the modern world;
and cats' paws labor for the
cushion of quartered plots of grass;
and crows perch the power lines,
ignore the trees and peck at littered chip bags on the street?
Oh Northwest teasing rain:
Show thyself or never fall again...

The rainbow rows of Hawthorne fan
like Chinese foldups,
manipulate the grid to
labyrinthian treasures of gold.
But all you find are faux doubloons in rustic yesteryear
bottles in ditches
behind cordoned projects;
tenements spaced 'tween dream homes and cafes;
the streets urbanized by aluminum siding and spiral-stained condos;
tricking the tourists expecting the lore.

IV. Over The Rhubarb Bounty

Beyond the sizzle-grill suare,
just past the cubbyhole clubhouse in the shed,
the rows of citrus, berries,
dandelions, ancient deciduous trees,
snakepit monoliths and cooing blackbirds wait,
taunting sinful beauty
and cutting to the quick,
wincing in the face of this electric world.
I can go to corners of the hill,
quartered in the plot
beyond the music and the masses
to sit and shut my eyes to dream;
to fashion silhouettes on tree trunks
with my hands in the sun;
to lie in trippy flower beds
and brush bees off my face.
And you and I and no one else
will ever need another thing.
Over the rhubarb bounty,
the tudor-home rooftops domino and squeeze the sun away.
The motorbike coughs and sputters
by the will of the throttle,
poisoning the berries and the grass
with its luminescent howl
and I suddenly remember now
that someday I will die.

V. Post-Closet Revelry

I stabbed myself today
in the knee
by fleshy jointed cap.
I didn't mean to;
I just hate everyone, that's all.
The ballpoint shank pierced the goosebumped skin
to spurt the crimson truth
on all the nascent babies
Nowehere near the navel-lathe
where nothing thrives but native suns.

Skin Bag with Foreverness Inside

Oh, through whose veins does my blood flow now?
Do my vices hinder hosts?
To whose heart does each breath yield doubt?
And does this mean I'm a ghost?
For all the dreams I left undreamt, and the wishes I unwished,
Does playing God enable me forever to enrich?
I'm stuck inside your body like an amber-fossiled bee.
And with every step you take you know you wouldn't without me.
I recall longing for the day when I'd know when to quit.
But now that's left in your hands.
In setting sun I'd moan to know which stars were still alive.
But now my eyes can't see a thing, that is, 'til I arrived
to haunt you and to fight the wear of puppetry and mime.
And now I'll live forevermore, or until it's your time.
So help me prove that life is all a storybook to read.
Think of me on lonesome nights and know it's me you need.
Pace and bellow openly, 'cause that's what I would do
If I were having trouble sleeping, only now it's you.
And I'm sorry for my restlessness,
I'm sorry for the fear,
I'm sorry I can't change the way I died.
I made a big mistake and now I relive it through you.
Help me to redeem my sins in time.

Tonight I'll Drink Wine

Tonight, I'll drink wine and insist on staying indoors, shielding myself from the musty humidity of this unwelcome heat.
Tomorrow, I'll be hazy with puddles of sweat on my cotton pillow case, dripping with the destiny of fever dreams I'll never recall again.
It's with swallows I yield cottony smack of gums on teeth to groan and breathe first nascent breath upon my tomb of a room.
It's the sliver of sunlight slicing through my blinds at angles to my eye that stir me from my sleep and deride me for forgetting to think.
I'm at odds with the morning, too tender to care for even one more day without an enlightened guffaw to keep me real.
This tome of my life, too empty with spotted speckles of ink, ellipses drawn where marvelous minutae should thrive and cry to all to know me.
But in time I can dive in the deep ends of pools, to swim and open my eyes underwater with stinging Chlorine imploring the wince of my soulless lie.
To be braver than God and to dine on the mystical berries of the cavernous unknown, spelunking to depths of an echoless chamber of love.
I can see the shimmer of moist corneal detritus when I blink, and can guide my heart by the pulse in my neck.
And when the ropes start to weaken and tethers unwind to fray and threaten my doom, I can learn to float in the void of black and nothingness for you.
And you will see me, weightless, bouncing, gravity at odds with my sordid delusions of might, and sigh the sigh of the lonesome lioness, waiting for her King to come home.
Ah, but Kings do one thing well, and one alone: Besmirch their husking lusts for fear of overthrow and dwindling grip.
And keep their passions at arm's length until they're drawn and quartered.
The mighty beasts of justice do capitulate and exact the swift red rivers of the gluttonous and sin-soaked demons.
But if I float here long enough, blind within the colorless casket gloom of the bottomless cave, my kingdom will survive.
And my queen, my lioness, will caress me when I return.