I Follow You With a Broken Heart

I follow you with a broken heart,
peering around corners and over fences,
looking through the cracks in your blinds,
through the key hole in your door,
I sit where you sat,
and smell the clothes you leave behind,
I trace your tiny footsteps,
and wonder what you were thinking
       as your feet fell nonchalantly there,
I listen for your breath,
and smile when I catch your voice on the wind,
aching to taste the words that once perched
       upon your tongue,
I trace the banister in your building with my fingers,
hoping to feel some vanished touch,
as if I can hold your hand through the polished metal
       when only mine is reflected now,
I am always behind you,
and each person you meet twists inside me
       like the dagger in my soul,
the blood of which seeps from my eye’s corner
       to fall as a tear in the dark where no one can see.

4.4.2011

On Being the Goat

I’ll never be a goat again
Frank Zappa and the Children of Men
Cat-calls from little boys
Being who I was and who I’ve never been
Mother preaches fags are the original sin
I’m lonely in the locker room
Rigid in the pantaloons
Dangerous in the dungarees
No boy or girl is brave enough to be my friend
Freckles on his nose
Heat in his throat
Chalkboard Valentine’s Day Card
Misses Shitworthy’s ruler against my shins
My daddy smiles
I know he’s pleased
I’ve been the goat this whole year long
But I’ll never be a goat again

11.2012

The Ol' Tiger

Who are you
You asked
I’m the ol’ tiger
Satin fur sliding in and between
          and through the bamboo
Your delicate skull beneath these killer’s claws
          holding captive the thoughts you won’t reveal to us
          the interested audience bent
          on loving you
          on destroying you
          on setting your mind as free
          as the blood that runs like rivers through
     this broken land
Soft claws padding across your night-time lawn
          I watch you take your clothes off
          holding your breasts in your tiny hands for the mirror
Treating your skin in a sexless way I find absolutely palatable
Tap-dancing along the shaft of the hunter’s arrow
          in the shade of gum-gum trees
          where monkey’s glide through jailhouse columns of sunlight
          singing hallelujah hallelujah the ol’ tiger still has his stripes
It could have just been any soul
Wearing that skin like a blanket
Crossing wooden fences after midnight
          to steal through stranger’s backyards stepping
          among the intimate ensemble of their private lives
To catch you in the glass
In the bent crease of those dusty fading vinyl blinds
Like an opulent song-bird snatched from her perch
          by the ol’ tiger on the prowl for perfect things
To feast
To sleep
This ol’ man must eat
And you’ve got the bones best gnawed on.

03.2013

Moon-Man and I

Moon-man and I
Smoking year old cigarettes
Talking out of the side of our mouths
To talk like those old cowboys in the movies
Blood as cold and black as the horses they got away on
His helmet inky with the gas of his world
A reflection of my own eyes where his should be

This the moon-man and I
We talk politics like my parents
Like the old white men who got shot in marble halls
     and in marble hearts
I tell the story of my people
The Christ
And the bastards
The Kennedys
The Thieves
The Trolls
And the terps
The bones
The rocks
And the grey-eyed girl who took my virginity
     on the floor in that apartment bathroom

He tells the tale of a bride
Who In short whispers wakes him up in the red morning
Who reminds him always of how she is lost in his love
Who knows he doesn’t like roses
But she can’t help it
Who stops his bones from shaking
Who is the face he see’s in the night
In the stars
In his soul
In his dreams
Whose smile he knows the shape of despite the million miles
     and the nothing that is endless between

The moon-man and I
Discover for ourselves
That damned conclusion that can only come from terrible lies
And vow together to live in honesty
Discard the cloak of shame we have so long shrouded
     o'er our bent backs
Through spirited debate
Through the winds of exchange
Through the cliffs and chasms in the space between our words
Each sentence a labyrinth where roams for us both - the minotaur
The maze of our misunderstanding
Bends where it shouldn’t and becomes a straight path

My friend, the moon-man, and I
Slaves to the ways of our fathers
Calloused hands but also calloused minds
We the two last standing among a field of fallen combatants
     bleeding both from bodies red and green
Under his ribs a knife
Under my ribs
A knife too

When the worlds have fallen
And there is no history left to record
When each candle in every star has consumed its wick and gone dark
The gods like children grown tired of a game of marbles
     turn their back to search out other attractions
One long orgasmic climax and crash
When even darkness is a memory
When love is sin
When there is no one left to talk to
Remember us
The moon-man and I
Remember us here
Please

Moon-man and I
I cut him down
Holding him as he fell
As he would have held me
And then I died beside him.

04.30.2013