At The Edge Of Grey

She steps up to me
a knight aglow in full regalia
armed to her jagged teeth in naked skin
fly the colors
blush
rose
scarlet
pink
wet
call for war
desperate hungry trumpets cry like wounded lions
rend the curtain
part the crowded masses on hands on knees I push my way within
to touch with withered long fingers broken and scaled
the edge of her golden hem

from the temple she can hear shouting
from the dirt she can hear moaning
so led by her long pale legs and sharp bones she steps within
brass knuckles
haymakers
blood
blood??
you thought blood would frighten her?
she IS blood
red and sinew and warm and as strong as iron
too late for the tax collectors
too late for the sinners
with slick lips and wet eyes she swallows them all
tongues them
bites softly with her jagged teeth
32 red brands bring blood bruises to my slithering lizard skin
snakes dance on her head
two-step and a zydeco half-step

I repent
cast aside my pearls
wrapped in my grandmother's rosary like a beaded cock ring
recite a Hail Mary
blessed blue queen of blue balls
and the One holy invisible semen swimmer
deliver the news, Gabriella
prep the long-eared ass
let's chill in a hidden heaven high up in the east
light a fat roll of the grass which is greener on the other side
and get blazed, my right hand dawgs

I digress
I repent
kneel on rice
recite Charles Bukowski
"...when He created you lying in bed
He knew what he was doing..."
he did indeed
they did indeed
they know what it's like to obsess over the shape of a woman asleep
in your shitty twin bed sheets
they know what it's like to fuck in the desert
to argue like broken birds
cum and say I'm sorry it's over now it's forgiven now
I don't even remember what we were arguing about
a trillion stars reflected in the opalescent jizz on your stomach
and some of them galaxies even
some with star systems spinning like melted whipped cream in a mocha grande
some with suns just hot enough
just far enough away
to make planets where fish become people
so some fall in love
and some screw everything up
some know happy times
and some are forever lonely
all of them most certainly know pain

and in their own empty desert
in the back of one of their own dusty pick-up trucks
two of them lie next to one another
naked and quiet
sharing an existence
sharing love (or something)
watching their own view of the trillion stars above
up there where
somewhere
you and I are

but in all the worlds
and in all the worlds to come
we fuck
we rage
we hurt one another spectacularly
we all of us recite Bukowski
"...the impossibility of being human
all too human
this breathing
in and out
out and in
these punks
these cowards
these champions
these mad dogs of glory

moving this little bit of light toward
us
impossibly".

TA

Thirty Minute Lunch Break

Lost in the middle of a green sugarcane ocean
sharp stalks ripple like waves
shadows in the long rows
where the momma fox sleeps
where the mice build cathedrals damned

overhead span of suspended electrical cables
conduit superhighways dripping from one lonely wooden H-frame to a distant other
sizzling hot crisp power
the life of my ceiling fan spinning
laptop spark
cell phone buzz
my bank account once a week every Wednesday

under the white plastic turtle shell of my hard hat
line of sweat swallowed by the brambles of my beard
a grin forms
heavy hammer still sheathed in the snare of my tool belt
thrown overboard to the overgrown weeds and tractor trails
fluorescent vest given to the warm summer breeze

on the back of my tailgate
she waits for me
slips out of her blue jeans.

TA

By Madness

In that moment overcome with madness
in the middle of her private dancing
her twirling in moonskin in red curls until her long icy fingers reached into
star-filled
outer-space
puffy astronauts landing six-wheeled rovers on her
ribcage
galaxies spinning double and triple helix loops around her wrists
creating life
the beginnings of lengthy love stories
   and their endings

In that moment she a cyclone became heavier than the room
bright blue light erupted from behind her tarred lashes
then her chest heaved and
a sigh ran like soft ribbon between her ruddy lips
she still spinning
by madness
or
by design
I the lower sex couldn't dare to say
her ankles minarets sparkling
her thunderstorm clouds raging in pale purples in blue bruises
she my savior opened
her bone hard knees
shining
and the sky collapsed.

TA

A Child's Confession

I am my mother's sixth century glass eye,
feeding me the pink spout of her luxurious swollen breast
pressing that mammalian flesh against my lips
as if without that golden milk
I would surely die,
moving her wide hips against someone not my father
late into the hot night,
in my crib dressed in my own warm brown shit mix
in my feather haired head
and in my little red penuckle heart
I knew something wasn't right,
blood farts in a yellow diaper too tight,
the song of this woman's sex blasting through the vents
like mustard gas might,
the sight of some stranger's hand prints along her lower thighs
made my head swim and my swollen lips cry for that thick curdled milk
she hoarded inside,
hidden in those pale balloons festooned with blue veins
and the calcifying remains of a strange man's stains
was an endless supply of the essence of life,
after you've seen that mound-munching man to the door
let me gum that brown nipple
and be baptized,
arise ye twin mountains of suicide and
oblige this child tonight.

TA