Where a Bygone Boss Sat

Hold her roped in rapture exposed from
the bedroom window the watcher sweetly
speaks soft science fictions into the Mars
canals of her earscape glowing sunset red
translucent wet saliva and dry spit

show her private photos of secret
mountain waters surrounding her in a
wooded shadow, kneel in the clearing
blood in the pine moss carpet and coiled fern
she knows full well w. full body what
the shadows see

following her filthy fingerprints
clambering abandoned train trestles
ogling magazines of uncouth cowboys on
sorrel stallions, wilding women w. long
laser guns laced to their latex legs

bury her face in the new smell of a used book
morning's warm coffee an aromatic aphrodisiac
late-night's strip tease tipsy in the porch light
wraith in bare feet begging with a crooked smile

she sits where a bygone boss sat, and in his years
absence her naked ass on his naked desk
dust as heavy as the paperweights used to be
when the last men left this building shuddered

she is ready when she is wet, calling you to
come inside
frame her in summer thunder
disguised as that torrent of falling rain.

TA

The Handler

The herd has its hierarchy
a natural calibration of evolution and instinct
tiered system of groups and subgroups
a pecking order of individuals within

lovers
best friends
parents, children
leaders
groupies
assholes
fuckboys
and pushovers

disposition, genetics, blood
all play a role to determine
who moves for who
who steps out of whose way

but when I enter the corral
they all move for me.

TA

Downtown in Spokane

He was coif and pertinent
unexpectedly beautiful
his face did not improve w. make-up
smokey eyes and distracting masculinity
a few extra ribs, and angular
a woman's perfect ass
husky cock I could never quite get hard

burlesque bouffant but unsustainable
short dress of immodest length
a decent exposure
long runs along his black stockings from
run-ins w. strangers
he keeps me busy in a maze of
perfumed costumery
fingering his lace hem
unbuckling pink corset

in the lurid red light tumbling together
squirrelly satyrs in an old oak nook
discarded appetites
and lingerie
intoxicating pulse of silver stringing
through our erect vascular cycles
returning again and again to
the glass pipe
that wandering eye
devourer of an ordinary life
my open throne regaled to impassioned touch
eager lips greeting
grieving mothers
open containers
this lascivious queer king of chance encounters.

TA

Damned Lovers w. Teacup Tits

I hear your anger too, turned venom, turned hurt
from gooseflesh to grey rock and stone
like rag weed in your suburban garden
hurricane hair carousel spinning eye of the storm
ultra-green grass lasso'd lass on the back lawn

still, so fucking stupid sexy to me
bent will, bent back
mother's gallons of golden milk
crying in your
candle cream-colored warm water bath
long neck for the noose
hung like I am late Saturday night

you do not get to own all of this pain
such a beautiful martyr you are
though you lay with dullard gods
still gods crave you
but, bitch, my eyes sting absent your visage
pale pearl riving in an oyster of my bedroom blankets
thick threaded throat of blonde fur
laying red and wet
open hungry trophy
begging rope bound knots twisting thirsty
wolven innuendo

my hands ache to grip you
whiskey whispering our favorite author's names
into the oven light
pushing under your summer dress in the dark drive
it hurts, here below my ribs
like a plunging bloody dagger deep into my chest
near to that same spot where below those
teacup tits your own broken heart lies.

TA

Janet My Guide

Janet in her denim vestiture arrested
wrists adorned in turquoise jewelry
collapsing aperture hay barn cowboy
conjecture
heart warm heart broken

heart worm vaccinations
fire department came hellbound down
from town cause the smoke in the woods
beckoned

locusts in the black pine
locusts black dark dirt road
known only to locals
midnight came the party turned bogus

Janet puts her hand over mine the other
on my fly the horse tenses below us
neighs grows nervous
fire in the woods and in the sky
I can't stop

Janet whispers, hush, stay focused.

TA

Buck-knife Meditations

He placed me down to pass the time
to prolong the pleasure
measured in the pain of those elastic hours

so that I would not force his hand
though finely tuned it hammers nonetheless
in soft whispers
quite a bit better than it ever has before

an eclipse before the revelation
a shadow passing over the land
quiet solace in the cockpit
wherein the earth has tempered tremors

for we are in this together
we sharpen one another but cannot
outpace the other
there only the dull edge follows
buck-knife hellions catch loose eyes
but the dagger slips silently beneath the ribs.

TA 

Deepwater Horizon w. Allan

Bedbug infestation out on the
rig at Trinity Shoal
Allan, call your wife
dawn broke in violent colors
she sung swift division among
the sailors sent to rescue
she swam with the cephalopod

riggers ran rampant
radio automation
evangelical
what white god would send
the serpent?
what brief christ would cut such
an obscure path through meaning
and underbrush?
vigilance does not save the
village idiot, amen?
brothers?

he is blind in many more ways
wrinkles and rusted metal
hungry sea seething with the
flotsam of psychopathic spittle
invertebrate with the
suction-cup tentacle
ceramic child's chair at the apex
of the temple

education, higher learning
limited intentions proved Allan could
not keep going in that wild
way of his
too alive to be allowed to live wild
warden of the shoal
machines
entrapped
so far, so good
they say and god agrees
the graves are dug for somebody else.

TA

Fresh Kill w. Dianne

Dianne drew near me in supplication
enfolded soldier in cufflinks and
war time souvenirs
steer me past that plate of warm spaghetti
silver spoon and
spatula capture tendrils of my beaten flesh
tongue wet ropes tight turns on the slick trail
treat me clean
turkey meat drumstick human inner ear
close your eyes listening to

her labored breathing
she's in rut
Dianne mean means to hurt you
froth foaming over her jagged teeth
spittle like tossed semen across rusted twists
drink of the wealth of life
of the chances given
and not of those missed
let her finger never

find your sweltering den
uncoiled serpent shriveled
Dianne whispers bold statements to
stay my wayward clinging
long-legged puppet climbing the curved
crevasse of her inner thigh
deerskin jacket thrown wide like an
eagle's soaring wings

another skinning
the deer's guts at the bottom of a black pit
grandsire's lost soul spinning in his grave
to know that the grey coat once adorned noble
over the stag's shoulders was
ripped willy-nilly from that bone and meat
not with the carving knife
but by my very own teeth.

TA

Sherry

Sherry shook on her mother's
grey suede couch
syncopate

they say the drums come
from the beginning
born by the tit
die by the tit
Sherry was so cool to me

but she was probably nothing.

TA

Standing on the Edge of a Building w. Drummers

paradiddle
paradiddle
paradiddle(flam)
moaning over morning
coffee muttering man
cereal and dull dungarees and
bus fair and christ quotes
a dime-sized anus fair
heel clicking up the long
elevator, badge and
flashlight in hand
security man

paradiddle
paradiddle
paradiddle(FLAM)
giftshop street cop winter
coat company man
another day, another dolla
boys'n'girls
circle stroll
one more rosy round the ring
and...
heels clicking over empty space
panic stricken
screaming security man

FLAM
FLAM
FLAM
banned for life IRL from the
Louisiana State Capitol located
in Baton Rouge
I bled purp & guld, mother fucker
pronounced "mutha fucka"
and/or
"Martha Foxler".

TA

Creation Convo

Let there be light, so Asimov wrote
and Christ wasn't wrong
nor was the Buddha
     nor is that great grey horned owl who
comes to ferry lost souls from places like
abandoned golden domes
or train stations
or both,

creation is all that is true
science has not been counterfeit
or contradictory
     the manipulation and corruption of
the genuine honesty of human beliefs is
perversion by dishonest men
and not the religion

I see that now
artificial intelligence is coming
but so too is the kingdom of heaven
     we have hated one another over
it all
for so long

and that is the Great Lie.

TA

Over Time

Bedroom sounds swelling umber
chords carry heavy like rive fog down
the hallway corridor

consciousness creeps on bird bones
back to the empty nest of my bird brain
silence of this predawn house

then the pagan note
some femme fatale showman
showboating
wrapped in the red ribbon of lust's
mad dash to outpace the
death breath of sadness

over time
thick silt builds up on the banks
on the bends
and the river's path changes direction.

TA

Jupiter's Sailing Skiffs

They say down in the deep core is
a very tight ball of hot rock
pumping like a black heart
pushing chords of positively-
charged magnetic pulse waves
out, up

a drumbeat thump thump
she swings in ragtime her sweaty
wide hips
altar call cadence space junkie
high on star dust

the sky was littered with dross like
a toddler's tossed toys
great floating islands of stone
some of them macro miles wide
covered by cities of men in
cobblestone collectives
listing bejeweled continents kept aloft
by the tossed and tossing
negatively-charged magnetic pulse
pushing back down

dancing doldrums shows swing sister
sexy red underpants pointing
to heaven
long legs interlaced
and the twist

swirling in deep umber undulates
between it all
in thick knots of cumulous clouds
bulbous and ribboned in cold glass
bolts of lightning
bulbs of gaseous fragrant glide
gaunt eagles soaring
in screams dive
in storms ghosts die
in the silence a fierce wind finds
lonely lanes to blow'n'go
in between all things
lies Jupiter's open road

and o'er that frothy ethereal tide
in sleek sailing salsbury ships with
sleuth keeps and
waving colored vigor
the sailors running tallow line glide.

TA

A Request

On this sticky request
my stiff musk sent
the sounds of the kids
barking code outside
in spirit and their colors
this dark den
a hard man hard arrests your want
wet midnight priority

after storm showers this
way passed sugarcane scent
and tall antennas tickle
heaven's slippery clit, till
she
till she cums
me in my sweat in that fucking
summer heat
alit beneath pregnant mothers clustered
skyward agriculture
take my delight

animal trap snare at my front door
my uncoiling white cord
around her white ankles
shadow puppets
the lights from the window splash
against her breasts

twisted tangles of white hair
my hands full
grey twilight beginning in my beard
my father's flesh wrapped like
roadkill around my forearms

unlit cigarette
loaded six shooter
burning shame in my flower
one / two combinations in ink on
the styrofoam cup
fake fangs
wet roach on the window
maybe I kill him tonight
maybe I trap him under the cup
drown him in the toilet

still,
no hair
nevermind

on this sticky request
I send my most urgent need
soon
soon.

TA

Sleeping Jane

Sleeping Jane awakened
     under heavy thread
sweet slips of late night's
     savory wine on her breath

deep lines of deeper sleep
     slashed o'er her morning cheeks
and someone else's teeth marks
     pressed into her morning flesh

where gods throw golden light
     through prisms and glass
and following trails trodden during
     last night's indelicate dance

by right expose to the morning
     that supine naked tail
add my own mortal bite marks
     next to the stranger's on her ass.

TA

Morning Meditation

Fill me with coming morning
ash on your long fingers
strings and
     lace on the hem

broken circle of a smoothie's repose
AC clicking too cold
little finger

     holding up my phone

house cocooned in perspiration
today will be sticky
like our
     secret.

TA

Caught

Your smile a salacious curving
combination of lips
grass tan long lawn lines bifurcation
barbed wire between private properties 
where we can prance
where I can touch

delineated by the pallid tortoise
shell of your white ass
dope mug shot sharp in
that flesh-toned cotton bra
coconut color catching the
bathroom light
thin rivulets of curling smoke

wrangling stains on starched denim
liver in stark repose
your smiling face clasped in the
crescent of a landlocked moon
on our knees again
red-handed.

TA

At the Ocean

A sunset falls over the flat
edge of the ocean
the last sunset of existence, maybe
all things coming to a close
at the end of this world, of us

your naked skin a star chart of
constellations
glittering galaxies of black beach sand
delicate chandeliers hanging in the
infinite skyscape of your skin
star pilots fly freckles through the
in-betweens
following thin blue corridors searching
for where it all ends

a fiery chorus of hair like twisting
flames of kelp
scratched and cursive penstroke writ in
red tale over your hollow bird bones
your shoulders slipping to windward
puckered nipples wandering as periscopes
do, peering into the long shadows forming
over the Pacific seashore

cold coastal wind but warm in rut
tilted body of a bottle of wine
inside that hollow green belly black wine
waves wash against the glass
coming moon in every current

photos of you in your panties posing
whistling, grinning through raccoons and
rosacea and magnetic pulse and
sad
and lonely
waiting to be noticed
maybe, one day

but we were both such idiots
your dumb laugh
your silly ideas
your goofy smile
is why I loved you.

TA

Us in the Wet Woods

We laughed together in pet pussy fits
perfect curling high five fingerprint
crescents your smooth ass
folded hint of russet fiction

flickering in the golden gates of his majesty -
that setting sun
him the father rising, and falling

pine bough guardians
old sentries overseeing the
forest temples
where mystery on belly crawls
on cat legs
growling like hungry white water

we came together tigers under
shooting stars
wandering old homes in old growth stories
wet fern canyon walls where you kneeled
priestess of the forbidden ways
to swallow me
follow me where I go
and everywhere we go, together.

TA

Goddess, Hear my Prayer

Take me again down those same trails
where with too timid footfall I first did trod
not yet knowing to account for the minutes
of my days
not knowing haughty courage was a foolish shield
reaching with greedy hands for fleeting lusts
not holding on with Jehovian might to
the true things
 
my heart and armor has faired me well
but even the bravest knight still looks out through
the atrophied blinders of a gilded helmet

may I triumph where before there was travail
on paths where once a clumsy boy passed
now a clumsy man less wisdom goes
made humble by his mistakes
carrying the ledger of learned lessons
shed of the heavy ignorance of mankind
embracing that ignorance
ever seeking the knowledge unobtainable
coming to know and find the hidden goddess

so that where I failed
in those moments stumbled
I can now correct.

TA

Still Life with Summer Dress

She came on guided by
the midnight sky collapsing
overhead, sextant star charts
and her thick wet lips

half awake in bullfrog pajamas
skinny legs and all
a youthful stirring in the strong
scent of animal musk

cool black wind delivered
on sea song, reaching under
sheets shivering together
avenues underfoot of her flesh

crawling things scurrying ideas
not yet calling to evolve
stiff in armor plating go parading
where kingly ferns uncoil,
multiply and seek dominion

black cat creeping through
the grass, her fur collecting dew
yellow eyes from the shadows
where fell a summer dress.

TA

Feathers and Blood in the Morning

By the third night you took action
a girl
dusty ranch boots and black jeans
white Stetson and your first
rifle
open window of your dark bedroom
you waited on the roof into
midnight,
for the thief

the quiet hours passed below
a soft feathering fog
lo
fleeting moonlit wraith on the wind!
chickens in cackling terror dove for
fresh purchase

a girl steels herself
focus on the iron sights
the marauder
crack 
    across the cold mountain air
fell the king kestrel

and peace in the hen house
was restored.

TA

Homily

Blow in old storm
old ghosts from faded memories
the old folks dead for some years now
in folded purple cotton clusters
climbing into low earth orbit
only pretty from a distant perch
fierce
   and ugly from underneath

rumbling gruff god-like 
bending knees
penance trending a sharp up
in damp sheets those ghosts gather
on wailing voice the names of
original families
original sin
first bastard curse of all mankind
bow your heads, simple sheep
in blows the storm.

TA

A Statement

I am but the very last breath of me
the last one and the first, and
all of time before that
into infinite reach

I am my mother and my father
and the memories of every
older one gone, their laugh
is inside of me
the wild rabbit
the pirate poet

I am molten peoples of
noble dereliction
blood from the birth of 
planethood, muddy river
the screaming terror

I am the water sign
things that slip and hunt in
the dark, where sight becomes
something sacred
touch becomes holy ground
and the tiniest things, by
cosmic chance,
divide

titian gods unfolding
great growing stars
I am the dust that began
sunrise at the dawn of existence
the knowing of the first thing
and the last
I am creation and I was
created, the truest love
and
that is all I am.

TA

Beachside Bottle Rocket Concert

When the memory is so good
you don't want to breathe
you are convinced you don't have to
when that bubbling torrent of tight pain
is not terror in your chest, but
a swelling jubilation
as polarizing a pause as a
man can find IRL

there, in the sweetness of that moment
it is not a memory
I am with you on that beach again
an empty bottle of wine in the sand
laying naked against a dry log
watching the sunset like
a comedy show.

TA

Cocktail Sweat

Dullard orbitals on strings like stage
lights in the rafters
red patio bricks faded by the years
burning cigarettes
roaches as Creation's servants run errands over
the midnight wet grass
joy filtered by untrimmed hedges spills
muted into summer's sleeping suburban street
a calico cat on quiet pads pauses
casts yellow eyes, carries onward
her midnight mission

cocktail sweat and slippery silver smoke
translucent black dress
my eyes tracking again and again the
long legged elegant wraith shrouded
patina of her incandescent skin
an inescapable magnetism pulls my
gaze crawling over her with
imaginary fingertips
the exposed sweep of her
the swell of living chest
cleft of her spine
crescent moon spinning in my empty brain
desire reanimating me like I am some
cartoon man floating in her wake
star pilot helplessly lost in the azure
a beautiful sky tonight not afraid to
fall, to die
hungry to touch her.

TA

Midnight's Mirror

I climb careless for the high ground
disparate conspirator ringed in a
crown of black sweat, burning
exhaustion in my taxed limbs,

duelist encircling fabrication,
serpents coiling in seductive trance,
submission urges invitation, my
canines bared, lips in grimace

countenance stern groaning a
guttural hymn in midnight's mirror,
my hands busy with her fuller
flesh, driving her, a tango of

intimate temper disconnected from
any chords of conscious reigning,
the pulse,
the mirth,
feel of her squirming inside my skin.

TA

To The Elbow

Cunning emporium illicit and
crooked sense of self, you sniffing me out
from hidden incubation, a honey hole
habitat, I successfully submerge myself
unconscious daydreamer I often am
to the elbow

you reach into me send me
scampering sobbing rapture in
opus composition a peeping babel
in groans only some holy ghost can
decipher, begging to taste you

search for the concise vocabulary word
to cusp your supple interest
tickle your intuitive anticipation, an
erect frisking of feathered verse

my deadened ear downturned awkward
remains the derelict, that secret space
for whispers, coarse comings and 
goings, of enticing melody melting
the lost years, fantasies your waking world
has yet to entertain.

TA

Sailing Duel

He proffers the cold blue blade
long sting of sharp steel
crescent hilt of some jeweler's conceit
balanced bullion of certainty
and deep suffering

at whose feet it points slumbering
a choice is made
save face and cumulous command
dance for your honor of course
to hell with the ridiculous
low braggart living

arresting captain of impressive
nobility striking repose
glittering in gallantry and
insufferable lineage
advance drawn to meet the other's point

reputation of the Jovian empirical
sailing elite must be accounted for
only blood is sufficient for payment,
yet no one profits.

TA

Corner Pocket

We are the rules
and we are not the rules
am I supposed to be brave now?
one of these will be the
last jokes told
last cue cracked under
beer-stained lights
beer-stained field of felt
at play
invoking our ancestors in
the low-speak
with widening hearts racing
up in that green canopy
on feathered feet
young faded gods in
their finest rust
my milk bones steel against
this unnatural crying gulp
echo in the stone well of
my underground love
you have your path
I have mine
rules of a world meant
for crushing
damned fools for trying
a hundred years to
get it right.

TA

Where You Are, I am

I caught her in blind folds with a
horned skull in her perch
red arms tight tourniquet blush
at what range and at what wind speed
is she no longer beautiful
diagram of her skin like an
alluring road map
misplaced distraction of the
pleasure of fucking
spiral of black horns
black hair like disparate icicles

path of my falling tongue a
descension only she knew
only she could recite with articulating
lips the prayers howled tonight
that holy honor fell to her
white skin where under tension his
cables they with claws held tight
imprint of my trespassing footfall

where he came
where he went
mark the passage of time with how
many more red sunsets tottering
on that gregarious cusp
only empty bullets
becoming daily a temptation in
the cylinder.

TA

Bending the Floorboards

Electric fiddle sounds test, test test
ce micro fonctionne-t-il?
beige pawpaw coveralls and ochre sideburns
holy obelisk of black plastic succubus
last thimble of golden whiskey goes
into the warm core of me, my silted southern soul

wet shirt plastered to my back like the
cocktail napkin around this empty glass
swimming current of collected dancers
cradled in cocaine adoration canaille with
enough courage twirling an imported
stranger impaired together in the mad
throws of a two-step mosh pit, fall
apart into madness, recover

long drawl of the calling accordion's lonely
note, allons danseurs!
illuminative smell of human celebration
delicate bones bely the frailty of existence
a perfect happiness
god on the slopes of sweating shoulders bracing
for the coming sleuth of ancestral prayer
forgoing the pleasantries, never knowing
her name
slice of the fiddle and the drummer counts -
un, deux, trois
she finds my hand before I can say hello.

TA

Young Kev Makes a Stand

Kev writ and wet read this penman's
passion with midnight's celestial breath
dolor of esteemed dedication his finger
followed the locked focus of his sunken
fervor

bright blue rage of his alternate brain
blasting a nasty puppet show on the
pronounced skunkworks of his classically
canted ape-like skull

drove his wife to the gallows himself
wrapped in the fetid fragrance of her
blithe suburban decay, she slept now only
hours slain

only in a warm bed would Kev dare to
keep company with a poet's discordant corpse
his briefs spiraling above them in holy helix
helicopter attaché to the cycling ceiling fan

his innocent hunger raped away from him
words a meal, plenty enough now, he promised
to not move again until the Clintons were
driven from the White House.

TA

Morova, At All

Morova you have seen it all, measured it,
how vast is this weeping world like
tea in the Syrian sun, red clay brick

captive young clerk against your neck
swallowing your golden afternoon, before
last night's bellboy bite has even healed

black mascara scars of your sealed eyes
oval hymnals of the animal in your tar
lungs, his pith a language you cannot

understand, his thrust a deep need,
cobblestone stairwell and the smell of
fresh bread on the wind, the turquoise

sea, Morova you have seen it all, no one
can educate you of how it can be, or
remind you to unravel your petals,

release your warm love, uncage your
white god's infertile demands and unmask
the thief hovering over your head,

so that those spotless linen sheets remain
unblemished of righteous judgement, that
distant sun can be everything, nothing
at all.

TA

Birthright

Born in the congested slew draining
from a first world
the quick brown eddy chasing its
lazy tail in loop'd'loops
my bare feet mingling in the cold clay
where skeletons like mine are buried
where history is stamped and filed
screams of an angry egret tossing
curses over its shoulder as it lifts
the gliding lofty grace such big birds have
escaping the dark purple pregnant
belly of a towering thundercloud
swollen with a baptism in her womb

she comes on the stiff breeze an apprehension
a fear that reminds mankind that this world is
not his, but her's
while I crawl in muddy puddles among
catfish eggs and beer cans she marches across
the landscape on legs of white lightning
bending the cattails
sending the trampoline into the neighbor's yard

I am slick with afterbirth
coughing up filthy river water trying to
breathe my first mouthful of a hot summer afternoon
the sweet taste of stale cigarettes
a belching chemical column at the plastics plant
Man attempts foolhardy dominion over
all things great and small

birthright of this baby boy
is sin and salvation from it
circumcise me bent with a rusty fish hook
put a golden pencil in my hand
or a spear
or a cell phone
until I can hunt for myself in the tall sugarcane
behind the levee and toxic bar pits swollen
I will not return home
where with a case of Miller Lite and ecstasy
a man with a heavy beard and sweat-stained cowboy hat
I was born.

TA

When I Can

When I can I am going to love you
I am going to swallow you
when I can I will take a very slow and
long inventory of your body
I am going to memorize your lines
I am going to walk the hills of your flesh
until I am lost
     and you will never be invisible again

when I can I will beg for you
with my eyes and lips
with my life
when I can I will walk in your every step
balance with you on railroad tracks
climb steep trails through swaying red forests
walk cold sand
watch the sun sink golden at the
     last edge of your skin

when I can I will follow you everywhere
I will hold your hand fiercely
read the lines in your palms
you'll say -
shut your trap, kiss me here
and I will kiss you, always
everywhere and at all times
with and without your consent
when I can I will never let another day pass
without kissing you
always kissing you
without rest, without rest
when I can
I will love you again.

TA

A Vampire's Kiss Goodnight

Goodnight, my love,
Victoria whispered,
tip of her tongue cleaning red
blood from her black lips,
a trail down her neck,
splashed o'er her cold ivory tits,

dream of me,
let us dance again together
in sunlight,
in flushed skin and color,
let us not be chained to the
shadows and dark corners,
feel fear,
rather than being feared,

we chase hunger through the
long endless night,
a blur in the street light glow,
confession with all manner of devils,
lie with priests wrapped in garlic
dried kneeling in penance
on the stone,
clutch your useless cross, holy
father, pray to your holy bride,
a feast prepared in heavenly sacrifice,
a bite,
for it is only here in the presence of
the dying that we feel alive,

Victoria kissed me,
her breath ruddy and frigid,
soft sound of a heartbeat somewhere
far away and slowing,
her green animal eyes alit in
the faint glow of coming morning,
adorned in a satin negligee she
pushed away from me,
fell into her own coffin,
dream, she said again,
of all you have forgotten.

TA

Heart and Blood

You write notes to New York
those divas of design harrying and irk
in ten long piano fingers
in those two faded sports bras

I daydream escape potentialities
marching knuckleheads through the
byways of rural Mississippi
fatherhood in neon vests
armored and gas-powered drills

you lay on your white stomach, vibrate
fantasize those virginal boys
suffocating under unwieldy curls
in your funk depression
crying out for pleasure
for justice
maybe love

I have nightmares I'll never see you again
Mississippi will swallow me whole
life's torrent flow will sweep me away
an inexhaustible current
pulled from your lips hands eyes
heart and blood
perhaps from your memory too.

TA

The Rain Sends Wet Memories

We pine for a sun roof
we cannot get close enough to the sky
perched at the top of the parking tower
the rain crossing rooftops marching towards
us in a shimmering aurora of silver curtain
a vexed lover crawling over the bed sheets
swarming us in the million voices
wet chorus heavy in saturated innuendo
a pile of used books between our legs
yellow pages of exacerbated lovers
scheming plot twists
our fingers smelling like a long-haired cat
an old woman's ostentatious wig
yellow eyes and a pussy's poker face

she's talking about science
about the children of tomorrow
about the city below us connected in
arterial memory
rain like blood flowing
trickling tributaries on the windshield dancing
frantically to distract us
from our racing hearts
from our wild lusts
from having to look at one another for too long

she's talking
this rain has me returning again and again
to the memory of a pair of small black underwear in
a pile on my bedroom floor
of my fingers moving between her legs
of the ecstasy of her face in my pillow
and her warm moaning.

TA

Spring Storm

Thunderclap bellows clang of
guttural repose
black monstrous clouds collide like
bulbous bulls in skyward contention
the whip cracks and I am thrown
backwards down Riverboat Ln
chain link fence and flimsy mobile home trailer
defying the gods with
an inept castle of playing cards
middle finger
pantheon of fiberglass and
hamster turds
an irresolute child hovering in hesitation
between
pleasure and terror
the walls swimming in twisting smoke bend
inward
intimately compressing the last breathable air
phantasm cottonmouth of bedside scripture
mounting the stage for a wet dream
towering mountain of electric current
of cold rain radial rhythm slinging
torrent after torrent in tendril and
crooked spiral
she comes in thudding cannon crescendo
calling my boyhood memories back to
this present madness mauling asunder
angry mother in fragrant purple curls
mauve skirts and sharp cutlass.

TA

Helen at Coffee

Electric air aromatic with a roast coffee
your pastel thighs
blonde carpet
no one is left to sing the old songs
dance the mumbai waltz
pray to the lady Godiva
a pilgrimage in long pants to the holy saint
that erect statue sharp with sin
an oppressive rain pummeling people
priests in prayer deny them shelter
toes in the cold grey clay
a grey like Helen's stained eyes at the piano
she stands on the parapet parading
her desire overflowing and heavy
captured somehow in a weightless dance
strip away the street light
see what is lurking in the shadows
bare your fangs like a cornered coyote
shop girl closes her book
zips up her raincoat in slick mitts
disappears into the stormy night.

TA

And She Still Doesn't Know My Name

The whole world is on fire
in the dry scrub above the golden gate
in the president's puff
on his face

such a heat there was
to alter carbon's path
command the waters, be parted
a concrete dam
ready, set
race(ism)

passage of the chariots along
the great canal
seal the pharaohs fate
our first tutor was a burning bush
burn the eyes of any
man who looks

ten lessons learned too late
twelve crooks
the holy heat of change
and of Pangea's flames.

TA

Looking After Zeus

Dory Anne stood idle, waiting
stark in repose red from the light in the window
smooth black crescent erasing his crooked spine
the C-minor chord of his bald cleft moon
pulling on thin threads spread between
breast and collar bone
translucent mini dress
cross hatch stockings o'er a lady's long legs

Zeus in his gray winter coat a patient
voyeur from the living room couch
pink tongue panting wild animal eyes
glowing and salivating
the honor of his loyalty to his mater
unmatched, noted
waiting
until dawn's intrusive and sudden sunrise
we in slate-eyed respite
we in red-eyed repose
skin spent of love's making
Dory Anne and I walking him through downtown
paths to his morning piss.

TA

Should We Fix a Wagon that Continues to Break?

The wheel slips again
again we reign the draft horses to rest
sometimes in the cool of an easy day
sometimes in the mud of a long wet night
repair the linkage
slap the leather
get back on the trail

the wheel slips again
the big mares heel
the hammer is fetched
the wheel is fixed
"hup" goes the call in a warm
breath of throat and song
get back on the trail

the wheel slips again
and yet again
has been doing so more often
I now find myself glancing over
shoulder when the axle inevitably
grinds asunder
the familiar disgust
a growing numbness
when will we speak the words aloud
forming in our minds:
if this wheel and the wagon it carries
is too broken to continue
too far gone to repair
is it time to part ways?

TA

West of the Pecos

She in minx boots crept
arrogant cactus in the arroyo
a farmer's windswept acre
old red carpet
soft fall her knees in
toeless pitter-patter
her hard pink feet
stalking in torn stockings
skinned knees
the rudimentary parts of her
red and wet with joy
creek bed curvature where 
precious ivory columns held
the parts of her architecture
a motif of moles
a map to Mars
a guide leading us to the sea
twisted metal skeleton of a boat
abandoned motel
big trucks swallowing lost souls
dried river cracks across the
mooring of some crooked smile
shimmering distance in the heat
the desert dancing
Texas badlands
and the women who walk therein.

TA

Jenni in the Red Dress Wept

but not for her ungovernable father who
scarred the script of her childhood,
and not for the cruel taskmasters who
whipped her when she was weak,
not even for Death, the surefooted thief that
stole her only begotten child,
and surely not for the outlaw in the pine box who
was the only person to ever say he loved her,

definitely not for heaving blimp judge who
pronounce her guilt in gasping guffaws,
nor the plush women in bonnets who
cursed her swagger and spit in her face,
no, not even for the taunt noose
tight now around the soft front of her throat,

Jenni in the red dress wept,
but only because her Winchester ran out of
ammunition before she could kill everyone in
this goddam cursed town.

TA

Spokane Lamentations

You wily devil
do you know the trouble I'm in
maybe you do
maybe you've lived the length of it
in torn circus stockings
high quality women's wigs
red bedroom glow
transient in your fold
chemical jewelry
lessons on rational lust
of love
you've got me spinning

the quiet river at sunrise
gay chapter of your morning chores
untangling corsets
like drama from drug queens
walking a wolf downtown

the pine smell of your scented
village is in the air
and the mountains never far
here I am thinking I grew into a rock
find myself being washed away
and finally knowing what it's like
to need to cling to rocks.

TA

Sugarcane Poem 3

So, she fell with vigor
on him
wrapped in the wet skin of
summer downpour
her long white body
painted in splashes of mud
and the scars of
her clumsy youth
blurred trees in the
grey distance
vapid sugarcane column
marching
the deluge
they rapped against the pickup's
dented fender like roadkill come
back to life
his hungry throat
her sodden tits pressed into
the grey fur on his cheeks
roar of lesser gods overhead
soused in lust's rapacious embrace
in breath's water-logged
with blind abandon
she fell with him
into the flooded trails of
last Spring's tractors.

TA

Pacific Coast Trail of Tears

Castaways from a haunted hotel seaside
we searched the wet coast
until in desperation a latent savior
blue motel from the evening fog availed

warm bath and a comfortable nakedness
I found a woman suddenly in your
slithering pale skin
unashamed sounds once shy woke the neighbors
morning's titillating reveal
coming calamity of so much unspoken truth
unspoken fear

two goofballs too salacious to think straight
playing it so cool for nobody all the time
too afraid to believe they were actually
gods all along.

TA

Rider's Concern

He bent to kiss me and the
women gathered in pheasant's hedges
at the water well
sing birdsong hymnals
in throats damned goldened by
honey's hot warm glaze
in rolling birdsong sang

so the canyon walls wept
so the river that cut it at
its heart
ran no more

he reached beneath me
to startle me
with a trebuchet's arc swing me
calling me fancy
cast me as first mate aboard his Ark
the nag's reproach held
and my cry was lost on the last of
winter's vagrant breath

who sent you,
I asked
dodging pine boughs crowned
in green splash
rhythm at the bequest of
another heart's beat
among the frozen stone
and the black shadow deep

you did,
he said
reaching to hold me at my scruff
like a fresh wet pup
silver wrings wrapped fair tendons
he smiled
we bounced along on some invisible path
where passed echoes of
other lives
of chances taken
on some never took

and where is it we ride,
I asked
beneath his great grip

I'm taking you
to meet him,
he said.

TA

Chrome Gauge Clusters and Me

With black hush fell the machines at midnight
in metal lung barking into
the ephemeral crown of our stratosphere
Colonel Hellas cried for war
the battle songman summoned
and the DollBoys flyers sent to their vipers

no thunderstorm hung heavy in our
starry ceiling
as in flying fatigues sinched tight
I settled over my chrome gauge clusters
patterns of electric pink probability
with capable intention
but what befell the coming night was
a storm much worse

who thought a morning could come with
all our longing spent,
this is Val Traxx1

come in, Nitro Four
come in, Bravo Foxtrot
come in, Bravos FoxFot
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come in, CumCancer1999
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come in, No.1DaveMatthewsFanSUCKMYDICK

dammit
are there any vipers left?
any at all?

what we need is a Will Smith
but all we got now
is me.

TA

Untitled Question

Killer cowboy clown
wrapped in muscle and
soft skin
come to take what
from me?
I parcel in invisibility
in-between worlds
I'm not as young as
Peter Pan
but I'll never be as old as you

maybe that means that I will
never again
know true love
maybe I feel it all the time
it can't be that I'm the only
one right about all of this?

but maybe
that is
what's going on here.

TA

When I Can't Fix The Broken

When with greasy fingers
and desperation
I give up
press myself against clumsy metal
thick buttress of forged iron ore
coiled springs sleeping slaves
collected w. murderer's intent
but bound
scum of a thousand miles
sediment telling tall tale of
the open road

when in old torn jeans
a white undershirt and
painter's stains
I relent
tattered knees
tattered heart
droll barefoot crawl to collect
chrome tools scattered
shed the skin of my effort
press my naked flesh to a new task
defeated orgasm

somber gray of my awkward flesh
burned umber at its center
and spent
inanimate collapse the cutlass
so prone to prick
now dulled deflated edge in varnished soot
a single tear for failure
in a withered spirit
I call the mechanic.

TA

From Africa

Antiquated rockstar invitation
narrow downtown doorways
claustrophobic stairwell stench
in greenroom adjacent the scene
following blue jeans
through a cigarette fog
tits untampered by slave's sleeves
gaggle of nobodies ambling behind
retired records
rails of coke
slithering in vodka contrails

among the trappings of
encapsulated legend
loosely fitted leather jacket
feathered hair
bullfrog throat
a frozen stone in his stomach
still rolling his pants like boppers
like 1955

me, I'm itching for more
backroom boogey
that
wild African in circus hoops and light
red of her wet lips
red shawl on the lamp
passing peace pipe palavering in
the smoke a throat's repose
exchange silver for conversation for
the last mist in midnight's magic
she hovers over me close to me
to let me feel her voice
the red of her sharp dress
resplendent lust of her platinum black.

TA

Longing for a Summer Abroad

I long to hike the pathways of your parted lips
like college kids trekking Europe in the summer
forged passport of forbidden romance
where in great gulps of flesh fleeting lust left
tendrils we baby birds reach up instinctively
to feed on

growing stronger in the ghostly shadows
lascivious feeding stinking we rage
all up and down that curling vine
two tomato cans and a string between us
in wet breath warm bath water waves
wash over slick islands of knees
islands of breasts
and below that porcelain sea some
such sunken sweet pink beast rests

oh, to be original sin
the first serpent on his yellow belly crawling
through the hidden spaces only
slithering allows
to slip beneath the surface of that bath.

TA

Night Sky Prayer

And I have seen a night sky
to fail all words following,
stars salting that black sea
a number not yet counted to
sounds echo from the Infinite
wild things answer from the dark
takes a certain kind of
stupid courage to lie there quietly
giving over your life to the
beauty of the Unknown
connected to the rock spinning
at your back
a footnote in its story

abominable twisting maw above
our midnight ornaments adorning a
cloudless stratosphere
pregnant skyscape crushing me into
the mountain the fucking dirt and rock
my blood borne by invisible cord falls
into it all -
stones and magma
and a wet hot center 
voyeur of Heaven's endless eyes
handful of ancestral diamonds with
every scoop I breathe in

a royal proclamation trumpets from
the shadow pine vibrating along my bones
like the needle of a record player
such sound
a shrill note
I beg the goddess of cold midnight to
speak the verse again
but I can never capture its poetry

I have seen the night sky
like absolute mystery
like who the fuck am I even
like raw fear
like a thief
like we are all mere moments from madness

my secret wish has always been to soar
untethered from gravity's netting
in current of cumulous enclosure
looking into those stars it became
clear why...
for that clearing and for that night
that obvious place below the expanse
my life forfeit to the dark because
nothing else exists
except love
     and beauty, which it is
     and happiness, which it is
please Earth Mother let my shoulder blades
lift from this perfect plane
my legs, my hands
my body away
from rock's stubborn clinch
so that I might float willy-nilly into her divine enchantresses
the night sky.

TA

At What Bend Will You Lose the Path?

At no bend will I lost it, came
my reply, and
my certainty inspired her
she pulled her dress over her head
in stark alabaster naked
ran laughing into the midnight pine

green lace offered wet kisses as
glazed gazelles we passed below
on tiptoe specters chuckling in
dark embrace followed our ruddy scent
sleeping clover awoken angry
coiled by lecherous intrusion

a lullaby carried from Pan's flute
animal melody lurking on
that dark wooded wind
horny forest god hungry for some
hanky-panky in lichen bassinet
on wet rock the moonlit mirrors watched
their voyeur eyes
apathetic stars paid attention
Calisto winked and shook her diamond hips

such showmen we think of ourselves
top hats and tailcoats writhing like
snakes on the stone
shared skin lewd in that nocturnal nest
the Moon in gilded silver paint slipped
silently into the room
pirouetted pretty past our crippled corpses
and
left through morning's door.

TA

Bone on Bone

Death came for her
in thick black cords
collecting in twisted cables on
her soft untanned lower belly
in grand spurts of guffaws
guttural groans
and sneers

standing on exposed cuneiform
on cuboid
on navicular root
in the pooled folds of
his spider-infested robes

sharp teeth in congested rows
cackling uncontrollably
spilling the last of
his excitement
slick trail of Death's deflating bone
iridescent indigo glow over
her left knee

left knee

she was that shade of late Renoir
white with pink ankles
palms cheeks lips
a little curled oil painting streaked in
the harsh brush strokes of
Death's high lord graphic graffiti

greedy criminal high brow artist
after no one's interest
his rigid attention
his resting figurine
bone on bone
on bone
lourde!
this man knows his muscle

his entrusted cherub pet
crawling in her pillow passion
laughing gayly curly ringlets in
thick couplets bouncing
reaches up to find Death finally resting
and with God's blessing
begs for another session.

TA

Sworn Brenda

Swear to me Brenda
look into my gotdam green eyes
clasp these corners from
unkempt collapsed broom
to the Little Dipper
constantly up-showing me
and swear to me

you hold this same madness in your heart

I'll die right here right now
glass playing sweeping cello concerts
in the orchestral pit of my only listening ear
cat-call myself from dark mountain cliffs
from the protection of my winter den
hunt myself in the morning forest fog
thrown spear deep beneath my rib
Artemis's twisted red fate
eat my own heart first
honor the dead

promise me this madness is yours too

I'll wander to the edge of forever
spin the saddest cajun love songs from
french crooners with crooked necks
homespun beer pulled from popcorn draft
track these tragic lives playing out under smoke
clang cause somebody rolled the cue
and the eight ball leapt the wall
worship your relics
scroll through your nudes
have sloppiest conversation

like you're sitting here next to me
like you've been here this whole time
just an empty vacant seat
it's madness to waste so many years
right?

but maybe
maybe
you're somewhere
with this same madness too.

TA

Nikki

I called creepy Nikki at midnight
she said be right over, came over
and over
Nikki in the flooded colors of the cresting Mississippi
swept in mudslide through my apartment window
greasy gallows in yellow cordage crowned
she wore a wreath of her passion
some fleeting wraith she was
in alley cat shadows and trash can braggadocio
pulling on her bluejeans like prisoner's chains
her wide glazed smile spilling LOLs
in ragtime tip-toeing a two-step only her
cajun great grandmothers might recognize
Nikki in wet friction eventually pranced away
pearls of choice wisdom glistening on
the cleft of her thigh.

TA

Send Pics Kind of Love

Send pics
Cindy wrote
send pics here
here where monsters reside
where mayhem is magic's
counterpoint
in these hallowed halls
a lonely jump-rope jumps
itself
send pics
to where they say babes come from
priest in balding retrospect
bundled in robes of gracious
kind deception
pool the holy water with
a gilded chalice
with a guilty conscious
speak holy psalms
from holy hymns
smother the children in an
SPF high enough to protect
the innocent from the hot heat
of Hell
send pics
Cindy wrote
scratching her fluorescent fingernails on
the spent skin of someone else
in her clean fresh sheets
some guy
just some guy Cindy says she fucks

but, she says
I'm really in love with you.

TA

Where Your Panties Sat

Sharing the same space where
you and your panties once sat
those wind-worn cotton patterns
prints of winter storms
caffeine madness

no god can be endured
endlessly
so we hide from the sun
in the cool shade
our golden bodies skewered
on grandmother's blankets
green grass sacrifice
single trail of shimmying sweat
pacing along her ribs
oh lord we pray

cracks on the concrete
endless barrage of traffic
drivers of the modern maw
celebrating some human need
barking as they pass
temporal in irregular heartbeat
the pulse
   of the way things are.

TA

Chance Encounter Spiral Calculations

We share Charlie with red wine
panacea purpling our afternoon teeth
pressing my body into your summer dress
expensive soda stains coating fat wet lips
brushing this lamb's greying wool against
your polished skin
Charlie underneath our fingernails
laser strips like the slaver's lashes over
my dorsal fin
you knew, didn't you
the puzzle you were silently solving
perusing the bookstore aisles hoping
with hard nipples hard against the
stacks for Charlie's groping hand
come crawling
thumb print across the page speaks
in moans in voluminous tomes
eccentric centric ringlets
pause to peruse over invisible hairs
Fibonacci's perfect pattern hidden behind
your ear
how crescent you've become
studying the elegance in the topographic
outlines of your elevation
some latent cartographer collecting
lascivious measurements
for further private investigation
and map making.

TA

From Us

I saw the Devil at dusk
in the prow of an old broken row boat
at the edge of the moor
overlooking the city

He was a horned shadow
a husk of black curtained in smoke
hunched in the rotten prow of the boat
some figurehead captain commanding to sea

His eyes were orbs of solid yellow
cradled high in a disfigured silhouette
so too were the distant windows
of the city, dark and fading away
from us.

TA

Donna on the Neighborhood Cats

Retrying to focus
easily distracted by the
stiffening happening
@ my central locus
there, the blood tightens
the noose closes
once we all became
sinners
we lost what drove us

the neighborhood in
sharp repose is draped by
evening's purple cloak
the neighbors call in the cats
promise warm laps
but the cats
says Donna
do what they do.

TA

Rodeo Buckle

You begged for that belt
forsaking mercy, leaking
hunger and snarling when
you're touched

won this rodeo reward breaking
a monster, slinging snot into
the rafters, a cyclone of raw hide
and my earnest courage

clawing at the gold inlay
slipping out of my busted ropers
taste of fresh black blood at
the back of my throat, suffocating
under my own broken ribs

remember
to breathe
knuckles against the threaded knot
clench when the gate spills open
forget that the world is lost and
spinning out of your control

you begged for that belt
animal smell of filthy desire
but baby, I'm the wrong man
to be asked for mercy.

TA

She Came After

She cut through the thicket
fast like a thrush
through the thick of them
slick with her ten pricks
but slickest
with her pointers most

those long digits fingered triggers
tripping firing pins tapping
the flat brass backs of fat slugs sleeping
until murder
murder is summoned forth

outlaws dove in droves purchase
where those slipped hidden
behind clove
to hope
her cackling pistols stole some
other poor bastard's soul

them that ripped with their own replies
fell clipped first
crippled by what followed from
the smoke clenched in her fast fists
twisting spinning
barking mad snarls and kisses
canine angry
gripping hot honey hollering in thunder
sending men to their maker
in states of wild wonder screaming or
redeeming what little penance
final prayers provide thereafter.

TA

Petr Did Not Want Poetry

Petr commanded no praise from any man
and not from my lips
she stood with her legs spread in the rain
purple and defiant of the storm
deafening the deluge
as if M. Nature could be brought to silence

Petr in wet rags could not be bothered
she was planted like wet corn
her ragged jumper ruined
pasted over her in a thin film

her angry war was tantric
and erotic
a sweet bitter perfume followed after
she smelled like the color of blood
she would not be bought
not by thunder
or whatever silly gods threw at one another
willy-nilly across the black dark

Petr was petulant
she was known to throw her own kind of javelin
she was known to be electric
a fox, even
overseeing with keen eye the duck's flight
but evading the hunter in his orange fedora
she would not have me lourde in her lap
the accumulation of all my unending adoration
with certainty
she would have my lips at work
overworked
but not with ovation, and not with poetry.

TA

Drive-by Desire from a Thirsty Stanger Wanting a Turkey Head

I see you out there
creeping in the half moon light
sweat on your forehead from a fresh waterfall
creeping in half denim / half criminal intention
rusted roof
cigarette stains and yellow dome light
your crawling carcass across the tarmac
reading the radio station in your red rubber cheeks
varicose roadmap over the bridge of your
inflated nose

come in, then
let me tame the wild scars of your misguided youth
creeping with creaking knees
on dinosaur bones
volunteering to slither into the pool of my lamp light
the tar pit of your indecision
tease those trousers like spilling curdled milk
tracing with my little finger the little dipper
creeping in the permanent stain of a black marker

I see you out there
begging on bended knee prostrated and filthy
crying to come in without consequences
outline of a slap from angry parents lingers
let us make those fingers into feathers
the thumb can be a turkey's head
dismiss that shame
come in, then
and allow me to damage you further.

TA

Blondie from Limbo

Blondie checked the clock
broken hands told the time
her fingers curled around the future
her inner eye turned
watched the past fade into nothing
nothing matters back there anymore

she pulled her Levis high onto her hips
grinned like a solid snake
the cut of her jaw brought fireflies
halo of unincorporated partners buzzing
in uniform aggravation
company of fruit sniffers
sniffing out the rotten dregs of humanity

she felt her panties stiffening
in the worn lace
in the stories written in stain
her pink cock pushing its petulant lips
up up
a periscope o'er the hem of her garb

Blondie on the dancefloor deck
sparkling like the ice cubes in her
Jamaican sassafras
she doesn't care anymore
grabbing at her flat chest puppeting the
kind of tits she wishes she had
pearl of blue desire melting below her tongue
the clamshell you wish was
climbing up your leg
her wine-worn pupils wide
moon-lit
she doesn't care about your story anymore
she's living her own story now.

TA

Meeting a Bear and Discovering the Truth

These lingering blue glow thoughts
aftermath of September's sojourn
still delirious
still hungover
from that potent elixir - a month on
the open road

still I look to trace the path of Jupiter
despite the street light's distraction
despite no longer needing her as
my mother compass

scent of deeper pine
scent of the campfire
sometimes the choice was madness
sometimes it was a struggle

reliably became my guiding wolf
a presence stalked with relentless hunger
call to myself
my old truck
my aging hands
my wandering courage
my disjointed sex

quieter now, in the city
I catch myself looking around corners
longing for the friend I met in
the tall grass strolling
the valley meadow we shared
late afternoon sun eclipsed in the crags

in naked splendor I was a spy
at any moment he would glance away from
his moist berry bush
he would know I was there
     and nothing else mattered in the world
not my camp miles away in thick cover
not the black roads of my travelling
not my far and distant lovers
nor my poetry
only truth

and the truth in that moment was easy
the answer to a single question
this:
is what you tell the world
also what you tell yourself?

when alone with a bear
his thick black velvet propensity
a carnal moment in a meadow valley
two souls passing
nothing else matters in the world
the veil is lifted
and you get your answer.

TA

Two Snakes Dancing Close

Maybe that smoke
was potent
your love was toxic
or the other way around
we were a spiral staircase of
silver dreams
we were two serpents
too intertwined to see that

the coiling double helix
was becoming a cyclone
violent
because the winds without
were the same wretched
winds within.

TA

Mother Is Not Impressed

Where they met in that midnight meadow
a coyote ring had spawned
a small crop circle of flattened hill grass
a soft bed with a view of the infinite connection
spilled moonlight filled the bowl

and only moonshadow fell where their bodies
touched

rocketeers they thought themselves
drumming in primal accord one another
space pilots
hurdling through the encompassing maw
visited by passing luminaries
those shooting stars

her eye pointing to distant diamonds
his eye pointing to the center of creation
visitors aboard the bosom of Great Gaia
who thought (in that small moment)
their coupling more meaningful
than it actually was.

TA

Caught By The Gardener

Musk of my exertion mixing
in the evening purpling plunge
gold glistens at the edge of everything

kaleidoscope w. the myrrh of my lung's elation
a gardener passing on his papered knees
catching me in comfort of exposure

Fall tapping at my door like a wandering harlot
open, she begs
I am no one
and helpless
when begged

wide the threshold thrown
to lull these perfumes on a last lit wind
to tongue the tethers of day
and night's coming

forsaking that simple gardener
in wandering decadence flesh was his reward
mine is eternity, they say

his dreaming fingers find the worn clippers
works a summer rose
my dream finds your soft unbound skin
in the light from my door.

TA

I Left You Sleeping

When you could but be the death of me
stroke some parallel glancing blow
my invisible widow's peak crawl to the top
crawl, but still to the top

blood rage in the bruises on your knees
feeding frenzy fingers hunting for
fresh meat in the show
I left you sleeping
     I could not trust your consciousness

I felt up your leg in that closet in college
in Bartlette's bathroom entrenched by
a cocaine battalion of spitting king
cobras in push-up bras and bastard
genetics, in love with you

scratching at your swollen tongue with
my teeth
moldy shower curtain bonnet
saffron gown hugging those brittle
bones in your ankles

redwood ghosts followed you back
to the campfire road rash'd
wet with wine
your pale moon silhouette swaying in repose
in rapture enfolded displayed against
a colossal column of climbing bark
another lover's name scratched
into the wood,
not your name.

TA

Darling

Darling lay quiet as I bound her wrists
in milk blossom and her crooked jaw
vellum kidskin of my braggart poetry
slipping from her blue two-piece into
the tea stained river

a swan seeking my patriarchy
some southern son in the window
Darling lay shaven and visceral
apt to do anything I asked

I asked of nothing
the definition of fantasies my
conjuring daydreams built
she mean-mugged anyway
with relentless fervor
in rose petals and intuition

her charming spineless father hiding
thimbles of good-n-quick
in nooks where thirst would later
drive the treasure hunt

her mother an insignificant lost soul
house wife suffering
from a life of suburban decay

Darling with her perfect breasts
bull dogging me from the river bend
unsure of herself but showing off everything
running fast
and scared
to leave them all behind
to become them all at last.

TA

Lavergne

Lavergne turned to the nearest ear entered
her pulsing last plea
would the dust brooms do the trick?
would the man responsible for overseeing
her demise
please appear

to dismember her ageless consciousness
to dismantle the roaring
engine that empowered
her heart
she felt in small rooms for courage
     she could not carry
the mantle of the lion's
mane hung too heavy, you see

she rescinded
Lavergne in the scarlet scars around her neck
Lavergne where it's hot and still burns
Lavergne cum quick
and turn away.

TA

House Birds

Argos and Ephestes
have returned
arguing as lovers do
miniature rabble at my stoop

when the days turn darker
they bring their discontent
to roost
bamboo hovel abandoned by
the red summer wasps

a vacant honey hole
where they will cry
make love
where they will duel
and in the Spring
new life will launch.

TA

First Meeting

A momentary distraction
at the fence, uncertainty
curiously you returned your
attention back to me
no other stories mattered

you somehow knew it
was your life in
the balance, when I took
you for that walk
in the back of the shelter.

TA

Ode to Lepanto 2

Ode to Lepanto
darling in those pants though
the story told
Don Juan of some governance
and his guns
tall ships off the coastline flying
Spanish color

some formative beardless poet
wet your whistle, little pistol
in vernacular gusto
leave the fluffers in the pornos
my tool is a tongue of
messy metaphors
formed in college corridors
I learned how to listen to
get what I wanted
tickling the tip of my pen with
your smile

look yonder long at the distant
sea battle engorged
the sinking ships
and cannons gusto
leave the bad sex in the pornos
the story told
the path into those pants
ode to Lepanto.

TA

Without Love

We met at last
on the red sand
on Mars
the MoonMan and I

surrounded by lifeless brethren
the dark blood of Men
and green blood of
MoonMen

his ray gun pointed at my chest
mine pointed at his
dead generals resounding
orders in each of our heads

enemy in the viewfinder
quietly questioning the fight
fingering triggers
considering the fire
and the greatest question
why
the MoonMan and I

who shot first
no record is kept
no one alive was left
hate had consumed us all
to death
without love, we die
the Moonman and I.

TA

Magnolia Hurricane

Little magnolia hurricane
tossing sea salt from the wind-whipped
tentacles of your cowlicks

crown of gossip curls
what kind of candy do I need
to stock

to get you to come inside?
stitched together of your own
piano drawn fingers

no one else would care
I stoop to kiss blood on your hip
to apply a sermon

slipping from your blue jeans like
a coral snake from its
old skin.

TA

House Dog in the Sun

Hanging curtains of silver ghost
heavy in the morning light above
my writing desk
my own personal cloud cover
a growing season comes

greasy fingers tilling fields
doing the Lord's work
immigrant day laborers pulling at
the greying hatch
in my beard
     of my beard
          is my beard

tarot reader's wreath of water cups
and a ketchup bottle
     of a ketchup bottle
witness the blanket slipping
slowly over my brain

warm square of sunlight crawling
across the carpet
inviting a naked curl to
follow its midmorning path
like a house dog.

TA

Late Night's Last Poem

The jewel of so many lives
bright crypto captain guiding endless denizens
cutlass through the waves of ambition
a microcosm of cult virility
driving adoration and of course
obedience, a tincture of infatuation
and lust

piddling piece of your ambrosia dawdled
to every upturned maw
two sheets to the wind
always tempting a third
early morning dew extinguishing the
last cigarette, butts at the bottoms
of beer bottles

grey ash gathered in the bowl of
a Spartan shield
whispering Cohen rhymes with
a vodka swollen tongue
leading minions into your spider's laugh
your gypsy hair

unbound breasts beneath your grandmother's
blazer in sepulchral sway
come off costless
lift us from our toes some amorous scent
and lead us
floating, raving, swooning
helpless dreamlike enslaved to your wake
brazenly impotent
and forsaken.

TA

This Grey

If I only had wisdom
to translate this
still quiet sadness
(I might could act)
a thickening darkness
and shortening of the day
a heartbreak looming
or already spun
a sunken faith
the prospect of our
human condition
a stiffer specter maneuvering
its discord through my bones
a reflection more
cowardice than courage

I cannot say
so cannot act
my power of deduction
died when I chose the
path of poetry
maybe I'm just not
in love with you
anymore
maybe that's all it is
this grey.

TA

Sleight of Hand

Maybe my stitching was good
that night in the red forest
your blood in the contours of
the campground asphalt
firelight climbing the
alabaster avenues
moisturized curvature in
bandaged repose

maybe we stumbled ineptly through
mating rituals and immature lusts
your twisted shape against
those leviathan trees
some pale princess in disfigured
renegade beauty
actress from an ape yarn
that black thong around your thighs
unbroken flesh hip-to-shoulder
the art haunts me

maybe that invisible unspoken unnamed
love
we shared good
was good

maybe
but good got us nowhere now
good got us through the night
through the rut
through the long empty miles breathing
wet ocean air
through to the end of this some thing
an empty conclusion of mismanaged years
misread roadmap of our intended meanings
the end of some nothing

maybe what we thought of as good enough
was fate's ill misdirection
for what could have been great.

TA

Dreamspeak

Space baby spell moonspeak
in sweet whispers
sing moonmelody
golden orb of your helio heart
that true north star
never still
leading virgin matrons
on mad dashes
on mules lashed
into the dark hills
in marble centerpiece a
spider on my balustrade.

TA

His Cigarette Propensity

Guide me, Spirit, to that twelfth day
thunderstruck though I am
safe now in the Lord's hands
white tee plastered to my skeleton chest
teenage nipples stiff proving
my soul was saved
embarrassed, erect, elated
holding my nose blabbering
manifesto mantras maintaining
it all w. a hand raised high

salute this king of the jews, they told me
return my bygone grandfather to
his blithe form so I don't have to watch my
own dad die
burning bush etiquette, I guess

listen here, I've been to the deep desert too
cried at the rising sun's great golden hemorrhage
pricked my palm and ran Jack Daniels
over the bleeding trails
my mythos revelation unfolding in the design
revealed to any harlot wet enough to listen

guide me, Spirit, shaking in a holy fit to
that twelfth day pasture
among his piles of discarded hems and garbs
his cigarette propensity
I alight with songbird salvation like a
petty jewel thief, rummage in the scripture
and take what is mine.

TA

Darla Anne

Darla Anne in the wet lips wept
for the little lords sleeping in fits of
unsatisfied dreaming below deck
by each bed their rubber boots and mags
jugs of meals ready to eat
and for each man
a pack of filterless fags,

They said the Japanese war machine
was racked on the beachhead bad
the waves too deep
tricky and treacherous for the little lads
who locked and loaded
jumped into the thrashing current
and drowned in olive drab,

Darla Anne in last night's respite cried the
last of those sea salt tears she had
covered her heaving chest in heavy armor
and headed for the hatch
she would cry no more for those lost little lords
the brave young handsome lads
she stomped in too big boots two big footprints
hooting REVENGE down the warpath
now, Darla Anne was comin'
and she was mad.

TA

Escape

I would not have imagined
when
heavy hoofed in new tech's white armor
I revved that engine hot
electric guitar blaring over t-minus ten
to one
to lift-off

finally escaping human suffocation
weightless baptism
holy water of countless stars
at lip's reach

the sheer noise of living
is deafening
screams of my desires
the sonic pulsing of my needs
your love
your scorn
and the endless space between

but here
in another kind of endless space
the long vast corridors empty between
anything that ever was
an absolute darkness
the colors of creation
where things are farthest from
the beginning
where it is thought to be most quiet
here
in the stillness
I would not have imagined
you would be the loudest thing in my head.

TA

Dicky's Dinner

Old black worn oak
premises aromatic like a forgotten strip club
white table setting the scene where
white-haired white men
spoke of barter, endless
and blowjobs

young nobles paying tribute to the last trumpeter
shrunken faded skin
miniature man in the echelon of a
mighty life

soft white lies slip casually
from wet lips
torn wet meat plundered from a lamb's ribcage
torrid of gathered consciousness
wine stem in a poet's clutch
the beginnings of my lost mind

visage in the glass on the microwave door
balding and bent in supplication
white lines on the dinner plate
the crowd irresolute lingering with
a soup kitchen shiftlessness
gathering to share the snorkel
in US dollars
the American way
up tempo crescendo the conversation goes
my numb lips pedaling
my heart somehow sustains

in mad raving the veil lifted
my hesitant agency taken by a surge
of pallid ash in the rivulets of my skunkworks
I forgot to look again
bespeckled bicycle chef sharpens his knives
handsome host pool balls in his pockets
we shake
palaver over interests with unchecked constitution
they demand of me
look them in their dark eyes
more importantly, hold their dark attention

this preposterous white courage
white streaks in my father's beard
spreading across my own face
the bay boys beckon with honest intentions
they don't care
I remind myself again
they don't care
maybe it's not the smoke
maybe it's not about how much hair we have left
maybe I'm doing alright
after all.

TA

Our Last Night

Marcy on the plateau shimmering
affixed in rotating positions like a dying snake
flickering orb of her pink mania
her smooth plump tabernacle
skewered skin reddening over my spit fire
sky in bottom purple burgeoning
a deluge
me salivating
whistling through the empty catacombs
   of my depleted heart

barren rifle, now a godforsaken weight
they would overcome the misdirection
they would find us in frozen diorama
Marcy on the plateau shimmering
me stumbling towards the light
   fumbling at my Zippo.

TA

Midnight's Stroke

Oh Succubus, hush
in your drag and wicked eye
fallen angel fallen to despair
the smell of death
false magician

oh pallid priest of midnight's
stroke, on wing
that vapid breath
misplacing the hour
when Christ slept

haste not from Heaven's
gated manifold
wisdom says make house calls
not, tonight
focus the epicenter of this
hunger elsewhere

oh entombed stranger
dismal figure and barren
marrow, misborn intent

tonight, these hands fold to
pray no more
tonight I don holy robe and
smitten hammer
under candle's cradled eye
align new spring studs
in the cold coffins.

TA

Splits and Funk

She walked in haggard circles radiant
so that eclipse shadow could not catch her
so that each time I found her
she was gone again

in faint touch in sordid whisper grooming
a knife wound flushing my cardinal
spirits in splits and funk
our criminal intention gone underground
that last cuckold laughter
I can almost remember its cadence

in sinner's robes flashing us from
the parapet calling thunder a coward
a serpent's semen signature scrolled
the coming of a passing thief
these vagrant thoughts

of cigarette affection
of thirst
of your soft full weight in the center
of my hands
she was here, I'm sure of it
bastard relief is all I am left feeling
I don't have to look, she is gone again
I know.

TA

This Never Was

Go ahead, tease these words from
skin soiled, from this lonely heart
hunger for the black blood in my
silver veins, a crimson current
pulsing of morse code
your polished flesh overflowing in
my grip, whispering at the pillow's
edge - this is nothing,
this never was

love's stain lingers, a cold winter
sin in the wake of my traveling tongue
traveling the parallel corridors
of your matron chords, children gasp
and the imagination runs rampant

bourbon on the brush that paints the
portrait of your unhappy corpse posing
as a wandering ghost, vapid smoke
veiled untethered to living demands
my code says more, hidden in the
ones and zeroes of my vascular system

a fist of your chameleon hair, your
mouth agape, the sounds prayers
summing demons to forgive us our sins
the rape of love, the rawhide coiled around
your wrists, a monochromatic winter
coming, as always, feeling alive
but refusing to believe it.

TA

A Passing Wave

I spied her in the wave spray
something feels different
alone, but not lonely
quiet and thoughtful
     like me

something makes her happy
some unfound source
     sustains her strength
I recognize it in her smile
no longer do I know its name
collared I cannot find it

golden curl of the setting sun
crash
the wave is spoiled
     and despite my vision
I may live an entire lifetime
never knowing who she is.

TA

A Kind of Truth

We reached for glory
didn't we
for a kind of truth, a beauty

and although I hold the weight
of a thousand regrets
of ten thousand I'm sorry's
we both failed somewhere, didn't we
to carry the glory
to reach into the other's soul
find the real seat of the heart

only time will tell
if timing really is the precipice
of these many excuses
my regret is heavy enough

I hold secret hope this fictional prosperity
I have concocted in the dark
for you
is somehow an actual truth

I expect I am the only one in grief
letting the years float pass
under the disgrace of love's burden
that gremlin of doubt
that cruel soft voice of fear

is glory still some last burning
candle in the imposing dark?
I hope this fiction is beautiful
and true.

TA

Blurry Cigarettes

Blurry cigarettes
red fingernails
red wine-stained teeth
sheer black lingerie in
fuzzy cuffs
hoola-hooping her naked hips
dull yellow camera flash
lawn grass
tall amber pumps
cross-eyed but still
sexy

lamp-lit grinning big
curvature of neck
afterglow
aftertaste
a final collapse of
human flesh.

TA

Blood Grinning

Don't take that tone with me
in your blistered whiskers
hot honey jar
classic clawing rabbit's feet feverishly
functioning to no less keep me awake
or alive
or fit for retention
for even the Devil, they say, is
clever and cute

carrying this bulge is not only
my guilt
but my stain as well
and my glory, amen
sheltered beneath the expansive awning of
your celestial gaze

my upturned heaven-sent calf cry
suckling the sweet nectar of your dew claw
rosy your nipples perch the sparrow
sweet morning song
soft morning wood blossom
sunlight settles delicately on a
stolen forest patch
encircling two doves torn and rent
two wolves
fed
and full.

TA

It's Sunday Laura Gelder

Laura Gelder you rat finch bitch
it's Sunday
for clams in Gulf Coast clutch
for fighting, dammit

for lying to that fat priest
pretending to care
for fucking in the doorway
smoke your natural tobacco
and take your clothes off

let slip your cloistered war dogs
fingering your opened cage for
     a little bird song
holy greeting at the communal feast

Laura Gelder beneath soft white sheets
sucking everything off
on her knees praying for seed
water for the grass
water for the living
it's Sunday
and everyone should get to eat.

TA

Invitation Rescinded

Forcing these fingers to
walk the grey
backed into a dismal fogged corner
access the guide in dull
guttural shadows
I walk down dark alleys blind, hoping

to get mugged
a rape will awaken me
incision of a stranger's blade emblazon me
pinning poetry like a purple

heart to my breast
I'd invite you into this sunless bordello
damp fallen leaves adorning my
den of inspiration
of iniquity
but I know what kind of hidden spider
you will find.

TA

In Crimson Repose

Coffee in your corollaries
denim in your vestiture
cigarettes like turtle doves
     in flights of fancy

sex on your mind
dirt in the cracks high
     enough to cross over
no need to know why
no halo over your forehead
no panties on your hips
no need to waste
     so much time anymore

soft soap in silk sliding
     over your skin
sharp poetry in your sing-a-long
my fingers crawling over the knots
     like ants on a dead beetle

binding your primrose path
posing you for the camera's eye
ardent arousal in wanton display
licentious portraiture
lady in waiting
     in crimson repose.

The Rapier's Nature

We are the sharp stinging tip of
two rapiers, the long naked
cutting edge, bejeweled
hilt in opal and wet coral
hand polished, reflecting
one another's lust in a coated
mirror dancing in colored
patterns as fever moves across skin,

a longing for those pretty
lights like babbling babies, unsheathed
and singing sad ballads on
the midnight air, swinging
in perfect swoosh,

but no caress comes, rapiers
slash, rapiers cut and clang, darling,
they are only beautiful lying still
silently encased, sleeping in
whispers and voicelessness,

always salivating touch,
strategizing touch, the lanky
blade reaches out pining, ravenous
even,
but remember,
a rapier only knows how to sting.

TA

I Am

I am the countless dystopian galaxies
I am the vast empty space between the
infinite atoms of my body I am
the pulsing electric trickster that
travels those twisting corridors within

so that when you glance into my
eyes you see the spark that is who I am

where my flesh ends nothing
begins I am a vast stretch of ocean
I am ashes and stardust I am that
archaic flowing river of blood whose
headwaters heard the pistol crack at
the birth of time

I am more mystery that meaning
I will spend my days trying to convince
myself it is the other way around
or I will surrender
and be everything that I am.

TA

Old Tomcat

Doth he don colors
throw spears at spaceships
chiseled and lean

laying in a patch of sunlight
for the landlord
for the neighborhood girls

a ball of fading black fur passes
continues on
and somehow further on
a caution in his step
even after all these years

and because he does not
ask for pity
those seeing yellow eyes
neither do I.

TA

Twilight's Hour

I left your ass in hyperspace
where everything is streaking dust
where what you dream
is real
stretched colors on bright strings

because my chest felt tight
I was enflamed
engorged
tired from pushing a ghost
through the hatch

for this
in breathless repose
weightless my fingers do the sweating
the holy spirit gesticulating
the slow cadence memory

in
out

in,              out

in


out

here
in vacuum
I can breathe at last
on swaying hips strong
intermingling conversations with gods
sweet muse
kiss of some visiting deity
asleep in that everlasting
and empty expanse
vagabond of catacombs

until I can remember you softly again
find me feet
quiet my heart
in this bluewash garden
a surrender

blindfold me
spin me at the absolute zenith
I will spy out your constellation at twilight's hour
and rejoin you in hyperspace.

TA

Your Blind Defenses

You built your walls tall
thick
and strong
so that arrows could not penetrate
could not shoot over

no
not with the stiffest yew
     the heaviest draw
     the loftiest feathers

but why can't you see
that I would never fire an arrow
at your walls anyway?

TA

Up Here

Up here they paint in pagan colors
their bloodlines and chiseled groove
up here soft smoke bucks
soft smoke in silver sentiment
up here we breathe deep
that long full pull of life
from that unmistakable perch
from that good good

y'all tickle danger at the party
after dark costume closet
a finger fidgeting under
her bluejean folds
over the panties tho

I suckle at her plump possibility
fruit and fabric tossed willy-nilly
buried face in the wet copse of
unbridled
unknown
wrestle untethered together cold
in the crag, the barbarous kings
of the leviathan

up here the fierce wind roars
unchallenged, overseer
of burning dreams
judgment out looking for a thrill
up here in the cumulous canopy
god's hard
fat throne
those with ears listen
those with one ear even
up here

higher than hurt can reach
higher than missing you
higher than a life's worth of brash
misplaced dialogue
in moments that shouldn't matter
but do
up here, alone
with my memories
up here with what I thought was
a guide
but is a ghost.

TA

Proposition

Somewhere lurks
my next proposition
my fortune teller told me
to accept it

constellations in sea schools
cut chords through heaven's current
moon rock soak that energy
tonight

she throws old crows bones
they all say the same thing
somewhere soon comes
my next proposition
I am told
to accept it.

TA

Per Contra

What? you thought this
crooked path would straighten on
its own, by the sex
in your rouge whisper,
by the the dawn's early
light, by the plans held at lust's
gunpoint trembling fickle
fingers,

my touch the temptress spoil
archer's release, lo the bullseye
sails below, lo the trophy
to a lesser man,

your hidden crystal gypsy
pearl, prophecy, pomp
pink pussy, foreseer of all futures,
of pasts,

scripture and fate, faith
without seeing, faith
without works,
your fingers again, tipped
in translucent film,
so beckon,

what? would I not come gladly,
such was the verdant call,
per contra
I will never be caught a
thief, or called a hero.

TA

Midnight Melts

Late night palaver silent picture
naked child soldier sometimes
a riddle and sometimes a wraith
sorcerer shadows dance the rhumba
southern shadows two-step late
nights Saturday mist rolling
I would stake my life my
fortune in boots our hips
pressed together accordion bleeds
and midnight melts in the
distance they wonder if I was
there a streetlight ghost
naked charm the red wine drained
I could attack your rn if you
fall willy-nilly into
my trap my arms my teeth

before the vultures in twisting
cyclone dive long into the cane
your rotten bones our
last meal.

TA

Worse, and

This waste of my time
poetry and waste
bookended with swollen
southern charm
and my next appearance

vaudeville and cajun two-step
the streetlight culprit circus
continues, stay for the show
my lovely lourdes
my lascivious ladies,
stay

because this memory is
getting worse and
worse, this body
begging to fall apart
and who cares
who cares
anymore, what you see.

TA

High Noon

Baby I'm ready and tight
guns slung low loaded
eyes wide

night sleeping
but the noon sun burning
bright
in my mind

been dreaming about
slipping white hot
violence
into a lioness
all my life

uncork that jug, sugar
hurry that whiskey down
meet me outside. 

TA

Alone

Todd feeds me from
the point of his pale blade
fresh winter snow and
a frozen escape
we are the words we
speak to ourselves
he says
carrying fresh fish in
a sack from the lake

I am too weak to stand
holding the cold stone
black wolves with black
lips circle in death's
pungent cologne
this crypt is better than
some hotels
he says
I am lost in the scattered
animal bones.

TA

Hot Hands

Go ahead, seduce me
I am tired of
the fight, ride me
to completion
till your heart is content

favor me to fail
the gallows, walk again
draw your conclusions elsewhere
from another well

I am hot
I draw fast, you know
hot hands selfcare
my resolve has
not faltered, no
it only grows stronger
with age.

TA

It Was Then I Carried You

Silver ascension with a Bic lighter
my jeans in gravity's clutch
naked in the rafters
my bare ass
     in the curl of thunder's clap
moonlit display case
red waxen rocketship through the clouds
exhibition to horse heads
to bejeweled asteroid belts
to the
     Great Eye
belching a pearl necklace of white smoke
coughing in wise tantrums
leaving opal reminders across
     faded carpets
like Christ's footprints in the sand.

TA

Bombardment of the Travelers Companion on Irasta

It was the Ninth of Nothington
on the backlot of the Travelers Companion
where the smokers get their fix
wrenching sky crawlers
and cat calling the lady whores

Ginger
and her Nightingale bastards swooped in
expecting a tournament
cash in crumpled orgies from their fat gas pockets
carbon dioxide stains
and flashing grinning cold gold canines

they won six stacks
laughing
     grab ass'ing
popping off road flares at passing cowboys
mouthing their own sick tongue
twisting in that flawless florid fluorescent
sheen of youth

The Cavanaugh broke the sky
trailing stars and belching ugly black smoke
the tower of Babel collapsed into
snowflakes
     and white sand
things on the inside trembled

woe to the Travelers Companion
where once stone was king
hissed hot new air
the Tenth fell short
that suffocating cloak
that took Ginger
and her Nightingale bastards too.

TA

Outlaw Lovers in Space

Spaceport steal-away behind the curtain
covering the hydroflex seals secluded
from prolonged gilded gazing
too long at the thick black grease like glue

you in your zippered uncombed cashmere
lion's mane and quantum grip captain's boots
ain't fooling me pulling at your transparent
satin panties wrenching with a mechanic's grip
my hips slipping in all that black grease

men in beige bibs and policeman cowls march
lock-step step-by-step scowl beholden
loaded laser beam bayonets and
mustachioed upper lips carrying in the bejeweled
pocket over their heaving breast an amateur
cartoonist portrait, at best,
of the two flagrant naked swaying cohorts copulating
behind the hydroflex curtain
making a mess.

TA

Self Reflection

I play in and out of your hands
twisting through your fingers like
wisteria on the balustrade
a gold sunlit kiss across your breast
papal lips purpling in waning curvature
a slippery crescent

rough cat's tongue courage to defy
     the religious mob
infinite clarity in the mystery

a mirror in the park pond
ducks upside down
broken by pyramid islands of peeking turtles
drifting cirrus at the bottom of
     that endless wishing well
a different girl peering over the side
a curious gaze returned.

TA