on bookmarks, etc.

though my crayon topples your marker and greases
over the even, magic slide
you yet still have the other marker
maintaining our divide.

pages twist and unfurl around this
diligent character who minds
where we have left off:
what stanza, paragraph, or lines.

gracing the holographic, reflective
sheen of our divisive trial
there lies a face who portrait
reflects back our own, only style.

with frayed edge peeking over the top
of a book or anthology or film,
our bookmark guides where none else tries
though we are boats, with no one at the helm.

pounding deep into sonorous radar communication,
your heart breaks out of its once-sturdy shell
to begin the transformation.

first, it grows from mere muscle and organ
into a tall body, lean and lank with only sparse
gems to indicate eyes and smile and brain.

each jewel, barely hovering at the boiling surface,
seeks to embed itself deep into the flesh forming,
but gravity and my desire postpone.

while the diamonds and rubies of your glowing eyes
and lips try to escape their hard and fastness,
your still-dripping hands
curve their winding way
through amniosis and into membrane
which gives way to fresh, clear, though smoky air.

though birth has completed, your limbs remain too soft
for my grasp and, each time i reach, you slip from me
into the soft folds from which you emerged.

in looking back, remembering only,
i have cast you back to the deep, dark folds
where dogs and men may play and frollick, but you
will only pine.

self-restraint

as your hair weighs down, feathery and floating,
across your back with brilliant bright bones,
i will lay my hand across your birdsoul's infinite
sweetness and hold your spirit while you undress.

with your bright rings glittering in both brightness
and dark and your shining, glorious choir of breath
rasping across my bones which glaze over at its touch,
i will see your resplendence.

in the dim air of our conquest, your hand will alight
and take to the air above my head to trace out shapes
and delights the likes of which i will never see again,
nor remember from now.

with musical flight, you leap from our nest to fall to
the street and, in picking yourself to rightness,
you realize all our bright, unhidden sin
and leave our song and flying to wither in the wardrobe alongside
dusty albums and the maps of europe, spring, and time.

inspired by lessig

vocal cords lost
but still whipping your face
which slides across my mind even
as i am lashing it.

your content is lost
as i shape your fate
and toss your creative enzymes out of
our stomach of production
and your means reaches no end.
with no end in site.

in sight we have this marvelous
creature called vision
which rumbles through our collective
brains and leases and unleashes itself
into our collaborative process
in order to concretize our eyes.

in seeing we are reading
and in reading, reading only,
and only of that which is written,
not in writing.
this process breaks our minds and souls
and sharpens our wits while deadening our nerves.

as i am seeing
you are breaking
jaw around the eye

as i am seeing
you are dancing
jaw around the mouth

i watch while you spin
your wicked tales of silk
- if silk -
they are shimmery and shining and
brilliant hued with colors my
imagination bends only to see

translation

quando io vado a piedi, non lascio impronte
le neve rigano attaverso il ghiacco sono lasciati
linee perfetto e dune in 2-D

quando corro, vedo il mio respiro
aria fantasma spuzza fuori e su
piume in casi simili i fonsoli in il collo
dal parlamento morto lungho

guess what's it's from!

limit light

my limit is found
though limitless i may be

an army gashes my front door
though they are enemy

this limited military might
might light my sight
with arrows of night
and i may find, tomorrow,
gone all my way just to lose
that which i never might have owned
had they been only gentle
kind, sympathetic to my night-plight.

while the notes rollick on
and i stay sterile
- encased in fabric both hard
and crisp to my touch which is
smooth: smooth like the child i may
never
have.

this sterility, forced,
on by force. my force?
my force?

this thick plastic tears at my eating
soul which devours all my tears,
but leaves only dust and alcohol swabs
that clean the womb which is already
both foul and clean.

recipe

mix in milk and some cinnamon
fold in bed sheets lacquered in sweat
pour into the mold and
let sit for three years.

when finally it's come to frui(t)
-ion, caesura the ties, grease the lines
soften the raining blows
out the candle

when your alphabet cake
quakes
then you know you've read the recipe

the office

god, her smile's bright. i wish it had a dimmer switch -- nothing more obnoxious than a woman who can't keep her invisaligned teeth, crescent lips, exotic tongue in check and respect the misery of others. i watch her as she crosses the floor -- perfect ass swaying as she steps left, right, left, right; a perfect military cadence of heartbeat mixed with nonchalant steps unknowingly carrying her further from me at my desk, deeper into my heaving, sweaty, needy brain.
she returns from the copier to glance briefly at my shaking hands hovering over a keyboard that i sometimes caress as i might her breasts. she passes me without really seeing and i follow her with my eyes, vision loping after her like a lion after a fat antelope.