Heart-Burns

The blue fish are starting to mate. The alluvial fan

the ocean’s surface the curious luminous opening

my love burns changing and solid in paradise

and I’m walking straight through hell

but here I am:  daunting and clever as ever

once my supernatural expectations take over.

You can’t footnote a swelling (such as this)

or a heartbeat in a place like this

though pretty much anything applies.

You ask where? And I point and I say

“here” as my arm folds inward at its hinge

to its core.  The heart needs air too—

thinks it has a mind, etc.  Like the Davies line

“in one ear and out the aorta.”  Lunacy!

This isn’t something I lifted and lit from

a matchbox. I can set it off by sound

based on how I’m feeling from one moment

to the next.   A surprise gift.  Eye liner rubbed

off on palm.  The box wrapped  in paper bow:

arrival of birth (also known as: unsure of how

to live).  “Someone else’s kids.”  Heart beats

faster in the sneezing fit.  You open your mouth

again.  The words are mini pin pricks.   “Where

do the tiny bubbles come from in that glass?”

I watch a different light fall on the wall:

one is a shadow; the other is the opposite

of a shadow.  Our tongues collide, though

not in the way I’d hoped.   HELLO TRUTH!

I ALMOST FORGOT YOU!   Pulsar, sonar—

heart monitor?  I won’t use you like that wooden

support-stick over there; the one with the

clumsy rubber toe.   My heart bleeds your name

(that was last year) and here I wait to return

the favor of the hot seat.  Though if you’ve missed

one chance, you’ve probably missed two.

Palpable and tangible but that’s not what this

is about.   I mean, you can’t really touch words,

BUT YOU SURE AS HELL CAN FEEL THEM!

Just like your cinnamon-enhanced mouth.

I lived in your confusing cemented mosque—

“people in glass houses,”

but I lived that way for far too long.

“You speak sentences with your eyes,” he said.

Warning: here is where the poem takes a sentimental

turn.   She shuffles her feet on the pavement,

just to hear something.  She curls around

herself in sleep (face-down) cupping her

hands at her chest as if to protect some

pulsing thing.   Truth (be told) telling:  these are

facts about me.   Her fingers, like slivers

know I am looking for all the answers.

Conglomerate stars; a ghost in the flesh;

the mystery of two sets of breaths.  “She

tilts her head always.”  The Finneus Gauge

axis? The outer walls envelope the cell.

HOW DARE WE EAT SO MANY EGGS

PER YEAR!  When we as women would not

eat our own. Still, she clings, and hangs

her hair like drapery.

Watermark

The house is silent; goes

down on the day’s mysteries

a dog barks or a heart thumps

somewhere blood is pumping

through thick veins profound comical

thoughts a watermark

invisible allergens that grow

hereafter, common place?

Did you never ponder pollen

as a toxin? The flowers

are pretty to look at but

don’t rub your eyes!

“IF MORE WOMEN WERE

SELF STARTERS…:

I can’t even fathom the thought.

All of these…? The house

the flowers, the haunting

of solemn night. The apparent

thing, the oxygen’s oxygen

will soon rise though the

cool ring on the table will

only leave its mark, a way

to remember the faux pas

of the human of the guest

of the err, of the angered-

soon-to-ignite dust spot.

You sit here for a long time

and you call out to this

thought and wish some-

one, after the party,

would clean the mess up.

But it’s just you there

tracing your nails along

the ring of a cup.

Layered Cities

the arena’s now a ghost town

without me, you say,

and you’ve found solace

in deeper stomping grounds:

catacombs that fester

beneath the real city.

I tug at supple skin,

still tight

wonder how much longer

that’s going to last.

you dwell on non-reality,

a keepsake,

harnessed beneath sheets.

and you sample the spine—

(not mine)

dog-earned,

because you’ve heard it rekindles

childhood magic.

Heaven is vapor

and this dream: a dirty membrane.

for whatever daylight means—

a distraction tactic,

nothing good is ever as it should be.

EN&T

acuity or acute? i welcome atrophy,

try: aural accuracy.

Acupuncture of unrequited vomit

verbs and fireflies buzzing secrets

around chatter of chance.

there i go!   Choke.

Tender Densities of diamonds

and circus-dance festivals of

fever when you’re near.   hot flash of

bad luck breaking bones into brittle barriers as

the clock ticks longer out of fear of time defined

as:  tenuous.   oh if i could sense this diction

or hit delete before you click “mark as read”

but instead:   scratch and sniff:

i write Bail.   i write Film.    I write Heart-Burns.

guess who? you haven’t a clue;

you’d never assume;

you placate, you consume,                            

and curtsy-curtail your way out of blame.

the best lines are true.     The best lines—

my darling, they’re all for you!

this is me:  lying about the way i feel

for several days (try three-hundred-sixty-five of them).

let’s rewind.    see: unassuming in

the audience.  i meant a glance to you

but tongues measure truth and you

can’t see a lie in the dark.

deception speaks in turn as you

take another sip and i stare at the

surface of glaring black; a sea of

words not yet written dance in my

head and your mind only wanders

from my eyes—

my heart, though heavy

bleeds wet red blood

in a pool meant for you.

nothing will matter when you’re gone;

these are all unrealized, unauthored dreams

that seep into wary veins that twist and torture

and suffocate all palpitations

                        turn away,

                                    turn away.

will i ever enter your field

of flesh mixed with ground-up torment?

sinuous spells spill on sparks of shock.

turn away now,

turn away before my eyes tell you.