Cliff Jumps

Storm in tableau:
the waves a mountain falling
towad the face of the rocks,
lightning half off the ground--
the immobile sound of
one hand clapping.

wait and

one more step
to the edge of the cliff
with the spray half on your face--
the deafened air still ringing
from thunder's passing.

wait and

you are there with me here
at the edge between open and closed,
stricken and calm--
while below us erosion takes
the fastest ourse
and the sky above shows
no signs of ceasing and
no signs of going on.

Worm Song

[Something a bit different, not too serious, just thought of on a whim on my way to the bus stop :)]

No one writes about September worms,
those poor flesh strips undulating out of the grass
and onto asphalt roads,
escaping the inundation of autumnal downpour.
They wind themselves around puddles and cigarette butts,
much like their cousins,
the April worms,
but instead disgorging ululations that pulse silently through
their many hearts and stomachs –
an early lament
for the grass that is soon to be sheathed in frost
and their collapsing earthen labyrinths
pressed stubbornly through roots,
around voles, and moles and dormice
that will succumb to the sedative of sub-zero compounding.
September worms pull themselves out of wilting weeds,
animated Singapore vermicelli crawling from the takeout boxes of manicured lawns,
inching across concrete curbs,
between car tires,
and the boots of students on their way to their natural habitats of scholarly
enslavement,
just so that they can feel the air
on their naked ringed segments
before their soft-beating hearts slow
in the cumulative chill
of October snow,
preferring the brittle drying of dehydration
to mingle among the yellow maple leaves,
and leave behind crumbled bodies
with the promise for winter’s fall,
heavy as an eyelid,
to segregate the worlds of song and silence.

Sometimes Lover

It's about these two people who were friends and much more than friends and could be married, now, except they aren't. Their presents are haunted by what they once were and what they could have been and what they could have become. What they are not: together. They would never admit to themselves, and certainly not to each other, but it's also what they would like to be (and what they should be — although these things become unclear when you take everything into consideration).

Life. So many things get in the way. They are resolved to believe it's better this way.

They've both moved on and become brilliant and successful. Yet every once in a while, somewhere in the world, they meet. A quiet café with a scenic view. An elegant restaurant with laughably snobbish waiters. An underground gallery, blank walls. They share empty words, special moments, veiled understandings, little else. Some hope, maybe.

Riot (slowly being rewritten)

Destroy break smash
Just to be a vandal
Punch kick shatter
Didn’t know I possessed
Such a destructive anger
That inside I housed a
Desperate vicious animal
I just want to exterminate this creature

This rage is
At odds with
My usual demeanor
My fingers are itching but
I refuse to recognise
Myself, though these words are mine
This is not who I am
I just want to exterminate this creature

Thanatoaster

You wear
your hospital gown
like a wedding dress
and I'm sorry
there wasn't more
I could do.

it never fails

i am learning how to hunt tigers.

in good weather we venture out
into the jungle
and hang our bloodied shirts
from vines;

then we sit below them
in meditative states
and calmly call
for lions instead.

I am

An artist and an animal
Rational and banal
See through and thick
Atoms and bricks

Laughable and undecided
Unemployed and laughable
Tied down and tied up
hung and hanged
hanged by the hung, hard
constitution

Tropical industrialism
saturated calcium
Trans fatted metropolitan
stone, stone, stone
crumbled
tank toppled

WMD
Hair salons & action movies
Medium mediated by bigger medias
Manufactured cattle
by Corporate Livestock (Inc.)

A deep hole (hope),
rounded & shameless
a vacuum abhorred
Torn up, torn down
a rough draft,
In- grown nails
A personified television
A hypnotized hypnotist

Untitled

I'm just posting this casually. Comment if you want, I'm not expecting any. It's in the same vein as "The Bus to Sofia", I always go back to the backpacking for some reason, it must be a metaphor for life.

Moving from one interlocutor to another, from one drink to another, drunker and drunker, Will is on a rooftop terrace in the old part of Istanbul contemplating the remains of past Empires, destroyed or forgotten, lies and whispers in their wake like trails of dust, scattered pieces of history you can sometimes feel in the hot bosphorus breeze, heavy with the smell of ages, the thick scent of sweat and centuries, the toil of men, warm blood. Above him, above them, is the dark grey dome of urban night, infinitely open, distant, extending out on all sides, and yet close, so close you feel you can extend your hand and graze its soft, suede-like inside with the tip of your fingers. It provides them with a sensation of intimacy, encloses all these youths on their roof, envelops their intricate social mess with exotic elegance, a dull tapestry of blurred sky.

Will breathes in the seasick breeze, lungs extending out to catch the oxygen, coughs out city pollution and water-pipe smoke, swallows long, tepid drafts of weak beer. He is content enough. The conversations around him seem dimmed out and caricatured: stories prolonged beyond their climaxes, opinions too vehemently defended to be heartfelt, drunken slurs of joy or dismay. It all rings out so clear and joyful, at first, then falls dreadfully flat.

Will washes up on a sofa like a drunken sailor staggers into a brothel.

Kathy joins him.

Kathy is Paul’s boyfriend.

Paul is Will’s best friend.

Paul is not in Istanbul.

Kathy, blissfully inebriated, ushers Will closer and spreads her fingers through his ruffled, blond hair. Will feels a telling tightness in his briefs. In a tantalizing what-if mind play he imagines Kathy naked underneath him, against him. He sees himself and feels himself inside her, knows he wants to have sex with her, now knows he will as Kathy’s hands wraps around his neck and pulls his face towards hers. Their noses bump lightly, their mouths collide. Kathy’s mouth is hot, deep and wet, which makes Will aware of his, dry and pasty. Their tongues meet, slop against each other lazily like saluting slugs, retract into their respective caves. The mouths separate (he can almost hear the smack) and thick air floods back into Will’s throat.

Kathy’s eyes are smoldering.

“Will, where are we?”

“We’re on a rooftop, Kathy.”

“What the hell are we doing on a rooftop in this godforsaken place?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Keep me company will you.”

He doesn’t say it, but he thinks: yes. Yes I will keep you company I am here I am there for you do with me all you want I am taunt like a bow pull me play me play with me I don’t care do what you want with me yes yes.

She draws him to her again.

Creationism

(first thing I've written in a while)


There are holes on both sides of your neck
and when you breathe I hear you echo.
I couldn't bring myself to ask you what happened
and honestly, I probably don't want to know.
It was most likely a traumatic accccident
that left you with gaps below your ears
and I think the fact that you don't mention it
is brave and strange at the same time.

I wouldn't know where to stab you
if I ever got that mad.
And if you keep running around with a smile
then it can't be all that bad.

Do you feel the birds screeching at you
as they flap hastily away?
They'll come close to you someday.
They'll warm up to you someday.