Room M14

Like rats, they gather in bunches:
One black Two blue Three green Four
I heard his short story sputter on my nails
from his volcanic mouth; his words erupted
with memories flowing up my arms to my brain,
sweltering and spicy agave jogging through
my veins as the nurses handled their
witchcraft—the apothecary’s right hand.
They doused his cauldron body:
Morphine Delotid Vicoden
and garnished their concoction with saline.
Pantera Park: It was a Tuesday afternoon.
Three blind kids raced laps in wheel chairs.
And that annoying old woman that
screamed at her little girl playing softball:
Eight swing Nine swing Ten swing
They lost the game that evening,
the whole professional crew with their
professional badges, degrees, and experience;
they wiped off their loss like a tally mark
on the whiteboard. Squeaky marker, it only
squealed of Wins and whispered about the Mess-ups.
Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen
Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen
Nineteen Twenty Twenty-one
Twenty-one
Twenty-one

---

Written on April 23, 2009

"The box is a place."

**brainstorming**

(about the green-leafed index cards)

that face i choose to wear

Faces
painted in aged acrylic oil
(refusing to dry) are never
worn, with pretense nor
explicit insecurity
they

are fully dressed
with organic yarn
pathogenic and dead Swiss
surges of Kool-Aid lips&cheeks
spouting

They
wear masks down the runway
chic, pomp, flirtatiously
leading on the victim
coaxing plans and
forecasts of success

fortune cookie promises
stuffed with Benjamin Franklin
oozing.

oh, so good.

Since when did the cat
bear knees weak
for the dog?

Or when did the snake
suggestively hiss
for the mouse?

Child's Play

Once a boy, always a boy.

A lapdog inspired to obey
the thrust of his barbed wire leash
stretching; swooned by dreams
etched in sanguine ink and smeared charcoal—
crumbly, like shrapnel on canvas.
It was the work of Heroes, said the pamphlets
to the infant Legacy, coaxing the boys with
chocolate-covered honor and candycane pride.
They snatched the bait like gluttons—a second Halloween.
(Once a boy, always a boy.)

A clever selection of children’s songs
are imbibed and learned by them:
the orchestrated symphony of rifles
humming, bombs plucking a
staccato verse for flavor.
Twice wounded, thrice glittered by
crafty glue guns blasting supernovas on
stenciled paper bodies left to dry in the sun,
dripping a mosaic of white, maroon, and green.

A siren then shrieks a note—Recess—
when boys sprint round in the mud; wind-up dolls
in frisky unorthodox tango,
unsure of which direction their feet are
forced to step. They sing their corrupt alphabet
for the younger kids to hear:
A for America!
B for Be a hero!
C for Courage!
and continue until the hype elapses and the bullets run out,
and the music evaporates with their fantasies;
a subtle indication of the truth slipping,
like a boy skins his knee on the pavement.

And it begins with a delicate close,

not dismissing so much as a wink or a blink
to really translate recent foreclosures;
so fatal to the blur, these
unoccasioned trivialities that
screw with the mind and the banality of
Every Day.

So I see you now,
someone else.
A different view in my previously
blurred and telescopic goggles
(others call them eyeballs).

You look... better, for some reason.

And at once, I can sigh with peace;
for now, all the tumult has dissipated
like the coming of seasons, and the onset of
either famine or floods;
they vanish eventually-
such tremor in a twilight disguise;
all gone now.
Vapor sewage
Gone, invisible track

except into my locket chest,
sealing our story with
gauze and hot glue.

You've patched me up--
where did you learn how to sow?
(Although it's arguable you've
undid the seams--unintentional threads
on your brink and mine,
not meant to be interlaced).

A wise man once said to me
indirectly
the truth about life: It Goes On,
he said. And I'll learn to consult
his therapy educated and pristinely;
primly, cleanly, and proper.

So you're just a girl

So you're just a girl who needs some
extra boost and shake to think,
"Man, this is how I want to feel
and I'll damn-well-please feel this way."
(Just saying.)
Muttering things to yourself on
blank-paged moleskins priced for
nearly half of what it's worth--
though, in the end, if it's worth
your dignity sparing and
ballooning integrity (full cup,
brimming with it), I guess it's worth
the buy.

"Damn-well-please,"
you'll feel how you want,
no longer streaking your shirts
for a spark of acknowledgment;
nor leaving your bra strap 'twined
irrelevantly round your pinky.

Heavens to goodness,
it's all in the interior folds,
(not exterior molds, fungal facials
and other unnecessary productions).

Once a Boy

Once a boy, always a boy.

A lapdog hung by string roots
shot by barbed wire
stretching; an unequivocal menace
in the killing fields. Fields that
boast of legacies that sneak
young boys with shrapnel,
it coaxes with chocolate-covered piety
and offers it to the Legacy of America.
(Once a boy, always a boy.)

Twice wounded, thrice glittered
by a (machine gun) that sparkled
sanguine stars on some mangled thing
of a body; enamored by the
sweet shrill of the rifles
humming some new upbeat single.

The boys wound round—wind-up dolls
in a frisky unorthodox tango,
as if on a showcase being judged by
Big Brother, on a scale from one to ten,
despite letters addressing their
lonely gals back at home,
unsure of which direction their
feet are forced to run;
courage strength be-a-hero,
America!
is their surrogate lover,
that is, if not already flirting with the
smokin’ mine bombs,
sizzlin’ blood on a half-faced man,
steamin’ missiles defecated by planes,
rumor has it.

I can't do this anymore.

I won't allow you.

To this girl I know,

You inspire me; really.
(not minding the wear and tear),
You Go For It
and speak with a set head.
Though you've weaved,
'round my wrist,
a tie-dye reminder that
"Yes. It will be all right."
That,
"Yes. Things will be okay
if you Try."
You're over the past
like the knot that you tied
(the bunched ending of the lead sequence
of the trip--when there's too much
tryptophan),
I believe in the transcription;
and I can only hope to
transcribe what you've demonstrated
so professionally mature.
(I'm following you this time.)

ideas in the air

- marine snow
- this girl i know
- men of the guns
- mirrors: good image/bad image

Props to Mark Sescon.

Almost Always, Always Almost

She said: What is more real?
What you live or what you feel?
Angel busters that
wake you in your crib,
waking you from shadow worlds and
fairytales you used to be so
compliant to the haste
compliant to the moment, sifting away
nothingness from The White Wine.

I hesitate. I deviate.
I push myself to find My Place
in the church, in the
confines of a home,
or confines of a blanched home,
so thoughts won't confuse me,
so Opinion won't abuse me,
and so that peace will drink
my insides instead.

Do you transcend? And venture
thriftily? Crafty spirit, selective host.
But you're still happy.

You stun me, your love for Him it
Strays from the Secular--
Strays from the trash we
dare not confess that we defecate
from our own mistakes.

What happened to this place?
When were choices made so aimlessly?
A nation, mangled in-between
truth and hopeful superstition?

The road belches of sorrow;
a fork in-between.
Reality, transcendental mentality.
Who am I? And who should I be?
Damn conscience,
trekking for answers
that are not inside of me.

Almost, finding relief.
Always, finding grief.

Almost, always guessing.
Always, almost hoping.
Almost, always searching.
Always, almost knowing.

feel good drag

Just let me ink out a RELEASE--
and enjoy the cathartic proportions that
satisfy me more decadently than feasts of
raw veggies and fruits of the stickiest
consistencies.

Not relying on organized happiness;
the scheme of things. Creativity wreaks
havoc and craps on the floor; it busts
through metal caves and solid foundations--
it plasters insecurities and eases the
super ego.

Yes, this is my feel good drag:
I'm higher on this than any other prescribed chemical.

An exercise in creative thought processing and sound affiliations

Spewing emotions strike keyboards
Blatantly, so much for a pause or
Tactful meanings implicitly conjured
By hearty aberrations; a sigh from the
blouse, a shrill from the tired denims;
they leak the truth: they leak about you
and what you’ve done during your
explicitly banal day—they are what
Thomas drank when he spilled his doubts
Upon the Son: One, two, three
Are numbers forged unwillingly by the
stubborn unbelievers; No, this shall not
pass; we cannot relegate, I cannot
delegate and spurn diction so
incandescent (I copied from Lincoln);
so taut and pomp and infallibly cool.