starfish

shoreline skied
settling on sea floor
she jaunts
fivelocity
with awesome ossicles

flaccid fossil
pity you cannot retreat
your tube feet breathe,
your motion is vaguely implied
on cartography,
your stomach is the way to your heart,
you hate pick-me-ups
and keepsakes.

“where is my current?”
you cried

maybe you could just swim away
to any of the
four directions

maybe your fifth arm
center adjoint
points
to where you should be hiding

inside.

≠ chained

clay

cold
with some water we start your
molding
your base, I am
holding
until a vase forms
rolled
handful horizontally
folding
you could urn
coldly
on a vessel
scaffolding
or auction
sold
a perfect vestibule
holed

Whoopi.

What are you worried about?

make me

stop, make me start
the artful, inspired muse
lops thoughtful.
abridged

she is never present but
her presence is felt
props healthful
an on-switch

hers has dealt
me prose
as I welt wealthful with
loss and pain
and the beauty of everyday
fortuitous torture
a lovely bespoke challenge

the fight makes me free.

cognac

glass capsule of foolish outpour vice
felt the heat like we were
outdoors
modelled, she lied down
no frown
just glistening and whispers.
outside drunk lisping
slippered listening
i know that the tide
has died down
i know.

untitled

sorry
i wish i was there to hear your story
your notions
ampersand
floodgate emotions

analysis of your suitors,
their courtship transition
and your short-lived volition paralysis.

your well-placed
gut spill
from that stem-thin
bell waist
and dreamframe thighs.

your rolling-eyes sigh.
your commit-to-memory daily high
your occasional swear word
third syllable accents
or delusional foreword
method.

your retina retains
window pane-translucent
stains
yet your strength is not thinned,
nor is courage,
from running against the wind.

willow grain
distant for now we remain.

glory, one thursday
when we see similar prey,
let’s stalk.

hunting tails.
beige seige
sage rage.
eager analogy
vague tracing and pure pathway
prose.
i won’t be nosy.
i’m never that way.

we’ll drown the surrounding music
wall with a’fixed twin iris
and fixated high res
anecdote smother.

lose ourselves
keep company
find each other.

Haves

restless walking
waking up to peanuts and dust-drenched roads
where things take place
Matters
mutter-talking
I can hear your secrets
When you close your eyes
in summation
in some, uhm, nnn-yeah.

time for our heels to strike the ground
at the same split second
the click beckons.

johnmaiR

to
get
her
there.

surrender to her stare down
she kills with her eyes
defiantly
flaring.

i caught her with her hair down
and hypnotic honesty vice.
tells me she isn’t together,
in repairing.

concerns and worries
self-analyze
may she realize
our caring
get her bearing.
heal.
howl out unerringly
how she conquers
tearing.
pair it with a sharing verse
terse in recovery.

discover, uncover
daring.

darling, we are at
your wings.

Clear On Repetition

my arrow has
a song
a sound
flaunting
spouting words
that escape a silent mouth
half-attentive on an earphone
vacation
stationed between a rock and a hard-to-place
genre

peers
patellas shaking
ready to pounce
to dance
index rakes a bit of table veneer
takes a while
taints
scrapes a bit of platinum
nail paint
hums on
hammers home

and there’s no place like
it
no place I would rather
be

saturn rings jupiter drops then pluto disappears

plan it
you brag
jointly

drag everyone by your o’clocks and thirties
calendar
cute for approximately
fourteen and a half minutes
not more
milquetoastly

tell me
you’ve gotten where you’ve always wanted
to be
i hope it’s not affinity
wanting
to belong to
some/where/thing/one else created
your brilliance fated
faded gray
wasted away

aNY suddenly defines you
and why?

in fact, minelli
whom you’ve never met
has that sort of a telling impact
on your mantra

you forget it was
sinatra

so much for spelling polite
and your previously heavenly body
time is floating on
in disturbed fragments
orbits
an herb sage
brawnly spoke that scarred wisdom
is not a function of age
nor do drawn stars
have a point.

Miss You and our conversations

heavy dumbell
morning minutes after midnight message
i lift

linen, rotten
you’ve managed to put a lot in
wean-mangled
i’ve forgiven
after all you’re there
i’m here
but i have not forgotten

kiln tempers
and strengthens
heat wave resistant
heart pespires, yes?
breakable nonetheless
but together
i have been a friend
weaving fairness in mind
you have been
one of fair weather.

i’ve said goodbye
nearly thirty times
genuflected
in respect
in spite of being severed
but really
spiteful and dreary
you might be
the one
who will not be
remembered

waning
sin
don’t wait for someone to take
you there

heavy dumbell
shame you’re named
that way
you don’t intend to
wrap anyone down
your flaw is you’re bound
by Newton’s second law
she doesn’t stop
no coercive force or size
is recognized
wrought
fight
rout, demon scout
a bout
her.

square space

twenty-one consonants
five dissonant vowels
miss one
get boxed
in
finite combination
asking you
our player
to
define it
consolation
to win
to think outside it
not the towel
thrown in

the consummation
of columns, solemn rows
miss guide
by numbered left-hand sides
vying
the sound of
what is right
must go down

across is my burden
answers I can tell
are in pen’s inkwell
hoping I may think well enough
to solve
maybe it’s not in English

warlock’d

past four a.m. slumber cannot be sane
the thought process needs
a morning shift
this time belongs to mister zombie
fast four fingers combing
forehead tufts then resting on the
cranial womb

the body loves these hours
with selfish pride, it boasts of life
while others idle in the
serfish ride of sheep sleep
leaping only into fleeting life
when dreams involve slipping off
of altitude
in blind surprise.

out of character

out of mind
out of sight
out of all the people you went
out with maybe
out of pity
out of spite, night
out at the town i was drama least with
out, an
outstanding friend, but then finding
out you see/decree me
outer from from thy inner circle
out striking time on
out by your baseball diamond
out swearing bastard
out bearing dastardly
outlandishly
out brandish me
out with the truth I am
outlier, call it quits signing off over and
out

somber

Where you are.

There is no regret when I say this

In somber tones

That you seem surprised about your life

In New York.

To me, the stress is on

Where

And not

You.

Status?

Yvette (December 15, 2002)

Amid witches

Wizards and warlocks

Clotting locks and stopping clocks,A wide-eyed wonder
Seeks contrast and solace,
Purity and malaise,
Creation from decay.

Here is her rhyme.

Ubiquitously
I paint beauty around me.
I gather (and source) what is around
Like a snowball taken from the ground
And then
I hurl it into the abyss
Which questions my being.

ASK ME
ASK ME
ASK ME

I give it an overzealous nudge
Unhurtful like a sculpting mallet
I take out my palette
And
Pick out a hue.
Not mindful of its existential
Pantone.

It is my own
Irreproachable splotch of gray-red-brown-gold-purple-teal.
The paints congeal.
Dyeing gives life to being.

I wicked-watch again.

SCRIBBLE

I dribble my loose coins
In a jackstone-era way.
I demand no pity
From those blind to ambiguity
From those who pigeon-hole and categorize
Subpatrol and heterogenize
Term and dictate
Bias and separate.
I ask no pity from those who put up these walls.

On yours I shall hang
My art.

Learning the Backstroke, Unlearning the Backspace

When we stop

Putting pens to paper
Or punching keys and touchpads
I’ll be glad
Because we’ll be
Staring at the sun’s exposed single iris
You will pose
I will smile
With composure

In flight
We will walk
To the place
Where our shoes will lose
Half-an-inch in height
Where the pinwheel wind
Is spinning
Stories
Where the only friction is
Between floors and feet
Or doors greeting
Closure

We’ll pine for
A fine, finite conclusion
Endorphin-filled
Worry-free
A recluse from
Recurring themes
A land where we discuss
Glands and our glances
Are stolen
Scheming

We’ll be a team
You and I in paired
Jerseys
A six hundred thread count sea
A sure azure sky
My beach blanket falls
Into where I plan to place
And plant my coccyx base
For a view of
Foreverlong.

Don’t stop when I say when.

September Murmur

Frown

Seconds drowning
Time is clothed
In a glorious long gown
Ascend-descending
Fending off both
His story
And the future

Grumpy
I’ve found
Railings
Are bound
To stop you from jumping and
Rendering
Your lovely bare feet
On tree stumps
Prickly peat

Hassle
Suture your
Wounds
Heal in your microcastle
Fasten the straps once more
Just to be sure
Even though one thing is not

We cannot
With familiarity
Make our time stop
Drop
Everything
Meander
And tender to your causes
The sands are the bosses

But for you
I’ll hang on to that moment
You’ve given me so much of yours

That fraction
So that the traction of time
Breaks
Brakes

And you will hear the sound
Of it
Slowing down

Surrendering

berntalk

missing
mourning calls
at one-thirty
talking as if
we were both
sixteen

and keenly
in perfection
we go about our
dissection
and exhaust
thought

ours

hours

then try
for an emotionless
goodbye

minor chord

can you picture it
through your rheumatic
little lens
the brittle sense
of being in love

can you frame it
on milky glass
and a metal pane
shiny
bright eyes

turn around
help me
i
can no longer imagine it

circle A equals anarchy

blitzkreig
fire in the sky
your bi-plane………HIT
is no match for my
messerschmitt

you crash
fire on the mountain
coping
your parachute fails to
open

why fly
fire at midnight
nonchalantly
there is no gallant
stand