xci. Anatomy of Melancholy

Though there is hardly a patch of
this nineteen-piece quilt
untouched by scar tissue,

I thank God
(and Vishnu and Ra)

that I am not
ambidextrous.

xc. Protect

Only so much can be said
in seven lines,
(in fourteen words),
to an audience still in denial
that we’re truly alone;

what can you expect
in seven, civil lines
devoid of pessimism,
and verbose confessions
of ennui?

I guess that’s what they
call poetry.

lxxxix. Cloves

i could pretend that we laughed…
tripping over what we
wished was left unsaid.

stumbling

down the musty corridors
of a blues club back-alley

we tasted the cloves
on the moss-speckled bricks,

the sparkling glow
of raspberry lip stains
that dared to linger
in the air we breathed.

…but the hour chime
never came,

and we

were doomed to repeat
our loving mistakes.

lxxxviii. Decipher

…and after the fact,
we’re still around:

kicking, and screaming
what we could never
write into song;

we’re still

counting the days, and
deciphering flames
(their messages
scribbled in soot.)

we could rewind,
but why waste past breath
on skin that has wrinkled?

grey hairs, yeah,
and yellowed fingertips;

you were still
immortal.

lxxxvii. Healing Me

It’s Sabbath morning, and
these lungs are wide-awake,
barely aware of
the train tracks they will find;

and while the world
comes to its annual
grinding halt, I’m
soaking in the morbid dew
–the narcolepsy fog—
of an ominous faux pas.

Dear Lord, it’s
Sabbath morning
and this boxcar is late;
my feet are a clump
of shredded windsor knots.

Is waiting the closest you come
to making mistakes?

My arthritic mirages won’t sleep
until pneumonia breaks the skin
of the heels that peel the tracks;

nor will my paralytic voice hush
before this prison bursts at the seams;

and the lexicon will map the way
through crop circle veins
(through soothsayer claims,)

until the freight plagues declare
a unanimous amen.

lxxxvi. The Fawn

all i want
is to desperately show the world
what they’ll miss
when they’re gone.

lxxxv. El Tiempo Vuela

my dying last words:
“i regret not believing
in everything.”

lxxxiv. Immortal

When we spoke, I
had faulty words
for hands;

and

you made it clear
that our silhouettes
were only numbers
at the back

of your user manual.

And we rocked
forward, and
back again,

I thought of the spark
versus the light:

a candid trench,
and the rotten stench
of our guillotine
charades.

Could you still
mock us

if you knew

where the dormant lies
were kept?

lxxxiii. Moiré Syndrome

Theirs was
a splendor unlisted
amongst tinted verses
in a crumbling book;

the smiles of Rome
refused to fade,

yes, the

ides of March
were a fate to break;

interlocked,
a pride of nightmares
stained themselves
into the footsteps

of tired homes:

they formulated
their own escape.

lxxxii. Verbose and Decayed

that place
(the cesspool)
that lies above
your temple veins,

it

called out in litany
and drowned away
the scent
of the rain.

and we heard:

the grinding of
breaks,

the
scent of the flame,

creep aboard
your paramour vessel.

and though
time never stopped;
though,
bones never knew
the taste of skin,

the morning became
a fading polaroid
of disease.