Break

Break
a dollar into four
pennies, five
nickles, six
dimes and the interest
owed.

Break
a silence into yes
or no, or i don't
know! Cast a stone
into a chasm
hear the echo
break and shatter.

Break
a habit like a stick
of sycamore wood dried
five years in your
neighbor's yard
waiting for your hands
to come and sever
without remorse.

Break
a promise into a distrust
that lingers in the hallways
rattles in the teacups,
settles in the corners
and seeps into the bedsheets.

Break
a finger playing ice hockey
with your neighbor of ten
years, the first time knowing
anything of him or what he
loved. Say something
besides "Shit!"; you know him
not well enough to swear.

Break
a heart into the answer
that it never wanted you
to hear: the season's changing
color; I have to move be-
fore winter's here.

Can't change human nature

Look, when you talk
about the sub-prime
petticoat crisis like
it's real, you scare the neighbors.

I know you're losing
thousands a month and that
Burlington Coat Factory
just filed for
government bailout
but try to keep your voice
down, ok?

And really, how could
the fashionistas be so foolish
as to think that they could change
immutable human thresholds
of preference and opinion?
You can't force fashion trends
on the masses,
dearie.

Beat.

...Especially not 18th century
Paddington Bear type relics, really.

Now where did I put my Crocs?
I'm going out for a latte.

In a tight dress loosely fit

A girl in a tight dress
passed me swiftly in the hallway
underneath my office building.

Her dress was taught, lithe yet
loose; loose enough that I could've
torn it from her with a flick--
and made me want to.

?

Some things communicate with swifturgentsilentmotionthings--
and I wish we all heard such language
daily.

Which begs the questions:
Am I the only one
who picks up radio signals from your heart?
Who detects the faintest wiff of your distress...
...
Am I?

?

Back to the dress,
which I'd like to tear from you with a flick:
can you hear it snatching, falling,

cascading; and you: gasping, your breath
catching, and then relieved? can you feel the air chill
and then, my arms, warm?

?

Can the world dissolve with a harsh action?
Can a rough twist to make it crack and break?
Can we drop all work, and, please(?), proceed to play?

I am full of memories
of the recent hallway
I wish I knew your name.

Apology

'Many hate God having only seen his backside,
Caught him on the off day, sunglasses on, riding the train to work in a haze,
rain outside, him powerless to affect.'

--for a girl, disaffected.

I owe you an apology,
one big fat stinking reeking apology,
a pile of rubbish I pulled from my old house
to show you that I’d torn down my walls.

I want you to see me sitting here
perched atop that landfill of my old life
picking refuse from the dirty heap, smiling deeply,
banana peels for crowns and bracelets.

I want you to take a deep breath,
and know that I am well, cascading against my own past,
like a waterfall over rocks it once was,
and when you hear the sound, rejoice,

for I am found.

Weather Forcast

Prologue:

Pretty girls flock together
For protection from the slightest weather
And act as if its common sense
That everyone worries about bad men

Like fingernails or body hair
Pedicures and petty things
Every little detail counts
Every inch and every ounce

Act 1.

I’ve seen pretty girls come and go
And know one thing

  They never stay.

Like the weather of a summer day
They storm from thunder straight to rain
Then hurricane on back again, and sand storm
into every drain.

Whirlwind and dust cloud commeth,
Quiet days and haze that buzzeth.
Many different types of weather
pass for sane and sand us to a hue

so strange and rough we oft do think
it normal, but horrible is the color
and the taste, of hesitating, and of waste.
Like the changing of the temperature

  The view is sure to fluctuate.

Act 2.

Don’t stand, don’t follow,
Don’t move with the changing seasons
Don’t leave your padded seat to chase the view on the veranda

Take up your cross and walk
Not towards the setting sun or rain
But stand instead and talk
Of the weather and of coming pain.

Epilogue:

All storms will deviate, dissipate and clear to nothing
All suns will sublimate, dissolve and disconstrue their wanting.

To my new love, long delayed, still at bay

You are all too real to be my love:
made of skin and bones, covered in flaws.
You are physical, feelable, all things I desired
without substance.

For I wish to love
more brightly than the stars that are burning up
and you are real
like anything made of anything that isn't love.

I am a headspace suspended in skin,
covered with nostalgia, nervous and thin,
shod with painful shoes of thought,
walking these long halls of memories and cots.

For I wish to love
more brightly than the stars that are burning up
and you are too real
to be anything that is anything that really isn't love.

We are both in love with dying, we are drinking from That Fountain,
that is pouring like an avalanche, coming down the mountain.

Hello, Word

Words are like the fat fingers of children
reaching for things they don't understand.

Words are stubby, clumsy, fat-covered bones;
chicken wings when we require surgeons hands.

Words are sawed off shot-guns
when we require sniper rifles.

Words are thoughts too vague
to not be expressed, desiring response.

Words are rough drafts of emotions
seeking revision by exposition, hatred.

Words are hammers for sledging
intellectual walls, testing depths, sounding barriers.

Words are concussion charges
for throwing off the enemy, falsifying your current location.

Words are always past tense,
as soon spoken, antiquated.

Words are broken wagon wheels
on the trail to happiness.

Words are faulty cell phone connections
between human souls, weak networks, signals.

Amen.