​Sibanda is the author of Love O’clock, The Dead Must Be Sobbing and Football of Fools.
Ndaba Sibanda`s work is featured in The New Shoots Anthology, The Van Gogh Anthology edited by Catfish McDaris and Dr. Marc Pietrzykowski, Eternal Snow, A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Poetic Intersections with Himalayan Poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma scheduled for publication in Spring/Summer 2017 by Nirala Press and Seeing Beyond the Surface Volume II.

​I feel playful today, Island please provide me
with some water sports. For magnificent dishes
can I please have a fusion of Creole and Chinese
and Indian and European flavour? I will tuck
into seafood whilst listening to Sega music!

I guess mountain trekking wouldn’t be a bad idea.
I promise, I shall go hunting and birdwatching.
My stay here will be characterised by visiting
the luxurious shopping malls and picking up
a souvenir or two. What an African destination!

Sightseeing pleasure is in store for me in the form
of breathtaking horse-racing tracks, mountains, parks
and botanical gardens. This is the turquoise Indian Ocean.
Mauritius, with your year-round sunshine, your white beaches,
your beach parties, your scenery—you make my vacation meaty.

​leakages were liked and licked by the like-minded
what looms  large now is no longer a legacy but legalities    
 
to appear before the mines committee for gone glittery blackberries
or to dilly-dally, duck and dodge their little man`s minefield of queries?
 
some say the MPs are not dense to ask 15 billion questions    
how did the diamond revenues develop legs and disappear!
 
yet others say summons are not sentences or custodial kisses
seems there is a subtle parliamentary rage over loftiness  
 

​

The little history I know about Aunt NakaThembelihle
is that she was a school teacher and an activist of sorts.
She taught both in the urban and rural areas of the country. 
During her active years in education and after retirement
she advocated for the protection and promotion of the youth,
chiefly those infected by AIDS ,or with albinism  ;or the abused.
She used to watch nearly 100% of Highlanders matches in Zim.   

Aunt NakaThembelihle visited us a few days ago, what a lively chat
we had  over a number of issues. Dynamic as ever, she told me how
she used to support her favorite soccer club through its lows  or highs.
What strike me is the fact that she is an old lady who follows what is
happening around the country in particular and the world in general.
A nonagenarian, she still exhibits a measure of smartness in terms
of observational skills in spite of her poor sight and diabetic state.  

Of all the three daughters of my aunty, none is a nurse but she
is disheartened by the government`s recent decision to sack
15 000 nurses for engaging in a strike action. “I`ve always stood
with those in dire straits, in destitution, in distress , those
whose plight  and grievances  are ignored or brushed aside.
I supported the liberation war fighters for the same reason.
Today, I stand in solidarity with the dismissed nurses. Nx !” 

A frequent visitor to the myriad of the country`s public health
bodies, she believes  paralysis has turned them into death traps.
“In the past, do you know that Luveve Clinic had specialists and
all the equipment and drugs you could think of? Now, it’s sad,
big hospitals like Mpilo are devoid of basic drugs! You then
expect nurses and doctors who are underpaid, underequipped
to work as if everything`s fine. That`s clowning. Where`s sanity?”


She said everybody has a right to life and a fair trial, not what
she called the Bambazonke Games which we are being exposed
to on a daily basis. “What do you mean, auntie?” I enquired. 
“I`ve never been a big fan of the Bambazonke mentality. It`s delusional.
It`s a self-serving mentality which falsely assumes that one has a right
to grab everything, anywhere, anyhow. A win-win affair for oneself
without compromises. It breeds a false sense of entitlement and pride.”


We discussed sports again, only this time she was telling me how proud over
the years she has been of the performances and pedigree of the national cricket
team. “Your cousin, Thembelihle who has lived in India and other countries
says when foreigners introduce cricket as a subject for discussion she looks them
 in the eye, and takes them head-on.  Why? It`s one of the few sports in which
we`ve made a name for ourselves. On that note, I stand with Health Streak. I smell
a scapegoating hand of the Bambazonke syndrome .Hope cricket won`t be the loser”.      

Pests
pestering people
 
Peace-wrecking
peeping into sparkly plates
 
Pretending to be smart
piddling around foodstuff
 
Poor little irritants  
pissing on people`s pride

​​

​In a lifetime full of yearning
through which came wishing, dreaming
within many splendid, unquiet enthusiasms
an echo murmured back the word, prayer!
I was needy and you solicitous,
my mind always straying to paradoxes.
Instead I uncovered the devotion,
the perkiness brought such euphoria
and so I screamed, 'Is that a blessing?'
Mattering and assaultive within theodicy
Urging and purging within my slyness,
my shyness or otherness, I could not
awaken! Tossing its ghost into all desire,
'It's that barrenness,' I muttered
Quirkingly back into my memories
craving the eccentric, eclectic fantasy
the yearning essential evanescence
an evolutionist laughed in retort.
'It's that piety,' I whispered.
The saintliness simply smiled.

​Blasphemy courted with anecdotal perversity
limitless chatter echoes through the canyon
all now weeping at the sight of blind hypocrisy
catching the dancing orbs with a butterfly net
seeking a peace but tripping through garbage
sands stained with the blood from star shards
music calms the beast, but on the jungle roars
pinnacle of life, enchanted in an icy cold desert.
tutelage from shamans; swaying to a spirit drum
casting of vows into pious devotional candlelight
earthy spirited flutes touch the heart and soul
bodies float down into the heart of white flames
albino raven's perch upon high sandstone glyph's
my vision now doubling objects indiscriminately to
the many I wish to see, and those which I do not.
The images are now imprinted upon my eyelids
overlap, confusing, awkwardly, as a child's collage.
Yet, I can now see beyond the darkness, beyond
the terrors, beyond the bright white crystal sparks
a burning man now tosses ink onto the parchment.

During the foggy nights of late September.
As the bugs have faded away, the colorful
leaves have once again come out to play.
Laughing and gliding down to the ground,
some spin like helicopters, round and round.
The cat sits watching the tendrils of haze,
reserved in his thoughts of warmer days
A field mouse now works to build a nest
takes time at night for a well-deserved rest.
The night birds are silent, preparing for flight.
Off to temperate climates and light breezes.
I see geese flying south in their huge flocks.
And wonder if it's time to turn back the clock.
My pumpkin smiles to the Song of Autumn.

​
(Published, Stanziac Stylings Blog)

Flames reflected within the cat's eye
a glass of spirits await a parched soul
wool socks warming my chilled feet
the dog listens while the wind howls.
Teapot whistles in a shrieking pitch
inside a little cabin on a snowy night
as loneliness wreaks of rumination
a harsh stare from the napping cat.
Ink flows smooth on a poet’s night;
imagination tickles a swirling mind
image of acute emotional darkness
seeking the shadowed voice inside.
as the cat now naps with an eye open
the mouse creeps on the window sill
the snow shovel falls with a clamor
everyone jumps as the wind howls.

(First Published, 4/19/17, https://youronephonecall.wordpress.com/)

​A walk tonight down a slippery slope
winding its way like a long-coiled wire.
An albino raven perched in a maple tree.
promises of magic, he laughs and flees.
Circles high above, then leaves the valley.
using my walking stick, lest I slide down
I feel the history in this enchanted place;
Roman Warriors and Knights on horses.
Fights to the death for an important cause;
I hear the whispers of those who conspire
plotting a death or taking of one’s kingdom.
I hear soft cries of those in dying throes.
The screams of pain, last words of refrain;
I hear echoes of sages, now lost to the ages;
clanging of swords, and mandolin chords,
listening to history singing on a fall breeze.
Hastening my walk through the old grove;
Moon lights my way, into life borne today.
 

​In a kingdom full of lodges
My knights, I could not awaken.
I crave the happy, historic hut
the green green-way gardening.
I am shorn of my chestnut horse
an echo whispered, 'weeping willow'
and you came in gently sauntering.
The trumpet vines glared in orange.
There stood a thorn-less flower child
who could be more purely of faith?
Eagerly I looked for the cottage,
but my mind always strays to tipis,
the ingenue brought such sorrow
I threw its ghost into the root cellar
as I am without my healing ginseng.
'It's that wooded sorrel,' I exclaimed,
removing the stress from my intent.
The celadon white hut complexing;
my thoughts are astray into woodlands
somewhat louder than hounds on a fox.
Back, back into my memories receding
I had dreamed of chambers sharing;
instead you uncovered the ovenware.
The small silver birch bowed in the wind
life in a shaded stained-glass window
beyond a retro cottage - a little Căsuță.
 

​Ahmad Al-Khatat. He was born in Baghdad on May 8th. From Iraq, he came to Canada at the age of 10, the same age when he wrote his first poem back in the year 2000. He also has been published in several press publications and anthologies all over the world. His poems were translated into Farsi, Albanian, German, and Chinese. And he currently studies Political Sciences, at Concordia University in Montreal. He recently have published his two chapbooks “The Bleeding Heart Poet” and “Love On The War’s Frontline”.  With Alien Buddha Press. It is available for sale on Amazon. Most of his new and old poems are also available on his official page Bleeding Heart Poet on Facebook.

My heart has many doors for you tonight  
Many candles I have for our anniversary  
But no more wishes are worth asking for,  
When everything is falling apart 'tween us 
 
I miss listening to the music of my homeland  
Where I see myself as lucky or even a loser  
I’m a happy being dancing by the flowers  
Stepping on the leaves that will hide my grave 
 
 
I just want to go back and fix the damages  
I tried to fold my mistakes from the past  
While love letters and roses bloom under the rain  
But you ignore my tears and miserable smile 
 
My grandma died before Mother’s Day  
She's away and unseen, unheard, and unsure  
If she will understand the reason why is her  
Veil is now worn by the moon in the early dawn 
 
Nobody wants to remember me anymore  
Nobody cares if I will live for today or not  
So many pictures taken and familiar faces,  
Unfortunately, those faces are no longer the same 
 
I'm sorry for being who I am to you all 
Maybe I should let my heart break slowly to  
Feel the distance between life and death  
The veil of the moon is my grandma’s face waiting on me 
 ​

From yesterday, today, and tomorrow  
We will always be friends and even more  
We laugh shoulder by shoulder and cry 
Separately like birds with broken wings 
 
Life is awesome but short to enjoy  
Some days are windy with swords that  
Cut the sun from shining through you 
I'd watch and weep with the clouds 
 
People nowadays have the skin of a wolf  
They smile like a ghost that can't find 
Destiny and mercy, but from you I saw 
Baghdad and the days we are craving 
 
To drink wine and other hard liquors  
Can't take our misery away for good  
Perhaps my heart breaks frequently  
And it heals when I talk to you alone 
 
 
You're the one I want to be friends with 
Today is your birthday and so is mine 
I used to walk up towards suicide  
But not anymore just because of you 
 
We are growing old and near in the future  
We will be parents and great fathers  
But if I die 'fore you or anyone else  
Take care of my wife and mostly kids 
 
Happy birthday to you my best friend  
I wish that all of your dreams come true  
Just remember you are the greatest gift 
And sweetest brother that I always wanted ​

​Robin Wyatt Dunn lives in a state of desperation engineered by late capitalism, within which his mind is a mere subset of a much larger hallucination wherein men are machines, machines are men, and the world and everything in it are mere dreams whose eddies and currents poets can channel briefly but cannot control. Perhaps it goes without saying that he lives in Los Angeles.

​die
and be better
glowing noxious yellow
steaming bright
 
the world inside the world inside the world
your love

​I want to kill america
because I love it
cut out its heart
and eat it

​break and hold away
more each day
and only
not stuck nor stern
but glowing red
like my heart
 
fear the day's embrace
all wet and shaded
hear the night waiting over the side of your mind
 
dear heart
wait
 
take the message long and slow
I wrote it for you

​take me deeper in
don't let me out
 
what mail or mast or hate
the wrinkled pardon of the sea
 
the nasty wives of the dark
drinking
oaths
lives
 
deal me in to the bright shark
I'll hail him as my arbiter
on the long road south
to damnation
 
to damn
is only to mark
 
for the journey
 
punch my ticket
 
I will have a vanilla latte by the window
as we kill the world
 
as we shutter its glimpses
growths
memories
 
take them down
I'm running in

Gerard Sarnat won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, has been nominated for Pushcarts and authored four collections: HOMELESS CHRONICLES (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014) and Melting The Ice King (2016) which included work published by Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Johns Hopkins and in Gargoyle, Margie, Main Street Rag, MiPOesias, New Delta Review, Brooklyn Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Voices Israel, Tishman Review, Suisun Valley Review, Burningwood Review, Fiction Southeast, Junto, Tiferet plus featured in New Verse News, Eretz, Avocet, LEVELER, tNY, StepAway, Bywords, Floor Plan, Good-Man-Project, Anti-Heroin-Chic, Poetry Circle, Fiction Southeast and Tipton Review. “Amber Of Memory” was the single poem chosen for my 50th college reunion symposium on Bob Dylan. Mount Analogue selected Sarnat’s sequence, KADDISH FOR THE COUNTRY, for pamphlet distribution on Inauguration Day 2017 as part of the Washington DC and nationwide Women’s Marches. For Huffington Post/other reviews, readings, publications, interviews; visit GerardSarnat.com. Harvard/Stanford educated, Gerry’s worked in jails, built/staffed clinics for the marginalized, been a CEO and Stanford Med professor. Married for a half century, Gerry has three kids and four grandkids so far.
gerardsarnat.com

After last Ash Wednesday happened
Valentine's Day woohoo
Jeez time flied – guys up in that sky
-- JC Pesach sup with bros
Good Friday when stock exchanges
close as matter of catholic
tradition while those original Jewish
monotheists’re replaced by
Christians then a half millennia later
Abraham’s youngest branch
begins which now celebrates Sabbath
protesting new Eretz Israel
Gaza security rules: 16 Muslims dead
right before Easter Sunday’s
Resurrection occurred on April Fools
if gluten-free matzo ain’t gross
though non-GMO spelt grain’s worse
-- I’m a matzochrist who derives
pleasure from the bread of affliction.
 
 

Easter Sunday
dawn after Saturday night braised
osso bucco, walking on our virginal forest trail
with one grandson whose inculcated
domain’s
primarily nature,
as Benjamin Blaze
indicates
variegated
petit four trumpet daffodils opening under a double rainbow,
today’s
white Pascal lamb trying to be petted while avoid being spayed
by narcissistic anti-religulous adults exclaims
unfazed,
“Let’s get ready for adoration
from a little boy trading
in his black sheep for Resurrection’s payday.”
 
​

Samurai hair bun --
chop stick sampling hive honey
-- zendo Ouija board

​

​In 1969 I married my best friend’s date
from two years earlier right before San Francisco’s Summer of Love
when he graduated from what we considered “Berkeley” –
 
which is what those idealists who smoked Acapulco Gold
and took full advantage of newly-minted birth control pills
and went to Winterland plus the Avalon Ballroom
to rock out to Quicksilver Messenger Service or Janis Joplin’s
Big Brother and The Holding Company or Jefferson Airplane
as well as Country Joe and the Fish decrying Vietnam
after which, holy mackerel, this Stanford medical student
went to the barricades to burn his draft card
then almost get brains blown out holding a gun
to the head of a Marine driving a bus of recruits to Oakland’s Federal Building
 
-- instead of calling the great northern California university “Cal”
which is what the cohort our age who fell on the Silent Generation
side of the fence called the same school
where they got a world-class classroom education
while my best friend and his date educioed the Free Speech Movement
we thought was a Jeffersonian democracy silver bullet
that had blown the doors off status quo mealy-mouthed bourgeois flatulence
but instead simply opened the window a revisionist assassination-bloodied
decadent sliver before it closed only to leave us stuck
inside Big Brother’s consumer mobile with the Trumpian blues again and again.
 

​Perhaps half of the time
ApplePay isn’t accepted
or does not take plus
is often accompanied by
disgruntled younger folk
in lengthening queues
hissing something about
you goddamn old folk.
 
Both renewed credit cards
that for the last six decades
were mailed in such discrete
envelopes they got tossed 
or maybe never arrived but
then which finally came with
expiration dates now when I’m
50-50 one of those in our 80s.
 

Appleyness fleshes
out both ultimate Cezanne*
and post coital lulls.
 
*riffing off https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/09/the-lurchingly-uneven-portraits-of-paul-cezanne
​

​i. 1960
 
My (step)dad, although a somewhat legendary member
of the Jewish mob and founder of the El Rancho Vegas
who died suddenly from a massive heart attack, nonetheless
was the only father I knew plus best one since none of Mom’s
four subsequent husbands could tie his shoes -- much less fill them.

​ii. 1967
 
At first it had to do with Vietnam -- in my dummkopf case
just surviving holding a gun to the head of a marine driving
a busload of recruits on 880 to the Oakland Induction Center.
 
Earlier that year I’d left intriguing but often alien Victorian Boston.
Came back west -- specifically to San Francisco Bay area
during the Summer of Love, as it were. 
 
Just in the nick to fall on the “forward-looking”
rather than silent generation side of the proverbial clichéd fence
-- and soon enough fall for the love of my life.
 
She showed how to be human/e and gave me
a family that remains our highest priority and source of joy  --
along with our share of sadness.
 
This was provoked watching a doc on the making of 1967’s
epic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band -- looks of Paul,
John and George Martin’s ties; they too could’ve taken frostier paths.

​Penny For Unsolicited Thoughts
 
My life has intertwined with Berserkeley.
Diverting there from Victorian Harvard
circa 1963 for virginal toke. Smashing bus
headlights on 880 to delay Marine recruits
from Vietnam deployment to meeting my wife
of 50 years to CEOing HMOs to now burying friends.

​Lenny Robert Da Bruce Springstein [Sic] Sycophantish Geotrans Abstrusity
 
 
 

loopy splat
fem punk, desert
storm raining
sand on Assad’s
presumed once
defunct dynastic
non-monastic
Ba’ath reign,
Sears Roebuck
repair epicenes
or O.C.D. M.D.
rx’d suppositories
help melt blood
tipped ISIS turd repository parades.
 
bossanova strong
man guru Erdoğan
Turkey breast
semi-sweet malt
kisses Finnish
off rest of milk
chocolate bar star
laddish Kurdish
freedom fighter
chicks waltzing
in my landsman
Jew Himalayers’
thinnish air of
our muy mucho
Syrias despair.
 
this here quaint
glossy Kaposi’s
lipstick party
pic ain’t made
into your basic
USA 45 caliber
cowboy cartridge
now housed in
a Trump Tower
anti-gay museum
of rotting earth’s
public bootlicker Goldman Sachs Mnuchin’s red tilak
dotted pube domain.

​Trump Venn diagram
— venality overlaps
thick senility.
 

​everybodies can
take Zuckerberg data breech
into their own hands
 
tilak dot --  rickshaw
pull micro-entrepreneur --
deletes phone’s Facebook

 

​In the Paleolithic age 
There was a sage 
Who invented smartphone .....
And a drone....
Do not question!
Only listen!
There were planes that could fly 
Electric vehicles that could ply 
Machines that could spy.....
Do not ask how and why!
Just listen!
Don't question!
All answers are found in religion 
Need not bother about science and reason 
Read the scriptures: read the gospel 
Read ' Mahabharata' epic battle 
Read the Qura'an and the Bible  
Till all the lingering doubts settle ....
Do not question 
Do not question!
Human progress thru the ages,
Proletarian struggles for improved wages ,
The philosophers interpretation of the world
The scientists hard work - courageous and bold .....
Do not ever mention !
Else, you' ll be tried for treason!
Present situation is tragic 
There is dearth of logic 
Oppression and exploitation  are strategic 
Tools to the system  capitalistic
Do not question! 
Just , to the rulers , listen..! 

​Loud jingoism
Fanaticism
Majoritarianism
Prevail,
There will not be any space to avail
Freedom of expression
Raise voice in opposition ...
Lies proved by statistics
Frauds covered by numerical gimmicks
Dominate political discourse
Camouflaging original source
This is the era of ' post truth'
Where degrowth can be contrued as growth
Where richness of a few elite
Covers poverty's alarming height
Again, it's goebels propaganda
That could not save Hitler
Present aggressive fascist agenda
Will not support any ruler !!

​Hugging the iron gate 
Mendicant was cursing his fate 
Shouting relentlessly for alms 
Tightly clutching forearms
I rushed with money and some food 
So that he'd leave my place for good 
When I ordered him to stretch his hand,
He immediately obeyed like magic wand 
Seeing his ecstacy and relief 
I asked him in disbelief 
' How could you change your emotion 
So suddenly from disgust to elation?'
He replied with serious face ,
" This is the result of your grace : 
The reaction fundamental to life 
If you were in my place, you'd have experienced si!ilar strife"
After his departure, I thought for a moment 
How human reflexes change with every passing incident 
His prophecy is reflection of reality 
Based on basics of morality

Tattered flesh,
bitter ghost,
solid tears.
The frozen heart,
shattered mind,
salty blood.
The cover smiles
worship sacrifice,
ego, happiness, principles,
torn by a hungry vulture
that uses love to destroy.

​I won’t tear to please.
I won’t kill to see a smile on your face.
I won’t laugh because you’re joyous.   
I won’t starve because you’re not hungry.
I won’t live with the flies
 because u chose to sleep in the grave.
I won’t cry because you chose to
 Hide your teeth from the sun.
I won’t hate because your heart
is filled with despite.
I won’t die because you choose to live no more.
Because it’s me I tend to please.

​His touch softness my voice.
His voice calms me down.
His stare brings shyness to my face.
His skin brings shivers to my body.
His cuddle brings life to my soul.
His laugh awakens my veins.
His dance blinds my future.
 
His face that melts my heart.
His lips that I wish to bite.
His hands that hold with tenderness.
His hugs that get me close to his chest.
His skin that gives me goose bumps.
His voice that awakens my desire.

​Tears, smiles, comfort, hugs,
Anger, love felt with in
Hope found, joy seen.
Reason to live found,
Body feels at peace.
Eye evident with passion
The care, the warmth,
 The heartbeat, the dreams
that was meant to celebrate.
the whole, the broken pieces
the pain, the regret, the hate,
the sorrow, the bitterness, the hopeless body
all because you are no more.

​My vulnerability is a recluse--
she rarely comes out
from behind her boarded windows
and locked doors.
She learned to live in the safety
of the nursery;
to rock herself to sleep in her cradle.
A baby who never grew
to adulthood,
never ventured into the outside world--
A world terrifying and beautiful
with unpredictable melodies
that startle the soul
and tug at the heart’s longings
like jazz.
 
 

​Jazz is a melody—unfettered--
composed by those in chains.
So is it the song of the free man or the slave?
 
A ring on a finger
can bring a pretty pink flush to a face,
But it can also turn a face red in anger
as it is yanked off
and thrown across the room.
 
A decorated nursery and an empty cradle--
What do you see?
A broken dream?
Or a promise of what’s to come?
 
Life’s meaning is often unclear.
Its truth, reclusive.
Something wonderful can be at the same time
or in the next minute—awful.
 
Still, we keep our cradles ready,
Keep giving our rings away,
and especially,
keep playing that jazz.
 
 

​ 
She entered the room--
a bold presence,
feather boa round her neck,
and a jazzy step to her walk.
Her lipstick brightened
her slightly curled lips,
and her eyelids were heavily
shadowed.
The only thing gentle--
was the way she cradled
her purse in her arm,
As if its contents were both
precious and fragile.
She must have seen hard times,
for she had a reclusive smile.
Straight-lipped, she strode
to my counter,
“Martini on the rocks.
Make it a double.”
I didn’t expect her voice
to choke at the end.
I nodded and turned
to busy myself with the order.
Her image went with me.
I felt a mysterious pain about her.
It pressed in on me,
squeezing my heart tightly.
I tried, but failed, to push it away.
A bit breathless, I turned back
to deliver the drink,
maybe say a few words.
She was gone.
All that was left in her place
was a small, pink, child’s hair barrette
made of light ribbon and a simple clip.
It must have been so heavy for her.

​You won’t do it,                                              
Rings the music in her ears
As she stares down at her prey
With her claws ready to strike.
 
The way he breathes
Laughing
With ignorance
And foolishness.
 
The way he stands
Tall and proud
Like any man would
In front of a beautiful woman.
 
The way he smiles,
Mocking and cunning
The same way a man gets away
With the murder.
 
The way his eyes
Brighten at the sight of danger
Like the woman
Who stood in front of him.
 
The way her eyes
We’re pulsing with fear
As if she was having
Second thoughts.
 
The way she held herself
Tall and frail
Like the dainty daisy
She was.
 
The way she held her lips
Tight
Trying not to let them shake in fear
As if she was the pray.
 
The way she held her gun
Shaking like a leaf
Until it falls from its tree
And fails to hold on tight.
 
You won’t do it
Rang through her ears
Like the wedding bells
She couldn’t wait to get away from
 
The new way she held her gun
Strong and powerful
Ready to pull the trigger
And end it all.
 
The new way she held herself
Like a rose
Beautiful and painful
To anyone who dares to get too close.
 
The new way her eyes lit up
With anticipation
To see what would happen
If she made a fist.
 
The new way she smiled
And her grin flashed her fangs
That had hidden themselves
All to hide the pain.
 
The new way he cowered
As her eyes glowed red
As her fangs were ready to shred
As she stood taller than a mountain.
 
Is that a challenge?
She giggled
And she ended it
She ended them.
 
The way he fell
Like the twin towers,
Crashing down and being destroyed
Beautifully.
 

​I'm addicted,
To anything,
And everything,
That has to deal with you.
 
I'm addicted,
To how to make me feel,
Your rush,
And your buzz.
 
I'm addicted,
Because you make me feel alive,
A roaring fire inside my soul
Glazing my soul with eternal sweetness.
 
I'm addicted,
To how you speak to me,
Like the whore,
That I am for you.
 
I'm addicted,
To you because I have never felt the way
That I have with you,
With anyone else.
 
I'm addicted,
Because I can't get enough,
Of the idea,
Of you and me.
 
I'm addicted,
Because I can't leave,
Not now,
Not ever.
 
I'm addicted,
Because you have me hooked,
Like the drug that you are,
You are my addiction.

​I have a friend who is made of darkness
It changes all the time
So I just call “it” It
Darkness is my lover.
 
It likes to tease me all the time
About my hair
My body
Darkness is my lover.
 
It tells me how it doesn’t like it when I eat
Or when I take my vitamins
Or when I’m doing anything at all
Darkness is my lover.
 
Every time I don’t pay attention to It
It will hit me
Just to make me look at it
Darkness is my lover.
 
It likes to make me sad
It says it’s to make me stronger
But being strong hurts
Darkness is my lover.
 
It told me that if I can stand them
That I should leave them
But I don’t want to give up
Darkness is my lover.
 
I can’t stand it
The way people look at us
At me
Darkness is my lover.
 
I’m ending it
I’m ending us
With the tip of a blade
Darkness is my lover.
 
No more vitamins
No more help
I can’t stand It
Darkness and I are one.
 
 
 

​Dive on in to the great big blue
And please hold still so you don’t shoo
Away the yellowtail snapper
Snipping alongside the grey snapper.
Or even the sand diver
Hiding from the groupies that are black and tiger.
The Grey, French, Blue angels
Following their Queen, swimming away from an angler
Searching for a Blue Tang and a Clown
Which one of them is having a breakdown
Have you seen my son? He bubbles.
Uh-oh, here comes the troubles,
Horses of the reef marching forward
In their large herd
Don’t forget to say hello
To a fish that looks like a dildo
It’s electrifying to the touch
And don’t look too much
For the eels aren’t too friendly.
And like to go on a frenzy.
 

​ 
Gold field
Leans on black sky
November wind blows
The musky scent of
Your skin my way
 
I’ve wasted all these years
Yearning for your eyes
On me
The heavy weight of your hand
On the warm skin of my thigh
Warming dark caves
With lightning
 
Such shame --
The moonbow of distance between us
 
Strike it down with Indra’s arrow.
 

​I bet you look good
With your blue eyes
And blond hair
In that orange jumpsuit
 
My bleeding heart hopes
You need stitched up
Over and over and over
And over
 
I smell clean Ohio dirt
While you choke on Texas dust
Behind concrete blocks
 
I can run between a hundred light poles
watch snowflakes fall in porch lights
hike along a ridge of fallen leaves covering my feet
leave my door unlocked
let fog drip from my long dark hair
watch a movie and eat popcorn and suck cherry coke through a straw
dive into cold water on a hot summer day and come up with goosebumps
smoke a cone we nicknamed Clementine
watch my daughter play the sax or shoot an arrow or hit a tennis ball
look for Orion in purple sky any damn time I want
go to funerals, leave flowers on graves
go to the corner store for milk
order a pizza with extra sauce and have it in thirty minutes or less
 
I can hold this piece of paper against a plate glass window and make you read it.
 
I could smile when you realize
That I can get to you
But you can’t get to me
Because I’m on the
Outside.
 

​Days before Christmas
We ran into each other
At the funeral
Of a mutual friend
 
After, we sat in your car at Menke Park
Smoked cigarettes
Drank beer
And listened to Silent Night
 
It was cold
The world is white
 
It was dusk
Winter light frozen
 
You aren’t happy
Your eyes tell me
I know you better than she does
 
Do you remember:
the cross hanging from my neck
As I moved on top of you,
How the gold glinted in the light
You left on in the hall,
So you could see my face
My thin white nightgown up around my tan thighs
 
You whispered I love you for the first time.
 

​Tiny fish, fat and silver
Glistening apricot jelly
White shoulders
Maidens in teal-blue gowns
And wearing coats of ermine
Pink toes
And a sleek beaver pelt
Soft petals of rose
 
Look closer
 
A delicate cat’s tongue
A glossy pebble in a stream
Gray meltwater
The silk underbelly of a lying dog
Chipped ice
A purple hill at dawn
Covered in bee pollen yellow