Sunday afternoons remind me of you
The still spickle solid air and background noise
And perfect mid-June hues through windows.
I breathe it in and you're still around
While your smile's framed on walls
On my piano, on desks and in minds,
Everything else is just furniture.
I keep you close through a whistle
When mother used to sing in the mornings
I keep you close through my vintage heart
That used to be spoiled by your gifts,
Though our routine was never predictable
Your smile was newer everyday.
Everything else is just a reproduction.
We were alive, you and I,
And I will not forget
You're just smiling on the other side
Of my afternoon sky.

Something about midnight drives
The look in your eyes
With you I could go on for miles.
Enamored of this-
Your friendship I hold dearest,
I wish you knew all the years
I would have rather spent with you.

Rapture

Soft-bodied creatures
All over my bed
Watch them watch me
Corrupt my own head
Eyes can't look away
From this image of sin
While I stand and search
For a way out (a way in).

Tiny Moments

Some days all I want to do's
Fall asleep on your shoulder
Feel all your hinges tighten
Careful not to rouse me
But why would I wake when I could hold this tiny moment
Suspended,
Ensconced in your warmth?
And if my eyes must flutter open,
They do so only to permit another tiny moment
Of looking closely into your eyes.
They pull me far deeper into a dream
Than any kind of slumber.

Making love with a lie

If my lips could move as fast as my mind
You would know I'm running out of words
To tell myself I might still believe you.
Oh, my spurious joy,
My beautiful enigma,
I don't think I'll stand to see you
For you are tethered
In places I could never go again.

Grasp

Multiples of my arm outstretched
Lain across hallways
Pressed against glass doors
Spilling over green fields
And lone roads alike

Their lips are pursed
Shoulders frighteningly still
Barely escape a breath
Lest I recognize the rhythms
Only your hollows make so well

3am

Her lipstick stains
All over my face
Spinning vision
Smoked up space
I closed my eyes
And thought to myself
"No more"
As the thought of you
Slid through me
Like another shot of rum.

Air sits still
I walk towards the end
Where roads combine
Where skies fade
In hues
Of what I feel
For you
Morning never comes

The Performer

There is a platform that holds him high 
As the faceless crowd watches his every step. 
He wanders across this stage and parades in all kinds of costumes. 
He plays the clown who juggles flaming spears 
And when he stumbles, the people hiss and jeer. 
He has sung the operettas, sparing cacophonies 
And the audience will lend him their loudest cheers. 
He's played the leading roles with lengthy lines, 
A wholesome man reciting fallacies under the spotlight 
But when the make-up's rinsed off and the outfit's unzipped, 
All that's left is a man and his ordinary life 
Whose lips still echo with the voice of one who would exist.

Dramatix

I couldn't hear your footsteps as you walked past me, 
Nor the sounds of the exuberant children nearby 
And the laughter that followed after. 
Only did the increasing volume of my heart speed its way into my ears 
And the continuous battering of my eyelids, 
Reassuring myself you were really there. 
Fast as my heartbeats did time appear to brake 
With an exemption of the sudden movements of the sunlight on your face 
For vast shadows did evaporate 
When you were not too distant anymore. 
And as I stood there while your presence vanished past me, 
While the merry children kept their smiles wide awake 
Mine had gone away as well,
Unable to hear the faint echo of your footsteps 
Tracing a line I could not follow.

I still feel you sometimes
When I soak in the sunlight
That seeps in through the window
Hitting all the furniture in its way
I see your gray hairs glimmer
As you read the morning paper
And the black coffee staining every page
You put down on the table
For a while I hear nothing but your quiet
That fills every corner of the room
Like your thoughts are merely ghosts
Flying over my head
And then you clear your throat
Or switch a leg to cross
Or turn to me and smile a little
You say something softly, like
Good morning, or
Yes?,
Or nothing
You just smile.

I look at that same sunlight
Seeping through any window
And I'll soak in it for a while
It almost feels as if
Your arms are around me
You were always the warmest,
After all.

Only

Emerald eyes
I was thinking of your emerald eyes
I was thinking of dancing with you
Against the same tune
Unwrapping your dress until you spun into my arms, only
Only my body you'll wear
And when you think I'm merely breathing
I'll be breathing you in
I'll dig my fingers deep into your hips
Like I'm sculpting you, only
Only you're already perfect
I'll lie with you
Naked and brazen we'll be
Two hands locked, and two hands free
And in the morning
Your brown hairs will be all over my bed
And I'll only be thinking
Of your emerald eyes again.

That girl

Is she not the greatest
Cacophony,
The most incorrect riff in your masterpiece?
Is she not a misstep and a misfit,
A hop, skip, and a sorry
Off the flattest of all your sheets?
Is she not too morose
For any day you choose to smile
And extensively, incandescently happy
On your most wet and underwhelmed?
That one extra, operative syllable
In your most formally metered poetry?
The very last minute run
In your only pair of stockings?
The off-tune violin string?
The single pothole
You somehow managed to fall in?
The hangnail?
The loose thread?
The nagging voice inside your head?
Is she not
The most marvelous inconvenience?
The shadow in your almost
Perfectly shiny bubble?
Is she not a mistake?

Is she not?
Is she not what thrills you completely?

Sweet cherry wine

I've got one lonely soul
Bones a broken xylophone
Hold me so under control
Until you play one for me
Behind your frustrated eyes
I'm burning deeper into sin
You'll feel my twists around your tongue
I'll feel you taking me in
Can't let you stay for too long
Won't you just let me be
A pulsating note across your throat?
A lovely default for "long ago"s?
Look at me from where you are
I'll be your old jazz memory
Vinyl shine, sweet cherry wine
Keep me right before I leave

Sedation

Ellipsis and blank
Stop me right in my tracks
Under the yawning and laughs
I couldn't talk anymore
No one's looked at me that way
Moonlit spark like the day
Fingers graze over my skin
And I'm left paralyzed
I know you're angry at me
Think I'm foolish (oh, I am)
But I know you love it
Baby I know you love it
And you'll never catch me
Clenching my toes
When you're around