Poetry: Unveiling

siren rains blossom
a rainbow parting my lips

blinded when she peaks

Poetry: Insomnia

I am counting sheep again
The glaring opalescence of their round jolliness taunting me
Round like the pillows I have beaten with my tossing
Round like the palpable absence of my lover’s breasts
Prancing, those well rested babes at play, jolly
Twirling around my head until I am dizzy
And choking on this fatigue
Proxy for the early-bird’s insomnia
I want to take the pretty sheep out back and slaughter them.
Sheer away the fluff until there is nothing but
the pale, sickly puniness of their emasculated bodies.
Knit myself a blanket of woolly dreams so I can wrap up in night and sleep.
But I am no killer, a little squeamish around blood
Besides, I've been told my needle point needs some work.

Communication

I swallowed a skunk
Or maybe it was a word
A  few seven-letter words
Consumed with four-letter gulps
Gusto gone awry
As this industrious funk
Willows from my throat
Encapsulating these
Hot, grimy, skunky words
You deflate under the noxious sounds
A pause, a breath, defective peristalsis
I’m just trying to tell you how I feel

Poetry: War Torn Kitchen

The kitchens of my youth are dying.
Their pungent memories opposed
by an innocent army of raw kale leaves
and fresh herbs, a battle long waiting to ensue.
And in the middle, some former
innocence of mine at a kitchen table,
waiting for a steaming bowl of cream of wheat
a little butter and extra brown sugar,
the likes of which only mama understood.
My childhood belly swells with her
offerings: tamale pie, strawberry shortcake,
cheese enchiladas then swiftly, culinary excavation
pubescent angst devoid of savory remedies, the
fridge overtaken by condiments and distilled liquors
My mother hidden, hijacked by the demands of the bedroom
the labors of the world, withholding the food
leaving a starving child to run for cover,
malnourished and famished for her presence
and that extra spoon of brown sugar.
Now a vegetarian or a vegan or a woman
who sneaks burgers in silence
in the back seat of a rented car and ladles love
onto the plates of others to serve the shame away
I race to save that kitchen, to infiltrate the refuge of
bitter hatred on my tongue and can those memories
of sweet strawberries and whipped cream. It has
become crucial, the last tendrils of my mother’s kitchen
marching through my senses, past the organics
and the cookbooks and extravagant spices
and out into the world, to join those other
war torn kitchens which have been deserted,
AWOL hands bent crooked under the weight of knives,
unused aprons noosed along side the
continual flapping of a kitchen door.

Between Silence

This melody in my soul
an exiled threnody
defends your memory
immediate deference
melancholic dictator
humming palpable regret

No words, just bitter force
commanding submission
brown knees and sticky tile
bromidic clenching of counter
a guttural cyclone
my pinched throat

This loving hostage
lament your esurient end
begins the constipation
browbeaten acknowledgement
this rhythmic denial
embalming of love

please don’t die.

The Beat Goes On

You greet me, this vicious callithump
banging drawers and pots and pans
A self-appointed marshal of ceremonies

You flash red, the billboard of our love,
fire synaptically around our countertops.
I applaud your grace, but I get the game.

Let's pretend the primordial wheels that
parade you around my existence ceased
to churn, left you exiled to my open arms.

Let's say you emptied those trunks filled
with metallic exhalations, and weighted them
with the vulnerable whisper of  "hold me, love"

Can you imagine how much lighter you
could float not being a constant display of
grief, not tied to an entourage of regret?

I have tried to enjoy the steady thump of
you marching in and out of my sight, tried to
ignore the screeching of those wheels.

But I already know, as I lean to kiss you,
this is all just a junk shot in the dark
and soon, the music will come to an end.

Poetry: The Fan

You could call me the grim reaper
The fundament on this island of one.
I am the diatribe that catapults you
from rhonchus vibrations of hostility
and into cold sweats, the reach of my
devastation creeping into even the
most peaceful of your nocturnal emissions.
I have devoured the advertising of your
infelicitous bagio, that shameless flaunting
of glistening limbs and organs, primordium
within, of which I shall indulge. You are mine.
You can expect to be bent over in violation,
stripped of all you have willingly withheld.
You can expect my undying adoration.