Remember This in Time

I promise that someday I will be faithful To my journal again. Another sacrifice To the fires of my economy. The poet-sap has dried, Hardened to a cloudy yellow But I guess beneath This bark I’ve grown, The blood still boils And the words still run Like antelopes or Like a persistant brook.

Spare Tires and Empty Alleys

I used to roll spare tires down alleys in Point Loma to see how many streets they’d cross before stopping: against a trash can or a moving car, a cinderblock wall or a pile of dirt. Stupid things is what I thought. Why’d they stop there; it could have kept going after that. Steering. I’m [...]

The Cataclysm of the Mirror

I’m looking at myself in the mirror and wondering who the fuck I am – wire-rim glasses, two day old growth of beard; cigarette dangling from my lower lip. FUCKING POETRY – I’ve been gone so long, writing to myself, watching my pen bleed from word to word across the page, tasting every letter, thinking [...]

Hate It

they hate that I’m a poet, worse than the letters: the dates, the blood smears, the honesty, the colored ink screams never voiced by my throat, clogged with enough pride to make you puke, almost – that’s the gimmick – never quite enough to make you vomit, just enough carefully measured mental phlegm to keep [...]

Untitled Poem #171

wow Michael what a way to get back into writing in your poetry journal: a little scotch, a little blood, a little scotch in your blood, [a little blood in your scotch] and you’re back to begging that it’s all over.

The Decay of a Cartoon

The poet sojourns to the real world, concerned with education and finances, too busy with real matters to watch his own walk like a bluejay on a telephone line assuming it is his, too bust to enjoy the glances at his jester clashed clothing and his odd squatting posture, recounting endless stories of dubious origin. [...]

On a Driveway at Midnight

I this poetry, on this midnight runs through my veins: all this hurting, my purple pen is my blood, each word a corpuscle – and to let it out to the world, sometimes my poetry is simple: blood, cut from my flesh, bleeding my emotions free. Self destructive so that I can leave the world [...]

Important Enough to Sit Still

heated with rose wine from a big cheap bottle, I immerse myself in beach sand. full and sun-warm, like the fat flavored wine, like Mediterranean sea-air; I remember through the hiss of the surf how it was like blood down the back of my throat, that wine, and how I must have been meant to [...]

Dead Parking Lot

drums, call the drums, beat the drums in a circle, summon sound from your skin, bone and muscled rhythms. spin the spinners, earth born, hearts beating taut, within, throwing warm loops of blood in long arcs through your bodies, racing and rebelling into movement.

Nyarlathotep 1925

thy Bloody Tongue caresses the forehead of the Chosen for Hotep, Dark Lord. the Crawling Chaos erupts from blood for us: those willing to see his vistas, landscapes draped in flesh, drenched in blood, shattered like mirrors so close like dreams one bright tentacle to worship one hypnotism one belief of truth; as you wish [...]

Tuned In to Static

these fingers are filled with blood that time wears down to bone. obsessive, driven to write and blister, chafing without a rest, a reminder of hard work dropped out and tuned in to static; the station’s gone dead. what do we do without direction?

Fireflies in a Jar

I am still here; encased in steel, frozen in flesh; I am still here. the I, the me, and the one and only: Michael, an Angel, this quality, definitely the most beautiful man regardless of position and opinion. building and building my building, my self: a tower of faith in feelings. I’ve mortared each brick [...]

Ninja-to

a blade is your friend if you allow it to taste your flesh yourself, offering something – blood – for service. until you are comfortable with being cut by yourself, you will not be comforted by cutting others. the opening of a wound is an artist’s work, a sculpture of skin and muscle caused by [...]

Further Thoughts of Nathaniel Bishop

My dearest Ursula is just the kind To wilfully abandon all her soul To satiate my Master’s guessless mind And pour her fiery blood into my bowl Of copper wrought from star-flung metal Which rests upon the altar ‘neath my books. This pact of ours is something left to settle: A child? If only it [...]

I am Adopted

Adpoted, I adopt my own ideas About who my real parents really are. My mother; ocean and spring rain; the dew On grass stems sparkling, a field of stars: All water, blood that courses past my eyes. My father – rocks and wood and muddy bones, The mountains laid behind and raised before, All sturdy [...]

My Mother in the Ocean

it is something, standing by the sea, feeling my heart and my blood fashioned rudely out of ocean-salt and the milk of beach-foam. I feel the pull of the moon on the tide standing here, examining the sky in the sheen of the wet sand, in the surface of the water. I smell the wet [...]

Breathing Pains

waiting for you to arrive, I close my eyes for the birds that rise, flowing over my skin, baiting the thoughts that cruise like fish within. I sink deeper into my steel water trough to wonder when the night will roll in. the flowers I brought you have wilted from the sweat on my brow, [...]

Thee Memorable Ocean of Dream-Boy

steve said C-R-Y [in hidden eyes] thee, tears may arrive. striped little boy I envy your dress AND your innocence. (shrieking) PAINTING, blowing multicolored bubbles through your paintbrush… I Re-Collect we begged lightning with fish from the solstice [once upon a time] when batteries ceased to function drums only drums and howling, croaking, baying; Fucking [...]

Depeche Mode Imitation

I saw a star in the sky, Watching, a flickering eye. I felt your breath in the storm. I shiver and try to keep warm. I touched the moon in the flood Of words like the coursing of blood. In the rose warmth of your gaze, I could have watched you for days. An eagle [...]

Frog Haven

I the splayed hands of the roots stop searching when I walk past, but if I listen I hear them quiver with life blood, holding boulders when I climb down. unwrapping and fanning the wind into life are trees with green springtime leaves. they swept me along like sand in an undertow. I scramble and [...]

Without Trying

I I can wish as hard as I want without trying. Maybe it takes a nervous breakdown To examine the croak of a frog. A rich man tapes his hands to his sides Drowning in treasures but refusing to decide Which pearls he wants to wear for eyes. II To the grey lands to search [...]

Godzilla Cometh

I talketh. I open my Mouth. I speaketh unto You assembled here tonight. the Lord cometh in the Guise of a great Reptile. Fire he does breath, and with Blood does he quench his Thirst. I tremble in humble supplication unto the Wyrm that does prescribe the manner that each shall Perish. Enlightenment shall come [...]

Untitled Poem #108 and 1/2

I am clear. the moon, branches crosshatch her light. shot, I bleed. I rot. waving my arms about to fling the blood. I’ve bled.

Taxi

I have killed you before in a dream and I was savagely happy with myself playing in the sandbox alone with my painted toys and turning the hose on and washing your blood from my dump truck. don’t worry if I dream without you I won’t care if you hang me by my left foot [...]

Imitations of Izumi no Shikibu

Shikibu Imitation One (serious Buddha remix) the mountains at the edge of the moon shine wetly. they have the viscosity of freshly spilled blood. the mountains have been torn and thrown down from the sky. they sit still, meditating, slowly settling in the mud. Shikibu Imitation Two (silly dance version) I am a mountain showered [...]