thursday. dirty unused tissues collect dust bunnies on the floor.

i have moved off the page and there is no excuse for my absence.
two or three persimmon pits lodged in between the heart
and spine, feels the pulse of the afternoon drums played
by a child's grimy hands stinking of eggs left out to rot,
what a waste. what a waste of pen on paper and colors
bleeding through the marker tip, sucking
every last bit of disintegrating chalk
falling down like snowflakes on a pretty day,
dandruff on a bad day, or dead skin cells,
dead silence, just chalk dust. disinterest, it is
never as good as you think it'd be, never
as bad as you thought it was, feet stomping down
right before the next steps fall, clock work rhythm,
fine and functional, though not ideal. manmade patterns
break and convene, move like an ant puddle
feasting on the street spilling sweet refuse.

i am a boy
and i am a liar

of all the things
my mother is my world

she is beautiful
she is faint

of all the things
she is my world

i am a girl
and i am a liar

there is nothing
i have not seen

today it rains
tomorrow it shines

so over and around
i turn and turn

what have you done
to make it stop

there is nothing
i have not seen

i am your mother
faint, beautiful, world

a question unanswered
yellowing away.

on the wall

handsome names
sticker tags
pink stars
mosquito guts.

so heavier and heavier alice fell
her dress a puddle on the floor
where the mushroom sat tall and strong
a ruined piece of earth

the kids could not resist their hands.

until happy.

seriously tried once
to think about the kitchen,
the pantry, and all its bottles
rattling their insides.

baby wants to know how
she came awake,
pushed from the warm
sleep of an eternal love.

she grew into her water
and there she flailed,
head heaved above the line,
afraid to drown.

baby's sore neck clenched
from swimming, the water
coloring her chlorine lips,
sogging limbs confused,

trying to figure out
how to change properly
an inhale for an exhale
without choking in air.

baby rattles her head
sometimes, to hear
the world is going
blindly bumbles

with the sounds preceding
the cries: that of a creaking bed,
oddly paced footsteps during the day,
and at night again, the death of a lightbulb.

baby would like to know
how many books
how many lovers
how many bottles

in a happy year,
if, holding all things
constant, the people never change,
and the questions laid to rest,

to reach and
cradle steady
your self, then
someone else's.

baby sees the other lost
bodies trying in the winter,
to find their own
warmer waters

but she knows what it is
is hot ginger soup from a bowl,
melting down the lonely tongue,
sweating it mutely out in bed.

some of my dreams come true sometimes.

window panes.

cried looking at mother's aging face
her sunspots dark with age

lips open
lips retreating

every bug i trap here dies

and for every one
a little more pain

their corpses litter
the new wooden floors

panel after panel
of growing old

babies at their parents'
funerals.

picture from early august.

midsummer
her hair a tamed
mess the fire
his hand and hers
mixture of eyes
fire lights
her temperate face
biting stars
swallowing words

on her wrist
his warm beer spilling
the ground is cooling
the moon is coming

behind the clouds
taller trees than dreams
from the shadows
climb the souls.

full belly of disgrace
wishes to run fast
past the boys
grabs and jeers
pigtails go on pigs
and ponies are made to break
short legs wear down
at the heel of two long days
weeks go off the bridge

fire would be born in water
had the river lived through the drought

if i let them burn me
would i be a good girl?

i saw one taller than the rest
burning high to crumble down
beneath them all i stand to know
which princess today will be

in the carriage she sits upright
glassy eyes and soft taint lips
her hair and neck and bones all clear
her dress a curtain stained with rose

down the road the horses pulled
running the whip screams the mane
the rocks beat dust and the dust beats on
one fatal bump and the princess falls down

her hair and neck and bones all clear
her dress a curtain stained with rose.

1.
forgetting last week like you forgot the past

two decades of life like two wet socks 

from yesterday's downpour washing clean

the streets splashing traffic on your skin

2.
from high above the flooding puddles
second looks plop down
a landscape of eyes
wide and shot blank

in the face of strangers

reflecting us

3.

we are something of the glass variety
kept behind the local display of the familiar
novelties sold on corners
half-priced with bad weather

4.
we sleep on our shoulders
at odd angles and hours

all heads and necks creased
and tucked in secret at night

5.

at night we slipped to escape the glass

the glass fell through to the floor

floored between a thousand gaping hands

hands all with their eyes closed 

closed for the evening of nightmares
nightmares and dreams

6.
the elevator carries up broken mirrors
and disabled hands come down
detached at the waist
then rejoined in bed

7.
a neonlit child calls.
her lost shadows form an assembly line
out under the dim red cross,
the echoes of her mother,
a mother,
no mother.

(she will learn how to share
all things good in time)

8.
in departure there is return

9.
to the caged monkey
i will sing

10.
full belly, full moon,
go sliver by sliver,
she left us
all alone
in a land of strangers
stranger than we,
no belly, no moon
to walk by tonight,
no belly, no moon
warm dark to cold light.

http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=532

the walls are bare
the mosquitoes full

the buildings dirty
so easily

the children play
the children fall

careless steps
on the stairwell slide

motorbikes riding
on ghosts of dust

mimic the missing
clouds on ground

today's dream rose
in a pot of oil

bubbles marched in line formation
held limping crickets

and dried moth corpses
poured out the throat

of a mute little girl
spilled on the floor

and down through the holes
of the mice who scrambled

before breakfast was made.

the breakdown of a ping-pong ball
along in the local river current
breathing water and giving air
bobbing for a little more time

in a blink before sleep
i lay next to the burn out man

dead light tainted with the dust
summer collected and abandoned

the flies hover
the ceiling
 overhead hangs

 a three-fingered helicopter
disabled in flight

he who stopped for a longer rest
became too lazy to get up again.