eating too much honey

the unspeakable, resurrected,
alive still; and trembling,
and breathing.

all the gossamer expertly removed
to the viscera of loathing.
detritus
attached specifically to reality;
exact, past doings exhumed

waking the nearly dead

shaking the memory tree

and the exquisite details
shed as a horrible, forever puzzle.

-----

viscera

It always leads here
ink slides onto paper
the soulful ocean swamps mighty dikes

and suddenly

birth

some coded, photographed reality

urgent

pungent on the tablet
wet
bloody and new.

-----

mercury (hold it)

What hides and bobs
floating
behind gabardine's curtain?

Chocolate milk skin
espresso hair
decadence.

Candy in my mouth's
most delicious
moment.

If for even a
flash
it crosses your mind--

one brilliant second?

Let me see behind the curtain
let me be a deep, hidden
secret

an experiment
folded away on some yesterday.

for you.

For me
infinite pleasure
in a
private,
frozen
time.

-----

the soup

trust me.
there are layers in this mist
shades of, shades of gray
not the layers of a skin; tangible,
dissectible or solid
but rather, the undulating fog.
the fingers of clouds touching my tender folds
teasing, even

opacity is thrilling, not knowing the way
not seeing the very next little step.
there is bliss in that uncertainty. Wanting
one more clue.
catch me. as I will catch you
should we trip up
upon each other
in all this
soup.

-----

my teeth

gleaming
on the screen—somewhere in Guam
via satellite.
“That man on TV sure has nice, white teeth.”
pause.
big smile.
“They’re caps.”
click.

-----

in this life

“So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills, you know the one, Dr. Everything'll-Be-All-right, instead of asking him how much of your time is left, ask him how much of your mind, baby. 'Cause in this life, things are much harder than in the afterworld.' In this life you're on your own.”

-Let’s Go Crazy- Prince

We don’t treat strokes with
tough love. No ‘slaps in faces’
-- please -- for the sick?

mercy.
for cancer. Parkinson's, ALS, Traumatic Brain Injury. Leukemia.

Or depression? Yes. Depression.

(wounds, injuries, accidents)

We sweep our own stoops
We rescue our fallen -- the poor --
Above all; We do no harm.

In this life, (my) defender is me.
For who else will advocate?

(I was a fool to assume, incorrectly)

Who else will step up
for the man who washed
his hands to bloody digits?

bathed in television lighting -- painted
like a clown. the make-believe newsman.
the ‘limp’ is hidden. stoic for the red light.

OCD monster. (thankfully now crippled)

(memories, so long past)

What protection might I expect
with clouds of mist and whispers;
the obfuscation of reality? The lethal
edge so near.

Step up.

I will step up; and fight
like hell. For myself.
For who else would?

-----

cat

my foot is still dragging, almost a month after I fell on my head,
in the middle of the night.
my thumb is dead numb.
fortunately, the MRI is clean, just a pinched nerve. I'm relieved.

my mouth is under construction,
two implants sit waiting for the final crowns.
the little caps are being made right now at a lab, somewhere.

but my gut aches, and that's not an actual physical malady,

at least not truly in my gut.
I have OCD; a big secret I hide from almost everyone.

this is my coming-out poem,
a debutante ball for my soul. a cotillion.

in my poetry brain,
OCD is an animal. (a cat?)
much of its time is spent in the now; feline stalking prey,
once caught, the prey is tormented still alive, sometimes released.

I have been pawed by the cat since I was a child,

and crippled in varying degrees, over time.
it's strange that I limp now because of something unrelated.

if someone were to ask me about my OCD, I'd say, go read about it,

that's why we have the Internet.

-----

pinhead (all of my angels caught dancing)

the first-class red-eye to the sanest stretch of night’s crossing;
lounging, sleeping, melting

a halo of beloved cats.

“Boze, it’s my favorite time of the day!”

these inward travels—laying here—fetal—suffuse with color
—opioid, nearly.
dance me all the way to some orange edge.

—show me joy!

-----

treasure

somewhere
across frozen, anonymous, blankness
ice and ice and ice
nature keeps a secret
exquisite
away from all human eyes
equally hidden and discoverable
(as secrets are)

December knows
and has discovered
the stones
which lead to ice, blank sky
and the mystery -- the
one
flower.

nature knows its
beauty

by name.

-----

Aurora Borealis

Often
I have traveled with you in my mind
to the north; me the student. you the teacher, forever.

many times

together on the floes,
above
the land of Eskimos.

you know the way
the ocean becomes clotted with ice the way pudding refuses to
separate, under-stirred. the way the seal-hunters only acknowledge our presence,
indignant; respectful?

together on the floes,
above
the land of Eskimos.

But, the Inuit teach us nothing about survival we
(you especially) have not known for years. we turn away
laughing, knowing we are the hunted;
laughing, still.

you, with the bad heart
me flailing all the way, of course.

what have we left, at best, on this speck of white ice
or green,
twenty years? If that.

and we are laughing, even crying
crying, because we know this is as far as we can travel
to the north; at least safely.

It is as far as we can travel alive.

-----

epiphany; sea change

and softly we arrive each year (back like the swallows)
stinking of the fear journey; carrying all the tchotchkes (collected nefariously. sad!)
and so, roiling, the “I know” fingers do their magic, invisibly from behind.
you are there again, speaking in eternity voice
(God, it can be overwhelming, thrilling)
not only scent alerts the blind-deaf self,
but touch
from behind
a chilblain, hypothermia, a body death rattle;
cannot tame what has been loosed.
you and I wander, but with a surgeon’s precision, into the ether.
together.
lock-step.

----