the cure for heartburn. and returned items.

so carefully i take this pill

that leaves a leprous streak down my tongue

and on the tip of my finger

a pale chalky stain

that clings to my skin 

like the scent from the dirt

crushed beneath my toes and manages

to remind me of death and life

at the same eclipsed moment

like this grey lump that scratches

its way down my throat like fingernails

leaving long red streaks until

like a rock

it hits my stomach and explodes

into a thousand sounds that bounce

bend and break against my hidden flesh

like reflected light dropped suddenly into a cave

and all the world comes alive

this is what i do

mouthful by mouthful swallowing these scraps of verse

hoping at some point they will reverse

the effect of this heartburn

that i've been fighting since your return

you gave it back with a receipt

and no apparent damages

a heart turned back into itself

burns inside this ribcage

the down town.

We are reaching for fresh air, 

outside this hazy bar. 

thrusting our hands in your pockets. 

looking for the thing that makes you free

 and keeps us breathing this smog

something in your skin that looks so clean

pale and sweating in this foreign night

creeps up our fingers and twists

sharply

around our wrists and we are caught again

in these thin gold cords 

that you slide around our slender wrists our slender necks

until we            choke

we have been waiting all our lives

for the chance to drop these breaks and go

but we sit here with the brakes on

under this red light glow

hero's vocation vacation.

and sometimes i wonder what it is that screams of danger. these knife blade glances from that dark eyed stranger. why do i find safety in this game. and the fact that she will forget my name. because there are shadows and then there is dark. there is loneliness and then standing apart. i will be the silhouette on the rooftop tomorrow.and she will walk and not look up. i will take another sip of sorrow. and laugh while i refill my cup. i take my needs with me wherever i go. i plant my fears and watch them grow. i turn them loose and then suck them dry. bleed poetry from each eye. and stain my teeth with this red elixir. the delicious tearing of thought from thought. listening to them stretch and strain further. from where they were meant to be and what they ought. to say to think to sing and i am the master of the dirge. the master of this earth. playing these games with the dark eyed stranger for the taste of danger. stripping these thorny stems. for the colour it brings. those subtle explosions against the sky. that draws the city's eye. up and i'm away. to laugh and live another day. to find another thousand souls to save. and laugh at the irony.

they call me free.

hope of holiness. hope of wholeness.

i want you to stand like the man

who i drive past every day on my way

to what i want what i need

and he has his arms out

his fingers flared and waiting

for the world to change for him

for me to stop and begin to understand

he stands there every day and his face never changes

watching me and the horizon at the same time

as though i and it were one

that i was simply a momentary personification

of all the infinite possibilities of that blurred line

and as if he saw all of its faraway beauty crammed 

into my pulsing skin and at the corner of my mouth

where waits still that last step towards freedom

he does not want to take it

but stands still with his arms out and his face soft

in the sun which alternately strokes

and then beats against him

much as i do in my mind in my small hungry fury

that curses him as the disease and claims him as the cure

and finally collapses in my stomach weary and worn

from its own fists thrown against the floor

still he stands, so still it seems the wind itself

that sweeps all these things to the sides

the leaves and my hair tie together around me

to blind me and choke me and leave me 

with nothing to say to see

but he is not moved not swept away

still waiting for something to change

one day i will break and press my pale face

against that white shirt and cling to that smooth neck

and cry all the thousand fears that one day he would leave

till at last i am still and feel in him the bending

the impossible coming true and his arms around me

the church folk will gather and speak 

of miracles and vandalism

"look how the arms have moved

how his holy face once watching the sky

bends down now and gazes with a new look

how along the side of his cheek a marble tear lies

see these footprints that come

and none that leave, nothing here but a ring of keys

who can scry this mystery?"

Winston and Julia.

burrow deep beneath my darkened skin

slip past the veins where the blood still runs (don't we all) blue

and then brush through these fibers of muscle

down and down again letting them twang tight again

after you are gone

hit the bone like a fist (knock knock on wood)

and hammer your way into the marrow stream

keep going and soon you'll hear the echoes

i i i

must survive

and it goes and goes again like a thrum

the thousand waves that start

at the plucking of a harp string and strum

through the air to crash against every shore that will receive them

and it will survive the severance of all bonds

anything (snip snip ) as long as it still stands

as long as (say it with me now) i survive. 

forget Romeo and Juliet

this is the world of real

everyone and Big Brother is watching

Winston and Julia.

the anti-romance, the tragedy of self and survival

take her. take her. anyone but me. 

and they all live ever after.

presenting

every day for you is a dance

in which you are a most accomplished

marionette

with your proper strings to be pulled

to lead you gracefully from one end

of this scuffed stage to the other

but you never let the curtain drop

you never let the grimace grin fade

and i am the sillouette

played for laughs behind you

as you move on oblivious

of my darkened being

in your own world of twitch and go

your cleverly disguised dependancy

in this distant dance between you and me

there are days i wonder

if the scissors would bring you freedom

or if you would crumble

a pile of shattered sticks

there are days i wonder

if the light would give me grace

or if i would disappear

a blur of undefined desires

there are days i wonder

who we're dancing for.

artroom.

what is strange to me

is where you exist

i am sure that you

strange being that you are

must reside within these four walls

nourished on the cutting turpentine

that saturates these slow air currents

like blue the sea

you only notice it in its broad expanses

and when scooped close to your hand

it falls as clear as ever

how foolish of me to think that i could carry

you in my spirit away

to this dry arid land that simply reeks

of absolutely nothing at all

except a strange greyness that clings to my fingers

as i hold them to my lips

to blow you a kiss across the miles

across the millions

of wasted feet because they-none of them- know where they are going

and i too am lost letting only

this fragment of soul i stole from you

and hid deep in my memory guide me back

thrusting my eyes into the darkness and out again

through the tunnel time and i'm safe in memory

swinging my legs on that splattered table

waiting for you to stop being art long enough

to still a little more of my heart

that runs too fast with the heat of your skin

i let it run so fast

i let it run away with me

it confused distance with dignity

and hope with impossibilities

you stay for me in that one room

where magic was in the paint

and lessons in the pain