Let me tell you about love:
Love is the the smallest flea
waiting to leap from the head of a pin
nothing more than this, nor
less. If you believe love is larger,
perhaps you do not understand
how large a flea is? if you believe love
is smaller, perhaps you understand
less. One day, it will leap.
You will not see or hear or know
where it has gone, when it left,
if it will come back, but still
you feel its bite. If you think love
is more than the feel of its bite
that it has heft, then tell me
how much it weighs. On your mind
love weighs less than the flea,
in your mind, it weighs more
than all the world. How to deal with this
truth? Be more like the flea,
I suppose, waiting.

All the little slave boys
roam Rome with smiles
greeks and cypriates and moors

All the little slave boys
sing Psalms with smiles
as they run and they laugh and do chores

All the little slave boys
live in small rooms with smiles
as each of them dream and behind cedar doors

all the little slave boys
roam Rome with smiles

my daughter points at heaven
with tiny fingers, and smiles
when she tells me, “beazer’s behind that cloud
daddy.”

my daughter points at her heart
with tiny fingers, and smiles
when she tells me, “he’s a good boy daddy,
i love him.”

my daughter points at a big poof dress
with tiny fingers, and smiles
when she tells me, “this is the one
daddy.”

what sofa breaks under me
with such angry alacrity
I can not dare to tell

but as it breaks unkindly
with a rage behind me
i think i break as well

insanity is a harsh critic of the sober
but a kind nurse to men like me
who wear yesterday like a bonnet
and tomorrow like a tutu

it will be three hundreds seconds before
the first shot is fired across my tongue
releasing my mind to feel
nothing – until then, insanity
i hate you.

when the voices are quiet except
for the soft sound of the football, of bourbon
waltzing on the back my tongue,

i think, then, it is fair to ask for the truth.
until then, it is best to beg
for either a quarter
or a lie.

insanity, it seems, offers neither
and therein lies my problem.

Oh beauty, sing the sunlight
dance the stars and be
the only testament of true love
for the moon and me

Oh beauty, call the mountains
whisper river and tide
the psalm of a truest love
that springs up from inside

Oh beauty, be the ocean
dream the kindly deep
a peaceful breath of true love
a kiss as you’re asleep

Oh beauty, sing the sunlight
dance the stars with me
a poetry of gentle motion
and the full moon’s symmetry

fingers and thumbs – unopposed
counting nothing, all bananas
legs and nose

brown eyes, brown hair – feces
flying outward, all the stench
phylum class and species

of this, we all dare
to this we lope, we lounge, we traipse
we march – stomp-click

-stomp-click
-stompclickstompclickstompclick

and this we revere:
a troop, a poop, a cantaloupe, an ear an eye
a nose well-picked

fingers and fingers and fingers and thumbs
the march goes on and we all go numb.

It was, I think, the day of the dead
when we met in the lemondrop sky
whispering the nothings friends whisper
when all the rest just sigh

The dead, they were adoring,
the living cold as hell
and we were friends forever
although we dare not tell.

It was, I think, the day of the dead
when we slipped the chains of hope
Marionettes and puzzled thoughts
regrets all strung on rope

The dead, they were all laughing
the living sobbed and wept
and we were friends forever
and every promise kept

It was, I think, the day of the dead
when we screamed the lies too loud
a harried horror of hoary hell
and we both seemed too proud

The dead, they were aghast
the living ran to hide
and we were friends forever
this can’t be denied.

It was, I think, the day of the dead
when the picnic turned to dust
a hungry hapless melody
of two friends bound in trust

The dead, they were all sleeping
the living dreamt awake
and we were friends forever
words that can not break

It was, I think, the day of the dead
when the grass turned brown and dry
a hellacious howl of winter
wrapped in one silent sigh

The dead, they were adoring
the living never know
and we are friends forever
where ever we might go.

There are monsters worse than the devil,
cold men who eat innocence with colder lies.
I see them with grim lips, tight together,
where a smile hung like wet laundry yesterday.

What of blood? Are they too blind to love
too deaf to help, too broken to save a heart
from breaking like a dozen youth or more
that wept beneath the showers of a late summer
spent in the boyish glee of running, leaping, catching
tackling in the soft lush green grass?

The monsters wear expensive suits and lie
worse than the devil in clean places filled
with the accouterments of perceived power.
I hear them mutter through thin trustless lips
where a aspish smile bites and poisons
all those sad fools who want to believe a man
can be good if not always, maybe sometimes.

What of fame? Are they so wrought of iron
so heavy with their own fatuous foolish nature
they can believe such unsightly strength is real
that comes from the crushing of young hearts?
Let them rust away when the paint of their lies wears off.

There are monsters far worse than the devil,
men without hearts, men with cold hearts, men
with black hearts that beat only to the rhythm of their lust.
I see them with snarled lips peddling and backpedalling
through the nightmare where a smile was.

in the eaves of a white house with black shutters
a pigeon nestled away from the cold breeze
clucks and ruffles and dreams the things that pigeons dream

the eternal swatch of gray above, of gray below
of gray and gray and grayer flows past unnoticed

in the eaves of a white house with black shutters
a squirrel burrows in to the warmer attic searching
gnawing, playing amongst the things a man has left behind

the long shadows grow longer in the long night’s longing
the long long long night flows past unnoticed

in the eaves of a white house with black shutters
nothing matters quite so much as now