bend to my breeze?

trying to be tall
I witness a young tree
choosing to grow high
between bricks
with shallow city roots

not quite you
I envision you
a bit
more grounded now

I've seen you
deciduous
you're in your tender spring again
all potential
green and excited
uncertain how you'll grow
but budding nevertheless

I can't help but
be all
around you
sometimes
I want you,
shade
it's hot
and I want you
to have me,
air

kisses
not too long ago
you were all decay
and frozen
pieces of seasons past
uncertain how you were
ever a growing thing

you were
when I met you
I wanted to sun myself
a bit with you
a playful desire
decadent
a passing fancy of impulse

as I beamed at you
you started to fade
I barely noticed
or minded
you were all warm color
I caught pieces of you
and carried them with me
satisfied because I was free
to roam

I am
always restless
I am
always returning
I am
always

breezy I focused my attention
on you when you were
nothing but bare branches
did my movement
make you cold?

even in winter
you were sometimes kindling
rubbing limbs
startled flame
I was
occasional lips
I was
highlighted observer
I was
fascinated hopeful
I am

a shiver, a way of knowing
we once knew warmth
sometimes we huddled
sometimes I flitted away

your sunshine returned
how delightful
when you share your swelling
you shall be fruitful again
I wonder at your tender shooting
and what is intended for me
so much
precarious
so much
blooming
what is intended for me?
not so much?
precarious blooming
what will you be pruning?
will it be me?

I don't want you as a cut
blossom captured
temporary
property
I wouldn't bear
to watch

you wither knowing
you'd never return to me
I am
always restless
I am
always returning
I am
always

breezy
I am
always
wanting
to watch

you grow

will you ever want
to weather with another
or follow
some one's meandering
breeze?
are you too fragile
for my affection
could you dare bloom
for me?

I pose this not
as an expectation
for anything but
a wish
for you
to be
whatever it is that
you are becoming
for I am
my own
entity

need
my own
freedom
to change
and be
come more
myself

I am
occasional hips
I am
fascinated
observant
I am
hopeful lover
I am
always restless
I am
always returning
I am
always
breezy
I am always
hopeful
lover
I am
always

zealot, or "you made me do it."

I was a Christian soldier
onward with the Bible tracks
thumping thumping thumping
on doors
on holidays stolen from pagans
I became a dissident
once baptized in an over-chlorinated pool
that I was not allowed to swim in without
a color t-shirt
lest I Jezebel an Elder
or uncle
thumping thumping thumping
I was holier than thou
until I was reduced to a hole in the ground
surrounded by safety cones
of disputed chastity
I memorized each line
and got lost between them
fantasizing about Sarah - did she taste like salt?
maybe I could die
thumping thumping thumping

I fled to the enemy
I wept when I lost Jesus
but did not dare compete with Mary
mother, or Magdalene
but I had to go,
or his friends would get me

not waiting

in the time
between the last cigarette
and the motion of a startled cat nestling
I nap because
a nap is not waiting

beach glass

the shore had been growing
for some time,
and while I was busy
squishing my toes
in the wet sand
where you pulled back
your ocean,

I didn't notice the wave.

I'm flooded with the notion
that you secretly like to drown,
and though I've been
sucked into the rip-tide
I know eventually,
I'll be able to ride the wave
back to where I want to be.

and you will no longer crack
the empty bottle
my heart once was for you
when you treated it like trash.

you won't seep inside.

my heart may be broken right now
but to you, it will become
a most peculiar assortment
of stones.
and each time you wash over me
the pieces will lose more
of their shine for you;

the subtle abrasiveness
you've been carrying with you
like many grains of sand
will provide the etching needed
to dull the pain
and smooth the jagged edges
with which I want to cut you,
but can't.

though left on the shore
created by your distance,
the stones will no longer resemble
something rejected:

I'll be left with jewels,
and they will not be for you.
I will polish them
until they shine for me.

eventually,

my
broken
heart

will
be

the
best
gift

you've
ever
given

me.

(from April 2006)

untitled

she almost hears a sound when she reconnects to the universe in which she is most comfortable. it's a juicy noise, cerebral and sensual, thrilling in a contemplative way. beauty is expressed in the pure logic of chaos; there is math in the curves of her body.

so ass on the pier,
she assesses the current,
wanting to feel the earth move.
vice replaces good advice,
opening her up to
constructive criticism
and even more to prove.

the rain gives the humidity life and the air becomes an entity that leaves a trace.

(from 05 August 2006)

analysis

tangled in my reality
is my perception
of my messy room
somewhere far
enough from here
to be a chaos
I can define
but not successfully
analyze

like my room
my heart has become
cluttered
my life a chaos
I can define
but not successfully
analyze

(from 26 July 2006)

tangibility

proving my existence
through decadence,
wanton jubilation
to do is reality
and here I am,
a manifestation of my ego's
universe.
collectively,
we ascertain our tangiblity.

(from 12 August 2006)

spell bound

piled a lot of others' mattresses beneath me, trying to cover that which bruised my ego
aligned myself with monsters to feel beautiful, closed my eyes so i would not witness their actions
rode white horses to others' rescues, trying to escape myself
a damsel in distress
in denial

climbed to the highest turret in my card castle
seduced by the spindle, the solitude
cursing myself, i locked the tower and cut my hair
ready to hang myself with the rope, rather than bind myself to another
fell asleep, dreamt that i was kissed with no expectation placed upon me

awoken only by dawn
and the nagging sensation of buried troubles

slowly peeled back the layers of my worries
bundled the many beds i had made and laid in, despairing
dragged them out of the castle to be carried away by white horses
exposed the vile little pea of doubt

a sigh and the cards collapse
grounded, i can sleep on clouds

raw.

raw. i want to bleed on someone, want to have arms bandage me. i've been so contained, i want to leak onto someone, be the mess on their clothing. i haven't been alone for such a long time that i don't know what to do with myself. i have a memory of wanting solitude, but i can no longer relate. i realize how much of a luxury it is to have a specific external emotional presence in one's life. it comes with responsibility, and unfortunately, i am not prepared for that. so i must deal with these moments quietly. alone. it's okay. it's something i must respect.

i am not a part of this tragedy

what do you do when someone looks into your eyes with so much pain? i just hugged him and breathed into him and told him that i could do no more than be his friend. he told me that he loves me. i'm not sure of the context, not sure where his mind is... i'm not sure that he knows these things. i know that i'll make mostly good choices in this situation, and not divert too much energy from what is good in my life, but i feel a heartache coming. the kind you get when watching someone deteriorate. he used to be a creature of light, but he's forgotten.

second chance...

you're not supposed to recycle partners... once it's over, it's over.

and you knew he was moving away.

I told him that I wanted to be his best friend so I could visit him there. fucking him was not payment for the trip, it was just an added bonus to the renewed friendship. I felt liberated, was fresh FRESH out of the relationship of my life. I wanted it to work, but...

you were rebounding.

of course.

so you moved thousdands of miles away...

it was fucking Hawai'i! the Big Island is named Hawai'i. I lived there for 2 1/2 months, painfully repeating history on a lush, active volcano-island. it's a lover that kisses with teeth, it punishes you while pulling you in deeper. it took 24 hours for us to re-utter desperate heart murmurings, we wondered what to do. I had seen his eyes reflected in a mirror, at a time when I had forgotten about that particular shade of green and what it did to my sensibilities. I wanted to be single so much, wanted to cleanse myself of the saccharine being-involvedness that was creating cavities in my ego. you may catch more flies with honey, but no one wants to kiss a mouth of rotten teeth. who wants to catch flies? they eat shit, too. I ate it.

I knew it would be an act of God, a gorgeous disaster, watercolor streaked with ink -- delicate, reckless, over so fast... but sometimes you need a particular color in your life. I needed that pale shade of green... I wasn't an artist then. I wanted to be. I bit his lips, licked his teeth, tried to breathe into him. I wanted him to be my muse. I looked at his reflection again, this time in the Hilo Bay.

what color is the water in Hawai'i?

green, then blue, then green... clear. warm. cool. pure. I needed that color. I became an artist. he remained pale. green.

I couldn't handle the permutation, his eyes were muddy in the water. algae. I wouldn't dare mix the shade. he was content in his wretchedness, in his stagnation. as he outfited himself in misery, I wrapped myself in lava, coral, sun. bliss.

Hawai'i punished him, I enjoyed the teeth. I bit back, licked the waves, breathed into the place, always deep breath. it's waiting for me to come back.

no title: this is no fairy-tale

the jealousy is negligible; the blatancy of how much things could never be that ridiculous fairy-tale with which we're bombarded and brain-washed is logically comforting. myriad tenuous beginnings afoot with a comical vehemence pacify my reckless tendency to plunge into the decadence of full-on co-dependent romantic assault. maybe this time it will be real for you; the tenderness is genuine each time, I can sense this, am sometimes the recipient. maybe this time you will understand the oracle cradled in your heart. I wish this for you. someday. not necessarily right now, because I want to fuck you.

what do you need so badly that you chase and chase and chase? why do we flicker on and off for each other knowing that we're just practicing? with each disconnect, I await a new moment, a second or third, 463rd first. I collect firsts. it always seems like a first when nothing is expected, when the last "first" could always be a "last." and it lasts.

what do I need so badly that I chase and chase and chase? nothing, I just want. I linger in moments so fragile and pure that I do not notice the seediness of the misconceptions inadvertantly planted until the impossibility of it all blooms.

in a word, I'm sensational. sensory-overload starved, craving, mad. I only want moments because ending eras are a kind of drama I can't sit through right now. I only want now. I touch myself to get over it, I create my own experience and get off. there is a harsh safety in the knowledge that certain things cannot be, and it fuels the engine of my wandering lust.

I gather that you sometimes cram your foot into shoes that fit as well as our tongues fit into mouths, for a moment attempting a fairy-tale that ultimately becomes grim, reaping when you only thought to sow. I know this because I've cultivated a garden of magic bean stalks by being ripe to the notion that I can always leave when clouds prove not to be comfortable ground.

this is not a show

late night snakes and jam noisenoisenoise radiator annoying overlay accent dirty fingernails incestuous friend massage creepy voyeur this is not a show

late night early morning quiet and smoke roll your own fallen guitar cluckcluckcluck annoying overlay accent cold hands exes and excess questions creepy interrogator this is not a show

blanketed not eye trapped radiator conversational fucking hathathat excuses for the sun faithful at Gethsemene annoying disciple sleep this is not show

rooted?

collabo with emily c-d

my mother

delicately handling
the fancy fabric on the bolt,
my mother imagines her creation.
years of underpaid menial manual labor
have literally broken her back
and rendered her hands
barely useful,
so the elaborate dress
she has in mind for her granddaughter
becomes a simple sundress,
something she can whip up,
ignoring hand spasms.

her whole life she has spent
waiting for the luxury
of personal discovery,
and I fear she will never
achieve her heart's desires.
her resources -- financial, physical,
emotional, et. al. --
diminishing.

I believe the American dream
is a joke,
but she can't see the humour.

verses

life has been many words for me
inundated with language
sometimes I seek the gold of silence
but don't know how to spend it

easy coercion

so few of us leave ourselves open
to the possibility of the divine
we curse the innovation of creation
conjuring demons from the darkness
cast from the shadows of our own light
I worship the devil sometimes
because God is a fuck
I didn't enjoy

faking it
I spread my legs to disconnect
I close myself off to intimacy

hungry

the world's in your belly, honey
feed it, feed it
the world's in your belly, honey
watch it grow

your eyes are bigger'n your belly, honey
you think you need it, need it
your eyes are bigger'n your belly, honey
don't let it show

reach

this is the precursor to the line drawings I've been doing recently, featuring another motif in my current artwork: trees that double as people or body parts.

if we set up a screen printing room as has been discussed, I would like to screen this and my other line drawings. I think they'd make good fabric.

I completed a new one, but I can't seem to rotate the image, and I can't find photoshop on this computer. I almost uploaded it anyway, but I think it would bother me too much. it's a collaboration with emily c-d, she embedded a characteristic drawing of hers and I really like how it turned out. my next piece is going to be an experiment with watercolor pencils, and if it turns out, I'll be donating it to Clean Water Fund to be auctioned off on ebay to fund shore cleanups and such.