lies

last year they told me you were high on
gunpowder and lead and already i knew
they were lying, as if i never knew
human from Kryptonian

as if i was buying that.
...ha.

their scam never saw a penny from me:
let us laugh in the face of their blasphemies
over spirits later

we will drink over well-kept memories like
that time we razed the hordes on the Espina
battlefields, how they ran at the
sight of you

or when i heard of you taking out that
army with a word, or when you shrugged off that
speeding car like
unworthy dust on your cape

like when you crashed into
mountains of fire

always holding our breaths hostage
but unfailingly you were
stubbornly you were
invincible



2013.oct.21

things to do to get out of here

started with deconstructing
the four walls: the loosed gravel mingled
with blood in my pores in my hands.
halfway through this endeavor
realized I...
perhaps should have disassembled
the floor instead, should have ventured
downwards. should have extracted my
Eurydice from Hades.

or I could have realized I...
should have taken apart the ceiling
instead, my Daedalus could wax my wings.
I could have said in your faces: I am
Icarus bitches I am flying I am the wind.
I would have gone and touched the sun, too.
gone down in pretty flames, too.

realized I... never had a Daedalus.

smiled at realizations as I dispersed
the party of gravel and blood in
my pores in my hands. stood by
the door and fell into a line to
collect the day's wages and all I could think
of
is
if
it
is
enough for Charon's obol.

placed another coin in my mouth but
it still tasted of life.



2013.oct.04

sans farron

same old
time-worn
streaming curtains.
dispersing like memory,
homing in on me.

in on us.
same old white room.
night-orphaned.

same old new year's
eve of moving through
night-orphaned
uncharted sheets, but

the world wasn't round
not then, not when
you aren't where you are
supposed to be.

and i fall down, down
the edge of the world.
spill on a floor gone cold.
it remembered warmth,
was it of you?

but it's the same old,
same old, same old
story of every
awakening.

i tell you my truth:
this is not the morning after.
i knew with all my heart.
you stayed.

this is not the book i wrote.
my heroine never dissolved into
non-existence mid-story.
or anytime else.
she stayed. you stayed.

you stayed you stayed you stayed

this is not the epicenter
of the -
you were not the earthquake
that shook my -

this is not my world
not without you.



2012.nov.23

lunch break

the threatening hint of hunger unites us into
an accelerating force barreling down the tower.
the path of the stairways takes too long, but
the warp-speed descent of the cold boxes is
there for us.
any of the three can vomit us into the sunlight.

the concrete-armored earth is warm and firm
beneath the daily traffic of rubber soles,
and the occasional skin.
the gravity beneath the tiles push back against
our weight, a resistance ancient and unstoppable
and never ending.
the pause and the deja vu of not knowing which
direction to take is inevitable, an aerial tide
tinged with infected city breeze.

her artillery eyes roam upwards. the hunt for
enemy clouds begins, but
the heavens are a peaceful blue today.
i consult my tongue for a reminder on
the nationality of sustenance we have recently
erased off the face of the world.

a decision is made. a destination is set.
a rendezvous wed to today's death match against
the demonic, abyssal, hunger of high noon.
oh, don't worry, loved ones; for the low cost
of small animal and defenseless plant life, we
are unbeatable.



2012.jan.19

tavern

talking economics
with the king of the mountain
over cold beer, cold soda, bacon,
and cheeseburgers

while Lane and Jerry harmonize vocals
from hidden speakers.

the king of the mountain recommends:
lechon, liempo, pizza,
breaded pork chops, vegetarian breakfast.

and books and TV series and Bean, Sean Bean.

the king of the mountain decrees:
quality of video, audio, and content
are of utmost importance.

that there is a point of no return.

the lawyer and the monster and I
stand audience to economics of electricity.
economics of political fumbles
in this part of the world.

economics of leaving the mountain for diplomatic duties
by the seashore.

a neighboring table begins the holy rites of Poker.
smoke breaks free from out of their teethed dungeons.

threatened, the monster and I cower into our silver ride,
into dark streets of an aging evening.

deserters.

in the tavern the cheeseburgers built,
the mighty king and the magnificent lawyer
carry on.

invasion

you and your city fell around me while i slept.
i woke up to find you replaced her and the world
she built around me.

your roads stretch from where i stand,
the perfect cuts of stone piled upon perfect cuts of stones
parry a glimmer out of the morning light,
out of a familiar sun i am sure i have never seen before.

all your constructs synch into a scripted ballet of physics,
and it is unlike the mad and random flailing i remember.
all your constructs hum together a calculated mathematical heartbeat,
and it is unlike the chaos of prose and poetry i remember.

it is the sound that betrays the difference best:
the blaring echoes against concrete and hardwood and glass and steel
ring hollow against the memory of the strings of whispers
she once blew into my mouth.

but why do i look like each passerby one way or another,
and somehow i know your languages?
somehow a few of you know me and blatantly spit greetings.
somehow your scents and your sights all beg for my admission,
that they are familiar,
that they are mine,
that they are all i ever had,
but i shall not be deceived.

you are all aliens and you do not know you failed to steal from me
the memory of my love.



2011.mar.23

tremor and tide

the last perfect circle i ever saw
was a single drop of my blood on the snow
that buried you today.

crimson circle on endless white ocean of flakes,
you'd understand how i could only
think of you.

i died with you today like in all the recent days.

and in my latest dying breath
i remember when titans underneath the world
conspired to crush your breasts,
unwittingly crushing mine
along with yours -

didn't those fools hear
about how I left the million missing
pieces of me with you?

and wasn't the sea the greatest witness
to our soiled bodies and clothes by the shore -
how could she drown us the other day.
how could she drown us like this.

on radiation-laced winds, on radiation-laced rumors,
voices of hope speak of our nightmares.

and i could only hear
a snowflake crack on my shoulder in the wintry fields.

alone in the silent white with you in my vacant arms,
i die to live another day for you.


2011.mar.17