Through cold eyes I gaze upon perfection,

And yet a sigh would deign to cloud my view.

How could such stagnant silver bear a god’s reflection

And yet still hold its burnished glow anew?

How could it capture once the me that was,

To throw before me now that which I’ve seen?

How could it bend most adamant of laws

And toss His plan to ravens while I preen?

The question’s pull grows dull once more,

The face of Heaven’s beauty drawn and droll.

For in this silver portrait of my core

I see a canvas more of paint than soul.

He should have drowned that night;

He knows this

Deep-down as the water goes.

His mother thinks the sea

Must have taken pity

On his poor sinner soul,

But he is unconvinced,

Says there’s no benevolence

In the dark and the deep-down.

The water still speaks to him–

Its voice hushed and delicate

As it beckons him home.

Some mornings he feels the tide still rising

In the back of his throat.

You and I melt into one another

Like the ice in my highball glass

Just past 2 AM, when everything is hazy

And perfect, too heavy and too bright,

But still faultless, somehow:

Holding on to your fingertips in a crowded bar,

Giggling like we’ve just met,

Stage-whispering over the bad club remix

in our own secret language.

This world might end,

Tomorrow, next week,

While I’m still here

To watch it burn,

Or it might turn on and on and on

Til the sun take its

Dying breath.

Either way,

The cosmos won’t remember

Each time I tripped

over my own words

or when I cried in public.

She tries to read her own future,

Cards laid out in front of her

On the table, like it’s

Her last meal on death row.

She searches franticly

Through the thin booklet—

The one that came with the cards—

Trying to find a real meaning.

The hanged man stares up at her

Dead-eyed and pleading.

For his sake, she re-shuffles the deck.

When she finally takes off that

God-awful sweater her grandma made—

The one with the cross-eyed kittens,

Foreign fruits that might be apples,

And no sense of season or dignity—

That no one likes but she wears anyway

For Grandma’s sake—

When all that’s left is a thin, snowy shirt

Through which all is clear as ice-capped peaks—

Where the whisper of the river climbs unfettered

Over trembling blushes of leaves,

Cupped palms of valleys,

And undressed trees yielding to the breeze

To rest at the summit and roll back down—

When she can dance without being whipped by knitted sleeves,

Exposing her teeth as a smile spreads—

The stars peeking through bare limbs

Where the crisp night sky cradles them,

Lays them down on the grass—

She cries out in delight

For this big damn beautiful world.

My poems are shit.
My face ain’t much, either.
Meet me tonight
By the FM receiver?

The signals are mixed,
The liquor is steady.
Should you bring Hell,
Know my liver is ready.

We’ll put on a record
Of Coltrane or Davis,
Stare at the stars
With our heads on the pavement.

As horns fade away
To crickets and crankshafts,
I’ll read you Poe
As your lips recite Plath.

And when you walk off
Across the old levee,
I will not ask
So you can’t reject me.