rival

once split apart in yellow leather, with green stripes,
it became a broader, deeper fuschia, possessively.
rising up to defend a twisted union, to punish treachery,
a flowered pupil, suspicious and enslaved, beneath a brightly feathered mane,
it devoured a former foe by request, trading roles and embracing conditional peace.
criss-crossed in a mobile watchtower, eyes behind for proportionate contenders,
i was the willing captive of a serpentine vice, a jealous guardian.
always automatic confessions in the morning
and shape-shifting at night.
kept close, it was an omen of a clear heart.
banished, allergic to spite, brought a cunning reaction.
Shifting, promising, enveloping, appeased,
Snuffed out.
remedied with charcoal and spit, to avert the poison and redirect it to the heart.
closing in and centering on a nerve, pleasant company.
jaws reading memory and stepping ahead with a soft glance,
the lilt of a perfect murder, overtures of an open mind
i put your picture high on a mantle
ashes and petals
temptation to knowledge, broken flesh cut from a forbidden tree,
limbless child of the earth.

baked

the edges burn faster than the middle, writhing inward before expanding again into an s-shape. in a pan used to bake sympathy bread flavored with prime candidates for compost, each letter is incinerated and flares up in protest.

letters may burn but their dough, needles, conspirators and recipes remain intact. the pages yawn into a mini-inferno...i drop the match through the metal slats and hear an inquisitive groan from the steps below. it lands between the lobe and the skull of our resident chainsmoker, and i realize that we're sharing vices...or at least, the aftermath of killer hobbies. in solidarity, here is a scorched emblem of my revenge.

speculation: did you kick the vanilla air freshener out of the socket in the hallway, down three flights, and shatter the innocent thing on the first floor? do we owe our scented mail to your momentary ebenezer strike on compromise? did our fragrant hint inspire a violent attack on a small votive of essential oils? now we live in a hookah lounge, the meshing and blending of strangers sharing living space, edging sideways, narrating prejudices, avoiding eye contact, but privy to private scents that tattle and reveal.

winnows

in a race, seven minnows pushed hard against a stampede of laces and sweat, opting for an easier route over the vertical hell of hayes street. papier mache helmets with sharpie-drawn scales and glossy eyes, team opposite, kegs in a shopping cart, joined together in pursuit of a deliberate and glorious loss.

what is winning, then, if the object is to outwit unoriginal opponents following bright orange markers in a frantic flurry to finish? why not refuse to win and instead, return to the starting line, taking an intentional detour, feeling no urgency other than a hasty escape from a more predictable end?

mo

i met a man named mohammed last saturday. he was wearing blue, the same color as the mini-styrofoam cartons with candy eggs. he stood on the fire escape, jack with his rose--her hair adding five inches to her height. behind him was a top-floor patio, spiked with hazardous lawn chairs, and a wall that matched the cartoon blue of his shirt. a stucco afterthought, the wall was probably born green and sponged over with smurf blue, reinvented. his blue was mesmerizing. but when he stood hovering eleven stories above orchard street, gazing wanly at a store owner perched in the sill of sheherezade, unfettered by the altitude, i saw the wall behind him ignite the contrast of his bluest blue and his blackest black.

mustard

at the intersection of church and liberty streets, was a large gathering of humans at twelve noon, in manhattan. what began as a tidy cluster of round-bellied jollies with sunburnt necks and vinyl banners, swiftly crescendoed into a hive of nationalist pride. iconic american wisdom echoed loudly from scarlet lips, through a cordless microphone, and out again from a large speaker propped in the heart of the mob.

remeber: several "m's" were missing on distressed poster boards--rage is a clumsy spell-check. the missing consonant seemed banished, curiously, as it begins and ends the name of the enemy. a symbolic omission perhaps...a letter eradicated in permanent ink, blood red.

the speaker quoted frank sinatra: it's up to you, new york, new york. not here, not now, not ever. we will never forget. go home. graves. gods. spit. sacred ground.

parallel weather: as the crowd thickened, sentiment boiled, and vocal chords strained, the park filled with agnostic dust devils, errant branches, rogue wrappers and the threat of rain.

paradis

the cure reminds me of purple glitter, asteroids and corduroy. pictures of you evokes white cinder block walls, duct tape, chalked hands and hanging plants with forbidden contents. gold rush in a bottle, thick syrup that burns the throat, and the first time i saw jupiter. it reminds me of the screen on my window, sliding glass panes, and a dripping parking lot. passersby, penitent love, intoxicated lust, furniture rearranged. kind green eyes and six bowls of lucky charms later, the purple still rises from the sound of the cure and seems to follow me like the chasing tail of a comet.

ironic lessons in knot-tying...

starboard blanc

a pause, and a cutting reflection of identity distorted by a mariner's curse. dripping gorgons rising from the water, whistling in the protestant wind, ballads of a brimming cappuccino sea. narrating, as it unfolds, the powered flight of accelerating wildfire and the dispersal of wings aloft. a familiar allegory, catered by the threadbare appeal of an invited guest, a breath of novelty, an emblem of the past.

pine and canvas, in chair-form, falling in line. carpet condemned, a polished set of musical memories lulled the sailors into submission, swallowing doubt. salt in the sinuses, a clarifying wish, a dismembered moth. spinning compass, the silence of the sea, guided only by the fear of irrelevance. white caps, windswept bluffs, hanging gables, steep rooflines and an insider handshake whitewashed by natural indifference. gray galaxy spiked with a hint of lime and terracotta shorts, reveals a secret republic, shrouded in favorable sun.

of kings, monopolized queens, propagated pawns and alliances with stone bishops + knights. strategy, percentage, a cool reduction of emeralds leached from dry gravel. carniverous worms, earning their meat and gnoshing on salted rants. granulated stars scattered over idyllic ponds, rarely used icons sharing shelves with evicted mollusks. white house countess sifting through appointments, whispering infidelities with tranquility, cocoavan, teaser, vixen and muse.

a soft goodnight, a misguided tour, ends with silver stones leading to the safety of sleep.