jayivan

i hunger to be the empty shell 
i once conceived myself to be

let the perspiration lift off my skin
let the maelstrom empty into the singularity 

so i’m but a whiff,
a whisper, a whatless what

i respond to rejection
by persuing affection 

your ring no longer

fits the fat finger for which

it was intended

read slowly

when we are peace with one another—

and at peace with ourselves—

and at peace with the world—

we shine, we shine, we shine

my tears done salted
my soil, my seeds

if i set myself
up for coping i will for—
ever cope and cope

if i burn, i burn.
if i choose to fly i fly:
thus i WILL my EYE

old stitches removed—
skin fissures open anew—
no-thing-to-un-do

i am 
consistencies

i scrambled
over weedchoked ditches



i swam
naked through mountain ridges 

i raved 
un-selfed under canyon bridges 

i echoed
past selfs in thoughtless reflection 

i sucked 
cock on brooklyn roofs with the neighbors attention 

i swallowed
pills in berlin bathrooms

i followed
my winds where my winds lead

i hollowed
my heart to give you full occupancy 

i jerked-off
before cinematographer syrians on crisp winter nights

i stopped
my words no more

i stopped
my words no more

i blocked 
traffic by laying down my bike

…tbd…

i am
consistencies 

my shining palace sinks into the sands—
my love leaves solace sifting from my hands 

the path to accepting the unacceptable:
a lava flow through a glacier, 
barefoot and naked,
feet afire and body hairs crystalled by sweat and steam and the windcries of yeti 

books conflagrated 
womens bodies violated 
queer love assassinated

rivers polluted with christianity 
epistemology shredded with inanity
our hearts and minds struggling with sanity

dance on the ashes
as the fires keep burning 

my heart untethered:
an atom in search of its bomb

so now you are sat-
isfied, so now you are you––
& how do you do———

solipsism:i—
the snaking tail rattles by,
mouth pursues a lie

i want to wake up.
naked, i want to wake up:
just me, to wake up

the greater the clarity 
the greater you hang o n  t h e 
next note
next flourish,
suspended in the hum between strings,
fingers press and slap,
bass note thrums,
shuffles in the background,
pressure points as piano tips

sometime it’s about 
you, othertimes about me,
never knowing which

sometimes i share a poem
and mean it for the world

and sometimes i share a poem
and mean it just for you

and now no distance lingers
between the two

faces like harp strings
trilling by, an idyll lie.
it ripples, this high.

dreamt my tooth fell out,
just one, rotten at the base:
the lost love leaf falls

i’ll love you til i’m wrinkled and dry,
when my beauty comes from your loving, wet eyes

little has more meaning to me
than staring into the sunset tree 

firefly dusk
jasmine dawn

the candle burns : finger—/tips flex into the future / your touch fills the air

“we dance on a knife’s edge”

“that’s because life is sharp”

mourn the trees,
olives of ripe fruit and sturdy wood,
snapped from the roots,
mass-buried in mud

just the unjust mountains abound:
stuffed with the snuffed, 
smoldering with the mouldering 

arboreal grief
unfound in those mounds, 
sweet fruit that will never know 
the touch of tongues

love like life

takes hold

where it can

rest it
don’t test it 

it all
comes down to 
light
&
energy

the mesh veil floating

cicadas become dagger eyes
the swelling form bellows and blows 

i am the artist
& the artwork, there can be
no separation 



(adapted from an essay by gabe stone shayer)

i want not for company,
for love, for friendship

i want not for solitude,
the quiet clarity of breath after breath

we walk the stony path
through hemlock groves
toward rainbow bridges

that moment when an idea emerges from your thoughts. a poem formed whole out of nothing plunges down through the watershed and arrives at the shore upon which the Inner Watcher waits. the clockwork turns. the shape reveals.

staring at an orchid
form and beauty dance midair 
the session hums

silence sharp as knives:
the gold that gelds

do i let moments
pass or try to trap honey
within buzzing bees 

told myself: just friends
would be best, the thing needed,
and yet, i still fret 

if you reside in the middle ground between following your desires and letting them go, you’ll know only longing

when the sun’s shining,
trees green, winds warm, earth singing:
i pull out the knife 

i dam my river,
pushing up against myself——
powering the falls

marooned on the grass
i watch the blue sky go red:
a yellow finch flits

this anxiety,
a restless spirit in search 
of a withered form

i cling
until the sting
sings

my heart afire:

midnight tossing,
low rumbling of sigh,
tiny earthquake of averted eyes

the ravine and its stream
sing love songs to the trees

words cast spells —all-ways—
they bind solid matter to air,
and from air: matter

the shadow of a butterfly 
flutters in the dappled light,
or is that just a leaf falling? 
—
butterfly shadow
flutters in dappled light,
a leaf falls

pooling water
feet from feet

singing forest
tree frogs peep

misting valley
greets night’s sleep

I thought your walls were  transparent glass 
I realized they were silver mirrors

amanitas and
asters fruit and then decay
as Taos Valley stays

do my words rise from the heart’s fall
or
do I fall so that these words may rise?

The light of enlightenment is always accompanied by the loss of disillusionment

guns: a coward’s tool
a buoy for clueless fools
adrift in our sea of cruel

i still think of you,
though that gets me nothing but
hands around my throat

relax with green tea
and dark humor—the missiles
hunger for nothing 

may violent winds that thrash and bray
produce the space for vines to play

nothing more to say.
time passed flat as a pack box
used and broken down 

beauty dissolves, dew
on a summer petal burned
by the morning sun 

right foot and then left,
step forward, move fast, pretend
the past is the past

you took my secret
pain, so cautiously shared, and
fashioned a blade

a house founded on
sweet nothings dissolves into 
a bitter swampland

years build cities—full
of light, sound, color, love—but
one word rubbles it

i do my best
to despise everything about winter—
that dry, drugged darkness—

until a bright march morning
teases a smile:
the skyline preens in midtown reflections,
the brown bark breaks from spring buds,
the serpentine sadness slips from faces onto a short-shadowed  sidewalk

& the city sighs

the ruts in the road &
the path through the trees

the nothing & the one
binds & sets you free 

the futility of change & its necessity 
the illusion of free will & the instinct of intention
the ruts in the road & the path through the trees
the nothing & the one
antimatter & substance 

when i see you 
see me senseless
i go blind 

cling to the foolish 
for only the fool clings

donkeys dream of flight,
of endless days without night
bathed in silken light

the nonexistence 
of the counterfactual:
a weighted blanket 

my heart soft enough 
to keep breaking, my meanness
justice forsaken

fill your mouth with soil,
earth provides the breath that fills
the body with its death 

i forget sometimes
that i’m not the crazy one,
then your mouth opens
                ____ 
                closes

neither cowardice
nor courage, just disrespect
walks out the back door

fleeting beauty doesnt flee

it waits for rain to set it free

no reason to lose
my mind, i’d rather be
finding me

you came for my light
dancing in the living night:
a black hole’s delight

some days truth flies,
a silent heron hunting,
a crow’s caw

faster but slower

as the grower grows bolder

my passion drifted

on dry seas, floating midair,

weightless unaware

i cling til the sting:

the end of the end is the

end to which i bend

the sadness of a

late winters day when the sun

is higher and warm

love like light, particle & wave,

presence & motion,

impossible twins

implausibly twined

traitors empowered

by compassionless cowards

ploy coups for cuckoos

that dark impulse

that burning bright flame out:

it’s never dark enough

it’s never bright enough

you asked for the truth.

bare handed I revealed it

to scissor sharp eyes.

the fish unhooks

the metal barb from its mouth

with its opposable fins

thoughts like dark matter,

massless sparks illuminate

a disappeared face

love on the dancefloor
(quiet, on the run)
wrecked to my sweaty core,
bereft, a vacant sum

i’m done with these thoughts——

feed the cerebellum beast

empty syllables

my hands press each side of the window—

I can neither enter nor leave—

until I slip inside the glass,

& transparent, simply be

the standup man

always tumbling

do not go gentle:

wild men blaze like meteors

against the dying

the heat and the sweat,

the hard beat, the packed dancefloor,

the hearts’ vibratings

intimacy’s weight

paints the soft warmth of sleep

in rising desires

(inspired by a poem from Justin Dewey)

black hatchling scurry

toward false moons, white-capped waves

roar invisible

the deep July green

what a scene

power in quiet

like the hush of the earths crust

capping the red thrust

woke ain’t woke

but this smoke is smoke

no respect is due

for the blues until respect

extends to all hues

starfish caught in tides

we’re pulled in & then dragged out