jayivan

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

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

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

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

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

a pyramid scheme:
aching heart collateral
borrowing forward

stagnant clouds
race past in reverse:
we spin fast below

Cast into the sea

Flailing for a piece of wood

To keep from sinking

I trip on my lip
and gag on the word flung back
into a dry throat

This is not about
This thing here. It’s within me.
And I will forget.

a pen for revenge
drains the ink from spent letters,
empty me my words

walk slow heart beat fast
i want you sweat-washed heat-flashed
walk slow unattached

Dance me out til dawn—
sweat-spritzed chests rocking bliss hips—
the horns sing s u n r i s e

Yammer-stammering,
The cocaine brigades don’t dance
no more: they grow fat.

Dance, my city dance.
Reclaim the dark light, bodies
Rock the night in flight.

I cry on trains and
taxis speeding away from
the possible me.

The thing that remains:
a slight reflection painted
on passing landscapes.

Step into the heart
of the great beast. See the beat
of fear in motion.

Forever, we lose.
Forever, we gain. And so,
and so: on we go.

the other shoe falls
just within hearing, perhaps
the cat knocked it off

bad weather won’t stop
us from driving in reverse
tail first around the bends

Stronger than I think,
stronger than I want to be,
except for right now

you press me against
the bathroom door, hands scrambling
to avoid the floor

The muse, a poison,
must be sucked from the conscience
it contaminates

So, what do you do,
just sit and wait for it and?…
…Nothing else to do.

This arm, every arm:
This eye, this chest, this mind: This:
Of everything: forms

it’s the way you lick
your lips after coffee sips
that makes my heart thick

The blue jay cries out:
Shriek! to the red leaves! Shriek! Shriek!
Distant star! Cold light!

On your shoulder I
nestle my bearded face as
radiator cranks

This silence, this one,
just this very one: only
this silence is death.

We made the forest
a temple with hearts and words,
then had to drive home.

The spaces we share,
despite their bright abundance,
have dusty corners.

I wish I could talk
to you instead of writing
sad poems, yet look.

Your big toes, so big:
simian and suggesting
prehensile pressures

Too tall to be short!
you, you belittle and snark
at my shrinking heels?

Today, I erase:
strike-through half thoughts deserving
to be laid at rest.

this fever: from my body,
dissatisfied and burning, perhaps
it’s just august heat

in passing, a grope—
while waiting, a spit-slick palm
pressing under jeans

I do nothing but
Piss you off, sometimes,
or fall in love, so.

I didn’t mean to,
to break your heart, and all that,
with unread poems.

so, this is today,
a hollow in a body
that ever empties—

a pain like white noise
behind my eyes resonates
on low frequencies

can’t stop the snarling,
resentful glares, at passerbies
unaware

you walk at my side
to the station, warming up
cold hearts peering in.

old man near the sea
along the estuary green
shirtless and carefree

i am short-tempered
with poems, hasty to leave,
before they empty

like parks in the rain,
whatever substance was there
scatters for cover

wind-wrapped
sands sting skin

sea-scented
and sun heavy

until waves wash over

a dissolute life:
necessary living since
endless, life dissolves

the gush
such a crush

in the green muck
the luck womb struck

power
a-coward

Falling trees in forests
by hands calloused and sweaty,
full of fury—

No need to stand up
when I’m already standing
on the shifting sands.

the silent witness
among the holy rollers
: godless but good

I am a body,
not a voice. Just one among
a one to become.

Hiding could be art,
but instead, it’s thievery
of intangibles.

The skin grafts won’t take;
my burned skin keeps pushing up
blisters like daisies.

I died a little
without even noticing
yesterday, again.

mountains spew white—
mornings burst from the night—
eyes launch into flight

it’s just an outline:
a hint beneath thin fabric
of forms to undress

A trace of me—
in all things I come to see
a mirror stream—

it’s not a bird, this
bird, no matter its shape and
concept of flight—

The blue world warms—
Despite the cold lingering
In mens red hearts—

I want to get small
enough to crawl inside an
abstraction and hush.

brooklyn meat beater
bastards baste the bar in beers
slipped out mouths agape

I loop my fingers
Through morning-lit curls alight
With your warm breath—

Your look away, drill
Holes into my chest and plow
Out the freezing slush.

I hate this. I hate
This. I hate this—this thing I hate:
when I can’t cant create.

Whittling love away
With long silences and short
Glances long askance.

I stare at angry
Walls—who knew white walls could be
So blood red beneath.

acid frequencies
like sodium embers shine:
a dense pink joy

We are soft, too soft
for today’s pornography:
we shrink when we shine.

This is not present:
routing bike trips to beaches
as the blizzard blows.

A three line poem
needs no title any more
than the sky needs blue.

Computers don’t work.
Trains run late. This is not mal-
function but nature.

The Passing Moment
is all we have, not the sound
of frogs crying kwah!

Forehead pressed against
the glass of a bay window,
his drooling lips stare.

I align my pen
on the sheet’s thin rules, queued up
for the next letter.

All you want for me:
Just to be happy, simply,
Like a morning smile.

Choose to see with eyes
Lensless, just gelatinous:
White orbs blind-aware.

Jazz tunes from Jersey
Silouettes the skyline cool
Winter rain blue.

A bath in early
winter: sweating brow, racing
winds, quiet alley.

Two planes in tandem:
Tailspinning double helix
Dis-integrating

This world would shadows
Be without the cast of you
And me, certainly.

Love hollows out my
trunk to store a winter’s worth
of dry sustenance.

Not what you had in
Mind, this thing, you find in days
Unstrung

I do more than sleep:
I wake up, work, vote, desire,
Eyes open, eyes closed, I.

I dropped my poem
While walking, not even rush
ing– careless me.

Outside the temple
This body craving, inside
Bodies craving This.

The fast is a death,
A walk into the desert
In the morning light.

From open skies and
Open days, today I crawl up
Slow underground stairs.

Lying stone naked
On a boulder by the sea:
Sweat distorted clouds roam free.

Sidewalk skipping, cig
arette flipping, laughable
leering, smile-fearing.

The thought came unlodged

Slipped to the
edge

Teetered and

Building skyscrapers
From super-glue and street
Strewn glass attractions

Sweaty men waiting

on the platform, eyes heavy

hearts sunk, fleeting, wise.