Birds in the City

I moved into the city
to let its beauty bruise me,
send me broken to some cell of
madness, spluttering grit.
I wanted to
lick the street's gray,
ingest all the apathy of
so many souls crossed
pointlessly. I wanted to
taste rape
in the smog trickling
down my throat

but then this bird I couldn't see
sang out from some dead tree
and my spirit soared from me

and all that gutter-gold.

Fridays

Friday nights, downtown
detonates with
the laughter of
women wobbling on heels
to fall head over
and there’s something defiant in
their hemlines high up the thigh,
skin glaring over necklines, assertion
in the tipsy stupidity of these
bodies between bodies
ricocheting. How tight
they’ve been wound up, I think,
how desperate their escape
every Friday night
like clockwork
on dynamite.

Thunderstorm

It’s nice
to feel the rain and
know my hair is
frizzy and
ruined. I like to know
my shirt is wet and catch
men gazing, women glaring.
I hate the worms,
and love them. They’re so vile
on sidewalk cracks,
I like to feel like killing them.

After so many floating castles and
silver linings, it’s nice to see
the world for once, torn and
licking its wounds.

Woman Before the Rising Sun

Inspired by Woman Before the Rising Sun by Friedrich (1818-20)

The evening star is
an aphrodisiac of amour
de soi.
In its primal glow, the woman knows
her darkness, and her beauty, and
de-lights,
wings cra
cking through her marble shell, the
breaking of a spell
man-cast. She
lives. But too soon

owls roost; wisdom sleeps.
Today quits the cradle of humanity.
Morning casts its curse anew and
the woman is contorted into

expectation, a grotesque form
encased in stone, her heart

seems not

to beat. But

the woman merely sleeps.

[untitled]

Because you asked, I will try to make it
clear; my love for you was greatly
fear at the thought of
you not in my life. That faced,
I found I love you
because it helps me fall
asleep - nothing too deep
but comfort.