* amor vincit omnia *

Sweat

A tooth pushes
between my lips, probing its way
into my palm, bloody and
wet with spit
and after it another
and another, and three more together
as though the only
thing holding my teeth
in my mouth is
the pressure of one
upon the others.

My palm is full
of glossy bony bits
and I scramble madly
in my mind for the number
of the dentist's office, wondering
if I can find, open, dial my cell phone
and then drive there
one-handed.

I do not know the significance
of dreaming of losing teeth
but I wake with
the glassy feel and bloody flavor of
broken tooth
upon my lips.

10 May 2006

Halogen tracers
string gleaming from my windshield
though the storm has passed.

14 April 2006

Doctor Frankenpoet

And so into this box
this bright white box
of plastic, I put them
my tiny darlings
my little gems
seal them hermetically
with a click of
latexed finger.

In cryogenic storage
they will sleep
my precious poems
until I in my
starched and snowy
(thus free of any evil)
labcoat
call them forth to tinker
and sprinkle them
with handfuls of commas
a dash of dash
fiddle with their code-
pendant clauses
mix up a little metre
and clip trailing tails of
-ing from all the
little gerunds.

Gerundless, I insert the I in each
tasty stanza
plunge myself into the
pith of every embryonic
etemologic morsel
for I am mad
mad mad mad
to make them
mine mine mine
and I reanimate their meanings
splice some prepositions
teetering upon semicolonic
juxtaposition
shake from them all
somnolescent similies
shape the pliable
posey, god-like, I, I
I wake them, whip them
'til they stand each one
in frenetic frenzy, carrying
my stamp, each literary
leit-motif I allow to march
upon a page for
I the word-wright
I the craft code master
I have made my mark.

14 April 2006