Supernova

Supernova, burning bright

There is no end to your great light 

In sight, your might, illuminates night 

And though I look away, it's hard to fight

The plight, it smites, my wrongs and rights 

so that I may indulge in sacred flight

from sights of every width and height 

Please do not loosen, hold on tight

Your warmth, as loose as an errant kite 

Yet I feel before you reach my sight

Your thermal presence fills me with fright 

Behold, you free fungi from their blight

And yet people try to emulate your state

Their blunders and scorched earth, all mistakes 

I fear they will think you can be replaced 

To recreate god's mysteries is a fool's fate. 

And I guess I am the fool tonight

for your majestic presence did beknight 

upon me, an oath, perhaps a sacred right 

With you, I am golden, alone, a mite 

Supernova, burning bright 

I know an end to your light 

With might, through night, remain in my sight

I won't look away during your final fight. 

Ellipses

Ya know it doesn't matter how many times you say it doesn't matter
because if you're wasting your time talking about it, then it clearly does.
Still, I like the sound of the needle ripping across the vinyl.
Its glossy surface can sometimes reflect my face
and you are the needle that's scribbling all over it.
But that's how music is made and we don't think one bit about the violence.
Even I can't feel what isn't being done to me.
Your needle is weathered, with a sharp edge that stings at first touch
but eventually smooths out like the needle of a tattoo artist.
Instead of my sigil you brand me with an ellipses in swift staccato strokes
Each time reintroduces the needle to my skin, giving reprieve with each period being completed
I bleed so that infinity may be captured. Or perhaps it's just a moment.
Nobody knows what ellipses signify. They're the Schrodinger's cat of punctuation.
But sometimes I like to imagine. So I use my ellipses as full moons.
My ellipses can sometimes be pendulums in stasis.
Or perhaps they are tree stumps, freshly murdered, bearing their age for all to see.
Do not mistake this exercise for idolatry. I did not want to learn quantum physics.
You hold my ellipses over me and I just want the entire thing to come crashing down.
So I take a deep breath, grab the needle and then...

Coqui Lullaby

I lay plainly in my hammock

counting the coqui as they sing 

the wind begins swaying me back and forth

while humidity blankets over me

the sea gently crashes in the distance

providing percussion to the amphibian lullaby 

in the house, Spanish is spoken amidst the hum of the air conditioning

As I begin waiting for the San Sebastian rain to fall

Each moment is anticipatory, I can hear from afar the cars jettisoning 

but never so fast as to disrupt the melody of the coqui

My hammock is tied to two trees

Both bear flowers with vibrant colors: red and blue 

Some petals gently fall atop of me due to the rustling wind 

I lay lifeless, animated only by the mosquitoes 

a slight muscle twinge scares them off. 

How can my island be poor?

The sun and the sea cradles us. 

As I begin to drift away I can hear the waterfalls in Yunque 

While I lose consciousness, I hear the fritura crackle in oil. 

I hope that every time I die, I am put in this hammock. 

So that I may dance on this island one last time. 

Ghosting

Edit 1
Dear Darla,
       I hope this letter finds you in good spirits
I know that we seem to have really hit it off these past few months
And to be honest,my family adores you.
You always seem to know what to say to make the people around you happy.
especially me.
I am so grateful.
But remember when you asked me what state my life was in?
I have an answer for you now.
I am fresh magma expunged from the earth and still in conflict with my outer temperament
I cool, slowly, hardening to become igneous rock.
But not today. Not tomorrow. Not next week
Every time you tell me I've let you down or encourage me to be more reliable and I fail, I realize I am doing a disservice to you.
So I don't think we should see each other anymore. Or at least not until I've sorted out my life.
I hope this doesn't upset you, that's a stupid thing to say, of course it will upset you. But it needs to be this way.
I'm still a manchild and you're an adult. You deserve another adult to be with.
I'll always care about you and I want you to be happy. I just don't think I'm the one to be happy with.
Maybe a time will come, but you don't deserve to wait.

Love,
Mark

Edit 2
Dear Darla,
    I hope this letter finds you in good spirits
The past few months have been great.
I am so grateful.
But remember when you asked me what state my life was in?
My life is fresh magma expunged from the earth and still in conflict with my outer temperament.
So I don't think we should see each other anymore. Or at least not until I've sorted out my life.
I hope this doesn't upset you, that's a stupid thing to say, of course it will upset you. But it needs to be this way.
I'll always care about you and I want you to be happy. I just don't think I'm the one to be happy with.
Truly,
Mark

Edit 3
Dear Darla,
I hope this letter finds you in good spirits.
The past few months have been great.
But my life is complicated and I'm still in conflict with it.
So I don't think we should see each other anymore.
I hope this doesn't upset you.
I'll always care about you and I want you to be happy.
Sincerely, Mark

Edit 4
Hello Darla,
The past few months have been great.
But my life is complicated.
I don't think we should see each other anymore.
I wish you the best.
Mark

Edit 5
 Darla,
I don't think we should see each other anymore.
I wish you the best.
Mark.

Edit 6
Darla

Edit 7

Patchwork Pockets

The same thing I would want today
I will want again tomorrow- Bob Dylan

Saying goodbye to my patchwork pockets!
Finer fabrics are not too hard to find
I'll find my shears and then I'll chop it.

Trade traps and tariffs can't seem to stop it
And plain regular folk don't seem to mind
Saying goodbye to my patchwork pockets

And adorned around my neck, a golden locket
 My dear poor conscience it does remind
To find my shears and then I'll chop it.

A convertible, a yacht, a jet, a rocket
all dreams, so that I may bide my time
Till I say goodbye to my patchwork pockets

The price was fine, I had to lock it
In golden print with script like twine
I got my shears and began to chop it

And you! Yes you, how dare you knock it.
As I leave my old life clear behind
Saying goodbye to my patchwork pockets
I'll find my shears and then I'll chop it.

Fuckboy

I guess there's only so many cave etchings I can make before you believe in evolution
French and untouched, no displacement, I know that each etch was hacked
The stick figures jagged and uneven, but in a deliberate manner. Yet you still ignore it.
I even used red clay from the river bank to make you remember what it means to bleed.
The art snob in you saw it as Baudrillardian nonsense. But I predated him, artificially.
God, I feel like an idiot. Blisters on my fingers and callous that's whiter than the chalk marks in the              cave.
Fuck.
Masterpiece of Dali clocks that are all working on broken tablets. I'll scatter them around so you can           excavate them .
 And then you can tell the world about how you're a great archaeologist, while you continue to tell me         about that dashing engineer.
I'll delay the carbon dating till you're published, then let you be found as a fraud. Then when you're             crying and distraught, I'll come.
I'm conflicted by a sick affliction. My artifice is a lie within  a lie. But if I write you a love poem will         it be true or is it just another excuse to self sabotage?
That's not to say I'm not fulfilling some sort of prescription. Male tiers are rarely seen, but we're all in a secret competition to see who can be the sickest.
Let's just go back to that cave. If you read the symbols you'd realize there was a hieroglyphic                      message for you.
Encumbered by the onus of interpretation, you'll fall to your knees and let it soak in. And the only              way you'll experience my art is tactile because the next piece is going to be submerged.
 Ocean deep, misgivings of a prolonged sob, I remain in a statuesque stasis. When you retrieve me, you'll find me encrusted in reefs and fungi.
But it's too dark to see, so all you'll do is scrape your gloved hands on my cheeks. And even though I     had died many months ago, my heart will jump at the thought that you might come into contact           with my skin.
The synthetic material simulates you caressing me. Verify my symptoms with the undertaker. Does Davy Jones have a place for a relic?
No, I'm broken. Only history to you, but to no one else. I'm not even worth the afterthought, a footnote in a collection. 

Burn

I want to burn your fingernails and stray hair

I want your eye lashes incinerated 

And your smile needs to dissolve into ashe 

Pearly eyes can only be appreciated in soot 

Your abdomen must burn so you can be skinny 

Churning out the conflagration that is your life 

I want to watch it burn 

You tell me that I just want to watch the world burn 

No, just you. So burn for me 

I want you to become her best friend 

And then she'll catch you with me 

She'll finally know what it means 

to be burned

A brand on your left arm 

That sizzles in sync with each tear you let out 

I want to watch it burn 

You tell me that I just want to watch the world burn. 

No, just you. So burn for me 

All this fire was too much 

so I took a backseat to the passion 

But then she bent over and I knew 

The fire that had lit burned me

No respite in sight, I ran after her

Hoping she'd get caught in my inferno 

I want to watch it burn 

You tell me that I just want to watch the world burn 

No, just you. So burn for me 

I don't want to be aware, so I decided to burn 

And with each gram I drifted away 

Waiting for the eventual procession 

No legacy to be left on this earth 

Instead she wanted to burn

I want to watch it burn 

You tell me that I just want to watch the world burn 

No, just you. So burn for me 

You will be California in the summer 

You will be the Bronx in the 1970s 

You will be a false idol outside San Francisco

You will be my fire 

I want to watch it burn 

So burn for me