Five Fingers

I felt five fingers
pressed against my back
ancient and hard
baring weight like reason

I could ask you to touch me
(I always do in my own way)
and find that spot
hidden beneath old muscles

find that spot beyond
where I lie
in pre-adolescent confusion
my life - me and weathered

prayer beads

you can feel that I dream
in dark colors of sex
fallen from extinct species of flowers
whose scent remains a mystery of time

and the erotic thrust
of five fingers
through my heavy back
will expunge pre-millennial tensions

the sex of our intimacy
becomes Egyptian myrrh
bronzed skin glistening
like a Hollywood epic

and when you catch that scent
of time's self-obsession collapsing
into abyssal distraction
a world of signifiers with no signs
(or signs with no signifiers?)

I'll recreate planets in sex
simulated with self-aware novelty
drawn in parallel sequences
of color, taste, and gentle smiles

if you wonder how I love
trace the ironic continuum
the intimacy in words I cannot say
wrapped in movements I dare not take

the tragic nature in which I plod
apparent aloofness a disguise
masking the pain of desire unmet:

know my love as its inaction

mulched by your five fingers
silent creaking of my body
releasing coded sexual messages
in timorous sighs and gasps

it is best

(as always)
to recognize the body's failings
with a tender heart

open and reaching
your five delicate fingers

entreating

Dialed in Panic

the crackling walls
smell like radio static
popping and scratching
against air currents

through the chaos
scattering matter like ashes
blown skyward

Why are you depressed

what's wrong with me?

Why aren't you horny

what's wrong with me?

dancing particles squeezed
through pinched arteries
and a tightened chest
relaxed by unconscious flailing

I understand why
you would want more from me
but how could you think
you would want more for me?

my quest for nothingness
upends itself in overabundances
of free radicals pacing my mind
destroying everything

I am left with a mangled body
broken reason flooded levies
self-disgust and the flat-line
resembling the heartbeat of love

I am left

a disappointment

Two Psalms of No Origin

1) The Lone Warrior

if I believed my eyes
there would be no such thing
as an impotent warrior

and the streaming waves of wind
cascading

over fields of grass

wisping

tufts of molted hair
matted to twisting stalks
snake through living mass

watch rivers change course
sweeping over tangled grass
carrying mangled debris

rowboats following the current
ancient and weathered wood
crackling over uprooted foliage

at the helm
a greying man
with no lineage

but my eyes
see none of this

2) Perpetuation

red lights
beaming astrology
in numeric code

I thought I saw you
on my birthday

as I passed the drug store
where old men filled
Viagra prescriptions

the river built
by my backyard
has imported French fish

I feel decadent
lost in perpetuating
system of nothingness

I persist:
my decadence

at least
is mine

panic attack

I imagine each rib
connect with sinew
and years of usage
collapsed time
portcullis echoing
metallic moans
like arteries
travelling upstream
in some ancient ritual

breathe for me

never dream with
eyes shut
as lungs filled
caustic motions

there is a time
when the body will rebel
ribs shuddering
xylophone

no melody
unconscious but awake:

are these notes

mine?

emotions are held
under lock and key

but I

lost the key

I
no, I

no
I

cannot release
these demons
crushing my chest

with these sounds
destroying the fabric
of emptied skies
quieted night jilted