Hey Lover, who
I have never met.
Meet me in Brazil.
Let our hearts,
whisper songs,
bout a life
lived
in Portuguese.
A life in beaches.
A life in santaria.
A meeting of two
bodies,
with one foot each
across
the other's
border.

You never knew left feet till me.

In times of uncertainty, 

always the old,

good word of

one foot in front of 

the other. 

Right foot.

Left foot. 

right foot, left. 

I'm pigeon toed in the

space between. 

Tripped up without a strong footing.

My two left feet,

make me a sorry 

dance partner. 

Shakes with no direction. 

Hips brimming with

good wishes.

Heart always like 

a pair of high heels,

too tall for me to master. 

Wish I didn't ruin the number. 

Wish I didn't take the sweet song,

and make it a strange and unwelcome

track. 

Never wanted my weak rhythms

to throw

dissonance

 into your tune. 

I ruined the dance floor.

Failed pirouettes. 

. 

Smoke Season

I miss cigarette season. Those fleating nights when we denyied ourselves no indulgances, broke every little rule, went back on that long list of last year's New Years resolutions. Alright. Lets be bad. Just one pack for tonight's adventure. Just another pack for another of our cozy mornings after. Ciggerette season. All our worries exhaled up and disapated.

Drinks....a "character" ordered.

Why is it so hard to get laid? My legs were like social networking. Open. Current. Accessible. Accessible, like that album review you read on Pitchfork. Accessible, like some novice to teach..eager to please.  Accessible, like that last beer ill always let you finish. I know i'll never say it, but it's hard keeping up with you. I was trashed three beers ago. Thanks for catching my epic "trip over nothing" so quietly. Ego and me ordered another drink each hour, though I knew ego was full of shit. Why's it  so hard? I don't know what I did to deserve it, but I deserve to get laid. I shaved my legs twice today. But I deserve to get laid. Wore a thin dress today. Deserve to get something. ..Something. You know I do. I ate each olive from your glass. Olives make my whole face pucker. Man, I twirled my hair and was persistently witty.. you didn't brush my leg once. It was right there. Warm. Inviting. Uncrossed. Why's it so hard to laid? Why so hard on a summer night?

Reflections on all those men I said good bye to.

My body looked so different in those shards of new light, all beaming in from our open window circumstances. Your body looked different too. In a late coming, moment of tenderness, you wrapped your arm around my back, your long fingers resting on my shoulder. In that moment, I was no longer embarrassed of my dozens of freckles and clumsy scars. It felt like you drew them all yourself, tracing each one when I finally gave in, gave my body to you as a happy easel. Imagine what we could have painted.. I could have been a sculptor, wielding our lips together..connect all my dots. You found some joy in speaking, something you long had hated. In those hasty nibbles on each other's ear lobes, we wanted so badly to listen.

"I don't like feeling things."

"I don't like talking about um."

"Lets fuck again."

After all the back and forths between us, I never expected how content I'd feel, just listening to you talk about the weather. Your voice sounded so different when you buried your head in my neck. When I dropped my chin down, every mistake we might have made, just muffled out. Your weather forecast drove me wild. More so then all our early morning text messages.

"I wish I would have found you sooner. I would have probably stayed at your house forever. I think I would have fallen in love with you."

"Knowing my luck, you would have fallen out of love with me just as fast. We're never gonna find out now are we?"

"I'm so tired of saying good-bye all the time."

"And I've never been good at good-byes, so can't we call it something else? Can't we just kiss like nothing is going to change? Can we just have till we meet agains? I just want some subjectivity...why does good bye have to be so certain, so permanent, so long? Can't we just meet again?"

You smiled. I could have spent hours, making faces, tickling your knees, determined to get what I wanted from you, that soft spot in your voice when you smiled at me.

"We will always have the songs huh? What am I going to do when I hear them again? Can I stop myself from running to you, slow dancing alone..does that work?'

One last hug, I wanted to disappear into your chest. I wanted to start a new life in your bed but you didn't have one anymore. Mine was so far away and too familiar.

"Here's to you having the good life."

"Till we meet again."

Cryptozoology and Essays on Human Existence: Beast of Exmoor

Beast of Exmoor! You famous, yet elusive beast. 100 sheep and throats could never feed you like I would. I'll dangle all that folklore, above your head, unraveled yarn. No one else knows you kitty. Leave the puma on the farm.












Image found on: http://www.everythingexmoor.org.uk/exmoor_encyclopedia_detail.php?id=125

Cryptozoology and Essays on Human Existence: Beast of Dean

Beast of Dean! All the trees did fall before your clumsy hooves. I too, was floored. The villagers all called you "Moose-pig." Pitchforks and rifles called you a failed hunt. One unearthly roar to make me believe for decades.





Image from: http://genelempp.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/superstition-legend-and-mystery/

Cryptozoology and Essays on Human Existence: Beast of Dartmoor

Beast of Dartmoor! I knew the devil would find me. Knew, you knew I was coveted. With a heart like a squire, the devil's hunting pack always follows. With fur like the black night, you drag me screaming every time.













Image from: http://mogollonmonster.com/mitchs_cryptic_corner_everything_with_a_b

Cryptozoology and Essays on Human Existence: Beast of Busco

Beast of Busco! You snapped my heart in half as I tried to see inside your wide 500 pounds of shell. Farmers got an eye for the pond. I had an eye for drained lakes and traffic jams. All I wanted was an inch of your wet neck..one usable photo would suffice. Each year I watch a turtle race. Skinny dipping never caught me a turtle.





Image from: http://www.cryptozoonews.com/beastbusco2011/comment-page-1/

Cryptozoology and Essays on Human Existence: Beast of Bray Road

Beast of Bray Road! I play the nightwatchman along dark, rural roads.I smell a man under all the stench of decaying meat and wolf's hair. Up on your hind legs, I was roadkill under your headlights eyes. Down on your haunches, I was another witness to the wolf man. Can't you fall on all fours when I struggle to see you? Wisconsin, in the night he repeats, "Gadarah."















Image from: http://www.theweekextra.com/news/1206/122406beast.html

I swore I heard the music box play last night

The geometry of my life,
recognized
as the world comes
full circle.
It all goes back to that song,
the one from the musical,
that one I sang as a child.
How many music boxes,
surrounding the toy chest
my father built for me..
All playing one tune,
all wound up to the
fullest.
Years away from the girl
with a little, brown
 toy pony.
Now the women,
with cigarettes falling
from her skirt.
I cry like
the tot with bruised knees.
Somehow I'm still singing.
And its still,
"My Favorite Things."

Cryptozoology and Essays on Human Existence: Beast of Bodmin

Beast of Bodmin! Were you licking your paws when the women all screamed on the moors? Haunting some heard of cows with your panther intent? I want you locked in the barn. I want the ghost given up to me only. Be there when that barn door swings open. My love is a firing squad locked on you. Flash of the eyes of a ghost cat, left with only rugs and imported skulls.




Image Found: http://www.beastofbodmin.co.uk/

Cryptozoology and essays on human existence: Beast of Baldenboro

Beast of Bladenboro! All my love letters turned to dog whimpers the moment you prowled through my home. The trail you left behind your cougar's paws was nothing but dead pets and shot gun smoke. How'd you dodge all your hunters and hounds? No bobcat left to hide you. I thought I heard something outside. Keep watching the woods from my window. Feel it like a broken jaw, you drained all the blood you could see.




Image found: http://non-aliencreatures.wikia.com/wiki/Beast_of_Bladenboro

I sang it to the dirt

I found an old scribbling, I find those damn things everywhere!


I Sang it to the Dirt:

You can change your life. In fact, you should. If you want something, you should just go for it already. And if that goal, like some icy mountain top, looms too high above you, you must begin to climb. Tooth and nail, feet and fingers, ego and id. If you don’t, you will forever lie at the bottom, gazing up towards the submit, cursing your height and inches.

You can not change someone else. You can support others and others can support you, be a rung on the ladder you must climb. But they can never be the top, never the goal. Only you can determine the heights of your destiny.

I only hope you let me be your rope, step, boost, helping hand. I think I have found my temple of happiness at the top of the hill. Maybe my lot in life is to be the shoulders, strong enough, to bear the precious feet of my loved ones. I would surrender all my mountain climbing, everything, to give you the world’s resources. Let me serve you. Let yourself serve you. When you reach the peak, make sure to dangle your feet over the edge and listen to your accomplishments on the wind.

Cryptozoology and Essays on Human Existence: Bear Lake Monster

Bear Lake Monster! All those Mormon wives watched in terror, two strange lovers turned into snakes. There was something bout the water, right? Something new. Something like swam like a serpent. Give me something to gossip about. Open these lips with your old walrus feet. They warned me that you were the main attraction. Tourism's boomin in your crocodile smile.





Image from: http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/lost-tapes/creatures/bear-lake-monster.htm

Cryptozoology and essays on human existence: Beaman Monster

Beaman Monster! I watched those circus trains derail. Saw each elephant and clown recaptured. Let the cotton candy stick to my face as they watched that one last beast fade through smoke and carousels  You were born of Big Top expectations. Born a gorilla's son. Who are you really? Never my Bigfoot. Never my Wolfman. And always, and always, my ringleader. 

Image from: http://www.unknown-creatures.com/beaman-monster.html

Cryptozoology and essays on human existence: Batutut

Batutut! If only that red fur fell over your face. Those bare hands and monkey's paws. Every human feature captured, felt worse then all your unpredictable, foraging teeth. Are you feasting on grapes that dropped from my lap? Are you dragging my liver through Borneo? I tripped in those footprints with each whispered song. Tootooooooo. tootoooo. totoooo

Image from: http://www.americanmonsters.com/site/2010/01/batutut-malaysia/

Cryptozoology and Essays on Human Existence: Barmanou

Barmanou! All I saw, looking up, were those animal pelts, dangling off your shoulders. How long were the tracks my body left in the dirt, as you dragged me from my bed? All those different names can't cover that primal stench. Your motives were always Man of the Forest.












Image found: http://www.unknown-creatures.com/barmanou.html

Curve balls

Lost games.
I never fancied myself,
an all star.
A pro.
An athlete.
Blow out the megaphone,
cheering for you,
to carry it all across
the goal line.
Foam fingers,
always dragging the chew
out onto the field.
All those conflicting thoughts,
bright as the team's colors,
smeared under my eyes.
I never get to pitch
the ball.
Never the option,
of playing referee.
One day,
we're hittin home runs.
Hear your name,
in every GO TEAM GO.
All pom poms shook,
in your lap only.
Then life starts,
throwing you
curve balls.
Curve balls.
Always a screwball,
you cant predict.
Always thinking too much
at the plate.
Before you know it,
the scoreboards empty.
Before you know it,
you've struck out.
Its over,
long before
you can take a penalty shot.
I don't know nothin,
about playing sports.
But I know,
when I fumbled
it all.
Nothing but rookies,
plucking flowers,
living life on the bench.

Mosquito on my Mind

Eaten alive,
by all your famished
scrutinies.
Were we an item?
Or was I still fasting?
Never could tell,
never could taste.
Was that was my head,
up in your clouds,
or was I looking forward,
to more mosquito swarms.
Stung.
How your strands of hair
brushed my leg on
our old couch.
Pricked fingers,
on your broken promises,
like glass and gnat's mouths.
Your left behind clothes,
sting more,
than bug bites.
Your half of the bed,
swells up,
necrotic.
You're Necrosis, baby. 
Gotta suck ,
all the poison out.
I was never hungry,
like you were.
I never seem
to swat all the 
flies.