december 31st, 2004
Slinking toward a crowded, anonymous bar,
willing my heartbeat to have constancy,
tasting only salt and my trembling pulse,
all the way down, while
swooping through the scenes-
beautiful skinny-hipped Asian women,
drunken lurching rich city hipsters,
my hair flying around my face like flower petals.
I wish for a lover, and redemption.
Will I find a scrap of hope
in the midst of this city blooming
children who have no eyes?
The train stops often
and refills by the minute.
My fellow adventurers become
furtive, harder, younger
angels waiting under streetlights,
half-moon eyes and heavy evasion.
January 1st, 2005, New York City,
Center of the Universe,
Land of the Periphery,
an ominously sunny sixty degrees.
My head aches,
my mouth is ash,
my heart yearns.
I bleed all over,
my eyes straining to blue,
light shining from my pores.
Product of Love,
testimony of truth,
a teardrop on an eyelash,
a whisper in my wine glass,
collect together and scatter these dreams
over these dirty streets,
to travel in the breeze-
elusive leaves.