Leaving Part 3

I've got it tattooed on my chest.
A silhouette of the skyline from Pilsen.

Stumbling across oceans
motions like water escaping
fingering the sand then lapping
receding toes too cold to touch
much thought of escape
taping shuffles and scuffles
telling tales of blocks built
and families destroyed
toyed by Mayor Daley
barely making rent
spent time with bottles
clinking staccato chimes
times on the loop
always taking me back
trains waning but
a circle city
a immigrant city
a city of many faces
places they've seen
keen on spilling coins
for another hit
get back on 18th and
preach the gospel to
the dead-eyed scoundrels
stabbing couples for dimes
regain the streets we've called
casa of border jumpers'
helping build their cages
pages of history blackened
by the tight belt
getting tighter brighter
lights for cops to cut
through the night
to start fights with locals
another riot till the market
martyrs sing the blues
once again.

As far away from Chicago I go,
I've yet to forget all it has to say.

Leaving Part 2

I've tempted typing telegraphs in glass bottles
but used words are just garbage in your ocean
a motion with soft sails sailing silently into our past
nightly crooning with old tales of once upon sleeping
under back then's blooming blanket of nostalgia and
in those day's praising promising parenthetical's puckering
lips lounging on exposed necks begging an audience with
the wanderer wallowing in his blues trumpeting to those
ghost maidens he once held hands with haunting him
hollow eyes staring back cracked photo folded in his
back pocket locket from  better days or different ways
of living when engrossed by a being posted in the pocket
for a year now steering into the vanishing point that pocket
jeering its chortle hungry for more fear tassel those ropes
for this vessel is about to collide with what if a crash course
forced to deprive him of his fatal thirst exhaustedly lying
exposed among the sun refusing to throw away that
photo that pocket reminds him everything can be kept
safe from time in the name of that precious star still
blinking in his sky their sky so why just toss it
when it still heavily weighs down his hand.

Leaving, Part 1

Hoist the sails, I’m setting out among the open sea,

We’ve glided along with half-smiles

While I’ve dreamed about a different sun,

One with specks of red in the womb.

Yes, my nerves dodder on these shaky rails,

Failing to quell your sadness, Primrose

prose wilting with the passing morning light,

fighting swelling tears, taciturn like our faceless reflections.

No, I’m speechless among the curious eyes of Chicago,

Staring along with strangers and friends while I egress,

Confessing my final sins swooning to your answering machine,

Gleaming a wanderer’s smile, ready to rile the other side of my heart.

Creep Creep Summer

Creep creep summer,
with your sly heat shifting with the height of the sun,
running feet skipping marble stones across oceans,
jovially groups kicking up sand to block out the past,

creep creep summer,
competing with the shifting cold night shivering darkness,
no more scarves to hide the old bite marks or scars,
skin bare to show the fall's lashes that we survived,

creep creep summer,
with your longer afternoons swooning till a pink pulses,
mid-break for the people still moving on their hind legs,
a pit-stop illusion, an oasis where time seems to slow down. 

A Perfect Time to Shut Your Eyes

You remember the sound of the undulating waves crashing under

the hull with specks of starlight salting the darkness

I gripped the freezing banister imagining falling in

down till the sound of my voice drowned

frowning as the dense water bounds for my lungs

spinning around till I reach the depth of my soul.

You’re that great white circling my ocean seeking

the scent of my blood

that shark bumping it’s nose against my still carcass

leaving bite marks to remind me we’re not foes

supposed to sink but the floater keeps me drinking.

You recall the way our voices lifted when we were alone

shone my own shadow on your ceiling

garbling goodbyes with distant prizes

you make it rain when you smile

imagining those wet dots sliding down your pallid cheeks

staring at the sinking pink in the sky

mild daylight shrinking into the horizontal sheath

my eyes count the visibly planets shyly

revealing their true colors to me.

                                                                              

A Day Away

Cough up my spooked heart in my hands,

searching both ways for a crosswalk,

dust the sweat off my eyes like windshield wipers,

spit up old adjectives caught in my throat,

rustle my collar to hide my scratches and bruises,

facing the façade of life fluttering like a peacock,

strutting dauntingly with a two-step,

I’ve learned my dance,

my teacher's passion makes my spine tingle,

you’re nothing but a mountain marauder,

merely a pebble poking my soul.

For the Forever

I play this record, Never, skipping on base clef discordant notes,

the needle dances softly through the dimming day,

play it twice, Never, sipping vodka to get words down,

thumbing yellowing prose about a dead rose wilting exceptionally,

selling free songs and blurbs for the past,

Never rides along like an old jalopy,

whispering in my ear, have you ever loved?

chuckling seriously, even if he isn’t serious,

mysterious moon molding my room into a white forest,

better to lie still so the cackling bugs won’t find me,

Never, see my half-full glass nervously whimpering?

Thrice you repeat with steel toes on my back,

producing images in black and white,

about a distant fight,

Never, please lower the familiar tune,

I still swoon from your melody

and I know you’ll last forever,

but give me time to severe these sharp pains,

Please, please, Never,

don’t ever vanish completely.