You are Maud Gonne
to my William Butler Yeats
a cold, impassive Jekyll
to my frantic, desperate Hyde
the proverbial thorn
embedded in my side
an avalanche that sits
and waits.
You are the hung jury
to my repeat offender
you are my iron lung
a phrase on the tip of my tongue
a song the words to which
I can’t remember.
My Scylla and Charibdis
a name to which [...]

Breakfast in the madhouse
is no different than a diner.
There are bacon, eggs, toast.
Crowded tables,
the cacophonous hum
of constant conversation.
But if truth be told,
most of us are only talking
to ourselves.
And the silverware is not silver -
it’s plastic.
There are no knives to speak of.
Sui – Homo – Geno – cidal -
from sharp objects we abstain
like priests
and at bedtime [...]

Sailor beware.
You know not where you sail.
You sit sightless
and stare at my face.
You read my body like Braille.
Deal the cards.
My life is an open book
in which I write
and just as easily erase.
Come close.
I don’t bite
that hard.

mister
don’t steal into my heart
like a vandal
and spray paint
your graffiti love
on the walls
don’t saunter down the steets of my brain
flashing that million dollar smile
don’t lean against my eardrum
and whistle for a taxi
don’t carelessly splash through my blood
as if it were a dirty gutter puddle
in city mid-summer
mister
don’t scribble your
graffiti love
on me
and call it art