Cherubim I'm Sorry but Thank You

If my nose were my child, the most valuable advice I could bequeath upon my aquiline little darling would look something like this:

“Poems and sneezes and bees and murmuring mornings will mislead you to think that roses will always offer you a powder perfume light as gossamer wings. I know, beloved- it seems as if one day, all the cherubs took a break from rolling around field of strawberries and stopped splashing in fountains of wine and visited Earth. Eagerly, wonderingly, these little babies –much like you!- popped into the most glamorous and bustling of metropolises, curious and energized at the spectacle man makes of himself. Yet, upon witnessing only terse acts of loving and the most disheartening acts of brutality, the tourist cherubs could not help but blush! Their round nectarine cheeks turned fiery red, a soft pink, even yellow with comical nausea. In the really extreme cases, blood fled their cheeks altogether and fled back to their enchanted nursery in the sky, leaving their faces a pearly white. There was no need for their cheek-blood to flee so hastily however; the disheartened and awoken little angels fled quickly after, scared of what they could possibly see next. The only evidence they left of their excursion? Their cheeks! Marked so, soiled really, with the shock of the ugliness of the human world, the cherubs never really wanted to wait for the sweet nectarine color to return- and definitely did not want to take this in-your-face reminder back with them, to a dreamy world of innocent hedonism and clouds of pillows and nectar. They left their cheeks behind and we called them roses. Imprinted on them always will be the light dust of the clouds that you will always desire, my dear nose.

But remember! The most injurious expectation you can have is that a rose will always be wearing this fine fragrance coat. You see, you should know better than anyone the importance of having nice breath! With this desire in mind, the blowing wind dusts off and picks up the rose’s perfume, stealing it and swirling it around its mouth and blowing it all over the Earth, in hopes that people will forgive his icy wind chill and irritating impudence (his favorite activity being to lift up women’s skirts and playfully peeking underneath, you know).

So treasure your moments with cloud dust when you can and remember something more selfish stole it first if you find a naked rose.

Your turn, Kandinsky

you wear cruelty like a color
a thick butter of it just hovers
on the twists and the lines
of your rigid form. It dines
on girls using forks twisted at right angles.

but don't misunderstand me, love
i sorted the science of it above
the restaurant, in the attic, remember?
through pasta with bloody red marinara embers
i told you i was leaving to Argentina.

two things happened right there, right then:
a swig of that shit wine thatd put some men
to shame and indifference coloring your face
at a soldier's march, a condemned rebel's pace
and you requested a leather wallet, "they cure well there."

and that was that until it wasnt
when later you whispered we mustnt
make too much noise as you laid me across
your cool sheets the color of straws
and your baby blues were murky and oily.

oily with greasy apathy that shimmered on top
of you and your skin until it seemed to drop
off your lashes onto your square solid wrists
and THEN then then then i tasted the twist
of how you, you swirl, you feel in colors.

how crimson is every single shade of red but
and titian a mangy magnificent mutt
of it all! all! all! except that sunniness
which it can't take under its wide hoop dress
like the rest of its grandchildren colors.

Marx were you ever in love?

i become the worst pig of a capitalist
when it comes to owning you
i want you i want you through and through
you have lived gold's worth and i have missed
it all until only pearly days ago

but i would pay more for this moment than any other:
the moment red slapped your cheeks in anger
and found your thoughts so warm she chose to linger
on the chamois of your cheeks as a rosy cover
dancing in a blushing waltz so slow

Short-Order Cook to a King

you lowered your mouth to mine, first,
head lowered like a bow, lips straight mine pursed
like a little girl playing bergman
(no, kelly) and i thought that might happen that night and
so i tucked bits of ginger into my teeth
i bought from the stand on Tudor street
because you luxuriate in having that bite in your soup.

i thought that might happen every night until that night
so i tasted like ginger for a while, watching your height
get smaller and farther as you rode away, in late cold dark
and resolved to get some other flavor and make my mark
on the loops and furrows of your boy brain.

but ginger worked until it didnt anymore
and you came around until you didnt for
a while and then it was time for fiery peppermint
fresh sticks of it i stuck in my pockets until it stuck in the lint
of my pink coat. you tried tongue for dinner once, mine,
and winced at its fire, liked it just fine
said it reminded you of cigars and royal crown whispers.

until one raucous evening when i swapped spit
with a towhead yelling skinny thing who couldnt sit
still. That was when we hadnt spoken for a few weeks
and you mentioned books and business and my cheeks
were salty all the time. but i took a brave break from
my sea and went out on the town to the artist's slum
warehouse. he, that blonde, tasted like nicaragua and oranges.

citrus tasted like relief to me and, figuring
you had been missing because you were configuring
messes of minds like ours, i thought you could use some orange, too
a woman's attempt at getting your mood to sienna from gray blue
and then you'd know know know i can bring quiet.

so i bit a golden sun in two and found you two at the bar
a deflated you and your southern whiskey, neat, at the far
end of the room. your murmurs were of disconnect distance
but so intimate i forgot how your absence meant resistance
and showered your sandpaper neck with sugary titian hellos
where were you downcast prince, your humor so marked by the gallows?
you said you liked citrus, then ordered yourself some fried plantains.

fruits go moldy until you rang my bell and pounded on my door. I am unprepared
and you are regal with quiet demands and can hardly muster some care.
now you have shown up here on my door early morning, fog gray
cinereal dove early, and ask so sharply why i taste, taste, taste! that way
your velvet baritone boxes my ears with its lush disgust.

Without pause to pepper my bitterness- in truth?
This taste is the taste of wanting you.
my tongue sweats sadness feral with reeking lust
my gums don a coat of grime tailored from your dust
and my breath? a stale hops catacomb of decay
its longing that keeps me from brushing gossamer cobwebs away.
but you are here now, my love! there's some rosemary i've been saving to chew just for these very moments i get to spend with you.

If I was old you'd make me young

I never felt as
romantic as that fall day
when i rolled around

in damp musky hay
muffled by the sloshing sounds
of moonshine and rain

those black boots i found
victorian leather and
steel eyelets so black

kicked off to the side
sagging to the side Van Gogh
hidden by more hay

the bottom started
talking one day, flapping its
big flat gabbing mouth

and it wasnt til
you came along that i thought
to fix them and wear

them out on the town
as we waltz through puddles and
hide behind wet oaks!