you could win the whole thing if you broke my nose

if you broke my spell, my heart, my mayflower

my liberty bell

my spanish armada

now our memories are turning orange-brown

like backyard nighttime cricket sounds

under the pools of light on elm street

breeze slow

or our youth

capsized debris boxes of treasures wine bottles or clothes

or candles

washing ashore onto the jagged rocks lining the coast

thunderstorms moving far off on the blurry horizon line

we were totally free

drugs fucking money

how in the world

did we complain

all that cocaine

talk

words like snake-sailors

coasting in the waves, between the rocks

our fleets

anchored there waiting to take us

now once again to war

gunpowder hands

into the deep with the ships

with the pirate battalions

off the coast

off the beach

cannons sending blasts everywhere

ducking the explosions and bird-scatter

i was on this life raft, it was my home

for words

i am an author laughable

for luck

i loved you and those things so very very much

the raft skipping like a pond rock on tiny surf

just off this coast,

just off the sidewalk

it cannot take us back to drug wartime

or depression

and takeout on the bed between fits of easy madness

i was a king

once

so unaware and so beautifully perched there—

on the scale

over a pit of fire

burning a fuel made of youth

my my

now,

on the beach, lover

one rush and dash for the sandhills up the beach

those daylilies seagrass breeze and sky

they burn bright

under the bullet-spray hair standing up on end

the mad dash saves us

and

the enemy above in smoking sniper towers familiar

the old us

holds true in our bloody dreams in the suburban hush

my past

those nightmares between movies

blockbuster black

the funny ones

the big ones

the ones you see on tuesday night

when it isn’t busy

counting the years by things that go by us

too fast

like we were

i lost you

and us

and it

whale ships firing harpoons into the huddled mob of

blue mist

crying amazing tears

young

and

free

that war not claiming me

so hurt

continuing without the fade

or purple heart charade

my age dissolving me into nothings

cussing

us on a bed complaining

maybe you saw me age

maybe you saw me go tiger

and you go cage

so you bent the wires in your wiry frame

broadway litter scraping the tar

in swirling patterns between cars

like it was spelling your name

like it was on fire

like it was in flames

smoke circles bobbing from my mouth

in the freezing street

lottery-winning postures

no tomorrows—

all gone

totally wasted

evaporated

home team away, forever

i cried like a fool

afraid of the new days

so scared

my youth on the stretcher

dying like a day

thoughtless motions arms in the air

in a ceremony unfit for prayer