Verse: Fruit fly

At lunch
I tried
to dismiss you
with a wave of
my hand

I grazed you
unintentionally
gravity overcame you
like a fever
and you sank
like an anchor
tossed into
the sea

crumpled
upon the table
like Icarus
your legs flailing
as if you were reaching
trying fiercely
to hold on to
the tenuous strands
of your life

Overwhelmed
by your desperation
and your palpable fear
I thought
how careless
how craven
how petty
am I

Verse: Altar

We are not
cowardly or
complacent

Crawling toward
the clandestine
ceremony

The deep
dark mouth
of heaven

we arrayed
like a feast
and yet

it could not
ever swallow
all our lust

ringed by
confrontational angels
aroused by their disdain

that look
we used to call it
jealousy

now we know
it's fear

Verse: insomnia

Nothing is sleeping

Not the unidentified
bleary eyed
street lamps
on Willow
or the occasional
semi trucks that
rumble like indigestion
intermittently through
the city

Not the clamorous winds
that harangue
the shingles
Nor the steady cacophony
of the rain
against the unblinking window
as anxious as the
drumming fingers
of an expectant father

Not the calescent
wagging tongues
of the persistent muses
seeking out
an acolyte
nor the seeds
they leave behind
countless poems
softly longing
to be born

Nothing
is sleeping
not even
sleep, it seems

nor the
insatiable
unspoken lust
gnawing at me
for you

Verse: offering

And you
who did feed
the parasites
of love
with your
unrehearsed
generosity

who did
reproach those
lazy heretics
with the gospel
of love

who did
with but a glance
silence the
hundred thousand
barbed tongues
of gossip

who did
through boundless
grace cause the
righteous to tremble,
fall and genuflect
as if overcome
by fever

who did
at last dispel
the hot immediacy
of outrageous ignorance
with just one
unencumbered sigh

who is
this embrace for
if not
for you?

Verse: kisses

All the things I might have been
I pawned them long ago
the proceeds were invested
to acquire all that you know
such enlightenment eludes me
it happens much too slow
and all I long for now is
your kisses deep as snow

When I first encountered you
you were studious as a psalm
you bid me in and never once
did your voice betray any qualm
you said I was not meant for greatness
when you sat to read my palm
but all I wanted then as now
were your kisses soft and calm

You once gave me a pebble you found
and an old photograph
and you led me around the streets of town
obedient as a calf
and the thousand secret things I did
were all on your behalf
and the kisses you bestowed on me
were broken only by your laugh

And if you did press me to the light
to see if I was pure
then I did press you on your intent
you can never be too sure
but all we sought to clarify
only became more obscure
how quickly you can compromise
your kisses of their allure

I don't know who you've been talking to
but I am not a child
I used to be much bolder
it's age that's made me mild
and if there is some love in you
that I have not yet defiled
then let it be revealed to me
in kisses warm and wild

But I think I'm too familiar
and that has made me crude
Now I take for granted
what I ruthlessly pursued
and with all the little transgressions
that gradually accrued
now your eyes lack fire
your voice is hollow
and all your kisses are subdued

And if I did cause you offense
it was not my intent
when everything is compromised
it's easy to repent
ardor is like a season
little more than a mere fragment
but the imprint of your kisses
is indelible and the memories
won't relent

Verse: extempore

What reason
could I give
what chronology
what alchemy
would satisfy
your curiosity

you would not
ask music
to explain itself
or the delight it brings
you would let it
catch you
unawares

think on this
then as a
little symphony
a bebop blues
a cacophonous kaleidoscope
a first take
an abstraction

This is
nothing more than
an attempt
to touch the infinite
however briefly
in you

Karina Smirnoff in new Peta ad

Came across this on the Adweek website this morning. You'd think, with her name, a vodka endorsement would be in the cards, but Dancing With the Stars dancer Karina Smirnoff has chosen PETA instead. It could have been worse: it could have been Yakoff Smirnoff. Wonder what the judges have to say about her pose:

karinaPETA.jpg (JPEG Image, 607x800 pixels) - Scaled (61%)

Ad of the Day: Ozzy Osbourne goes to bat for Samsung again

Since I do work in marketing, and since I've neglected that for the past two months or so, I'm going to correct that over the coming days with some new marketing-related posts. Today, I'm featuring the new Samsung Rogue ad with Ozzy Osbourne, which features more bleeps than an episode of Maury Povich. Ozzy really likes the Rogue. Or maybe he just likes puppies. Without Rosetta Stone language programs for Oz-speak, it's hard to tell.

Verse: Revelations

Plagued by my own shadow
unexpected as a wrong number
my hands ache with ardor
I am indiscriminate

Engulfed by my conscience
vague and hard to digest
cataloged in my transgressions
I am desperate

Engaged in my ablutions
the every day is vulgar
divinity's impossible
I am delicate

No heart is so fierce
no prayer is too gentle
no word before this word
I am inveterate

Where's the bloom that doesn't fade
the answer that is unquestioned
the heart that bids me do its will
I grow accustomed to my fate

Verse: Language

Today's verse is, despite the lack of foul language, maybe, PG-13, and is offered humbly to m'lady @tenacioushfx:

Henceforth
passion will be
our only language

we will feed it
with our probing tongues
our hungry, feral mouths
our wordless cries

and only
the serrated edges
of each ecstatic gasp
will punctuate
the silence

we will
tag walls with it
inscribe it on our roiling sheets
codify it
in countenances

and in the day
your emerald eyes
will be the tiny flares
that guide me
and in the dark
your dappled
dimpled skin
will be braille
softly singing
your lustrous secrets
my unspeakable name