itch

itch poems by leum

for Marie

You don’t know how dark my heart can get.

Today I burned all my money at the stake.

A candle in the shade.

The light tells everything.

sense I am stuck between retention & detention I an indigo train station platform misplaced by vertigo / this doesn’t make sense This doesn’t make sense, I was here just a second ago I was here just a second ago, but I drift to my other selves misplaced by vertigo misplaced just a second ago inside a run-on sentence My sentences running off the page

tongue Somedays I wake up to a glass of water balanced on the tip of my tongue, & if I close my mouth, out spills my lungs.

Other days, I’m a parked car voiced by a ventriloquist.

How many days before I learn how to speak without saying your name every other word?

Somedays I am mute, and in others I sing.

dandelion Where is the dandelion I once blew?

Did you flow into another echo?

If I leave the rain out, will it wash away the sun?

Dropsy tipsy topsy-turvy turbulence.

Listen to the crickets chirp silence.

You can see from my thoughts how lucrative my mind can be.

Can you hear me scream? Neither can I.

bebop I have nothing to say about today, moreover everyday.

With so many eyes to read, it’s hard to keep up with my own.

I guess you can say I’m a troubled itch, hopscotch tape and all that bebop.

I guess I have everyone else tattooed up my sleeve.

I scream your name to a mirror hoping it bounces back & hits me where it hurts.

I scream the sky hellfire & wish it burns.

rose I break my own heart, I like the way my veins snap.

I speak to flowers before I pick their petals out, tell the roses why I have no rose in my vase.

It’s a long day, it’s been a long night.

Been writing dirt with dirt, lines that never rhyme.

A middleman in his forties without glue.

sun A dark so blood & enough, the sins of Eden sing.

Eyes in the rearview mirror holding the steering wheel.

I evaporate my pardons, loathe the ghost I have become enamored by the waxing sun here, the birds always looking over me on the highway streetlights, the window light made of a billion angles.

blue I keep my words to myself, I don’t wanna rush them out. Looking at the blue sky branching tree, blue cardinals asking which way the wind fled. Blue as I my sister the beautiful model—blue as the sun my mother the home I grew up in—blue as the rain my brother a growing mirror—blue as the moon my father a humpback whale I was swallowed in— & all my friends the robins I never put into words.

city I could’ve said this & that, told you the universe and all the verses in between.

All this city light to keep the dark out.

All this heaven & hell a horseback ride away.

Not unlike I metaphor all my words to petrichor.

But I grieve, you’re all the pretty white keys.

I want to be the first morning bird chirp, something I can paint teal light onto.

end A Royal Palm Blvd embellishment syndrome innate by front door car handle problems.

I guess this is a diary about the end of the world.

All my data caught in a web like a fly unwilling to be swat.

My life is a piano sonata reaching coda solstice.

An Acrosonic or Baldwin perhaps poco a poco con poco pedale.

full I am blessed with rorschach eyes, headlights.

I the devil I lived.

Beach sand full of pennies fading with the waves.

The world is a string of oysters being pulled by a man-made clock.

The sun hitchhiking to the moon a hundred times before sunrise.

not Writing in loose leaf my noise possible nothing my heart remembers not.

I’ll dress you with words only you love to hear, a weave of reeds the morning eats apropos the rests and rests and rests between cacophonous symphonies.

My scars cursed by the eyes of a shadow, blood dry as sad. Ergo, you are invited.

loved How soon is goodbye loved, lloviendo.

And so I, why the world?

I watch it, count as it goes.

ivory where did the ivory tree first split in two and is that what i am to society a greyhound your choice contemporary traditional

souls you’re right, creation is part of our everyday lives, trying to always build a better day than the last, healing each other’s wounds with our eyes, letting go each gripping second all the seconds we still hold dear to our souls, a never ending story we keep rewriting over and over till the last second is dropped and no more words can be found

sans The moon a tease of love lust lost vultures flying over my dead body all she wrote venetian cartilage Venezuela spillage quarterly qua quotable like Donald cold open over Rico as backwards as degenerate genesis without geraniums

story An abandoned city filled only with persimmon flowers

infinity I’ve been left unopened furloughed, a big bird in the middle of the road.

You can still see the sun beneath those clouds riding a sailboat to the end of the world.

The weight of my heart is against you picking off infinity from a dying pine tree.

White-collared wolves without their leashes and all the howls and bells of petroleum.

dream As I know, asphalt became the alphabet the trees fear.

And to what dream, a shattering moonlight?

The white man killed the black man, painted all his brothers white.

And for what right, the absolution of fire?

Your nights are sunny days next to mine.

And in what peace is found apathy?

cake I don’t want to think about you anymore eating cake with death at night, green tea bags boiling in the sun, your eyes uncolored.

All the guns guns guns guns guns with a wanton of cardinal lies in a broth I have no use for but to melt my face with.

eyes They always paint me in blood but when I bleed, I sing and listen to the trees burn on their knees.

My best breath is my last sentence. Eden is just a few blocks away. Another bullet and I’m gone. Never was the sun & moon falling but our eyes.

empty I read empty books on my own volition only to find my words at war, an emotional blackout, a saddened sunset just this once, let me have this second silence, unfinished my hands entangled by powerlines unforgiven. A different light shutting my lips tight.

awake Awake I dream my eyes fought to stay.

Black trees in a black night, too many to count covered in flies, still of that I am.

More.

I feel nails through my hands and feet.

I can see the sunlight fly today awake, I dream the world gone.

always Marie always at Goodwill blessing what is bled.

I a practiced last samurai suicide ritual.

Marie, always stay golden eyed.

I not mythical but a standard byproduct function, a construct of societal means.

sand A wolf hunting robins, a robin herding wolves, so a moon viking fucking hit the storm right in the eye.

Goodnight, goodbye, goodmorning bodies on bodies on bodies on bodies, blood on blood on blood, a spiked chin pharoah drinks the sand and eats the sun.

moon Writing a painting with shadows, what does the moon say? Rich sweet daysprings walk fire to see heaven dance.

Puerto Rico, qué vergüenza llevas en tus manos?

Lips painting a kiss.

Y si no tienes ojos, qué vaciamiento verás?

The dimensions of emptyness, the absence of creation, el llanto de las estrellas.

bones The bird speaks to the clouds, asks for the sun, I put a spell on me begging to be sunburnt.

You and that painting you drew match night here, now only you can dig up my bones in a gray dusk brushed violet from old dust on a ceiling fan.

edge Still as my dead lining heart a stallion eating the side-road roses but every star is counting the milliseconds between you & I course talking shit in Monday’s Sunset Avenue French yet balanced on the edge of my dead virginity if God so wants it.

rain Make me forget the sins of my ruin as God witnessed.

Tell me, does it rain when you say my name?

Remove yourself my morning star above all else Godless.

Tell me rain and rest on my eyes when you speak not. Tell me not what climbs down the clouds hungry for starvation.

heart In my dreams my heart beats your chest open a gallant superiority I didn’t cremate alive but dead stuck in a room with a bunch of knives and all you love painted away.

In my hell you eat your prayers while nobody listens to you cut yourself to pieces except me, except me, except me.

waters Two steps and a bridge sempiternal drafts breeze thoughtless a book stapled shut, call me unknown moth charcoal blue in the chrome blue light price tag stamped on my forehead if so, dragons turned to dragonflies walking a sand drive into the magenta swirl sunset rich for the century what wails in our waters.

past My life about I make the past into a glimpse in my diary, a broken bridge in congregation.

I’m tired of metaphors messing with my words, so many fucking ads, so many fucking holidays.

The world is without—and I am without in it.

You were so sure you knew where the daisies grew and how far it took to get to the market corner, patience walking across a collapsing bridge.

sins All my words are alcoholics & I’m a word.

I’ve been caught lately looking at the tops of tree lined acres on the highway medians of 75 as a large pipe cargo freightliner passes the greyhound bus I find myself skinless in, blocking the view of unsold prairies filled with small shrubs, dry soiled treeless branch littered patches dressed in sins, a hawk in standstill watching these transpirations a quarter mile up the ground or so I’m told to think.

close The world wings from a tree to see she wasn’t given dissemination crying molten lava with botched watercolors there goes my heartbeat so close to heaven but trying to find a way back to hell pissing on the walls shooting at the stars no love for the city this whole town’s going down

dye If only the clouds stopped crying eyes with too much to say about red wine being the most permanent dye in a world covered in storms, maybe you & I will become the wind the water sips under the bridge each night, butterflies whispering arpeggios with beating wings.

apples baskets of apples buried exits

too I can hear you yell out my name but I can’t get up.

Tenacious tarnation! Too many walls to break town, too many hearts sold by diamonds. Are you almost awake?

In what reflection am I held silent as an island’s coast?

Déjame soñar de ti with a swarm of ravens at my feet.

How sweet it is to be painted by you dropping the clouds.

If I can’t have you, then I want this pliant, steadfast world without me.

lies The saddest place on Earth lies within our eyes.

Talons of the bees move it to the blues.

The forest calls my name, I don’t recognize my heart.

All my sunflower petals covered in uranium sweat.

blind I stare at the sun, I want to be your eyes drunk on all the light for once blind from the lies I never told my burnt bushes.

I’m surprised I haven’t written this for you, a second forever spent counting countless what-ifs.

Where am I now if you’re not here?

color Every step of God takes a thousand deaths a woman once told me while too close to the edge.

We drink the poison because poison begs more poison.

As you can see the left side of my body is weak where the sun shines on itself and the birds sing dead songs.

Would I limit myself the idiosyncrasies of color?

The ultimate goal is to reach stupidity.

Give me a handshake and let me step on your foot.

all Of all the wordless obscenities I wish silenced, I cannot say my name with yours in the same sentence before or after the sunrise & sunset to my prayers never answered by you.

Of all the wordless obscenities I wish silenced, of all the needless tragedies I drink heavy, you are always my first & last breath.

twilight This land is neither the twilight sun or the evening moon but I don’t see so far why I’ve made a heart I cannot leave mistaken inside your blue sea eyes.

You torture me still, my last words never said bloodshot in your hands.

clouds Overcast clouds are versified spirits drank by the sky but let’s talk about me, the knife wedged in a gun ready to outlast myself if there ever was an I in the first place waiting like a fish on land to be hooked by gossip painted ugly.

name Deja que vuelen solo what I was, a stepped-on tree stump.

I don’t want to hate anymore the man I see in the eyes of the lake I swam for years without touching the shore because excuse me, wave after wave of impending debt drowns anyone of hope. I don’t want to yell out your name under the moon no more than God does.

gone?

Who are you now that I’m gone?

Vultures on the sidelines wanting to pick at what flesh I have left.

So many upside-down stars & shadow suns aloof as the ghost I call home.

All my words start with you.

I can’t lie, she walks the backstreet of my mind most of the time.

who?

This is a tragedy. I don’t have no shoes.

Lo que manda el corazón es el mente.

Lo que manda el mente es un diablo.

Why can’t I be silent?

Quote.

The sun will by mine sometime, and oh the fun we will have with you.

Who is this who?

pigs a tire crushing the bird two thousand questions for you the subconscious dangerous criminal en fila todos, we are like pigs to them the line is sacred it must be written with dundunduns unknown by unknown thunder thunder hear me pray

killed we killed this country the nameless rich got rain seeping from black eyes my dreams all but scattered spit sunspots on my face am i safe knowing my own name hangs on the edge of forgiveness down to the gallows of pendulums below

lost quiero que las paredes hablen de mĂ­ en cada rato que duermo sin tu corazĂłn lost on the moon, this world is an animal with its misleading gods, faith & money the man on the sun coloring tears, you used to call me chubby cheeks traffic lights & street signs all I feel now

gold everyday the web is spun what water holds firment gold liquid diamonds a luxury to be killed for starfish to finally breathe clean milk the day we become fodder the night we lose the moon

dawn where the sun never sets & the moon always rises at dawn there we will meet at the heights of a wolf’s lighthouse while a bleak horse shapeshifter laughs at every tragic comedy we write down with our heart’s titanium white ink

song let me sing one more radio karaoke song for you before the stars are gone tonight forever & the sparks fly into kaleidoscope seconds I cannot recognize holding your hand on this overpass as the strawberries swing to music

mine Every one of these verses are for you everyday is for you except ants digging into a cocoon before I hatch when the sun is at its lowest point in full falsetto that moment mine alone to live without resolution

tonight y de ahĂ­, el viento llevĂł mi oraciĂłn al mar para estar con el sol is another way of saying I need the sun tonight but what is a heart and what is without a heart if your heart beats like mine do we have the same heart

shadows jealousies, what do you think for me pardon me, despite nothing I think I love you, I think I love too much your vices in my air-conditioning, shadows taller than the tallest building, our hearts the pearls we safeguard against bad words so please, take my eyes tonight, will you write my life with yours

light quĂŠ dijera el sol a vernos en la noche quiet as a bird at midnight a swarm of eyes eating up all the light

man the thinking man

thinking

eclipsed I love to see the evening clouds eclipsed by sunrays splattering your name on every able wall reflected on acres of solar panel trails by the interstate pink magnolias say how the sun blinks each passing mile & winks away the rain all along the railings in puddles of past years & showers the radio towers with comic sans

god I ate the devil spit bricks in a pit oh my god you turned a comma I didn’t recognize criss-cross in blinking shot exit wing let’s walk along something impossible the bees planting a tree in the middle of the road seriously enough a cavalcade of springs

itch sense tongue dandelion bebop rose sun blue city end full not loved ivory souls sans story infinity dream cake eyes empty awake always sand moon bones edge rain heart waters past sins close dye apples too lies blind color all twilight clouds name gone? who? pigs killed lost gold dawn song mine tonight shadows light man eclipsed god itch question naked

question I must ache you a proposal qué question do you dew con tu tattoo sweat on a whim with my mind perdido en mi corazón pregunta en qué calle encuentro tu voz siempre has estado en frente de la playa enterrando tus piernas para sentir el sol and why the sky's woes counting backwards?

naked rich all over my naked fingertips keeping secrets to my ears I wrote down on your eyes the moon in my mouth nailing sermons on your skin many minutes blackout blush deliver me not from temptation all the words I lost to you

saudade I need to grieve my deadweight pyroclastic concordances, recently congested by myself and the rest of my heart. What would I take to fill the holes I dug on this street's skin if I could peel the sun for a colder lemonade just for your smile, till my words would only melt right off the page. It's the comma before I write all my sentences coloring you blonde like the words to a song years after I'm gone.

kisses How dark are my eyes?

White cotton balls over a black field.

What do you do with the morning light? Piercing yellow acrylic nails running through my hair.

I'm the dead man treading on a chessboard with a knife.

Behold, your wine is still pure gold, my iron, well,—.

As a ghost, may I still upon morning kiss your feet?

I dug the sun as the yellow daisy wilted, waned.

A heart-shaped crack in the rock of my heart's moss.

Picking up honey cherry pies— midnights at poor paul's.

Raffle ticket coin flips too many shots into a dartboard of days.

before i met god and the devil, like stepping on a small puddle, at long last, the past a heavy heart full of oil & nicotine i am incompetent at abstaining the impossible everything the chromatic sun touches gardening this constant struggle i might just night the moon dada dice style hoop hoot hood shenanigans a luminary jumpstart i spit & swallow my ego & echo most of the wind followed anyway i don't mind the bright sun on the leaves keeping me in the ravine wallowing for a rose to grow rebuttal revival reprisal recycled feelings as light hearted soup taking all my dirt making a garden for you dreaming forever

Where did my rose run off to, another mountain?

Voluptuous tempestuous jargon, I'm home!

What's the word for today? Contrition, confidant contraption made elegant.

Where will you sleep, where in this light drizzle will you dream?

All these monochrome skies lost to starvation at the moment, a parasol aurora raining over her paint.

In the deepest tunnel of a serpent's mouth everyone burns their own pyres televised.

Supermassive nuclear kisses all over the walls of infinity.

Out of the ground our hands reach the sky like a tall sunflower glade.

I dug the sun to watch the rain fall on my grandfather's grave.

Poison apple gift wrapped postage stamped internet lollapalooza!?

red cardinals whistling at the end of the dead trail in retrospect, hidden black leaves still whispering always the hard-boiled fool, only once an enclave of desperate stars these silent eyes ricochet through the flutter of bluebirds blown away brown cardinals leaping days away perching my soul, perching my soul liminal wilderness, wilderness parallel in myriad shards my heart stutters fish coffee bird milk a damn maxim, my public vendetta spilling my dust, spilling my dust sniff snuff enough chugging salt soda rainfall round endless euphoria upon an eden moon, sleeping

I, backwards, am the same wall.

The fences, this raining night, do we notice all this want?

The helicopter travels to the stars, the blue between an oak & a moon lullaby hides.

Tell me it's me, that decades ago I died to begin with I'm still alive.

I dug the sun sharp humming a flat ethereal end.

In derelict decadent dissonance the fragile colors sing my saudade.

The many ancient names of God etched west of here on a sidewalk's reverence.

Without you, my soul is the Spanish sun burning and setting the table, burning and setting.

Tittle tattle thoughts hopscotch elderberry blues guava gose drunk.

you see the blue dragon with garnet eyes swimming in a garden of gold ivory so many people naked & afraid dancing on a glass of champagne my blood still cleans my strings flooding dizzy histrionic confession, abecedarian testament graffiti undertow so quick the angel falls slipping onto this mahogany street too soon you sigh forever maverick under a mistletoe if life was a whistling balloon carved out of lost & found seashells the words falling off my branches then like seconds you hold me blonde footsteps tap the world flickering before nightsky flowers paint the sun

quisiera decirte algo que nunca comprenderรกs lost, you are an amber of my fossil-fuel plurality dear diary, I've just made love for the very first time sirens nothing but war for a thousand years scarecrow wilted rosey heart what colors color my eyes full moon at one point, I will have to go into the rain maybe write the rain away the fisher picks out his trout thorns thorns thorns many and not a single dollar bill fought the beasts of the 21st century

All Rights Reserved Š 2019 Luis E Utrera Morales