Nathaniel T. Hughes

The mind shuts off, and you forget who you are - where you've been and where you're at; It's hard to define the places, panicked like laughter, the cool wave that will always come as ice on Sundays - you left it all behind for a kiss, a matted silence in a room of fears, as you realize nothingness isn't a bliss when you can't function where it is.

I've commoditized my life and now I'm bored enough To see through the trees that stripped naked in the speed of things; It doesn't please me, the empty veins that fell now singing for home, singing for a grave under sunflowers feeding birds that sing some more, so deafening they flutter streetlights to a deadening whim, it has the jam of getting things done in the worst way - a division lost for good, bitter as it always was, rooted under full moon tongue and spit to get right; the cogs spinning my life, I had enough: my connoisseur the earth, welcome barefoot feet, re-sow the seeds of interconnectedness, entertain me like you used to under an orgy birthing stars in the further clouds of newer things to come.

Her hula-hoop sombrero-ed like spirals of galaxy dust, a hippy hue that held train-wreck breath for burgeoning slacks in the room, a catalyst of reactions that made the universe wait for her stop. He watched as if she didn't know his atoms had birthed the chemicals of sex. And, just for that it was unbuttoned, the barefooted pride of exposed skin - her hips often rolled the clocks of time like that two at a time, heedless as the fermented wheat gems that bounced around the planets in her gut. It was the bursts of orgone energy that ripped wormholes in her pants, the ratcheting gears of dawn that lured a morning suck and fuck, her endearing laugh that lead to tingly shotgun highs billowing there in the night as a culmination of his and her' auras spinning webs of light across the room: They both held out for the belly of the keg to burst For inebriation to drive them back to together For bees to pollinate a sticky affection so they'd never leave They

The levies opened, autumn's pale color, jetting through the jugular thrusts of tires that were headed west, the coddled chill of her-on-me, hung out for all that mattered: the fogged direction, the sunburned legs of the universe getting tired, the fissure of memories squashing a mellowed scrutiny that gasped for us back then. It was the indefinite. It was the cracked leaks of time, a widowed view gulping on a suckered taste, measuring the spaces, among the shifting hues of tawny clouds that cried, it will always work out for the better. My speed was slow; my shearing, steady. I thought of her as Us, a hot jonahed moment, cocking my dick like a line geese quickly headed south. That's when I found her in a windshield-ed parallax of deep breaths, a magnificent Mississippi blues vibe being lindy hopped out as I parked this travel vessel in the drive like a break on us.

I stood on the runway we used to watch from the rooftop in Lawn chairs. Where we ruled matchbox planes that grew bigger with the flick of a finger. They used to rumble above us as we laughed at the sulking shadows in windows, ignoring the cipher of flashing red and blue farewell lights. Standing there on that concrete slab, blinking at the intermittent singles, I tried to see that shingled throne, but could only see the heroin sunsets of last week, the choppy bay that teased us with enthralling gazes of Santa Cruz, tried to hear the entrenching roots of steadfast friends, but could only hear eerie fog horns that stretched across the grass, the sassy seals, and dried out conversations pressed against the creases of our minds. I tried to reach out and halve myself between the tugging sides of both the coasts and failed, eyes staling out in creeping Monterey fog. There was no Venus light, no blinding moon or crashing waves. There was only Mercury, poised and ready to go away. Businessmen

The past is simply,  the past. Although, it may turnover several times, it's  all part of letting our deltas settle, a soothing recognition for  sapient death - the  soft-power we've become: part of building a monumental ceasefire among  loaded toes that daftly spark, barefoot atop the graves. It's not....forgotten, yet sorry-lipped to make us sane, more patience as  the stains melt away.  It still makes me crave things: you, those times - longing...  for patchwork within a cup of tea, to twirl our past in steam; a deep exhale, and solicit a summer, Central, in our hideaways, far from teeth in the clenching jaws of York, sipping to the gods of what's to come and finally, tear the drafty ductwork out. I haven't had black tea,  microwaved. warm. the  sugared splash of milk - the loyal type - in quite some time: I hope to see you soon. -Nathaniel T. Hughes, December 2008

One layover away from home, and ten days ends up being too short. Too short to sustain embraces that should have lasted longer than heat stroking fingers coming undone; too short to escape sleepy jitters of the night; too short to digest fibers of angled relations jetting back up in the harbor of our hardening hearts; and too short to lie to myself, in mummers convincing me to stay with afternoon flogged with green and swollen air. I wanted friends to be an eyelash in the blink of our universe and hoped microbrews would, one at time, bend finite notions back to a rooted place in these stomping grounds. But now I have text messages coming in, and I'm not even back yet; I have unstable emotions about where I should be, roots of maples yanking me back with each sway of the swing. It's the politics of longing in the steady cradle of waiting and little babies we collectively birthed years ago are now growing up and although we're worlds apart, It all gives me something to look f

The lens of her eyes reflects off of mine; as she lets me put it deep inside her, it's vibrations, heavy breathing that moans: This goodbye is going to be a lot harder than we had thought it would be, so take me from behind, the side, on top, however ever else we can, just so we don't forget how it felt, when mornings harboring late night eyes kept us inside talking in little voices, hiding from what we knew we must face.

There's a commotion; it's our Tuesday's lost time cluttern' air: The bustle of trash men accepting things people heedlessly give away, the humming of engines that gulp on anxious expectation, dogs whining - a hankering for all the world's attention, peoples voices summering as they become steeped in this crowded space we share; it's the clatter of the blinds, and it's confusion's running fun. Because as we lay here, we're becoming a point that glistens 45 degrees from where it could have been, a theorem proving me wrong for assuming that part of me died over a year ago.

It's summer for once during summer on the coast. I'm taking the train - San Jose to San Fransisco on track three: they'll spoil us with Mountain View and express stops where untamed sun tickles my arm, skin, stained golden, wheat voices of sunny excitement and rumbles in the undertone of tongues missing the way things use-to-be in-between rattles of baby bullet crawling half-in-and-out of the shadows, I'm restless with them because tomorrow will be Napa, will be something new evoking old, something stained red, something to call old friends about to tell them you still haven't forgot, wish they were here. But, it doesn't matter; were moving fast and soon I'll be moving on.

Knee deep in swirling grass, we kicked drapes ajar, unapproachable invertebrates so frightened they, belted notes that shoed us onwards, their harped voices pulping us together through transient trails trekked along weary markers. The whistling blades like candor propaganda we could submit the past to. We gulped on this mending ambiance, pills that forged titillating embraces. Soon the rumble of aching ground would surface as a scowl, a pasty lit horizon that tripped on photons behind the clouded fog in our minds, it was alluring bygone, all wet lipped in dank and smoldering auroras that held out for us. By then we chased each other still, so rash our thoughts became obfuscated and made the fuzzy outlines in this foolish place seem sane We became doggedly timid. Fractious sensation itching in preachy rapture. The sideways hormones obliging all yellowness to blush green in twilight-ed circumscription. It was then she finally took my hand. Our clasping silhouettes resonated to be the rhy

the bustle of skies unbuttoning beer cap dresses. fashions blinking eyes, the circadian rhythms born sideways, blurred memories lace our shoes. we're dragging along the gift of hangovers, stealing teardrops along the way; we'll laughingly never make it there