Night turn

patches of bright
color about my eyes,
bed overturned,

things once up
and put together
are down and
shattered

there's spots of
red at my cheek,

later they'll make it
as crimson streaks
on my pillow

Rosetta Stone

this guy keeps

talking

to me in Italian

I never had the
chance to learn

(great grandfather
wanted his kids to
blend in to american
whiteness

also, kind of a lie
on my part, I failed
a course once
even cheated on the
final, nothing)

Ya know, I told him
that a few dozen times
I can't even catch a word,
but he keeps going

ciao
come stai?
cosa succede?

I don't know

keeps going on
with his chin on
his chest

tinted glasses
low mumbling voice
/shrug

(those quotes are
direct from google
translate

I do not own
the intellectual right
to distribute them
for cash)

I don't have an answer
for awkward silence.

on the other side of a diner's outside

This is an experiment

I
could
do without
the background
music, but we'll make it work

        on this cold
night, Friday night,
in March, everyone is
heading home under cover
of darkness, sky is void black
flatness, kind that's infinitely
impossible and construction
paper thin

          what it hides, if anything,
from me--

my every thought having
been written, spelled out,
removed, dissected, lobotomized
(an ice pick through
both eye sockets) & set
in place--this
          trip now,
it's getting clumsy,
jealousies & like V
said, what does it matter
we're not trying to make it...
          make it...?
we gotta
          make it
there's no one
and nothing else
but out there--
I'm folding the coast
and stars into my eyelidded bliss
          I can't rest--
wearing this tumor on my soul out
I lit a cigarette a million years ago
& the match,
          it hasn't gone out yet
it burns toward the center
consuming
the very heart of the world
and to find it,
each night in my dreams,
when I sing, she's
got a way in
 
          a diner, alone,
watching my hollow
self in the wall length window
obscures
               the truth of the cold outside
suburban northern Virginia
23rd St., Friday &

we're alone in the
collective isolation
of pretended reality
feigning cries of outraged
happiness, hatred--it's
motion--we've been

detected--abstracted--

          from--motion--

we return to--
are limited by--

      the brain is aged
      the body is victim
put together like
      legos
      and equally plastic

I
d
rown i
n c
o
ffee

drown in
self
image

(muted,
thankfully)--in favor
of satellite beamed
love songs--

radio--played behind
the walls
wind screams
friendly voices
              aged
boiling like the maggots
of the cheese
curdling

I--

I--

am seeking
an obstruction

god drew his finger down
through this great land
and dug a river
in it's marrow
that's our hearts
          to cross it
          is to really
          truly
          believe America
          to really breathe
          really live
          America
on this crusted earth
all the angels have
found it
have sung of it
          eternity like a
blaring wave
gilded, guiding my hand
oh, it is true
that we've forgotten much
          an Earth
          plummets into empty
          space while
ants scurry, are tortured on its surface
until not one shred of
understanding
remains

     dig your brow in its shimmering memory
and hot subjective
rainbow-scope reality
          collapsing--
feel for the open sprawl
and rushing (falling too) hills
     go--out West
is a song that rings in all
     true souls
never blinking
     &

that dream to
keep on going--well,
it's knowing--

All roads are one road.
Forevermore.  

dedication

To that couple facing me:

Man in glasses, bearded,
wielding butter knife, waving it
about, wielding ipad, looking
so--washington, dc

Lady in purple athletic tank-top,
head-banded, phantom pock-marked
from teenage acne, looking
so--the same

a search for new (if not grander) homes,

do you realize the woman across from you,
she's dying?

will you raise your children on that memory,
of death?

will you leave here without
remembering this poem,
this one,
dedicated to you?

Funeral Services Provided by CNN

My two dimensional
prison reality cracks
more each day, like
the veil over my mind
it's becoming lazy, busted,
atrophied

a nervous wreck
peering into the Lovecraftian
horror of acceptable society

Don't look back
over your shoulder
over flailing shards of
your better self

image burned over reality
causality-myth--
fabricated stuffed animal
leaders read the news
direct into our ears, determine
reaction time;
          are you up or down?
               decade will determine your
               generational, molecular
               thought process

It's all progress;

don't get in the way,

every taxi cab employment service
got GPS now;

Enter your name
               It'll be the same
               as appear on your
               grave
cry like flowers
               as
winter comes

blanket my Earth in ash
and its equivalent--
let me lick it off your shoes

give me your sins to plant.

facebook profiled

these faces

being scanned

entered, filtered

noted,  relayed

cited, re-scanned,

backed up, filled in,

displayed, annotated

organized, categorized,

filed, sealed,

utilized, broken down,

figured out, followed,

tagged, remembered

recalled, predicted

operated, controlled

commented on

Black Fly Scars

bells clang 7 times

it's been 6 months

there's still 3 of them

an infection

maybe

whistle of plane engines

turbines

whatever

these things are transient

supposedly impermanent

these bites refuse to fade

burning red

fire memory

on my skin

on drinking a beer before bed

something to think about

Hampton bops at piano
Dexter blows
Wendell beside him swaying
Mcghee in dark shades
Trummy slides, bays

bottle cap upturned on counter
kitchen light fades
flickers

moon turns
on its heel
shadowed
waxing

brass shimmering
in the past

half cleared

is this what it's like?

dying,
growing old,
watching time

falter

I set the empty bottle in the sink

alone

I'll wash it out

tomorrow.

See here

all bleak and
breaking bleary emptiness
says man-god
darkness and sold blackness
out there past the blue orb
earth and we're only
here in mortal shell with
no souls soul and when
we're gone it's gone
nothing left remaining
but old bones white and
slick and buried deep or
burned and eventually
forgotten and that's all you've
got in this infinite wonder
and we know because we don't
know at all and that's how we've
come so far decrying spirit
and oneness to this fractured
dystopian god-vision of finite
finality we all bleed off the page
into the limbo of never was
even tho we were at some point
here and become the great erased
bodies of the mind and this is why
we spend all our lives working and
dying and I mean if there wasn't a mine
for spirit energy why would anyone
force anyone to do fuck-anything-at-all
they'd just sit among the trees and
enjoy these 70 years in the dank
fathomless abandoned space all
suffocating-ly around us,
don't you see it's a trap it's words
arranged backwards without
a point but the corruption
of the great oneness, human
collective subconscious and
you can't get caught up in the
sucking void when there's beauty
and blazing stars all around

Mixed with Spit

this is the shortest day of
the year, the winter solstice,

it's not all that cold,
I've left the windows open,

I am in the shower spitting
toothpaste,

there was a girl once, in this
shower, but I'm alone now, sexless,

past the fogged mirror,
if you'd wipe your hand
across its face,
are gray tired eyes,

a mind that won't settle,

water runs toward the
drain, gurgles, swirls,
settles for a moment,

disappears.

Remington 666

typewriter hasn't been opened
since we lugged that black box
3,500 miles to the coast and
then back
                and that was all some
time ago and still it sits there
ink drying on ribbon, keys silent
decaying imperceptibly,
                                   doesn't
have the weight or ability to call
out and end it's atrophy and mine,

something flickered like a victory as
it sat under kansas gray sky beside
that old green van, head gasket melted
night before on I-70 going west,
                                               scares
me now, it's seeming omnipotence, it's
visible and screaming existence as a
symbol in my mind, as a last tangible
link to that drive for the coast,
                                             a last
remaining symbol of our faded past.

They're singing this now

a new genre of
death explored

cryogenic brain
freeze corporatized
opinion

hands up don't shoot

c'mon man I'm already
submitting

goes mouth
vocal cords
nightstick
gun trigger
teeth
blood

autopsy reports,
like didn't Pynchon
talk about this same
god damned thing
in Watts?

count side-wise
from CNN to Fox
to--get it?

this is a test of
the moderately
dissimilar opinion,
if this weren't a
test we'd #hegemony

now now kids
santa's watching
he just looks a bit
different, we've updated
for this technologic age

gone are old things
and obesity, same
with bearded
white males,

we've revamped the
whole process, added
cameras at each
street corner

so we
know if you've
been naughty or
nice before you've
even been--

Note 12/18/14 (jotted down last night)

there's no stars tonight,
light comes from
little desk lamp too
far to reach,
no poems coming out,
no thoughts going in.

Nibs

mewling
gray cat presses
soft pink nose
against my hands,
body sprawled out
over keyboard score
blocking my view,
little black pieces
little white words;

every now and then
sits up stiff, ears twitch
orange eyes wild,
bites my wrist,
reminding me not
to get so complacent,
after all, with such a
wild beast;

little gray cat
thinking surely (I think, maybe)
fuck you for clicking away,
an effort to pay no attention
to me;

licks himself
absently, methodically,
(vindictively?)
front paw latched on back
of screen, straining,
no hair out of place
no kingdom left
unconquered,
hrms and haws
and growls,
low low whine lo,
purrs victoriously.

Anti-Freeze

take a sip of anti-freeze

one time

at that puddle
behind your car

where all the animals lie

panting
in the cold

slick insides
burnt out tubes

choking, croaking

jingle of salvation bells

green slime
hallowed halls,

seeps into concrete
all the brown sad birds
whistle on winter mornings

lungs cold
baying out blearily out

with a straw take it in
hold yer nose
or it'll burn

heaps of death
and crumbled
rocks mixed in
concrete shell

sound of heavy feet in alley
scatter of thoughts

breathless

one last taste
'til
divinity.

Room C-100

two collared shirts
choked by ties
discuss printer to
print philosophies
in stilted dialogue
blended with power
games, hidden
subtext of sex and
dominance/submission,

they go on and on
open gaps flapping

there's an unwanted
boarder, he's hitching a ride
laid out on the cabinets
behind them, head propped
up on stacks of unopened
white paper (yet for the
sacrifice of memos and
board reports) he's reading
some book without outed
numbers, about,

they shift and scratch
at fabric softener softened
lightness,

it's easier to ignore the
ruffled shirts

turning pages

the printer goes
bwah-ehhh-bwah-ehh-ehh-ehh

they check the digits
shirts and cuff links
swoon

Several signs arranged into a poem

"You should never ask death a question...(Looking at office nameplate) [insert NAME here] you invite him in if you do...hmmm..."

To Security: 

Man in Shroud

Black dog nipping at heels

steady procession of robed figures

Red Flags

See something?

                           (lips sealed) Say something

[matter will be brought up at next meeting] *wink* haha

You smash fists

at door of gone

souls

flash steel/water like mercury/liquid silver

flow

writhe/beg/plead/pull

again...

There's no money in caring for corpses

in the land of the dead

Never ask a question

                                   that invites an answer.

STAFF ONLY

BEYOND THIS POINT.

Daily Routine

Those plastic globs
drowned in shower drains
pregnant with body
image heat sensitive
cameras blue/green
with rolls of pink flesh
sift slowly through fusion
cell lead pipes cellphone
fiber-optic crane machine
super computers
slowly building your face
eventually replacing personality
decoding deconstructing
actions to numbers
faceless
merciless
pervasive
cleanliness

island pome

Cayo heyo keys hello,
west into clear seas,
December palm trees
coral reef, brown breaths
green hued horizon lines,
string of isles nestled
against the sun
a tangled wind through
mangrove mysteries
whistling.

Radio Marti

propaganda lines drawn
in mangrove mazes,
silver pond and big lake,
tunnel and shade, brackish
waters sifting through,
a heron's nest maybe and
off somewhere, flight
of egret bird's wings on water,
daily broadcasts of
sad unheralded radio signals
beam hazard thoughts
like crocodile dreams into
Spanish heads in ole
Cuba, warm scotch &
rolled cigars, somewhere
off the mainland
who's revolution?
who's imperialism?
how far?

south of boot key
just 90 miles
droning 24 hours.

Keys

December's great poems
leak from damaged
railroad bridges--
finished 1912
abandoned 1935
after swirling winds
hurricane winds of
labor day--
south of mainland
USA off mangrove
islands of florida's
keys,

sun is skipping
boil of fire sinking
far away over gulf
scalded red flicker
of pain in distant pink
sky,

December's sunsets
at southern most point
slap like blue-green
maybe sea-green
clarity slashed
with brown sand, waves
on the shore, fallen
so you miss
and the lights out,
early,

December at the
bottom of America
no more land
mile 0
gray pavement
used up and
skips its way
to end on backs
of martyred men,
slouching.

693 ml of fluoride

commercial shipments
begin
post industrial entertainment
dissemination
complex orders
on the
up and up
advertise
on side of
crystal blue
aluminum can
held in perfectly manicured
american fingers
fizz fingers
dripping condensation
just enough
foreplay to choke
down endless
brown syrupy gulps
tearing into pinal
gland before
throat before
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
small silver pixels
replicate look of
bubbles
drowning thirst
thoughts thoughtfulness
awareness
fizz pop

Saturday in November

long johns
wool cap
no shirt
with window
open
heat on
sounds
of Saturday
golden
sunlight
powder
blue blueness
reaching
gray cat
sleeps
behind me
faint sound
hum of purr
keys ticking
green fields
of what once
was is no
longer
colorless
trees
branches
sapped
faded tiled
roofs
never noticed
before
a breeze
cuts in
every now
and then.
freezes
my chest
freezes
my hands

Chapter two

like
rain-
drops
fall-
ing
hun
honestly

kid thinks
while pocketing
cigarettes

don't leave this time;

space isn't the end,

it's more like
going in search of nothing
you can ever reach

[the thing ain't even
there anymore, like
the whole universe could
be long dead and we'd be
dead before anybody had
the nerve or years to figure
it out] jus' sayin'

you don't have to believe

either do I, necessarily

we're--

just shootin' the shit,
she goes, I know
and kisses him,
one quickly on the
red cheek,

I wrote about
them long ago,

this is a continued
story,

they were standing outside
that gray diner for too many

years, neglected,

they saw the stars go--

Oh!--

I'm leaving them again
in snippets, in just
enough to be vague,
immortal

match snaps,

light!

let it--

she backs away

he goes,

don't l--

falling apart

in scarlet sash
dripping over
drool
hang that
head lo
lo and be--
held by angels
of no wings
crawling on star--
dust in sunbeams
early afternoon
dance to unheard
music
played on cricket
legs two hours
into night

these days
there's no one
else listening

three rubber swings
rusted chains
frame painted
forest green
chipped
wood chips
underneath

blown by the wind

creaking.

these days

creaking

wind

by

We'll never make it

flat letters on
a page to be
admired

words should scream and die

carve constellations
slowly fading
like stars
into

obscurity

in a thousand years
from a thousand poets

anonymity

honesty

things-that-should-not-be-printed

lasting.

They just don't say anything

Have
         the poems
                         in the New Yorker
                                                       always made
                                                                            poets sad?

Rains of Indianapolis

there're no windows
in my cell

I get to thnkin'--

how those sulky
mid-western clouds
take their time passing
wheat fields corn fields

it's the gray wet mornings
in the mid-west I remember
the most--the trail of
rain on windshield--steady
grind of tires--

tried to write this pome
three days now
just stares at me

no go--

Indiana at sunrise,
roll wroll roul
to that big brown
river lull lowl luwl
ya into faded
memories

uneven poems--

'course I could
frame it some other way,

but for the drifting
thot thought thowt

gone--

They all come to this.

No inspiration here

A trickle of letters
     drain
     mildew, harden
     in tub

House hangs on corner
     two legs
     figures of night
     hidden in bathrooms
     past faded lights
     during the day

     step out at sunset
     squinting eyes
     heavy chest

Raise your brow to the setting star
     horizon follows
     a jewel of the west
     bled out

There skis are meant for no one
     they just are
     no destiny in it
     endless earth
     rock
     chipped
     clay

Claw at your heavenly senses
     Saint! Fool! Martyr!

     god is a blank page
     a sea of infinite grey
     unmade
     made

There is but one angel
     touching all times
     one mind

Witness all things
     as no-things

Rock     Ant     Fish     Bird     Dog     Cat     Human     Ape    
Grass     Dust     Fruit     Plant     Mountain     Ocean     Sky

     No Difference
     No Hierarchy

Our lights they've already burned out in the sky.

November Street Scene

a cafe

with only one table
outside

even in November
is strange

a man tries reading
Gravity's Rainbow

"but it mocks me."

I'd rather fry kidney's
on a stove

oil crackles like kirby
on the page,

think iron smell.

color is dull
to none existent.
all white, bland

utterances from
bodies lying on
subway grates,

morning

coffee sips mankind
a selective hi

novels in garbage cans

chairs upturned
on counter tops

chill winds
scuttle through
alleyways

old city pathways

cracked pavement
like an arrow
points north.

Dark Circles

there were dark circles
under her eyes, charcoal

transcribed. Fix the
picture, she said

it's tilted to one side, she said.
My daughter. I don't have a

daughter. Not yet.

In another memory
maybe. Another life.

Our walls have no
stories. Painting either.

There was none.
An empty space. A chair.
Me.

Our Book

BEFORE
thoz engels
livin en the vooid
i git songs en
me ed ehbout them,
duncha'no?

BEGINNING
there is nothing

DURING
suffer me
these tears crying
fear and hurt
go along with
love and joy
fractures tectonic
plates
earthquakes
ecstasy
despair

NOW
we are reading this together

AFTER
fall into me
i m us bay b
don't use those
words as we are one
cosmos of stars
planets seemingly
deeper still and
never--

ENDING
There is nothing

Lost Pen, Borrowed Mind

These things, they are getting easier to predict,
junk soaked hash browns in the eternal rotating mind,
a blank like white wallpaper stare might as well be
painted clones, all the same, one layer glued at a time,
I think, along with the crackle of fat & oil on griddle,
my brain eddies, flows, drops off the picture, past frame,

     I see a candle going out
a room dressed in black pearls
sickness on the pinwheel, ferris
wheel, on the burnt cross squinting
fool,
     I half understand, half forget

we write, in double speak, images, its own existence--
a cat, his rat. playing with infinite gladness of sun speckled dawn,
all stars are suns to dead planets in the solar array,
we just named ours first, classified to de-mystify,
to bottle it up--

     it's killing really,
building a fictional state,
a scientific existence reality,
call it a sacrifice to Lovecraftian
gods of memory, overshadowed
by numbers, remarks, discourse,
citations, speeches to legitimate,
in million dollar conference rooms,
concerned wholly with the "I"

I am not a forgotten boy
I chose utter foolishness anonymously 
I do not seem to fit
remember the am
remember the me

I play each part perfectly,
time is not counting up
it is counting down,

hit the cannon thrust
to evolutionary strain

TARGET: Entropy
                  NEXT STOP.

A bomb carried through time looking for an escape,
a pacifist era to claim, skeletons & rusted beams, sinking
ships killed the moon to bring on the floods,

I am no longer welcome,
too much was said,
promise me you'll watch from the windows,
scrape the mold,

I found the cellar door,
it was all down hill from there--

Dolly's Sod

You of roaring plains
impassible, uninhabited hills,
eternally savage high plateau,
eastern continental divides,
mortar shells dot you logging
cleared meadows & falling cliffs,
fallen white oaks that challenged
great sequoia heights,
iridescent fires scorched your
plains, cut by railroad lines,
Dolly Sod, dirt roads, unforgiving
winds, rain & snow, how you're
nestled secretly in West Virginny,
on the eastern slope, you belong
west on this end of Mississippi waters,
how'd you get so lost?
you're dropped from heaven,
suffered here too long...

2014 (2013- )

All years are uncompromising
they turn imperceptibly
          imperceptibly faster
          advancement of
temporal time
to the chaos bridge
          rainbow oblivion
          arching soon
          white flowers
          crying mothers
          systems down
years shrink immeasurably
          unnoticed
          in the cramped dark
          wailing forge
          river widens
we are a breached galaxy
a martyred existence
          death
          somehow
at the end
and mine
a famous tree
          shedding leaves.

IN PRINT

BANG!
the sound of
book on hand
closing
is empty
weightless
still

no echoes
out ever-oneness
no vibrations

strings

don't ya see?
          already gone--
                    angel
Busted!

kick of engine
to beat the light
rattles earthly
night

unencumbered by lines
unresponsive
                    at ease!
                    AT EASE!
                    I'll tell ya.
Let go
     yellow glow--
          and needs--
--I recall.
          silence after
          short breathes
No cops going:
                         Oh!?
                    made it, child.
grope in my void
     I'll open my coat
          to darkness space.
Look closely
     each speck (pixel) of nothing
you pick up,

is a billion stars
    a galaxy
eternal light.

That's odd

ran out of 3 

line poems

       pomes got no legs

                         NO legs

to stand on,

no more words

empty corridors

yellow lit hallways

muffled sound of

breathing in some

forgotten room

after hours

after ours

they've gone away

one at a time

bomb 

sprinkle earth with

our dust momma

git eet right

get it down,

sure,

you ain't a'frid brotha?

sure it's goin' down

smooth?

sure as hell

he

ain't 

there're no red lines

on the clock

a blank face

a void

coughs back,

caparisoned in

fluorescent rags

we take one final step

piss off.

you heard me. 

The Moon is an empty blue sky

eyes reddened,
stirring,
piano keys,
limp fingers,
ah,
walking
followed by
the moon,
it won't go.

Wave to the souls
on opposite shore,
sinking yachts
sift though the
quicksand plots,

they can wait 50
years for the right
foot, marking the
right time and
glunk!

a few deep breathes
to our animal spirit
and no more suffering,

no, no, nothing,
that is where the
sense is, no, yes,
I mean, nothing
you see?

I couldn't even reach out
before your hand slipped
below,

I sat there and watched you go,

took time off to write about it.

Winter

There!
             wind snakes thru
angry shutters, rattles ears,
cold winter breezes seep
vibrant colors of autumn,
life from fallen leaves,

             thin figures huddle,
hunker down in heavy down
jackets, hide their faces, be-
come two dimensional sketches,
wispy pencil smeared phantoms
on side-walked streets,

pass by without raising head
or hand, bleed out time and space,
storm's coming, bearing down,
thick wood on window snaps
and the air jumps back, whistles,
barks, howls--

clouds descending,
mirror the sunset,
car headlights click, and
as if out cobalt blue nothing
a searing knife cuts from
the fog,

blaring,
blaring--

The Revelation

Harrington left
the number for
Doctor Modesto
on my orange desk
left his digits by the
front door,

car headlights
rotate like lighthouse
light on cul-de-sac streets,
(any you can think of)

this house needs work
off the alleyway score,
scene is incidental,
irrational, broken at its core,

pamphlet costs us 99¢
to print, $1.50 to
incinerate,

that sticky tar in your lungs?
that old rotten tooth taste?

that's paper 50 years past due
marked by expiration dates,
Shit, it's cancer causing, too?

"just a bonus, school children"
says the blue suited, green-eyed
headmaster, "a super-sized plan,"

our end that's the beginning,
one sickly charles atlas crusade,
(we care about mother earth going forward)
but must be repaid!

and he ate the whole thing
in less than 10 pages.

*choke*

End of October

night tumbles
blue-gray gently
over orange glowing
sky, facing west
sun glides burning
sinking blazing
toward horizon line
lights up what's left
of daylight in bonfire
heavenly holiness,
autumn nights come
earlier, last longer,
chilly and cool,
dark-like endless,
there's a new idea
on fallen leaves
scattering under gray
lifeless street signs,
a great void speaking,
whispered and ancient
calling after time.

Angel

There ain't no moon
                             tonight,
darling, no clouds
                             tonight,
angel, I can see
                             tonight,
love, the infinite
                             tonight,
and I'm brooding
                             tonight,
silently wondering
                             tonight,
how we're both here
                             tonight,
somehow lonesome,
                             tonight,
in all this darkness
                             tonight,
repeating mistakes
                             tonight,
and I won't hear you
                             tonight,
asking questions
                             tonight,
where am I going
                             tonight,
where are we
                                         ?

Now I'm stealing titles

tossing them on floors
with the rest of the shit
that won't stick on the walls,
won't go anywhere,
doesn't belong anywhere.
I'm stealing titles
wrecking my keyboard
tearing up the keys,

I don't type so fast anymore,
I've noticed I have less to say--

I'mrunningdry--

looking anywhere for a deeper
go-between for a score,
in the meantime I'll play
the literary break-in,
employ the thieves,

much has been written about me
in the future,

a big name--

I've seen it--

just don't know if I'll make it there
before I'm gone.

Cheers

Last day of gray skies
I'll try to make
it--but the space bar
is spent no action
from the right side
no selling my taps
bent on backspace
backspace repetition--
not much left to do
but drown in anonymity,
right? write for the finish--
I said that once, write for the
very, write to the bitter end--
there's nothing left,
nothing more meaningful
than the word--
so get fucking going,
go on--

It's been two--three weeks...

He rocks back and forth
by the curb's edge
hands clasped on his knees,
big slack jawed grin
under eyes like a blue sky,

"you know they're
injecting them with that
virus there, the C-D-C!" he goes,
"that's how they do it, you'll
see, we'll be hearing about it,
you know, the highways
are like a wall in Houston
(he shows 6 fingers) they got
a wall 6 miles--yeah--6 miles
and another 12 (he shows 10
then two more finger) miles
out--they're boxing us in!"

a guy drops some change
in his cup moving out from
behind me so I can't get a look
except for his back and the
impression of a grey tailored suit,

"you watch yourself," he waves,
"they don't want us to think!"

You too, I tell him
turning to go,
I take a look back
after I cross the street,
he's rocking back and forth
still, one hand on his knee
the other waving an old dixie cup,

there's a cop at the corner opposite,
a squad car rolling down the block,
somebody absently touches
the handle of a gun,
crowds of blank faces
multitudes of empty eyes,
the next day I pass by,
he's no longer there,
replaced by white sign outlined
in red:

"No parking 10/17 for street cleaning"

So, this is where we've ended up?

these halls are rare everyday halls
wielding pitchfork meant to stick
in our backs,
                     they draw hot, pink blood,
birth flashes and implant false memories.

this is all you
will ever be
it has been
decided.

be quick on your feet,
we operate in pockets of
immateriality drowning
each moment,

"society is dependent on
ego-protection," she
said to me, as she walked
off the platform into
oncoming trains,

the officer at the scene
told me not to think too
much about it, grasping
my wrist, doctors offered
me pills, wrote my
visions down before
devouring them.

I wiped my shoes at the front door,
faint sounds and echoes in the red brick
alleyway adjacent,
                              murmurs without time or place,
 crumpled soldiers returning from imaginary wars.

Climbing

I.
A short
rainbow sprinkled
madness

run from
the drone
of hallucination

spy the mountaineer
in high wool socks,
shibuya boots lined
in red, heavy pack,
red bandanna,
leaning forward
peers over edge
one foot raised to peak,

"it's in your head,
 this vision."

II.
a falling pebble
clacks on cliff side
drops 7000 feet

where it lands
where it came from

there's no difference

life is life.

III.
thoughts
gouge out
circles in your
mind

indifferent glances
toward the ground

there are rocks
in your gut
emitting light

Spam in Spam Alley

THese Are THe SPam
poems
sent directly to your
recycling bin
UNread

SOmetimes
there's a man standing
in the rain
on cold fall nights
his wife is hurling
curses, indistinguishable
words, unattainable
promises,

I wonder what it
takes to sit and type
those emails all day, or
what computer program
randomly generates
them,

a lifeless
bent shadow heads
down the alleyway
shifts suddenly, almost
sadly, disappears,

I type a hurried
response, send
without signing
my name,

a female voice drones on
into the night,
no returning footsteps,
only emptiness,
the vacuumed
spaces in between,
and no ears but mine
listening,

[Error: Mail could not be delivered]

Watch television on your phone

screens lined up,
they pace behind,
dressed in army
fatigues threads
of net neutrality,
listen! Hammer
pulled back,
click of old rusted
metal (we forget how
reality feels) slam,
a sickening life-like
sound, gun--shatters
over mute settings,
ringing fiber-
optic nightmare
one by one prisoners
lurch forward
brain matter anti-matter
spilling on granny
elevator floors,
a million tv audiences
cry out and silence,
sound travels slowly
so we all type out--

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

they've got models
living in camera-ed rooms
filling screen time,
Hollywoodland time,
reality mojo,
through inner-tube
highways broadcasting
their life force across
miles and cityscapes into
your unlit living room
everyone showing
white sad walls,

you can't help
thinking is that how
we live

but you
can't think it,

it's not allowed,
it's just sex and I'm the star she
says before she takes
out her dick
and before you realize
you've made it to the
wrong room,
made it with the wrong girl,
she's got the gun out
from behind her
cybernetic overcoat
and this window
is gone too,

the virus has evolved
language and pictures
aren't safe

the global village is a lie

it's an execution
of the soul

7,000,000,000 views
7,000,000,000 likes

click to view.

How I intended it

all words die

on books never opened

in darkened corners

covered in cobwebs,

damp with mildew,

spilling worms,

all writers are 

meant to be
forgotten,

obscured by

anonymity 

or in fame,
poverty or
riches--

to be the 

only thing that

remains, or

to be nothing--

words 

scrawled 

on grave

stones,

slowly 

eroding

like the 

body

like the 

mind

desperately

fading,

failing

black ink,
abyss,
oblivion.

Plum St.

I think about it,
going back there,
turning left at the house
with the teal shingles,
walking down that quiet street
and finding that little
duplex and its square parking lot
in back, stuck between single homes,
I imagine I'd stand at the
edge of the grass on the front
lawn and look up to the second floor,
into those windows I can't quite
remember, fearful of taking another
step and slipping back there
into childhood and the past,

I can see the little circular kitchen table,
at the end of yellowed tile,
wood box tv set in the corner where
my dad hid a toy he'd gotten me
in a paper bag, the tweed couch facing
it,

my big orange cat shuffles
down the hallway, the same one
he'd run so fast through that
he'd take a few steps along
the wall,

Mom is everywhere, I can't
manage one single memory
but that the whole house was
her,

I'd turn from the house,
never touching one blade of
grass and head to the park at
end of street where once I'd hit
a lightning bug with a baseball
bat, swinging and watching
his light and life trail off into
the darkness,

I am still cursed, I have
still not forgiven--

then I'd sit there maybe,
sit there alone, I'm not sure
what else I'd do, what
else I'd see,

I've grown old,
I've gone away,
I can't even hold onto memories.

Your leg resting on mine

I am awake

watching the
shadow of
blinds
stretched
elongated
deformed
spread
across
ceiling

I see an idea
in its pale
existence,
its almost-
never-there
shape,

the night is on to something,
in streaks and bleary
light, in reflections
catch the rain,

it's
moving in the
right
direction.

Evermore, Everlasting

is there such a thing?
                                  you grind your teeth as
                                         you fall asleep
                                         a foot under cover
                                         a foot out
or nothing?
                     I am naked beside you
                             hands under chest
                             on my stomach
                             eyes facing you
will it ever end?
                          milky way spiral big dipper
                                     sound in the night
                                     dark and restless angel
                                     of the far gone away
or is there never ever?
                                     holding a torch for you
                                                  burning at the edge
                                                  unburdened by space
                                                  untouched by time    

The Blue Line

watch blue line
on map move like
marker 'cross
cuts and daggers
ridges of stone,

tan/yellow/green
moves around
gray/red/blue
impassable objects,

line swings down
and takes in the
grand old mysterious
south, foggy in our
child's eye,

oh, those places we
haven't been!

that golden sun
bakes the earth
that dark, dark night
of my dreams,

what's out there, hey?

what's there left to find?

where the wheels go next
my body follows

down
down

ah, great abyss,

falling
falling

650 pages

the
collected
works
of
Tom
Pescatore
an
obscure
and
relatively
ignored
poet
who
wrote
in
the
early
21st
century.

He
published
nothing
of
merit
or
of
literary
importance
or
 relevance
and
died
unknown.

His
impact
on
American
poetry
is
still
up
for
debate
though
most
scholars
seem
to
agree
that
he
had
none.

you can never go home, but everyone goes home in October

there, a
black furred squirrel
finds the right
side of the street,
twists up for sale sign,

rain falls in drizzles

not really touching
ground,

scent of
pumpkin patches
and wet clothes

gray sky
gray cars
little girl with
gray eyes
gray memories

in a coffee cup
mimics the sky

and clouds drift
cough float heavy
above the earth

gray bodies
gray minds

there's something
reassuring in it's
bleakness

something real.

Listen, Listen

voices

from the street

invisible bodies

whisper
under half-moon
shadow
of three-pronged
tower
memorial

rustle of hands
objects
sounds on inside
of car
leather seats

door slams

engine turns

foot steps on concrete
creaking metal
door swings
car swings into gear

muted sounds
of the hallway
fading sounds
of tires crunching

now silence

for a moment

too short,
broken by roar
of plane

followed by another
and another

grumbling and shaking
the night--

This poem is finished

scroll up

dear god

my toenails are
growing too fast
too brittle
aged

not yellowed yet

I can't think of disfigurement
of any kind--

I vomited in doctors
office thinking of
throat cancer, eyes
tearing stomach raging,

it was only
tonsillitis,

cleared up with
steroids rest gatorade--

 think of growing old
skin wrinkled
eyes grayed with cataracts,
back bent
body leaning on cane
deep black and blue bruises
true bruises that reach to
bone, dying bones
old bones,

mind roams

pain pushed into
every life seeping corner,

I must remain
now
and never go

remind myself not
to lose my body
my image of it,

weeks go by and
I am different,
hair growing
knees sore,
mind slower,

what is next,
I don't know,

maybe I've already begun
to misplace it,

fuck,

I can't even think of
the word,

I scroll up but
the poems finished--

Arrow to the 'eart

Here

am
     I
       as
           a
           babe in the
                             woods
           with fog roll
           in
        as
      I
am

Here

sunk to the bone
powder
white
decay

these sounds won't cease!

jet rumble
faraway floods

Here

I
  am
        someone else
        someone lost
   am
I

ever going to see it?
through
thick
orange
dust

gawking

the sound of night
shatters the earth

floating pearls pierce
my window screen

I see myself reflected
in globe of the world

I
  am
       naked
       truth.

CRYING OUT!

our CHILD is with ME

SINKing in my GUT

he is words and phrases

IDEAs personified

a last HOPE for manKIND

I can carry him
into the future

wretch and bleed

SPIT HIM OUT

he will crawl on
concrete islands
listen to ivory bones

I can learn without HIM

I am a shuttle
carrying light
to its destination

BLEAR-ing out
unspoken stars

what will it look like
on the HORIZON?

my death--

what will be seen
and unseen--

tell me,

I am choking

tears seek floor
from tired eyes

I have walked too FAR

there is me
with nothing left
ahead,

I watch ALL THIS
EXISTENCE
and
CRY out!

it is morning
only morning
blue sky BLUE SKY

a child GROWing
ALONE

GRAY eyes
vibrating VISIONS

we are thoughts
thrown before us
stretching deep into the
past

DO YOU
REMEMBER
MILKY WAY?

how we got here?

my stomach erupts
puss piss blood guts goo

crawl from me!

take that STEP

be BORN

screaming into GREAT ABYSS

it is LIFE! KNOW!

IT
IS
LIFE!

But I can't

soon there'll be
morning light,

I listen to
trailers in the distance
ground highway pavement
to dust,

my hands slowed
and cold I type by
open window
violet sky,

flickering light
of desk lamp bleeds
into space and dies
out,

window creaks,
chains clamp,
engines drone,

I turn my sight
toward the bed,

my unrolled sleeping bag is
draped over mattress top,

I should be thinking
of sleep.

Star Guide

black marble galaxies,
swirling opal beams
of light, drop like
eggs onto my eyes,

I am a bleeding star

there is oneness with
the universe out there,

what if the dates and numbers
repeating throughout my life
were a premonition, were a ticking
clock predicting the moment of my
death,

what if I am God and I'm all alone?

the numbers in my head are
simple math, a writing on the wall
I left for myself a warning at end of time,
universal death,

I've all but forgotten
my omnipotence...

my fingers are gone,
just darkness now and staring into nothing

a dream

a dream

from which I'll never wake--

I guess there was no camera on that street light

No mail will come today.

                                   Wind rustles the trees

blows through leaning sunflowers.

                                   A mourning dove coos.

Sun rises only to be obscured by clouds.

                                   Air tastes like fallen leaves

and last nights showers.

Someone stole my banana

Things vanish from
lacquered desks
in fluorescent lit offices
hanging above street
corners all coated
in innocuous cement
secretly radiating cancerous
green cells radiation
poisoning us slowly
awkwardly un-noticeably
taking us closer to our
own unassailable demise.

Players

and there you are

under street lights,
roving lights,

helicopter blades
of chiaroscuro
whip by windowpanes,

gaps growing larger

reach an apex,
pass by face and
shrinking

only to grow again,

your face obscured
in shadows
and golden rays

there's the beginning of
sweat on my brow
building on my glasses
frame,

I've been too alive
for too long,

but, there are things coming to,
get us only you can see,

I search for you hand
far away, far far, far away,
knowing I'll never catch it,

street light strains
under imperceptible
screams shakes and shatters
throwing sparks that cough about
our haloed heads,

then the scene goes blank
soon the audience will cheer,

you say I can stop holding
my breath.

I find that hard to believe.

Dream Agent

Your house was
made of legos
purple, white,
pink and yellow,
alternating colors
white facade, spotted
with pink, yellow,
purple drapes and roof,

Now I'm on the Hudson
talking to the man you
warned me about,
but I'm not me, see? I'm
someone else, a hired gun,
my target is unknown.

I am deep undercover.

We are talking and both
light cigarettes, the air is
cool and moist with rain,

we shake hands, and
I tell him, "I'm not
who you think I am..."

the door opens and I
ease my way in silently,
cats sleep in all corners
there seems to be a man
on the couch under them,
I know him somehow, but
focus on the cats,
I must not wake them,
If I do I'll never
find the target.

we are in a bar now,
sitting face to face
mid conversation,

I know I don't look how
I'm supposed to, I can see
myself from the outside in
and I've done terrible things.

"It's all over now," I say, "it's
time to retire."

As we stand, your eyes searching
both sets of mine, I feel a strange
weightlessness and reach behind
my overcoat,

blood, blood, without pain
it is flowing and I fall
coming to a rest on the hardwood
floor, I watch the thick redness
of the floor thinking,

"yes, yes, I'd like to retire here..."

Last Line

I am writing anywhere
carrying and placing mugs,
leaving rings of condensation,
atomization around
tired eyes, staring out
into light polluted skies
no STARS! My God! No
Stars! NO FUCKING stars!
blankets of purple clouds
unfurled, beyond that unearthly
opaque blackness, like
skyscraper windows unframed,
hell, and ah! shit, expletives and
what-ever-have-you-not
watch this thing unseen, it's
video-logged to you head
linked directly to the brain,
layered like cake, thick
and creamy icing spread between
pink naive wrinkles and synapes,
LOOK, I only write what's behind
my iris, see? didn't you know?
I got hazel eyes, two colors unfold,
you'll be wondering,
we'll be gazing,
face to face, sight line switches
between pupils, dilating--if only there
were enough words to get it--
but there's too much--Aww~!
you know, too much too much,
I only have one line left.

A conversation with TIME

Time looks at me
for a long, uncomfortable while
turns its head and spits
quasar star-birth, black hole words,
language as a road map through existence.

I say I ain't got no place to go,
that it hasn't happened yet,
which is the truth from where I'm looking.

He reads me back my lines,
nothing has ever happened
you aren't even here, and I am not this.

But, that's not what I say, I say,
and it's never been heard.

Desk World

I've got a book of dreams,
dedication page written to myself,
signed by me,

a collection of empty coffee mugs,
placed strategically around my
desk,

one unused AAA battery
without a match,

a jumping spider hunts on my windowsill,
I don't have the heart to tell him
I've got no food,

he jerks, stops, starts, jumps,
rotates 360 degrees, now explores my desk,

makes his way back up white apartment walls,
I check google mentioning his marks,
close the page before the close up
the loading skeletal screen,

there are times, sometimes,
and somethings are best left unseen,

For you and only you to see

Alley way
painted in orange
street light,

cars on either side
sleepy, still

poem painted in still life

there's not much going on,

except, a figure in black
sneaking between cars,
he's knelt down, peers above
car hoods, into windows,
tries each lock, finds one
he likes, eases himself in,
hunched over in the front seat,
he's rocking almost imperceptibly,
sound of car starting shatters
night silence, the car rolling,
no lights, turns out slowly
on to one way street and gone,

alley silent again,

one extra light flicks on,

man appears, leans out, disappears inside,

feet on apartment steps,

the moon isn't visible from where I sit.

Red Eyes out my Window

two blinking red dots
blinking in the distance
shrouded in unblinking
blackest night,

ten fingers tapping
flat keys, spaces in between,

many things are said
by tires crunching the earth, by
the engines they are carrying,

voices whisper below a window
in somewhere lost Virginia,

brown river runs black chrome at mid night,

sewer water gurgles and belches beneath
our feet,

reaching up, reaching out,

two blinking red dots
blinking out in no space
piercing the unblinking fog
of deep night,

ten fingers tapping
space comma good night period

Spider Bite

tightness in my chest, paranoia of closing
throats, ebola virus, georgia guide stones
agenda 21,
head spins, breathe quickens I have nowhere else
to direct my thoughts, videos peering like
hulled out eyes, little snippets of time and
I wonder what is going on beyond
its edges?
scratch my neck, becoming difficult to
see, think, hear, operate, this must be it,
just in time, trucks, painted black pull up
brakes squeaking, soldiers pouring out
like thick oil spilling from back unloading ramp
*stomp**stomp**stomp*
the past age, the oncoming age
railroad, river, road cut off, no currents,
I see myself buried in mass plastic grave,
this must be the time, this must be it,
I knew, I think I knew it, it's hard to say now
my head beating like their boots on the stair,
door kicks in any second, swollen throats,
children crying, I am crying, silently
there are no prayers left, shower curtains rattle,
they'll check there first, that's what they'll do,
then come for me,
then come for me.

Supplication; The Road III

Stirring in my
gut, in memory
in visions of past
and what's coming,
I see long gray
roads bleeding out
into the great distance
ahead, straight as a
Gad damn arrow at the
heart of eternity
and so real, real,
that I can't shake it,
knowing a new season
is coming--a new race to
the coast--my body
picking up speed
going 70-80-90 mph
hitting hell and storms
blue waves and endless
oceans, I can't remain
still, I can't! I tell myself
again and again,
I can't!

Can't stay up!

three nights I
hang my head,

last two nights
it rained,

I can't keep my
eyes open,

plot holes
left dangling, unable
to answer questions

I drift,
head heavy, mind
wanders,

I am walking through dreams.

there are no places
I recognize,
yet I remember each
and every one,

it is not raining here,

it is all foggy
like the light in my eyes,
erased by morning,

I drag my feet
for the next 12 hours
until the next night
repeats.

Fall on Rainy Mornings

Rain
on
fall
mornings

anyone can
write this
but I am
and it's mine

stepping
out of metro
I hope it's raining
harder than it is
but it's a fine
drizzle

it's nice so
I'm not so
disappointed
I quite like it
actually
now that I'm
thinking about
it, it fits with
today,

sky is bright
but gray

I pick up
a coffee
barista knows
what I order
it's ready almost
before I walk in
and the cashier is
always looking
at me like she knows
something,
she smiles out corner
of her mouth,

I wink at her,
walk back out into
rain,

it's chilly today,
drops hang on my glasses
but I can see just
fine,

the street is glimmering
blackness,

rain falls and gathers
like mountain
streams in the gutters

it smells like wet clothes
and old cement.

The Field

she walked
down to
the fair-down the
hill downhill
to the fair--sky was black
and peeling--cars
windows rolled up
sat driver-less on
street corners
under big red signs
the sky was reflected on
lights hung up over canvas--
it seemed about to
rain--and it would rain,
she thought as she walked
downhill tiptoeing slowly
watching her step, they said
it was going to--

she had grey eyes

her mother looked at her
each morning and after the
girl left for school, her mother
would think about her daughters
sad eyes,

but they were like the
sky, really, neither happy
nor sad,

they just were,

without beginning or end,

when she reached the fair,
big globs of rain wet her
gray dress dying it black
in large cool blotches--
the vendors sunk beneath
off-white canvas, closed their
doors,

she knocked silently on
leather hides, thin metal poles,

she danced home
under rain clouds
between drops

laughing.

Just remember to give them back

tick n tick
n count
to down to
what to up
words words
on screen/representing
page means nothing
aw fuck means
everything to me
maybe a bit too much
maybe not enough
I'm too caught
up in letting fingers
hit keys
plastic rounded
black keys white
letters no sense of
self sense of hard work
just ease of finger transfer
spell correction

what we SHOULD do is--

ignore this little
lapse, I pull the curtain
like magicians
cap and none of
you are real, see?--

only me,
I'm in here
alone

not lonely--

merely alone

watching the clock
writing to it's rhythm
but you didn't know
so go back over the lines

I wrote them for myself
but you can have them
too

if only for a while--

Buy me a house on the mainline

morning kisses
on the work line
saddest kisses
watch lovers go
to waste and soften
8 more hours closer to death
sunken eyes
hollow faces

remember when they
walked in fields together
looking up and pointing
at clouds?

they don't look up anymore
just down
at feet and
crumbling sidewalks
white lines
for crossing streets
blinking men
made of white lights
and orange hands

dance to the music of
roving cars
trapped in city frame,
8x5 times 50 years
dragging nothing
but memories
of white walls and
should-have-beens
and longing
to the grave.

I let go

And on the edges
like paint chipped
old and lead weighted
colors ancient drip
from cracked ceiling
cracked reality cracked
walls, flood of color like
love and the universe
staring through so much
I reach my hand in blinding
ooze of light and shape and
shadows some being beyond
the rim of understanding voices
like flashlights out into the sea

there comes and end to
everything and becoming
nothing is the next step

I let go

but not long enough

walk along the hard brown
shore listen to the hum of the
river the drowning wind
recall you've heard all this before,

only once

and that was moon
hanging overhead
overheard

what shape?

pull the rift closed
wipe running paint clean

it dries up again
it is lost
there where there
is no heavy drip
where the paint is sealed

there was never a hand
a body a reach a pull

only a funny dream,

Brother

Id like to sling tht ball through galaxies/
past gulfs of time/
into my brothers gloved hand/
hear tht satisfying POW of leather oil n skin/
scuffed with dirt/
off-white ball of displaced memory/
quickened by the long tears/
sadness grown from growing old/
in fields of calm green/
swaying gently in super nova breeze/
a golden star smiling/
film of dirt over mouth eyes/
taste of earth and daring and gods/
Id like to wait for him to toss it back/
to start all over again.

All these things

A current trend
is when I no longer try
spend all my time
pulling dead bones
across the floor
my dead and dry bones
grind and ache
draw lines of cocaine
sigils on nylon carpets
split and torn on
coarse fibers
lie on back
eyes glazed over gray
follow movement of
ceiling stuck still
unwavering hours like
clouds drifting aimlessly
and fading into still-life
distance of day feeding
night and crickets blaring
heartrending songs earth
depressed sinking into
itself etched by hard
scrawl of my sagging
flesh pieces wearing
unrecognizable i cough
i wheeze become unknown
to even myself
I am without a reflection
there are no mirrors.

There is what is to be said

so many things

I scratch my face

SCAB crumbles
sticks in under my
NAIL

bite it out with
teeth
taste fleshy

chew and mull over

NOW

there is what is to be said

I say it

wipe spot of invisible
blood
invisible to my EYES
dot on cheek
rough skin

curling waves
thinning hair

I watch for movement
out my window
from my perch on sill
I see all
pretend nothing is
going

return to bed

don't forget the light
but I haven't
I never even turned it on

water rushes gurgles
cleans the skin
makes new for further
scaling

moon beams light
waves casts beckons

I twist and turn

remove my clothes
bathed in darkening night

I await the morning

Spiders

spider crawl in
corners on edges
skirt past my feet
hanging from legs
that rest on chair,
a body begins to break-
down? maybe. Not as
tight and fit as it used
to be. Arms dangle arm rest,
spiders have 8 mechanical
creaking limbs put one in
front of the other
children hide their faces
there is no light under the bed
but many webs
which belong to which?
you'll never know
webs belong to no one
they are like thoughts
once thought are gone
and can't be weaved
again caked with dust
and grime and skin flake
one thousand dreams
in the night all alone
moving silently rise
and heavy fall of chest
mouth open in grin
eight flashing eyes
darting breathes
inhale exhaled,

Poet on Ode St

kind of irony

poet on Ode st.

cool fall morning
autumnal sky

like gray coals
on blue background
slivers of golden
light

plays tricks on
eyes

hands pull at grave stones
in feather caps
locked in your mind

Keats says,
"fuck it,"

words are viruses
paraphrased from
old bones Burroughs
dead and gone

this is neither that nor
this preternaturally
speaking preternaturally
knowing
*wink**wink*
like you're on to
something I'm not,

is it all those things you're
thinking at once?

my guess--

my guess is also
young flesh is beautiful
old is learned
with age and wrinkles
is like paste like
napalm that won't
rub off--

I am a cleft lip
hufffing spitting dreaming

writing about death is
writing about life
is stepping out into the cold
afraid

you have to be afraid
to jot it down

or else it don't work.

Everybody Read this Poem!

Everybody read
this poem!

it's come a long way
          *
it says less than
I want it to
but it's more
than I thought
I'd be able to say
          *
SIGNED & Dated
          *
a skeleton man
smokes a kief pipe
mutters about
hashish
got a friendly
robot by his side
arms raised up
into the air
feet are caterpillar
tracked
          *
they're both washed out
          *
they both wasted
          *
they dig this poem
quite a bit
'cause it's about us
says the robot
skeleton makes
no movement on
hearing just puffs
puffs
          *
puffs
          *
I drop an apple core
on the ground
for birds
they nibble away
watching me out
corner of black
eyes
          *
I write novels
sometimes
as poems
on paper
or plastic
recycled
          *
I misplace
the ending.

Left Alone

well
there's this sound
like gurgling brook
and gentle rapids
clean mountain
spring, my window
at night
street light
seeping in
half moon
lazy turned up on
it's side
dandelion
butter cup
shining silver
jets streak in black
sky crack silents
generator hurls
last bit of life
water still running,
feel it in my fingers
drilling sound through
my ears, clock ticking
and I am thinking to
no one is sleeping house
all full but empty
no words before breaths
no open eyes
but mine reddening
yellowed and tired
and old now
something that
shouldn't be,
cleansed by invisible
fountain, I'd like to
find my youth and innocence
and most of all ignorance,
my connection to
the still world outside
in here I listen to phantom
sounds, mysterious oasis,
questioning if what
I'm hearing is real.

These little rain drops

These
           little
rain
drops

pink flashes

break through
powder blue
clouds

hold onto
nightscape

indigo
edges

shadow

sunlit
reflections
in flourescent
sky

ruby blazing
crystal glare

awash
the globe
in scarlet
threads
memories

of the
morning

birds singing
radiators humming.

She says high to the back of my head

fall mornings
sun lazy on horizon
burning red
cloud cover drift
air is light
rustles sunflowers
at the corner
a squating cat
in tall grass
follows my gait
an empty street
vibrant colors
crisp autumn color
sweet smell
of calender pages tear
drop and torn
a sweet voice calls
like whispers between
sleeping trees
whithered leaves

Take a Lesson from Tolstoy

what's the harm
in dashing off
short novels
when images
spike,

titles stir
and spiral
stair to cloudy
heavens
turn,

I glance at
sky
expecting rain,

sun alone,
pulsing,
day after day,
and soon
another week,
another month,
gone,

I need to find the lock
and pound out
the keys,

why can't I
get this pen going
when I've got
the damn line?--

A Spinning Nowhere

I've bled into toilet
bled onto page
wiped stench of puss
and broken zit on
monitor screen

a spinning nowhere;

footprints from metro
line--follow prey

aged accordingly

locked away in
cool, damp cellars,

fungus and green
smells--wretch
and cough

wheeze;

pack your lunch
trudge up cliffside
peer off the edge
focus on moon
gravid with orange
hue and night

sinking low--

call out and echo

no ears
within a
thousand
miles
will
hear.

Tript

it's that come dwn
mmnt

stars explode

black space

hand ovr eys

light and moon
overcast
              shadows
feeling

empty focus

seeing

thoughts bleed
into single strain

hole in head
filled

that mmnt b4 sleep

same running thoughts
bubbling over

I stand on the edge of great expanse
there is no other side

just oozing blue evermore

pulled bck through
stationary

time no longer spinning

listen to my own breath
still and soft

night wanes
starry

night
sky

night

17 minutes from here

I'm cleaning up
draft poems
that are half poems,
stilted thoughts,
unrealized musings,
most are shit, believe
me,
      
        I'm up here
trying out words,
rewriting rhymes
until there aren't any
left,

        and it's a bonus
if they make no god damn
sense.     

Mail Absurdity

1
If found pl-
ease re-
turn to sender,

shipping
not guaranteed;

see, we've got all
these stamps
piling up
and
nowhere to
send them,
nothing to send
them on,

so you'll have to pay,

don't worry
whatever you send
won't ever get there
can't be traced

because we'll say
it doesn't exist,
we'll shake our heads,

2
There's a small opening
in space painted silver
fed on time

3
this poem is haunted

4
Remember we
never gave you
the right address

5
Send along your soul
anyways

Rejections Incoming

Spinning out
the idea dimension
radical thought process
95% bio-engineered material
GMO-sync-pop-synthetic
afterlife chemicals
breathe in DMT-fibers
colored rooms comes
rainbow armies bitter
sworded hacking at
severed limbs,

it's the future man,
the art apocalypse
a dreaded turn--it's
all they ever feared
paint chips on the brain
rotting palets, dreams--
and nobody has a clue
which genre it all fits in--
labels are shattered,
broken homes, legs
trudge, wandering free
from upper body
exploitation--

appetite--

there's freedom in
each of the four
corners of space
a mobius square
mapped and re-examined--

their numbers, uncountable--

they scream
and buildings like
civilization fall--

one step ahead forever--

writ in time--

the old women
on Jupiters 4th moon
dressed in rags,
her husband, long
dead was known to
say,

at best
they
leave
no
survivors

Story

past tugs at you
stretching out fabric
tearing at shirt

you pull away,
but too gently.

In your eyes
you ask, is something
there?

some small shred,
little place,
remaining? any

way to go back,
at all? Even

if I don't care to?

and worse questions
still, like--

was anything ever there?--

once we are gone
there will be no one
to remember us.

All life is a fiction,
even this, right now,
never happened.

I am left wondering why.

A curved space
between walls,

She has eyes
spiked at the edges
inky black
and running

powdered cheeks
showing no age.

"Step into the rift,"
curling voices,
warped by walls,
say.

She does this.

vanishes.

I am left wondering
why.

Failure

I had this poem
ready to go

thought it up
in the bathroom,

it had one great line

I forgot it
before I got here

and all I was left with,
was this,

a confession.

It'll have to do.

Flowers and Books, She never called

This guy grunts in
hallways,
he's a real monster
among the beige
walls that have no choice
but to look out at
one another perpetually,
each glob of paint is an
eyeball of the world,
is there many
or only one?

the building is
like a mobius strip,
lorded over by
men in trim dark
suits,

they feed the monster
it begs for food,
but eats too hungrily,
it's always hungry,

"that's what they say," said
that's what they say,  it was
what they were saying
down by the water cooler,
the monster doesn't go there
tho the walls do,

there's a book about it,
but it isn't published,
it would ruin the aesthetic,
so everyone agrees
and they scrapped it,

"that's what they say," there's
another book that includes the quotes
that know for sure, sadly that
one is all lies, it might even
be a hoax,

"the walls know," She says,
but she's a crazy one,

they took her away.

I didn't even cry,
mostly because I wasn't allowed
or can't recall how to be sad,

it's better that way,

we can avoid the monster
together,

"he was a man once," they said.

I heard that.

She said, "that's what they say."

But they still took her away.

Postulate

I cont-
inue t-
o cha-
se afte-
r things
that run
away,

blindly, I am
feeling and m-
easuring, groping
and assuring
myself of right
choices, wrong
roads,

I look back
and years have
gone--knowing
there is something
chasing me too--
grim and black--
seething--

I am gambling on it
never catching up,

I know I'll lose that bet,
but I've forgotten
how to stop running
forward--I've forgotten
which way my life's
supposed to lead--
so I just go

tethered to shadows
maybe, maybe to
a lingering dream,

as long as I don-
't stop to think about
it, I should be fine.

It remembers my password

Search:
                     Right
images:

I'm tagged in (1)

[is the face in the mirror
the one you're allowed to see?]

mine is smiling
without pretense

I hope (at least)
we haven't checked
our backlog yet
--in a while--

notifications waiting
piling up
kb/mb/gb/love

how many
waiting?

[have you ever stopped
and looked yourself in
the eye?]

for 30 years I thought
mine were brown (they're hazel)

Central heterochromia - is an eye condition that
does not interfere with a person's eyesight.

we are wrapped in
social media tears
you and I and all
of us we you and
me

faces recognized
locations checked-
in

I am signing on the
login screen I am
checking all the boxes
one x one
so
it remembers what
I've done.

Sci-Fi Pome

New/olD
transmissions
innerspace tech
ringing ear/
phones/
resemble/burnt
out hulls
ships scuttled
in the asteroid belt

this way out/
law/they're on to
bury you/out to
have your booted
feet swing

over the dead dreary/
evening heads of
watching crowds
saturn's system
titan bounding
standing/still

launch escape
ring around
the moon

bounce comlink
off business satellite
bridges covered in
commercials disguised
as grafitti splashed
in Venus tomato juice

it's about women

the adds/going off
like rocket space
sextapes--

ancienT/Young
bones/flesh/
outer space shells
fully evolved madness
link consciousness
send souls through
spatial recognition
camera spread seed
'cross time stream
multidimentional platform

it's how we make it
as a thought-species

ring through sustainable
dwarf stars--radio lies--

humble marisian vagrants
hitching/ rainbow ruins

stellar-aftermath

Future/pasT/
confuse all words
are one word something
like a quote from before

remember when there
were roads, little one?

Neither do I.

Spells

you take all
the pieces left out
re-arranged on my
skin, cut them into
semi-circles

I watch lights
from your window
mimic the moon
cast shadows
on ingrown walls

they writhe like
my mind like living

BEING

I crush it all in
my hands like leaves
like plants as wind
screams through trees
a million years away
in a forest a thousand
years long

you run your tongue
up my arm and magenta
slivers of space cloud
my vision

there is a puzzle spread
on the floor that once
was me

I am tasked with
putting it back together
each

NIGHT

the villagers believe
it to be a curse, they
keep away--I am
spelled they say under
unwashed breaths--

with new eyes
you see naked into
the stars pull bodies
from cosmic dust

I can only handle one
task at a time,
so I chip chip away
at the dull rocks
with dull axe

TIRED

you watch as I fall to shredded
images, semi-circle plates
you are cooked and molded
perfect

I am all tongues and saliva
and sweat

sinking
sulking
summoning
sleep.

24 Gun Salute

through
the caramel colored
eye

sun streaked

paint stain
pulled across my
floor

trailing light

an amber bolt
of lightning splits
rainbow skies

shaking color

gun shots at
steady intervals
echo mourning dove cries

engines roar

memory of
steel and carbine
hearts of wood

carving death

Girl in the Purple Dress

I find you in my bed
at night

dreaming

follow you
my arm tight
around
your
waist

maybe sometimes
words between
us are lost

you have eyes like
opaque pools
of super novas

depthless

your legs are silk
thoughts
cool rivers
edge

your body against
mine is
my body

when you're not
looking I reach out
to
you

there is more I want to
say
in my
hands pulling back

there are memories
beyond my
memories

foolish little words
that aren't enough

Standing

Three days ago
                          there were whispers

many boulders
                           fall through time

often you'll catch them
                                      as feathers

in the corners
                        of your eye.

two days ago
                       you disappeared

along with the rest
                               of the human race

sucked through galactic straws
                                                at the very edge of time.

Yesterday I stood alone
                                       reaching into the void

all that's left now
                           stardust and empty seashells

echos of voices
                          faint sense of seeing eyes.

today I am nothing
                               but thick dark sky

fading comets
                       dying embers of universe

the final learned things
                                     shattered stone.