Haulien by the sea--

Guanyin you watch the sea
carved in stone, un-moving,
you are perfect, serene, compassionate,
do you hear the screams a continent away?
over the skip of rocks in the tide?

Guanyin can you see past the
mercurial pacific that's merely
a splinter of the essential mind?
I cannot see your tears,
what has man done to you?
are you here to protect the sea?

Guanyin are you lost on this emerald island?
is it a mistake I've found you, bled of colors,
unable to turn your eleven heads, twenty-two ears to the pain
of worldliness and attachment?

Guanyin am I asking too much?
please let me know?
Guanyin are you the resurrected Christ? I won't tell.
Guanyin have you heard of our barbaric western religions?
do you listen to the Taoists stories about you?
are they true?

Guanyin will you help us no matter what?
will you place the lotus in my hand and breathe pink into its soul?

Gunayin I am sorry I have pierced your solitude
to ask you meaningless questions, but I've many more.

Guanyin how many high tides have you witnessed here?
how many typhoons? how many shipwrecks?
How many fisherman caught in undertow? how many many deaths?

how many oceans have you cried with your twenty-two eyes?

Often I lie

Remember those first shits in the first months
of your coffee addiction.

they're gone.

years later I wrote several poems high on oxycodone.

I'm cleared now.

I've heard
there's a madhouse in a Bethesda naval yard crumbling to dust.

I've read
there's a mad ghost wandering the halls of an unnamed school in Paterson, NJ.

I know
there's a green van pulled to the side of the road off I-70 in Ohio, lost to time.

that's
where I gave up the wheel,
where I was a rolling stone,
where I gave up sleep,
where I was never found,

I guess
some things will always be,
some things must go
some things
some times.

To Watch

fumbling for the switch, your nimble fingers
in the cold look so different, changed, rearranged,
tiny charred pitchforks in the monster hunting night,
can't grasp the tongue soaked metal of an afterthought,

some say it isn't right for the winter come,
and darkness is the right frame of mind to take,

I've no opinion either way,
outside a disinterested observation,
or so this narration says

and a rhyme.

the darkness is on time, to go or who to when next
we meet, with the ilights on, I don't know.

in the summer perhaps,
when you can flick the switch.

I'm not sure why I can't help you
in this task,

is it because I'm standing here, one legged?
lost.
maybe.

there's one thing to be sure;

You'll have to stretch out and shut the door
or the light will escape, and all your work in the cold
will be for nothing

once again, just my simple, ascetic observation.

Braids

Along the river bank,
gardens,
uncontrollable green vegetation,
beside concrete graveyards,
broken military installations abandoned,
overtaken with weedy tresses,
mangy junkyard dogs nip at bike wheels,
tongues slack from mouth,
show broken teeth--
if you gun it
they'll chase
so we roll to a stop
already they turn their heads
faced around the curve
for next scooter
--road skirts the water, closer,
no camera on red lights,
no stop signs,
five minutes from city center
the long hot country awaits,
brown dirt hills,
speckled with grass,
hazed by smog,
leaning bamboo,
scattered stone.

Song Book

I
shrouded stranger,
were you cold and hunched over in the night?

do you drink your coffee, moonlit,
from tin canned heat?

too many questions.

I know.

II
see,
this story without answers?

my dreams and
lined up with reality,

like a filter
sediment sifted down,

levels formed.

paintings in the desert.

sunlit.

III
same structure
like snaking codes
haunts me,

to the eye,
it lies,

I search for its heart.

there's no reason
why.

IV
old
clean
bones
man

skeleton
man

buried
like
me

Lanterns

the last grey sky
hid within it
Chinese lanterns
burning in the rain
cast up from
villages hidden
among green wet mountains,

barely visible between
phone line power line
thick clouds steaming heat
power line phone line
flickering figures
with what words to say,
I could not know,

gone among now
the mining towns, golden waterfalls
sheets of sky, gone wishes
molten air, thousand miles
receding--

an empty mirror;
the afternoon.

Home

winter
my broken knee

it's too cold to read outside
and
my cat glances up at me

we both sweat in the apartment's heat

sigh gladly
when I open the window

ignore the rain drops
splash on the sill

William Tell

my shaved legs,
goosebumped from the cold,
become lost to me each day,
like my atrophied body,
hunched with worry for my world,
ages beyond my desire;

won't they leave my sagging form
alone?
Won't they?

gaunt and ghastly
misshapen,
I've eaten my own flesh,

can't they see I wish to die
peacefully?

what more is there left to be done?

a failed attempt to remain removed,

but,

I've no bones.

Babe in the night

the straight blue line in the night, I remember,
the fall, stiff metal, sagging skin, weakened bones,
a voice in the cold shadows come through the chill,
a body a heap of faded memory, a fogged addled mind,
the first glimpse into dying, the lamb leaps to escape.

Gnostic Reading

You are reading this with totemic vision.
       
your eyes are like headlight winking stars
          in the void night over I-70 Kansas plains.

your finger on the mount
          are like god's timeless hand tirelessly being all time,
          being anything, being same, meant as everything or;

your smirk is of my creation
          out of nothing, becoming nothing, going back
          into nothing, after all being of nothing at the start

you are reading this as a last dying light, going out.

Pendulum

          the hands in the church are hanging,
swung down the bell tower fast,
clanging like ancient horrors
in the swift moving current,
the white holy cloaks carried along,
swaying,

          hail, now the last possible moment
terror comes before the feast, there the
tormented souls have come to lie, where
nothing grows but the vibration echo,
the holy voices yell,

          wavering, the scent of incense burns
my eyes, your eyes, all.

Foyer

in there there was this
old grainy 1960 home movie footage,
little girls in white dresses
faces gently muddled into obscurity
twisting on white soled ankles
in what might have been the afternoon sun,
looking up at them and around,
not sure why we were there--
I was two years maybe three years old
when the lines at the margins began to run.

Security Footage

in my stomach
what now has been my world
two weeks now removed;

I am in an effort,
I am to decode myself,

I will rid myself of all shame.

today I left the house without my hat
I was sweating

did you know I am going bald?

where were all the eyes watching?

there were none that noticed any difference
I was passed back and forth
my cat doesn't know what to think of me.

I have become an imposition on myself

many times I have thought these things
these unreal unreality things

is it possible I am an invention?

if so,
how long until I die?

if so,
is this my answer to life. no,
this is my response.

where have the things I have thought gone?

they have gone
where I have no things
and things is a word I use to mean
nothing and nothing is
just a thing a word in a line
I have placed where others
are left and others will follow.

my right leg hasn't touched a floor in 2 weeks

sound is like this shower

make believe rain

I haven't had in days

when I imagine gray skies

in the afternoon

alternating to blue skies

when I wake

and drop these pills,

the ice therapy lasts 20 minutes,

I can't count past 10 without drifting

and it feels like some

other clear daydream day

before I wake, maybe it's

the length of a television 

program broken 

by commercial advertisements,

these are the most important questions at this time;

and with that it isn't clear if I'm

some sorry cripple scribbling 

on the back of his hand
counting off
one
two

Maintenance

I have covered this ground with tired legs

not much has changed, nor has it remained the same

there were strings I mended, re-tied along the way

many were frail and so left ignored to atrophy

there were barriers constructed

mercurial bridges, flat tires, orange arrows

and the road,

two white lines, one yellow

only ran one way

Oxy

frame by frame

your life escapes me

little white pill

many mashed words in a
mixer like mom's 1950
powder blue or green
whatever my mind
sticks to whatever
memory pops out

whatever color smells right

like flour
wisps in sunlit circles
and by the time I write this
I am 30 years old
confined to my bed

in pain

high

higher still

too weak to resist the next four hours

Lauryl

*Originally appeared in the Light Ekphrastic*

"Death is acommin in

                                    and mocks my loss of Liberty"

63. The Tree

Cast a shadow over villages

made into the face of the moon,

a tree impervious to seasons, to death,

a pile of limbs, no dent,

in its cradle of branches,

a man, sap marks his blade,

blood, sweat, aching steel,

folded and sharpened by fire,

absurd Wu Gang chopping,

chopping still;

immortality,

an impossible task.

39. Daphne

my fingernails

                        now leaves before the night

for winter

shall

never

wilt

tho earth may dry and crack

my roots

stick

firm

sink deep

                        shall never die

52. Lust/Chastity

a chase

a tragedy

the word once spoken is law

an oath

an apology

46. Genes

Bay Laurel:

of the order Laurales

of the family Lauraceae

of the Genes Laurus

of the species L. nobilis

5. Chastity/Lust

an anachronism

an image

works written for the page

a relic

a wreath

18. Apollo

By her limbs

                        I have wronged

yet I will not learn

but yearn

through an arrow

and in so doing

mourn

tho the earth may pass before my age

I shall

not want

                        shall not be sated

36. The Moon

Madcap, the 64 signs

hear tell of the rabbit,

lives on the moon,

there, he pounds the medicine

of the earth,

in the lunar light,

for the coming age,

the luster, holy water

reflected in

Buddha’s pail;

a body never burns.

Prep

metal hooks on set tracks
cross hatched beige dividers

wipe your body clean
and air dry

these socks prevent blood clots

they're white
and the room is cold

it's time to go

my ass is out and the gown in gray

purple marker masks my knee

the IV is in
blood has dripped

it'll be an hour that becomes six months

once I sit down
I am no longer mine
I am the white walls
the anesthetic
the knife

induced sleep

Avalokitesvara on the Shore

On.
The skipping pebbles said to me.
Onward now.
and back.
We have been washed and worn.
Rounded
by tides
by the waves.

The color of toothpaste, I said.

What? (as gray clouds
from central mountain peaks
weighed down)

The waves,
they were the color of blue frothy toothpaste,
there was no sand.

And the sky,
the same,

it reflected the stones.

Rain Pome on Take Off

There aren't many nights like this left in America;
still, but for the shower that comes without warning.
quiet, but for the gentle tap of rain on street.
two storeys up from my window ever dry,
two storeys down my wet earth washed away.

Mr. Dorsett

Mr. Dorsett lifts pallets in the rain
     is a godsend in hardhat and blue jeans

each droplet is a pearl reflecting his world
     wood chips and oiled machines grayed smoke stacks

Mr. Dorsett picks up the tab for everyone's lunch
     just this one time

at the corner of University and M
     Mr. Dorsett is 65+ years old and working

Mr. Dorsett takes care of the boys
     they call to him from opposite sidewallk to see how the pallets are

dry
     they're wrapped in plastic tied with a rope

Mr. Dorsett has a deft hand at the controls
     skips his meals when he needs to when the work won't go

Construction is the light blood of the damned
     and the storm passes so the umbrellas close

Mr Dorsett lifts the pallets in the sun
     is a godsend in hardhat and blue jeans

A Baseball Poem

baseball was meant to be enjoyed on the radio like this
rippling across this ocean spirit we called America once
waves grow from wheat fields outside Kansas City
pick up antenna speed flush out against mountains east and west;

have a beer for me and slowly edge the volume up
it's the end of the 11th and this thing's got legs to go into the night;

Kansas City isn't Iowa it isn't heaven but it's sure close to both

Lamb

you there
with the basket,
slinking in alleyways
between siren
street lights

turn your head to this unfeeling world

there's no reason
to do what we do
to have to do what you've done
go on home
rest your eyes

we've come this far for fields of green
wasted all our trees
killed all your sisters brothers mothers we

don't hide your face
under florescent bulbs
I know who you are
but I won't out you

we are both on the lam
you turning the corner
me here
immobile
silent

waiting to be slaughtered.

Kiss my life

yesterday
leaning over bar
I played the
lonesome traveler
peering over pint
of oyster stout
silently brooding

'in heaven we will all be safe,
          there will be no reality to bear,'

in private libraries
I read alone
another night leads
to another day and that
is gone from me already
already I am older still
slower still stiller still

yesterday
in auld forgotten faces
I got the usual in a place
I'd only been once
two weeks before

a delorean revved its engine
across street to cheering crowds
another celebrity out of time

the sun was set
the night lingered
bits of orange
tint of black
purple bruises

yesterday
I limped home up Ode St.
caught each transfer
perfect red to yellow line to 16J
fed my cat
showered
turned off all the lights
kissed my life farewell
fell asleep

Katahdin

(Written between October 16-18; Completed October 20, 2015)

1

Flash by Lowell in the Autumnal dawn

            Pink blear of morning

Rush goes the mighty Merrimac

            In Kerouacian mist of pawtucketville ghosts

            Turn go the leaves
            rough characters at gray full up stations
            waiting on breakfast lines

            In rearview mirrors of the tired mind

Red Massachusetts lonely

Golden in the night

            Like earlier darkness of Philadelphia

North Philly streets

            Shrouded Stranger

            Appear in faraway view

Flows cracks on long ago pound streets

Mystery of flowing cape

Gray gray gray gray

Lurching

Phantom of mindless fear

Great death chasing

            Out of the past

Or hero of wandering fools

Regardless

            A great horror thing

            Lost in break light red

            Big northeast leering eyes

And finally left behind

Become nothing corporal

            Omen harbinger spirit herald

Portent

            Friend—

2

Snow on Katahdin

            False peak faced north

Obscured by foggy gusts of zero degree chill

And somehow this clears at night

            To star filled starry sky

Night night milky night &

            Milky Way rush of constellations

At midnight

Untied boots and thermals

            Standing in clearing

            In dim light years

            Behold! Moonless night

Coal black night diamond forged

And

            Thoreau wrote from Bangor

From foot to wheel to backpack

to Millinocket

To Katahdin to stream

            & where are the primal spirits

Rage over mountain top

Immemorial

            Crag of split rock & kaleidoscopic tree leaves

Of fall’s ebb

            Inimical & endless forests 
of the mind
            laid out

Spread unbroken to Kanady

            To artic to frozen circle

To grim desolate wastes

            Of tundra north

3

And in morning

            White skies

Icy hands

            Warm steam of mouth

Smoke of fire dawn

            Rustle of tents

Acrid scent of flame on my beard

            Ceaseless cascading stream

My dreams

            At 4am

As temperature dropped for snow

            Lift my lost kitten

            To the moon

            He is lost

            I am lost

Oh Night!

Thick on my eyes

Someplace long ago

            Voices telling me

            It was okay to let him go

Drift from summit rock slide

From bone of holy oly peak holy

            I am cradled in the night

            Fetal

            By icy root of tree

4

Root of tree

            Wreathed through wet ground

Bedded with leaves

            Twisting branches overhead

The tent

            Shrouded in its shadow

Final thought

And now morning of the mind

Awaken

Wakefulness

Task

            The first snowfalls on Maine hills

            At edge of trail end

There’ll be 8 inches or more

On mountain paths

            Whooshing waterfalls

Cough cough arctic lung

            Tip tap of large flurries

Weigh trees down

So leaves like windshield wipers

On car windows bend over road

            Baxter through Lovecraft

Lakes mist on lapping water

Pebbled shore

            Stark inky and gloom

            Heart of the northeast

            End of the world

            Millinocket Lake

            Off Blackcat dirt road

Not far from Togue Pond Twin Pines

Log cabin coffee at River Drivers

            Snow falls on

            Cold cold cold Maine

Morning

Lake effect

Swirling flurry winds

Gravel path from window

Fireplace

Katahdin invisible

Opaque whiteness

Great white north—

5

South in the October foliage on 157

            Medley at I-95 back to Bangor trek

The farthest reaches of

            Hi-way gore

To seek the Atlantic now

            Cap’n at the wheel

Light with ginger beer smells

            Old world puritanical spell

Carved wood at the

            Cross stitched lamp of the world

In motel now

            Tents clothes bodies eyes

            Too wet for another elemental night

Dry on the furnace of mankind’s

Innermost Acadia Gateway hotel

Caramel brown ale smell

            Ellsworth Trenton toothpick toothache

            Too true Trenton

Of no this isn’t New Jersey

But gauntlet to Bar Harbor Acadia cliff spill

In the Great North

            In bitter wind

            In winter’s great American shore

Come morning

            A brush across the bluest waves

6

 Blue waves

            Fishing boat fisherman’s life

Wool caps thick beards barrel chest

            Desolate but beloved distance

Beloved lighthouses

            Cut & cold hard

            Icy of heart

New England ah

            Call of gulls

Burn of engine fume

            Rock & mast

Red painted rails

            Cast against heaving sky

Glory sky

            My visions in the cool

            Blackness preceding sleep

            What sunrise would bring

            What next?

Silence

            Thunder

Tinder

            Silence

Churn

            Frush & rush

And undertow and all

Blear blast black port

Great hulking rocking bestial ships

            Silent aw silent

Mad—

7

Answer at sun-up

            Brings blue sky clouds vanish

Route 3 south

            Onto Mt. Desert Isle

Bar Harbor

            How it got it’s name

Who know? Who?

            Rocky beachhead

Shimmer under sunshine

            Without warmth

No time tho but to race around

            Start those tires roll engine roar

Chariot headed south

            Congested traffic hell of ole New York

            To bar our way

First a swing on 9 from 95 from 1

            Lobster rolls at Dock Square

End of Lanigan Bridge

Kennebunkport

And every town has a sister in Maine

Slapped port on the end

West Westport Northport Searsport Portland

            Slapped mayo or butter or both

            Grilled bread 1lbs Lobster shelled

Last day of the season

            Cold gray water

            Thick with coming winter

Scent of lemon salt water fishy scent

            Little shore towns

            Hidden from time

            All along bottomless

            US-1

8

From there now gone

            From here now going home

Day falling fast to our left

            On rushes the night 515 miles away

            Our mason Dixon mid-atlantic line

Rivers Delaware Susquehanna Anacostia Potomac

States MA Rhode Isle Connecticut New York

New Jersey PA Delaware MD

Pitch black is October night shift

            5am of morning slow crunch of time

Last days fresh

Fresh like the recent dead

Hint of decay

Memory fade

            Slide in the rearview

Alone now at destination point

Last dead drop my own

Each goodbye one less body of the whole

Of the host six souls one car one mountain

Whole of Maine

            Six directions they go

            Gabow V Tommy Joe Chase myself

I go mine

I go it alone but not alone

            Really

Toward what future may come

This is spring this is summer this is fall’s truest end

            Faced in directions south face north east west

To roam loam roam roam home roll flat burnt leaves

Vibrate soul soil soul legs hands heart wheel engine

Ancient stone forged trail in gray-like dreams

            Go Go North a vision a god a martyr Go

            Ka-Tah-Din    

            Ever always standing
            Shrouded

            Watching
Indomitable

Suburban Sprawl

We each had good, green lawns.
Well-trimmed;
manicured.

There was this bit once, I tagged myself
in a photo in front of my lawn titled,
Just mowed the lawn #housework #weekends

It was featured on my facebook page.

We each had one of those, too.
Well-manicured;
quite serious.

There was a time when I used a pseudonym
but I shouldn't misrepresent myself;
luckily facebook had me change it back.

It was the right thing to do.

We each had an online presence.
Tied to our life;
our job.

What you say or do online can impact you
in reality, it should impact how you live,
we all understand that.

It is the small price you pay for progress.

Filing Papers Away

last 10 years.
park at end of childhood street.
this morning's sunrise.

today I realized
they were the same.
today I realized they were gone.

gone and going even further gone.
gone away from me.
gone forever.
gone.

what have I done?
since then, what have I done?
where have I gone?

look back.
look forward.
gone.

today I realized they were gone.
today I realized you were gone.

today I realized I will be gone.

Parable of the park

It doesn't
require much
to be lost

to realize
that you're lost
takes even
less

once in
a park
I saw an
ant

it was
crawling across
the seat of a
bench

what's a bench
to an ant?

what's an ant
to a bench?

I sat on the
bench and the ant
crawled across
me

think about it

what am I to
and ant on a
leg on a bench
in a park?

were we not
all lost together?
can anyone
say for sure?

It doesn't
require much
to give an
answer.

Love sentences to the New Yorker

I haven't been able to finish a poem in the new yorker since 1979
          and I wasn't even born yet

* * *

Somebody might want to let them know that their obsession with the ampersand
          has no lasting impact on their cultural relevance

* * *

Remember when Bukowski wrote about all the tap tap tapping back and forth,

          did it occur to you then, or now, that he was talking about you?

Insects in the snow

insects in the snow crawling toward the data centers
     of the contemporary digital brain
insects in the snow were once lines in magazines
     now twitter and sulk on flat screens
insects in the snow feeding personal thoughts
     to four-wall unmanned fusion centers
the eye of the great surveillance wheel
     black and spinning like a .45

insects in the snow of dedicated bandwith methodology
     television talk show false flag causality
     youtube montage conspiracy screens
     SNL as a political platform voting machine
     jon stewart doing the viacom shill in plastic suit
insects in the snow buried in colorful personality quizzes online
     what do they say about you?
     I want to know

what do you know about insects in the snow
     like where did they come from?
     where on tumblr do they hide?
on some hallmark card line over ocean sunrise mountain top a forest photoshop
     how many will share or heart or like?
how many hands are red lines of ants steady crossing data paths
like insects in the snow
     unseen?

Insects in the snow as the static fades out and the white light goes
     insect like black trailing pixels cast out as typed lines
insects alone in the stale silent death
    within the inimical isolation of internet space
Insects in the snow becoming clear barren
     beginning to smear and blend
becoming obfuscated reality

to remain unfinished

in 100 years there'll be pilgrimage to Junction City Kansas
all these hyper kids on I-70 walls between them and the sea
head against the windowpane watching for that famous gray exit
there'll be a line of junk and hope straight down route 1 half-moon to L-A
visions on the shore of Carpinteria, California like Key West or Desolation peak
this will all be done via virtual reality if we're still here if necessary
when the beach as black as oil and the plains are toxic waste dumps
and I'll be long ago buried in an anonymous plastic tomb outside Camp Hill, P-A

300 dollars worth of repairs

the transistors
          the lamp posts     and
my car     too
       
          rust out in the rain

Hallmark Card in honour of Paul Muldoon

If your work is ever rejected by the New Yorker
     just look up the editor's poetry.

I promise     You'll feel a lot better.

Says More Than it Intends (Found Poetry)

Combat zones to boardrooms.

Early morning drills to PTA meetings.

Transitioning back into civilian life isn't easy.

The USO Transition 360 Alliance recognizes this, offering career and family
resources to answer, "What's Next?"

the best poem written on the back inside cover of a bukowski chapbook

lite a match
use that single flame to lite the pack
suck in the sulfur exhaust
let it burn off

Arlington Bop

Rock music
from cemetery stoop--
white domino rows of the sacrificial lamb--
odd feedback
guitar strings,
tour bus buzz
announcer drawl mix
vibrations off the back wall--
turf renovation in progress--
selling the national memorial of death
     to the old
     to the current
     to the new
generations.

Cemetery Sentences

Red hydrant on the ridge     what sets you apart from death?

***

Candy corn barricades stacked on roadside     wait for another day

***

Wind blows toward the one true God     Washington, DC

***

on the hill     line of trees     in the sky metal streaks     blue angels

***

lying flat in the swamp     freedom's five-sided tombstone

***

No photos please     the military industrial complex is now in session

If you got the time

     Foxcroft Heights
neighborhood est. 1938
     commuter mass relocation
16G 16J 16H 16X express
     homes along the pike
Highway horizon I-395
     on Saturdays
a skeleton frame
     no money to make
no money to spend
     US-244 West
Arlington Alexandria
     around the bend
Annandale up next.

Telephone Poll C1017 HJ6

Berries grow but won't
                    be eaten

Grass grows but can't
                    be cut

10:17 am
                    the time I was born.

Janus

I
one day ahead of myself
     I'm one day advanced in age
one day beyond in thought
     I'm one day behind in dream

II
Funny little jingles hold complicated lies
     you watch them but you can skip after five seconds

five seconds is too long
     they're on television too if you're old enough to own one

III
one day
     half looks forward
     half looking back

IV
never the right moment to get what you want

Rubinstein's Best of American Poetry

For Will

now the Encyclopedia Britannica is dead
Rubinstein wants to replace it with the American poem.

my MFA, lost in his citation page
which masquerades as poetics,
is my entry fee,
on a train to nowhere
where I ride with other carefree poets
printed letters on our minds,

no one asking,
can poets be carefree?
should they be?

For what it's worth,
I just want a seat at the table,
however meager the pickings,
I've nothing of importance to say,

I know the original titles,
I can recite them.
they're in other languages,
meant to be typed in italics,

let me help lessen the breadth of the pome,
I promise to keep it in those outmoded halls,
new yorker, harpers, nation, balls balls balls

what's in a- what's in a- name?
it's a publisher's game.

the best we have to offer is our brevity,
so take it, our metaphor too, sacrifice it,
for this new contemporary age, best of 2015,

Don't feel what you write, don't write what you feel,
and for god's sake if you do spell it out with too many damn words

Internet video violence v. comments

why everyone so violent?
     you see violence
want more
     I would punch that guy
in his face
     if i saw that
he should have more respect

I'll teach him to hold my values
my righteous inclination to violent
reaction of violent action

when worldview is my view
it is worldview forever pure

only violence can inform violence
(central conceit)
(methodological design)

response time is in fists
knives bullets blunt objects

only proof is the short history of man

guilty or innocent
right or wrong
payback

4 telework haiku

what would a poem
by WB read like?
a Naked Lunch I think.

a bottle of america

on corner of my desk,

sand settles down 

watching my cat sleep

listen to traffic crawl

reading next email

world out my window

further away today,

working from home

Papal Vacation

dressed in white
my naked pink whiteness
typing from home
from my prison across river
listening to kaddish
allen ginsberg voice
strange nudity
accumulation of data files
telework cables
draped over me
nothing
cloak of immortality
cock
sweat
autumn
keys
work mad
god on earth
for a day
for a year
for eternity

why are all my heroes killers?

there's been bleach on my breath for over a week.

Why are all my heroes killers?
why do they shuffle off and muster for the military industrial complex?

where is this taste coming from,
thick white mucous on my gums,
bangs against my chest,
invades my lungs,

why with all this faceless, remorseless death?
why now those black marching boots? I don't get it.

who is poisoning who?
I do live in washington dc. I know.
I listen to the radio taps at night. I sleep with the window open.
the bells and the highway and the graves sneak in.

why can't I know what's going on?
why is money human but human isn't the same?

there's been bleach on my breath in an effort to hide the blood.

Your Phone

standing with your phone to keep you safe
     with your phone by the window at night, rest it by your sleeping head,
standing with your phone to fend off the awkwardness of life,
     strangers and situations, with your phone on yelp
     what's the best mexican place around here, can't anyone digital help?
standing with your phone in silence, swiping
     with your blue phone in the blue twilight soothing, how you spell gluten?
standing with your phone feeding on information
     with your phone and each hyperlink baby, vine video virtual reality,
     life in six second segments to further regiment the day,
standing with your phone, man, snapping photos
     of the lost, lonely, haggard, privacy deprived fools around you
     with your phone and its hashtags and its thin, cold, warmth,
standing with your phone against the bleak will of life,
     with your phone and its sleek body, its perfect self,
standing with your phone as physical communication becomes the past,
     with your phone and the data that keeps you tethered to scrolling text
     what happens in china, germany, malawi, the united states?
     with your phone and its selected streams, creative apps,
standing with your phone against the paradoxical world map
     moving on with the current, with your phone setting the trail,
standing with your phone to by another phone and another phone
     waiting in line for the next available generation,
standing with your phone as it's boxed and recycled, returned to the cloud,
     marking your life in .1 upgrades,
standing with your phone and clicking send in that bill
standing with your phone and standing alone,
     with your phone as your eyes, as your brain, as your fingers, as your mouth
     as your nose.

Sage

conversation of 8 thousand miles
from down the hall,

jack reads whalen Interglacial on
toilet bowl 40 years ago,

I read on the same stinking toilet bowl of time,
shit toilet bowl of the fractured mind,

saturday morning like saturday morning,
bodies like body,
sag. age;

and it's all a tightening circle,
slowly sinking, flushed down.

Tom Fischer and the I Ching

take his body parts,
times 64,
remove the clogged arteries,
the writers block
in a cycle every 2,000 years,

cleaning schedule
is synced into his
bathroom break time
8x2 is 16x2 is 32
divided by 2 is
16 round trips
in an 8 hour day,

speaking in the
3rd person gets you
nowhere with a girl
and like that
the polestar rotates
in eliptical orbits
of generational
change,

he wonders at times,
reading the solar squares
on the calender sky,
what it's like to
live in the true North,

not very much different
the divinations say--

'look to 6 dashes of
morse code, he has a
penchant to say morris
code, number of days in the
lunar year of 13 months
doesn't impact the
necessity of daylight
savings: the interest
is back up to 384.1%;

sift his thought process
down to the 6th degree,
free dimensional state
where nothing is
vibrationally attentive
to the demands of the state
and clockwork is an
absurdity dream device'

--white bones fall on
hexagonal frames, whte chalk
marks on ancient wood, right
meter of begone time,
rite thought in the wrong
name, understood.

Need help for short panis here!

Erect a star antenna

fit the lens of the reflection
of retribution of the
salvation of the earth
to the membrane filament of
the singing skull

all late century human
history has been building to this

Jupiter is our mirror
is the mechanism of escape
the outer inner-cosmos
of mind reflected in
hyper-space time
holding the key to our
species fate,

prepare the human corpse
for jettison,
man is an artifact
meant for space travel

now is the time of the
coming of the end of the
world is nigh

close your eye to the past
there is nothing left
that is to be done,

only that you relinquish
your hold to the control
belief, only that you
prepare to begin anew.

Villain

this bus on the corner, rarely, if ever, looks to stop;
you have to wave it down or step forward before it rides past.

she was wearing sunglasses that day,
it was sunny and hot and bright, so
she was wearing them to shield her eyes
from the bright and hot sun.

when the bus with its compressed air braking system
stopped with a puff and huff and gradually lowered itself to the curb,
and the doors opened with a jerk and inward swing,
she balked and gave no intention of walking on.

as this bus, as previously asserted, had a penchant and reputation
among the boarders at this particular corner
not to stop on most occasions, the other potential riders,
who were edging nervously behind the sunglassed girl,
wasted no time for opportunity to board,
moving around her and jumping on, scanning cards
and taking a desired seat.

I was one of those riders, though I determined to stand.

After the bustle, you could hear the driver's audible and
inwardly directed, "sorry about that, ma'am,"
and her equally audible and inwardly directed, "that's okay,"
return, as she stepped on.

Letters read on the john

read your letters on the toilet,
came in the mail sixty years too late,

they were sad and one-sided,
yellowed and dirt-specked,

there were several notes extra
wrapped in stiff rubber bands,
couldn't make out those few handwritten words,
so you'll never get the cash you're owned,

left my own postscript:

rusty paperclips leave marks and
staples will ruin the page;

I couldn't save you from an early grave--

Robot Mantra

bok-bok-bok-bok
bah-bah-bah-bah-

tek tek tek

[silence]

hissing tube
window sealed
light above
shut off

ack ack ack ack
gak gak gak gak

hrmmmmmmmmm

[silence]

held in place
all connected
muffled senses
stunted thought

bok-bok-bok-bok
bah-bah-bah-bah-

endure for 30
maybe 5 more

stabbed myself
with a pencil
gradeschool
accidentally
still you
see the point
metallic objects

tek tek tek tek

suffer
beige tube
beige socks
how does this
gown fit on

how much time
has passed

think about sensory
deprivation
maybe it's
something like this

Old Forgotten Dreams Cut-Up

agent in, rifle out.

about alien elaborate waves,
it's water control. they like us.

reason A: people, hidden...human reach control.
breathing. control. hands alien missing,
some with humans retreat,
sound don't have existence,
in comes demon water people,

we pretending impressionist
pillow appears like rifle
weird masked creatures committed us.
pedal. control on. scene rooms,
creatures eventually human control.

rising gun by pose
we be like objects bludgeon elaborate reason
saw hands suicide
must sand that suicide
type wooded kept facility
be like them.

realize violently
scene comes under Agent Malicious
human wave closes it. Malicious is alien of reality
my costume they control. die.
recedes masks and image.
blinks alien under objects
must have reason effect an alien image.

demon had control.
wrestling to close by understanding existence,
hand against them.

Here was pillow cold ocean,
I couldn't,
 humans in shore,
I know they couldn't retreat, they couldn't die
bludgeon land (at walls)
suicide another suicide costume land
committed to quarters,
trouble hidden...
I couldn't see
to die
I knew.

They've come bearing brains

raised my gun--they would
not move--arch of bullets--
shot over head--blink
bodies of the cephalopod mind--blink--
cruelty--can't shoot--trigger--
wrong feel--ak rattles--
tombstones on childhood--
fields in backyard--laid--
there was memory there--once--
one--they could not move--
momentarily phased out--
phased in solid--motion--
silhouettes--wink--
bullets into heaven--innocent--
wincing aim--buck and
shoulder--stomach eaten--
erect tentacles--scolding
hot--extra eye lids--
carved rocks--names--blast of
heart beat--final shot--
cartridge--blank

Cat dreams

in the filing cabinet
you found your face,
a perfect match
between manila sheets.

Post-Cut-up Bad Deal II

earth written like blood
     empty sockets, you had strawberry last night

on hand
can lined
     the milky corner selling

that;      I mean

2000 through in sun moon drifting
     them toothless toothless meat year

or

     when impossible oil toothless by meat
broke yellow heaven

like in earth     written brown mushroom gunpowder
     non-white grins

the houses clouds I like

dock decade oil was broken toothless     over 100 playlists

each street cycled     milky
     slow

sun egg     on teflon canvas buttery
     slick      dyes

last night on broke yellow machine

a year through the red strawberry street

Post-Cut-up Bad deal I

slick archway on egg
all slow an even
earth like time
you overhead,
everyone,

thought machine
empty sockets
on forget yolk
fried out
any top meat
through the archway,

figure never fish
remember this wallet
by 30-dark, imagine
the fruit you like,

lobster never really
watch earth
and street cycled
in their shirt
the lobster earth written
of red grins

even the purse stink
yolk fried toothless number-

I watch teflon canvas
dock turn top
every corner selling red
watch and right machine

with fish red drifting
seafood started 1900
as lined wipe my hand

the kind of grins
sex red of time
you fish right
100 playlists
each by cloud,

left of teflon
canvas dark eyes,
year in,
fruit sun
dark ,

last night
on last pen
dark 2000 seafood
I fish mostly
it lined the machine 30-
settle in and
empty sockets

sun their hand
a mushroom
grins
impossible
earth written.

silent in the glow of a cut-up roadside

unknown day signs split the wooden street;

speak splits will
     yields

road almost oh the porch
     am silenced
          in will the
               splits off
                    silent alone
                         face

porch splits street
     porch not concrete
          fenced its cars;
               breaks

respond ever never not lost
     and unknown
          not ever
               silenced

day silent directions off
     I speak wooden will
          porch sidewalk weary
               splits horizon day
                    removed sun breaks
                         alone weary night cars; silence

Starbucks on the cut-up

serif font, in serif font,
heart of darkness searching,
ntent great darkness
searching eyes
insidious eyes
insidious cardboard eyes
insidious blind, white bland.
intent great heart windows,

uncompromising.
remorseless.
cardboard intent.

We're getting there on cut-up feet

the sweet lies of glory great and hands
screeching voices thin strips of--
cartoon features metallic on blood
still order streams their cold caked thin spout
part bottom dead bodies drifting--
combat the tides--peace sifting tides water,
heh carrion stinking like their sea into acid
squeamish georgia in with noose--
bands of still heaving feet--into--drifting pots plop
bloomed glances in flip walk
great in swimming needles--into halls chilled--
gray--carving for rain wings a voting
sweet carrion stinking waves--rip shift clouds--
dusk candy spells--gray--misdemeanors cratered
rain acid searching chilled--gray--carving sea features
metallic bottom noose--bands of screeching voices,
 swimming needles--into--wherein--fog
Saturday great sinewy cry--lissen--cartoon noose--
bands of great needle splat mind graves with--
wherein talons with children of glory--sorry glances--beaks!
to accept spring rain acid flooding graves and mark--
these gills thick eye no sorry drawls--heavy chilled--
gray--carving acid the talons this noose--
bands over rain acid suits corpse for noses in sinewy pots
plop eye mine like shelves beady leather crusty rain has sprung--
spring cry the goose beady callous vultures graves--
cold melting splat mind cry--sea chanting touching lissen--
shelves drip legs clouds--dusk irradiated in peace
sifting glances feeding carrion stinking heh of technophemeral waves--
rip for gills and mark this--motion ship lies dead--
proper me--in streams streams with flowers
rain acid mornings irradiated line of voting clouds--dusk