Saturday, February 28, 2015

whatever you do...don't follow me

name you're reading
isn't real,
it's not serious,
but you might be
put off by irreverent
postings and troll-
under-bridges-under-
comments-syndrome,
there's no method,
merely dissenting viewpoints,
no crusade, random
photoshopped images of
a man you've never met,
a life you've never led,
I'm not here to give you of myself,
nor do I care what you think of me,
I'm a square box on a white
background, blue bannered screen,
hitting enter, scrolling down,
copy/pasting lies,
conjuring false realities
for the social media stage.

Friday, February 27, 2015

I Dream of Space Madness

from the nearside
of mars, ship passageways
washed in crimson red
hues, rotating, I climbed
along, anti-gravity, pulling
myself toward what I
could remember, the sleeping
quarters, outside
thin windows protected me
from super nova heat, flashing
lights, winding, collapsing
prismatic geometrical shapes,
life and death of planets, reaching
back into infinity,
I held my breath, rushed on,
we had decided, next trip
a round about in space,
earth to mars cannonball
run, two weeks, five bodies,
rested my head against a
window to calm my nerves,
forgetting where I was
drifting, thoughts, ways-aways
and going out and incoherent
somethings-or other-images
maybe I got it, images. and
I realized I had made it
to my destination,
flood of natural light
like torn from a trip
oxygen sucked out
and vomited me back into
reality, all space cleanliness
and whiteness, safety,
outside, endless black
and twittering stars, blinking,
waving goodbye,
Joe and Tommy sat up in
their bunks, groggy, from space
madness, I thought, should
have known, trip was on
the back end back to earth,
expected, but now, I thought,
there's no one who can land this
thing, we've come out and
back, with crash landing planned.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Plain: Brown

is a title I jotted down
a while ago

plagiarized from the
brown side of a brown
crayon found broken
in two and rolled into
that crevice between
wall and floor,

it was a generic crayon
with a generic name
stolen for a poem
title dedicated to its
predicament,

which was
then forgetfully left at the
top of a pile of unfinished
drafts now one poem lighter
because it's here.

amen. amitaba. good night.

Plain: Brown

Space Time

I am peering
through telescopic
galaxies and exploding
stars
I can see you,
alone among
an infinite prismatic web
of supernova fireworks
seeing only black
inky madness in between,
seeing madness
and asking questions
with no answer,

is it enough that
we are here,
a fracture of the
essential turning mind?

spreading out my cosmic
right arm, I'll draw you in
and whispering lullabies
we'll put ourselves to sleep
among the endless one thing
that makes up the universe
already ended.

Friday, February 20, 2015

Long time coming

Has anyone slept forever?
pressed between layers of purple-white sheets,
calling across the room to bitter sun beaming,

"please end your useless shining sir, this bed is for sleeping only,
and always,"

"always?" setting fire to anxious spiraling dust,

"I intend to sleep a long long time?"
from beneath frothy blankets the answer less a question,
"now I'm getting tired...go away." ah-ha,

"but, I control the time for waking and the time for sleeping,
little girl." and the burning of ants and skin,
the moon tempts the waves, and gaia
moans moans moans until the gravity
collapse and the asteroids,
ah, the asteroids,

let me tell you about them--

Valentine's Day

though you call it Thanksgiving
I think it's cute
and oh, I go--

A lil' sparrow's
love heart learns
a song of Spring
in the snow
among the mountains
down south,

In the pinky haze of life
your heart against mine,
a promise to keep,
I'll fall in love always.

the Appalachian Operation

that long line
shot down the
backbone of ol'
Virginia, threads
between mountain
ranges, ancient
valley spirit
breadbasket, blue
skies, redolent
streaks of cloud
blown like powder
'cross green earth,
that's where Gabow
was going, to the end,
err, beginning for him,
for us, forest service road
42-3 mountain pass in that
mysterious green
in Fannin county, Chattahoochee
wilderness, Joe facing
off against that repeat number
again, and goes, I don't know
how much you believe in numerology
but that number keeps popping up,
and I don't know how much I believe
in it either, or if I do or if I am
spinning always spinning
in some tornado, some whirlpool
like apophena, anyway,
at the drop off mountain
pass, mountain trail, appalachian
farewell he's got 2,300 some
odd miles to go, and we've got less
to drive, in less time,
weeks away, counting
down, setting off, heading
home.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Backward Glances

this is
not a
linear
narrative
but you
won't print
anything I've
written

you don't print anything I'd read

there's colors faded
into the past and I am
a child listening
to the tv static
watching the final
rainbow broadcast
at 4am

alone in the dark I have found
I am the last boy on earth

this is why I can't sleep

no one
is sure
enough
to tell
me this
isn't true

even the rust covered sentries that guard my
bedroom door,

a stage coach enters scene right
there, where tea and cookies will be served
in 16-bit reality

I am falling forward behind everything,

I'll never catch up to the end

it's all a gnawing circle
placed over my iris
turning ever steady, ever onward.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

On the way to Oysters

a street
off Dupont,
P or Q,
she walked
uneasily toward
me, blocked my
way,

     "I have a question for
you, young man." she said,

about 60 years old,
horn rimmed glasses
large framed and bifocal-ed,

Yeah?

she held her pocketbook
tightly, arms crossed
over wool knee-length
coat,

     "Just one."

knit cap sitting loose
at hairline,
rouge lipsticked mouth
partially hidden
behind homemade
scarf, she asked,

     "Is it Tuesday,
tuesday...today?"

Err, uhh, yeah, yeah,
yeah it is, I answered,

     "Oh," she smiled,
"Oh, good, that's what I thought."

On Writing

now and then
with this book on
my mind, sitting and
staring into the silver
horned crown on the
blue flat horizon,
I imagine each chapter
perfectly, each sentence
formed, each idea truly
unique, the words fall
so easy from my mind
to mental page, it's all
complete in the end, edited
submitted, published,

stand up, finished,
I am finished, there's
a film of coffee
left in an old cup,
enough to reflect a sky,
but only those pieces
that are brightest. and

I can no longer fight the urge
to shit my failures away

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Warm Springs

in the old house where
she offered us apple cookies
you forgot you had to
sign the bill, too busy
warming your hands
by the fire (probably
missing her accent too),
you smiled and talked
about snow,

                 earlier we'd
used the house phone
in the foyer, just barely
free of the biting mountain
cold, to wake her and send
her scurrying to let us in,

she led the way to our room,
a separate building adjacent,
marked by a number 31
tacked to the door,

outside naked grass,
yellowed by winter chills,
covered sloping hills to
the opposite side of route 220,
where, visible through the skeletal
remains of leafless trees,
the white panels of the octagonal wood
buildings surrounding the Jefferson
pools spouted gray steam
high into grayer skies,
flurries just starting to fall.

the overlook

no sight out of right
eye, my breath having
first fogged, second moistened
and last froze it, behind
navy blue bandanna tied cross my lips,
out and up four thousand feet
above the old forest, still
between twisted trees,
wind whipped, howled,
trunks and roots creaking
sixty mile per hour gusts
32 below, trail runs to a head
on the crest, circles back from
the peak, snow crunching,
plants along the way
painted a thick layer
of white.

Friday, February 13, 2015

From the Porch

slowly it starts to turn
on its axis
facing out to entropy
dark skies
wavering thoughts
fragile thoughts;
beyond,

no, shortly after, I take my walk, I don't go very far, the road doesn't go very far,

it ends just up the hill, tho, the crest isn't high enough, isn't elevated enough
to see very far, I can just make out the tops of a line of trees, what seem to be trees,

imagine the forest goes on and on, on and on;

stuck to this dirt and cement centrifuge
I have come to terms with my immortality,
with my self-imposed limitations,

I can live eternally in this tortured moment, conjuring the endless
green of earth, or move off into the shade of artificial lights guiding me home.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Pointing to the Past

photographs

sepia framed
2D reality

singular vision
single perspective

still images of the
viewers past/
voyeurs present

lost to futures
on hard drive/usb/
attic boxes/funeral
posters/remains
without context

taken in flash
split second
juggled through hands
ingested by the
panopto-nostalgic eyes

Friday, February 6, 2015

Computations

walk to the edge of our
information flow
port in//illusory//point out
banks bend just beyond
your archaic sight,
rushing god knows where,
beyond the fold of
cyber-time, locked
on the right bottom
corner of your software eye,
imagine an endless
waterfall of numbers
surface tension
shark blackness
covered up tearing
at the sinew of relative
computed reality
a system without heads
or tails, there is no opposition
to techno-organic process,
are you riverrun to
ouroboro fiberoptic
veins tied in figure 8s
bent to mobius strip lights
this sigil stretching across
internet space touching all flesh,
consuming all parallel lives?

have you hit Y/N to proceed?

what I did last night

falling asleep
in
dreams

leaving
the night light
on

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Scribbles

Assumptions spill from
my head like blocks
build rainbow prisons
at my feet,

I step over and out of them
listen to the crickets
humming,

they're invisible, intangible
but watching me,

I should have arrived earlier
tho I was lost, I knew which
ways to go,

instinctively.

Yet, I ignore all but glowing lights
prepubescent bulbs, the television
event horizon,

call man off his destiny now,
or at least free me from mine,

I am adverse to pain,

social situations,

typing, talking, minding my own--

Even so, you've misplaced the gloves,
frost bitten hands clawing for warmth,
safety,

I wonder how long until the nails
split off like expectations, so
never, so never relieved,
weighted down,

you ought to go, you
ought to go,

ignore the storm, forget
the storm,

they're only words,

and every word in every novel
is a lie.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Nightlife of the Living Dead

And home from offices
bordered by the sky,
sated with daylight & time,

home to dinner in plastic containers,
cooked someplace faraway
and heated with radiation,

home to television screens,
lights in the darkness burn bright
before a shower and sleep,

home as the stopping post,
save those little crumbling,
pieces of life for next weekend,

home to see those ghosts
of present and past decay,
appearing in the future aged,

home as night life of your living dead,
hollow eyes and holy heads,
waking up in someone else's tomorrow

only to go back to bed.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Nothing Ages

From many sides and pieces
we move like refracted light
in transparent spaces between
now and future past perfect tense

an arrangement of letter
into word obituary likeness

now, then! only this remains,

something that was said, immortalized,
can be forgotten,

this is easy and often happens,

there is no other way
we must force tho we rage
we must access the tumble
and smoothing aspects of time
accept loss, accept being lost

in one hundred years
there will be no memory
of us having walked the
earth, there will be no flowers
to mourn,

there will be nothing to hold on to.