Merit

today you pounded the keys
walked out under gray skies but didn't really look up
reflection on the pavement was enough

today is like a day I forget to eat
and that is what I did though drinking 3 cups coffee

my cat slept 5 hours more than me
andI slept on none since waking at 8 o clock

the sun has seen fit to fall and I am out up on my feet
it will drop into the 30s once it moves dark

today there is no food in the fridge that isn't coated in green fur
dead as stuffed turkey and gizzards cold food from the past

I will move past it and down the elevator
down the stairs and into the bitter chill of almost december.

Google drives

tucked into my google drive
buried under edited versions of the same documents
titled (1) (2) (3) (4) (and so on)
is nothing particularly interesting
alphabetically or chronologically ordered
nor listed by type and size
merely the collected digital trash
collated by being mine
making up the grand total of unknowable mb
until told I've run out
undeleted unopened underrated
since the year of our cyberlord google 2008.

After I got home

I ate lunch outside

found unemployment unpaid

thought door creak open on the ledge

heard construction drone off and by the edge

forgot where and what I'm doing here

with nowhere else to even go

finished eating inside

Hair for Dinner

over the oil thick pan
     the fingers curled distinct

the smell er stench or taste of anything human burning
     on the tongue re: on the nose
                                                    burning

pungent odor mix of pork oil olive & chive
          inedible          decidedly
alien & well strange

          wisps of thin dark heat
burnt garlic simmer
                                burnt tendrils of human     hair

my smoking remains
     split ends & tangled locks
blue orange flame

long-hair mules in soup

their heads dunking into thick orange broth
swirls of cinnamon and yellow pearl
sucking the noodles through their nostrils
chewing with strong flat teeth
all the time thick woolen hair over their eyes
bobbing to the surface and then below
steaming and matted in my soup bowl

Purged Fruit

on the grasses
                       purged of fruit
if this and everything
                                   all dried
with this stray thread
                                   unwound
a struggling shadow form
                                          repeated
resplendent with aching fires
                                                 naturally catastrophic
on the grass
                    without water
sitting in brown sop
                                 mildewed
everything teased up on our fingers
                                                         raisins
as quicksand takes the field
                                             buried tailors
not much use for clothes
                                        dirt feet
in the moss up in the tree
                                         not to be seen
on the grasses
                       waking the meadow
wandering up on tectonic plates
                                                    the ozone
freezing rain and thunder freezing
                                                       and sleet
on the grass
                    my pruny feet
the last thought
                          indeed
the raffled off remnants
                                      rainforest man
on the grasses
                       nothing to eat
drinking oil black
                             wine
from before
                    for after
behind our looking glass eye
                                               a wasted valley
a sudden wrathful swarm
                                         chequy arms
some odd colors as before
                                           symptoms
on the grass
                     and more
on the grasses
                       as before
on the grass
                    rotted spoils
on the grasses
                       purged and gored

Stretch Out

we don't stretch very far

and the cracked road sunk with rainwater

swell          flush out the rot of a million nation's tombs

wash thick red ink baked by waking suns     steam

on off-ramps and dye hard packed streets          chestnut brown

aged in iron casks          out comes meadering souls

to fill out the space between the white           lines

to amble forth     siphon the air from what's left of the earth.

underbrush

you've left the underbrush to grow

uncontrolled these last oh hundred some years or so

you've made sure to keep the kindling to a minimum

washing out any thoughtful sparks

you'd hoped another team would take up the chore

but now the fire ignites

now it's pushing us out

out from behind tall damp trees

out from beneath the cool soft ground

out over streams gravid and unfordable

out into the roaring plains

out off into the charred hills

you've prayed for more lies and steady progress

and maybe I have too

but there is none of that left

and the fire from the rising tombstone cliff by the swelling sea

moves inland flickering

moves against the swaying leaves

comes for us all

Welp

them bad feelings marching down
eat your sidewalks up
in spinning shiny teeth-like things

in the tractor beam it suck you in
it stick you there
it warp your mind
it make many things uneven make you forget

this is not some frivolous reality
(though all reality is queer/frivolous)

it make darkness go bump in night
in shadows it stick your eye
and when you can't see out far
it stab you tight in chest

those horror ideas clamped shut
eat your soul all up
in spiteful machine clown cars

I'm wobbling on two cheeks
I've sat all day 12 hours on one ass
I am meat nothing else

it pack itself in transparent capsules
it swallows fitfully
in plexiglass atomic fears
it come in day as in night as in light

there will be
a to be
continued

there will be
an ending

there might be
a garbanzo
beginning

it will be fibrous thick with dark clot blood

it will be clod and hunk and coal ah

help

wtf

I think this not how is

weird

smh

holy god damn shit

if we have enough
cold metal shovels for cold dead hands
we might have enough dirt to
cover it up

fore

o'er the smell

you'll wretch

my last days on the working earth

just this morning moving along a well worn track
greased once in 4 year autopilot coffee stain
a single lane two-way same view but from differing floor bridge
I saw my body being shuffled along

1000 other days 4000 other hours 200 other weeks

what and all has been wasted on fast-forward on constant repeat
now that I've been sitting passenger seat waiting for the end of the line
grown old and loose into myself grown broken and lined and hollow
strange packed with age and blood and guts and clogged words?

1000 days bent in chair 4000 litebulb monitor hours 200 weeks immobile

white marble staircases
large open glass roofed lobbies
reception desks
reception invitations
self celebrations
emails read
unread
forwarded
responses
days
hours
weeks
moments
stasis
glacial
entropic
ice

my last days on the working earth.

WS

yesterday
outside was the first real chill wind
it crept up and numbed my finger tips
over snapping novel pages
the sky was a reflection off sidewalk cement
and the brick red buildings on the square dulled
under its gaze
yesterday
those images crept into my heart
a man all in gray fell on the subway
refused all help
he rolled and his face reddened
yet he couldn't find the energy to regain his feet
he scowled at me and I hid behind my book
yesterday
a woman tall over 6 feet tall
dressed head to toe in gray with her friend beside
under 5 foot wearing brick red gray scarf
they walked away from me into other nights
across the wrong way streets
I averted my eyes
yesterday
each new vision brought misery
like I had gained the weight of winter
in gray somber snows
and brought them dragging from
stomach to bursting chest
to unravel like shoelaces at their expiration date
today
the Chicago Cubs won the World Series
dark voices screamed one hundred years of nothing
out into the night that was far away from their home
they were a happier gray than blue
even if nothing happy had changed
today
I am not really sure how I felt