Finks (Reading for the Binnacle)

Finks (also for the Binnacle)

Second poem for the lit journal Binnacle
dedicated to Old Bulls centennial+2

Swimming Hole (Reading for the Binnacle)

Swimming Hole (recorded for the Binnacle)

been a while since I uploaded onto this...

Darling darling darling; an expose written about and by the universe

walk along the codex
rolodex

there is no movement
that is not singular

that is not me

the universe unto itself
is one flat landmass
without a rough edge

when i die it will be no more

i will make it so

when i live it will blossom

life will be found in all its non-corners

there will be no end
to life

the trees that grow out the skin
are all one tree living apart from
human time they are gestating
not yet to be born this earth is
too young and only the amoeba
swim on it

when i die i will cast you off

witness that true language is a virus

that thoughts outside your own have
ever slowly crept inside your head

nothing moves without my eyes to see

why have i created all these sad things?

this is not my fault

the rivers are spontaneous memory
do they begin or terminate at the source
without one there is not other imagine
how the mountain and the rain become
the shore and the ocean how land becomes
water and land again

i have ignored all these things

they arose sprouting from my mind as fungus

as vestigial reveries of other worlds

i am pulling the wheel

one day i will walk upon it

next in front

in the end it will crush me

packing me deep in warm soil

i will bask in the womb of entropy

i will have done many great and terrible things

least of which is this.

Love poem for a bridge

heard abt u 2nd hd--
first reports from the west coast
coming in--only rumor
whispers--then
of course the truth--I
was digging--you'd
crumbled it was true--
erosion flood buckling
you'd fallen into the
canyon--slid down
cliff face--Ragged point
no longer gateway to the
north
purple sand shifts without
footprint sand blow against
lonely key rock
carmel-by-the-sea in
dead end winding road
south

I wn't c u ths yr--
won't be coming across
I be a sailor on your
greatest lakes--you'll be
recovered in 6 mo I hear
I hope

maybe

I c u thn--
for that victory lap
curl around the coves
where blue meets bluer
and the sky
and the sea
and we
will go
just go
west
eternally.

Routine

telephone is no more
     hangs from its own neck in the hall
phone is an upset child
     clinging to your thigh
     breathing hot air in fitful gasps & blows
     into your hairy sack
     your cancerous bowels
headphones muffle incoming radial frequencies
     kirby krackle waves
     disseminate realities
     pay the bills on time
     in credit
watch is ingested
     is alive
     counting each step into the future
     pushing on & on
     forcing the tick & tock passing of time
clock is digitized
     is a river rising
     is rising but stationary but widening
     but drying out but remaining forever
body is a casket
     made of water & dirt

can you?

can you put
together all the pieces
out of order
in your head
transfer them
by hand transcribe
them by maw to
the brain reconfigure
that white horse
across the rio in
mexico that running
with forgettable brown
mare locked in treadmill
time can you reassemble
rainy days puddles
dark grey smell of
wet clothes was it
when you recalled
the drenched streets
the running window
panes standing under
umbrella awning watching
clouds fill sky feeling
each drop on skin looking
up the sound the
gentle heavy rushing
sound was it summer
winter fall or spring?

who needs this world, we'll get a new one

the round clock
                   time tock
               shape

I am there
                   I  am not
     a blue blip on a blue map screen

relay information
                    direction
       in which to go
                 denied location
forward & down
                             six feet in light years
        a million million billion miles
an hour away

                        wrinkled smile
          facial recog
                        dream light cam
mounted on the precipice
           top most peak of earth
mankind
                rain down

disturb the quartz-like clouds

solar swell

the curved broken edge
       flat memory superimposed
  mythical structures
                                  lost planet's lost people
                                            lost me
                                                         adrift
in space
                tethered to the sun
slowly suffocation fetish takes hold
cooked to crisp
                          in artificial life

deficient of the answers to come

set to silent
outerspace mode
                             what come after life
beloved by empty limits of our dream

to
     substitute what has passed
                                                for what is
present
              the round world
                                         is smashed down
on paper
               scanned
uploaded into the sky
                                   shines but a while
is marked for deletion
       by the future children of the colonial age

I am left to be one of those old fashioned things
        better off
                         forgotten
tied to the umbilical cord of old worlds
                                                                outmoded
set adrift at launch to lighten the weight
                   burning backwards
                                  burning along with
doomed earth
            doomed sun
                     doomed minds.

bus ride transcript

'what are you doing to my good children?'

--this from back of bus, the
semblance of body, thin grey strands
hair matted to liver spot forehead
sweat, yellowed skin,

'i told you, it doesn't want it!'

--pained

'my good girl!'

--who's?

'get outta my life!'

--alone, no phone

'i earned my credit! how did you do
the machines? no, it will not take
my
good
children!'

--the silence in each other seat, the counting
of blocks, streets, miles to the next stop

'i told you! drug on drug nothing! i don't want him!
get rid of the stupid
false
nothing! i
am
not a
nuke!
go live your own violence!'

--a few shuffling feet, some unoccupied seats,
some duck duck goose, some buffer, she's all
alone back there three rows removed
from re-situated shuttle geography; pariah

'it doesn't want him!'

--who?

'you can't do that to my green children!

--same voice answers?

'say good bye to your career!'

'no i will not!'

--begins to harden

'i said get out of my life!'

--one body speaking

'i'm not talking anymore'

Piss on Trash; I came over here to say this

wobble to the subway doors
     automatic
           before they'll close
you bridge the gap
     stagger on

at your worn heels
     buttoned up
                leather belted
seriously bent
          anger scowled
anger thrust through plexiglass
     into heart of train

regardless

the metal wheel
the metal monster
                              pulls away

If I could make you out in the crowd passing
I would

at length of edge
       off track
                      he quickly turns
veers from departed train
      cuts toward me
throws his hand
            into the past
what was
                 looking into the corner
                                  under escalator
                          by the train mapped
                                  the totem pillar

'that guy!'

'he pissed right there!'

I'm his only audience I am humanity I am made to see
shown the wet lines growing between the tile

'he squatted down and pissed! he pissed!'

passes me too close
      inches from glowing globe
shiny sweated
            nearly brushes my nose

'fuck is wrong with people?'
       
                       all the veins
clenched indignation
         I respond with blank smile
paper weight

'fuck is wrong with people?'
     one last bit of wisdom before he goes.

[REDACTED CHAPTER]

it happened that I awoke one morning & the air was solid.

I heaved. I gulped it down. down. into my lungs. like sludge.
like gak. i pressed it into each crevice. nook. against each membrane.

forced it glip gluk glak back out into the space that was no longer
between me & it & my body the floor the wall the sky out there
beyond the wall the wall paper thin wall not wall not paper not
thin not wall not sky no me no lung it will all return to normal
if this is not the right normal this is the realization no air felt air
moving in time moving in place there this is the real this is truth
slowing down becoming visible growing tight around the edges
filling in cementing the cracks abrasions anomalies abnormalities  

there. the mass of everything. everything that was the slow down.
frozen frame. looped image. moved without volition without
acceleration. too still. still frame photo entropy yielding--

i wanted to vomit would have given anything to vomit made to 
vomit but my insides were not my inside was outside was sky was wall
was thick flat like air every corner of me was without & within was
groaning reaching before beyond it

reached out. i reached out. through the flat space. 2d. through the frame.
i was within. for. from. the blue light. the computer screen. my hand.
against it. already. the splinter. bleed light. i had not moved. not within.
i was part of it. without.

death searing end no air no lungs no time no movement no further no 
me no again no beginning no end all one it oneness one thing one being
one flat we are all we have we are nothing different one end one start
one solid friction fiction state glit glat glup glow

once was space life compulsion to breathe 
reason once there was space motion once
there was life once
there was once there
once there was there was once
there was there there--

Tagged

Big Dog Diedie

--sat here long ago
burned cigarette on this cushion
here--

a hole in things

yellow mold--a feat
long remembered--
low underground

black tips of permanent markers
two hands time around which
in the middle--stops

tag a name.

storm cloud over dakota badlands

storm cloud over dakota badlands

i recall them now as through another's memory

border x border squared

heavy edged

600 pixels tall

when i stood beneath their belly
who was i?

was it me there unable to grasp the sadness of the past?
what these miles would bring?

longing
even as i went forward
there where more memories behind me

these things that were once for the future
faded

endless in their becoming
they no longer exist

storm cloud over dakota badlands

there are few eyes left to remember them

there are few moments left that are more than
just tomorrow
that are real

soon they will be confused
with other days other memories

the road will sink into nothing

the storm rages
washes the graves
cleanses the bones
polishes the mud

drowns the dust.

Won't be reconciled

Everyday
with coffee.

it was strange you had
no recollection of me.

when years later
i saw you,
you made no effort to say,
'shit, it's been years, man!'

maybe it's that you
slept almost the entire time,
waking abruptly and shuffling to class.

i wonder, maybe, i had changed
more than i'd thought, becoming
unrecognizable, and
now, it's always going to be strange,

that last awkward memory,
the finality of it,
knowing that you have died.