garbage disposal safe

i walked to the kitchen sink
over the soaked floor
bits of floating things between my toes
the slick tile floor
i walked up to the kitchen sink
overflowing it rim
dark water in dark night
i hadn't paused to flip the light on
there was another switch and the sink roared
above the tearing sound the puddles set still
i reached my hand into the inky black depths
what things what terrible leviathans there are
in the deepest bluest sea
i was only one man and knowing the morning would come
with or without me
i walked back to my bed to sleep to dream maybe
but to sleep
on my covers i gently wiped my feet
my bleeding knuckles my broken nails
my skeleton's grip.

those walks with you

when I was younger I would pick a direction and walk
until after a few hours I was lost somewhere new
cruching across the crabgrass everywhere new looked
                       everywhere old and the same in the suburbs
I would often follow cracks in cement winding streets
or slip through small wooded parks with rusting swings
                                              and clusters of silent trees
or step over flowered fences tramping through front yards
always the eyes would watch
                                                yet there were no fences
nothing to bar my path a few stones a welcome mat
the trash would be rotting on tuesdays and thursdays
there were never enough hours to escape the county
it just stretched on and on with cars following
cars being shuffled along a string forward and back
eventually I would start back attempting a different path
looking all the same and new and never strange back to my room
and my home looking never different always the same

sunday parking

no parking leaves idle cars
along unclaimed oft used track
empty lots with yellow weeds
sickly trees

the trek between shopping center and condo center

davis cvs arlington 395 on ramp 233
airport access run potomac avenue unnamed
clark no left

private property signs spray painted white
dumpsters rust blue block the right lane
blunt onto southbound
route 1

not many spots left untagged without hazard lights
under the marriot grey shade

trash litters the white lined walkway
ignorant green yellow red light stop sign spray
no sidewalk no crosswalk almost no street to walk across

it was ever real

around

the world moved

around the room

with windows     closed

discarded strawberry greens

a light left on without reason

slumping bodies

stationary in plastic bins

pens bleed out

around

the sun moved past

around the moon

yet to pass

the roads spun     in place

beneath parallel sheets

concrete and steel moue

around

the essential

around the missing piece

and a mistaken belief

written while walking

it doesn't go away

if it washes on by

those pillars of stone

your dress washed in white

eyes golden brown

may it might have rained that night

maybe might the sky be heavy gray

it doesn't go away

if it's gone on by

that long walk way

your silent steps

your golden pink lips

even as I dry

rains over money rains alike
rains over cold gray buildings
even as the day even as time

i crossed the street into the gray current
there was a group with yellow flyers
passing them down the gray line

rains over aluminum barriers
rains over thin gray stone
even as the footsteps even as the umbrella cries

i shuffled between the bodies into the gray light
under the open stretched glass doors
sifting through metal detecting ports

rains over 13 storeys rains on the floor
rains over cold gray eyes
even as the poor even as the poor

i sat for three hours i sit for many more
there once the clock hits four
passing through the same corridors came before

rains over me rains alighted
rains over my gray shirt
even as I walk even as I dry

even as I walk

even as I dry

might be long gone

around the spiral stair     it gets brighter as you go
toward the bottom floor

all laid out with white tile
following the pattern maintained on the floors above

                                     in a long switchback square
at the end          a line of black soled feet high and low
snaked about five chair columns in 6 rows

originating from the white desk beyond the white flat screen tv
behind

drip coffee lined          a million million dollars a head
where all the poor poor children go

and free coffee down down on down the line
on the plantation row a thousand miles away     and here

one steaming fee free double espresso.

Plague

these times between          grow short

I am not me for what I     was

a gnawing at the bone          the ivory bone of things
at the heart     goes corrupt

this standing still     this one view

harder to see from the lip      of my deepening grave

there is everywhere else to go     and the dirt packs
dry and sick           about the horizon

She was of dying

'take me behind the barn doors' she said
                                                   'and fuck me where you have no cock'

so hanging from the exposed wood she said,

'this is rape'

I know.

'and you are scared,' she said and I had already said I know.

it was too dark to find the gash
                                                   at my waist

she pulled her nails across my eyes

there were eyes in the next stall rolling

a faint sound

from my lips or
                          from hers

'you can't do anything right,' I whispered.

(1)

one by one
each letter back to you
scratched in ink cuts
meaning less than you can say
splashed with ink guts
thick and red under fingers
running nails about its edge
the thread drags open and closes
uneven markings printed lines
ripples spiraling along the grain
with a stench to follow
building along with the years
one by one they pile each sediment in line
layers that sticks to your skin
that rising that sinking
to bury you

to bury you.

Cemetery Song

I had given up quickly on the missing stack of post-it note,

slowly edging the new pad out of its plastic shell,

found the old one a few hours later under the keyboard

lightly used,

                                                    what is to be done?

both sit at right angles in various states of misuse,

several layers peeled off and scratched, stuck, tossed away,

the responsibility falls on me to make use of both,

too much responsibility there,

the yellow faces staring up into the white dropped void,

I don't think I have it in me to carry this

burden.

watching the revert to draft option

is there eyes out there

linked to a pretty brain

who could take the time

out of their pretty day

to count these lost words up

poem x poem

they won't print out for free in pdf

if the website goes down

fuck, there'll be nothing left.

people walking across the street and the white bus that passed them

the bus was so much faster than you, you know?
tho it carried what, 30, 40 times your weight, maybe?
that many more minds, too, and yet, like you, it obeyed
that little green or little red light, think about that, it had
onboard airconditioning too, so it was in no hurry to get out
of the heat, and it was a bus even, so it probably couldn't,
anyway, it was most likely enroute to some layered
parking estate and there you were for a second walking
beside it going that same way only slower so much slower
thinking how to get out of the heat without sweating too much
going with the flow of the other feet, carrying your own weight.

Dungeon

those orange stickers on your used books

take them off

they are former names of a former mistress

they are not meant to remain

a reminder of past places

past names

leave your seal within the pages

let the carcass rot away the years on your shelf

this is nothing

nibs licks his gray fur in the yellow sun rays
Tom Waits sings a boiling sea
you can match the rhythm of both
to the south going traffic and the rain never came

what if many things could mean many things?

downstairs I clacked in sandals to the lobby
watched an old man drink a sextuple espresso
frowning into his cup
filled my own double shot

what if one thought could be many thoughts?

on the elevator my floor was already pushed
when it stopped I was the only one to get off
I waited to be last but there was only me to go

what if many actions had no consequences?

nibs waited at the door fur darkened
he pushed his head into the hallway
pupils wide looking right
looking left

I nudged his nose back inside with my foot.