where the numbness is eternal

where everyone is seeking the tear drop
that is their life

a sad countdown
counting up
to termination
& promotion

where the numbers are hoarded meaninglessly nailed
to drywall tombstones ever motivated

by their certifications
serialized moments
wasted & stuffed
away in lock boxes
mistaken for interest

where everyone is afraid they've already found
what makes searchable the end

(the) inbox
a mouse click
market labeled
spam

where the lines are placed evenly in lines to heaven
dug six storeys deep encased

in finest endurable
without rot
lasting forever
bridging the gap
prolonging the end
heavy footprints
ringing happiness

where the numbers are eternal

The Order of the Shell

the order is the pearl of the world

chewed at consumption
            swallowed at birth
       by the void

by hand the order is given

yellow is the dance we've become

hand is the act of clapping
                  --without--from within--
            a job done well

a jellyfish angel rising from dank dark seas
             
             dressed with halos
                     adorned in halos

golden in the envelope passed through time

      traveled for no destination
   left with trail of blood
buried in the heart of the teeth tearing out

the liver is coughing phlegm

begun is a narrow age
                  a monsoon age
         fit between the canyon rocks
           scored by floods
               carrying pure souls away
    to be reborn as anamorphic pines
       shattered stone
                  fresh muddied feet
         pure crystal river

the pearl is the oyster forgotten of its shell

I was the Gloom

I think that I became a new me yesterday,
gone were dreams once in my head,
found as a husk left beside my bed.

Old walls flashed different colors in my wake,
& no one knew me, acted accordingly,
searching for my former self,
ignoring the unknown thing in their path.

With the sound of galloping hooves beating the loose soil,
my new self draped in Death's pale shroud mounting,
let free upon the world a faint taste on the lips of former life,
chewing the air in my path I raged on, breaking life in my grip,
making of it a city of ugly clay burnt to stone in fiery heaven,
I pulled this all down from the stars, from the saddle,
below the earth I watched alone, under the trampling of fate,
I was the broken sky, the opaqueness of memory, the gloom.

52 Mbps*

direct me to the adding machine
drawn through the password chain
~my username~ become estranged
to the purchaser and the highest bid
several million names on the checked box
for update lobby game
                                   
                                      URL redlining cleaned
the search engine game ghetto no it's safe to go in
no more dilapidated websites geocities boarded up
no more bots flashing tit to fuck no more crusty
monitor windows
           
                                all the clean hands on deck
all the clean screens all the old drive mechanisms
pay-per-view type settings font dreams
autonomously driven fingers sold at great interest
in the real estate eyeball speculation boom

inject fiber-optic junk laid underground
the cable time fix for rate
any way you want it melted down
boiled over greasy spoons the old fashioned way
doled out as regulated kb by kb
weigh kaleidoscopic doses
channeling a thousand waves

a hum on radio frequency an ancient eldritch thing
liquefy the internet jingle air pressure pulls it in
HDtv stamp on red letter grain
                                                     commodified
plastic boxes feed for consumption at wholesale.

Again about my pants

my pants are forgetful things

cataleptic things

like my legs they hang off me loosely

prop me up

recite false identities

old memories of the factory floor
lines of vein strung up

intertwined

torn apart

placed in line

re-branded
re-imagined

my pants act as if they are real
as if they are invincible inimical things

but they are fated to fade away before my eyes

become old immortal heroes

star of fantastic stories become myth

bawdy song

my pants are tragic sad figures
hidden behind the veil

given no burial

prepared no warriors demise

merely a plastic lined grave

marked only by the miles

miles miles

and the wear

Lint

rolling the lint from my pockets between my fingers
into a ball
                 sitting on the toilet at 8am waiting to shit
reminds me of this time 1993 I think

pulling lint from my bellybutton between the buttons
of a shirt that no longer exists
                                                 through a shirt already
too small at a funeral for someone I can barely recall

nothing about the place is the same except maybe
the act
            the color of the walls which were beige
and the feeling of the lint on my skin.

the gun that made the universe

angel they tied us to string
     they cast us out in the nothing
we grew heads along our arms
     that talked in purple tongues
reassured our dying eyes
     with soothing songs of everything ends
and cats have no patience
     when we pay attention to other things

wah wah ah ah ah

the bugle broke the diamond
    when it asked
where have we been
    and why does the world
no longer breathe?

oh i-i-i-

in line outside the school
     as the third dimension collapsed
remember the sky that day?
     they say you did
but I didn't see you there
     and I waited and I asked them to stop
see child nobody lies like me
     because I knew you'd never see
and you'd never be there
     nobody lies like me

like you ou ou ou

slipping through the claws of god
     and she watches until the last thread
then she strikes hard

or so the history book will say
     when the printers are no longer on strike
in the next new reality

god the internet fields were beautiful
     when we were young
and you could go and come back unchanged
     when we were young

here in front of the firing squad it al comes back
     there was just nowhere else yet to go

and I don't regret it I think
    being something else covered in flesh
and I don't regret I think
    a minute before they send me back
I don't regret it
    being human I think

it wasn't all such the god damn waste
     I made out to be

won't it be fun to see the equation
     at the start of the gun that made the universe?

the internet

there is space for three toothpaste flavors on the shelf

you don't even eat them though

only hold them in your mouth to taste

and spit them out

they're washed down the drain
under fluorescent lights
slowly eating away at the tube
the cardboard box deteriorates in the trash

of the flavors there is just one tube of cinnamon 

all are made in an unmarked factory

in the small corner of an unknown state

manufactured by an empty hand

peppermint is available for a limited time

if you buy two two packs of spearmint
you get the third for half off

the entire section is stacked neatly 

and with expertise with the latter flavor

going end to end
top to bottom

the only real choice is spearmint

when you think about it

it's the only flavor that makes any sense

that's why there's so goddamn much of it

it's all gone to shit

the entire thing

really

ya know

the entire toothpaste industry

it's all gone to shit

Inherently

This is the womb
     an imploding star
pulling within my essence
     gripping my cock

I am all but memory
     walking in the rain
the sound of subway tracks
     moaning hum
tick of old fashioned clocks
     grandfathers
hands

should I lay my body
     there on the kitchen floor
cold metallic grates
     mortuary song lists
where I gave birth
     to nothing

rip the baby out
     I ripped the baby out
placing roughly
     on the hard thick
wooden table

around the limp body
     a circle of six chairs
six bodies six mouths
     waiting patiently to feed
to devour the brain

im sorry i never told you i found it

tossing my soul into the street

typing with one hand

i had an epiphany, she said, but the uber never showed,
i deleted the app there on the street 
i used to be so vindictive, it's funny
to think about

i found the discarded paper

folded a thousand times

at the bottom of your pocket

i crumbled it was one look

in practice these rituals come off empty-handed

you escorted me home

waiting for the word

never found

at least it's better than instagram

Notice something about the modern pop poem,
it is almost always written in two stanza lines,

of the protagonist it says something vague
like they were recalcitrant; with a semi-colon,

it then mentions a past event in their life,
of course this was on a farm somewhere,

that perfect litttle spot in the barn away from,
where mama used to, all red and like

some obscure and possible supernatural
undertones to finish, a bit of fantasy,

tending toward dark and removed imagery,
doing no work of itself, a mirror deftly cultured for the reader.

then it ends, rather abruptly, always simply, a weighted remark
about childhood that the poem supposedly alludes,

where it is accepted by solicitation by the Atlantic,
or the New Yorker to waste away online with paid for praise.

kiss them cheeks all up

the bus opens up

around the hill

against the curve

away from the light

the baby standing on her lap

jerks the opposite way

two women in the back cannot resist

the pull

the shrieking brake

the mangled exterior

they would spend the day

kissing

what about the baby's head

the head-on collision

how the bus would kick

think about the baby

your lips on its cheek

dead tire marks in the road

a sheet of glass

limited connection

rise and scroll

where there will be new things

normal aberrations

words within the picture frame

would you prefer to exit
                                        or wait?

chattering teeth

broken code

scroll and click

and you will glimpse glowing stars

depressed horizons

a picture frame within reason

a choice to say whether yes
                                             or no

schematic drawings for the purple machine

the garden in the basement,
lately I have forgotten it,
soon, negligence,
then rot;

schematic drawings for the purple machine;

in a dream,

the insides of the house
I grew up in were gutted

replaced by penthouse views
the skyline, new york,

it was up to me to pay the bill;

if standing on a chair
you look down through the camera lens
the blue prints will clear

there, find the doorway;

walk in,

that's where it must be hiding,

the machine,

the one that makes the garden,
where the gas is pumped in
and the chemicals mixed,

how many floors below
make up the basement

the reaching arms of plants

the many acres of dirt torn up

Go On, Breathe Freely Released into the Wild and Available Now!

Well, here it is finally...95 pages of poetry from Chatter House Press
with the wonderful Penny Dunning editing...

Written in rain-soaked notebooks folded and tucked into the back pocket of worn-down corduroys, this collection of poems tell the tale of a ragged band of East Coast wanderers out to find that mythical American freedom of the West.

it's on the press website: https://goo.gl/iYgH4R

and Amazon: https://goo.gl/6fC2kO

sneak peak poem-- 250 Miles Wide

250 Miles wide

What’s Missouri but

a big endless white

cast of clouds above my head?

From the floor

of the backseat,

in the crevice by the sliding door,

I am borne into that

unknown space

by our van that like

the sacrificial lamb of America

has given itself over to our quest;

hear the harmonics

sullen pang, fundamental,

on the lips of the young babes,

ball the jack

to the shining grasslands

of old—without a song,

just a thought—a collective

yearning to get at that thing,

that very thing that has escaped us,

unspeakably, on the horizon.