two chapters

two chapters on an open page working their way away from each other

diverging into two threads the story goes in its own directions

from this point the sun looks back and forth over the word
                                                             fading imperceptibly the pages

          the future is left out to disappear

          the past is left over to vanish

from a distance the chapters unfurl as a single long page

the letters make thin unbroken lines like marching ants
                                                             their hills covered by overturned covers

the mystery unresolved is the title read backwards in gold

Green; a film

Quick flash

Cut to:

the spinach field gnashed between my toes     the blood flowing

green in the lithe vapors      

                                         that from above feature the characteristic

of a soggy river's delta

Fade to:

outstretched arms for balance     ambiguous arms

follow the perfect horizon of elbow rising to forearm gently downhill
to hands     green haze of the sun   
                                                      hallucinatory illusion of brushed
fingernails     fleshy like stewed greens

Rehash

Zoom out:

the imbalanced chemicals that circulate through the brain

plastic wrapped in flesh     armored by the skull

dripping green tints of sweat

                                               hazel reflections of

post-induction of tears     transform the sky into a green void

muffle the soft steps     paint the arms like a forest growth

reaching across toward the break     darker greener     darker

The End.

147 Twinkle

typing in strange, exotic places,
I have yet to discover the algorithm,
a destiny in digital immortality,
tho the white page of death has blinked many times
and pulled from me pieces of ancient signs,
arranged in blue-lined characters,
exhumed from burials along fiber-optic lay lines.

Worm.

darkness is how i see the outside of the car
darkness as if the terribleness of the inside of the car grew &
ranged outward in a cone shape
one that had been split and folded over several times

from all its softened sides it reached out with infinite lines
it engulfed the world
the inside out blackness of the car
metal frames surging it begot my dream

inside as my perception expands the only light was your drag
and the acrid smoke of green that floated flatly against the curled edges
marking out your shadow
then the light passing into my hand
my mouth
the taste bitter and drunk like the car filled my lungs

i thought aren't I going to work?
aren't I driving?
why is it so dark and why does the car feel inside out
prolapsed and growing larger beyond the window
becoming another inconceivable untenable space
burning between my fingers silenced by my breath

VA DMV: A classic picture show

When looking out at the rainbow
That rainbow which descends on bleak buildings
Those buildings branded DMV
To wonder at all the sorted numbers called lives mingling
To wonder at all the photos taken of their static faces
It's hard to imagine that a single thought by humanity has ever been profound 

Necessary
Revolutionary
Borne with grand design
Imagination
It's hard to envision the assembled parts

aligned in each matching chair

as anything other than rats building their own cages

Wind.

they've left the world

         all of them

listen

         they haven't made a sound

there used to be a continued hum

      recurrent in the background

now I am alone

       they've taken the voice with them

absence

      comforts like a window pane

tho it is only glass

      I can also break

like a sheet protects the body

     from phantom chill

I was alone

       where they had gone

listen

      we'll never know

they can't tell us what they've heard

Glass.

ghosts stalk my cat in the dark corners of our apartment

every once in a while he'll notice them

with widening pupils he focuses on the void just over my shoulder
where phantoms lurk like the deep circles under my eyes

bruised shadows hidden behind a pane of glass

No.

grown deep into ground
vision moved like a glacier
over the boulder field
bringing with it an old ice age

with every glare
the rocks bore witness
to my deliberate advance
my existence
they believed in it
as movement

it was this or the sky

which was deeper blue?

stones that crumbled to my endless breath

death crawled on its belly across the earth

the very cliff-faces were novels
to my impending glory
I drank heavy from the history of the world
growing into my own tomb
god pulled galaxies out of my frozen maw
chewing time
like a billion years worth of dying stars

VASE.

There's this          poem

On my bathroom wall

It only comes to me in the afternoons

When the sun slants in

Stretching the figure of a glass flower vase

Dashing its heart against the white         wall

Looking like ashes

Smeared in my stare

Film.

If you close your eyes
     the sound of a microfilm reel
     being rewound was the sound
     that began like a dream
the cancer that followed me
     was that sound and it floated
     alongside me as a physical perspective
     from which I watched outside
watching a someone that wasn't me
     that had been designated as me
     the cancer following him around
     tho I could only imagine what it looked like
I could not see it or I was inside it
     or it was just out of reach needing someone
     to speed up the reel
the film beginning to click and snap
     as if it was splitting in two
     the wheels ignored kept spinning
     waiting for me to die but I didn't
I just looked up at me seeing through me
     the perspective of me seeing through the body
     I closed my eyes his eyes it had eyes
     and he sighed

The Poem

into the morning
     a gleam of rising run
listening to disparate lines
     alone
          in the spotlight
a monitor light bleeds
     on the stage
a rhythm of breathing bodies
          the humming metallic lung of cars
     their dreaming
moves along bedroom walls
          into the horizon
that lingers on the periphery
          of thrift store landscapes
     the life of anonymous painters
retching on spoiled bits
   of rotted fame

a tree was born to grow old & strong,
to become the beginning of a tragedy
that ends as stacks of colorless paper,
staked through the heart and pinned to cubical walls,
office numbers printed on its multitude of lifeless faces

the steady swell of standard operating procedures
                                                                              crash
                                                                       
                                                                             like orderly waves
                                                                                  on the staff infested
                                                                      shore

Watercooler injections

Eating an orange in my cell I wonder--
                                                              when i die,
where will all the mesmerizing conversations
about institutionalized hierarchies go
?

moving

i looked at the boxes 

massed on the living room floor

like i was watching the edges 

of an approaching storm

out over the ocean 

that appeared more like the painting 

of an approaching storm 

as it made its way slowly to land

seeming to be static 

so that there was an eerie sense

of calm that it would 

never make landfall  

until with fury 

it would avail itself upon the shore

bringing rain and wind

and flood and destruction

and I would be left there 

after the clouds had passed 

with the task of disassembling 

each discarded cardboard box

after the contents inside had 

been found removed and inserted 

into their final resting place.