Last Line

I am writing anywhere
carrying and placing mugs,
leaving rings of condensation,
atomization around
tired eyes, staring out
into light polluted skies
no STARS! My God! No
Stars! NO FUCKING stars!
blankets of purple clouds
unfurled, beyond that unearthly
opaque blackness, like
skyscraper windows unframed,
hell, and ah! shit, expletives and
what-ever-have-you-not
watch this thing unseen, it's
video-logged to you head
linked directly to the brain,
layered like cake, thick
and creamy icing spread between
pink naive wrinkles and synapes,
LOOK, I only write what's behind
my iris, see? didn't you know?
I got hazel eyes, two colors unfold,
you'll be wondering,
we'll be gazing,
face to face, sight line switches
between pupils, dilating--if only there
were enough words to get it--
but there's too much--Aww~!
you know, too much too much,
I only have one line left.

A conversation with TIME

Time looks at me
for a long, uncomfortable while
turns its head and spits
quasar star-birth, black hole words,
language as a road map through existence.

I say I ain't got no place to go,
that it hasn't happened yet,
which is the truth from where I'm looking.

He reads me back my lines,
nothing has ever happened
you aren't even here, and I am not this.

But, that's not what I say, I say,
and it's never been heard.

Desk World

I've got a book of dreams,
dedication page written to myself,
signed by me,

a collection of empty coffee mugs,
placed strategically around my
desk,

one unused AAA battery
without a match,

a jumping spider hunts on my windowsill,
I don't have the heart to tell him
I've got no food,

he jerks, stops, starts, jumps,
rotates 360 degrees, now explores my desk,

makes his way back up white apartment walls,
I check google mentioning his marks,
close the page before the close up
the loading skeletal screen,

there are times, sometimes,
and somethings are best left unseen,

For you and only you to see

Alley way
painted in orange
street light,

cars on either side
sleepy, still

poem painted in still life

there's not much going on,

except, a figure in black
sneaking between cars,
he's knelt down, peers above
car hoods, into windows,
tries each lock, finds one
he likes, eases himself in,
hunched over in the front seat,
he's rocking almost imperceptibly,
sound of car starting shatters
night silence, the car rolling,
no lights, turns out slowly
on to one way street and gone,

alley silent again,

one extra light flicks on,

man appears, leans out, disappears inside,

feet on apartment steps,

the moon isn't visible from where I sit.

Red Eyes out my Window

two blinking red dots
blinking in the distance
shrouded in unblinking
blackest night,

ten fingers tapping
flat keys, spaces in between,

many things are said
by tires crunching the earth, by
the engines they are carrying,

voices whisper below a window
in somewhere lost Virginia,

brown river runs black chrome at mid night,

sewer water gurgles and belches beneath
our feet,

reaching up, reaching out,

two blinking red dots
blinking out in no space
piercing the unblinking fog
of deep night,

ten fingers tapping
space comma good night period

Spider Bite

tightness in my chest, paranoia of closing
throats, ebola virus, georgia guide stones
agenda 21,
head spins, breathe quickens I have nowhere else
to direct my thoughts, videos peering like
hulled out eyes, little snippets of time and
I wonder what is going on beyond
its edges?
scratch my neck, becoming difficult to
see, think, hear, operate, this must be it,
just in time, trucks, painted black pull up
brakes squeaking, soldiers pouring out
like thick oil spilling from back unloading ramp
*stomp**stomp**stomp*
the past age, the oncoming age
railroad, river, road cut off, no currents,
I see myself buried in mass plastic grave,
this must be the time, this must be it,
I knew, I think I knew it, it's hard to say now
my head beating like their boots on the stair,
door kicks in any second, swollen throats,
children crying, I am crying, silently
there are no prayers left, shower curtains rattle,
they'll check there first, that's what they'll do,
then come for me,
then come for me.

Supplication; The Road III

Stirring in my
gut, in memory
in visions of past
and what's coming,
I see long gray
roads bleeding out
into the great distance
ahead, straight as a
Gad damn arrow at the
heart of eternity
and so real, real,
that I can't shake it,
knowing a new season
is coming--a new race to
the coast--my body
picking up speed
going 70-80-90 mph
hitting hell and storms
blue waves and endless
oceans, I can't remain
still, I can't! I tell myself
again and again,
I can't!

Can't stay up!

three nights I
hang my head,

last two nights
it rained,

I can't keep my
eyes open,

plot holes
left dangling, unable
to answer questions

I drift,
head heavy, mind
wanders,

I am walking through dreams.

there are no places
I recognize,
yet I remember each
and every one,

it is not raining here,

it is all foggy
like the light in my eyes,
erased by morning,

I drag my feet
for the next 12 hours
until the next night
repeats.

Fall on Rainy Mornings

Rain
on
fall
mornings

anyone can
write this
but I am
and it's mine

stepping
out of metro
I hope it's raining
harder than it is
but it's a fine
drizzle

it's nice so
I'm not so
disappointed
I quite like it
actually
now that I'm
thinking about
it, it fits with
today,

sky is bright
but gray

I pick up
a coffee
barista knows
what I order
it's ready almost
before I walk in
and the cashier is
always looking
at me like she knows
something,
she smiles out corner
of her mouth,

I wink at her,
walk back out into
rain,

it's chilly today,
drops hang on my glasses
but I can see just
fine,

the street is glimmering
blackness,

rain falls and gathers
like mountain
streams in the gutters

it smells like wet clothes
and old cement.

The Field

she walked
down to
the fair-down the
hill downhill
to the fair--sky was black
and peeling--cars
windows rolled up
sat driver-less on
street corners
under big red signs
the sky was reflected on
lights hung up over canvas--
it seemed about to
rain--and it would rain,
she thought as she walked
downhill tiptoeing slowly
watching her step, they said
it was going to--

she had grey eyes

her mother looked at her
each morning and after the
girl left for school, her mother
would think about her daughters
sad eyes,

but they were like the
sky, really, neither happy
nor sad,

they just were,

without beginning or end,

when she reached the fair,
big globs of rain wet her
gray dress dying it black
in large cool blotches--
the vendors sunk beneath
off-white canvas, closed their
doors,

she knocked silently on
leather hides, thin metal poles,

she danced home
under rain clouds
between drops

laughing.

Just remember to give them back

tick n tick
n count
to down to
what to up
words words
on screen/representing
page means nothing
aw fuck means
everything to me
maybe a bit too much
maybe not enough
I'm too caught
up in letting fingers
hit keys
plastic rounded
black keys white
letters no sense of
self sense of hard work
just ease of finger transfer
spell correction

what we SHOULD do is--

ignore this little
lapse, I pull the curtain
like magicians
cap and none of
you are real, see?--

only me,
I'm in here
alone

not lonely--

merely alone

watching the clock
writing to it's rhythm
but you didn't know
so go back over the lines

I wrote them for myself
but you can have them
too

if only for a while--

Buy me a house on the mainline

morning kisses
on the work line
saddest kisses
watch lovers go
to waste and soften
8 more hours closer to death
sunken eyes
hollow faces

remember when they
walked in fields together
looking up and pointing
at clouds?

they don't look up anymore
just down
at feet and
crumbling sidewalks
white lines
for crossing streets
blinking men
made of white lights
and orange hands

dance to the music of
roving cars
trapped in city frame,
8x5 times 50 years
dragging nothing
but memories
of white walls and
should-have-beens
and longing
to the grave.

I let go

And on the edges
like paint chipped
old and lead weighted
colors ancient drip
from cracked ceiling
cracked reality cracked
walls, flood of color like
love and the universe
staring through so much
I reach my hand in blinding
ooze of light and shape and
shadows some being beyond
the rim of understanding voices
like flashlights out into the sea

there comes and end to
everything and becoming
nothing is the next step

I let go

but not long enough

walk along the hard brown
shore listen to the hum of the
river the drowning wind
recall you've heard all this before,

only once

and that was moon
hanging overhead
overheard

what shape?

pull the rift closed
wipe running paint clean

it dries up again
it is lost
there where there
is no heavy drip
where the paint is sealed

there was never a hand
a body a reach a pull

only a funny dream,

Brother

Id like to sling tht ball through galaxies/
past gulfs of time/
into my brothers gloved hand/
hear tht satisfying POW of leather oil n skin/
scuffed with dirt/
off-white ball of displaced memory/
quickened by the long tears/
sadness grown from growing old/
in fields of calm green/
swaying gently in super nova breeze/
a golden star smiling/
film of dirt over mouth eyes/
taste of earth and daring and gods/
Id like to wait for him to toss it back/
to start all over again.

All these things

A current trend
is when I no longer try
spend all my time
pulling dead bones
across the floor
my dead and dry bones
grind and ache
draw lines of cocaine
sigils on nylon carpets
split and torn on
coarse fibers
lie on back
eyes glazed over gray
follow movement of
ceiling stuck still
unwavering hours like
clouds drifting aimlessly
and fading into still-life
distance of day feeding
night and crickets blaring
heartrending songs earth
depressed sinking into
itself etched by hard
scrawl of my sagging
flesh pieces wearing
unrecognizable i cough
i wheeze become unknown
to even myself
I am without a reflection
there are no mirrors.