3D Haze

there was a 3-D haze
across my ceiling last night
a schism on my mind
and a dream ending with eyes
open, feeling something was off,
something was gone, can't remember
now what it was that I lost,
but I know it was important, I noticed it
fading on the vibrating lines to the
frequency of the red/blue mind
and when I woke up later on the ceiling
was white again, day was day again,
night was night, but that feeling
was somehow hanging there,
was I watching it? or was it watching me?
I couldn't tell and I can't explain it now,
I'm still not sure if I am the same.

A Supplication; The Road II

Somewhere deep within america
traveling down the gray corroded arteries
of the continent, metal monsters
carry weary souls home
to rest, to worry, to long for more,
to wonder on thoughts lost,
to climb the snow topped mountain of the soul,
to pry into the immortal desert night,
great heroes unknown
but to themselves, writers of the great novels
of the american tapestry, shadows in
the grand obscurity, I lay you to rest under
the mighty redwood tombstones of the west,
I pledge my life and word to you,
I drink to your memory,

forever must you be forgotten,
Amen.

Pottery and man and science and fools

Going to delve into something
without pronouns, without
collective failure, have to
deconstruct the failing winds,
falling backward, heard there
was a faltering mess like
the universe, skipping, inching behind,
unnoticeable but to a few;

call the idiots, toss each to
the dogs, where are these
rain drops coming from,
ask the milky way hologram,
ask the sky god, calling
calling, calmly;

woe but for the dreaming
monster eating those final days,
there aren't many left--
starving fool, sleeping nightmare--
toss the bones away,
solidifying in human audacity,
pride, follow the religion,
the only one,

ancient and everlasting,
the snake is both science
and holy, what isn't understood,
no love, no love,
get it?

stuffed with additives

All stuffed with additives,
chemically imbalanced,
I stagger through your
dreary streets, seeking
pharmaceutical knowledge,

mix up the stagnant puddle
cocktails, drink it down,
I am the author of my own
fantasy, picking concrete flowers
hands all around, muddled

head spinning disconnected,
it's raining--for you--it was
raining earlier, tonight,
now sun is yellow, warm,
golden sinking belly, behind
winter clouds,

story is working right, isn't
working right, I'm far behind,
saw her coat turn the corner,
watched her legs, click of heels,
didn't say anything,
this is monotonous, this is as it should be,

I am afraid we've lost this collective outrage,
it's hard waitin' in the media-mush breadlines
to keep conscious, to regulate caloric intake--
out of the timeout, 2nd and 10--
what am I saying about time?

I dunno, but it was unedited,
it was never-ending
it was at the moment--
memorable...

skip the unpleasant

I imagine myself moving,
can't stay still, I'm already off
on that endless road, I ask myself,
"why stand still?" "why not rhyme?"
come with me,
I am going nowhere, going somewhere,
just un-clench the break, speed through
time, accept nothing, expect nothing,
skip the unpleasant between the lines
is summer that far away? has the last
one slipped through my grip...?

have I anywhere else to go?
have I anything left to wish for?

I ask the stars, expecting to be left
unanswered.

Dreaming 2 hours late

she was covered in tatttoos,
otherwordly, vibrant colors
I clung to her leg, naked,
brown, glowing, on her
stomach dripping to her
thigh a flower of the very
void of mankind's abyss,
blue and somehow not, there
was something else and I asked her
if they hurt, and she was scentless
and sparking and I kissed her
skin, sexless, humming, the images
seemed to move, I etched them in my
mind as she was turning away,
I forced myself through the fog,
I managed one more glance...

untitled

Away from me you'll fly,
like this title,
like my life, into the void,
I have seen it happen,
watch it happen now
as snow sluggish, marches on
white city from white distances
in the west, I have carried a candle
for you, burning wax off my fingertips,
dry, I have seen how this ends,
and it's so silly, it's so inevitable,
away from me, I'll die.

Christmas Card

Parked up next to
empty lot snowy mix
falling, gray sky spinning
halos of white about our heads,
seems like winter now,
or Christmas or both,
if I had time to consider
it, but december is here,
I missed the last few months
the last few years,
all washed out in white.

Letters

I'll scatter a message
to you across the gray roads of
America,
you'll have to get out there
to read it
tho,
you'll have to get
that pack up on your
shoulders,
you'll have to sleep
beneath the million billion
stars,
you'll have to know
Utah in the cold blazing
night,
You'll have to find
the Rocky Mountains freezing under winter's
chill,
You'll have to catch
that Pacific ocean with the sun yellow coming
down,
You'll have to remember all
the stories I sang to you that
night,
You'll have to look back
and see yourself in the blue-green
hills,
it's there you'll find the
letters waiting, written in cloudy american
skies,
It's there you'll understand
why I left them for
you,
and why you have to keep going--

23rd st. works from home

23rd street
fires, cars ablazin',
driver gettin' his laundry
and the story at the taco
truck is building with each
half known fact/each lie
says, "anybody in there?"
(the whole car is up in flames
now, smoke billowing 3 stories
and adjacent buildings fire
alarms squealing)
someone earlier had seen him
exit stage right, (said
might he maybe have struck
a pole--no damage to the hood tho)
so we repeat it (that the driver escaped)
figuring he probably did looking
to call for help (?)
and now everyone with
their phones out is free
to click and save misfortune--
least nobody died--fire trucks
ambulance hose water things
all out--a wonder of the first world,
23rd street 12pm Crystal city
lunch break tacos
stop.

There's nothing

consider me a day behind
darlin',
a dollar beyond, under the
cascading star blanket
headed west long ago--did I pick up the
tab? No, I don't think so,
I was already gone--

so write me sweet letters,
and cry and moan and wail,
I've forgotten everything
left behind in pictures, still
I regret leaving you,

but I'm so far out,
I can't see anything back there--
years are fuzzy memories
faces eyes smiles remarks

I carry them all on my back
like white light
there's nothing, nothing,

there's nothing

You ever get to leave?

You got an old hat
spins on its shelf alone,
some odd square foot ledge
and nothing in between
that and floor and rising
tide, age and circumstance
play a game around it,
old fashioned hat, isn't fit to
wear 'til the sun come
knock it down, on the last day
watching earth plummet into
the forever ooze of primal space,
you'll be wearing that ole hat then
I swear,
making sense like ya got to always do,
never,
I swear it's swelling under the waves
pink lemonade cuts the shore
in half/halts/wilts
while you--whilst I--nagging
mind numb feeling of collapse,
and the hat, gonna sit and stare
at the aftermath,
explain it to you--
on the note left on the bronze plaque,

you ask "what's engraved there?"--
"what was it that I wrote?"

I 'll save it for another day,
cause I'm forced to move on,
left all my books on the shelf underneath too,

we're all forgetting some soul there,
watching out,
we'll all be dust in some bygone age,
the hats looking on,
calling our bluff--

Surreal

Emptied the
recycle bin, planted da da
dreams on facebook screens
tumblr passwords and
how to keep up a post
a day in the impossible age
of followers--reblogged--
sparks on the keyboard scene,
static motion electricity
ricochet, I am making my own
failures
up so i have something to say--
which seems well and good
but the shocks don't go away--

tell me we are smarter
because there's some hive
mind besides wikipedia--
but what do we really know
today?

the ending to Twilight?
that the sun is a burning gaseous star
billions of miles away--

they're just words, idiot!

We don't know anything really,
anymore, everymore,
ever did--

It's just I can admit it.

Ana

Slog through this
poorly paced shit and you'll
run aground on the anagram
generator mechs that patrol
the grammar roads of legitimacy--
like legitimate literature pours out
the academic assholes, like always
clenching tight, ya--
follow the red ambulance
down the street with those eyes
reading further for the answers
mechanically separated dark meat,
light meat, parts and pieces, hell
it's all over hieroglyphs on the
telling walls--they're protected
electronically
from our fingerprints--luckily--

Last thing I want is for them
to be scared.

This was going somewhere but it left early

wind outside is picking up
heard in prison Friday it's gonna
be cold on Sunday, sure feels like
it, most time guards don't lie,
so I trust the intel just so I won't have
to open and window or door,
face the cruel natural world--luckily
there's four walls of radioactive concrete
surrounding me, playing the perfect defense,

I think maybe I'll read some
whitman and drink a glass of milk in
the droning light of the apartment space,
or I'll end up staring at numb letters on numb screens,
eh, either way milk'll go down smooth,
non-homogenized constant of my nightly
deliberations, they won't let me change
the spelling tho, they won't let me in on
what's really going on, what's wrong--
I don't have clearance for that,
it's made clear,

I listen to the leaves touching the balcony
giving themselves to the wind, there's no car
sounds, it's all drowned out, fuck--

I forgot what the last line was going to be,

I'll just fit it with a period and
call it a day.

People keep telling me I'm innocent

I.
When I've no more words
I'll put this axe down,
I'll take to the road,

Oh, if you'd follow me!
Oh, if you'd let me!
I don't think you would,

I am running out--
or I will one day,
my pen is finite--
my eternal mind infinite,

We'll pass on vain thoughts
we'll pass on unwashed fears,
tho again, we'll pass on
nothing,

II.
When I've no more left to see,
I'll focus my vision to the floor,
I'll leave the sky alone, unblemished,

Oh, if you'd understood!
Oh, if you'd see we were wrong!
I don't think you could,

I wish to see beyond--this...

III.
When I've no more words to give you
bright world, forget me! Forgive me!
Don't blame me for what I've done in your name!
even if I have failed,
I've only done what you've asked,
I've only failed at what I believe.

Charcoal fiberoptic lore

they chalked my
mature rating up to
word count, text recognition
bullshit, slapped the reverse
cuffs on my skinned wrists,
left me locked down
in the internet stockade
without a key, languishing
in my gentle obscurity, my
self imposed anonymity, or
am I , was I, supposed to realize that
too late--? Hell, it's worked so
far for the mainframe locusts
popping all my shattered balloons,

I'm not even sure you can read this--
how does it translate from my head
to the keys to the screen to the save
to you, how do I know they don't alter
the meaning before it's too late--?

how do I know I'm even typing?
How do I know I'm not someone else?

Vanish

Yesterday I kept telling
myself today I'd make it all
up--but I won't--I couldn't,
in the with nothing to do
I'm writing from the beginning
one bad trip and on to the next,
all my time left out to dry
on the surface of societal
regimentation--climbing that
grand gold slippery ladder of the
world--BUT I DON'T WANT TO!--
can't you see? I am useless to you.
I am nothing for those rules,
I don't fit in--don't want to momma--
can't--I ask them to leave me alone,
but they have SWAT gear and tear
gas, and billy clubs and guns
and they won't go away,
all I got is wine and isolation--
what about where about all
the things I want/wanted to do?
where have they gone?

They'll make me throw it away
they've made me a ghost

and I let them.

She's got a handle on it

She can see in
merged realities
all spectrum colors
rising like tides on
phantom shores,

I dangle my feet over
america's great canyon
a lifetime ago
thinking of her
somewhere in space
I can bend the misunderstanding
that's been forcing us apart,
that's been forced upon us,

somewhen we've been
able to escape this fate
sometime--

a pencil and paper is
older than the typewriter,
dig? you have a false view of
the past, you are ignorant of
the scene--

She refuses
the answers we've built
returns the boxes that
are shipped out to
every house on every block
waiting out
the strong arm knocking at her door,
black boots kicking it in,
turned out in the night
herded to the sleeping train,
another number for the record books
another mind on the grill.

whirlpool

just enough time to

get from one box to another

quick cat litter rain

on the intellectual parade

for a nominal fee the underlings

carry the promenade floats

will suck you off behind

the orange glowing street light

on 19th and I,

passers-by will take the time to

shouting in the general direction

of their understanding

gurgling choking sounds

everyone is glazed eyes happy

getting up and down

trading in the day

sunshine who needs it

I've got florescent light patterns

and fake social interactions--

take it to the boss

and get it stamped

it'll roll nicely and cram up your ass

over the boarder smuggle

still wondering what the 

usb drive is for? It hooks onto the

gas tank, downloads the shit

eat shit die shit take shit

the driver doesn't give it--

he's got medic-aid backed up

to the 14th kid on the next 

block there's a johnny rockets

pump to handle the caloric intake 

required for decision making

two heads in front

but the rifle can be placed straight across

shame you can't pay someone to pull the

trigger

killing yourself is against the law

and courts will get that subpoena to 

heaven by God! or without him

they don't give a fuck

as long as the control app is still iphone 

downloadable reusable

100% combustible--like our love

bombs over desert carpets

fuck this fuck that fuck ass come on

tranny america come on limp dick king

work 8 hours sleep 8 hours

you're in charge

cast that vote cocksucker

take the load

they know we'll swallow 

every time 

For me

All of five minutes
left no sound in hallway no sound
not looking up at monitor no
white lights no go afternoon
in darkness now it's night
outside, outside where I'm shackled
indoors where I'm caged,
stuff the pastries in the drawer
momma won't see, momma won't hear

the collapse, prolapse
lights spark on more work
on the anal enema cure
more vomit for the clarinet player
more meals for the worms
reinforced concrete shit--

what do those sounds want
from me? How can I pay them in
song?

I am an awful singer and
awful giver--

I feel the November chill selfishly--
the Halloween whistle in
the lightened hall
isn't as scary as it would have been
with the lights out

I steal all that memory for myself

Missed two

I came to blame the fever
it was in some ways easier
some ways more believable,
when burying ideas to
ascribe them some other form;

of their old stuff
packed away I said nothing,
sun setting
on Mondays a bit hesitantly,
a but unsure, something to
do with the blood ritual of the
inured mass-machine mash,

sun in my eyes is damaging
my feet sweat in these shoes
not wearing any socks
the radiator is cold

I am othered from the outdoors
regardless, by conspiratorial window
panes,

the sunlight reflects off my screen
I am typing blind
like always.

October gone

put the water to
boil on the bloody stove,
and while it heats I'll construct
my own innocuous identity
my own morning mask,
there are gray skies, no
more gray Octobers tho;

and
I'm here, already
missing October, Whitman's
October and Wolfe's and
Jack's and my October, I watch it
drifting south on the gentle,
muddy, earthy brown Potomac,
erasing whatever thoughts
I've had, whatever memories
I've tried to keep,

I find the road toward my
end bittersweet and I don't think
I've cared enough,

how many Octobers have I watched
on mornings just like this?

Bedsides besides; 0-0

Besides visions,
I got memories rotting too,
locked up, you realize I'm
dying--dying, I realize
we're all dying--me? I'm just going
about it faster, being eaten away,
last week was a day ago,
a year ago, and how would we
know if time was speeding up, it'd still
be the same for us--I think all
reality is connected through my fever dream-
syncronicity, I died in that bed
in collegeville or should have, I refuse
to go with the cancer decayed in
my stomach pill
    
     --It's too late for that
elipses--em dash breakdown,
     walk toward Holy Light
               mother fucker
language travels through
                                time
is off putting

If I exist concurrently with reality
if I exist at all,

it's 10:30 am

you haven't read this line yet
but you will--

I write suicide notes for practice
at dawn--

Repent Dummy Repent

 Faceless men celebrate
docility, segmented body type
follows order all orders,
never asks why, just does

send the electrical receiver
to the brain time-scan-
receptor-default image-
thought machine-

     turn wheel
     place opinion in
     hit key
     wipe system memory
     revert to start menu

conversations begin/end
nod.smile.sleep.repeat.

Five Things

I.
I am the painter of reality
tell me what you want to see
I'll fail to make it so.

II.
If the sky is blue
what claim do you have
to the ocean?

III.
Money is a god concept
a festering techno-organic idea
given power through belief

IV.
My biography
should be published
blank.

V.
I rode a star ship to Earth
long ago
before the whales could cry.

Make Believe

Did this happen yester-
day or were you standing
outside my window under
the cool rain of primitive
stars of all those years ago--

and why can't I remember your smile?
seemed like such a little thing then,
sometimes I wish I'd paid more
attention--

Back then there were
radioactive isotopic
lysergic heat flashes and
the dawn of time; I kept my head down,

I left a secret in the palm of your hand,
a burning time capsule--
a holy revolver--
fired into eternity,

Tomorrow you were shifting
dust on dreary plains
spreading our sigil across time

and I am always the liar,
typing and achieving nothing,
leaving the window closed
behind me,
playing make believe.

October New Year

Gurgling of car engines
up imagined streets,
a hose waters unmanned flowers
over concrete grave site
epiphanies, I hadn't noticed
the sky today, I still don't,
not enough to describe it,

It's an October sky,
isn't that enough for the image,
now you know as much as
I do,

my couch is outside somewhere
fading in what I assume to be
the sun, it's like summer or fall,
or any season we pretend to know,
it fades.

There's no adults on earth
somebody said once,
we're all one organism stretching
back from primordial time
in search of universal awareness
somehow beyond our reach,
calling from inevitable futures,

I am but a seed, a cancerous mole,
in line for nothing, until the end,
going back to nothing, I came from nothing,

I can only prove existence to myself.

Cesar's New Orleans

Missed the chatter of this place
and my wandering mind
at a table,
lone observer of sunday brunch
dates & after church get-togethers,

am I that singular diner,
that mysterious fool?
sits by himself, aging,
dying--apart from greater
humanity,
sipping coffee in my emptiness?
what could fill my soul?
     when it's all--
          but it's all--
     gone
and two eggs, bacon,
toast, home fries, plate
remain

Needles

hooked up for the big fix
million million strong
shooting those ideas in green jelly
fiber optic cable jolts
right to the brain
straight through the eye sore
grotesque hanging open
misinterpreting action oriented-word
phrasing--slave to the orthodoxy
dictionary will--

it's a room a room
and computers loom
dot matrix printer head-wired zoom

slide your card
sign your name

pick up the check.

crosswinds

caught a glimpse of an
old man crying, having lived
anonymously 98 wasted years
unrecognized, seized his
aged heart in helpless wrinkled hand,
going with nothing to prove
his existence but frayed
stack of journals, unread,
unappreciated, piles of emotions
unrequited, ignored,
asked why me? with blind eyes
used to seeing so much, begged
for the probationary clause of god's whim,
wondering why not me?
what did I do wrong? was I not good enough?
what didn't I say?
and
I didn't have the time to
pick his lifeless body from the street
or say a meaningless word,
what with all the poems
blowing away--

Indigestion

pick up my words on the internet
on the digital sound corner
html stained to resonate
w/ the meme soul

I sold all my ink
to make a living
melted it down for junk,
I mean, take in this battery heat
death is the fiber optic dynamo
running under our feet,

monitor brain needs city sunset
skylines to blow--

a fixed metaphor sub-space context,
the consensual state orgasm-mechanism
rolls down martial law suburban
streets at dusk, warnings on milk cartons,
milk carton joy, words downloaded
by the great Bodhisattva TOR
the mainframe diabetic
shrunken head search engine;

no gods! No gods!

I'm wired for the future,
all veins and hatred,
isolated,
gurgling singing laughing
mistakenly, giggling
on upset space-time collapse

our god is a cloud
a cloud is massed information
is untouchable reality
is subjective truth.

Sorry

How does it go?
140 miles from my haloed
head, my ignorant
pearly bones hunched down
in familiar seats, future
   
     a billion star systems
     burning into the inconsequential
     veins of the subway fabrication
     drawing the late straw
     by minutes unfortunate
 
          I'm left as always, sorry &
          on the outside, a familiar
          stanza, ah, metered apology

remember my cadence,
I'll surely be here again.

slim picking

Slow to favor
my facial recognition
dream
I want them to know
where I shit and fall
drunken on poisons
mind-body-eyes-dull;

aging pictures sunken
caricatures guide me
to lost realities

time verified dream snatching
portrait painting anachronism--
choice, like choice, is the
best example of a waste

I'd rather it be decided.

Safe Zone

This thing has got to
blow over
          my sulking skull
is haphazardly
     skipping the fault lines
nonsense
          nerve decay
nonsensical humming of
     the drill bit of the brain
of the maw out there @
the corner
              of what galaxy?
one we know isn't there
     lights are out light years gone,
our no-savior--no linear thought--
last page survivor
cowering in squat
brown wrinkles
          why are the stars pink,
like the alter caught
in tornado winds?
     Blowing through
                  through jubilant
celebration
          concerning stares
marked us all on wrists
                          of gold
we listen & work for
          legitimacy, waiting for
the storm to blow over
they say on average it takes
about 75 years.

Blackhole Junction
on roadside 2am

36 hour stall

tagged across america

forever home

Tom

There's a zombified boy
trying to slander my name,
He's got the valedictorian honors
on his honest fascist coat
looking out his high school
cell bars,

He's gonna claim
that prophesied
yuppy job in the mind
frame part of town,
it's to pay the rent on
the societal zoo,
the believe, the brave, the blue,

He's gonna quote those
sellout heroes & uncle toms
stereotypical one-liners
who kept their heads down,
he's gonna believe what he's told
in the square city, the squat roofs,
he's stealing my name and casting
it among the silver polished tools,
the wastes, the blind men,
following the crowd,
the CNN mentality liberal leftist
philosophy,
dragging pearly mud
in on his pearly feet,

He's been breed to erase me
in mediocrity, with obedience,
and soiled crotch,

I am an abomination
he's the american dream,

I say too much,
he's perfect,
he thinks too little.

Google it.

It's good
Google schedules my day for me,
it's been years since I could
remember what I liked, see
the ads on the side-scroll totem
say your prayer to the
Amazonian gods, I suggest you
read them used, it's cheaper
and there's minimal wear and tear,
just speak with the credit card
swipe and the tap of the modern
poet, finish up with the security code
stanza the signature so's the public
private public knows it's you
and can connect the heart of the
bank account blues, the scrawl on the html
wall, the mailbox and the waiting game,
the unwrapped potential, buying homogenized
fame, we aren't a cult of money
we just know what we want
and it's whatever we're told;
I'm good.

Summer

The next you'll see me
on that roadside
lookin' dirty but lookin' for a bite
a true bite unfettered by the
consumption culture
of city center logic, I'll be pointing
west to the pacific brother,
I'm an angel of the east tho,
truly watching it burn,
falling in love,
dying to care too much,

come on,

don't pass me by--
I'm a drop in the pan
undeveloped
nondescript
a waste on the money state
I saw HD on the horizon
talking to Zeus,
said she's writing a
pome for planet earth
said she's makin' her way back
from heaven to read,

Don't'cha know?

I can see the sunset
racing across the earth
as Sisyphus at the rock
crying, heavy;

Don't'cha see?

I'm unashamed of sadness.

No I won't I call it whatever I like, whenever I want (left alone)

Cars at my window
collide like ocean and stars
in the dreary night heading east toward
the sun, I'm hanging my head
above the aerosol can
taking in the scent,
getting high
getting wet
fusing with the consciousness
stream on the yellow line
on the white line, man,
I can't see the tears from
my balcony, they've all but dried,
I can't catch a glimpse
of the shore.

Well-Behaved Fascists

Sit in my chair
and carry your ears to the
table leg of the seat on
the white-topped mountain
on the 7 hills of my birth,

they're calling down
the winter spell, the
one remaining thought,
the visceral truth
buried in the gut of the
worldmind,

cast your eyes
downward children
cover your ears  in
the cowering corner of
your birth, I'll make
everything seem okay,

I am your mother father
sister brother uncle aunt teacher
discipline discourse religion
government brain,
I am looking out for you,

I will make the right decisions
I assume your consent
I will write the history
I will spin the wars
I assume the responsibility
I will consume the sun

I am your one and only
God.

worship me with freedom
and belonging,

eat from my open hand
spread my gospel with guns
and greens,

I am your one and only
God

so very very well-behaved.

to my cellophane which was blue

You've got cat memes
running around in your head
they're there in bold white letters
walking on the fiber optic high wire
toward every house on the block
that's the whole street of the world
it's a balancing act in the abstract,
a respect,

woe for my age
woe for I am aging
woe and woe and I am gone
to speak of empty things

A blue sky
a blue ocean
a blue thought
a blue grave

blank screens are graceful
personified in the culture gap
mind over mind under money

pay the rent

each

day          month          year

pay

for the burial plot the funeral pyre
the insurance card the right to expire

woe is my age
woe for the aging
go and go and I am here
staying up for the after-burn
a plot for the reckoning

a newly cemented age.

A tables down

I see the nanites
on your breath
   
     reeling off the facts
     like a player piano

record on repeat
advancing the cause of truth

     boxing the KILLED
     boxing the CAPTURED

cherishing the take
the looks on the the tv face

     interrogating the truth.

Bolt

mercy mercy mercy mercy
mercy
Montgomery park is big red
San serif signing
without trees or
                    greens only visible
                    in the steel sky of
                    night.

In Baltimore the word moans outward
                    across
                               heaven.

follow blinking polka dot arrows.
paved veins.
re-purposed arteries.
coal burnt hearts.
find the mark to stab it deep.

the south
bleeds black
tarry blood
from its
many wounds

I vomit,
            from the stench,
the ground
kisses my feet.

For your own safety

for your own safety
we'll lock this door up tight,
security guard swinging night stick
and sheriff stetson walking past the two way
mirror gig, making sure they're acting alright,
s/he's just doing his job
surveying the meek for the good
of all those (every one of us (with $)) who
can't protect themselves,
we're just trying to get what's natural
that green abstract soul;

S/he comes to check on me
when the sun goes down
locks my doors
after primetime tight, tucks me in with the curfew
talk and closes my windows down
to the grinding metal sky scrape,
just in case some light comes through
I make sure I got my eye mask on,

Sleep through the rainy
sunday news announcements on
the telestrator dream flatscreen
we'll whip up the truth right quick
for your own safety
believe everything your told,
the window is a vision of the brain
is a reddish nervous system memory,
thought closes at dusk

no

make that 9pm.

Behind Schedule

Somebody switch out
          this window pane
we're seeing the same
         god damn thing everyday
the same repeat scene
          when they gonna move
these bricks out
          let us breathe in those buried trees?
sure they alter the faces
          every now and then
but the bodies are runnin'
          parallel, powdered abercrombie skin
thinking those American idle thoughts
          when's the wrecking crew
supposed to take all this down?
          I mean
What're they waiting for?

Lizzie Red Bird

On this date
Friday December 13, 1919
Lizzie Red Bird froze to death
in the darkening winter night,
on the South Dakota plain
a prisoner of the Rosebud Reservation in
the Imperial United States,
she ran away from boarding school
with Annie Coarse Voice,
who lost her feet to the cold
& amputation frost bite survivor
long enough to face the 4-H,
the tea party set, cut your hair

pull up your skirt,
take your seat obedience,

Poor Lizzie, you only wanted
to escape that shapeless shoe-less fantasy,
office of interior design;

the snow still falls from Canada up north
I hear, lines are thickly drawn;

Were you buried, my Lizzie,
with the bars facing up or down?

our new sheets

new room
same old place
facing south this time
watching Young Chow,
Crystal City's favorite go-go bar,
got a view of the Sev n' it
almost feels like home,
tho at home I never faced
anything but
pink sunsets over row home
horizons, mysterious
red blinking lights of the future,
alleys where American flags hid behind
diorama glass to reflect their image
on our window pane

now I got windows reflecting windows
in the dark condominium night, we're all wondering who can
see in but nobody looks outside
long enough to tell--is it the 28th already?
where have I gone? who can say--?

I can't remember the last place
I rested, how many years ago-- I'll
fall asleep standing up someday,
the Earth'll be my bed
my home
my end.

My Cereal and the fortune teller

my cereal speaks in
linear bursts of thought on
rims of Styrofoam bowls
sparks interest from your
falling stars--from you falling stars--

from your
helpless knives making
ladies on Jupiter's final moon
along the Milky Way dance
along they dance--my mind takes
me there in time--I don't operate on the
militarized march,
the doctors got there first
and gone was my frontal lobe
through the eye socket with
an ice pick to the lazy cell
so I wobble slowly on cellophane streets

calling on the assembly line,
because, hell,
who knows better than
the plastic manufacture
how the pesticides made it on--
how the ingredients list was cheated
on,
how much time
there's left, but the
timeless--? Who knows

Who's got it all figured out
in the fallout shells
in south american greenlands
labeled entropy, iceland, glue
on the dotted maps
with the incorrect measurements
and the lettered ocean pollution
that never stays the same,

why do we care for the lost little babes
when the mirror's all fucked up,
cracked barcodes and it
used to be 99 cents--huh?

My cereal hasn't got that answer
yet on it's TI-88
but it plugs away, it jetisons the load
it ignites the crematory pyre
It drowns itself in milk
for my benefit.

Junction

You ain't a Junction City Boy
until you've been stranded
on that thirsty starless Sunday boulevard
down by the Super 8
Route 40 eatin' biscuits and gravy
strong coffee at Stacey's come 4am,
just you and the truckers
happen to be passing through

You don't know what it's like
on that old odd corner 5th and East
by the livestock auction fence,
abandoned mill beside the spinning
railroad tracks,
Tennessee Charlie giving ya hell--for what?
"it's a Job," he'd say, "got on a boat!" &
he'd go--

You can't stick ta that name
till you drag your bones outta that
black hole town & get moving west, till ya
see those mountains that'll take your whole
eye in and hold it in the land forever &
with the gray sun setting
make your way to bluer shores;

the name only comes from looking back.

Say it, see it, gone gone gone western blues

Just so you know
I haven't forgotten--
been lugging my bag and
banging my head on
down that dusty road
west, been out and
gone in junction city kansas-
style on a sunday
nowheres to go and no
car to go it in--been lost and
cold and wet on that
highway life at 4am in
the thickest tar black night
you could imagine--been high too
digging everything all silent in
my wanderers head--thinking
and writing whatever hellish unprintable
mash I could envision
been takin' down the days the hours
as the tires turn wear out rot
and angle--seen every god damn
god fearing thing--unconquerable
unquestioned--rising out of the
gray american fog--
lost all my words trying to figure out
what it is
where it went

Because they brought milk

I'll kneel before
their goodwill--
     If the Nazis had
smart phones
I'd have read the same
pictures on those invisible
text books
     erasing motivation
fanatically defending
     our defiled brains
        betray
                  the marching
                  heavy endless
cold marching boots
                  of technicality
because they bring milk
we suck down the dream
I place the bill under my tongue
and pay the interest

Death of Poets

until the wind
rots whole forever
This one started
as two crossed out lines
no thought just scribbled
failure & no voice
and ended as
eight mishandled lines
almost
saying something--

Sweetly by the hour

Slim to the cunt
she's a legless
     wonder she says
our windows let
     in too much light darling
     betrays the morning
whistle of
          the doves in my hair baby
the heavy floods
in the basements below
          will keep you
     busy all day & sweat
          but I'll wait
               for you in the golden rays
reclining
counting the hours
                            only
the hours
counting the days.

Thought Police

I believe &
my eyes see
the defenestration
of miracle society
acceptance of the perverse
my brain a soiled docility
drug to drag belonging to the house,
shut down my clogging veins
& molest the corpse
of the girl hidden under my bed,
I take her to the sands
of the beach of secret forgiveness
& bury both our heads
I believe in photoshop
& mediocrity
I believe I'm safe
I repeat.

False Flaggs

Little boy drop these
bombs & $tep away
use the backdoor staircase
escape--
     let them catch the
eye of the camera store
bring the car around
with the doors ajar
slam those headlights
     into gear
watch for old ghost dogs
of old Kentucky roads
     find your way in the
umpteenth night
     doom on the horizon
playing house with
handgun girls
     unashamed--
          holster the backpacks
          under the cupboard
          kindergarten dreams
we'll all stick to the story
with the most holes
     sew the plastic around our heads
tight
     suck up all the air

CNN Drops BOMBS

Two hours into
our CNN trip &
it's like that trash
can nightmare night
of all over again static dreaming
(and what would I do for one coming)

same image on rerun 

is that FOX

beaming

remote control reverse
     sidewalk sameness
     over and over sameness
     paranoia
          will bring us
          together into
governmental pockets
mocking each other
(spying)
hiding our thoughts
drowning the dream
changing the channel

You never paid

There's no parking spots
left in any East Coast town
that even great Neal could
back this baby into--
this current automated society
rear view camera without a clue
how to enjoy
                       the last third
                       of humanity's joke
while kids in Easter egg ties
roll the dice
      on their cellphone device
trolling idiocracy,
planting unoriginal seeds (we survive for you)
in the chat-roulette
of our ancestral souls--

laughing go the cameras
always on record

a crime against the corporate state
is a crime against society
is a crime against you me us we

take your communion at
the ATM alter
suck that green gold down

live forever with eyes seeing eyes

Amen.

At the Corner

You'll give me the time
smile for the ages
rock schism and tumbles
toward sea roaring
south of night serenades,
crickets cling to weathered
screen doors
on far away southern plains
                         of my eyes
I'm aching side-wise
calling out to you
over the noises
you'll never feel
                        above the cigarette
                                        lighter
my apology.

The Collarbone Clock

Handle is a blindfold
farce synced up with hashtag
radio waves poured from the
ancient central telephone cable
a wired rig sinking into
our subconscious regret--
search again-without the
frozen oil spill this time--

it's found poetry
a payment for the injured
aircraft losing altitude in
the spring night sky
of the not so deep south
reflected in the garden patches

2d darkness
wood panel horror stares from
windows across the way
neither exist
neither existing

butcher the sentence
in the aftermath haze
dine on the dewy remains
slick with morning light

smell the sun up

feel the pulsing click and turn.

Tell me the time--I'm always late and contemplating not going

A buried eye tempting the past
shining sky of terror
shorn like the sheep's wool
immemorial time phrase,
an unused category of cloud
description cartel caravan--

I've encrypted the rays
tucked in the corners of empty
houses demolished--

I am a feast for roaches
without a tale

coffee floods your veins
coats my walls

the gauze you carry are bloodstained
and stale.

Malls

Girl got the same clothes
as everywhere on sterilized
sidewalks of Northern Virginia
sunlit weekends going about
the set-up actions
of the attitude adjusted replicated
in re-runs of culturally reinforcing
sitcom punchlines
sunglassed and moving store to store
shopping day off from 5 days of earning
money to shop and maybe tomorrow
she'll think of the kids she'll have
when the man she wants has enough money to
spend on the house owned by banks
she trusts because people kill and steal
from anyone wandering the parking lots
warm with anything to lose
cash and purchases and story
specifically
on which the poor feed and covet,
those dirty whore pariahs threatening
to break down the empire
the objective entity of the masses
that cares--loves--protects--
determines--promotes--
girl got her ideas figured out
from what she sees and hears
the truth of reality through the lens
telling her where to be
reminding her what to see/

Wake up!

maybe too much

plastic clapping laugh

track hysteria in heaven

ambiguously dreaming

of endings not like the ones

we've already known,

maybe not enough

dancing on the graves

of unhinged conscious minds who,

dragging themselves about the tombs

of time, forget and forgive

this human race of all its sins,

on earth, 

or maybe I'm so very wrong

and all is merely, justly an afterword

to the total societal awakening

of Buddha-ness in the far-flung

future membrane spark--

I'm a walking skeletal remnant of failure!

these things do not exist

throughout--screen doors

swing in the green suburbs

of the concrete greenness of

America--a billion years in

the past is already happening

I've already wasted this line.

Funnel; Tell myself Go

just write
why don't'cha?

I'm not broken
not engine machine rusted
not the normal brain trust hell
not functioning correctly
unfit--stumbling--ah--fucked--

I'm falling to the wayside
the after thought
continuity

I remember all the losers
the talent-less dregs

I toast to them on sodium fluoride
paint their graves in corn based colors

I'm tipping off the wayside
the jelly between culture
the infinite man

I've got more story to tell
everything is story
history is story
fact is story
I am a story

All story needs to end
to be told.

My apologies

The tv says you're dangerous
the tv talks in spaces
all kinds of phrases
language syncing to the invisible
inclusive speeches and
imaginary thoughts filled
with barbwire haywire
fireside chats cause damn
the past I am the future
unreadable--remote controlled--
stop the tractor beam, high tail it
to the next big deal big bang
section of the text
for I'm interested in human life
gutted and fresh on the
chopping room floor
the bazaar
of all nations burnt to dust
by minor flames
on
on on
on on on
like nation of man
in the end song
siren's song
I've never been

closer never been

further never been

lost--

Some poems are
too damn long to type out

sorry

they can't all be perfect.

When we hit it

when we hit Cali
I'll wear a Panama hat
Hawaiian shirt & khaki shorts,
because it's Spring
ride that look the rest a' the way
'cross rainbow desert expanse
sky painted ghost towns
knowing old forests
foggy ancient mountain ranges
those great & mysterious American rivers--

I'll christen myself
old man of the road
the fading spirit infinity--
                        forever wandering
                                                   soul
going
bitterly achingly to death
     one heavy mile--one golden
                                               bridge--
                              one earthly abyss--
at a time.

Grayed Hounds

Greyhound bus drivers
must be the saddest drivers
in the world,

they've got one track &
an eternity same scene
flashing the human
aquarium interstate highway
traffic jam from birth till
death

only the passengers change
& maybe the tires
but they keep on writing
on those same gray roads
same tire marks
leaving nothing behind or
ahead--

Love Letter Father Time

Here we are again
not so far away
from last time

language provides
my only link to
the future

to save the time stream
I will sacrifice its
present existence
for momentary gain

Class

Flip your hair to the wind
off-white dress
distorting sun's rays
in front of that Ethiopian place
on 23rd
Nobody cares to see but me, honey
& I only care so's to write it down
Don't worry
we're all failures in that way baby,
all lame ducks,
only I'm able to die quicker
than the last sucker
to steal my seat--
I'll remember you
like a phantom of a poem
stretching back
until the next dress demands
my foolish attentions
replaces your existence
darkens the world

Burn me! I live!

In Philly it was
winter's chill & driver (must
be new to 95 straight line
corridor) goes wrong direction
--and there's the PA welcome sign--
heading
          I think to Wilmington
instead of Port of
     but come on man
          both get you
     there eventually anyways
                               for God's sake
Just hit the gas
     & let's spring 5 hours
into our later--into the heart of the
un-dead American dream theater--
   
     before I can get home
     I'm out with the Taxi driver
                    checking out
                    the scrape & dents
                    on his brand new
                    bumper--
"He owns this car?" I'm thinking
                    I guess he does
which makes the
warm night air taste a bit
sadder until I'm inside &
     the sirens burn out the
cascading colors of route 1
hotel rooms hotel lights hotel hearts
     the fire engines
                            head
                                    my way
put out the trees
& tuck me in--

Notebook Haiku

empty cup
stained with coffee
table for one

The death of
one sad man
entertainment tv

if you sit still
long enough
words will find you

third cups
should be the last
Get up and GO!

I do.

Who needs it?

I've suffered 29 years of ignorance
Now I am the black ghost
the freckled stranger
          finished with his teas
          and this
line
all lines are one continuously broken
line
     receding
     like talent & energy
     & confidence & belief
shit, the ageless need something to
hang on to
                to wait for in
dungeons of mind crawling hatred

my children need a swing for the yard
patches of gray
of make believe
of blue cornfields of mystery

Point me to the second half
I've got a speech to give--

This goes for me--

I know I can't be famous poet
I'm descending; I'm balding,
Shakespeare was bald
in portraits--why him, huh?
Shouldn't he set a precedent?
Damn Shelley & his lovers locks
Kerouac & his perfect curls
Walt Whitman wore a hat
so who the fuck knows,
Ginsberg went bald you know?
I know he was gay
is there a categorical anomaly
how can I make the grade?
     They want me perfect aesthetically
stack of boxes piled blockxblock for glowing
eyes piercing eyes (ignore my words)
they read bitterly

I'm not pretty
     I've no pretty words
No quotable phrases--I'd
          scowl like and old Italian
on the back
                    jacket of whichever
                    novel you choose
I'd rather burn the book store
                                     down
     than submit to
                           ISBN ||||||||||||||||||||
                                   5 923230 223307
                                     Slavery
I'll edit my own shit
I'll let my hair fall out
I'll fuck around anonymously

words'll square my debts.

& where do we go?

He turns his head
expectantly
expecting her not to reach the
door--for the door--of
other voices & lines
all mashed and troubled
and fed eggs bacon
sausage bread pancakes
toast Easter post-church,
warped through concrete &
glass lenses to the outside--blockade--
          who's thinking?--where
does all this death go?--
into that ground he knows--&
gone to dream-fields & memory lanes,
but no worries,
time to pay the damn check &
bury the bodies.

Last Man

I write poems to inanimate objects
they ignore we sweetly (with lights out)
start time is quickly marred
getting uneasy (getting up)
asking for the watch
     to call it quits (or countdown)
walking away is much easier
who else is involved?
We'll never know (thankfully)
   
     My dreams are more real
each night I lie awake
     I have less control
so the coffee taints my breath
     the world my lips
So?
     I am champion of death.

A poem in 5ths

Scenes and Whispers

I
It's simple really
I'll write every poem
about myself

II
Don't sit on park benches alone
they'd rather rot by themselves

III
a pee only becomes a piss
when you're mad and gotta let it go
dick out a shaking pants down,
I can't take credit for that one

just promise not to rest on the metro

IV
Revelations of today
look ridiculous in my notebooks
of yesterday, I pour milk
for the young in my sleep,
aged and warmed my bones for them

V
The sick leave the elevators unharmed
turn the swastikas into boxes
wrap my heart on their fingers
drag me into the next thought

Happy Endings

Good-byes on wheels

So strange that you're gone
and that I thought so little of you
in these past years when i relied on you
and loved you (I did truly love you
I promise) that I didn't even stop to think
how you were aging, hurting, rusting,
going away,
or we could have taken a picture together I guess--
I only thought of that now, some evidence--
something so that your memory would
be more than leaking anti-freeze and stalling,
iced up windows, flat tires, and miles
                                                         miles
                                                    miles
                                                         miles
miles 
        but thinking again--those things
are so concrete
so heavy and burned into my memory,
your smells and sounds
                                     the way I knew
how to drive you just right (most of the time
when you weren't angry or tired),
riding down macdade hanging out the windows
singing come sail away into the night,
those times I thought it was over
but you kept on going
so much so
that I believe it was on will alone, (your
emerald ring being in the universal mail
rerouted to heaven) and me wasting all
that gas--!
      and the girls--the girls!--we can't forget the girls
we've both known right--?
and who've hated you in different ways
wrongly

over the years--all those years--
seems like too many to count
on your blue-green shell--and
we've grown old my old friend
too old to carry on together in all
but dreams and reveries--dont't worry,
you'll be there and here and when and
gone for the next 200,000 miles
and the 200,000 infinite miles after that--
unmistakably--
a love I'll never forget.

one thousand lives in passing

Enough with the crosses
She's barely old enough to
drive, skip, take the exit ramp
before street lights, broken curbs,
parked cars, meter maids, bike chains,
trolley tracks, flat tires, toll booths,
cracked roads, painted lines,
the story of the wide wide closed
up world comes calling taking
the babies and sinners for a
walk to the peak of jutting rocks
falling rolling rocks pyramid mankind
or the blue faced flowers that coat our graves
comes wandering wondering left behind,

what's this all of a sudden
what's changing so quickly
what's gotten into her head and why do
we throw our trash up into the sky?

to burn

She's got an answer but it's on
the median strip, it's unpopular,
it's all over the pavement
curl--it's all bloody and fucked up
and she's too young to tell.

Acting School

It was that time I was a famous actor

I entered the hotel room--tho to me
it was a waiting room--circle of other actors
sitting around smoking in silence--AA meeting
where have ya been, how are ya--
I meant to say hello but forgot
the room was maroon shades
two of the actors had
no arms
no legs

Pepper Spray

Halloween
we all carried pepper spray can
--in the store (like old west brook
park market convenience store) some
ladies complained, this one girl
without form shot hers into the air
constantly,
She turned to me and
concretely blonde and maybe 17
said, "It's really hot in here don't ya think?"

I realized it was and took my shirt off--

The Mouse

A hungry mouse scampered up to
me, he seemed docile, trained,
he waited in static until
I reached down and let him
crawl up onto my hand, I felt
his calloused hands and weakness--in his
face I saw obedience--he asked
for bread--
but I had none

The questions I asked became concepts, became visions

A vision of falling from clouds at first
he tells this girl that the water carried him under,
it was the same water falls from the sky--in
reality he blacks out & hits the shallow end
as he falls he sees a man reaching out, watching him--
(It's his exact self)--Then I take his place thrashing
(unharmed) in the shallows (have slight pulsing time
distortions like I'm forcing trip effects)

"What is time!" tears run down
my face--I am so--desperate--
"is time a construct?"

rubbing my wet dreamers forehead,
I'm trying to pull something great out--
I say--"I've nothing great in me."

Awoke on a beach

Wake up to beach under the stars
million million stars and feels like the
ocean is black and crashing in over us
like into a sand wall (from earlier lifetime
dreams) and I'm wondering how I slept so
long and know right then that Mike isn't there,
that he fought off the sleep, I curse him
for not wasting the day--in my mind
and eye the scene is inside-and-out-endless,

"He must be back at the room"--I assure
the masses of people still sleeping beside me.

The chip that screamed

The chips all screamed in
the mouths that chewed and
chewed without compassion--
I had a sinister feeling running
outside the tunnel of my view-scope
understood the meaning of genetic testing but
the rest were not listening, the rest went on eating
the chips that could only feel when eaten.

Loop

I was traveling in a car on

a street that was an endless loop

like Flintstones background of

the same few windows

same few doors, I was supposed 

to do something that I couldn't 

--I couldn't--figure--I stopped and gave 

a ride to a girl with no face and no memory,

when she got in we were walking

different streets.

there was no car. 

We're really far away

It's in a title somewhen
I had it all wrapped up
on tape this idea for fired machine
gun eggs on the roof of thanksgiving
where Michael Jackson was singing the
national anthem before dinner?

the thing was crystal diamond mind
set the actions rolling
WWII firearms the aircraft balling in
Christ I would have wasted them all
but I could only hold onto the belt
as the rounds blasted the hull
ringing in the new order
new year stuffed turkey, stuffing, cranberries

shit in death maw hell-fire
a dream misunderstanding, a dreary
appetite--

Learn the word choices
construction site--
reptilian monochrome fantasy apparatus

oh God lets just accept
oblivion why not? Fuck
sticking keys on fuck
oh hell oh hell this is beyond dimensional bop
i'm a jam janitor eating away
at the fabric pounding
ink into the barrier

BREAK IT DOWN--it's only about sitting still--

it it's the first/last/only/fucking/thing
we never do--22:21--time out
reconstitute at the dinner table couch
throw out the useful trash
DO NOT ACCEPT SUBJECTIVE TRUTH REALITY

COUNT THE CIRCLES. They're multiplying .

KEEP WATCH!--

Bitter Ruins

It ain't so bad when you get down to it
or it couldn't be worse
maybe. Fuck it, I'm out of words
for hell and gray clouds cross
the Potomac unseen
just faded like the windows
that glare at me from across
paved courtyards of crystal city,
without the crystal-like-non-emerald city

it's possible I wasn't given the recommended
dose at birth

they might come back looking for me
glasses in hand to right the wrong

it'll be on the black train of black sky I bet
when we're rolling into camp/home/life
somewheres out past Camp Hill, Pa

it'll be a reunion for all humanity
the truth serum brigade
looking up the madness, the crimes
against society, the spreading plague,
who has time for a trial when--

IT's FOR OUR OWN GOOD?

My coffee tastes even better cold.

The Typed Walls (typing)

typed walls
are taped up around
this room with
blood & shit to hold it,
they paint without me
why?
when I leave them, when I ignore
their falling pathetic deaths
each minute drifting out
toward the past a
screen windowsilled memory
descending on abandoned cars
that rumble north
hopeful of crumbling watch word
building promises and facades
these cars with no driver
this blood with no body

typed walls decay about
this room
in the moonlight-sunlight-
incandescent light
of what could be done
what won't ever be done

these typed walls
are invisible
never to be read
just discarded
like all poets should hope to be
withering and dying aimlessly
saying nothing in the end
a life taken to discover death
now accepting silence

one final grasp
at failure--

No one will remember me.

roof tops, stove tops

let this fade
on the wall
like a smell
from the kitchen stoves of my youth
a phantom memory
i can recall as falsely
as i've lived
under the scorn of skyscraper smiles
downtown
my highway maid
dances on open rooftops
old transparent friends
i
wore a dinner jacket
years ago, a year ago/?
maybe at a table, plated a lamb
a family a house
desperately searching (everyone seems
to be desperately searching somehow) for one
it was all new tho
before even whit
we sat down and ate
in strange silence all in
one room in laughter on
rooftops, and stove tops
gettin' ready to move on.

Tomorrow is another day to forget

Time is my absolute
a god image of my master
a fleeting blur of beyond
foretelling inevitable futures
all death all gone all dust all forgotten
on any calender and all this
mess
is wasted in us
we can't even envision the painting
as everything at once
as a forecast
showing immortal skies
seen at dawn and dusk of beginning
                                       and end of times
we've lived through apocalypse
birth
rebirth
resurrection
the shells contain information
bags of flesh carrying us through the soup
prescient inter-dimensional soup
coddling us and we allow that shit
afraid of imaginary a concept
as death, ordinary
                            I kiss the mask
over our eyes at night
make sure it's snug
tomorrow is another day to forget.

Stirring

The first sip of Guinness and
a toast to the empty
bowels of this tipping universe,
I wipe the drip from
my chin with the back of my
hand like a ritual of earthliness,
of the ugliness of stark American
realities, at my table alone,
set in the back, masked by laughter
and drunken cheer,
it's a triumphantly sad gasp
calling out to those who'd found their way
across this land that's always been,
singing boozing passing by,
living breathing loving
humbly truly every moment

Punch in

There's a faint waxy sensation
on the tip of her fingers
running down over her
pearly soft knuckles, feels
like melting crayons
as she hits the doorbell-
machine-gun-call-box,
swings her head to the
rhythm of creaking wind chimes
waning beyond the walls,
the open closet cell--she's unsure
of the next step, what's come
and what's to go--"we aren't supposed
to know what to decide on, how to
proceed"--which she didn't at once
say to the metal men exiting with
dull eyes grayed over with the
program silver needle spikes--
it's a kick, a cause, a bore, it's whatever--
was more like it, she thought
that's more what I would think, yes,
me exactly how could I forget,

she's in line for the full coat
packaged with every luxury
at no extra cost--
There's a whole factory
at work and the labor
never dries up.

Old Man

I about to end up like
Old Man Molineaux--

pants at my ankles with the coming
dusk, stained long-johns
swishing what's left of the last beer,
shouting on sundays in
the main street of some
street-less dusty town, sucked dry
of life and withered,
I'm about to give into the old man's
ghost, and the ghosts came before him,
watch the torn and bleeding feet of the
leather man as he migrates
through the great northeast
a lonely french-canadian mystery soul,
my wind is catching up, pulling
at the upraised blinds--

I'm in my underwear
before a room length window
to the concrete cold world,
cracking open the first beer
of the night.

Jack, Go Home!

Listen son I never had
a child make it this far into the
diamond rough of this quickening
world and never had one that thought
or wanted to anyways, you see
there's some...shit...there's some hellish
wonderful peaceful thing still out
there it's...God dammit, well it hasn't been
caught yet and it keeps on going
into the distance that's ever widening
a gash peering into the void,

a few have seen it
and suffering have tried to make others
see ending up bleary and ulcer-ed
in the cold water flats of long ago dreams
offering their lives to us asking nothing
in return but that we listen,
that we remember,

fuck maybe even Buddha knew nirvana was
unattainable but for a few, and maybe that's the
real karma curse of living and rebirth,
losing those loving souls
to the Tathagata nothingness of the wind,
like cruel creatures struggling blindly
through the haze of temporal time splat,
there's an end coming, there's a dedication somewhere
and the road we're on is
endless--

If I don't get out there soon I'll die

Close as many roads as you like
I imagine one straight golden line
leading out to the coast through
leaning wheat stacked plains and closed
snow covered mountain passes,
trees taller than the buildings
sent to suffocate and teach me
to keep my head down, teach ya to ignore
the sky, walk on walk on walk on
searching aging dying calling
out into the sweet dark American night
that still smells sometimes like that
greasy sweat we used to know
and weren't afraid enough to ignore, labor
sweat and poet's sweat and jazz-man sweat that'd seeped into
the life blood of the continent unnoticed--
before it was paved and potted with
new factory blend soil and re-branded
old, meaningless, bygone and tired,
meant to be looked at out the periphery
of embarrassed eyes and dry throats--

if ya let it, it'll spill its secrets,
its true self unadorned
I'll walk into the night for the rivers
and sounds unheard,
I'll get out there and find you--
god knows I'll try

Toast

one last can of beer
it's 1pm on the oval
marker slouch traffic
corridor--meaningless
barricade barrage of
cannon fodder--I'll finish it
up right quick boy--my
material fixation, my
preoccupation on completing
no work--on drowning in
my obscure reality

it's a day of getting warmer
watching the sun dry out
the molten core of the hearts
beating 12 storeys down there--

a toast and all that
and fuck'em but
my spit hits the balcony
instead
and I give up
decide to lay down

break my pencil with
one easy tilt toward the floor.

Take a Hike

on a perpendicular street
off the main highway drag
up about one block--no parking on
either side--
the waiters are crooning
to the scents of the classic
american breakfast-- two eggs-
two sausage-two bacon-two pancakes-
side of home fries and hot coffee served
steaming from the pot-butter popping on
the flat iron grill--and
scattered tables of one
sit patiently ingesting the newspaper
news and the tv news and
hushed conversational news, it
seems like it always was the same but
it isn't-- it's older and newer
in a way that isn't approachable
or recognizable--the past is a concrete
existence that's wholly untouchable
a destination that can't pointed out--

the ceiling is reflected pockmarked and
stained in the shiny metal trimmed
tables refracted underneath--we're all wearing
black but ya just can't see
the dripping white shadows,

the melancholy distances we've gone.

Ticket is a one way gig

at the forefront of the
descending universe I wait for you
the same way I've always waited,
my body aging, my mind reaching like
bending light leans toward the ascension-
engine of the godhead in the
awakening that is near--oh, I am
spoiled by sleep that is nearer, easier
makes my lies sweeter
in syracuse the streets are white
in dc they are strewn with homeless dreaming
they don't make sense

I plan on waiting out the wind,
to watch the layers mesh
in contrail skies,
to suck the life from chemically laced water fountain
speed,

I plan to get a ticket on that greyhound
headed for the center of universal
truth.

as Dying

a single plane rising
into the wet night, storm clouds
veering off--why even give them
a name, ya--why waste the
time for headline-thought-line-
hook-line-and-sinker--for the
ratings game, no? for reality
shifting seduction--

please press enter
enter enter enter on the
start menu menu

one button finish finish
once you're in it doesn't matter
doesn't turn off for 70+ - 80+ years

it's why Keats lost it that's why Burroughs
just wouldn't die and why Kesey
disappeared into the ether of
northern Oregon,

I've got in sealed up in my brain too
those building blocks those sinister
ideas planted and watered like
bleak flowers without dreams of sun,

within the
prison system brain funnel fire-hydrant
plan--it's what's moving the storm--I'm
swelling up, allergic to the scene
get the mind-freeze cocktail
recipe out the trash
We'll all drink up under these
no-stars no-moon skies
c'mon there was never anything to lose
and no such thing--

Snow Day

They'll protect us from the
rain by locking each and every roof
exit protect the stars too
and the lonely sky while they're at it
cause we're dangerously dangerous
if we go on thinking what's that
above our shrinking heads
not on the mud and green
ground that sucks at our feet--like
let's go about blaming invisible things
for why we're stuck on this never
ending circle why don't we?-- we'll never be able to
prove it's a circle with our own
little blue teary 100-year-eyes and mist--
it's human like in the gray rain of rainy
forecasts that are so damned wrong but always
trusted--oh, hell I mean where else can
a guy go for this kinda insight and it's no-
where but a day off from work --
or wage slavery or sold into wage soulless
drudgery--or sleeping indoors,
or whatever--
yeah, I've said more than I care to understand
or prove but, well, I'd like to think
I rambled my way to another 24 hour
let down
and an unmade bed.

Plug in

Quickly to the live feed
stab your brain in and let
the truth in, it's delicious
candy flavored this time I saw the
Jujyfruit advertisement last night
during the sponsored news hour that runs from
12 to 12 on the DOT
just so you don't have to take
a break to think of
something that isn't bleeding
from this thought construct playground,
anyway, plug in, like I said
it's objective reality, only the
real here folks promise, only that which needs
to be said--for your informative
brains, for your information--
interrupting every broadcast
right before the climax
to find some other conflict
some other preconditioned memory lapse,
maybe it'll be better told by
a pretty face--a holographic smile--
a senile whimper, a considerate nod--
let these LCD cemeteries increase the speed of light
beamed down from the classical age,
apathy and entropy and colored
sprinkles on your after-dinner ice-
cream sundae--ordered before the
phone was conjured out of primordial
birth fields--NOW
Quickly to the live feed
it starts any minute on the minute
every minute
NOW

Afternoons

So when I start a
poem like this
in the dying embers of Saturday
afternoons among the
static powder clouds of
the skyline straight-line
concrete earth, I think
of the heart of the river
that flows and beats not so far away,
I think of its end for one
land and its prophesy for
the beginning of the new,
I think of dipping my hand in-
to its great immemorial current
that follows gods finger carved
to the sea, and before the lights go
out I am somehow content in
all my sadness and the moon shines
over eastern lands.

Doodles

I had a scribbled
scrawled scratch lifeless on some
paper that's lost its meaning
in the lines of nothing perpetually
undefined. It's a cause for madness
a breach into the eternal transference
of void to reality
a clock image for my brain--a frozen
static thought--staring into
the eyes that
gave it life--but no hope
in naming it--with no name
no function, no guard, nor power,
it's existence traveled  in an
after-belief sepulchre ignored,

I am as forgotten
as it will be,
I have played god and
failed, lacking truth,

I have left the hands ticking
ticking ticking ticking, weakness--
ruling eons ending life--I have
no reason to rejoice or cry,

This sad shred crumbled in
a thousand years out of loneliness,
I yearn to see it buried

I will raise a blank tombstone
over its grave
and burn a history of roses.

Fanatics make things up to make themselves feel better, yep

checked my watch
at 9:11 preconditioned to
dismantle the codex or repeat the
signal out to falling buildings
reassuring its eyeless audience
that science is stalking the night
there's no way outdoors
and
fuck who would want to?
in this glorious controlled
environment we entitle ourselves too
with our rights and force the
powerful to bend to
our every whim and word
because they can't do anything without us

and I am called delusional
because I wash your
windows at night gorging
on pop culture pop corn in-
formational sessions held in the
deepest halls of the tempted
schools of thought erosion--sodium
bicarbonate is ejaculated onto
the scene and wipe it
up with them rags we've misplaced
into our back pocket logs
if you can't find it no big deal
its got built in gps clone
rfid chip technology running
off the electrical current of our brain
and they
only say it takes 40 years off your life!
for all that convenience?

I'd like to believe it
but it sounds made up...

Kesey says Holmes says GO

Git west free
rollin' spirit of green
vast rumbling hills and
grand rivers and white capped
mountain ranges you can't even
dream about tho you try
to come to some
semblance of
under-
standing the thing//is
it's out there
even if we're to pretend it
ain't, it's stretching farther
it's brighter than it
was not duller darker
it's a mystery again
a frontier
we're all forgetting on
purpose to remain in
our place--but I won't
I'll keep reaching for whichever
coast is further--it's a
state of mind--it's a distance--
it's a memory of what
used to be

White wall haiku

under stars
we walked
an empty street

the snow fell
as white crystals
under blank street lights

against your chest
I listened to the
emptiness in my head

walked out at dusk
the day had
passed me by

against the full moon
snowy streets blinked
my tea was frozen

two chairs alone
on a balcony
a wintry afternoon

drifting clouds
melting snow
construction hurries on

if i watch
close enough
the sky melts

from the window
a maze of concrete
no trees

there's a car somewhere
meant to carry us
to the end of the world

after everything is said
I'll wash my hair
in Pacific baptism

A Few of these have titles

Jack walks past a statue in NYC
by a park
a picture snapped
under the new mexico desert
great drills terrible roar and grind
forging the horror tunnels
beyond man
further the gate
of misunderstanding
the god misinformation

how to fight a holy war against heavenly beings?

the practice of ignorance
is the greatest feat of modern man
or what we say is modern man
modern,
what the books tell us occurred
the prophets said
this is about to occur,
I invented it all in my head
one night when the acid
forced lightening
from Joe's breath

I understand the tv creates
imagined world community
the internet imagined freedom
I want neither
I'll post that on facebook
so everyone will share
0 likes, it's only just begun,

under the desert Dulce sweet
they fight a losing war
Jack is sick in florida 1969
he won't make it
Neal won't make it out of Mexico
will we make it to the coast?
when I cross the Rockies
I swear to shout as loud as God
at those rising giants
those youthful monsters,
I'll live 10,000 lifetimes
I'll dive into the Pacific expanse
FREE

Thieves and grave robbers

A cramped up fascist
dream on beige towers
hidden in plain sight
with school and church
and fast food franchises
lurking adjacent to that
sinking gold vault below sinking
into the black void dragging
everything and existence
with it to spoil degrade
deviate boil--there's no
grass left in the court yard
and the gaping hole in the
sky is blue suffocated by
swirling gray masses
and it's so close to the ceiling
help can't fall through--it's time
locked to forever, our gift to
ourselves--only the security guards
laugh--what they're guarding? who the
fuck knows--
some treasures are better left to
the thieves and grave robbers

Fever

I've lived with cats so long
I push back every chair
with guilt &
my shoes are always
crushed rubies and sandpaper
on your old rug
with the purple lock on
the corner cabinet painted white
creaking ancient painted white
cabinet that
wakes all ears and shouts into
garish night time scenes,
"take me! take me too!
where has it all gone?
and we are so lonesome,
loathsome creatures with nothing
but our own faults and forgotten
beliefs! Traveling madly throughout
linear prismatic time! Abandoned
walking hunched clouds
that were once flesh and mind
and soul
BREATHING!"
Am I screaming? or are
those shadows on the cabinet
door?

All gone, all gone
and fed and chewed &
gone...

My shoes are over the balcony
the rain like ghouls
take them shred them
the chair blue tweed patterned
grinds and howls into the
nght

and stirs no one
just me, listening, waiting
moving on,
just me

To

Dayton where
I left my hat

Dayton where
America starts, roaring
west

Dayton when we
needed more road
you had it

Dayton where the
hotels force you
on your way

Dayton as the sun
comes up gray smelling
like the the highway
never ending

Dayton that
promised us if we'd just
keep going we'd find something

Dayton because
we did

Dayton that's unforgiving
and never grows young
or old

Dayton where my
hat found someone
else's head

Dayton a gift
and a day forever
making way

Dayton that welcomed us
and waved good bye

Just a second and I'll finish that sentence

     a dozen roads
end in straight lines
headed east
the pentagon is a five-
sided wall of counter-
perceptive cement piled high
on top of whirling heads--ruby red grapefruit
isn't a faultless circle on
the periphery--but it can be made
to seem natural if you'd like
it--so cover up with the sandbox
sand, it comes home from
hospitals too--on special,
crimson special and the prescient
silence--I can't see Jeff
but I hear'em going south
disguised, disgruntled
ready to shift--to be shipped
to the next locale--the further
on down the line bubble--probably up
past all those stick white graves
and the BOMB--close to that enemy border--
charred gray and towering
ruins--eating everything BOMB
getting close BOMB to my afterthought
when we're gone gone and I'm
a set of teeth for the dental records
screaming I was right I was right
I was
Right
I was right!

I'm Home

Do I honestly believe
I can
follow you anywhere
along the
red river trolley
lines
but a stop is requested
no stops are ever requested
on
this line down past
the surface of the bank
vault front
don't
        worry
               so much I left my
money inside like a good boy
like
everyone else-- you won't
wait up drifting thought
sky like
knives on screen door
dreaming
swinging dreaming
              I'm gonna hitch
a ride on the next car thru
and
pick you
up at the station
the only station in
town
where the old couple becomes
the new couple
in front of bunk bed
stacks
the cave where gypsy
spray paints nonsense on
the walls
telling
us about the fantasy
in ketchup/mustard
X's
I must be here/arrived
I mustn't be lost

They picked all the apples
years before
in the future and ate them
backwards in time--
I like the smell
of their never once were
existence--

They'll make nice trophies along
my roof

From the river I see the cells
and people waving
I'm home
forgetting we were supposed to
meet

Mom

These words are for my mother
a continuous ramble
dedicated from the womb
to my eventuality

I would pull the plug to
watch us drown
     I would drop the bomb on
     our ashes, like the match
to wash us out

All my poems are one story
of my failure & my
     mother's success
they are love unconditionally
and blind faith

I am humanity
& life & stupidity--
I have suffered ignorance
& regret

She has held me & lost me
mother, the earth,
the thought of home & the
     heart

read this like the lines
between the lines on my
aged face

I am untrustworthy
a liar out of cause
stack the boxes memory & thoughts
since the dirge we
sang of time

I wish for the innocence
you left in me
a boy already running
out of his ideas,
     words begin to die the
     moment we are born--

I've wasted every thought
every letter of the alphabet,
countless times, on myself
I am selfish
I wander without care

I will fade
I will find a way

I leave everything
I am for you
everything

Mother.

Quickly Now, All's Quiet

Army generals guard the
green carpeted bowels of
Crystal Plaza now & just
like everywhere zealously protect
& fellate the establishment cock like
this gray haired asshole in blue who tries
to keep me out by slamming the
auto lock door, but I grab it
before it smacks the little old
woman walking behind him, who is
off to shop pulling her cart behind
her, "Thank you so much," She says
in grandmotherly voice for the save & the
door, with the general looking ahead
uncaring of the masses suffering, only
marking our names on his
precious concentration camp list
     "Thanks Asshole!" I yell before
he reaches the double door escape
to the mall and's out of earshot, "Mark
mine down in red fucking pen!."

Little Ant

Little red ant
on my coffee cup
wind can't blow you off,
I did, near the crushed
whole stick of gum that
defies time you fell a
million million centimeters,

I'm sorry,
the lid was open,
the coffee hot,
It's going to pour tonight

Coat this damned earth
in pre-spring rain, the clocks are
jumping back, the sunlight
is lilac-dandelion mystery in
the swarming southern clouds,

Kerouac said this once

Just realized
--I wrote a poem
at 28th & East River in NYC
2011, 60 years after
Kerouac in 1952 sketched
the scene, sitting at same
location temporal shift, tho for
me it was urban oasis new dog-park
walking under Robert Moses planned highway,
for Kerouac it was still pure shipyard,
maybe (I watch a tourist
river cruise leave at 1230
every tues. & thurs.) the river
was brown & gray, in the bend
of time we painted same image
a scene of shifting life, but the flow
remains, it's New York after all,
it's the East River for sure,
there was trash, there was graffiti,
there was beauty.

Two Orange Parking Cones at War

Now one cone is at 90 degree (?) angle
pushed over, moved by hose--
for gasoline(?) refill--and instead of
teamwork it looks like one cone is
stabbing the other a mortal blow
he's crumbling,
Mordred and Arthur.