Upon Waking

I'll lie naked with you
reading Finnegan's Wake,

we'll  fuck pretentiously
as the late afternoon sun
devours the dying embers
of your body,

there'll be quiet in all directions
the streets empty containers

a feeling like the void
where there should be none,

afterwards
I'll drink coffee
by the cold window
my hand on the glass
feeling the bitter air
on my palm, the warmth
of the heat on my body,

the world is through with
being poor, I am through
trying to be anything but,

I'll wear long johns
and a t-shirt, you'll look at me
with sad, tired sonorous eyes,

leftovers will be hardening
on the table, drying out
becoming impossible to clean,

I'll pick up Wake where I left off,
You'll close your eyes to the world,

we'll march off together of two minds,
accepting the night's end,
refusing what's next.

I Dwell in Milk

NOW

I AM SPEAKING

I AM ART

THE SKY IS ONE WITH
MY VISION
MY VISIONING
MY VISIONARY SOUL

I HAVE TRANSCENDED
                                          to what?
I ask the ether
TO NOWHERE
                                          is [her] answer
WHERE EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING
AT ONCE
I see it all--
                  or I can tell what's missing
I AM TRUSTWORTHY
                                       for
                                   the first
                                      time
I (EXIST) PURELY WITH EVERYONE
I AM BEAUTIFUL
ALONE
TOGETHER
EVER
EVER

I saw the sun fall past the horizon
screaming out the name

I HAVE BURNED AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

I AM MITHRA

I
BRING
BACK
FIRE
TO
LIGHT
THE
EARTH
EVERLASTING

I am tormented by dreams I know aren't real

you fall asleep in my arms,

as am tormented by dreams
I know aren't real,

we each survive
one revolution
of the infinite

then blackness

I feel your skin as
it melts into mine

there is nothing sadder than time,
said the old gods,
How do I know?

I am one of them

believe in me,
I have one grand trick yet to play,

It is a flower in a meadow
on a continent, between oceans,
on a planet hurtling toward oblivion,

It is a black hole chorus only for you.

The men take my eyes and go

my right eye feels heavy,
it twitches, argh,
I'm killing it, I'm going blind,

am I going blind?

remove your glasses,
eye sinks into skull,
I'm laying on my back,
trying to relax, it's not working,

there's jazz vomiting from
the black box stealing my view,
I suspect it, it watches me,
blazes a million invisible bulbs
into my eye, spears of light
and tiring hate,

put your glasses back on,
screen won't go any duller,
I'm forced to stay leaning on
my elbow, it's getting numb
so I return to my back,

the ceiling looks far away,
it's funny like that and white,
I watch it for a long time
until I don't.

Scripted

I need to stop taking the metro,
it's giving me a big head,
I'm the smartest character on the show,
watching everyone, judging,
I'm reading my great books!
thinking my great thoughts!
and there they are
being worthless, scouring the
newspaper, doing the crosswords,
sudoku, maybe they're doing it
for me I think sometimes, but they
aren't, I still think it though,
maybe it's proof the world's only
in my mind/body/mind and I want to
be the smartest,
I am sad they are missing out,
having no free will, listening to the
drone of their own brain,
I thank them when I get off
at my stop with a nod,
I'm sure it's the last stop and
they go comatose and fold into the blackness,
I decide to check tomorrow morning
to see if the faces are the same,
but I don't care enough to remember them
tonight,
they exist only to appease me in
the knowledge that I am knowing
greater things, that is enough
for them, to be a part of my narrative,
they are faceless pixels hurtling
nowhere, whereas I am beautiful,
going everywhere, understanding all,
they live on my breath, I can feel the universe
expanding inside me, I try to force my consciousness
from my head, it goes elsewhere,
someone is reading Twilight,
I scoff, the bell rings, the door opens
I step out, there is a feeling of relief or
release, or both, there are people
that don't know me shuffling about,
I eclipse them, the station breathes out,
shrinks before me, it is night
the metros eyes go blank,
my audience awaits the morning

Dream Book

I am going to start
a new notebook for dreams
but I do not. I leave it in my
room sitting on a shelf, I leave it
empty, I walk out and close the
door behind me. I do this slowly, I use my foot to
brace the weight so the door won't slam,
I am carrying many things.
They are usual things:
clothes, books, shoulder bag, jacket,
computer.

I head downstairs, cross the lobby
and then back upstairs to the fifth floor
on the opposite side, there are two connected
towers that make up the building, I live on the south end.

Felicia is waiting for me in the north, she's tired
and ready for bed. I just got back from
a three hour bus ride, but it is late,
I guess, so let her go to sleep
without much complaining.

I sit up for a while in the dark listening
to the heater hum, feel the building
relax under the weight of the night,
until I am tired enough to close
my eyes.

During the night, I am dreamless.
I have no reality.

I make a note to remind myself
in the morning but it's lost along the way,
I do not remember why,

I had no paper anyway.

I am a sinking spirit married to the world.

WV Stars

At edge of road
                         big dipper casts points
down on you and
                           awww you gotta look
up, man, up
                  into those stars & focus,

you'll see it
                 moving toward us

Heaven,

             I mean, and know

Every star is older than me,
     and I am older than the universe,

I've gone too far tho
to far to call back, to be heard,
     and my voice is frail now,
                             human.

who watched the stars before
                           we were born?
Why have they drifted so far
                           away?

Jotting notes

1. Cracks in ceiling
      holes in sky

2. Conversations thru walls
      footsteps on stairs

3. Sun hides from its brothers
      behind the earth
        innocent stars

4. I can't escape
      drone of modern man

5. River bed is untouchable
      no trespassing on
        God's private land

6. You'll take my words or money
      both kill the soul

Broke down Broke

A lonely taxi
an island in the right lane
a kidney stone
to be passed,
but not helped
not pushed to the side,
an hour behind schedule,
angry traffic
angry northern trek,
cars diverge to
hidden destinations,
swerve to shoulder,
hit the breaks,
a continuous line
DC to Baltimore
parkway sad red lights
faded out,

can you imagine taking a bus out west?
she says,

I can imagine it,
I can imagine anything,

my mind, my body.

There is slmething about it

You leave messages
for me at 3 am
in a night so far away,

I'm dreaming of places
I won't remember,
soul ticking like the clock
turning in on itself,
running out, counting down,

this all happening at once
outside my control
while the snow drifts, melts,
freezes, makes hell,
this all happening to no one
and everyone all the same,
neverending

laughter, sorrow
happiness, regret,

are words
everything is words
torn up, chewed bitterly, spit out,
repackaged, resent

it's easy, see?--

"Nothing
                ever
                        happened--
not
even
this."

Dream Soap

Dreamt I ate a ton of
vanilla (coconut?) scented
soap, quickly found a toilet
quickly vomited, heaving,
mouth dry, tasted it all when
it came up, when I woke up,
took a quick drink and
tried to remember why I'd eaten
it, no clue, took another drink,
no idea, another drink,
gave up trying, another drink,
should have eaten the apple
scented soap instead.

They were playing Frisbee, I wonder what that means?

keep thinking of the rat,
that one on the bench in university park,
its brains eaten out,
eyes gone,
covered in flies,

I stood there a moment staring,
strange and dead,
weightless, I lost my appetite,
insects crawled in and out of the carcass,

I was no help.

It's a shame some scientist didn't find it first.

Call

living sigil hyper-sigil
five men five motives
small fishing town
the year is 1922
something amiss (no french fries)
missing bodies
impenetrable darkness
gas lantern vigils
in the night,
crashing waves on the shore
bitter cold hurricane winds

soon it'll be morning
soon the act will be up,
the horror the doom,

the unknown--

"the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind..."

fear.

why's that drive called crystal clear sky?

i wonder if starbug
can handle the coming
storm, all alone down
there on that side street
parallel to route 1,
snow prepared to drop
whatever inches on
whatever lands, empty lot
free parking, half mile
away, i can't help but see the curve
of the road out my window,
i'm already planning diner
coffee tomorrow, 5 inches
is enough, i'll tell ya, 5 inches
7am rush hour winter weather
alert, advisory, watch, warning
i walked along the banks of the
pavement stream, the contrails
fading out, the blue skies aren't usual
i don't think before snowstorm clouds,
i'm used to white dull foreboding
emptiness, i hope i'm not
plowed in tomorrow

you should only drink white wine Jack, that'll kill ya

1
there's a video of someone
toasting don Quixote
with a bottle of port,
I thought I knew him,
both him and the knight,
but time lost them to me,
lost them, in something,
it's something, there's
something in particular that
I'm forgetting, something
that'd clear it all up,
the confused memory,

2
last night a memory of
my younger brother staggered
through the door, drunk, vomiting,
he asked me, "please don't leave,"
a dying ember in my soul,
he slept over the toilet bowl
silently, leaning on my legs,
I realized he'd grown up and
somehow I'd missed it, those years
in between, I wonder what he sees when
he looks at me, does he know why I'm
here? Do I?

3
I couldn't take my hand off his back
like if I let go all those years would go,
like if I stayed I could have them all back,
I'd trade it all I thought, I wanted to hold him
like the little boy I'd known in our fantastic superhero
days, in our dreams and stories, but he was gone
from me, like the memory and the statue
and former selves and time,

4
I helped him to the living room,
listened to him snore into the night, he was
someone I wanted to know, it was 4 am

5
I removed myself from the cold
from the moonlight aching through the night
I removed myself from sleeplessness

6
a nightlight flickering
left at 6am
to meet the morning alone

map

today

3 hours south,
light in my eyes

I shifted the visor
at every turn

but sun shone
relentlessly taking
refuge from my defenses
at the corner of the windshield
impossible corner
sun shining

95
495
13
1
301
50
95
495
1

just off jeff davis
daylight fading

137

tonight

Count backwards, I'll be waiting

some graffiti from the 1970s,
unreadable, a crumbling wall
reinforced, most likely older,
it's a photograph circa 1978;

lights are out, fusebox something-
something-or-other too technical
to care about about--I've got other things
going on--woke up itching all over,
was it all in my mind, I dunno, but

it felt like it.

fell asleep suddenly at 10,
strange dream (I don't really care
to get into it) at 5:30 awoke suddenly*

*recall last stanza ~Tom

got a shower, half sleeping
half confused,

the sun was yet to break the horizon,
I closed my eyes, hair yet to dry,
two more hours, who knows?

two more hours.

Orange Joyce

A few things

happening at once

the fog is orange outside

orange tint from street lights

CAPITAL LETTERS

I can see each individual dew drop

hanging like clouds beyond my reach

a police siren reflected in my window pane

looking south facing north

sound doesn't travel far enough to reach

I can only hear the still nothingness of the night

A few things to think about

I roll over and turn on my bedside light

Joyce looking at me through strange spectacled eyes

a photo from a cover printed in 1961

from my beige carpeted floor

through gulfs of time

through the fog of years

A few things

One of these is bound to be a keeper

and
if I look at it that way
I'll keep writing

Seagulls take to the skies, Men take to their graves

I caught a glimpse of myself
on an empty field, it wasn't the same
field then or the same self I am now,
but I saw something in his smile
I remembered, saw something
in the way he carried himself, how he cried out,
running, jumping, running, chasing
groups of harried seagulls,
laughing as they flapped and spun
around him in the air, I watched him
staring off into the sky as they
disappeared into the shiny gray ether above
afraid to move, afraid to lose the vision,
I wondered if he saw me too as he
turned around to chase them again
at the other end of the old faded field,
I wondered if he'd even notice me there
far off in the future a hundred miles,
a hundred millions memories away,
I wondered what he would say to the sad
old man crying for him someday.

Prison

there's long legs on the 5th floor
depending where you look,
no heat in the hallway
up the stairs, it's raining
outside, tho I can't seem to
remember how that feels, by that
I mean not just the silent drops,
gray colors, smells of wet pavement
cars splashing in the road,
but what it feel like on your skin
when you care, or don't care to
bother with it, when its some magical
thing and not a steadily moving force of
 pixelated colors on a map
on a screen on an image running through
fiber optic cables to eyes, synapes
brain, a nuisance or otherwise--this
is where the wipers come in--what
I'm trying to say, what I mean is
the rain has divorced itself from me,
I have lost it's earthiness, it's life,
there are walls and days gone by
there is this and only this
cool and dry.

Departure

Must have imagined
those last three lines,
sleeping on your floor,

two days have passed
and I'm older, you're older

than I thought, but maybe
that's because I'm selfish,
or because I can't count,

It doesn't matter to me
(the part about how old you are)
it doesn't matter to me
(because I don't care)

I've forgotten all that stuff
long ago,

I've aged accordingly.

Dry

NobooodyknowshowdryIam
noooooooobodyknowshowdry
twobottlesoldfriendsoverwebcam
dreamingofsomewhereelseruined
dreamsnolongerfriendsTHINKING
THERE'SSOMETHINGWRONG
aboutthisWHOLEMESSeatingAWAY
I'mnotonetosayhowwe'vegonethisway
orwhosefaultitisjustthatmaybeIT'SGONE
it'sDRYnoonewillingtoadmitit'sallstuck
togetherallonesadwordinterconnected
toomanycontributingfactorstoomanyyears
toomuchdistancetoomanyunsaidthingshurtful
thingsliesdecisionsthoughtsANCHORStothe
pastI'mlookingoutintothedesertwatching
Iwanttounderstandbreakitapartbutit'slike
aknottiedsotightlikeabookofknotsrestingon
windowsilllikeanotherlifesofarawayandfading
likenobodyknowshowdryIam
nooooobodyknowshowdry

Crystal Drive

They tell you to pull up,
watch the double park baby,
but you do it anyway,
no look, 'cause fuck it, right? who
wants to wait out in the cold
driving around to find a single
space, when no one's gonna
drop the ball on the surveillance
gig, got it?

It's a two mile walk, dig?

below zero, cloud cover
straight line jig,

gotta prep yourself for the cold
and eat it,

there ain't no other option.

Good Night Who

Next episode, eventhough
I knew I wasn't going to make it,

a familiar theme replays,
so I rest my eyes,

your leg stretched across my chest,
bedside light turned down, cooling,

tucked my face away under your warm thigh,
the heater droned on and on, as always

you're silently typing on ipad screens
I'm drifting off to dreams.

Little Toot Young

"I got something I ain't said,
a hidden little gem, held
secret, swept aside, under
the great stone bridges up in that
great northeast.

"It's a $180 a week
proposition, signed in
name, black over white,
capital letter gain,

"I'm a slum lord,
everything the other guy
wants to be,

"I got the collateral
to move on the banks,
to pick up that endless gain,
on the loans, on the lives,
on the floors, stairs, doors,
kitches, bedrooms, living
rooms, section 8,

"I'm a slumlord.
I'm a slumlord,
taking my father's place"

Bilbo Baggins

Chase goes, "punch it V!"
with the car in neutral outside
empanada joint on Dupont Circle
accompanied by chants in the backseat
to the tune of "Doop", drinks wearing on
us but wearing thin, one more bar to
go, in VA this time, old town,
Virginia, someplace waiting in
the bitter darkness of record
breaking night, it's 15 below,
it's gonna be hell walking
a mile after parking the car,
but that's later on, nothing to worry about
now but the next brew, the next
syrupy glass (I'm drinking porters
or stouts tonight) So, V guns the lifeless
car for nothing, Chase giggling, "C'mon
Vitaly go!" shift the gear, head south
for one more go, stay in line,
don't kill us, we know the way,
King Street, Queen Street, open
spots, how much longer til
the next last call?

Stop me if you've heard it.

Where had I heard this
one before? I couldn't
quite get a grip--the temperature
was dropping prematurely,
the lines were all fucked up--

I was used to falling by now,
failing by just this much, enough
to tell you about it, or her about it,
or whatever, I had it on the line
this time and dropped it,

                          now I'm telling you
that first thought it was an old joke,
one that rings inside your head,
not quite funny enough to
make you laugh, not quite sad
enough to make you cry.

Sunday Dryin'

right lane exit only
mall road gray sky
watch construction
no left shoulder next
5 miles,

no bodies out in the cold
just impenetrable car windshields
reflecting clouds overhead,

it's been 16 weeks
since there's been any reason
to head out on a Sunday.

3 Hours to go

Stopped in roadside wawa
US-50 East toward Bay Bridge to
hit ATM for toll money,
got coffee instead wondering if I should
get gas, maybe breakfast, walked out
into cold morning weather
hopped in car merged into
traffic remembered why I had stopped
pulled off, followed twisted roads
attempting to reverse engineer
direction for return trip, found 7-11,
took out money, didn't bother to look around,
found my way back, blew into cold hands
knees on the wheel, sip of coffee,
turned up billy joel, headed for Pennsylvania.

Double parking zone

They tell you to pull up,
watch the double park baby,
but you do it anyway
'cause fuck it, right? who
wants to wait out in the cold
driving around to find a single
space, when no one's gonna
take that spot behind you in
ten fucking minutes you'll be
gone, but guess what? you
come out of the store and sure
as hell some asshole pulled right in
and you gotta squeeze your way out
in time cars in adjacent spots and lined behind
but one small opening you're not
sure the car can fit between
better move before that last opening is filled
out and you're up shit's crick for
the night sitting in a cold car
cold night cold stars, hoping this
isn't apartment parking, hoping it'll be soon,
it's getting later, time to go on, look out
kid, huh? keep telling yourself
it'll be alright.

(Parentheses)

(untitled post) insert here
make rainbow streaks
outside the lines/fill in with
pencil dark--but not too dark--
the scanner won't catch the lines
bright colors/heaven,
skip that last track it's cutting into
my arms--wrists--veins--
eating me from the outside--in--
upset stomach, cold hands
reach out to God on the edge,
I am hammering away
at the glass but your world is
impenetrable--but you already knew
we'd never make it in--left puddles in
the cold--turn to ice--aren't so pretty
as when we left them
reflecting the sky--this painting--
this sketch--this memory00--
is a request is a sad upturned nose
is a passing remark etched into
hard skin--scarred tissue--scarred
skin--is fading away grown deeper
is no longer visible--am I a fool for
typing all this up? Is it coherent?
In a way I've lost my way I'm letting
my fingers go I'm getting close to the end
I'm typing cliffhanger

My New Year's Desolations

I imagine you'll be much taller
than the 6 miles ahead of me,

what have you been staring at
facing the canadian border
all these million years,
do you even realize there's a silly
line there now, that it's draw on
paper maps by men?

What is Hozomeen trying to say?
Is there anyone listening?

Joe said he's going to conquer you.
Can any man conquer a mountain?
Or does the mountain yield its secrets
to those worthy enough to seek its embrace?

I don't know about any of that, I guess maybe we'll
find out, or we'll try at least,

I imagine we'll try.