Failure

I had this poem
ready to go

thought it up
in the bathroom,

it had one great line

I forgot it
before I got here

and all I was left with,
was this,

a confession.

It'll have to do.

Flowers and Books, She never called

This guy grunts in
hallways,
he's a real monster
among the beige
walls that have no choice
but to look out at
one another perpetually,
each glob of paint is an
eyeball of the world,
is there many
or only one?

the building is
like a mobius strip,
lorded over by
men in trim dark
suits,

they feed the monster
it begs for food,
but eats too hungrily,
it's always hungry,

"that's what they say," said
that's what they say,  it was
what they were saying
down by the water cooler,
the monster doesn't go there
tho the walls do,

there's a book about it,
but it isn't published,
it would ruin the aesthetic,
so everyone agrees
and they scrapped it,

"that's what they say," there's
another book that includes the quotes
that know for sure, sadly that
one is all lies, it might even
be a hoax,

"the walls know," She says,
but she's a crazy one,

they took her away.

I didn't even cry,
mostly because I wasn't allowed
or can't recall how to be sad,

it's better that way,

we can avoid the monster
together,

"he was a man once," they said.

I heard that.

She said, "that's what they say."

But they still took her away.

Postulate

I cont-
inue t-
o cha-
se afte-
r things
that run
away,

blindly, I am
feeling and m-
easuring, groping
and assuring
myself of right
choices, wrong
roads,

I look back
and years have
gone--knowing
there is something
chasing me too--
grim and black--
seething--

I am gambling on it
never catching up,

I know I'll lose that bet,
but I've forgotten
how to stop running
forward--I've forgotten
which way my life's
supposed to lead--
so I just go

tethered to shadows
maybe, maybe to
a lingering dream,

as long as I don-
't stop to think about
it, I should be fine.

It remembers my password

Search:
                     Right
images:

I'm tagged in (1)

[is the face in the mirror
the one you're allowed to see?]

mine is smiling
without pretense

I hope (at least)
we haven't checked
our backlog yet
--in a while--

notifications waiting
piling up
kb/mb/gb/love

how many
waiting?

[have you ever stopped
and looked yourself in
the eye?]

for 30 years I thought
mine were brown (they're hazel)

Central heterochromia - is an eye condition that
does not interfere with a person's eyesight.

we are wrapped in
social media tears
you and I and all
of us we you and
me

faces recognized
locations checked-
in

I am signing on the
login screen I am
checking all the boxes
one x one
so
it remembers what
I've done.

Sci-Fi Pome

New/olD
transmissions
innerspace tech
ringing ear/
phones/
resemble/burnt
out hulls
ships scuttled
in the asteroid belt

this way out/
law/they're on to
bury you/out to
have your booted
feet swing

over the dead dreary/
evening heads of
watching crowds
saturn's system
titan bounding
standing/still

launch escape
ring around
the moon

bounce comlink
off business satellite
bridges covered in
commercials disguised
as grafitti splashed
in Venus tomato juice

it's about women

the adds/going off
like rocket space
sextapes--

ancienT/Young
bones/flesh/
outer space shells
fully evolved madness
link consciousness
send souls through
spatial recognition
camera spread seed
'cross time stream
multidimentional platform

it's how we make it
as a thought-species

ring through sustainable
dwarf stars--radio lies--

humble marisian vagrants
hitching/ rainbow ruins

stellar-aftermath

Future/pasT/
confuse all words
are one word something
like a quote from before

remember when there
were roads, little one?

Neither do I.

Spells

you take all
the pieces left out
re-arranged on my
skin, cut them into
semi-circles

I watch lights
from your window
mimic the moon
cast shadows
on ingrown walls

they writhe like
my mind like living

BEING

I crush it all in
my hands like leaves
like plants as wind
screams through trees
a million years away
in a forest a thousand
years long

you run your tongue
up my arm and magenta
slivers of space cloud
my vision

there is a puzzle spread
on the floor that once
was me

I am tasked with
putting it back together
each

NIGHT

the villagers believe
it to be a curse, they
keep away--I am
spelled they say under
unwashed breaths--

with new eyes
you see naked into
the stars pull bodies
from cosmic dust

I can only handle one
task at a time,
so I chip chip away
at the dull rocks
with dull axe

TIRED

you watch as I fall to shredded
images, semi-circle plates
you are cooked and molded
perfect

I am all tongues and saliva
and sweat

sinking
sulking
summoning
sleep.

24 Gun Salute

through
the caramel colored
eye

sun streaked

paint stain
pulled across my
floor

trailing light

an amber bolt
of lightning splits
rainbow skies

shaking color

gun shots at
steady intervals
echo mourning dove cries

engines roar

memory of
steel and carbine
hearts of wood

carving death

Girl in the Purple Dress

I find you in my bed
at night

dreaming

follow you
my arm tight
around
your
waist

maybe sometimes
words between
us are lost

you have eyes like
opaque pools
of super novas

depthless

your legs are silk
thoughts
cool rivers
edge

your body against
mine is
my body

when you're not
looking I reach out
to
you

there is more I want to
say
in my
hands pulling back

there are memories
beyond my
memories

foolish little words
that aren't enough

Standing

Three days ago
                          there were whispers

many boulders
                           fall through time

often you'll catch them
                                      as feathers

in the corners
                        of your eye.

two days ago
                       you disappeared

along with the rest
                               of the human race

sucked through galactic straws
                                                at the very edge of time.

Yesterday I stood alone
                                       reaching into the void

all that's left now
                           stardust and empty seashells

echos of voices
                          faint sense of seeing eyes.

today I am nothing
                               but thick dark sky

fading comets
                       dying embers of universe

the final learned things
                                     shattered stone.

Some thing New

cut the tape
at the inch line
5.3 it is
weary wet weary
muggy buggy
balmy outside
windows fogged
so's it's guessing
on summer betting
on same ol' same
ol' sleek metal horns
and blue ribbon
shells falling robins
streak into sky
muster roll call taps

sequential images:

blackness
now dotted gray
a hammer
on the floor
a hand reaching
one touch
man or god
man dragging hold
a house
zooming up
shingles grayed and fading
gray eyes
sad gray eyes
raising hammer
sound explosion words
SMASH

music creeping in
sad torrent sound
but something else
sadder or just is
in is-ness of is-ing
or be-ing
a
re-spoil re-cut
effortlessly
now old is new
roles reversed

SMASH
sound explosion words
hand lifting hammer
happy blue eyes
blue syes
shingles new and gleaming
child lagging behind
boy or father
gentle touch
a hand reaching
to the floor
a hammer
now rusted gray
colorless

somewhere new.

Rejection Edits

I'm a stampede
of constant edits
on sentence won't
hold for my wrath
more black smooth
words hit floor
become red
bleed and disappear
forever
I am a guilty
executioner,
I ignore my mother
family friends
left in the dust of
history with only
words and burning
paper around me

I am cloaked in
half-dead dreams

I gasp for
air

asking,

"What is left to give?"

Perhaps nobody is asking the right questions

this piece
of paper is
a tombstone
these words
are dead
slid onto screen
and pulsing
artificial light,

INTERSTELLER BROADCAST
INCOMING

no one reads it
printed in code
on old derelict
telegraph machines
at the end of time
bottomless ocean

REPEAT STOP REPEAT

Allow me to take you
                                  into the future

FREE FROM ALL THAT WIRING

--was a cryptic message--
how would we read into it?
              --END--

without borders
breaking margins

10x6
x11x8.5

THESE SYMBOLS
ARE SYMBOLS
NO LONGER MATTER
STOP

tapping on dead ears

what comes first?

teletype or telephone
telestrator tele-creator

so sure the images are sure
beaming off Jupiter
filmed on some Galactic stage

Allow me to take you
                                  into the past

wheel remains in static lock
you span universal time
life is set of dotted lines

FEED INTO THE MACHINE
STOP DO NOT REPEAT DO

last line of cable break
bronze age truth and taps

~the music plays~

power is a broken green
circle

you are the broken line

Starmaps

She's borne

                        of

                        starlight

come 

to 

fill in all

             the gaps

strange sounds

heard

                      out

                      windows

in 

the 

too

cool

summer

night

a growing 

problem in the strain

between emergent 

worlds

                     very soon

                     she'll ask a 

                     question

what 

will 

your 

answer 

be?

I am chosen silence

words

on

page

                    I hope

                    very much

                    to be included

                    in your next book

whenever/

whoever 

they/I may need

to be

caulk on 

concrete walls

thick gray smells

banshee wails

it's all in images

formed into words

it's all gods

dying at once

                   she goes--

                   and it sounds--

                   sometimes 

                   like--

No One Suspects

Each morning
I slip into myself,
down beneath the
fragile pink skin
where I find pulsing
blue veins warm
and sinewy, muccus
smells and musty
aching flesh, muscle
membrane, thick
oozing blood, stench
like iron and sweat,
each morning I
operate the periscope
eyes, hit ignition,
watch myself go,
I am disembodied
moving within,
sounds and voices
are muffled and funneled
through listening devices
positioned on the head,
I turn toward BANG
and CRASH and
SIZZLE I pass all
the time each morning
move about through
the air and water world
protected, offer the
standard response, wait
and repeat, I cover my
scratches in gold and
fabric, touch sensors
dilineate smooth and
rough and silk, legs
arch and bend and turn,
each morning I
pilot this hulking mass
falling into itself
crushing meat and bone,
consume the capsules
of other souls, shifting
eyes, I speak in code
seeking others like myself.

Heaven means

There is a secret
stair in my grandfather's
closet one tucked away
behind his clothes
I think maybe he didn't
even know about it,
mainly, because it seems
accessible only in dreams.

I walk up those
steps some nights, having
parted his slacks and
jackets, air getting thin,
sight diminishing,
brain suffocating,
but I never make it
to the top.

I believe it leads
to the roof, or
some other equally
magical place.

Worthwhile

You type
what comes first,
then you print
labels, pull those out
of printer smelling of
heated glue and paper,
smelling like newspapers
and running belts and wheels,
smelling like childhood memories
you can't quite recapture
with the smell gone so
suddenly leaving.
Afterwards you remove
labels, place on folders
and stamp times new roman
red letters once
for stampings sake.
Place the folder
in it's categorized,
alphabetized place
between other folders
placed in their
categorized,
alphabetized place.
Then you leave it
alone, knowing
that you may
never go back to it,
knowing, maybe,
it's possible that
no one else ever will,
knowing that this folder
will outlast you,
and your children,
and your children's children,
knowing that what is in
that folder is less than
worthless,
knowing that all of
your effort is meaningless,
knowing that eventually
everything but those
folders will die.

Idiot

I felt a merge
dimensional shift

watch you can
see myself
take the glass
ease a sip

but I am one
head tumbling
forward in time
left back
leaving
himself on
my own

my seed takes
its place in
parricidal agonizing
necessity or it
is nothing--but is it, and
can it be nothing?--
a wonder of the spatial
age, consequential
tumescence and
Asexual breeding,

we have the perfect boy

he is a time machine
quantum spermal generator
he stretches

big bang to entropy

has seen ever toilet
in the galaxy

is a right shithead
and genius of the stars

I am the beginning and
end of line
a lifetime dreamstate
functioning on borrowed
mass--

stand at edge
3 D space
laid out culling wind
lead shift into place
eyes rewind click
clack click snap

moving again now
one minute one second
at perfect intervals
he tries to remember
what it was like
watches clocks
without hands.

So Hot You Won't Find Her in the Same Place Twice

rusty lock on
swinging gate
gray sand old
time photo of squinting
cowboy gun rasied--
BANG--thumbs in
belt hook
spits tobacco on
memory I haven't
even been born
yet and he's gone
and buried himself--
six feet of dirt--in
the ground,

she winks through
glass hued glass
transparently as I
pass--

the slug catches me
in the chest

blood and gore--

I'm clutching my
insides

all out bleeding out

no breath,

she lights a candle
blows out the match

red lipstick kiss

the curtain falls
like the sun sets
like my eyes shut

like the wind
ever goes--

The Seventh Ring of Hell is a Tough Act to Follow

Class starts on
adult time
clouds wander
past window
dressing
chin-on-elbow
there's dreary
professor at head
of porcelain desked
aisle murmur of students
didactic voices
pedantic lies [wait
a [sic] second]
starting over
like pull-chain-on-
lawnmower
drilling scheduled--

now listen up
front row,

now fall back
silent,

swaying professor
sways right to left
bites apple on chalk
board SCRATCH

felt image in brain

nails like peeling
off--

this was a dream
like I had sailing
in mother's
womb

this was all
I remembered.

Word Wrap Ruby

like children
play with words
teal red purple
words eek and
dribble on white
off-white scratch
paper who and how
whole all while with
writ howling ever
after into distant
vistas far away
expanse fields
gray maroon melt
under foreign star
no claim like sun
star seer setting
somehow at sunset
on ancient unknown
planetoid, how many
of our earth days gone?
not many and years aren't
translated correctly
there's decimal point
differences unmatched
in Poor Richard's almanac
book on white rapids
twist turn and tear
and fall fall like
spinning spinwheel jenny
gettin' there, going where
restless restless whining
drunk and hollow
ruby like thought through
a wine glass colors
the world.

Ferry Boat

Ferry boat
white caps
tiny snails
borne upside-
down on
brown waves
thick slushy
Potomac current
drift wood
sink hands
torture eyes
green banks
twist trees
Ferry boat
weave wobble
horn honk
whistle blow
sun bakes
tan skin
summer day
ebb flow
and wake
Ferry boat

Ladders

Aross another
step
       'cross
                  the
Bridge
Bridge another
life
      quietly
                  leaps
falling
down ever
ever
       knowing
                    this
end
and going
with
       nothing
                   lost
harmony
sweet sounds
splash
          feel
                 icy
waters
deep breathes
sink
       letting
                  go
acceptance
Across another
plane
         body
                  decay
temporary
leaving sunlight
tree
      animal
                  grass
sky
circle completes             

Only Memory

We go
                 off
to oceans
                 wander
like lost
ancient
                 vagabond

pink soft

                 hearts in sand

sad heavy
               
                 dangling

plot threads

                 left unfinished

no pens

                 no veins

no hands

                 struggling

left undone.

For Anna

hands
stretch and reach
through ages
knead dough
of life and bodies
hold hands with
other hands long
gone

listen to silent
cracking clouds
lift off earth and
pierce sky

a singularity pulsing
blue flames and
carving time like
wood rainbow
dripping

hands
stretch and reach
out, molding faces
eyes and nose
and soft outer
shell

listen to hollow
halls of the soul
and memory
they are burnt into
walls for all to see

acorns crushed by
roaring cars
an alleway etched
as forever
a momentary drop
of time 
in pools of love
scattered about
our milky way

at last

at last

holding hands.

I.01.I

thousand
fingers jam
on heated keys
play on like player
piano keyboard
letter stamped
nightmare visions

A lonely balcony
rotting wood panels
wind gust
by

hair tossed with
flower petal
fall

a scent of spring
whirl from
cascade hills down
mountain side above
clear and golden
meadow

haunted house

open view for miles

far as eyes

SEE

far as human thought

you are one thing
with me
upon me of
me

I am nothing that
ever was

only a stray thought

EXISTS

breaks dirt
rises from brown
hard soil

gasps into air

FLOATS

is word letter gray fog

BURNING

oil
lamp home stray
fire

for all mouths to

SEE

thousand
searching ears
touch finger tips
bathe toes in
cool turquoise
spring

CLEAN

humanity as one
hulking beast
but sure
calm steps lightly
on greenish
coils

a universal graveyard idea

a whiskey colored jar

SIP

pins and needles dancing
flesh

foxes cats burglars
birds of prey

the forest floor

a lonley planet
traveling through pinkish space
ahead of time

Happy Birthday Universe (My Buddy)

Waves of past like waves of ocean

turning folding falling

played on angel

drooping wings

focused inward and expanding

in all infinite directions

 

the stars

one final twinkle million billion trillion

light years from home

drifting further still

 

where are you?

 

in my heart and memory

tucked away

 

orange burst super nova sunlight

flash in eyes of sparkling  

star years comet filled sky

 

earth drowned out in siphoned

black hole ornaments

crashing through cloud embrace

forever forever

still

 

and when we walk together again

there will be no sadness

or death

only paths and years and

sweet smells

 

when we whisper

there will be

no

end.

Disfigured

Tattooed upon my
body

bloody seals
and each pock
marked generation
eating purple
spewing juice

sound of eagles
maggots hawk
deer frenzied
ants

appear like tree branch
motion moving
alive

disfigured

conspicuous

within a frame
a second

brown borders
finely sanded
smooth
lacquered

invisible grain
of sand on eye of
wind

turning

wind rain hammer
ubiquitous

strike anvil of back
on clanging forge
dimensions shrink
perceptively

origins thin lines
collect connect all
things struggling under
hammock of stars sun moon
perceptivity

mother father sister brother daughter
son

carried always carrier torn
and old
hunchbacked rucksacked
blissful

beaming out in simple words
carved into mountains of
time
into fabric of skin
of soul.

A Marching Sound

I
walked
into shape of
night

pupils dilate slowly

it is
much like
the day

so much so
I walk easily out
nothingness

in
    my
         dream
                   there
                           are
visions

I follow them
to open green
field sharp grass
sharp smell of spring

so
completely and utterly
forgotten

a marching sound
heavy boots on leather
roads

a bell rings
twice
an unknown chime
unheard of

in
   my
        waking
                    there
                            is
dissonance

I search two bodies
wandering in piecemeal
moving on divergent
paths

we come face to face
silent stares
passing

strangers in stars amongst
the milky way sky
a picture book image of
the universe

steady shrinking
inaudible scream

in
   my
        eyes
               are
                    your
eyes

in the morning
your sun
washes shadows
hangs them up
to dry

begins anew.

First Draft - June, 2010

Looking at you
I see into the past

diamond sky
and the goats head

long hours
sleeping cats

          D
          E
          F
          L
          O
          W
          E
          R
          E
          D

    THINGS

an empty house
creaking in its floor boards

scent of lamb cooking on stove
bitter taste of coffee

click of key
and mark of pen

sleepless hours hours
sleepless hours

things that are dead.

Be right there

and curled up
you are wrapped
sheets blanket
sleeping bag
rubble of twisted
fabric shimmering
body moves cotton
rolling ocean wave
clenching tighter
brace against cool
temperate air
sinking into barely
there twilight of
night light loving
sigh sinking body
measured breath
tan skin unseen
thermal synthetic
bleary sleep dream
commingling
scene shift soften
melt clenching
teeth smooth skin

Like memory

I woke writing a dream

it was about to be
discordant nothing

          there were flashes of light
          and like memory were lost
          drifting like vanishing like
          falling failing gasping air

I scratched at my head
dilated the screen

I woke writing a dream