Night turn

patches of bright
color about my eyes,
bed overturned,

things once up
and put together
are down and
shattered

there's spots of
red at my cheek,

later they'll make it
as crimson streaks
on my pillow

Rosetta Stone

this guy keeps

talking

to me in Italian

I never had the
chance to learn

(great grandfather
wanted his kids to
blend in to american
whiteness

also, kind of a lie
on my part, I failed
a course once
even cheated on the
final, nothing)

Ya know, I told him
that a few dozen times
I can't even catch a word,
but he keeps going

ciao
come stai?
cosa succede?

I don't know

keeps going on
with his chin on
his chest

tinted glasses
low mumbling voice
/shrug

(those quotes are
direct from google
translate

I do not own
the intellectual right
to distribute them
for cash)

I don't have an answer
for awkward silence.

on the other side of a diner's outside

This is an experiment

I
could
do without
the background
music, but we'll make it work

        on this cold
night, Friday night,
in March, everyone is
heading home under cover
of darkness, sky is void black
flatness, kind that's infinitely
impossible and construction
paper thin

          what it hides, if anything,
from me--

my every thought having
been written, spelled out,
removed, dissected, lobotomized
(an ice pick through
both eye sockets) & set
in place--this
          trip now,
it's getting clumsy,
jealousies & like V
said, what does it matter
we're not trying to make it...
          make it...?
we gotta
          make it
there's no one
and nothing else
but out there--
I'm folding the coast
and stars into my eyelidded bliss
          I can't rest--
wearing this tumor on my soul out
I lit a cigarette a million years ago
& the match,
          it hasn't gone out yet
it burns toward the center
consuming
the very heart of the world
and to find it,
each night in my dreams,
when I sing, she's
got a way in
 
          a diner, alone,
watching my hollow
self in the wall length window
obscures
               the truth of the cold outside
suburban northern Virginia
23rd St., Friday &

we're alone in the
collective isolation
of pretended reality
feigning cries of outraged
happiness, hatred--it's
motion--we've been

detected--abstracted--

          from--motion--

we return to--
are limited by--

      the brain is aged
      the body is victim
put together like
      legos
      and equally plastic

I
d
rown i
n c
o
ffee

drown in
self
image

(muted,
thankfully)--in favor
of satellite beamed
love songs--

radio--played behind
the walls
wind screams
friendly voices
              aged
boiling like the maggots
of the cheese
curdling

I--

I--

am seeking
an obstruction

god drew his finger down
through this great land
and dug a river
in it's marrow
that's our hearts
          to cross it
          is to really
          truly
          believe America
          to really breathe
          really live
          America
on this crusted earth
all the angels have
found it
have sung of it
          eternity like a
blaring wave
gilded, guiding my hand
oh, it is true
that we've forgotten much
          an Earth
          plummets into empty
          space while
ants scurry, are tortured on its surface
until not one shred of
understanding
remains

     dig your brow in its shimmering memory
and hot subjective
rainbow-scope reality
          collapsing--
feel for the open sprawl
and rushing (falling too) hills
     go--out West
is a song that rings in all
     true souls
never blinking
     &

that dream to
keep on going--well,
it's knowing--

All roads are one road.
Forevermore.  

dedication

To that couple facing me:

Man in glasses, bearded,
wielding butter knife, waving it
about, wielding ipad, looking
so--washington, dc

Lady in purple athletic tank-top,
head-banded, phantom pock-marked
from teenage acne, looking
so--the same

a search for new (if not grander) homes,

do you realize the woman across from you,
she's dying?

will you raise your children on that memory,
of death?

will you leave here without
remembering this poem,
this one,
dedicated to you?

Funeral Services Provided by CNN

My two dimensional
prison reality cracks
more each day, like
the veil over my mind
it's becoming lazy, busted,
atrophied

a nervous wreck
peering into the Lovecraftian
horror of acceptable society

Don't look back
over your shoulder
over flailing shards of
your better self

image burned over reality
causality-myth--
fabricated stuffed animal
leaders read the news
direct into our ears, determine
reaction time;
          are you up or down?
               decade will determine your
               generational, molecular
               thought process

It's all progress;

don't get in the way,

every taxi cab employment service
got GPS now;

Enter your name
               It'll be the same
               as appear on your
               grave
cry like flowers
               as
winter comes

blanket my Earth in ash
and its equivalent--
let me lick it off your shoes

give me your sins to plant.

facebook profiled

these faces

being scanned

entered, filtered

noted,  relayed

cited, re-scanned,

backed up, filled in,

displayed, annotated

organized, categorized,

filed, sealed,

utilized, broken down,

figured out, followed,

tagged, remembered

recalled, predicted

operated, controlled

commented on

Black Fly Scars

bells clang 7 times

it's been 6 months

there's still 3 of them

an infection

maybe

whistle of plane engines

turbines

whatever

these things are transient

supposedly impermanent

these bites refuse to fade

burning red

fire memory

on my skin

on drinking a beer before bed

something to think about

Hampton bops at piano
Dexter blows
Wendell beside him swaying
Mcghee in dark shades
Trummy slides, bays

bottle cap upturned on counter
kitchen light fades
flickers

moon turns
on its heel
shadowed
waxing

brass shimmering
in the past

half cleared

is this what it's like?

dying,
growing old,
watching time

falter

I set the empty bottle in the sink

alone

I'll wash it out

tomorrow.

See here

all bleak and
breaking bleary emptiness
says man-god
darkness and sold blackness
out there past the blue orb
earth and we're only
here in mortal shell with
no souls soul and when
we're gone it's gone
nothing left remaining
but old bones white and
slick and buried deep or
burned and eventually
forgotten and that's all you've
got in this infinite wonder
and we know because we don't
know at all and that's how we've
come so far decrying spirit
and oneness to this fractured
dystopian god-vision of finite
finality we all bleed off the page
into the limbo of never was
even tho we were at some point
here and become the great erased
bodies of the mind and this is why
we spend all our lives working and
dying and I mean if there wasn't a mine
for spirit energy why would anyone
force anyone to do fuck-anything-at-all
they'd just sit among the trees and
enjoy these 70 years in the dank
fathomless abandoned space all
suffocating-ly around us,
don't you see it's a trap it's words
arranged backwards without
a point but the corruption
of the great oneness, human
collective subconscious and
you can't get caught up in the
sucking void when there's beauty
and blazing stars all around

Mixed with Spit

this is the shortest day of
the year, the winter solstice,

it's not all that cold,
I've left the windows open,

I am in the shower spitting
toothpaste,

there was a girl once, in this
shower, but I'm alone now, sexless,

past the fogged mirror,
if you'd wipe your hand
across its face,
are gray tired eyes,

a mind that won't settle,

water runs toward the
drain, gurgles, swirls,
settles for a moment,

disappears.

Remington 666

typewriter hasn't been opened
since we lugged that black box
3,500 miles to the coast and
then back
                and that was all some
time ago and still it sits there
ink drying on ribbon, keys silent
decaying imperceptibly,
                                   doesn't
have the weight or ability to call
out and end it's atrophy and mine,

something flickered like a victory as
it sat under kansas gray sky beside
that old green van, head gasket melted
night before on I-70 going west,
                                               scares
me now, it's seeming omnipotence, it's
visible and screaming existence as a
symbol in my mind, as a last tangible
link to that drive for the coast,
                                             a last
remaining symbol of our faded past.

They're singing this now

a new genre of
death explored

cryogenic brain
freeze corporatized
opinion

hands up don't shoot

c'mon man I'm already
submitting

goes mouth
vocal cords
nightstick
gun trigger
teeth
blood

autopsy reports,
like didn't Pynchon
talk about this same
god damned thing
in Watts?

count side-wise
from CNN to Fox
to--get it?

this is a test of
the moderately
dissimilar opinion,
if this weren't a
test we'd #hegemony

now now kids
santa's watching
he just looks a bit
different, we've updated
for this technologic age

gone are old things
and obesity, same
with bearded
white males,

we've revamped the
whole process, added
cameras at each
street corner

so we
know if you've
been naughty or
nice before you've
even been--

Note 12/18/14 (jotted down last night)

there's no stars tonight,
light comes from
little desk lamp too
far to reach,
no poems coming out,
no thoughts going in.

Nibs

mewling
gray cat presses
soft pink nose
against my hands,
body sprawled out
over keyboard score
blocking my view,
little black pieces
little white words;

every now and then
sits up stiff, ears twitch
orange eyes wild,
bites my wrist,
reminding me not
to get so complacent,
after all, with such a
wild beast;

little gray cat
thinking surely (I think, maybe)
fuck you for clicking away,
an effort to pay no attention
to me;

licks himself
absently, methodically,
(vindictively?)
front paw latched on back
of screen, straining,
no hair out of place
no kingdom left
unconquered,
hrms and haws
and growls,
low low whine lo,
purrs victoriously.

Anti-Freeze

take a sip of anti-freeze

one time

at that puddle
behind your car

where all the animals lie

panting
in the cold

slick insides
burnt out tubes

choking, croaking

jingle of salvation bells

green slime
hallowed halls,

seeps into concrete
all the brown sad birds
whistle on winter mornings

lungs cold
baying out blearily out

with a straw take it in
hold yer nose
or it'll burn

heaps of death
and crumbled
rocks mixed in
concrete shell

sound of heavy feet in alley
scatter of thoughts

breathless

one last taste
'til
divinity.

Room C-100

two collared shirts
choked by ties
discuss printer to
print philosophies
in stilted dialogue
blended with power
games, hidden
subtext of sex and
dominance/submission,

they go on and on
open gaps flapping

there's an unwanted
boarder, he's hitching a ride
laid out on the cabinets
behind them, head propped
up on stacks of unopened
white paper (yet for the
sacrifice of memos and
board reports) he's reading
some book without outed
numbers, about,

they shift and scratch
at fabric softener softened
lightness,

it's easier to ignore the
ruffled shirts

turning pages

the printer goes
bwah-ehhh-bwah-ehh-ehh-ehh

they check the digits
shirts and cuff links
swoon

Several signs arranged into a poem

"You should never ask death a question...(Looking at office nameplate) [insert NAME here] you invite him in if you do...hmmm..."

To Security: 

Man in Shroud

Black dog nipping at heels

steady procession of robed figures

Red Flags

See something?

                           (lips sealed) Say something

[matter will be brought up at next meeting] *wink* haha

You smash fists

at door of gone

souls

flash steel/water like mercury/liquid silver

flow

writhe/beg/plead/pull

again...

There's no money in caring for corpses

in the land of the dead

Never ask a question

                                   that invites an answer.

STAFF ONLY

BEYOND THIS POINT.

Daily Routine

Those plastic globs
drowned in shower drains
pregnant with body
image heat sensitive
cameras blue/green
with rolls of pink flesh
sift slowly through fusion
cell lead pipes cellphone
fiber-optic crane machine
super computers
slowly building your face
eventually replacing personality
decoding deconstructing
actions to numbers
faceless
merciless
pervasive
cleanliness

island pome

Cayo heyo keys hello,
west into clear seas,
December palm trees
coral reef, brown breaths
green hued horizon lines,
string of isles nestled
against the sun
a tangled wind through
mangrove mysteries
whistling.

Radio Marti

propaganda lines drawn
in mangrove mazes,
silver pond and big lake,
tunnel and shade, brackish
waters sifting through,
a heron's nest maybe and
off somewhere, flight
of egret bird's wings on water,
daily broadcasts of
sad unheralded radio signals
beam hazard thoughts
like crocodile dreams into
Spanish heads in ole
Cuba, warm scotch &
rolled cigars, somewhere
off the mainland
who's revolution?
who's imperialism?
how far?

south of boot key
just 90 miles
droning 24 hours.

Keys

December's great poems
leak from damaged
railroad bridges--
finished 1912
abandoned 1935
after swirling winds
hurricane winds of
labor day--
south of mainland
USA off mangrove
islands of florida's
keys,

sun is skipping
boil of fire sinking
far away over gulf
scalded red flicker
of pain in distant pink
sky,

December's sunsets
at southern most point
slap like blue-green
maybe sea-green
clarity slashed
with brown sand, waves
on the shore, fallen
so you miss
and the lights out,
early,

December at the
bottom of America
no more land
mile 0
gray pavement
used up and
skips its way
to end on backs
of martyred men,
slouching.

693 ml of fluoride

commercial shipments
begin
post industrial entertainment
dissemination
complex orders
on the
up and up
advertise
on side of
crystal blue
aluminum can
held in perfectly manicured
american fingers
fizz fingers
dripping condensation
just enough
foreplay to choke
down endless
brown syrupy gulps
tearing into pinal
gland before
throat before
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
small silver pixels
replicate look of
bubbles
drowning thirst
thoughts thoughtfulness
awareness
fizz pop