VASE.

There's this          poem

On my bathroom wall

It only comes to me in the afternoons

When the sun slants in

Stretching the figure of a glass flower vase

Dashing its heart against the white         wall

Looking like ashes

Smeared in my stare

Film.

If you close your eyes
     the sound of a microfilm reel
     being rewound was the sound
     that began like a dream
the cancer that followed me
     was that sound and it floated
     alongside me as a physical perspective
     from which I watched outside
watching a someone that wasn't me
     that had been designated as me
     the cancer following him around
     tho I could only imagine what it looked like
I could not see it or I was inside it
     or it was just out of reach needing someone
     to speed up the reel
the film beginning to click and snap
     as if it was splitting in two
     the wheels ignored kept spinning
     waiting for me to die but I didn't
I just looked up at me seeing through me
     the perspective of me seeing through the body
     I closed my eyes his eyes it had eyes
     and he sighed

The Poem

into the morning
     a gleam of rising run
listening to disparate lines
     alone
          in the spotlight
a monitor light bleeds
     on the stage
a rhythm of breathing bodies
          the humming metallic lung of cars
     their dreaming
moves along bedroom walls
          into the horizon
that lingers on the periphery
          of thrift store landscapes
     the life of anonymous painters
retching on spoiled bits
   of rotted fame

a tree was born to grow old & strong,
to become the beginning of a tragedy
that ends as stacks of colorless paper,
staked through the heart and pinned to cubical walls,
office numbers printed on its multitude of lifeless faces

the steady swell of standard operating procedures
                                                                              crash
                                                                       
                                                                             like orderly waves
                                                                                  on the staff infested
                                                                      shore

Watercooler injections

Eating an orange in my cell I wonder--
                                                              when i die,
where will all the mesmerizing conversations
about institutionalized hierarchies go
?

moving

i looked at the boxes 

massed on the living room floor

like i was watching the edges 

of an approaching storm

out over the ocean 

that appeared more like the painting 

of an approaching storm 

as it made its way slowly to land

seeming to be static 

so that there was an eerie sense

of calm that it would 

never make landfall  

until with fury 

it would avail itself upon the shore

bringing rain and wind

and flood and destruction

and I would be left there 

after the clouds had passed 

with the task of disassembling 

each discarded cardboard box

after the contents inside had 

been found removed and inserted 

into their final resting place.

Returning to the purple machine and what that could be

The pen has callouses
                    Have you heard?

It's time to clean up the mess that is my lunch
          Bread crumbs and orange peel
laid out like the schmatics of the purple machine
          Only really, I never got to look at it
I liked the sound of the words together.

The fingers are clumsy so the keys speak for themselves.

The future is like a chalkboard
          locked away and darker than the mildewed basements acting as their graves

there are no factories left willing to produce the chalk.

I dress myself every morning with older rags
          waiting for the accumulated sand to fall out
maybe I can gather it and sell
it would be good if it could be melted down for glass.

Like me, I am see-thru without reflection
          folding each smaller piece of paper tighter
unmarked
it makes the trashcan regardless
humorless
leaving the faintest sense of itself
          that's an uneven jest
I'm still thinking about the purple machine and the sand
          I can't even process what's supposed to come next.

Alone on the train.

Alone on the train
Writing my first poem by phone
Feeling uneasy thinking I've missed my stop

Just because I wrote it doesn't make it real

The motion eats at a different corner of the brain

Having two thumbs

The letters between my hands

Bus

the hour passed like a bus on a clear day
hauling the lives within it through the street.
I felt its form move across me like yellow pull string destinations
I was reading on a bench parallel to the street
my head down in words.
it was gone before I looked back.
a momentous whoosh as a pocket of heavy air bursting.
it was gone before I looked right.
I was an entire hour older.
it was gone before I even thought to catch it.

Harper's Ferry

once the jade waters of the Rio Grande
desert cliffs painted with dry sagebrush

now the waters of the Appalachian range
overflow in green and bloom and stone

the bottom of the valley

blue ridge floor

the meeting place

once the crisp clear glacial stream north
from the border Kootenai pebbled riverbed

now the prophet of the great brown stream
slick rocks rapids slim shores

the eye of the Shenandoah
becomes the blue sky the Potomac
the Chesapeake the Atlantic
beyond

Where you wish & How to go

Calico Rocks Camp

trailing spider's web from my cap
into the swell of quickening storm

rain thrown down by wind

deep puddles

mud

weather beaten paths

yawning trees

plastic coffin shelter bolted down
shit and piss buried below

the crack of brown thunder
potomac reflects the lightning in the sky overhead

V

when the stone pauses the shadows go with it.    
then the rain comes.     it is dreary for those
who cannot drown

like the mountain made of many roots
and trunks and underbrush and canopy
and river overflowing and heavy rock

the cloud never bothers looking up.

the water never rises high enough to touch the sky.

IV

asking questions of the sky at sunrise

I am ancient

borne forth through time on interconnected rails

suffering the darkness of eight hour days

the commute from the lagging city

my penance

rush hour is my spirit walk

nirvana is death upon retirement

the abacus counting the days till expiration

is prayer

III

hanging with the frame
the image is like a blister     weighing
on the mind     an effort in paranoia
torn in the only careless moment     open
to the blue sky

like infection

iodine tinted secretions     slowed
by watercolor scabs

all effort and worry wasted     like
the rushing to catch a departed bus

finding that you are too late

II

a part of training

the earned days of life  
come from those wasted
traded      hours

long gone

those bitter hours of the past

fated youth     fleeting sun rises

each wish     gone

faster than the last
rushing toward the end
traded for figures in a book
phantoms of numbers on a screen

the 5 sayings and how they relate to dreams

I

interior of the arm
rather than bone

     cooked ramen noodle
     al dente      unbroken
     loose like drapes
     bound by dough
     dry and cracked

visible through the surgeon's window cut

without blood the tie unwound
removing the shimmering imperfection

     leaving the shell hollow
     sterilized sheets
     emptied of soup

waning crescent

like a veiled statue
without a sculptor

you linger as an otherworldly visage

I place my hand upon your leg your breast your
arm.     you murmur a tremor

the earth shakes off the cold snow of time.

you are real  

waning gibbous

dark hair waxes over soft features
the hills and falling meadows of the valley
like sunlight through splintered glass

lazy summer heat on stone

the reflection of quiet breaths

an exhausted mountain stream
meets the sea

full moon

sometimes your nails are painted
luminescence when you scratch my head

these are the nights
I sleep before you

waxing gibbous

the hand thrown over your eyes

acts as the wing of a
long forgotten bird.     featherless

and smooth as a shadow

first quarter

in the cool light of the street lamp stealing through the blinds
she glows like the angel's idea of the sun

waxing crescent

she smiles at nothing.

her teeth show through lips
as one-way mirrors

behind which is hidden bliss

V
From the setting stones

three fingers of the sprouted stem

soon the bloom
                          from the ground
SKULLS
                smiling form--

the teeth are bars
                            descending

weep        weep       little ones

for the cool gray sky
                                  blissful ones

men blow kisses kiss stems

women were once little things

to make wishes on--

IV
into the blistered nowhere

film is sequential image
propelled through time

stressed to tear under its own momentum

blotted with the sad story of life

eyes pass it
lingering like the blink
of a train

into the lessening miles
everything drifts behind

into the past
tightly wound

played back and loop
these are memories
distilled lies

it was as tho the first understanding
could come again

III
A little figure of indignant loveliness

scowl of the watch
          beaming back at black faces
checking the pace
                             the make of the soul

green fairy tales
                         laughing children grow

--ants crawl
                    & chew the meaning

an ant hill is a mark of suffering

--when all the arrogant cities
of the arrogant world have
fleshy basements full of the

great horde

                    the great insectoid civilization

--building
                 foundation

the march of generation
                                        after
                     generation

II
The Space Between the File

space between files
                                growing mildew
grown rough
                      inchoate constructs
--down in the gallery
along the canyon walls
all ago
            structures carved out

man struggles dies sweats
makes things that never last

always with failure & loss

            graves bleed into the past
--names cease to be were never

never matter

anyway

The Post-it Note Prophecies

I 
the Slow Death

the first will ever BE
                   
                        ever be LOST

       the floor is the purple room
       
             schematics of the MACHINE

pistons pump the lung
                                    of the ever-shrinking
EARTH

look deeply
                   into the glimmering
                                                    pool

THERE
              to read the name

the name sinking backward from entropy

the very first thought
                                   remember at the
FINAL moment

frozen at beginningless TIME

8

etched out lines
erased prayers
gentle wind swept balcony
debris from the highway fields
cats on windowsill perches
crossed out lights
cold breakfasts
slowly aging automobiles
dilapidated spider-web complexes
cracked sidewalls
edited thoughts
wet sugar cubes

7

7000 ft tall a year ago
still the blue sky climbed higher
still the rising curtain of further peaks
still the wider rivers curve
still the billion treed forests
still the multitude of steps to go

6

praise the unheralded gods

gods who build the windows and walls

windows and walls that protect me from the outside

outside where the old god we called the sun shines

4

helmets hang on stakes
loll like empty soup cans
spill their contents on holy ground
mix with mud and oil to dilute
boil in the glorious sun--

3

split fragment of an empty grocery counter,
powerlines run on blue light back-up lights,
digital mementos
--generator flicker
fabricated--kid looking to pocket 5$ in candy bars,
leaning up along counter, shelves underneath
hands buried in, brushing pockets--no guilt blush--
asking to know where the public bathroom is
--on every camera the authority sitcom alerted--
only the supermarket's part will out and
be vindicated and will be remembered
--cherished for its virtue

2

many names of factory walls

many names on machine barcodes

numerical values in many long books

monetary values in many broken bodies

Gone

I said when I met you
now rather regretfully
that you looked like a man
who would chain smoke
in a diner

you were dying of cancer
and came to work five days
a week

a few months later you
had died

what they said of you was brief

he was a good worker
one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet

Life-cycle

what the fuck do these shit heads want...

I am of two different eyes

one can be

were there what left

wont of things to see

little trifling fucks

can't find a good piece

in whatever amounts for a haystack

on the internet

my shitty poems being emailed back

where the numbness is eternal

where everyone is seeking the tear drop
that is their life

a sad countdown
counting up
to termination
& promotion

where the numbers are hoarded meaninglessly nailed
to drywall tombstones ever motivated

by their certifications
serialized moments
wasted & stuffed
away in lock boxes
mistaken for interest

where everyone is afraid they've already found
what makes searchable the end

(the) inbox
a mouse click
market labeled
spam

where the lines are placed evenly in lines to heaven
dug six storeys deep encased

in finest endurable
without rot
lasting forever
bridging the gap
prolonging the end
heavy footprints
ringing happiness

where the numbers are eternal

The Order of the Shell

the order is the pearl of the world

chewed at consumption
            swallowed at birth
       by the void

by hand the order is given

yellow is the dance we've become

hand is the act of clapping
                  --without--from within--
            a job done well

a jellyfish angel rising from dank dark seas
             
             dressed with halos
                     adorned in halos

golden in the envelope passed through time

      traveled for no destination
   left with trail of blood
buried in the heart of the teeth tearing out

the liver is coughing phlegm

begun is a narrow age
                  a monsoon age
         fit between the canyon rocks
           scored by floods
               carrying pure souls away
    to be reborn as anamorphic pines
       shattered stone
                  fresh muddied feet
         pure crystal river

the pearl is the oyster forgotten of its shell

I was the Gloom

I think that I became a new me yesterday,
gone were dreams once in my head,
found as a husk left beside my bed.

Old walls flashed different colors in my wake,
& no one knew me, acted accordingly,
searching for my former self,
ignoring the unknown thing in their path.

With the sound of galloping hooves beating the loose soil,
my new self draped in Death's pale shroud mounting,
let free upon the world a faint taste on the lips of former life,
chewing the air in my path I raged on, breaking life in my grip,
making of it a city of ugly clay burnt to stone in fiery heaven,
I pulled this all down from the stars, from the saddle,
below the earth I watched alone, under the trampling of fate,
I was the broken sky, the opaqueness of memory, the gloom.

52 Mbps*

direct me to the adding machine
drawn through the password chain
~my username~ become estranged
to the purchaser and the highest bid
several million names on the checked box
for update lobby game
                                   
                                      URL redlining cleaned
the search engine game ghetto no it's safe to go in
no more dilapidated websites geocities boarded up
no more bots flashing tit to fuck no more crusty
monitor windows
           
                                all the clean hands on deck
all the clean screens all the old drive mechanisms
pay-per-view type settings font dreams
autonomously driven fingers sold at great interest
in the real estate eyeball speculation boom

inject fiber-optic junk laid underground
the cable time fix for rate
any way you want it melted down
boiled over greasy spoons the old fashioned way
doled out as regulated kb by kb
weigh kaleidoscopic doses
channeling a thousand waves

a hum on radio frequency an ancient eldritch thing
liquefy the internet jingle air pressure pulls it in
HDtv stamp on red letter grain
                                                     commodified
plastic boxes feed for consumption at wholesale.

Again about my pants

my pants are forgetful things

cataleptic things

like my legs they hang off me loosely

prop me up

recite false identities

old memories of the factory floor
lines of vein strung up

intertwined

torn apart

placed in line

re-branded
re-imagined

my pants act as if they are real
as if they are invincible inimical things

but they are fated to fade away before my eyes

become old immortal heroes

star of fantastic stories become myth

bawdy song

my pants are tragic sad figures
hidden behind the veil

given no burial

prepared no warriors demise

merely a plastic lined grave

marked only by the miles

miles miles

and the wear

Lint

rolling the lint from my pockets between my fingers
into a ball
                 sitting on the toilet at 8am waiting to shit
reminds me of this time 1993 I think

pulling lint from my bellybutton between the buttons
of a shirt that no longer exists
                                                 through a shirt already
too small at a funeral for someone I can barely recall

nothing about the place is the same except maybe
the act
            the color of the walls which were beige
and the feeling of the lint on my skin.

the gun that made the universe

angel they tied us to string
     they cast us out in the nothing
we grew heads along our arms
     that talked in purple tongues
reassured our dying eyes
     with soothing songs of everything ends
and cats have no patience
     when we pay attention to other things

wah wah ah ah ah

the bugle broke the diamond
    when it asked
where have we been
    and why does the world
no longer breathe?

oh i-i-i-

in line outside the school
     as the third dimension collapsed
remember the sky that day?
     they say you did
but I didn't see you there
     and I waited and I asked them to stop
see child nobody lies like me
     because I knew you'd never see
and you'd never be there
     nobody lies like me

like you ou ou ou

slipping through the claws of god
     and she watches until the last thread
then she strikes hard

or so the history book will say
     when the printers are no longer on strike
in the next new reality

god the internet fields were beautiful
     when we were young
and you could go and come back unchanged
     when we were young

here in front of the firing squad it al comes back
     there was just nowhere else yet to go

and I don't regret it I think
    being something else covered in flesh
and I don't regret I think
    a minute before they send me back
I don't regret it
    being human I think

it wasn't all such the god damn waste
     I made out to be

won't it be fun to see the equation
     at the start of the gun that made the universe?

the internet

there is space for three toothpaste flavors on the shelf

you don't even eat them though

only hold them in your mouth to taste

and spit them out

they're washed down the drain
under fluorescent lights
slowly eating away at the tube
the cardboard box deteriorates in the trash

of the flavors there is just one tube of cinnamon 

all are made in an unmarked factory

in the small corner of an unknown state

manufactured by an empty hand

peppermint is available for a limited time

if you buy two two packs of spearmint
you get the third for half off

the entire section is stacked neatly 

and with expertise with the latter flavor

going end to end
top to bottom

the only real choice is spearmint

when you think about it

it's the only flavor that makes any sense

that's why there's so goddamn much of it

it's all gone to shit

the entire thing

really

ya know

the entire toothpaste industry

it's all gone to shit

Inherently

This is the womb
     an imploding star
pulling within my essence
     gripping my cock

I am all but memory
     walking in the rain
the sound of subway tracks
     moaning hum
tick of old fashioned clocks
     grandfathers
hands

should I lay my body
     there on the kitchen floor
cold metallic grates
     mortuary song lists
where I gave birth
     to nothing

rip the baby out
     I ripped the baby out
placing roughly
     on the hard thick
wooden table

around the limp body
     a circle of six chairs
six bodies six mouths
     waiting patiently to feed
to devour the brain

im sorry i never told you i found it

tossing my soul into the street

typing with one hand

i had an epiphany, she said, but the uber never showed,
i deleted the app there on the street 
i used to be so vindictive, it's funny
to think about

i found the discarded paper

folded a thousand times

at the bottom of your pocket

i crumbled it was one look

in practice these rituals come off empty-handed

you escorted me home

waiting for the word

never found

at least it's better than instagram

Notice something about the modern pop poem,
it is almost always written in two stanza lines,

of the protagonist it says something vague
like they were recalcitrant; with a semi-colon,

it then mentions a past event in their life,
of course this was on a farm somewhere,

that perfect litttle spot in the barn away from,
where mama used to, all red and like

some obscure and possible supernatural
undertones to finish, a bit of fantasy,

tending toward dark and removed imagery,
doing no work of itself, a mirror deftly cultured for the reader.

then it ends, rather abruptly, always simply, a weighted remark
about childhood that the poem supposedly alludes,

where it is accepted by solicitation by the Atlantic,
or the New Yorker to waste away online with paid for praise.

kiss them cheeks all up

the bus opens up

around the hill

against the curve

away from the light

the baby standing on her lap

jerks the opposite way

two women in the back cannot resist

the pull

the shrieking brake

the mangled exterior

they would spend the day

kissing

what about the baby's head

the head-on collision

how the bus would kick

think about the baby

your lips on its cheek

dead tire marks in the road

a sheet of glass

limited connection

rise and scroll

where there will be new things

normal aberrations

words within the picture frame

would you prefer to exit
                                        or wait?

chattering teeth

broken code

scroll and click

and you will glimpse glowing stars

depressed horizons

a picture frame within reason

a choice to say whether yes
                                             or no

schematic drawings for the purple machine

the garden in the basement,
lately I have forgotten it,
soon, negligence,
then rot;

schematic drawings for the purple machine;

in a dream,

the insides of the house
I grew up in were gutted

replaced by penthouse views
the skyline, new york,

it was up to me to pay the bill;

if standing on a chair
you look down through the camera lens
the blue prints will clear

there, find the doorway;

walk in,

that's where it must be hiding,

the machine,

the one that makes the garden,
where the gas is pumped in
and the chemicals mixed,

how many floors below
make up the basement

the reaching arms of plants

the many acres of dirt torn up

Go On, Breathe Freely Released into the Wild and Available Now!

Well, here it is finally...95 pages of poetry from Chatter House Press
with the wonderful Penny Dunning editing...

Written in rain-soaked notebooks folded and tucked into the back pocket of worn-down corduroys, this collection of poems tell the tale of a ragged band of East Coast wanderers out to find that mythical American freedom of the West.

it's on the press website: https://goo.gl/iYgH4R

and Amazon: https://goo.gl/6fC2kO

sneak peak poem-- 250 Miles Wide

250 Miles wide

What’s Missouri but

a big endless white

cast of clouds above my head?

From the floor

of the backseat,

in the crevice by the sliding door,

I am borne into that

unknown space

by our van that like

the sacrificial lamb of America

has given itself over to our quest;

hear the harmonics

sullen pang, fundamental,

on the lips of the young babes,

ball the jack

to the shining grasslands

of old—without a song,

just a thought—a collective

yearning to get at that thing,

that very thing that has escaped us,

unspeakably, on the horizon.

playback

recorded:
                love is a fucking cock.
not the actual device;
the figure.
                cunt is a service enterprise.
the actualized body; the mind
redistributed to masses
                                        un-
fortunately none were chosen;

thankfully; freedom is in
                                        re-
mission; of speech
                               when required;
a figurehead, walks into a classroom
on the chalkboard you're asked to write;

do you? when read it follows
a certain thread; art than word,

body is a mental deficiency; a
cavity,

cited:
          where the coffins were exhumed.
not the fictional wood;
the corpses.
                    a copse of trees
a tri-nominal shape, one many two
thousand years old; a ghost

more so a; phantasm

the groaning bodies slick
with afterbirth; fuck
their veins fuck; their cunts
are cocks forced under the breast plate;

this one is called father

this other is named mother

disputed:
               this reality
many are the protoplasm;
arguably organ-less; comprised
of comprising organelles, this is the
body of seized function;
                                        the factory
landscape
                by definition a place of
value; traded
                     sexless convulsions
meaningful looks,

what wonder is? the sucking sound

end; effigy; requirement; obligation,

fantasy, quake
                        action repeated in linear step
to the drums; fucking release; materialized.

what dreams? what dreams. what comes?

what is
abandoned. what is remembered?

Social Currency

no one utilizes the people they know efficiently;
gather them up and stand them in a line,
shuffle them at random and offer them a number
that will be easier to remember than their name;
place them in little factories; with little windows; big walls;
make sure the doors are hermetically sealed,
watch them go to work; sending all that love down the line,
there you will reap the rewards of true friendship;
within a box, a bow wrapped and tied on top,
place the most valuable  commodities,
pack the luxuries with bubble wrap, this is where you
ensure the dividends are made; this is where you divide
the number of people by the number of their importance;
this is how you utilize your resources effectively.

about the waves and the land

as california falls into the sea
                                                slower than we believed
and the mud tumbles over itself
                                          attempting to break free
as the ocean rises up to meet it
                                              250 feet away
and see where the shoreline
                                           becomes the sky
as the water is as blue as ever
                                         sparkling against brown earth
and the canyon turns the roadway
                                                  inside out

there'll be a tombstone along
what once was route 1
sinking slowly to pacific floor

all the tortuous gray
will be forgotten

all the cars will rust
and drown below

unseen

forevermore

Ben Kingfischer was live.

FIRST SHOT. EXT. DAY.
[camera shakes, there is a finger on the touchscreen
caressing play] open up to whirl of color blue on green
on what is that grass maybe a hand or arm flesh color
mess [camera steadies] Now the voice of the
narrator.]

NARRATOR:

Hey guys, Oh hey! Is this working?

SECOND SHOT. INT. HUMAN FACE.

[camera quickly pans to face of Narrator, pulls out

zooms in shakes is steady if not slightly off kilter

the narrator waves, behind you can imagine some

scene worth showing in the narrators mind this

is all conjecture]

NARRATOR: 

Hey, guess where I am?

THIRD SHOT. EXT. DAY. BEAUTIFUL SCENE.

[camera pans you see what you want where you want

to be the narrator giggles camera panorama spin back

to narrator final reveal]

FINAL SHOT. INT. HUMAN FACE.

[narrator holding camera with two hands away from face

on an angle looking up imagine the bluest sky behind

there might be one wisp of cloud the sun is off screen]

NARRATOR:

Well, there it is guys! Told ya can you believe it?

NARRATOR:

All right see ya later! Update Coming soon!

END SCENE. 

Ben Kingfischer was live.

an act of mutation

some photos taken for granted

some lies cooling in the sun

some remnants of your past catching up

          reading the last line before
          the subway pulls up; rushed;
          forgetting the last 40 minutes
          that you read; being an angel
          thinking about heaven;
          how it looks; what it is

some thoughts written down

some one laughing behind the door

some place that feels like the future

          remembering that you'd been
          driving; stopped at a red light;
          panicking; thinking about how
          you'd made those turns; the 
          bodies that could have been
          left; in your path; could it
          be diverted; was it possible
          to jerk the wheel

some memories are entirely true

some shoes in a garbage can

some where you'll never know

          deleting the words as you go;
          starting over; reading a poem 
          from long ago; adding a word
          a thought; that appears a few
          lines below; deja vu; a feeling
          of familiarity; predictable 
          choices; same old stanzas;
          flat lines 

Behind the scenes; a youtube retrospective

it reverted back
      to the first draft
the pencil lines
             you get a look
     at that
                shit
what it was before
           facial recognition
       kicked in
                 cleaned it up
           smoothed out
                   those fucking
blemishes
     looks alright now
                          ready to promote
                 a video
                           trail series
    product placement
                       money-making
     unboxing
                it's important
  as an influencer
                    I'm speaking as one
                                                    insightful
        to know when you sell yourself
 that you're always
                 true to yourself
       like this poem is for me
  it doesn't matter what
                                     anyone thinks
           only that you believe
                                               are true
     to yourself
                               but for you to buy
               and like it
                     tho I don't care to ramble
on
      about how I am true to myself
  even though I'd like this
                                          to trend
                          see I'm an influencer
not a poet or writer
                    or even someone that reads
            tho I do
    but it was important to me
 to write from the
                             position
            of an influencer
                 it being so novel
     don't get me wrong
                                     I am staying true
to myself
          you can do whatever you want
    like I can
             if you like this don't forget
to like and subscribe
      for more content like this
                             exactly like this
             if you like and subscribe
  for more content
                I will front load this
poem with advertisements
      that will be pertinent to your interests
                                                   as an influencer
                            I am privileged with insight
            and if you guys subscribe
   I'll be able to bring you the content
                                                            you guys
                                          want to read
                     so even though I don't particularly care
     if you could share this
                                         even like this
                        go as far as subscribe to this
           it would be appreciated
                                                   especially
                            by someone like me
       who is an influencer
                                         speaking from the
                     perspective
                               writing from the
            selling from the
    operating from
                              the
the
             influencer
                               draft
                      I really feel like
       I don't care what
                                   anyone thinks
and I am happy that I can be myself
                              as long as you do what you want to do
              that's my advice
                                         as an influencer
pls like and subscribe guys!
                                              thanks!

Moonlit dance

your skin draws upon me in the dark
when i lay down i am nowhere else
                       i am parallel with the earth
there are many layers of concrete btw me
and the sun
                       the mattress hugs tightly on
your curves pulled into itself & expanding
the depression is covered over by long strands
of fabric intertwined without space
                                                       none of this
visible in the dark as i make my way by light
of your phone prone & left face down to sleep
your body is visible in the darkness
                                                         darker &
stiller than the night
                                 i have come merely to
stare at imagined ceilings before i sleep
the white paint gray and morbid
                                                    your soft
breathes your wandering thoughts building
dreams
            the earth rushing as always toward
the sun

Post-It Note Necrophilia I

scrolling bulge of the static frame
             surveillance scripture obtained
unoccupied screens
        image fidgets at intervals
13 1/2 seconds
     information mounted on the overlay
time     date
    camera identification
location
          name
reality distorted     sorted     recorded
              re-ordered
     frame      X      frame

Windows and Walls

each barrier must in its own way support the facade,
the tiniest of cracks, openings, must be filled,
there is no room for mistake, serious business,
if a bit of what's outside gets in, containment will be breached,
once again, serious business, what's at stake,
that's for me to say, not to think about,
just know that we have your best interests at heart,
and if productivity can be increased? a bonus,
you are part of something real and that must be protected,
when you believe in people first the love really comes through
in the product.

Domes [for Rent]

above our heads
they couldn't even bend
at the overflowing
slips of paper filled out
anonymously but with
names only the organization
will see along with social sec no#
and bank acc information
answering the proposed
question: how are we doing?
to construct a dome
one that appears like the sky
like even a single painted
on cloud was too much
they just didn't have the
manpower the official release:
We Just Didn't Have The ManPower
instead the tiles will suffice
linoleum and the loudest among those
not impacted without necks and
never looking up agree that
it would cost a lot of money to
find out if the sky is blue
or what a rain drop dances like
and who cares really what about
the taxes or the jobs can the
whatever is outside grant us that?
rightfully smug at their own
rhetorical jab that could not be answered
it's better within the walls keeping
our feet to the cool blessed cement
of the earth our fore-bearers always
meant it to come to this end
choice collapsed and fiction removed
great swaths of land brought to heel
by the might of mankind
did you see the hochs on that prime cut
of realestate imagine that with
steel beams stabbed and wiring
drawn in cut a piece off and
let's do business like how many
sq ft can be sold at your feet
dream of it imagine what those fields
of progress look like now as
they work for us
outside our protected vision
what they must be doing
how beautiful they must be
digging into the stars
pulling down all those
resource laden wonders
feeding the mechanized earth
providing for the future
below our feet

dreamt

always these same number of eyes
      this same old progression of time
this linear push to the edge;
      unlike how I dreamt
last night I was walking
back to the start
      and witnessed for myself
my own shadow
      start back opposite
from leaving my room
I had yet to enter
      yet to conceive of a reason
to be going
      so that when I awoke
a wiped the sweat from body
      I was unsure whether
I had just left
or recently returned;
      always it's as meaningless
as the first line
      words read in the dark
dilated pupils
      beginning to end

Finks (Reading for the Binnacle)

Finks (also for the Binnacle)

Second poem for the lit journal Binnacle
dedicated to Old Bulls centennial+2

Swimming Hole (Reading for the Binnacle)

Swimming Hole (recorded for the Binnacle)

been a while since I uploaded onto this...

Darling darling darling; an expose written about and by the universe

walk along the codex
rolodex

there is no movement
that is not singular

that is not me

the universe unto itself
is one flat landmass
without a rough edge

when i die it will be no more

i will make it so

when i live it will blossom

life will be found in all its non-corners

there will be no end
to life

the trees that grow out the skin
are all one tree living apart from
human time they are gestating
not yet to be born this earth is
too young and only the amoeba
swim on it

when i die i will cast you off

witness that true language is a virus

that thoughts outside your own have
ever slowly crept inside your head

nothing moves without my eyes to see

why have i created all these sad things?

this is not my fault

the rivers are spontaneous memory
do they begin or terminate at the source
without one there is not other imagine
how the mountain and the rain become
the shore and the ocean how land becomes
water and land again

i have ignored all these things

they arose sprouting from my mind as fungus

as vestigial reveries of other worlds

i am pulling the wheel

one day i will walk upon it

next in front

in the end it will crush me

packing me deep in warm soil

i will bask in the womb of entropy

i will have done many great and terrible things

least of which is this.

Love poem for a bridge

heard abt u 2nd hd--
first reports from the west coast
coming in--only rumor
whispers--then
of course the truth--I
was digging--you'd
crumbled it was true--
erosion flood buckling
you'd fallen into the
canyon--slid down
cliff face--Ragged point
no longer gateway to the
north
purple sand shifts without
footprint sand blow against
lonely key rock
carmel-by-the-sea in
dead end winding road
south

I wn't c u ths yr--
won't be coming across
I be a sailor on your
greatest lakes--you'll be
recovered in 6 mo I hear
I hope

maybe

I c u thn--
for that victory lap
curl around the coves
where blue meets bluer
and the sky
and the sea
and we
will go
just go
west
eternally.

Routine

telephone is no more
     hangs from its own neck in the hall
phone is an upset child
     clinging to your thigh
     breathing hot air in fitful gasps & blows
     into your hairy sack
     your cancerous bowels
headphones muffle incoming radial frequencies
     kirby krackle waves
     disseminate realities
     pay the bills on time
     in credit
watch is ingested
     is alive
     counting each step into the future
     pushing on & on
     forcing the tick & tock passing of time
clock is digitized
     is a river rising
     is rising but stationary but widening
     but drying out but remaining forever
body is a casket
     made of water & dirt

can you?

can you put
together all the pieces
out of order
in your head
transfer them
by hand transcribe
them by maw to
the brain reconfigure
that white horse
across the rio in
mexico that running
with forgettable brown
mare locked in treadmill
time can you reassemble
rainy days puddles
dark grey smell of
wet clothes was it
when you recalled
the drenched streets
the running window
panes standing under
umbrella awning watching
clouds fill sky feeling
each drop on skin looking
up the sound the
gentle heavy rushing
sound was it summer
winter fall or spring?

who needs this world, we'll get a new one

the round clock
                   time tock
               shape

I am there
                   I  am not
     a blue blip on a blue map screen

relay information
                    direction
       in which to go
                 denied location
forward & down
                             six feet in light years
        a million million billion miles
an hour away

                        wrinkled smile
          facial recog
                        dream light cam
mounted on the precipice
           top most peak of earth
mankind
                rain down

disturb the quartz-like clouds

solar swell

the curved broken edge
       flat memory superimposed
  mythical structures
                                  lost planet's lost people
                                            lost me
                                                         adrift
in space
                tethered to the sun
slowly suffocation fetish takes hold
cooked to crisp
                          in artificial life

deficient of the answers to come

set to silent
outerspace mode
                             what come after life
beloved by empty limits of our dream

to
     substitute what has passed
                                                for what is
present
              the round world
                                         is smashed down
on paper
               scanned
uploaded into the sky
                                   shines but a while
is marked for deletion
       by the future children of the colonial age

I am left to be one of those old fashioned things
        better off
                         forgotten
tied to the umbilical cord of old worlds
                                                                outmoded
set adrift at launch to lighten the weight
                   burning backwards
                                  burning along with
doomed earth
            doomed sun
                     doomed minds.

bus ride transcript

'what are you doing to my good children?'

--this from back of bus, the
semblance of body, thin grey strands
hair matted to liver spot forehead
sweat, yellowed skin,

'i told you, it doesn't want it!'

--pained

'my good girl!'

--who's?

'get outta my life!'

--alone, no phone

'i earned my credit! how did you do
the machines? no, it will not take
my
good
children!'

--the silence in each other seat, the counting
of blocks, streets, miles to the next stop

'i told you! drug on drug nothing! i don't want him!
get rid of the stupid
false
nothing! i
am
not a
nuke!
go live your own violence!'

--a few shuffling feet, some unoccupied seats,
some duck duck goose, some buffer, she's all
alone back there three rows removed
from re-situated shuttle geography; pariah

'it doesn't want him!'

--who?

'you can't do that to my green children!

--same voice answers?

'say good bye to your career!'

'no i will not!'

--begins to harden

'i said get out of my life!'

--one body speaking

'i'm not talking anymore'

Piss on Trash; I came over here to say this

wobble to the subway doors
     automatic
           before they'll close
you bridge the gap
     stagger on

at your worn heels
     buttoned up
                leather belted
seriously bent
          anger scowled
anger thrust through plexiglass
     into heart of train

regardless

the metal wheel
the metal monster
                              pulls away

If I could make you out in the crowd passing
I would

at length of edge
       off track
                      he quickly turns
veers from departed train
      cuts toward me
throws his hand
            into the past
what was
                 looking into the corner
                                  under escalator
                          by the train mapped
                                  the totem pillar

'that guy!'

'he pissed right there!'

I'm his only audience I am humanity I am made to see
shown the wet lines growing between the tile

'he squatted down and pissed! he pissed!'

passes me too close
      inches from glowing globe
shiny sweated
            nearly brushes my nose

'fuck is wrong with people?'
       
                       all the veins
clenched indignation
         I respond with blank smile
paper weight

'fuck is wrong with people?'
     one last bit of wisdom before he goes.

[REDACTED CHAPTER]

it happened that I awoke one morning & the air was solid.

I heaved. I gulped it down. down. into my lungs. like sludge.
like gak. i pressed it into each crevice. nook. against each membrane.

forced it glip gluk glak back out into the space that was no longer
between me & it & my body the floor the wall the sky out there
beyond the wall the wall paper thin wall not wall not paper not
thin not wall not sky no me no lung it will all return to normal
if this is not the right normal this is the realization no air felt air
moving in time moving in place there this is the real this is truth
slowing down becoming visible growing tight around the edges
filling in cementing the cracks abrasions anomalies abnormalities  

there. the mass of everything. everything that was the slow down.
frozen frame. looped image. moved without volition without
acceleration. too still. still frame photo entropy yielding--

i wanted to vomit would have given anything to vomit made to 
vomit but my insides were not my inside was outside was sky was wall
was thick flat like air every corner of me was without & within was
groaning reaching before beyond it

reached out. i reached out. through the flat space. 2d. through the frame.
i was within. for. from. the blue light. the computer screen. my hand.
against it. already. the splinter. bleed light. i had not moved. not within.
i was part of it. without.

death searing end no air no lungs no time no movement no further no 
me no again no beginning no end all one it oneness one thing one being
one flat we are all we have we are nothing different one end one start
one solid friction fiction state glit glat glup glow

once was space life compulsion to breathe 
reason once there was space motion once
there was life once
there was once there
once there was there was once
there was there there--

Tagged

Big Dog Diedie

--sat here long ago
burned cigarette on this cushion
here--

a hole in things

yellow mold--a feat
long remembered--
low underground

black tips of permanent markers
two hands time around which
in the middle--stops

tag a name.

storm cloud over dakota badlands

storm cloud over dakota badlands

i recall them now as through another's memory

border x border squared

heavy edged

600 pixels tall

when i stood beneath their belly
who was i?

was it me there unable to grasp the sadness of the past?
what these miles would bring?

longing
even as i went forward
there where more memories behind me

these things that were once for the future
faded

endless in their becoming
they no longer exist

storm cloud over dakota badlands

there are few eyes left to remember them

there are few moments left that are more than
just tomorrow
that are real

soon they will be confused
with other days other memories

the road will sink into nothing

the storm rages
washes the graves
cleanses the bones
polishes the mud

drowns the dust.

Won't be reconciled

Everyday
with coffee.

it was strange you had
no recollection of me.

when years later
i saw you,
you made no effort to say,
'shit, it's been years, man!'

maybe it's that you
slept almost the entire time,
waking abruptly and shuffling to class.

i wonder, maybe, i had changed
more than i'd thought, becoming
unrecognizable, and
now, it's always going to be strange,

that last awkward memory,
the finality of it,
knowing that you have died.

Poster USA

lil' ruddy face.
flush checks          doe eyed.
shock of blond hair     scout cap.
american child     androgynous
complexion.

uncle sam sleeve     cufflinked.
imperial hand     slapped over lil' mouth.
deep red hand.
thick red hand     red white & blue.
open palmed     roughly
size of your child's skull
written--

--not whispered--not
spoken--not said--

hard black font     bold capital letters

SILENCE MEANS SECURITY.

Two Bodies

says,
     'have you gone west? all the way west?
west?'

she says, nothing,
     she says, comatose,

     'I have been ocean to ocean
seen the sea cuts the middle cuts
in between, cuts world in half,'

he says,
     not noticing, not seeing, her twitch
uncomfortable,

she, speaks,
     unheard of sentences,

she wrote once, before tomorrow, before all this
     'what an awful occurrence, an awful thing, an
awful poem, why?
     isn't there one story worth it to tell?'

he could make no sense of it, remorse,
     talking to himself,

she says,
     a jumble of wrath, moving lips,
uncaring,

'I am a great man.'
     he wrote, hoping it was true
making it so, by the great action
of pen, hoping she wouldn't laugh,
already vengeful, hating her,

'I said I enjoyed it. That it was good.
     What more do you want?'
she says, wondering why to care,
where to go next,

how to respond.

That Day

The first alteration--
--after it--the change in line
in sky color--in tomorrow's dance
--in the color I've bled--when
  I'm of the earth in blue--
--in white heavy cloud
   when I'm under it--singing
--not in voice--vibration
when the ground is channel--
--bounce--right--there's nothing--
only forward--not time forward
--land sea mountain river canyon
   grass gorge river ocean eye forward--
--mind forward--might I call out
   shook with lightning--forge--ahead
   in the rest--everlasting next life
--calling--
gray river--
--grant life
   new--life--
currents--clear stream--
--a delta--the next alteration
   of--the filament--sundered
--the surface the me the you the
   above--the stars tree line etched
   upon its face in darkest silhouette
--the screaming violet night--
the blazing day remade--rebirth--
--un-sexed--clothed in green
   landscape--velvet--
--rocks split by cold seep
   the rushing spring late
--the ground swell--fire
   fire--
--fire--doesn't burn--
reforged--
--bound for next understanding
   wrapped written worn on
   western surge--
--the last alteration--

Fugitive

Here
          huddled in and blending
with coffee shop stools

four o clock is an hour before I should be free

windows play at being walls
everyone
                can look in
                upon my caged
                stare

(there are many operatives here)

         (Many from which to steer clear)
             (believe me)

glances they cast sidelong from lip
of coffee mug
                        mark my destination
place
time
name
character
MO

they remember my face
one I'm wearing today
pixelated
contour graphed on hand held meme

(they're out to get me)
(cliched)

out to wrestle from me
the feeling
                  that
                     I
                should
                    be
                   free

when sick one should be safely stowed away
(back home)

but you're here
              you're here
      you're here
               how come?

you care to explain this, young man [NAME]?

--they cinch the handcuffs on
              --do you care to explain they lock the cell
          --how that came to be? you incriminate yourself

All the beauty of grammar school

who is it could know me?
                 clothes melting away

what an effort to put into decorum

decorations are seasonally lost oblique--
statues?

      stride upon the cracked street system,

home and how many many godly rivers flow
                 invisibly
                                 under our feet

much life is buried under toe.

what a life for ants
                   the finite spiral down
                                        towards mathematical
conceit.

if we could only run the numbers of truth
for monetary gain
                               on the lam from the
cosmic bookie for all time

gamble with beautiful equations
as star ending constellations
hidden from our sight

pulled down to great earth
from the wretched heavens.

life of vols.

uneven, yellow gut, bound scuffed leather skin,
stretched to weaken, stuck with ancient glue,
chipped, dry, chipping;

                                      facing up to white tile
heaven, several infernal layers high;

                                                           beat to shit
by clumsy groping fingers, oil years, oil, years
oil, grease, ignored;

                                 edges fold, looking back,
locked in place, time, stance, break, spinal
snap, rest on floor, under shoes, weathered away,
running from, removed, broken home;

                                                               only the word
holds meaning, printer pressed, scanned and saved,
backed up, addressed, renamed, right on digital screen
tossed spent to metal cans, endless shape, or leaning
lost totems on dusty shelf.

Thinking I might not be here

Here i am
in front seat
foot upon wheel
knees bent
slouched

the windows of the two door cracked
wind worries by
rushed along by condo skyline

car double parked in

i find no reflection in the endless
glass house line

i watch for cars running through me or bodies or lines
maybe i'm no longer here?

maybe i'm immovable

maybe i'm the gray sky

maybe it's just sunday afternoon.

Make-Up

My teeth clenched and          shuddering
will
       break the      world.

Listen I have done all this     in my own words

on my dry     skin
is written not a single word

only faded scars
I had hoped would never          fade.

Having only memory

even that          imagined

I am left to invent greater, even more terrible, lies.

          a multitude & many

all of this being one
where I bite down
and the rain answers

oh

drowning this attempt at resuscitation

soak & prune thy skin

and replace

I am unworthy of truth

there are none
there is none
there is no
there are no
no
no
no no no
no

look into these scars for they will soon be gone
and no one
                  will remember them
                                                    always
                                   anyway
                                        after all
                                                         ever after.

Son

the many legged mile folding the road up,

tomorrow, that was my mistake, the first use of the word
is still with me
                         and without effort I recall,

I AM BOUNDLESS.

the cracks in the pavement think remarkable things,
grow greater,
                      only to fall apart,

I read aloud their last will and testament, forge my future
in their hand,
                      sign and date along the line

along the bottom.

Writ in Blu

fit between these covers
                                        blue ink
fine points of human life. many spills
make a line.
                    I am the only one who I was
at death. Does that mean the cycle repeats
or not? After death? or
                                      ever life?

This poem is the sunset.

                                        Until you catch
the clouds moaning      or the cars.
But that could have been the road. It just
goes.
          On--

without us
                  making those sad sounds into
periscope night skies.
                                    The orbs that are headlights
lead the masquerade.          

Sign of the Dog

saw your sign glance by

          lost since last august
                           no update     on sad face dog

last seen exiting the front door of a house on prince st
                                       
                                         running east

Doesn't answer to his name/may run from stranger steps

another sign
             read ASSN.
             as ASIAN, hmmm.

you'd think maybe like     a bilingual school
                                          or history
                                                    could be?
as
ASSN. of Educators and Lecturers
ASSN. like an Association like an abbr.

     meaning
                    parking spots
for members meaning
                                     that was a sign
                                     for sure

warning for tow implicit throughout
explicitly measured out below

and other words of white on blue field

     like
            the first sign
blocks of text

the general gist
      is already          wearing thin
                         
                          two blocks past into tomorrow
     the dog
             beside     downward stare

what did it look like?
                                   the dog that's just a dog
were there any cars?
                                  parked in the lot?
educators?
          was there even a school?

how many     months
                             have been lost
          since august?