I'm certain that

there is nothing sadder
than a suitcase and
the inevitable pieces of
myself that I leave behind
to harden, dry out
and crack its wheels.

I've spent the last
four years of my life
leaving someone behind.

Grillin'

there's a thing
about grilling outside that
allows you to forget
all those god damn buildings
around you
and all those god damn people
in them.

Sure town

small town shore

kids studied me with 

discerning skeptical eyes

as I asked questions about 

"rout" 609, the girl ringing up

costumers in the supermarket
shaped like a barn asks whose

house I planned to visit

and what's the address,

I'm just trying to find the road

I tell them deflecting their 

questions for whatever

paranoid northerner's reasoning 

I could muster in my brain,

The kid in tight gray jeans bagging

finally rattles of a convoluted 

left-right-left, pass three churches
(holds up his fingers) then you'll run into
611 and camp grounds and
there on your right should be 6-o-9,

thanks I wave and head for the door running
the directions like a Rolodex through my
driver's brain until I hear the girl,
innocently blonde and bright
pink lipsticked, ask if I want
a paper and pen to write it down,

I'm not out the door and
could have easily turned back around
but I don't.

Do Not Swim Here

six hours toward
a no-name beach
and I stand dejected on the shore
next to black snake-like pipe
worming it's way toward the bay
the rocky un-swimmable bay beach
I can make out a light house in the distance
guiding sailing boats into the
Chesapeake and beyond
a group of yuppies rides in
on a golf cart drinking (what I assume)
is an expensive craft beer,
Felicia holds my arm in consolation
reminding me it's better than she expected,
finding a smooth white shell, she presses
it into my hands and into my pockets
my pockets are empty,
aren't there any hidden beaches left on the east coast?

Ah, Newport, I think, one bridge to cross and
only an hour away
but I'm already shaking my head

We killed them

Artists don't sit inside all
day to write and type and suffer,
they play on their iphones and macs
with dull eyes editing music files,
remixing old sounds, taking
photographs that seem
somehow older even though they
don't know why, they catch the movie
to marvel at the book (it's YA fiction)
then the next day read it on the train
cover out and facing the crowd, and
they dance at night clubs to hip-hop and
techno in the nearest up-and-coming
neighborhood, their drunken image tagged on
facebook, exchanging that for actual fame,
and remain blissfully ignorant of the truth
because artists don't think for themselves
or think at all anymore, hell,
they don't even try, because
for the most part
when their head hits the pillow
around 5am
they're plain fucking dead
and nobody gives a fuck.

Laundry list

Contemplating walking
downstairs in my underwear
printing these maps out
while sipping free coffee
then going back upstairs
making sure I tread slowly
by the lobby's long mahogany
security desk and when
I'm finally back I'll get dressed
finish this beer and shower
completely clothed
just
to
make
some
point
I've already forgotten.

Nameless

Hey Watch!
Our days are shifting and numbered!

We've let them build these
walls between us,

left with one recourse
we cast furtive sad glances
at each other from behind the
keyboard screen that marks
a false understanding, a
confession of our othering,

don't be fooled
we
aren't lost
or
beat,
we are
hidden by power from view &
from ourselves,

millennial is a false term,
is a false charge, merely
an abstract something to
further classify--

I see the same looks on
our faces, I see an age on the streets,
loitering, unemployed, over-educated, uneasy,
I see an age trying to type out a cluttered, hectic,
misspelled thought on facebook only to
delete it before they're through,

what are we but an ignored generation,
a ghost generation?

A stymied, restricted
herd of idiots & beaming fools,
following the trends, mainstream news,
catch phrases, catch words, issues, .coms,
.govs, .whatever?--It's what they tell us to believe

that's truth--accept. Obey.

No. That's not what I've glimpsed,
I've found that sparkle behind the eyes,
that knowledge we're all wanting
to share
but are too paranoid no one else will agree--
To seem mad? Different? Is suicide-- They've
made us all uncomfortable spies for their cause
& what we have left are whispers & secrets & stares--

what we ignore are
the unspoken moments, the intangible
idealistic belief that there is another way
tho we've been taught not to see it,

seek it out, find it, dream it, covet it, or yearn for it

instead we're taught to fear it as rebellion, terrorism, insanity
the actions of the pariah, parasite, loafer, lazy
mendicants who hate and contribute nothing
to the grand illusion--

(Ack! Meaning
Aww!)

Acronym extortion into the
ether, onto the file that the FDACIAFBI has been
building against us, & we're afraid
to venture off the guided path
that they've convinced us is our shared dream--

There are those of us that get it,
right now hiding behind vacant masks,
pretending we haven't peeked over the
burgeoning void--and

So at night we meet in those ancient places,
those lamented, clandestine & rented places,
shouting to each other over beer
& smoke & liquor & pounding hearts,
brandishing our own rehearsed lies,
making sure never to let slip the truth of the
nameless generation
they won't control.

Trying to get some sleep

I could hold the sky in my palm,
wipe it onto depth-less reality like
an unguent cure in this after-night
morning glow pink rising to a
dark purple that settles like a fog on abandoned streets,
instead I get up and walk heavily to the bathroom
to wash my face and hands,
the floor boards creak with each step,
my ceiling fan whines non-stop,
the subway makes its first run, and
I'm alone counting the surges of pain in my knees,
waiting for the next rattle of tracks heading north,
waiting for the sun to rise from the east
and annihilate this perfect thought

Status Update (1 min ago from Somewhere)

Is
there
a
comment
on
my
status
update
yet?

It's been 10 minutes
and my refresh doesn't work
but it looks like
the CIA just checked and read
all my messages

I repeat this mantra
I delete myself

I
hope
I
spelled
everything
right
and
was
concise

Just so everyone is sure
of what I'm doing
so everyone knows where I'll be (am)
and the spiders keep crawling
within the system like
wingless angels consuming
homogenized ideas

How
do
I
know
if
what
they're
writing
is
real?

And not some sleeper program
experimental delusion
formulated by a collapsed entity
wired into our programming

I repeat this mantra
I delete myself

As
long
as
I
keep
posting
it'll
be
okay

It
is
OKay

even if I'm not sure
that the eyes on the other end
are there at all

There is nothing empty like

Out from the Demon Box
I paid the fee
not for the swinging doors
or doldrums this place
has seen

I paid them from my soul
for something greater
than how the words felt
when we spoke them
clouded with mirth and laughter
over raspberry tarts and lamb

in the ruins of a mind
cradling blue clad insurance agents
of the executive execution squad
(they pay fees daily to the citizens
afraid to raise a brow) biting
at our feet, spilling trends trends
gnarled trends
in the swell, the squall
out from my heart
what few cents I managed to hold onto
I placed at the foot of gods greater
than those we create

We took one swing and knocked
that door in--Kesey felt it
in Oregon heavens out of time--
and he kicked too.

I was in the kitchen when I heard it happen
a sick shattering of wood and
primal cheers,

She smiled and knew the world was watching

She wore a pretty blue and white dress
that wasn't quite flowers but abstract
images of flowers meant to trick the mind and you
couldn't tell unless you looked up
real close and even then
maybe you wouldn't believe
the truth,

She clacked along on matching
high-heeled shoes in the
way too hot for May DC sun
and I watched her move past
booths and colorful flags,
mascots and steaming grills,
I watched her blush,
turn, smile, laugh, brush her hair,
and I didn't care if she knew
it.

I

I
don't write
when I'm behind
I
think One More
Shot will win the Belmont
I'll Have Another wins the triple
crown TRIPLE CROWN
we're rolling again
on the film but it's a
digital
recording in a
digital era where if it's
real it ain't worth it
and if
it's obvious some idiot on
the internet made it up.

all my sentences start with the
and at the end I add a period

Amigos

Chicanos here, man, no like, eh, 
why no like?
said the Oakland Mexicano
whose left eyebrow was an open
gash bleeding from alleyway fight
with six guys pounding his brains,
we were standing outside the bar where the
owner's father was weighing heavily
on the drinks his son could sneak,
Chicanos here no like, eh?...Gringos man, (he pats me on
shoulder, smiling into my face) like man, 
blancos like, in Oakland man,
bap bap bap (his hand pointing finger pistol on
angle) bap bap bap you know, Oakland Chicanos man
he meant to go back later and make those
Philly Mexicans pay, I shook my head
in rags and passed him the napkins, a lost soul, and
left to get a beer and he was gone,
then later
when we were done drinking and he passed with
friend praying for dirty looks or cross words,
finding a fight in even our friendly faces with
his sleeves rolled up and bull face hating
everything, and old bar fighter face,
my bloody friend assuring him
no man, amigos, amigos, they amigos and when
they walked away back to alley where the
fight began that full-circle night
his friend was caught up in nothing that was there
his own hateful illusions I guess,
calling us pussies, calling us faggots,
just plain not getting it.

I see

the monsters when I remove my glasses,
dark, sunken eyes brooding from ugly
gaunt-yellow visage,
blurred and hidden in perfect sight,
I see the sins bared empty on your souls,
the demons struggling to be free,
your true faces turned away reveal
a scowling bitter mosaic,
I see the sun a phantom fireball at dusk
burning, burning, into infinity, burning
all eventually, burning even truth--

I wipe my glasses of the scum
and put them back on so I
can keep smiling.