I

Wonderlandia, torn off the submerged lung
of a daydream diary.                   Reoccurs
as she does with silver eyes, weary Alice
during tea time--bullets burning past her
                                     like flowing nations.
Everyday similar tsunamis fund
                                     the lack of 20/20.
Nose to tail--the surge of angry engines
splits the ends of her blonde strands.
    Each one the last witness to maddening hospitality
--utopia never sweats as it talks and withers.
Amnesia blots,
new aspirin machines
vaporize apples and ***
on the other end of spectrum,
                                                     trans-positional labels--

Guillotine gargling teapots
       have no patience
         to the bushes of Olympus opiates
                                      bound in yellow barrier tape,
                     five o' clock traffic
               welcomes her back to what we are facing.


II


Dreary weather of late fall                       and her beautiful,
              powdered face

great mouth of atomic hell,
         when she speaks--80,000 deficiencies boil alive
                                                   --Trinity's teething test
                                                           on the tired bones
                                                   of a story-teller's raspy cards--

"None the wiser," she speaks,
                                "during the transition of ships
                   vermin turn into krakens culturing
                               on the surface of a raindrop.
    Heroes, villains, animals frozen together
                 after now eating for four days.
     The transition of one genocide
                                                        ­  to the other,
                the delineation of cat-and-mouse,
   mingle too long
   with the dead
   and its necrophilia."

                 Blind Alice wanders off the highway,
leaves her brewed cup of steamy static
on top of the unimportant saucer, sticks pins in her *******,
             and enjoys the sound of Cleopatra
             rolling over in reincarnation.


III

      Dear Alice smells
sunbathing, studded tangerines
                      assimilating liquor within the vast,
       empty, glowing nausea that is--
                        the warm germ

Oil                                    and                 ­          water
               rippled glass too silly for skulls
              made humid by distant salt water,

blood, acid, enzymes,
cheating probability
that runners with drunk kids
have blood between their toes.
                                                      Death­ to the distillation within
                                                    --the chronic diamond too polished
                                                       in *** to see the roses in her *****
    She curses these wood songs,
             heritage patriots with the pelts of wild lions
             with antlers over their heads,
                                                  faces advertising war paint
                                                applied by gargoyle hands
                    --sad memoirs always drink people
                                                  that use God as a cookie jar.


IV


  Gorgeous names
  on graffiti institutions give her a home
                                                         a market
                                                         a nickname
           still                  Alice only accepts Alice.

Grace periods where she misses tyranny
                  rise and fall like endorsed breathing.
    Now Alice feels her dress fall off,
                                  extinct years message future occupancy
                                  about what to wear.
New era, this era, past eras plead guilty
in a      clinic museum
             of forcing demons
              down the medical
              throats
of first graders. Court adjourns at 9:01 PM, Saturday

             The populus can sleep now,
                          but not her.
                 No one gave her clothes
                 to cover up the drained monochrome.


V

Instead she celebrates her flesh,
                                        the broken glass,
   and quakes and leads off to expose
           others to its potential vital prosperity.

         Instead
                     headlines like bumper cars read
                     about the beheading of weeks,
                     failing rescue missions,
                     and debates on teenage tolerance.

Nicotine intoxication points Alice
to over-extended memories--wards of music
sequenced to point out the extinction of marble tigers.
                        Only 550 expected to understand
                         tethered to millions able to survive.

  Flood waters look at moral standards, a mean hurricane
                                   that collapses the death toll
     all patented 50 states
     have a dating service
     and huff paint as a way
                              to pray to art.
                                                      Double­-canvas faces
                                                      dyed in pixel     hope
                                                       that the media levees hold,
             but volunteer to herd sheep into poppy seed fields.
                                            She refuses to stay,
                    to watch the long night
                    of castration on men with mud-covered ankles.
                                      Television says eunuchs want
                                       to be prodigal's children,
                                       everyone wants to come back home
                                       to mom and dad, safe zones, away
                                       from themselves.
                                                     ­                 It says our ancestors want
                                                            ­          this for all of us. They worked
                                                          ­            so hard to tie up the hair
                                                            ­          out of Aphrodite's face.

                                     They treasure the silver eyes of Alice,
                                          but call them blue,
                                                  they issue her high cholesterol
                                          but pump sweet ****** into he stomach,
                                                  they tell her to put down the drill,
                                            so she can finish their orchestra--

her lightning
    is
     a
  string
     of
  souls



VI


     She decides to depart Sunday,
to discover the ordinary beginning,
                        painting WHY? on its delirium.
re-arrangeable viewers become
                      inserted sounds under percussion and piano.

       Caging various important charts
                                          undetermined
   ­                           as finished attention.
                                                      ­              Three movements in flux
open end the people                     vacuuming
                            craftsmanship blocks
                   from                                dogs and zen.

                                                 The
                                 suspended letter               is happening in 1951
   drenched in existential white                                            spacing
        ­                                                   the viewer
                        from integrated architecture.

Down
the
bell is a structure called
"the quarantined wheelchair."
                               Dead ignorance changes pattern
                               after six movements of the second hand.
Alice speaks, "To you all, know
                                       that this is an un-dramatic situation.
          Everyday windows with the same
           participants have girls drinking
                                                     orange juice, activate fluid,
                    both exist as objects
                    and caught propaganda."

                                                   ­                      Six tunnel
                                                          ­      audiences are watching
                                                        ­        drown in the plastic silk
   her                                                       built by the motorized collage
                                                         ­                                        spider.

          Alice, a kinetic mannequin pop star
                        is limp in the glass point.
             Rhythmic flux is objectified war torture
                         censored in fitness magazines
by simple toilet literature.

                                        Six tunnels worth of eyes
                                 latch to the *******
                                           as a way to bury **** protesting.
                                  A coat of pepper spray
                                   works in front of the exhibition.
This stage is shaded by moans.


VII


      Alice the female, has a door-to-door friend
                                                          ­    over the sea
of the cathedral's ceiling               who died of disemboweled
pulchritude             at the mutilated nuclear other-place.
                     Her friend was a synthesized example
                     of staged catastrophes. Her friend is her, silver-eyed
                                                     ­                                             Alice.

            ­                     She performs herself and herself
                                 but they are played by polished, scored poets.

Everyone of them incorporates the events
                                 of a dancing gunshot. Everything rests
                                                           ­ at an intermission

               but after fifty minutes of pondering,
          the lost audience remembers
         her name is Alice.
                   So it comes back on with a shower of sweat
                  and this clear
                                  substance
               ­                                 called
                         ­                              patience.
       This composing, peering vulnerability
                        psychologically destroys the flux tension
              like analog genocidal dictators.
                                   Ultimately this is dream liquor

     commentating war to the war tree
      using trauma and chairs as humor.



VIII


               Patience on the water level lives translucent
                                            on networks that brand flesh
                                            with displaced identity.
Alice convinces us all that pickled ***
                                                             ­               takes eight years
                     to ****** and we accuse it
                                         of being fake. Afterwards, her character dies
in confident silence.


IX


     Not majestic, but she does cough
                  to mock the earth.
        The seeds of Alice are ripe,
                        harvested early, and now her children come out and dine
        like speaking tongues on gibberish.
                          The room is fat with hair

and kindness. Feeble, mundane hands chew on each other,
                                                         feet stand proud.
We even call her Alice or "the beautiful *******,
                                             a black cloud feasting
                                             in orange."
                       Everyone feasts on the nectar
                                                         she has, but never the rye
which makes her round. Juice is squeaking and her children laugh
                         as in competition.

     It's a distinguishable game as the mixed
                                                           ­      couple up front
              begin to play whistles as
                                         everyone eats
                   the pride of the silver-eyed Alice's children.


X

                                                ­ The children's souls
                                                       bow and say
                                           "Thank you for barely growing."
                                                   and dissipate after five minutes.

          "Curiouser                                   ­                                      and
           Curiouser"                                                       ­                   they
           say                                                              ­                        as
           they                                                             ­                       leave
           this                                                             ­                         homage.
                  The decimal backbone
                     of each of sweet Alice's
                                   blonde strands
                   divorced by the gust/ of a green light's/ allowance.


XI Epilogue*


  The day crawls away
                   a vigilant pest
     of the nocturnal project
                   --suns beam down still, like
                  stomachs of grinning felines
                           at Valentine's day.

toxic-dyed fingers
                        soldered
to bodies pittering across rainy streets

--legionnaires with hearts on stones
                         we are waiting for her orders,

     thistled-teeth clench,
                                         but did she
                                          actually
          ­                                ever come?

When the emergency room
is at maximum occupancy,
the nurses will lay down
their clipboards and utensils,
clear their throats, and ask for
women and children
to approach the desk first.
To ensure proper care,
forms still must be completed promptly,
and as patiently as possible for the
patient to be processed.

There's the occasional backwards R.
But all is acceptable with a
signature by the X.
Adrenaline coursing
through veins may perhaps lead
the cause of instability,
some instances coarse skin.
A child with the heart of a lion,
shell of a turtle, will always overcome;
rest assured, an insured child,
prints their name with the
unmistakable yet
innocent backwards R still
knows that words are as powerful
as excruciating pain.
Sticks and stones and words alone
have been known to break through bone.

With the twitch of a finger
even Danny Torrance made
the word "Redrum" seem
like a word to reflect on,
if not only a feeling
of constant déjà vu.

Intensive care is a surgeon
not leaving a wristwatch
inside of a patient,
if not a cadaver
whose time ran out.

Without legitimate occupancy,
Adverse possession is the legal right
Of anyone who moves in and maintains
A property, so here's the deal. We must
Move in to 1600 Penn,
The current tenant having broke the lease.
The caravan from Guatemala first, Hondurans trudging slowly from the depth.
Then the Yemen children not yet murdered,
Those with preexisting conditions next,
And women whose assaults were ridiculed,
Those roughed up by cops and politicians.
Losers in the war on drugs, the big house
Having far exceeded capacity.
The mentally ill, discarded by the
Great communicator after he tore
The Solar panels off the roof.  This is
Anger, not poetic license.  When a
Long train of abuses and usurpations
Evinces a design to reduce them
Under absolute Despotism, it
Is their right, it is their duty to throw
Off such Government, and to provide new
Guards for their future security. Such
Has been the patient sufferance of these
And such is now the necessity which
Constrains them to alter their systems of
Government.  And journalists under  fire,
If there's room still left in the briefing room,
Let facts be submitted to a candid
                          World.

now, I will try to abandon time and space
in this form of truancy.

what is this abandonment trying to measure?
  the abeyance of presence.

what is the measured variable trying
to dissect? the impossibility of absence.

a poem aspires to be something concrete. a poem
   is what is real and imagined in the same context.

I try to invoke Abad -- what is imagined is most
   real.  this shall be its leitmotif.

now, i imagine the horizon as a point

of origin, or a template to some familiar projection,
  or a tagebuch summarized into a fine line
of allegories and denouement.

what this line tries to prove is that

an enjambment is a mimesis.

acknowledge the sublimity of a
  creation. notice that the sequence that will
be promised is diegesis of absence as form
     but not a poem as in a poem that enshrines
lucidity -- but the lack of it.

there is only the photograph of horizon
   as hypothesis of perpetuality. this now

is a subject, a speculative undertaking rearing a
   poem -- writing as preparatory for absence,

finishing a line as pursuit of thesis, gravity of
    its heft as tabulation of emphasis, or
verbosity, which may be telling of meaning or chronology.

a poem that is not a poem,
  But poem as a form of absence

that aspires to be a poem.

what is transpiring now is that i am assuming
   an utterance: utterance as being here,

and perhaps voice as sound of becoming but not finality
   of presence, and sound as disappearance

post-peak. its point-source silence and formation
   of thought, and then a poem is written as

evidence of disappearance in deep and close
   contest with a vision coming from another

audience as an objective supposition or
   reaction that may propel an exchange

but only when silence is entertained does
  silence happen, and so this may be dismissed

as a monologue among dialogues insofar as
    only to pinpoint this arrogant feat:

i may be speaking glossolalia, or in tongues,
  and that i seek no reprieve nor vestige,

all the more response -- intone of voice
   stilling itself in the tense setting

of being gazed upon, glazed with coherence
  of senses from one identity to another say,

you hear me speak as in speaking
as baring sound.
   but now that i have spoken, i have already undone

  the quiet to stir volumes and amplitudes
to attest sound-fade as vital component of absence,

whereas this poem produces ample sound
  if you pay close attention to yourself reading

in the lull form of reading (your
breathing will have intensified here,

your reasoning will have made so much
  noise here) as i continue to whittle

away in form of verse, verse not as poem,
  verseliteration not as occupancy of space,

but all in all, a body of work
that is a visage of movement - or a trace of absence, physics of space and kinesis of departure.

a delineation of a thing that was once
   thriving in threshold accompanied

by its tendency to wane: sound may be an
     analogue of unheard, as sound is impervious
to quietude but quietude conscious of sound
     and its potential,

that quiet coheres to its inclination to consummation,

this completeness so emphatic,
this allegory as
  absence the somatic, axiomatic,

indefatigable machinery of a presage,
   or continuity -- this poem that is not a poem,

but an excess of sound, a body that
   deserves end,  a punctuation.
     verity of this argument in basest form.

this body of work as absence
  and its completeness, volition

of its enigma: is this the end
  of sound or your silence summoned?

to drag it back, its recalcitrant body,
   is form of revision, then possession

of an absence, a recollection that will have granted
   seamless entry and translation

which passes on from its origin to
  a new clause -- to end it here, now and pass

over as readable only in the background that is
   an embellishment of absence amongst

things in exclusive continuity, to have this produced
   in space as empirical of absence,

and to punctuate this, a mystification,
or say, acceptable fabrication,

to read and extricate as acceptance of an absence
   as form: this poem that is not a poem but

only a physicality delimited -- to speculate
and study
as disbelief, and to have done such simply

demystification of its transition.

Effortlessly, I lose myself within You:
Forgotten, yet never quite out of reach,
Your name penetrates the thin arch of my spine,
As I curl my legs up towards my arduous chest,
Burrowing deep into the cavity that
Should hold my red, pulsing heart.

I can feel You all around me;
Memories dance like poetry,
Tumbling out of my lips into the empty air,
And, for a moment, Your warm breath
Caresses my face, as I shift toward
The unimposing wall, letting the cool plaster
Press up against my outstretched palms.

You're never more tangible,
Than when I lie in silence
And listen to the rhythmic hypocrisy
Of my own, insidious breath.
Even spoken sentences, are full of white
Spaces, in between pauses and punctuation.
Empty, and cavernous- blank canvases
Awaiting Your subtle presence.
Hungrily, words rush from me
As if to pave the way for Your fleeting occupancy.

Is this how it feels to be alive?
Father Time wraps his long, gnarled fingers
Around Your soft, golden neck,
Until all the vitality is lost beneath his sorry,
Decrepit hands, which yearn for Your being,
So much that they crush it into yesterday.
While, I sit helplessly observing, a defiled bystander,
Preparing Your eulogy while You laboriously heave for air.

Now, alone in the cool dark of my bedroom,
I repeat my penance a thousand times,
Silently, whispering a lovers remorse,
While twisting and squeezing the last drop
Of feeling onto an indifferent page,
Diluted by almost there prose
And ambiguous metaphors:

My wilted rose, I feel You now
Your once silk petals pressed upon my lips,
Hardened by all that has passed,
A frail remnant of what You once contained.
Pinks and reds of the sunset fall stagnant against
Your rosy cheeks and evanescent silhouette.  
Oh, flower of all flowers, why must You wilt
Upon my plucking of Your fleshy stem?
Is not the beauty of Your ardent life
Strong enough to flood out
The doubts which devoured Your fragrant
Body like malignant parasites?
For while time must tread along,
Can you not stay the way You once were then?

You showed me life, yet took it away
When You exhaled the world with a final leap,
Leaving me here to gather the fragments of a story,
And a vocabulary of feelings
That I can no longer sense.
So, instead, I hover motionless
Above my vacant corpse,
Filling the spaces that You left
With the skeletons of words.

My Sorry Muse, my Own Remorse
Embodied in a Soul,
You took Your  life and gave me words,
But my voice: the afflicted toll.

Chances are you've changed your plans again and
I'm betting I'm no longer a part of them

So I stand still and
You go steady
I guess you thought my friendship needed a vacancy
As if we could have too many
Reach a maximum occupancy
Exceed the optimum capacity

I have to say I'm not surprised
I've been told bigger lies
I often wonder why our pants aren't on fire
Isn't that what we used to say to each other?

Liar liar

You're too busy and
I'm too guilty
Ultimately
I don't really want you to be this happy
That says less about you and more about me than
I love you
Ever did

I'm sorry you had to babysit
My infantile intake of insults
Never ceasing to receive the same results
I just wish you wouldn't insist it was only my fault

Be honest
It wasn't just me who crossed the line
I was never leaving lies behind
When you found out you just said
You'll be fine

Liar liar

Go get married and have two kids
A few years from now you can tell me how it is
I won't know how it feels to repeal vows
Wedding band wasteland
What wonderful self worth we might have

Ill hang out here near the exit
Loitering through life and
Longing for the opportunity to
No longer want to be loved
When the fire crashes down from above
I will look to the sky and whisper
"Best friends forever"
Aflame at last

Liar liar

my air
is heavy with volume
my air
is hard to attain
my air
is desperately sought for
when the occupancy of
people is tested by my mind’s
carrying capacity to absorb
all these racing thoughts
present with tears,silence,and isolation
in hope to escape the
impending
fill in the blank
course of action or person or idea
that will cast sweat blanketing my body
like inevitable dew on grass
leave me seemingly forever choosing flight
against my will
my feet bear the burden
of countless runs to sanctuary
‘Be kind to your body’
knees meet the earth
familiar contact
bruises are an old friend
hyperventilation the unwelcome relative
anxiety is myself
‘I’m trying’
how many cubicle walls
stood mute witnessing
the remnants of remnants
of strength to hold my face
that’s not my face
leak out in the form of rivers
eroding the skin underneath my eyes
my cheeks will rival that of
marble
smooth and absent of
everything
‘Take care of yourself’
i ache for good days
i’ll even settle for alright
if it means i’m okay
not-overthinking
i wish i could do less of
not-restlessness
my vessel craves quiet sleep and
peace in me
not-fear
i want to cast out these demons
‘I’m trying’
people
events
school
the definition of
things
every single aspect
that encompasses my
life
has been trying
in one way or another
the fragility of my spirit
to endure
all thrown in my direction
with self doubt
with self hate
with self breaking
over analyzing
overestimating
underestimating
second guessing
worrying
uncertainty about
all
‘Happiness is your priority’
the pursuit of bliss
carefreeness
grounding
it’s a method
to combat
attacks
i versus i
long to come back to earth
when my being is suspended
in the clouds
weightless encapsulation
with invisible ties
slave to my own
where is gravity with
this one
does floating have an
expiration date
endless breathes
shaking frame
eyebrows turned north
formed physical mountain
‘I’m trying’
language screaming from my
closed mouth
words etched onto my
form
for only my eyes to
memorize
my mental
health
possesses it’s own personal climate
goes through seasons
falls and blooms
chills my soul
and warms my entirety
it’s ever evolving
unpredictable as
forecasting without
equipment
it is not without the weather of
natural disasters
environmental factors
the state of
my atmosphere in my head
there are disagreeable
conditions
precipitation frequent
cloudiness often
pressure recurrent
occasional storms
however
there are
instances of numerous sunshine
periodic stability
intermittent clear skies
conquering or failing
one day after another
the routine cycle
giving what i get
and providing what i receive
with full knowledge
someday i will have to
try no longer
‘I’m trying’

-Haley

reflection time
and there aren't any clean cups.

welcome back my friends!
with broken gates
my mouth's agape
                                 and shut.
because I only left when you did
and then some how some of us came back

We're making eye contact and I feel
so
human
            so raw
                       want to crawl back towards the jar,
take a gulp, ten more. hmmm, what is this? (not water)
let me slump, let me jump, let me shake, let me do what I do.
your accurate occupancy  is full to the brim,
take a sip before you flip like a fish out of water,
we're opposites in the like and the like get's us goodness.

today has no bounds.

Strange
How when all is going
According to
Plan

The record stops in spin
Clouds turn to black
And the round back straightens

I'm awake here
Seeing bare
Attending to cares
But unfulfilled

There is a liar amongst us
She smells of raw fibs
I run my palm
Across my bare chest
Feeling ribs

We are bones
And meat
With a mind we can never fully

Control

A mystery
To myself

Born again
Dying again

Re-living
Nothing

Attending
To
No one

There's a white envelope on the nightstand
With a sum of unmentionable dreams and desires
The shelf stands *****, but I am crooked
Burning a candle in the twilight of midnight
Reminds me that a gift is also fire

And then there is the fact of movement
Evolutions only prime device
There are no tricks
There are no riddles
There is nowhere you can tinker or fiddle

Overtime, we only get better

Move her
Admit him
See that I
Am inside every syllable
Etching a private universe
To perfection so whomever
May choose to enter
May re-live and experience

Matters of Heaven and Hell

Closed off
Sending smoke signals
To
Irritable Gods

Bunk beds with religion
We amass our hatred
For one another

Then play chess with jazz playing in the background

Red oyster shell wrapped around
A ghost white finger
Music tiptoes under my doorway
And the mailman is late with my paycheck

When I worked
As a paperboy
I enjoyed
Riding the bus to school

Because of late night snacking
I now have anxiety
About free breakfast luncheons

A next step for mankind
Seems like a lot of work
And very little pay off for the rest of us

Why are buses designed so poorly
And have no Maximum Occupancy?

Say goodbye to late night friendship
With snapskypefaceinternaboutfacecreditreport.com

She moved her hand
Over her eyes to block out
The sun. The brightness
Comforted her, but, being
An only child, she disapproved
Of anything resembling comfort.

A new noon is upon us
I speak for anyone with a pulse
A new moon has arisen
Any speakers of tongues shows false

Anonymous fortunes
Have arisen between the black and white
Bed sheets are randomly bursting into flames
And grandma weeps regularly

When love dissolves
Like the first fog of dusk,
The sun burning through
Mists futile efforts to shroud we dead men,
Put your ear to the ground
Hold to not make a sound

Witness the frost break
As the business men cut their steaks
See the poor out on the gutter
The addict trip and sputter
Change is not around the corner
The lies are as thin as the coroners smile

This kind of place
Smells of dry skin and regret
Dead brush and a unforgiving sun
Love takes off
Its always on the run

Sometimes
I don't know the difference
Between me and you
Sometimes
You try to tell me something
That I know just isn't true

White cut on the hem of her dress
She says something to me
But I can already tell that she's in distress

"Let me in your taxi," she squealed,
The bangs of her hair bouncing over her face,
"I'll tell yah something. I'll show yah' some lace."
I opened the door with a stone hand
And as she sat next to me I looked over
To see she was holding a beat up tomato paste can

Whispers of truths only turn into bigger lies
A butler coughs as he adjusts his tie
"The body needs to be washed up around the thigh,"
It explained, a shadow under each of the mans eyes
"There is no instrument man can trust to rely,
Other then that of God and his belief in the upside."

A road
Dispelled

A life
Cut short

A boat
Drfiting
Into Port

At last the fog has burned away
So we can decide
Whether you go or you stay

Old houses speak
Dark secrets they leak
Storm weathered
Never settled
Full of cracks and creeks
Antique furniture exposed
Wear and tear from past souls
Resembled ghost in white sheets
Laughter and movement
Once known now abandoned
Vacant and alone
Years of neglect is all that’s shown
The occupancy of life long gone
Pane- less windows
Like eyeless souls
Let in only darkness dampness
Mildew and cold
A door once accustomed of permitting things in
Now warns to keep out
Refusing its hospitality to extend
By chance you pass one's way
Or turn there in
Its rickety corridors try not to disturb
Or its vestiges offend
For old houses are sensitive
To the vibes we send
Old houses speak