Some love to watch the sea bushes appearing at dawn,
To see night fall from the goose wings, and to hear
The conversations the night sea has with the dawn.

If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.
Now you know why I spent my twenties crying.
Cries are required from those who wake disturbed at dawn.

Adam was called in to name the Red-Winged
Blackbirds, the Diamond Rattlers, and the Ring-Tailed
Raccoons washing God in the streams at dawn.

Centuries later, the Mesopotamian gods,
All curls and ears, showed up; behind them the Generals
With their blue-coated sons who will die at dawn.

Those grasshopper-eating hermits were so good
To stay all day in the cave; but it is also sweet
To see the fenceposts gradually appear at dawn.

People in love with the setting stars are right
To adore the baby who smells of the stable, but we know
That even the setting stars will disappear at dawn.

barely hold frazzled wire
no obstacle now
with intention lacking
this former boundary
condition..
But now these elderly posts
seem quaint with beauty
beauty acknowledging
separation as
temporary thought...

Haikus are cop-outs;

no real substance and/or thought,

just numb excuse poems.

-

Your anger is hot,

pooled, frozen acid on flesh

galvanized like steel.

-

You believe you were

told somewhere along the line

that you do exist.

-

You can’t forget that

demons need exercise too;

let them run again tonight.

-

Rules are meant to break:

glass and bones and laws and down.

Rabbit holes feather.

-

Within your soul’s soul

rabbit spiral quiet dark

machete falling.

-

Psychic doubt is back.

...to back to back to back to...

business booming low.

-

Underground moisture,

creeping into bones like mold,

your rabbit decays.

-

Spring, flowers and dance;

sun warmth, on fly’s beating wings.

Live and die too fast.

-

Hungry olives growl,

soft, and panther black, like oil

except the sky's blue.

-

Bright over raw sand

sea shifting low dunes drift by

your mother's  closed eyes.

-

Warm, dirt-tangle roots

an eyelash in your right eye--

you are not crying.

-

LOUD crash of hubris;

wave goodbye, then charge the surf.

Defy its silence.

-

Gasp: breathe deep rabbit.

Beat your heart where the home is.

Do you have a home?

-

Raise your right hand and

repeat after me: be free.

Just don't disobey.

-

Twitch at dissonance;

run, tunnel faster, blink now

thump, devil quiet.

-

Pure distilled instinct;

not fang, or fear, but laughter...

nervous in the dark.

-

Shadow to the wall

around the corner slow down

don't want them to hear.

-

You listen to that

(no tremors follow your fear),

that pulsing faint glow.

-

Desperate your hope,

though diamond venom quickens,

drips the need to move.

-

Iced creep in white veins

soft. Fur on frozen roses;

a beautiful death?

-

No. Run. Now. RUN!

You can't  live, but die ******* trying;

hope is full of spite.

-

Heart pounds, the door drips

blood and limps away ignored.

Listen to them grin.

-

Leap rift, run without

thinking; forget crisp sunlight

draped across water.

-

This is your movie

and you sound like your parents

you want, you blink now.

-

She's ******* someone

and she likes it a lot more;

they **** like rabbits.

-

Boots erupt water

around town, yellow ankles;

youth just felt so long.

-

Plastic bag covers

your bike seat, and then your face

swimming in the sink.

-

Broken dreams wither,

yet still you remember just

reflecting on fear.

-

Do you exist yet?

You just can't count on some things,

like words, tricking you.

-

Lost in these tunnels,

the walls of your house collapse,

memory in heaps.

-

Soft surf wets your socks;

your legs ache with reckoning

but can't run their course.

-

Fenceposts in the snow,

stark the wind, howling, all rage,

biting your hot flesh.

-

The hate is back now

you can't breathe, all your

hope has expired.

-

Chin water sun eyes

wine glass fragments of concrete

dry throat, blood, scream, moon.

-

Waiting now, behind

within meaning, without hope;

fresh red footprints air.

-

Waiting, still, to die

as always, poorly informed

you don't see an end

He figured the birds were chirping.

It's a beautiful day, just warm enough in direct sunlight. Squirrels hopped around the fenceposts.

The neighbour boys, splashing and jumping in the swimming pool,
mindful they didn't run around the concrete edges or their father would step outside and firmly correct them. He loved them, didn't want them hurt.

Spring is alive.
Birds are chirping.

He wondered what birds sound like.

we, all of us, all these
kids
who make lists
and count, count doorknobs
and bus stops and fenceposts and cars on the highway
and scars and broken bones and illnesses
we make lists and reasons and categorize
categorize, organize, memorize
we know, we KNOW how many steps it takes to get to the mailbox
the bus stop
the garage and the car
we count the steps to putting on shoes
1. pick up shoe 2. open 3. pull on 4. tie
we remember the things everyone tells us to stop worrying about
like we don't KNOW
that the weight of this big big world doesn't rest on us alone
and that turning the lock three times doesn't lock it tighter
that going right sock right shoe, left sock left shoe
isn't gonna make things better in the long run we KNOW
we know we've got everything categorized and memorized
and then people have the audacity to say our mental states
are disordered

Kids set fire to southern churches
and god turned a blind eye
to this spectacle
when he sent flames to ravage 
the flatlands. 
the dirge of a dying politician's
diseased voice strains 
through the blown out
crackling speakers in my 
car that was shaking apart 
as we drove further West 
towards the smoke and sirens,
the highway coddling it's median,
black with charred grass.
Sun shone through a cracked window, 
while outside, the shimmering 
wheatfields and acres of sunflowers
were pushing us farther 
into unknown territories,
the many fenceposts passing like hours, 
we want them to go quickly...
something better must be hiding
beyond that next plateau.
We clung religiously
to our notebooks 
and copies of "Being and Nothingness ",
a pen in one hand,
a lighter in the other, 
discussing ways to twist the words of others
into our own truths.
The butane flames dance, 
igniting the scorched images
of smoldering plains and wooden beams, 
angels crucified with the
damning politics of hope.

When you watch something alive get shot
In the head
Where the third eye would be
The gateway to the spiritual realm, so they say
You see the gate knocked off its hinges
It becomes quickly and jarringly clear
That this was never just wood slats
Sandwiched between fenceposts
Grown over with ivy in someone’s backyard
It is a floodgate, a levee
And once the water starts climbing the banks
There is no putting the horses back into the stable

The blood is insistent, demanding for somewhere to go
And that freshly minted hole cannot handle the volume
It’s opening night and the staff can’t keep up
The kitchen is sinking
****, we’re in the weeds
The patrons are storming back out the front door
In search of immediate accommodation

They get what they want, there are options nearby
Cavernous spaces that acquiesce to their needs
The mouth becomes a waterfall
The nose a babbling brook
At the start of spring when the rains fall hard and heavy
But time passes quickly in seconds and seasons
No sooner have you accepted the flood
Than summer comes, drought begins
The wells and the waterfalls
Begin to run dry

I don't understand any of you
as the front runner does not
understand what is behind

And I am you in your pocket
or on your edge balancing
an admission you resist

Fenceposts aren't
your thing to go by
are they

Smaller now
we lunge
past

Holy moly I've gone and done it again
sacrificed myself for the good of man
like I can gather up our sorrows and tackle them
off a cliff at the last minute
I can do it, I've got this
I won't let you down
I won't let you down
I WON'T let you down
But I will
As long as you don't know me
Take a closer look at my face
and try to find the muscles that move it
the neurons and blood vessels forming a mask
around my pillar-mind of nothing
I just want to reach out to you
and shake hands with that common chaos
that sparks between us in silence
while we sleep, or in the times
when we're all too excited to shut up

[If you really want to see me, close your eyes]

I just want to be seen as the imaginary friend that I am
You can make me something new
I can make you something too
Alchemy is what you make it
and trust me, we can turn our bodies
into gold, our eyes into black holes
our thoughts into galaxies

The cosmos is behind your eye
but you see yourself differently outside of the mirror

Light warps around our opinions of each other
and we catch our expectations out of the corner
of our eye

Free me, Feel me, **** me, Fear me

I want to do it all
I want to feel alive
So let's pass out on the floor like twin children
Sharing the womb of this house with
our brothers and sisters
This room is what we've turned our mother into
and she shelters us from the cold
for now, until we want to try our luck
on the outside

We'll try to get back here
after we've had enough of the mad
world full of mad mothers and
fierce fathers

Come along for the ride, but know that
I let go of the wheel a long time ago
And now I laugh and spin and flip
and I only wear my seatbelt
when other people are driving the car

Call me a control freak
but truth be told I surrendered to this
car crash truth long ago
when I heard the first murmurs
of metal bending and
sparks hitting the pavement

Is the ship going down
or is heaven at the bottom of the sea-
the coldest womb

The ocean
which birthed the lizard
of our darkest subconscious desires

Let's not go back there too soon
I've only just learned to crawl
on land, I want to walk these streets
and see my breath as I speak
to the people I meet-
The other air breathers
and ******* children of
forgotten mothers-
The representatives
of falling stars
and forgotten gods

It's all here,
so stop trying to run away
from it

It's all here
all the love and hate and laughter
of the world is present in this
odd moment of keys pressed down
like fenceposts, so I can show you
where my borders lie

It's all here

So stop running