We come to a complete stop.
At a red light.
We wear our arms like seat-belts-
crossed for protecting our pilot lights.˚
I can't help but wonder how many airbags might deploy
if a meteor crashed headfirst and heavyset into the planet
and pancaked us eternally into this moment-
and how our fossils would look confused;
funeral flowers on a wedding cake.

None of this matters, we're both thinking it,
God is a foster child playing with his erector set.

You grin with as much conviction as a dented automobile,
breaking the months of silence to say,
"I miss you."

We can never fold these road maps back the way they came.

Somewhere existentially above this moment, there is an asterisk
that confirms
you- are here.

There was a younger version of me that you never got to meet,
he was here once,
stupid as a slinky.
Shaken like an Etch-A-Sketch.
Crooked as the question mark that punctuated his voice.
I looked good in hydroplane,
my eyes- bigger than my belly,
so I drank my weight in promises- I knew would be hard to keep within arms reach.
I also knew an encyclopedia's worth of how it felt to lie to myself.
I did it for twenty-three years
until I finally let go of stupid and held on to reason.

At some age I wrote letters to my favorite musicians,
using the sloppiest side of my penmanship, I'd ask for answers
and my mother, like a paperclip, used to tell me - she'd say,
"Kiddo, just because they don't respond
doesn't mean they didn't get the message."

She kept her chest of hope upstairs, away from the living room.
She only opened it on the hallow end of October;
that's where she kept the blankets.

Shy, I kept my hope chest covered in a T-shirt-
at the very least.
I never opened up.
I emptied my toy box of all its fiction, filled it with voices.
Deployed an army of rubber wrestlers, martial arts amphibians
and those inanimate toy soldiers with plastic parachutes attached
in search of the confidence I knew was supposed to belly-flop inside of me.

It hid, unfound for decades.
Until you entered.

Hawaiian domino effect, circus of chain reactions, avalanche of affirmation, chest-plate yielding gravity mouth speaking brightest anything forever night light, all apex and eyelash and cheekbone.
You -from big island- broke me.
I opened like the dry side of an umbrella, kept my back turned for shielding you.
I showed up for love on time, like a subway train in echelon city
wanting these arms to feel less like turnstiles.

All my sign languages were in waves.
All my ceilings turned to skies.
All my jitters packed into my hunger stomach.
Typing hyper with caffeinated hands
a swarm of nervous words bee-hiving in my butterfly chest.
Something like a hummingbird
when I finally drop your name like an alarm clock whisper
my lungs empty like cathedrals on the day after Christmas.

I brought the sermon to your Sundays,
you brought the choir to my masses.
We built a church around these esophagus bell towers.
Held ourselves up to the stained glass and showed off our light;

I swear I don't believe in a lot of things, God knows,
but there's always a but,
so much as I believe in the eternal depth of everything,
so much as I believe that we'd have plenty of water if it weren't for salt,
so much as I believe in eight marbles rolling around a gas lamp,
I believed we'd find a way.

'Cause in all the ways my sky could never hold you- and I mean this-
I believed in you- same way some people believe in Jesus.

Because you never judged my albatross mouth when I said things like,
"Self deprecation is the new love."
You kissed me-
less like doorstop,
more like lighthouse illuminating windmill.

You were a merry-go-round pivot decorated in Kona coffee beans, Christmas lights, cough syrup, paper mache pineapples, plastic dinosaur bones, a collection of worn-out Asics, board shorts and a dubstep remix broadcast through the static of a blown-out rotary phone.

You were everything I could get my hands on-

A full-tilt action-packed kaleidoscope jungle
with blender tongue and volcano heart.
I looked good in your sad panda coat tails,
teaspoon swallowing my doubts
while you Tarzaned my ability to breathe,
gave me ocean view and weak knees.
Is that sea breeze in your aftermath or are there already tears in my happiness?

You came camouflage out of my blind spot dressed in magnet armor,
diving board and drum set.
We passionbent cymbals into cannonballs.

I found comfort between your breastplate and your shoulder blades,
where you held me like a promise
when all my wishing was for want
and all your wanting was for wishes

Granted,

I know that there were days when you couldn't help but wake up like gorilla speaking Pidgin
and I couldn't help but waking up like an abandoned highway with a chip on my shoulder-
some maps don't show this much detail, Google Earth-

Which is why I always came through for you like a well-lit citrus truck stop
pressed against the dusk in your moonlight life crisis.
We only saw stars.
From our moon base.
In bewilderment, in our hunger, we learned
that if you hold me to my vending machines you'll get what you pay for.

So here it is, the truth, as I have always known it,
delivered to you on the outskirts of an echo,
my voice, supporting my existence like a monolith.

I'm standing in the middle of a you-shaped hole.
It's as wide as a promise crater-
we built it together.
It's not my favorite place to stand
but the exit strategies are made in the shape of a me that I haven't constructed yet.
I had a lot of things planned.
I referred to things as "ours",
when I really meant "please".

Bury me in your time lapse.
When your emotional excavators discover me in your sediment
they'll find me all pterodactyl-
wings spread wide as potential, sky-diving toward forgiveness,
forever.

Truth is, I'm wingless.

We met at a stop sign.
Our paths crossed.

There's a lot of accidents at some intersections.
Maybe it's because that's not where those two roads were supposed to meet.

We can't time machine argue with the way things landed.

We weren't an avoidable accident.
We were just two cars that really wanted to dance.

I don't know what I'm trying to say but I know when I mean it.

There's a tyrannosaurus rex cradled head-to-tail just behind my curator heart-
all fossil spine, monster teeth, jaw head and piano hands.
His presence says a lot about the past.
There's an asterisk on the surface,
above this moment,
that confirms with absolute certainty,

˚something wicked awesome happened here.

if i lived in a world where dinosaurs roamed
as beasts of enormous size,
i would be a fern.
and if you lived within this world
and drank from the purest springs,
we would never meet.

if i were a cake of velvet frosting
with many layers to make my shape,
filled with jelly of dark fruit
preserved beyond their days,
you would cringe at my appearance
and never know my taste.

if i remained myself,
and you remained as you,
we would be these things,
and know not what to do.

Free concerts
are full of potheads,
they get all in your ear
and start talking about
the land of milk and honey,
DENVER ******* COLORADO.

The beers cost
15 bucks
for pisswater
and barely a pint.

The girls
all wear pink spaghetti straps
sagging acid-wash jeans,
and a smell like
old milk.

The old people
dance.

the old people dance;
there wrinkly
pterodactyl arms
flapping as they swirl the air
with bad knuckles.

The air smells,
like sweat.

Sweat smells like
toilet water.

Free concerts are usually outside,
so hope to ******* Gaia that it doesn't rain,
because you're stuck there,
drunk and yelling
dancing and laughing
******* and falling.

Matt, Dang and Me.

We spent our summer going to free concerts,

because the girls that go to free concerts
think tattoos and finger-******* and toilet humor
is more ****
than money.

The old people dance with you
performing some type of necromancy
in the air
that brings dead things inside of you
back to life.

And the bud,
it's so ******* sticky,
and it causes a hacking
paroxysm of coughing
to the point that you can
taste the blood in your mouth,

because those people from
DENVER ******* COLORADO,
really know their ****.

I had a dream last night
I was a Pterodactyl
But that's beside the point

When I was human
In my dream
I hooked up with women
As far as the eye could see
(Maybe 2 or 3)

I knew these women
I went to school with them

But every time I touched,
Kissed,
Nuzzled with any of them
It felt wrong
I was disgusted
And it hurt

And as a Pterodactyl
I couldn't glide
So I hit the pavement
Hard
Even though it was really windy

According to my mom and dad, when I was little, I used to say that I wanted to be a garbage truck driver. Yeah, I know — literally dumping trash and pumping gas isn’t something a typical four-year-old girl wishes to grow up to do. It impressed me how the men rode, clinging onto the back end of the truck, pushing buttons to crush the unwanted goods to dust. Although I am sure it would have been more appropriate for a young lady to look up to Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, I looked up to those men because they appeared fearless and strong. I never really liked the “girly” things my parents and sisters gave to me. In fact, when Barbie smiled at me through a plastic window, I took her out, tore her head off and threw her body to the dog. I should have loved the color pink and liked the smell of daisies; I didn’t. I was ridiculed for hating both and told I shouldn’t be so different.
When I turned six, my grandpa gave me a book about prehistoric beasts. I couldn’t read well, but I liked the pictures and the long words with plenty of strange letter combinations. Words like “pterodactyl” and “brachytrachelopan” fascinated me, and made me feel exceptionally intellectual just to know how to pronounce them (even if I did so poorly).  When asked, I proudly responded, “I want to be a paleontologist when I grow up!” Adults praised me for being so intelligent at such a young age, and I felt special. But one day, I learned that bone diggers don’t make much money. So, I changed for a few extra thousand dollars a year.
By the age of eight, I decided I wanted to become a veterinarian because that’s what my best friend wanted to be. She loved animals and said we should help them because they can’t help themselves. I took a bite of the pie graph, “Occupations Wanted By Children.” It tasted bland and watered down but it made me normal to want that for myself—even if it wasn’t my own dream. My friends and I babbled about having every species imaginable for pets and loving them more than Romeo loved Juliet. But when my mom told me that I might have to  euthanize animals, the pie tasted a lot more ****** going down. I decided I should search for another job.
Around twelve, I started writing a journal. I named it “Joyful” because that’s what I felt the best emotion was and wrote in it occasionally during my sixth grade year. The pages were cluttered with names of boys I had crushes on and i’s dotted with hearts. I modeled my naivety through my entries but it was motivating how I could see my style and thoughts developing over time. My entries went from “I love the sky!” to “When a cloud drifts just in the right position next to the sun and makes that golden ray, I feel as if God’s finger is pointing down to a specific thing he created and saying to us on Earth, ‘Hey, see that thing over there? Yeah, I made that and it’s beautiful. It deserves respect.’”  I have smashed windows in the writing process and let in drafts of fresh ink. I am aware that being a writer in most cases makes a person financially deprived, but that won‘t affect my aspirations. Writing has been my dream since sixth grade and even now I know I’m not perfect but at least I’m pushing myself to be better. I’m changing for me.
No matter how adamantly I’ve tried or how much I realize that writing is sometimes harder than brain surgery, I don’t seem to slice it out of my life. Societal success is measured in dollars but if dreams had monetary value and salary was how badly a person wanted to make that dream come true, I would be paid more green than the Earth has blades of grass. I shouldn’t have to explain to people why I don’t want to be a garbage man or a paleontologist or a veterinarian, or why I don’t want to live by their popular choices. For all I know, I could be the best waste manager that ever had the pleasure to take away last week’s paper. I could strike it rich by discovering a billion-year-old algae. I might save the next Lassie or Winn Dixie. It isn’t up to other people to decide what I want to be when I grow up (if I ever decide to). Instead, I’ll write in spite of everyone else — for the ones that didn’t follow their dreams and strived for physical wealth. If I am to be paid in blades of grass, I will live. And I will die knowing I am one of the few to see a such a gorgeous, glistening, green meadow.

LET SLEEPING PTERODACTYLS LIE


Rusted scythe
perched on a nail


high up on a wall
a sleeping pterodactyl.


I can't stop myself touching
it to see if it is - real.

Smacks its lips
laps up my blood


from my foolish fingertip
deceived by shadows.


It's grin glinting
the smile come alive.


The ghost of a horse
whinnies in the stable


that's gone long gone
the then merging into the now.


Or maybe Mr. Death
too tired to go on

hangs up the instrument of his trade
time to retire the old bones.

“No way to make a living!”

I back slowly away
blinded by the sunlight

that screams. . ."Run!"

Is that a flying pelican?
Or is it a pterodactyl, I can
see a flying pelican,
It's like Pleistocene history,
Not evolving? That's a mystery,
Look, a flying pelican,
Its beak holds more than its bellycan!

We think we're living game of thrones,
it's
Chinese whispers,
we are fed retirement homes
satisfied with rice and beans,
jelly on a Sunday.

The clock ticks on
and
picks on me,
I should smash its face in

Chinese whispers,
that's a sin
put it in your notebook.

Most will tell you it's a lie
then they try
to disprove the truth

if that is the proof of it
the limit reached
walls breached
then
Citadels fall

believe
nothing at all.

On really good days
I'll leave a crisp five
In the back pocket
Of my ratty blue jeans.

That way when my future self
Feels as fragile as spun sugar
But tastes like burned bitterness
And needs to shake herself awake
Drag herself from chore to chore,
Convince herself that collapsing isn’t a cure,
[Though doesn’t the cold tiled floor feel refreshing?]
She’ll only have clothed in comfort:

         Her baggy gray sweatshirt,
         Consuming her body whole,  
         Making her shapeless,
         So maybe she can shape shift,
         Into a bird or a bat or a pterodactyl,
         And make the most of her new wingspan,
         Flying further from her fractured reality,
         Into a fabulously far-fetched fantasy.

        Her ratty blue jeans haphazardly thrown on,
        So worn that there are holes in the knees,
        Frayed hemline attesting to the tired trampling,
        But when she tries to shove a ***** tissue,
        Into the back pocket hoping it’s mere placement,
        Is enough to leave the memory behind her,
        She’ll stumble upon a long forgotten monetary love note.

Yes, you do love yourself,
Yes, I know it’s rough now,
In fact, I guessed it way back when,
But life is just a series of juxtapositions,
And maybe you’re in a hole dug so deep,
That you’ve burrowed out into China,
And now look, really look,
You’ve got a world of exploring to do!
But if you’re not yet strong enough to
Climb the Great Wall,
Don’t you worry,
Building endurance takes some time,
But until then,
Here’s a crisp five,
Go buy a Kit-Kat,
A can of Sprite,
And a cheap horror flick,
And never forget,
I always love you.

Hey remember that night when we chased the burglars in the front and back yard
and you almost kissed me?
God, I wanted you to.

I submitted a Post Secret of two young French lovers kissing in the rain
and I wrote “This will never be me” over the woman.
******* Parisians.

Once upon a time,
I bought flowers for myself just because I wanted to.
It was the most empowering thing I could have done.
But for the two weeks they sat on my window sill,
I was constantly reminded no one bought them for me.

Long ago, in a land far, far away,
I used to believe in miracles.

This one time, We sat at the Spanish Arch,
the one the Conquistadors built,
comprised of ancient old stone that caught the tears of the heartbroken,
heard the tales of the old salty men coming home from the bar,
and saw the transformation of an old Irish city into a new, artsy town.
We looked up, saw a shooting star, and wished on it I would be with him forever.

I was 19 once, and he sat on the beach with his flicky blonde hair
and a Corona and his oversized tee shirt hanging off his body
and we sat on that beach for hours, in the eye of the storm, soaking it all in.
It was the first time I realized I could love.

We were 22 and he was in love with somebody else and I loved his soul,
but I wasn’t in love with him and we found out we’re in the same boat.
We will always love each other but we can never be together
because we cannot give each other what we need.
He’s the only man who has never let me down.

As a child, I thought I could fly.
Not physically fly, but Peter and Wendy inspired me,
and I knew I could fly as a dreamer, and soar through the skies
like the hawk or the raven or the finch or the ******* pterodactyl if I wanted to.
And I wanted to. And I did.

I wrote a story once about a girl who ran several miles at two am when she couldn’t sleep
and the personal demons kept haunting her and taunting her
and the whiskey wouldn’t shut them up.

Every once in a while, I clean the house naked.
Sometimes, I kinda wish the UPS guy would catch me.

Every day, my life is filled with sullen, sunken, exposed regret.
I wish I did what I didn’t do.

translation from russian by rolanda


                                                   E.К
I write you from ex-colonia
grounded twenty centuries ago
by romans-sounds like a symphony
for hyperborean ear, hundred time
increased distance till addressee.
Looks like Agrippa knew what she did
the sister, worth by her madness of her brother.
Further cinematograph-**** body
bent and etc..accordingly screenplay
maid lapping in marble bathtube
horns leads triumphal aria
with a long sound. On the backstage
usual complaining on the fate,
tangent glance to the east,
muscle of cease  walk
the female wolf her concrete ******,
snapping, moving back to the building of arsenale
lost fatten twins.
I recollect what you didnt finish to say me
closing second door on the bolt,
on same spot there is a snow, cover up Prachechnij bridge
panorama of river, filled up by ice,
something with tear through two thousand miles
or old age with saged belly.
In our age, verticals are
soaring unreachable, slipping to result
of life, just right to dress on sandals
but hardly happens to slip into toga.
Invariable law of falling drops
down, no matter- fontain, rain, ******.
Harbour of postscript...rats storm the ship.
Funeral office offers moire
from spring collection for upholstery of
coffins, grief on the faces of personals,
just in time served coffee with cream
soften disaster of final account.
I write you, for what? - after victory
of foreign football team
from the closeness of prosperous summer,
connected Alps and Andes
by wave of psychose from tv,
inflicted by joy of superiority
above..(not clear what of), and their poses
of victors is sign of ugliness
from point of view of observer-
old neurasthenic and misantrope.
Contemplating fly of pterodactyl
by eye of stamped cyclop,
gilded **** on short spike of chirch
scream by voice of Luter:
"Be blessed folks cars!",
and  morning flow down by sunrise on wood

by Dmitrij Poparev

Pterodactyl tech in the firmament
Prophets dare speak in invisible ink
Leaders conspire to make average permanent
Long lines form the sweet pink Kool-Aid to drink.

Faint white rainbow in winters’ dull bone sky
Say can the blind see dysfunction’s junction?
They whisper quit, and we can’t though we try.
Tarot cards tell of death and destruction.

What did you expect, believe or aspire?
Master politicians play right the wrongs.
Feigned respect the cheap price of desire
It don’ matter ‘cause they pick the songs.

Black market work, lost dreams silent shout
Walking in star shadow, power is out.

Floyd Alsbach

She squishes the pill bug
with the tip of her shoe
giving it a nice twist at the end
to be sure the deed was done.

She stares for a long while
at what must have looked like a Rorschach test
speckled with bits of recognizable body parts -
legs and guts as such-
as if searching for the bigger picture
it must have been hiding.

She jumps back into her self
when she recognizes the voice of a little boy
calling from the swing set nearby.

She looks exhausted
like she's spent all day carrying the world
and this is a rare moment
when the universe allows her to sit down.

She reluctantly rises from her semi-comfortable bench.
and shuffles toward the impatient child
who is now screaming wordlessly for her.

She's been dealing with this behavior for a long time
you can tell because the pterodactyl screeches he's emitting
that send the nearby blind man's dog into fits
don't phase her at all.

She grabs the metal ropes of the swing,
pulling him back to the highest point of the pendulum,
and lets go.

The little siren boy falls immediately silent
his eyes slowly shut
His face melts into what can only be described
as the untarnished bliss we all misplaced,
or packed away somewhere in the attic
with all those old picturebooks,
long ago.

He's flying.
For the first time all day,
she doesn't have to fake a smile.

what's inside?
a fish? a duck? a bird of paradise? candy? lizards?
or something more exotic -
a dragon?
a platypus?
a firebird?
pterodactyl? sea serpent? roc?
maybe a village, or a girl, or a death, or all three?
eggs are wild cards. fate puts a baby [_] inside, and it claws its way out when gets impatient of sitting pretty. we are all basically eggs waiting to assume a shape and shake off a shell of past dreams and childhood nicknames.
yes they're delicate. so they can break apart when needed. so they can enclose themselves gently around a realm of potential, but it is a maze, not a prison. escape is the ultimate end. birth is the ultimate end.

(last Friday)

My English class just ended and everyone’s packing up (18 students). The class is held outdoors under a tent due to COVID. My professor says, “Ms Vionet, may I speak with you for a moment?”

I froze, Oh, my God, I thought, is he about to tell me to quit - has he already identified some fundamental inadequacy in my work? The world seemed to go silent as I hefted my backpack and approached him.

“Ms Vionet,” he began.
“Anais,” I interjected.
“Anais,” he patiently started again, “We have a small professor’s choice (invitation only) writing group that meets every two weeks, 7 to 8 PM on Wednesdays - would you be interested in joining us?”

It was hard to hold back a pterodactyl screech of delight. “Yes sir, I’ll be there”

“Here”, he said, motioning to the tent classroom “weather permitting.” He had packed up, he turned and headed for some nearby stairs.

I did a twirl of joy.

I saw a pink dinosaur
at a discounted price
in the local mall
I saw another dinosaur
blue and smiling
and a green one looking so friendly
being so soft and fluffy.

These dinos are so majestic.
Why must I suffer their absence?

I want a T-Rex
He will stand guard on my bed
I want the Long Neck
To survey the outside from the windows
I want the Stegosaurus,
To give my smaller toys a ride
The Triceratops will watch my books,
and the Pterodactyl flies with my alicorns.

Let's PLAY!

Upside down world this is
Where even Alice would
Loose her tracks
This forest inside uncontrollable
Lack of purpose
The path is squirming
From left to right
Leading nowhere
But puddles of
Unidentifiable earning
Somewhere between bitter coffee
And lack of sleep
The absence of inspiration
Is seeping at a childhood dream
Air is free of substance
Like the dungeon of a
Crashed butterfly
Fly away little bird
...insect... whatever it is that
Makes you feel safe
The winged mouse
The pterodactyl of your own creation
Tell me what is that truth
That strings all these beads
Into a sufficient reason
To continue the conversation

my feet had barely greeted california
when my face matched the new summer,
cheeks blooming uneven,
eyes green as moss
and every face i glared upon
avoided looking too long.

walking through my least favorite airport
chin high, silent and ugly and wet,
i grieved for myself, i pitied my future, and mourned my past.
something lodged in my throat screamed with more assurance
and clarity and confidence than i have ever known
"this is not where i belong!"

i cried for my feet no longer squishing silica on white beaches
old skin disappearing in tiny fish
or kissing rainforest mulch, under-dressed in flipflops
taunting flora and fauna and fate

i cried for my skin, abused and bronzed
exfoliated in world heritage parks, the first shower in days
and oiled from water crossings in a run-down four wheel drive
a beard of blemishes i didn't bother to hide.

i cried for my ears, robbed of every accent,
of the crashing waves and roar of waterfalls,
or the same six songs played in every club in cairns
and the pterodactyl screech of flying foxes.

i cried for my hair, for my hands, for my nose.
i cried for my mouth and my tongue and my legs.

mostly, i cried for the death of laughter that started in the
pit of my stomach and rose up like carbonation
to my chest and my lungs and my neck and burst
like floodwaters in dorrigo
the elation and exhilaration and euphoria of being alive
that spilled out of me in screams and shrieks
and bubbled and flushed and insisted
so fiercely so strongly so urgently
that to relent was not even a choice but a right

and then half a year later
i sat dully in a fluorescent corridor at my transfer terminal
feeling my heart retreat, defeated
dreading the long months ahead
promising nothing but drudgery and boredom
letting the tears drip onto my boarding pass
black ink lamenting, too
and not a single person approached
or spoke to me
until i asked to wash away the moment
with a diminutive bottle of ***
a mile from the surface.

Unidentified monograms
we are floating through a machine-gun pterodactyl
that shoots lay-zer tiger gamma-ray photon blobs at a flying bag of nuts.

We ride on a an escalator accelerating toward the speed of sound
towards a symphony that shrinks in our synapses and breaks our bonds. Without words we wander towards a waxy floor
and slip or just trip on a trampled stumbling block of sand.

And I cry at the sight of a man who will probably die for the sake of his pride; who had lied, and cheated, and been mistreated for the sake his gains that caused him pains, but were vain and empty and deserve no sympathy. (for sure)

He will endure for the glory of the cure which will have no discrepancy, and will illuminate the enemy
when it comes within proximity
of the light of God,
which burns all flesh.

For patience is a virtue that the universe attains to, with billions of years gone passing in a flash now.
With breath and reason there will be a passing of this season by the times and dates marked down at the bottom of the page under sub-section be
after "I am" and "I was" and  "I shall"
and there won't be a televised broadcast.
There will simply be radio silence for those who are listening.
(Yes they are indeed still listening)
Towards a siphoning of nitrogen out of air into the ground
without sound but with space.
All to be brought back out again
out to spin again;
begin again.
(Better than the last time)

I can burn you down,
or scare you with a howl,
I am the wonder of the ages,
say the witches, the wizards and the mages,
Many warrior have had to fight my might,
a valiant attempt to set the scores right,
.
.
.
I love gold, and lust for treasures,
I am invincible, and there is nothing left for a measure,
How dare you compare me to a pterodactyl?
a feeble, birdbrained projectile,
My birth was kindled in a volcano fire,
and once I dance, you will soon be on a burning pyre
.
.
.
Alas! That is all a fad,
My reality is not really too glad,
I am confined to the tales which grandfather told on a rainy day,
and the farmer sang as he cut the fresh dewy hay,
You can also find me in books, movies and computer games,
as an emptiome of 'hard to tame'
.
.
.
I wish there was more to myself,
than just stories of gnomes, goblins, and elves,
I will never spit fire and smoke,
nor will I scare the townsfolk,
Enjoy reading about my feat
be it with popcorn, or from under the bed-sheet
.
.
.
As I wag my tail
only to find my place in another telltale.

A thunderstorm now blossoms, stealing the sheen from a lambent sky.
Selfish clouds harvest light, storing it away for security,
An aetherial currency long-forgotten.

But she remembers, hiding amid grey flannel bedsheets.
She remembers all: the birth of the ground as it fell from the trees,
The death of the moss that hoped for more.
She remembers the haunting shriek of the pterodactyl, circling into Oblivion.

In her room on the moon, with doors of ancient bone and holy song,
Locked away from the great hereafter, she hears the whisper of a promise meant for a whole world and falls asleep.

I have got to get me some CAD
I want the free flowing lines of those aided designs
I need them now and I want them real bad.
I am crumbling away
I am grumbling today
I am falling apart at the seams
I am dinosaur,pterodactyl,a kaleidoscope,chaotic fractal
I have got to get me some CAD.
I want to wake to the sounds of the sea,as a shell on the shore,won't someone out there kindly draw me that screen,let me lean on the cursor and rehearse what I see and what I need for me
is some CAD.

In one year I want to fly
And not on any human made machine
or
jumping out of an airplane with a safety net to know I wont die.
Forget that nonsense,
I'm going to sprout wings out my back
Exactly where those knots have been hurting me soooooo bad
from pulling double shifts everyday
picking up 50lb bags.
I'm going to do exactly what birds do
and turn back evolution
because we all know we resemble birds when we're embryos.
But my wings won't look like angels
and they wont have feathers
instead they will have scales reincarnated
from jurassic park days.
A human pterodactyl.
And the newspapers won't know what to do with it.
What nickname would be given to the flying beast above the city?
It sure ain't superman or Lois Lane by any measure
it looks like a dinosaur with a human for a head.
And that will be me.
Flying above streettops and staring down at the landstuck animals.
I won't fight crime, or save the world
I might just scare window washers until they slip and fall
and then swooooooooop down to "play" hero
I probably will end up a freak...
a misunderstood adventurer
turning back time and trying to play GOD
I can hear the scientists and religious preachers preaching their own disdain for what I have done
Destroying darwinism in an instant and completely ruining the human genome
The republicans will attack me and The democrats won't back me
the independents will call for love and peace for eternity
but please, they don't have enough money for primetime tv.
No
No
     NO
I will end up the outcast of society and hated by every human that has a country on their Passport
I will be terrorist threat number one and you can see me on Unsolved Mysteries.
The History channel will have hour long specials with experts you never knew existed
getting paid to share expertise on something you didn't even know existed
But that sounds kinda cool...
So now I'm wondering, should I start to sprout these wings?
I am no fool, I began the process 15 minutes ago when I began writing
but now I want to pull these wings deep within the rib cage and hide them forever.
No
It doesn't matter what they say
They're JEALOUS
They could yell and scream and throw missiles and stones and fake bullets and best laid plans
But I will dodge them all
Remember
I can fly.

The Sound Of A Teardrop Distilled Into Alien Ears

the faultless sun
sure shot us
an indecipherable gaze
that day

we drifted to the
atmosphere’s edge
naked

like an orchid blooming
against the defunct metal
of an orbiting satellite

we were left stranded
on the rooftop of the world

where regret pools
in wailing shadows

yet
together we formed Pterodactyl wings
and flew away on thin sheets of skin,
the prehistoric wind brimming
with the fitful sleep of ancient matter

2. Her Superior Genetic Architecture

she
a black-skirted spaceship
hiding in the glare of the sun

stepping lightly down
from the clouds

the brightness of her face
swaying under the slow-churning skies

beneath her
doors creak open
in anticipation

the brightness of her face
swaying under the slow-churning skies

the world greedily swallows
her rings of ambrosia
in savory lumps

leaving nothing
for the scurrying insects below

THE LIGHT VANISHES

Summer had suddenly
gotten old.

Shadows nibbled at the light
limping along by an orchard wall

biting it
to the bone.

The light seemed to wince.

An apple fell to the ground
as if on cue.

Forever seemed somehow
shrunken.

Time withdrew into itself.

The house was talking
to the wind

in its creaky old voice about
the this of that and the that of this.

The wind saying nothing now.
Keeping sthum.

Inside... a book
lay asleep upon a table

waiting to be awoken
by a child's hand.

The words now
allruntogetherbit

ready to jump back
into their proper places

take up their position.
when called upon.

Even the pterodactyl
had its eyes shut tight

in the drawing of it
on page 42

flying in pre-historic
black and white.

I was amazed to find
I owned

all these aunts and uncles
that were all mine!

I even had a cute cousin
called Mary Frances who

always made me
smile.

A mottled mirror
had flung itself upon a floor

scattering itself here & then
there in a loud "oNo!"

Still showing the world
its face

in many tiny
little seeings

that could
draw blood.

I breathed the summer in.
I breathed the summer out.

I would never again be
as old as I was now.

It was the last time
I was 9.

ONCE UPON A LONG TIME AGO

T-Rex roars fiercely
the little hands holding the wool
feeling foolish

Mama-Rex scolds
"Now Junior...just you hold still!
Then you can go make a ****!"

Junior( Teddy-T to his pals )
looks outside the cave
a pterodactyl has the sky to itself

Teddy-T  squirms
in envy swears he'll tear it
wing from wing

the **** wool
rolls itself into a ball
like a tiny planet

"Who invented wool anyway?"
T-Rex junior roars silently
"Deus-Rex how I hate these cardis!"

the future looks orange
a bright orange
the sky full of time to come

Mamma-Rex looks lovingly
on her fidgety son
"Oh it hasn't been this icy in ages!"

a diplodocus
saunters by
without a thought in its head

T-Rex Junior fumes
that he is missing all those
tasty time travelers

"Is it me..." muses Mamma-Rex
"... or is there more of them time thingys
this season?"

"Now, Junior..!" she
scolds
"You know there will be always
more where they came from!"

a meteorite hurtles towards
the tiny blue ball
singing the song of itself

"Don't stuff yourself with time travelers
...ya hear me now...they're bad
for your teeth!"

the meteorite enters
the atmosphere
"Wow!" shouts Junior "Wow!"