thank you everyone
that's found anything from my words
your support has made things
much more worth doing.

Hope doesn't perch.
Hope isn't a smiling face
among a dismal crowd.
Hope isn't the light at the end
of the tunnel.

Hope is when the crows
grow full from the carrion of
a dead lamb and rest.
Hope is when the old man
having forgotten himself years ago
falls asleep one last time.

Hope is everything you've needed
after you didn't need it anymore.
Hope is the time after the noose tightens
and before you fade away.

Leaves dying not dead burning orange and
burning red
only fall to freeze soon instead
not even the sun and the cirrus painting gold
a sky too tired hold
much anything but of black or blue
can free my mind from thoughts of you

cars grumble home fences rust a little
stray cat sleeps alone we laugh and giggle

but every Sunday has to end
and Saturn's people wonder
if they'll ever love again
for them night is only 5 days away
before the drinks are poured
and the people come out to play.

silence sounds like something
and the darkness never cries
they believe in everything
but the tedium never dies.

Not so far away girl
still so impossibly far
why must we wait until sunrise
to fall asleep?

Why is this beauty only conceivable
after the bottle dripdrips empty?
sinking deeper and deeper into saturn's orbit

youthful vibrant fluffed up peacocks
clucking on about research chemicals
and music festivals and last night and 6 days before
about banking and obamacare
and oh, my they're all talking
all at once
talktalktalking about this this this and that
not even asking for audience
soundwaves echo into nothingness
screaming lungs void of substance
fleeting purposes
failed courtships
unheard unimportant words
and oh, my, what a tedious thing
the night has become
but to stay at home alone
would be even more unspeakable.

Outside the party across the street
there is a tree
splayed out overhead and undergound
soaking up carbon growing tall still growing
slightly sad tree breathing in the silence of our sighs
dancing fallen leaves wrapping up the deadspace around us
deadworld space where we two sit under the edge
of revelry and absurdity
laughing, drunk, with the moon and the stars and
for just a second
feeling
slightly less impossible.

What are you getting at?
Poetically dispassionate ink
pouring out of your mouths.
Standing half-naked here
with your nasty bits hanging out and dangling.

Fifth grade ******* contest,
tape measure microphone.

'His darkness is bigger than his!'
'Well yeah but his is darker.'
It's okay
maybe you're a grow-er and not a show-er.

Half-poised, microphone voice-box
tell me now, what parchment does
your pen ***** onto?

Caligraphy college degrees.
Upper-middle class tragicomedy.
Skin unscarred,
pretending to know
just how deep a razor blade can go.
Red ink looks close enough to blood I guess.

This vast sea of poetic words,
snotgreen and scrotumtightening.
With your absolute knowledge
of what Joyce was getting at
as he layed there dying and blind
imploring to the world:
"Does nobody understand?"

What awful things has the world done to you
to beget these howls of pain?
What about you
does this dimlylit place,
with it's black coffee and chicken sandwiches,
epitomize?
When was the last time your world was worth destroying?
How did you sleep last night?
Have you ever heard a bone snap in half?
What is your first thought when holding a sharp object?

What will these words prove
when you find that no one's listening?

Great Expectations


The moment after you were born
(which apparently was a great miracle)
they slapped your ***
took your footprints
wrote your name on an official certificate
wrapped you up and sent you home.
The doctors said you were healthy:
your parents said you were better than that.

And from then on you were to be exactly that.
Excellent in every way.
Tall.
Charming.
Wide-eyed.
Witty.
Strong.
Unbreakable.
A statue will be made of you.

Affectionately inscribed to
shine in the sun,
you've no need to know the darkness:
only the weak waste their breath
reveling in the moon,
howling the night away.

Great care was put into raising you.
You are not to take it for granted.
Do you not know how high
your parents had to fling you
for you to hit that pedestal so monolithic?

Expecting you to fly
without asking if you feared heights
or sought the soft grass instead.

Expecting you to eclipse the Sun
oh, so long you stared into it
asking how to fly so high
sun in your eyes
darkness burning in.

Expecting you to See the World
in all it's brilliant beauty
with those eclipses in your skull
with the abyss open eyes.

Given a pen to write great words
but I guess they never noticed
it had no ink.

Big bulging eyes expected to see everything.
Eyes taught to see the flaws in everything
eyes with nothing better to look at
but televisions and mirrors.

The bathroom mirror where you first realized
that you weren't good enough.
Hours spent staring at some ugly stranger
too proud for friends
too quiet for fame
too tired for talent.

A living collaboration of flaws
held together by bits of pasty skin
broken bones
and dark eye circles
by all the times you were called a failure
or all the times they said "you did your best"
but you called yourself a failure anyways.

Eyes like mirrors seeing eyes and windows
and eyes and glass barriers.
All those eyes swirling around you
seeing what they want to see,
you can only hope they don't see too much.
At least you've grown cynical enough
to know they're not looking for much to begin with
but even still your stomach grows weary.

Here you soar at the prime of your youth
surrounded by mirrors
eyes full of fluorescent lighting.
sleepy and stumbling.
Confused as to how anyone could
think of you as special and grand.
Confused at how everyone else is so much better
at simply living their lives.
Like they really didn't know that Life was
the hardest thing there ever is.

Words fallen upon distracted ears.

Eyes that are full of Life
but only the brighter half of it.
Eyes as windows staring at screens
texting all the silence away.
Eyes that are lost in Life
loving and living
taking every step forward
without feeling the weight to ask why.

Oh, and here you are,
sitting, perched on a street bench
watching the passer-bys go about their day.

Looking at those strange eyes
trying to see what they see.
Trying to see how anyone could fail to notice
that sad statue staring there.

All those times you watched
the ones you loved
stand in inconsolable silence
but if only you knew what to say...

...
Nights quiet

the sheen of the abyss reflecting their
sorrows back at them.

You found shelter in the darkest corner of existence
still expected to converse happily
still expected to live with a smile
still expected to hide your unfortunate understanding
of the way things really work
the lead role in the tragiccomedy of your own life
set on the absurd stage of our own gravity.

The gravity that is every day of your life
the aching in your bones as the alarm goes off
the stagger in your step as you stumble forward
the tears at night as you have to do it all over again.
The only thing temporary are those
crashing moments of happiness
that shine bright
but disappear with the thunder.

You're expected for great love
but you never expected the way your heart pounds
and your stomach turns
when you fight back the tears
standing naked there with your darkness hanging out.
Staring into a devastated face
seeing in perfect form a heart you've shattered.

It's like they don't know just how burdensome
these great expectations are.

But perhaps -- most importantly --
they don't understand
the beauty of a sunrise after a sleepless, crying night
or the gratitude felt from finding a legitimate hand to hold.

You are expected for great things,
but then again,
everyone thinks they are.
But you,
but me,
but all the rest of the people like us.
Let us leave this place
with the preoccupations and the pedestals.

Our bodies torn and torn again
worn down and weary but somehow
still stepping
strengthened by the expectations
we exchanged
for a peaceful sunset
and a good night's sleep.

For that little light
that we forgot shone
in these tired, confused, marvelous eyes.

Distress signals emmited from bioelectronic tendrils
blades under kneecaps
seeping into taste
smelling like Spring.
So many bodies kneeling on innocent grass
lined up and lined on
sitting in pews at the park
the limitless stretches of people and people
and everyone
everyone was there!
How magnificent! for the whole world to get together
and have a nice evening at the park
billions of feet stammering on billions more blades of grass
smelling like spring
smoderling summer sun
filling air rotting
sad little whimpers
inaudible under the mumble of the world
over the look in their eyes.
The heat jostled air
radiation poison
burning away life itself
keeping us all warm and alive inside.

so many people
everywhere and all around us
-- I had a thought
I wanted to write it down
before it got lost forever.
I tried.
The words twisted around as I wrote them
the pen melted in my hands
so that the the silly
silly silly words
stupid arrogant words too proud to be written down
I tried to make eloquent or something at all
I tried I tried
trust me i really tried
i didn't mean to be such a cottonmouthed disappointment
those silly words all swirled around and about
begging for anything real.
Hissed for one last moment
before the sun and the sound and the agony
twisted and snapped
melting away all that was
of the words on the paper
ofthe ink in the pen
of the shadows in my brain.
melting out dripdripping
tears as black as silence
blaring like ambient noise
I wish the words would understand
that the real real the world the real greybluechemical world
didn't want me living in it
anymore.
I don't know what I did to Life
to make it so upset
but I guess it just didn't want me hanging around,
said I never fit in well with the crowd.
Go find some other reality to bother.

And then it all set in,
0-60 in a second.
Here was your happiness
and here you are now.
And what an amazing distance that is.
when did those years go by?
why stand so sad with your soul in shreds?
Too afraid to set the strands on fire
so there they hung
ethereal chains jutting from every cell
chains that are a feast that you can't stomach
chains that are that sad song you can't listen to -anymore
chains that are that tear in your eye refusing to fall
all the loves lost if only you had just loved
who is this person in the mirror?
this blackeyed monster with eyes like sadness
and sleep like terror
with ink indignant ashamed of what you wrote
what you wrote deep down under those chains in you
mirror neuron pain must be felt
sadistic black mirror chained down and burning burning and melting and burning
and rambling
on and on and on and on and on and on
and you probably stopped reading long ago.