I stand
between a man and his shadow,
halfway committed
to the solitude
of repetition.
He finds "life" in
the sodden silence
of the earliest hours of the morning,
before the sun
ignites its rancid flame,
shattering our order
found in darkness.

The man behind the mirror
remains unseen.

Its so easy to f a d e
into the fabric, the symmetry
of the steaming, writhing crowds.
He let the pallor of that heavy sky
put the taste of sorrow
back into his mouth.
I feel the stickiness of grass
beneath summer-slashed soles,
but the child inside him
has died , the viscous sickness
that is age claims another piece
of youth-drugged memory.

Tell me what this means to you:
A sour supplement,
prescription penned in blue.
Don't forget, my friend
depression
must die sometime too.

Falling asleep with a mind
full of caffeine
and fever dreams,
the wanderlust saddens you
as the hallway light slowly flickers
into tangible nonexistence.
Spirits assault your shell
of vice and cold monologue
as you dream, tapping into your
infantile fears of smoke and mirrors
and waking up with
one lifetime too many
hanging over your head.
Rain stings against shingles
sending your thoughts
hydroplaning into silence.
Thunder flashes against
the background of sirens
and missed phone calls.
The weather forecast looks grim:
Slightly cloudy, with a
one hundred percent chance
of remembering who you've been.
Anticipation...

Death's mask is a mirror,
he is us
we watch ourselves slumber
waiting for each breath.
You listen closer,
trying to find a song
within the static,
human fragility
at its finest.

Petrichor presses against
your window pane, threatening
to intrude on your atmosphere
of Viceroy smoke and mildew.
The clock ticks closer to midnight
and your vision smears like
a watercolor painting under a faucet,
slowly sliding into blankness.

The darkness of the earth
And darkness of the sky
Are distinguished by the lines
of beaded light
that run across the edges of our eyes.
The steering wheel twists
Listlessly between the lanes
Of sleep and gasoline dreams.

The beauty of blank minds
is seen only in reflections
From the rear view mirror.
Our pavement demons
Sear in a stranger's headlights:
The Berlin wall stands re-erected
out of trees intertwined
With the night.
The circulatory glow of red,
bright against the black asphalt,
our driver's lullaby.

Seas of blindness illuminate
The distance wheels can fly

Our eyes tell us,
to remember
the strangest things,
like a religious wastebasket,
tucked into the arms
of a failing church.
We never see
the garishly painted thing
in the tiny sanctuary's
northeast wing,
until we bring it forth
in our mind
out of a necessity  
to throw away
a scrap of something
forgotten.

Its one of those 4 am nights where you wander around your house, just breathing, just being there with the darkness and your inky fingertips. Maybe pick up some dog-eared book of poetry, maybe stare out at a night of forgotten stars, where the martyred moon hangs limp in Orion’s arms.  Or sift through pixels, trying to find meaning behind a screen. You might remember when she was still there like a burning light cast beneath an alcohol sky.

Night decays snow into ash, a bitter blanket, a seeping sin.


Anything that lets you feel something again.

Words rub off
on one another
Linguistic f r i c t i o n
between unprinted covers
to start a poet's mind
on Fire.
Yet the turning
of wheels and cogs,
transmissions through
frayed wires
Requires quite the opposite.