Eternal sunset
not quite night
no longer day

Is this how life shall stay?

Orange to red
then pink to gray
the outside elements have gone away

There's a closed sign on tomorrow

Hours continuously rotate
around what's breaking
be it the news or someone's will

Captain
Is such an abrasive term
Call me zebra instead
Call me every other weekend
Salute the system
Or form a mutiny
As disciples of Moby ****
Just be sure rank and file
Are futile

Everything now is beautiful

Rainbirds
Caged in your barbed-wire heart
Jaded feather friends
In migration
Tasting shapes
And drawing blood
From artistic wings
As freedom of flyway must
Still belong to the rule

Everything now is beautiful

Hopscotch
On sorted sidewalks
Ride the escalator instead
Up one floor
To the mezzanine
That panders to
The perversions of quiet girls
Innocence outshines
Experience
When the hemisphere is
Short on lifeboats
And late for school

Everything now is beautiful

The missing world
Beneath our feet
Is what the ocean
Tells us about ourselves
"From swerve of shore
To bend of bay"
Check the notes
In the margin
Postcards and maps
Depicting these dazzle ships
And the angry waters
They chart
Are always of
Skinny-dipping
Sea vessels
Her mons and ponds
Face-up
And full frontal

Everything now is beautiful

Dove taking
Swan keeping
We've power against dreams
We've articles of war
So this line is expendable
An anguish languish
Deep deep down
Turning with the wave
Against the sound
Where we sailed on from one love
To find another
As usual

Omnes una manet nox
(One night is awaiting us all)

Can't be sodium-free, baby
Not when life is in hyperdrive
And microwave is king

~
Poor deluded brute
he waves his sword
in orchestration
to a ruthless symphony
played for miserable centuries:
the running of the bulls
"sketches of pain"
some monsters come
decked out in hat and cape
inside the arena of his pride
where he hears the chant
within the arts of
cowardice and cruelty
where he envisions
the feathered crown

Gala! Gala!
"how to see the toreador"
lost as San Fermín
pricked by hairpin
pierced by ragged horn
suerte de la muerte (luck of death)
foreshadowing Hemingway
turns into the troubled sun
and underneath his muleta
a deep red
blood alchemy
his fame spilling out
in drips and drabs
as the crowd sings
'Pobre de Mí (Poor Me)'
to the mystic stab of church bells
~

You may be able to keep
Your money in a bank
But never your secrets

Not with so many tellers

Mommy drinks because you're bad
Destroy, she said
But remember
The practical pyromaniac
Burns responsibly

You're here for my pleasure
In all kinds of weather
Floated down from above
Like peace in a mechanical dove
Goes through the trapdoor

We often live our days
In a deep fryer
What doesn't coat and **** us
Could very well eat us alive

You can discover more
About a person
In rush hour traffic
Than in a year of conversation.

Petrichor
Lured us to the forest floor
No stone left unturned
With hollow throats we yearned
Yet no critter, no creature stirred
Extinction thus had the final word

Life is war,
my hands are hypnagogic,
so far from refuge.

The purgatory salesman,
an enemy with antlers,
speaks in hostile slogans:
create, destroy, rebuild, repeat.

My friend coma,
blunted and paranoid,
has lost her vital signs.

But Television says differently,
calls this an elegant demise,
you touch the screen
like you're touching God.

The immortal world
I'm hoping to collide with
is beautiful and closed to resistance.

But there are cracks in everything,
the snowglobe army
granular and brittle,
the constant uncertainty
of your universe
becomes a hiding game.

Take me with you
my halation angel,
to migration salvation.

We made our history
into mythology,
a mass of disconnected facts,
the stars may be dead,
yet, we're here
and we've stopped time.

Tonight I'm breaking
through the gates,
tonight I can see around corners,
suddenly, forever makes sense.

Let's swim about, Peter
Mimic my sound

Speak my language
You precious bottle-nose

The trouble you have
With the letter M
Sure makes funny bubbles
Beneath the surface

What then should we talk of
This morning?
Miss Kelly, perhaps

Every room
Is an island, my child

Never isolate your love

Let it run to the sea
It's where I will always be

If you judge a book
by its cover
then you shouldn't
be surprised
to find yourself
on the wrong page

Between the envelope and gondola I'm lighter-than-air. Montgolfier-style? Not really. I ascend as a prayer with his eyes wide shut, timid in the feel for heaven. Speaking of heaven, some say it's no longer a gated community, but the association fees have doubled. Really I float like a Yost, flaming onboard for the photo shoot. The morning pass is for the kids with spending power. The noon move, and media darling, catches the Comic-Con crowd just stumbling out of a parent's basement. The night drift, drink in hand, mimics the trigger man who got his days confused from too much killjoy. Laissez-passer both giveth and taketh away -- there is no immunity in the sky, no amnesty to assign my crimes to. I'm just your smiley actor on the Netflix trail. You love me for a season or until my balloon gets popped. Whichever comes first.

Looking back at life brings on a shiver:
landmarks and stygian fragments,
radiant corrosion.

Will my feet still carry me home?

The morning breaks,
turn the blue skies on!
we're committed now,
guided by a God few know.

On Earth the math is made up,
8 billion people
and 1,000 questions,
out here the days
are numbered differently.

But in the ether aura
there are silent obligations:
we're trading passengers midflight
--the jester and the acrobat inside the LEM,
Marco Polo on the rocketship,
we're eating the survival kit,
making postcards of the trip.

All spoils for survivors.
Post signs for a near perfect disaster.

You are on my mind.
You are in my heart.
Are you in my blood?
I would die for you.

If this is goodbye, remember,
these things happen...

Starting from the Euphrates
wayfinding a trail toward Babylonia
to divert her waters

mapping her ancient towers
her eyes
her desires
her pudendum

egressing out of the bitter river
surrounding her temple

until enlightenment
glisters betwixt the frangible pages of her
Dialogue of Pessimism:
~
"Who is so tall as to ascend to heaven?
Who is so broad as to encompass the entire world?"
~

Ruler of the sheets
Sleep has its own zip code

Dreamland is the nightly
Wait and wonder
We all have membership to

But this has its limits

The boundaries belong
To another kingdom

One of fun and adventure

A place of equilibristic feats
And corporeal claims

It's a fair trade-off

Sometimes we count sheep
In the center

Other times we play games
On the perimeter

Who will quarantine the clouds?

Or close down the snow?

Who will prevent the rain
from assembling?

Or tell the wind to breath
through a mask?