i counted all the
times you helped
me to see
the uglier angles
of what i
present as myself

i always believed
in the image i
had of you in
my mind.  one
of a goddess
among men - among
apes with smartphones
but , as
i got closer , i
realized that your
face was nothing
like that goddess ,
that you were
just another girl-ape
with a smartphone
trying to be
whatever someone or
something told you
to be

i lost count
i lost faith

you are below
the wind now

delighting in flesh
in dark rooms
that hide your
pain for a few minutes

in love
only in
dreams

she's in my mind
only, ever
in my mind.  i am
a beast drinking blood
in cold shadows.  she's on the stairs towards the gods with gold-flake mirrors on fire.
i can't be soothed by their plasma flesh pixels anymore.
i can't be soothed by their carbon copies.
i will soon be below their real for good.
in need no more of the soft same semblance displayed on the shelves.
i swim in deep pools collecting aloneness on high. the
romantic disaster laughter is muted. these days i can't
help but feel, every now and then,
that death
is
a great kindness
in disguise,          but

not in the
way you
think.

listening to
Father John Misty in
pink
over
pink time

schism-
shifting
into
poppy red

with a pleasing
depth
of shadow
just
within reach
between
them

(while)

our faint
blue
light

speeds

through
the universe
towards
the
ultima Thule

days go
by
like cars
go by
like days
go
by like
cars go
by
like days
go by
like
cars go
by in fashion
in form in
unison in
seconds

awake to repeat
on time
today as skeletons
flame contagion
bright against
your ripe apple

again arranging
your pattern to
fit   /   feed
the mouth sloppy
below bit-beady
black holes

sitting on the foot of the bed,
I look up at the burnt-out
bulb above me
--superior life--it tells me
a light moment of irony
before I lay down
to sleep

here's to all the burnt-out
bulbs above us and
the rest we find
below them

mind shard stuffed
deep between
the lobes
adjacent to
the whirlpool
looking out through
a brain/body eyes
no separation
no points
no way out friend
but
how did "you" "get" "in" "?" " "

somewhere there is
a man sitting
alone in a cave.

the immensity of
the cavity is obscured
by darkness, he
cannot tell how
deep it goes.

he has resigned
himself to whatever
this absence
holds.

the man hears
nothing but himself
echoing back
at him.

he can no longer
discern whether he
is going deeper
or just laterally.

he stopped here
for a moment
because here
was as suitable
a spot as any
in that Cimmerian
womb.

his heart is heavy
as his mind projects
the images, memories
and emotions
of his most recent
love lost.

he is afraid that
all this shadow will
swallow him
or that
maybe it already
has.  

that ultimately,
this ritual pilgrimage
to the underworld
would claim
him as payment.

but he knows that
this place also
offers unparalleled
boundless healing
and metamorphic
growth to those
that traverse
and
converse
authentically.

all that you find here is you.
all that you face here is you.
everything you didn't realize you were capable of.
every deeply malevolent impulse.
every twisted thought.
every terrible act.

but also the courage
to face them,

the grace to move
into them

and the love
to understand
them.

you will lose
yourself here.

you will find
yourself here.

...once more into the dark.

in place of a
lover's embrace
I fill my chest
with smoke.

I suspect now
there are more
walls around my
heart than ever
before.

there was once
a light called hope
beaming brightly

but that light
was just a trick.

what was once
a raging pyre,
is now but a
few embers glowing
softly in a
charcoal bed
of gray and black.

...it's not any of you.

too much given?
or
the price to learn,
at least for
something like
me.

I sit quietly in
a dark room
just listening
to: cars, planes,
people and dogs
pass in and
out of existence.

there is a pleasing
chill coming
through the open
window,
a delicate intrusion
of Winter at night.

a car locks,

a pipe bangs,

a door opens
then
shuts.

to fall
once more
under
the pen
of a failed
poet

do your
knees shake?

does your
spine tingle
when
you
think of me?

                                         . . . do you think of me?

   -  ha!
I'm still running
that
groove deeper
into the ground

it only works
if you want
it too

(it's only
ever been
me that
wanted it)

when you
get drunk
and get
all the attention
from
all those
room temperature
knuckle-draggers,
do you ever
regret
heaving
me back
into the night?

do you ever
think, " I ****** up, he was unlike
                     any man i've ever known, he really cared
                           about me."







no







you don't




I think
it for you

for me

to feel
better about
myself





and you?
well,


you're not alone
somewhere

busy not
writing poetry
about me

lapse into a swimming pool of calciferous crustaceans alert to the alarm ringing nearby.  what a silly sentence to think twice about writing.  what if they judge my whole existence through that one sentence?  the pottery of the world makes my hand cramp up apparently.  everyone pair up except you -you're too different, we couldn't find a suitable match for you.

                                               sorry,
                                                    management

Post Script: you're receptionist is a colossal *****, you should be very proud!
                                              
                                               Love,
                                                   Amy from Memphis :)

Post Post Script: my daughter baked you some cookies for those things you said about toilet paper and setting the world straight.  thanks sooooooooooo much!!!!!

Post Post Post Script: WE WILL SERVE YOU FOREVER

PPPPS: just a friendly reminder that Monday the 8th we will be having a pizza party to commemorate the launch of Kellen 14 and as such employees are encouraged to wear their genitals on the outside of their body to display their appreciation to the Over Beings.

                                              Many Dawns,
                                                      Kevin from HR

born from a splitting
ache in the back-left of my head
like a drill bit whirring in an empty paint can.

i'd give you pearls for hands my love,
ever-winter washing over our foaming cerulean eyescapes.  

inside your drums I hear
a pulse that cries for
hips and thorns entangled
under your
navel.  

one more summer breath from lung to lung
exchanged
under moonlight for the promise of elevation.  
you are not
who you say you are
my dear - you are a
future memory
stalking sweetly today under the guise
of novel pleasure , but time will
reveal your skin to me
under the electric lavender
of my
eyelids.

you are wood grain
and strata -
born too, it seems, from a splitting.

Just outside, the
rain

plays.  An iron gate is rusting shut
across from

traffic lights
maintaining perfect
indifference
to
a newspaper
on a bench losing its
ink to the gutter.

I get the feeling
you've done this
before.  Now

I see,

I         was             just
                       one
                 part
            of
      the
cycle you like to repeat.

And so it was,
the brief respite attained
through our
lips and arms

and

bodies,

a sunset
mistaken
for a sunrise.

I was just happy to see those
colors stain my sky again,

I refused to
see
the
sun
sinking.

I get the feeling
I've done this before.
Now I see, you   were   just
                                  one
                           part
                     of
               the
        cycle  I  like  to  repeat.

sent you
a
call
from a
space
no one
knows.

I long for the days of
no man.

here, I
could
stay
forever,
gleaning
endless
insight from
this tree
moving in
the wind.

no romance has ever
shown me such wisdom.

no human has ever
displayed such power.

yet,
somewhere
there is a
movement
that escapes
me,

that escapes
us all.


may it always be so.

here I go,
blundering through another day

trying to show up for my end of
the bargain.

I sit here,
with this pen and this notebook,
and the stuff is
supposed to barrel through me.


it's supposed to shake the debris free.

it's supposed to melt the lock.

it's supposed to blast my cemented mind apart.

it's supposed to summon shadows and make them dance.

it's supposed to swim on the surface of the sun.

it's supposed to show me all the rainbows in the darkness.

it's supposed to shine the silver on all my shredded scraps.

it's supposed to reach through all my ******* and show me:

     emeralds and pearls\teeth and knives\
     blood and glass.

it's supposed to twist the blade and spit in the ****.


but this morning,
it's the big bupkis
     -nada

just the weight
of its silence...



that *******
probably
has the
day off
too.

stars align in
a blanket of
        future snow
dusting time's
plateau with
        a smear of
red paint across
the fallen angel's
        face shedding
tears in the naked
light from the
        hollow of a
mirrored heart
playing shadows
        like a work
of art

it's an expansive
drama of forgotten
         leagues keeping
memories in silence
between the ravines
         of what has and
what has yet. digital
ridges serrate the
         landscape of quiet
burdens borne by the
beings of beastly
         countenance
counting seven in
perpetuity in honor
        of the bell that
tolled so long ago now.

there is a low roar
bellowing from the
         womb of novelty
coming to upset the
balance bristling with
         charged particles
of transmutation and
flashing in a dance of
         lightning from
the void. born from
eternity to create in
         time those wildest
dreams from the
darkness of God's mind.

everything breaks
me.

the eyes
the touch
the soft smile
the body
the kiss
the walk
the hair
the slopes
the ****
the folding into

       -all of it.

they draw me
in and
draw me
out.

take me in
then cast
me out.

and
I keep
coming back

because

I love them-
   all of
   them.



I love them
more for
breaking me
than I do
for loving
me.

every swift
crack at
my heart
released
something,

a little bit
more of
me.

the good parts-
   what might become
   the best parts.

and one day,
everything I am
will be
destroyed again

and I will
emerge

again.


I will crawl
forth from
my belly

on skinned
knees
and
bloodied elbows
with a
perfect
smile on my
face.

growing and
laughing
in the
light.

as i live and breathe
and
as i die and shed:
moult,
transform,
undulate,
flourish.
a line or two
for vitality,
for becoming:
   a lake,
   a chasm,
   a riverbed.
a line or two
for mortality,
for becoming:
   a library,
   a prison,
   a crossing.
bodhisattva,
i drank the sun that morning,
golden brew,
a potion upon
my face.
bathing in warm light
eyes closed,
lungs sky,
my blood is a river,
mountains for bones.
my resonance is vitality.
i am becoming;
through death and life
and
through death
and
through life
i alight.

here's to every **** poem
i do, have
and
will write.

- thanks
for all the fertilizer.

inescapable
loveless years pile on top of
each other like cars,
windowless  
in a derelict lot.

without giving in
to easy despair, he moves
through them as empty
as the wind
blowing through formless sky.

Displaying myself for the auction of love, I stand poised in the light of anxiety.
     "we'll start the bidding off at ten dollars, do I hear ten dollars?" cries the auctioneer. I run my hands down the buttons of my shirt making sure it's neat and straight. "come now ladies, surely one of you lovely creatures would trade ten dollars worth of paper and cloth for this tall drink of water! Do I hear ten dollars to start the bidding off?" I use the sweat from my palms to tame my hair down. Scanning the crowd from under his sharply slanted brow the crier retreats a step, "alright, how about five, do I hear five dollars?" I put on my brightest smile, conjuring every ounce of good-heartedness I have in me. The room is silent. No hands go up and it's clear that lowering the price of bid won't change it. The auctioneer bangs his gavel and declares 'no-sale,' then gestures for the staff to remove me from the stage. Two sharply dressed men then lead me to the back for 'processing' where I'm told that 'someone will be along shortly.'
     Behind the door is just an alley with dumpsters and trash bags full of glass bottles. They shove me out with a pat on the back where I land right next to another man dressed just like me, only much older.
     "how long you been waiting, pal?" I ask him as I sweep away the garbage from me.
     "any minute now," he says weezingly.
     "come again?" I say.
     "she's going to turn that corner," he says, raising a brittle finger towards the end of the alley. "I've been expecting her for some time now, but you know how women can be, she's probably just doing her hair." he laughed and it turned into a hard cough.
     "look buddy, I don't think..." I begin, but just then a beautiful woman comes around the corner and starts toward the gentleman caller.
     "ha! I told you, didn't I tell you!", he says through a mostly toothless mouth. "My lady, you are truly a vision, just as lovely as I remember!" he proclaims, holding up a bouquet of long-dead flowers. When she reaches the man she pulls out a pistol from her purse and sends one straight through his flowers and into his chest. He falls back into a bed of garbage bags still holding the flowers, his last smile frozen on his face.
     I look at the woman and she winks at me as she puts her pistol away, turns and walks out of the alley. I stand there for a few moments, processing what just happened. Then I bend down and pick up the dead man's flowers, run my hands down the buttons of my shirt and tame my hair. "Did you see that," I think to myself, "she winked at me!" A smile stretches across my face. "I wonder if she's coming back? Better wait here, just in case."

There's nothing more
true than letting
go.  Ironically, there's
nothing to hold
onto anyway.

Flowers blooming in
a wide field
following the Sun's
arc - there is no
zenith, only what
they're after.  Still,
they move with
the wind whether
it's gentle or
violent.  And when
they are uprooted
and torn apart
they do not blame
the wind for they
have done what
they could and still
are.  Even in pieces,
with ripped petals and
broken stems, they
know how to give.

What came forth
     but this,
successful in a
     solitude not
yet understood.  In
     a way he
lays, afraid of
     too many ways
to lay waste
     to his wasteland.

-such a cryptic oversight.

Now, at night
when the pennies
drop his pockets
fill.

"what a terrible thing to waste!", they say

"all in good time."

"one foot in front of the other."

"if it's meant to be, it's meant to be."

Oblivion comes with a smile
and a promise.

you know, the
weight of this ****
isn't very poetic.

the long days alone
do ******' hurt
sometimes -
guess i'm not as
tough as ol' Hank
or Ernie -
guess i'm still
just one lazy beauty
away from
having the guts
to end it.

jesus, some days
I just want to
crack my head open
to get rid of
these feelings and
voices and imaginings.

I think ,
      "just one girl who truly cares would make it all ok" , but
I know it won't.
in time, they'll leave
me too
and I'll be right back
here suckin' on the
bone.

****, I need something
to begin in me,
something with grit and
indifference and ingenuity
and terrifying passion.

I'm so tired of
these days of chewing
the gravel and flat
echoes ;
     of waiting to die ;
     of waiting to live.

it's also
a trust
and without
any deposit
there is no
balance.

Who I am
now.
Who I am
now...
  Who I am
becoming.
Who is yet
to be.
Who may look upon me
and wonder how he
could ever look like that
or
live like that
and
he may laugh truthfully.
Even knowing
doesn't change who I think
I am now.
I am bound
by the boundless.
I am tethered, somehow, to
each version of myself.
Every iteration.
Every refraction.
     L i g h t
     L  i  g  h  t
     L      i      g      h      t
lightness
existing in the most graceful weave
between each of me.
Constant
but impermanent.
Influential and free.

newspapers. everywhere.
it was yesterday
when they turned up.
must've been stacks
of them before they
were like this - scattered
throughout the park.

i've thought about
taking a garbage bag down
there and picking them up
but...
there's something
pleasing about watching
them interact with
their new environment;
the way the wind carries
them, the way they spread
out        into       all
       that                     space
as if nothing neatly
arranged wants to
stay that way.

i watch as they attempt to share
their news with the world.
but the trees are silent and
the grass is oblivious.
the print on their pages
means nothing to
them.

i wonder what news the leaves
tell of in a language we don't understand.
of golden and green.
of things passed and
of things to come.

"change," they say.

that is the message they spread
on the wind...
change.

here is a man, alone but
okay.
here is a man, longing but
guarded.
here is a man, tired and
resigned.
here is a man trying to find a way
to try again; to forgive all the women
he's never known for the way he
was treated by those he has known.
to forgive himself for the tears he no doubt
caused to fall from the women he no doubt
hurt.
he is a broken man
but
glad for it; every crack, every piece, every splinter,
every jagged edge, for he could never know himself
without shedding those parts of him that could
not survive.
the ones that are left are the ones worth being,
no matter how small or irregular they are.
here is a man, in pieces.
here is a man.

i'm no good, but
here I am anyway,
again
typing words
into poems.

i'm afraid that
all this is
a waste of time.
that I read some
poetry somewhere
long ago and
mistakenly believed
that I too could
do that.

but I can't
help it,
these words still
show up
somehow.

even
when they
don't end
well.

all the
great religions
of the world
are ships

i am more
interested
in the
ocean

your name
spoken
in ceremony,
no aid will
come.

this fragmented
colossus screams
through my
skull.

my love is poison.
my love is poison.
    
there is no antidote.

my love is poison.

see it now in
full light.

my love is poison.

tell me the
truth, that
my love will corrupt me,
that
my love will devour me.

tell me the
truth, that
this horror sings so sweetly
it draws every moth
to its flame.

tell me the
truth, that
my love is poison,
that
someday,

my love will
**** me.

bathed in a beam of distant light, i'm
dangling from the mouth of
the sun today. it won't come like
Fante. it won't come like Bukowski.
it won't come at all. it's rusted
chunked blood calving off from
graveled glaciers onto dead sea beds.
it's a joke, it's far away, it's not
meant for me. and so it seems...yet
there still exists a tiny heart somewhere
under all that pumping away almost
imperceptibly.  funneling what blood
is there to send life to these
fingertips. i don't know if it will
ever reach the page though. odds
are good that death will take me
before those veins reach any words
with weight.
but in the writing they have a
chance to stretch and feel and
find their way through the
labyrinth of time and being
human. they have a chance to
beat the odds. a trickle becomes
a stream. a stream becomes a
river. and a river becomes an
ocean. these dead seas will fill
once more whether i am: the glacier,
the trickle, the stream or the
river. my blood runs to that future
ocean...one way or another.

put to rest a thousand
ways
the Rest is a parent
the rest is apparent

sleep now and
forever and the
nebulous drippings gather
to coalesce

render the beams
from blood only

to suffer close up...

my perception explodes
above
below
beyond
within
around
and
not at all

..I am he without

I hear people say severely romantic
things to each other.
I see them believe it as
their eyes swell.
I notice their desperate
hooks finding a mark,
any mark.

they begin to construct
a mythos immediately upon
initial mutual affirmation.
they design
every reason why
this 'other' is the only
'other' that
makes sense, that
could ever make
sense.

they enchant themselves
and each other.
they build
an elaborate simulation
together and
promise/doom themselves
to never leave it.
they swear and curse
to feed the pantheon of
gods they created to
rule over them.

they commit themselves
to the
chains of
a shallow love.

but hey what do I know, right?

I'm just
another fool
waiting to get
what he
deserves.

days on a
leash
of culture
and family.

history
hardwired
into your
own code.

heaven is
a mudslide
barreling down
on you.

hell is
the seed of
your health.

break bread
with your
demons
often.

the one to let go of
the one that doesn't                                                 fit
the one that is too nice
the one that is aimless
the one that
is more emotional
than you may have
thought
the one that
does not believe
in himself
the one that holds
the knife
the pills
and
n  o   t   h    i     n      g
the one that dropped out
the one that isn't
good enough
the one that is unconscientious
the one without purpose
the one to cheat on
the one to use
the one to leave
the one to forget
the one you don't remember
the one that is a coward
the one that is a fool
the one that is broken
the one who will disappoint you
the one who is oblivious
the one that smothers
the one that is scared
the one that is too skinny
the one that can't defend
himself
the one that will drag
you down
the one with the bleeding heart. . .



Run.

"A revolution is afoot!" shouted a young man as he ran past our window.
      When I got to the window to see who he was, or where he was going, I couldn't find him - in fact there was no one in sight.  I poked my head out to see a bit more and was startled by something flying past my face, a small bird. I watched as he darted gracefully from thin branch to thin branch foraging in the light of the new day. Then the little fella launched himself high, high into the sky and I saw it coming down on us - FAST. It was a colossal foot and it crushed our little home.

It doesn't matter anymore
It doesn't pull at him
It doesn't flatten him
It doesn't even warm his skin just below the surface

He remembers betting the farm
again and
losing
again

He remembers conjuring her image
with another inside her

intense passion
blind lust
temporary bliss
braided into
one
          juxtaposed
by his familiar
personal hell furnished
with a front row
seat to her
exploration of hedonism

ironically, he is busy
exploring asceticism - although
it is with vague
volition, as in
he does not set
an intention thus,
but finds that
his being naturally
collects there
sometimes

Love as an
intoxicant
Love as
ignorance
Love as
withdrawal

In the wake
of attachment
his ribcage breaks
open like grand
french doors into
which the entire
sea pours

The weight of all
that water
on his heart
showing him
the way

She steps outside of what
I could fathom.  A soft
recollection of nothingwoman, a
spectre splitting me like firewood.

In time all my memories
will burn me out leaving
behind what I always was without the fuel
-some sort of holding pattern
for whatever courses through
the circuit; molting matter
in continuous expression of itself.

I am immanence incarnate.

I remember you.

Head down, trudging onward.
What nobility is there
if you never stop the momentum?
Blindly following dogma.
Hold it up to the light.
Weigh it against your heart.
Can it carry you to paradise?
Does it need your protection?
Has it atrophied your voice?
Tonight,
scale the walls of your city.
Look to the forest.
Follow the red wolf into the night.
Many eyes will you see in that darkness,
many voices will you hear - it
matters not, you must do this.
Reach the broken bell,
shatter your reflections.
Smelt the ore you find there;
refine it.

In the stillness of the forge
every spark is a star.
I wish for you to find this place.
You will need it for every new
form you take.

I remember you.