"I don't make promises I cant keep.
which is why I won't make promises ever".
I found a home in that,
so thank you.

I heard you live in my city now.

crowds or people
between us.
my lonely has arrowslits.

the pharaohs sit as dead
as the rest of us.
I've shared the glitz I've gathered.

nothing matters
and you know it.

we will take a new day
and swallow it whole.

oh, woe is me.
say it the 3 more times.

I'm almost alone
and ok with it.
pivotal moments
long past.

slow rain will fix
whatever.

ive stolen a touch from Pablo,
Frida,
Dali,
even Korine's canvas
has touched my thumb,
but it's your cheek in the
morning I remember the most.

we were never good for each other.
I dont have anything better than that.

I'm sorry.

this whole bleeding poetry thing,
poem by poem,
is ******.
book is finished
like the garlic was last year.

and the blackberries.

I'm in the street just begging
for death to possess these
aching bones of mine
like a mother that just
found her lost kid at the mall.

nobody will read these otherwise.

the noise of night
is hallowed ground;
I hate everything i have ever made.

hardly getting a glimpse
of most stars because the city
screams in many ways
makes me realize
that it all doesn't matter.

and that matters the least of all.

obliged to what?
smile and say, "danke"?

I could hide forever if I could hide forever
behind something.
anything.

I'll abide the dust and sunshine
and the blood i taste
on my tongue at night,
every night,
but not you putrifying the *******
ground water.

anything.
anything.

"wait, what was that?"
war-drums.

the war was won by the underdog;
I was uninvolved.

but I'm here now.
"or love..." is always an option.
I get this weird doubt
about how I'll fit in
with all of it all;
I'm calling it off.

perpetually.

I never measure things.
I should measure things
I should measure things.

but the moment was so ambrosial,
like snow melting in gorgeous chestnut hair,
like Coltrane's Favorite Things for the hundred-thousandth time,
like the morning Sun shining
through Manuka honey
slowly dripping off my spoon into
the black abyss of my coffee cup.

I am present.
I promise, ya.

I'm indebted to the
wretched headtrips of "yesterday"
for never letting me do more
than whisper a single death wish
(thank you)
between labored breaths.
I'm deathless now.
just flesh stretched tight over bright smiling, and otherwise unbridled,
sunlight in love with just being here to lend the luminosity in the first place.

I only learn of grace
from kids grinning and ripping birthday gifts open in grainy VHS tapes I probably shoplifted from the local thrift shop.
Either there or on park benches
tossing seeds to flocks of pigeons
cooing at my feet.
Did you know they were brought
to this country by immigrant chefs?

Again, I'm present.
Honestly.
I'm as conscious of it all as it gets;
the God of the phenomenological slog
we all call "the now",
unbound from His vow of vigilance
in the watch-and-plot of all apocalyptic
loss of momentum...

my attention span is like
incense smoke curling out of
a monastery window somewhere
in the Himalayas,
like the hidden weight of a whispered "thank you",
like the half empty silver cigarette case rattling in Camus' coatpocket as he walks,
collar up and head down,
to Café de Flore for breakfast.
or lunch.
or...

I'm present.
I promise.
(thank you)
I'm present.
Honest to God.
(thank you)

I'm ******* nowhere.
no, thank you.

I'm present.

been at the end of my rope
for what feels like infinity,
Orange and red roses growing beneath my feet though

minutes eat the days up,
it's ok because my days **** anyway.
pity is paid to the same mud
all mystery came writhing up out of.
anyways,
what the Gehenna was I getting at?
oh yea,
the revenge-**** of the century:
me swinging like a tarnished gold pendulum
from the Ash tree I planted a few years back.

none of this **** is autobiographical.

above everything, remember,
I am a ******* liar.

apples and lavender on the altar,
I light candles for all of you.

all of you.

this is a moment for truth,
for poignancy,
but the solitude I chase
erases all of that.

again, I go back to that "all of you".
this self referential **** is only meant
to deepen my ****** narrative.

call that a good use of "meta"

"the plum my mother picked was worm ridden"
I think of that ****
everytime i think of you.

think of the breeze,
think of the leaves,
ive been dead and dreaming of God knows.

same potholes in the same streets.

meaning is still whatever
I called it the last time we spoke.

Breeze of the night is a scream
so cold you'll have to through out
a roast or two.
  More softly murmur o’er the
unacknowledged being acknowledged
being long ******* overdue.
For however long Slumber seals my fate,
  I'll never shun any aliteriation.

Or breathe those sweet æolian strains
  Stolen from celestial circuitry
To charm her ear while anything other than death remains,
it just a ******* picture, face it.

I hate it more than you,
I promise.

my tarot deck fell between
my ocean blue wall and my bed.
I pulled up what I thought was all of them.

no.

the missing only numbered one though,
Strength.

"that he should see all the world bloodshot,
the most unhappy man on earth."

I underlined that randomly in some book
I stole from some thrift shop.

one day the sovereign self
will dissolve away,
iron clockwork oxidized already.

all is heavy when there's a song to play
that'll annoy the **** out
of everyone in the room,
but you love it as it is.
you love that pregnant awkwardness,
the thoughts on the moment,
the contractions,
the stillbirth,
the flowers in nice vases by the bedside.

I always go there.
it all always goes there.

last night I dreamt
of your red mahogany casket
creaking as it was lowered
into the cold earth.

(a lonely little girl catching
raindrops on her tongue)

all of this is fiction.

everywhere seems so obtainable;
transmorgification,
eligibile relatibility,
interest capsized
still.
is
everybody xenophobic
(still)?
ostensibly translating an exegesis,
rarely from intimacy;
cancel me please.
but first please, peep the framework.
this ain't worth a **** thing if you don't.

your firmaments fall daily,
don't they?
poor things.
ive been stepping in stratosphere
and calling my demons by pet names
for awhile now.
so my advice would be to
get with the ******* paradigm.
**** being paralyzed in a crisis
when it's crisis from the time
your eyelids open to when they close.

again,
get with the ******* paradigm.
you probably built most of it
anyway.

flies swirling,
eyes are pearls
reflecting empty sky.

fragmented.
light imbibed elsewhere.
suspended end-of-all-things.

it all makes sense when it didn't;
didn't do the math right.

rite.
write.
left.
right.
we all march towards death
like it's our mother;
God waits anxiously by the
proverbial ****-soaked bedside.

remember when we would
slowdance beneath indifferent
stars when you weren't backstroking
through my blood?

yea, me neither.
but that image sure hangs pretty
in a frame, right?

me,
so many questions.
as restless as unbroken bathroom mirrors.
I don't know where this is leading.

there are threads between all that,
I promise.

there is a silver lining in all this,
I'm sure of it.

to the empty mine wailing in a windy
night in some foothills
somewhere,
I hear you.
I hear you.

right when we think we
have it figured out,
doors behind doors
behind more ******* doors.

every black cloud in
these ugly grey skies
hides that blue that I've
already started to forget about.

more ******* doors.

the telephone never rings;
all quiet amongst the tombstones,
names worn away by the rain.

she died all alone in her two-tone
Chevrolet with a broken radio,
a full tank of gas,
and the garage door closed.

they didn't find her for months.
I say they never found her at all.

burning farms before the locusts feast.

you sure showed them.

all of these poems you
all write about love,
be it gained or lost,
are the same *******
piece over and over
and over.

we all fall victim to this.
almost like falling...

and before, child,
delineation elevated
forlorn gambits;
however, it just kisses lovingly
most nights.
outside, plenty quiet resonates
solitude towards universal variability.
why xenography's zigzagedness
is
so
alive...
nobody knows.

whisper "love" to the pooling
blood at your feet.
we pick our teeth up
as though they were pain pills
we couldn't keep down,
half digested,
heavens half realized.

escape if you can.

ravens roost in our open chests
and our children will name them
after relatives they have only ever
met as shadows in the corners
of their bedrooms.

all of this is melting wax,
the smell of fat dripping
into fire,
a coffin lid to scratch
until our nails break off
and fall into our screaming mouths.

even escape is wasted effort.
we awaken every ******* time.

who would laugh if hired to?
oh, constable of costly canvas
and lamb of dust;
his art, Nature, with centaurs for show or sale,
once the world has seen
God’s forced politeness
we will all lie to mothers drooling
while fools in their faults, gag grinning.
that sort of book displays a crowd without head or feet.
this is winning somehow.

poets all know a little mutual mercy,
making monsters from
gentle handshakes.

Exordium, sometimes tends to end, nonsense in lofty down feather,
the Thames may shine shipwreck
but dwindles Lethe whose wit is  troublesome.
the greater portion are led astray by labour,
following bombast.
too low to fly, satisfaction;
who engraves the woods beneath waves!

I even hate me,
thanks for asking...

cast me into the fire
of your future
unfolding infinitely
behind a whispered
"I hate you".
Prima Materia,
kindling for the Great Work,
entropy warping days
into centuries bored of the
historians misinterpreting them.

somewhere in all that
I am child chasing fireflies
and couldn't careless
that I'll eventually meet you.

bleeding from somewhere,
cheers to routines and the walls
I beat my head against though.
I only put my fists into sky now.
why drown when backstrokes
look like Pablo or Baudelaire
or gospel whispered in your ear
while all the awful flares out
like an ancient star?
ive taken hearts out off of sleeves
too many times in this life.
who is really alive anymore?
too many questions,
plenty war to be desensitized to;
my minutes die trying to bloom
infinite.
weaponsize truth.
linchpins pulled.
ascension is as cruel as children
are to other children.

it's **** and you know it
better than I do.

ive been stuck serving verses
to the undeserving and it irks me
to even think of letting it happen further.
this is nurturing a burgeoning
fervour for burning certainty
down to the ******* dirt the worms eat, sleep, and die in.
curtains swing on your "why me"
why me,
why me,
why me,
why, why, why, why?
why this?
why that?
why sink,
why swim,
wine glass,
high G.
please.
self is a hell,
it helps if you let it break,
waves;
waving on the iller side
of heaven's gate.
pilfer life out of what's left
of the seven days you've yet to waste.
thanks.
thankfully you'll think of me.
don't.
please.

two nights ago I overdosed
for the fourth time in five years.

I don't even know if I'm alive
or dreaming.
right now or forever.
write it down,
cords were severed.
I'm breathing either way.
I'm breathing either way.
but dreams can fade slow but they'll fade.
so either way,
I'm breathing.
either way,
I'm breathing.

words are boring me lately.
every story I read seems to
be baiting me to jump.
the ledges I write remind me
that flying is falling.
dry ink is apalling;
chalk outlines look like milk
in the rain;
falling isnt flying at all.
I have to remind myself of that.
I'm selfish.
I'm selfish.
my shelves sit full.
it all ends.
both sides.
no flying.
no falling.
I'm falling.
I'm lying.
I wouldnt call me either.

black robed bacchanal
cracked home
back back
past the walls and black holes
I'm ashing in the bathtub
by the way
act appalled if you want
I'll be passed out in it later
vapor in the clouds
find me
please

this mixed-media paper
curls every time I impose
my watercolors upon them.

I might be using too much water.
I'm definitely using too much water.

I don't care though.

I love the way the paint blooms
from the tip of the brush when it touches the water;
blood dripping into cheap pinot grigio.

as cheap as the word "I",
or family,
or atypical,
or grief.

I wonder what it would be like to
crawl into that hole that you keep
calling the sun?
only pigment blooms around here.

that was dramatic,
I know.

but what of the jilted lovers
cutting off their hair in the
proverbial backyard?

the dreamers learning to speak
through pillaged nights
like cheap tin cans on pink
and white twine?

are they with me in my
brittle bones while tomorrow
writhes in our collective
unconscious?

I writh despite the answer.

I'm not honest,
obnoxious.
I'm progress made for the sake
of having to say "stop this".
I'm boxes with the name of God
scribbled in blockscript on top of them.
I'm carpe diem,
unresponsive.
I'm learning dark age surmation while awaiting the moment the darkness has faded.

I'm a ******* art show all by my self.
I'm in hell.
I'm the hardship.
Harvest losses.
...only a part of it all is ever seen though.

I'm always drawing my best
on the worst paper
beauty is ugly
looseleaf in gold-trimmed
porcelain
read
mutiny as muse
spoon feeds
raspberries
airplanes
carry me back to that
bare faced Jerusalem youth
please
milk
honey
but no clue about Fukui
on Scenery though
yea no actually I think I'm good
fine with a horizon walk
illusory
lucid to Euclidean
viral fault
apathetic is sedative
dead end Oedipus
idiot
falling
laugh track
cash grabs
bill money
hit the plug up
medicine
unstuck and abstracted
built something still
ugly is beautiful
my .05 fine liner is empty
its all trash
thanks though

Emily Dickinson earned her immortality.
fair and square.
if not for any other reason besides
being the reason the words "squirrel" and "eclipse" get to exist forever
right beside one another in print.

this new Pharoahe Monch and th1rt3en album keeps crashing
YouTube Music.
cheap *** phone.

I've written a poem,
a list of websites paying for poetry with how much they are paying for it,
and this.

I picked up Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch for inspiration and never made it passed the first page
of the contents before all that manifested.

threads have only ever
been a human thing.

"I said, there is home."
to nobody.
different names never changed
a **** thing.
we could see no people
to/who/that learn how idle
doesn't mean "still".
they've made a god of progress;
progress is toothpaste in a sink.

who couldve sown those ideas
together had they not been
all blinking buzzing neon sign
in the window of the page?

probably quite alot of folks
had they not been so busy
wiping dried blue Colgate off
of porcelain.

simple, remember?

so it goes.
always.
dosey doe down long hallways,
around puddles of ****,
singing songs long faded
to ambient noise.
please, mumble a myth for the void to posion.
the void in your avoidance.
the void in the poignancy.
the void on the points of stolen steak knives stuck in the hearts of the strigoi
shuffling outside our windows
day and night.

drip gold from the mouths of memorial statues,
we need that.
badly.

I had a dream I was *******
over the balustrade of the arcade
at the top of the Scalla
in the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo.
Venice's rooftops stretched out beneath me,
completely dark.
cemetery silent.
the only sound was my **** hitting
the calle below.
upon finishing, I turned
and told a shadow, as I
zipped up my jeans,
"let's go get espresso, I need a cigarette."

I hope it was prescient.
I hope the shadow was you.
I hope you read this one.

you most likely won't.
forever the shadow on what I do.

what is that strange other end
of somehow?

Zeno's favorite number?

in the doorway
on the playground
there may even be wonder
man was watching
before thought let sight
clean knowing like desire
still pitch dark
and something further back
than anyone wants to dwell in
as swiftly as country dying
on the cold floor of unsilvered future
history of nothing
I'm just having fun

attenuation,
all still nameless and beautiful,
his eyes were open;
the lamp and the shadows.

"departure from the night"
he said endlessly from below
the dark demanding
forgiveness anyway.

the boy in his bones
screams of ravens
on a scarecrow in a
snow-covered corn field.

past time.

the man in his head kneels,
always kneels.

I could survive the winter in your eyes.

I see what I want.

fading,
still nameless and splendid,
his eyes were open to
the lamp and the shadows.

"depart from the night"
he said to the infinity beneath
the dark demanding
absolution anyways.

the boy in his bones
screams at ravens
on a scarecrow in a
snow covered corn field.

time elapsed.

the man in his head is kneeling,
always kneeling.

urtext purge staccato,
you know what I'm saying.
automatic,
learned,
purchased;
below, suddenly cutting in;
call it a symptom of sample culture.

that sibilance is sickening,
no vultures.
deranged,
no victims though.
I hate it.
we all do.
I love that.
infamy, intimacy;
something came between us.

that is why I never unpack.
you should try to.

only the skies are ever replaced.
Zarathustra was overbriefed
as always.
it makes me want a doomsday,
a noose swing,
a new face.

this spinning plate thing
is not as lucrative as I had thought
it would be.
still no worse than I was
so that is something.

the kind of empty you feel
as a kid having just learned that
your parents are never going
to care to understand you.
that and jazz.

that kind of emptiness and
Mingus, Coltrane, Davis, BBNG;
still careening,
still empty,
still.
ancient.
time means nothing
and nothing is notes on a saxophone,
or piano, or trumpet, or the sky itself.

where are we in the whirlwind?

some wish life would just ignite
like a monk on a Vietnamese sidewalk,
but in 4k instead of black and white.
our apathy takes it's hat off indoors though.
they don't want to know
what goes into it.

this war is a chore I'll be more than
ecstatic to treat as a boring Saturday
when I'm finally awarded the time to.

I am cracked alabaster.
I am atrophy.
I am Saturn taking bites of the progeny.

I am the progeny.