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

skipping rocks across still ponds,
the gods are comedians.

entropic,
my coffee is still hot.

middle fingers to a walk of shame.

you all get lost like bats in a thick fog.
so let me scratch my scrimshaw
in peace, please.

i write for the ghosts of my past lives.
that's why i leave ink anywhere but on the page.

halfheartedly;
artistry is vacuous.
acquiescence come after ****,
gotta love it though.
everyone is a judge with
not a care in their heads other
than
insurrection's growth.

oh ****
no bliss breathing between here
  and seasons forgotten about.

cattle corralled,
antlers on the raw wood, looming.

Iast on the lists, remember?
Ive never felt ok.
rarer with the hellish day,
agog at the god-head
coming apart like a
house on fire, where's the bellows at?

fade.

blank.
drawn.
page.
somewhere in between is
something sacrosanct;
Shangri la.
(jump)
I'll be the last ghost to fade away.
just take it all a way's away from me;
my days are numbered.
trust me when I tell you
I take the comfort like pain medication.
I'm not saying we face death,
but claiming we were the patron-saints
of anything other than taking vacation
days for vacations never taken
is pretty ******* ridiculous.

just saying.

sacred?
half of that at least.
sanctity was but a raft on a beach
before the tide came.
my mind state is in the wind
pretty much always.

late to all parties,
call it fashion.
balled fists,
call it stalwart or passion.
it all ends the same.
it's all dirt.
that is it's name, right?

spinning,
spinning.

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.

the stray black lab that ran
around with a friend and I
was ******* fearless.

he was one of us.

one night he chased a football
into the street, directly
into the path of a speeding black
jeep and ended up broken and howling in a way
I still hear sometimes.

He was even more one of us then.

It has been three years since
the night I died.
Three years since *******
myself on the bathroom floor
while the girl i loved stepped out
to buy some smokes.

death didn't have a sound,
but it still echoes through
me.

we never named the dog.

be still as stereo,
so you can peep the wilting filigree
of the blooming expanse
we rarely ever care to choke on.

breathe is a question
whispered by oceans and i use
it coax this **** out of
lotus seeds.

why?

"if" is no longer
in my vocabulary.

effect then cause.

waveforms to particles.

sliding backwards is
a casual stroll towards a future
i've been wearing like a crown
all along.

We have a bad habit of scavenging
through any distant tragic
for any and all anecdata.

Brand it Dada,
if you want.

But please miss me with that
"mystically a misfit" shtick infinitely.
It's pushing 2020 and no body is blind
to being persona non grata,
given that it's written on every bit
of our skin like the insignia
of some designer product
we'll forget about before '21 hits.

Brand it post-romantic,
as long as you get past the ****.

Picture a match flipped into gasoline.
Static on a glass screen
destined to crack.
Etcetera.
Etcetera.

Rabbits dragged out of hats
only to be stashed in better ones.

Brand it neo-whatever,
if you absolutely have to.

Im not paid to care.

The night sky is so far beyond
being described by some
primitive technology such as language.

I fall in love with her over and over.

My lips remember her feet
in every sip of anything.

Over and over.

my favorite thing in the world,
at this moment anyway,
is the way a room feels
when a candle goes out.

i'm learning to converge like that.
with what,
i don't really know.

call it lighting lanterns in foggy streets.
call it escapism.
call it industry.

i call it food on the table.

we will not wake up one day
with all the answers
written on the back
of a map of the labyrinth.

we just turn corners.

we will end up keeping to the
parts that we've painted houses on
and calling it sacrifice;
if only god were pulled from
smoke so easily.

have you judged this yet?
does it make the grade?

my ego sure hopes so.

he is the type to leave
apples on your desk.
he is also afraid
of the naked horror of
everything clawing
at the foot of his
deathbed,
my ego that is.

the truth,
mud is just a word for something, ravens do not call themselves
ravens, and a fire can blacken the sky.

it is all just a joke though.

has that gavel swung yet?
have the numbers been crunched?

you should put it into
poetry.
create a philosopher's stone
and force feed it to someone you
love.

please.
i need it.

I had an infinitely more horrible
time than I care to remember.

so I'm writing about it,
cheers Mr. Vonnegut,
so it goes.

so I go slowly slipping
through scenes of me
being a ******* *******
or prose I wrote
after a few-too-many.

ask(no),
act old so I can embody
the loss of life more
efficiently.

I'm a ******* *******.

these words of mine
are a labyrinth

a zygote to high hopes
splattered on streets
that lead to Zion;
a new day to pay for
if you got it like that.

america dreams in 4k
and all we have is an
old CRT with rabbit ears.

the revolution will be
printed on recycled
paper and handed out
in the grocery section
of wal-mart.

digital and analog
and minerals and masks.

all is comedy and we don't
laugh anymore.

sharks circling,
I'm thinking about
how our desperate pleading
screams
sound to the people
on vacation on the deck
of the passing cruise ship.

does the desolate breeze
make it sound like jazz?

grinding my teeth
while the world is ablaze;
I'm asleep, I promise.

like my father grinds his.

he is not really my father.
not really asleep, either.

where does that leave us?

This lassitude is a path
I intend to stray from,
go laughing like a madman
off into the wild wild faceless
fade-away until I wake up
in another's afternoon.

Square one is etched in my light-body.

Masks, masks, and masks.

Sad poems stacked somewhere
between our past and the shattered
glass still scattering Saturday sunshine;
I think I've loved life enough, thanks.

Where's the threads,
the vein that runs through it,
the ******* point to it all?

You can't daisy chain clouds
with "I love you" whispered
in abandoned houses
and expect it to rip out hearts.

Patterns, patterns, patterns end.

Nothing matters anyway.

More masks,
less friends.

crowns for beasts,
mouths for feasts.
clouds are the breeze
and the breeze is you
dancing in my dreams;
a ballerina in a music box.

snarling kings
lead the man in me
to seek apotheosis.

don't you know this
by now?

I am a child.
always.

my soul is ink spreading through
water on a page,
among other things.
things like a cop passing me with
hash in my pocket,
like sage growing in the kitchen
window of a one bedroom
apartment in Brooklyn,
like sharing memories through
thin walls that stretch across the
whole country.

ive done just about nothing
and I'm no longer proud of that.

how does that sound as far as intros go?

Just a sip from the abyss
and then it's bed time for all of us.

Twisting words around sunshine
is a gun to the head of God
if God wasn't busy with the mystery
hidden in the entropy spilling
out of my pen.

Just a sip, kids.

This is just some **** for you to skip rocks to.

three-hour window,
might play a Friday all night
on a Tuesday.

the night we escaped
transitional housing,
most people were
boosting time from
the backkseats of old
four-door Fords
parked on their streets.

yea, the same ones they lived on.

while we lived on instant rice
and the prospect of drunk at midnight,
they were foaming at the mouth
in front of static on a screen.

yea, the same ones they lived on.

these days are fiends for our seconds
and we've been reckless with them
so far,
so I don't know.

my deathwishes snap twigs in the distance,
still.

stars, stars, stars;
the sobriquet is "heartache".

why give your energy to that,
you ask.
my dark day is a lonely
afternoon,
I'll be fine.
honestly.
I'm fine.

its all because being present
has always been
hard for me,
head in the clouds,
or searching for clouds,
or...

gather your lilies and I'll hang them
from my exposed ribs;
I've always been good at ruining
the beautiful that blooms
because of you.

it's never too late to run.
it's better too scrape the husk
of connection than dream up
a wreckage forever sinking.

dried flowers makes the smell of rot
remind me of the morning sun
bringing out the red in your hair.

it's never too late to run.
it's better to taste the blood
than forget that it's there at all.

f#@€ that.

it's never too late to plunge
headfirst into the acceptance
of the failures of the head
when heart was what we needed.

gather your lilies and we'll hang them
in the windows in our memories
to remind us of the bigger picture
when rain clouds roll in.

it's never too late to love
what we hated once.

fire watch,
wasp in a wine bottle;
I'm dying to stop thinking
of dying in your head.

I'm fine.
I'm not.
I'm lost.
I'm dead.
its wonderful.

time stops,
curtains pulled.

I promise I am happy.
         content.
                  content.
                           content.

   please, validate me.

you have to stop
holding onto
every ****t thing
that happens to you.

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.

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.

All of these people gnashing teeth
over 2 months of an isolation
drenched in comfort takes my
mind to Thoreau at his cabin,
tending to his beans
and befriending bees
while the orchestra of the
afternoon breeze plays
the branches like a cello
to that brilliant gilded lonely he danced
with like a lover in a living room
or a child standing on his shoes at a wedding.

blood flow,
gun smoke,
untold,
untold,
untold.

one ghost amongst
an innumerable mass,
seething,
seething.

we're leasing a room.

she takes a pull of
her Parliament,
face painted in
in fleeting ochre;
an ancient star dying
far from me.

"i was alive once and i swore
i glimpsed the storm in
the laughter"

we write each other's names
on our palms and lovingly watch
the ink fade as we drink from
them.

that was the plan.
plans end the same as the rest of it;
vestigial and resentful in their silence.

you said your grin was
that of a misfit.
i said your grin lent
dimensions the intent
to rip open.
i meant it,
but i said it just to see it.

"...reasons. things can have many..."

stealing smoke from a Parliament,
that old foolish ochre
skirmishes with night,
i remember that i'll remember the hospice stint intimacy fondly
when i splinter infinitely through dimensional rifts in that moment
you howled at the moon with the
earth dangling from your neck.

"the wild hunt was a horrible
film, but it was our horrible film"

you didn't even notice me
dissolving into the monolith
and i admire the honesty of that.

we can speculate about what the
next life's masks conceal when
we get there.

All is absurd.

"Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth"

I keep meeting oceans that only want to be the same lake of fire.

I is a lie that was fabricated by no one.

How does anyone catch a glimpse
and not melt into their own laps?

See?

Absurd.

on a lighter note,
I'm bleeding out
in the ******* street.

dogs howling.

how was your day?

wedding day
picture Tristan Tzara
reading horoscopes
scene
we all seek out horror shows
to throw quarters into
bored with this
gorefest
metamorphic
CRISP lower case r
NA meeting
we stopped going
we sit in bars
DOC in bathrooms
touching stars
meet Elohim
EMTs weren't fast enough
black
oblivion
slipping from skin like Prada
la la la la
pranayama
for the love God please stop
we did yesterday

I call you "mo chuislie"
its honey in a spoon
I know
but you should know that I
forget my heart beats
all the time and
I'm real ******* sorry
about it

circling the drain
the worst of it
is the taste of the
rain coming out of
the black cloud above me

tastes like days I'll never
be able to get back
or forget about

lovely

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.

waiting for waist deep,
I'm words,
I'm wasted,
I'm minutes that bit the dirt
to the tune of something catchy.

I'm as ugly as summers suffered
for love;
my lonely puts cathedrals to shame.

shame.
rings bell
shame.

it's ******, I know.

have I fumbled and dropped the chainsaws enough for you to
feel anything?

they told me if I didnt
like it here I could leave.

I'm still waiting
on the plane ticket.

feigned interest
in the same/different
dispensation of grace
from a safe distance
just to save the visage
of what I couldn't
articulate to you
on a good day.

technically,
it's the same rain everywhere.

it's been a really good day.
feigned ignorance.

you rush to start,
mad dash to the end of it.

it's your heart.
why are you rushing in?

siegecraft in the key
of lonely in your empty
apartment.

symphonies rise from the traffic
outside your bedroom
and living windows;
all encompassed.

same side of the building.
enough isnt ever enough.

am i supposed to split my skull
on the white marble of your
throne room while you pretend
you hide how heavy your
fantasy sits shining on your head?

today, my drive to do anything
is as dead as disco.

earlier, while drinking my coffee,
I heard disco ive never heard
before.

so I dont know.
tomorrow is a new day.

as your grace tries to stretch it's wings
in that rusted cage he glues plastic gems on
i am besotted by the elegance of the plumage
falling to a floor i would give anything
to sweep.

the night i proclaimed my love for you
i made an attempt on my life,
the rationale was of the "if i can't have..."
kind, blended with other poisons,
and entirely half-assed.

only now, i understand that
whispering into tin cans and writing
poetry with hand-made quills is far better
than the inky black screaming oblivion
i almost slipped into.

will love lost in unnameable night
be found by some summer eyed
couple stumbling and kissing
through the dark?

or the dogs?

you already know the answer.

why does everyone have
that poetry voice?

that weird inflection up
to the highest archway
that sits shaking above
some contrived nobility,
you know what I aiming at.

"how does thou" type of ****.
im viruses trying at life
in the air and the water supply.

no I'm not.
I'm dying quick.

I just didn't know what else to write;
half-*** author kind of vibe,
right?

i always said there was
nobody after you.

i don't think i wanted to
believe that,
but my beliefs have never
been able to cast light on
any horrifying nightmare
lurking in the shadows.

so, sounding poetic aside,
there is and never will be
anyone after you.

this is roses thrown into those shadows