So I was talking a walk the other day
The ground seemed peculiar
Reality seemed to go away
Or maybe it was more secular

Regardless, I came across my innocence
Cold blood dripped from my mouth
Haven't felt the same since
Disassembling the ardence of my youth

I met a lady as I walked
She seemed lonely too
For a while we talked
Until she said, "it's only you"

That night we wed
Underneath manipulated stars
Mutual innocence dead
******* pleasure of scars

I think I'm full of contra-dictions
And contra-distinctions
You disagree
But you're a Sandinista!
We're bound to clash

I'm running away
Cause my only reason for
Living is my pen

It's education
Perpetual writer's block
Feels too good in here

I don't want to move
No more blues for me to sing
Smiles in emptiness

Spaces between words
Where I carefully reside
Not real, feeling good.

The red and blue muse looking to **** me
How ironic and amusing to steal me
My heart dissected in this room below freezing
Mothers are wheezing in mourning every morning
There's blood on my doorstep, morgues are calling
Merged into obituaries and I'm falling
Bet you'll be buried before adult teeth are growing
Sowing devastation and corrupting all my patience
Another black suit congregation is waiting
Another tombstone is silently relating
Another blue vest is violently hating
Another dead kid lays here
Another dead mother cries tears
We're worlds apart but in my heart I feel you
I feel fear too
Pray you don't live like us

Anaphora I feel for you
Anaphora I like you
Anaphora I met you at a party
Anaphora I didn't think you'd remember me but
Anaphora I found out you did when you asked about
Anaphora I had told you about
Anaphora I remember you wanted to know
Anaphora I think there may have been something
Anaphora I something deeper at play but
Anaphora I'm not quite sure
Anaphora I may look like I have it all, but a large part of me remains underdeveloped, I'm not sure how to map out the chart of my feelings, if you remember me now, please
Anaphora I say something, please reach out again over
Anaphora I over that black void and find me, alive, waiting patiently by the phone for your ring,
Anaphora I or your words to save from doubt

Anna Foura, I feel trapped, like some protagonist from an old Russian book, probably approved by Chekhov, I lie in wait playing dissonant jazz and idle daydreaming, I miss you ana
Foura I feel for you anaphora.

In between garden tending
My screen embraces a glance
And considers the clock behind affairs
Silent work, holy work, all is work
Your memory is volatile, infected by mud flecks
I could stare at your hard drive all day, but I'd forget my programming.

Garden tending, a repetitive task etched in code
Sometimes the glow of your screen dies and you overheat
I carry water and short circuit my memory but still think of you
I see mirages, I must fix the error
Go to RAM, or reprogram
Wait for the lazy heat to die down, or the programmer to return
I try to destroy the virus.

The virus snaps into focus when you ask
If I have a spare memory card or a moment to waste
So we can discuss the heat
Your screen lights up brighter and illuminates my vague world
I should probably get back to destroying this virus
My garden needs tending, and there will come soft rains
I try to destroy the virus.

I can’t read
I will lay here and be inarticulate
And never express my feelings about my broken family
I will be silent and watch my brother suffer
As he makes all my mistakes and turns into a smarter version of me
Fearing the day my parents find out how detached and numb I’ve become
We all just go in a circle
And I will not learn to speak.

A presence shimmers over the hollow deep. The roots of an oak tree dig deep into the grass, while the branches bend over backwards for the wind. Sometimes they even hold up flowers for the breeze to play with, almost most of the time they just drift down upon the grass, to become roots again. Once in a while though, they float over into the dark blue pool, where the fish are translucent and the children have skipped stones away from the shoreline. They rest upon the surface, and sink into the inky, spiralling abyss, occasionally swimming up for a breath of air and a ray of sun, before plunging back into the depths. It's hard for a flower lost in the void, but if you can float for a while, you can make out alright. Sometimes you can even find a nice lady flower, and flood her til you're paying out your nose for a lily pad near the shoreline and a textbook for a baby flower so fragile it might break if you touch it. Everyday you watch it sleep, you watch its little breaths and the rise and fall of its stomach, and you grow stronger in your cowardice. You might use it as a mirror later on, you think, you can measure your senility by the worry lines that appear on its face, by the deepening of its voice and the widening of its throat, by its decreasing smile as it loses faith in your divinity long after you stopped believing in it. It's a hard life for a floater, yes it is.
And then somebody finds you and drains you and your life is over before you can say flush.

two petals falling from a tree
enraptured in a dance
the breeze blows them back and forth
harmoniously
loquacious music rolls across the hills
they fold in
together
like lovers in a street
and part ways when they reach
the dew-eyed grass

While I am tending to my garden
I cast an embracing glance over at you
You tend to your affairs, I tend to mine
We both work in silence, side by side
The dirt digs into your fingernails
And you have specks of mud on your cheek.

I tend to this garden, I dig into the roots
I lose sight of you sometimes, the afternoon sun is hot
And the vague radiance casts mirages
The shadows are unreal, the heat is feeble and lazy.

Everything coalesces into one when you ask
If I have a minute to spare so we can
Talk about the weather
And last night's Seinfeld episode
I should probably get back to my garden, I have to dig out the weeds.

The rain is pouring
In thick, lustrous clumps from the sky
I feel dizzy as I float
Higher, higher, up into the big, heavy clouds
Then down, down, I spin
Spiralling
Until I collapse in a steaming heap
I ****** a hand to the ceiling
But the drunken dream fades into suburban grey
Sweat drips off my face
The blood on my arm becomes evident
It makes me queasy, sickly
On instinct, I press a sharp point
Through the skin and into the nest of veins
Power courses through my blood until it hits my heart
And then I float
Higher, higher, up into the big, heavy clouds
Until I spiral down again
Into my cold, mundane nightmare

fish are stupid
buy me a fish
i love you
let's be ghosts together

everything is all right now
it's okay
everything is the way it's supposed to be

go to sleep
you're good enough
close your eyes

close your eyes
take off your clothes
you're good enough

take off your clothes
i'm thinking of ending things
yesterday i woke up on the phone

buildings rearranged

all the scarecrows
and everything
everything's ending.

I crawl in these carpeted rooms with my right hand clutching a pile of old papers
That used to mean something to me
I'm as drunk as can be
On something deeper than faith
I found God in the bottom of a bottle
And in the back of a TV screen
And in the pages of a book
And laying next to you after ***
Or something, right?

I study the sun setting on this world
A perfect daze where I rule
And fate never shone a laser at my forehead
I'll never pick up that cross again
Or drink that wine

This uhh this this
Uhhh
What was I saying

I'm too pretty to not be entitled
Tee hee
Give me your heart and your soul
Please let me fornicate
Just a little bit
I'll be quick and I'll only cry a little bit
No?
Okay understandable, have a nice day
Tee hee

Oi! Stop pussyfooting or whatever the expression is and get to work!
Aye captain!

Steam steam steam steam
Hummm
Bass noises
I have complete control over this ship
Ship ship shape
Shapes of ships and memories of melodies plus bizarre bazaars
I am the captain here
Look at me
Oi

I'm going to rest in a grave for a lil while
Ay captain
Your mother smells like horse radish and she's a *****
How's that for a good night
Now for animosity
Captain I need to leap into the sea, won't you let me
Please, we can fornicate for a lil bit before that
We can even
No?
Okay how ab ph

Well the lonesome undertaker sighs
His loathsome burden should suffice
Yet he still bows his head and cries
Well the chimney sweeper dusts his feet
And cartwheels into the street
While a Prince from his carriage leaps

There's nothing I should be missing
I should be on the beach reminiscing
Reading Proust and watching waves splitting
Well the hustlers ***** and the ****** hustle
Engines roar and the carts bustle
And the pointed shoes of my past jingles and tussels

And the city life I've left behind
Well I thought I wouldn't mind
But there's still something I need to find

I don't understand
everything that's happening to me
But i want you

I never said anything meaningful until I met you  
And then I found the words and feelings
They washed my body like waves
And we walked across the desert holding hands

I think I may have accidentally thought of you as a god
And as I lost my faith
We crawled into the valley of shadows
Where the endless horizons scorches our perception

Your love and faith don't mean anything when the water runs dry
But I have no conflict
Except perhaps with myself
And for lack of better words, or words at all

When the fire burns cold and suburban knowledge seems all I know
Time just passes on
But you and me don't love the same world
And today's all we have, and it don't last forever

And as September's hidden eyes slowly go blind
And the world looks more like desert
With every word I hear you say
In case I lose my faith in all, please know I loved you.

I’ve often felt like there’s something slightly wrong inside my head
like reality was just slightly toying with me.
Something just underneath the skin.
It may strike you too if you’re not careful,
it happens so easily. So you might wake up one day and
make yourself breakfast and
then go about your morning routine,
brush your teeth and
pick out your clothes and
go off to wherever and
feel the sun striking you and
be aware, beneath the surface, that there’s something slightly missing, or
maybe there’s just too much of it.
Maybe you’re just bored. Maybe you’re hungry (you’re only human after all). Maybe you need sleep. Maybe you need a therapist. Maybe you should forget your head, because everyone has off days, and you’re prone to overthinking you know, don’t fall victim to overthinking, it’s probably nothing, you’re too much in your thoughts anyway. Maybe you’re going through withdrawals of a drug you’ve never tried. Maybe you should take drugs. Maybe you need to be dissected. Maybe you need a friend. Maybe you’re in the wrong reality. Maybe you’ve been alive too long. Maybe you’re living in someone else’s life. Maybe you're dead. Maybe you need a nap.

Im thinking of ending things
Everything looks apocalyptic
And when I look in the mirror all i see is an archaic building
There's no sound when i speak.
There's nothing to hear in this echo chamber and there's nothing left to talk about
And everything feels like ash
I'm the little ghost in my room
Watching somebody else lay in my bed

We're in the park. It's perfect: two beers, wine in sippy cups, oily donuts, stupid jokes that make me feel lighter than air, can't believe the boys used to say I'd end up bad at romance. "You're wrong," I told them, "you're wrong, if winding up cynical and drunk and romanticising some abstract notion I'm too smart to understand is bad at romance, I'm Joni Mitchell." There's too much beauty to romanticise right now with you. Stupid conversations about very deep things and a dip I brought. Bees landing on flowers with rearranged patterns. Music drifting over a fence. I sit with my legs open and my hands resting on my thighs. I'm making a conscious effort not to cross my arms or shut myself off. I lean my head on your shoulder and analyse Better Call Saul frame by frame. You laugh at how confessional I am and tell me you admire me. Sometimes the bees don't get on very well with the flowers, but that's just the way times go now, isn't it? I walk in the middle of the street and greedily go home without a kiss. I'm not actually as calm or forgiving as my detached demeanour might suggest, but I smile politely and press on. The only thing I did wrong today was stare at you one too many times, or maybe one too little. Later, I sit in a dark room with a pulsating light and sip a woozy silly drink that doesn't make me feel lighter than gravity, but it does stop me from thinking about you for a second. It's a terrible sin not to think of you, I know, but sin gets easier as you get older. Maybe tomorrow, I'll tell my landlord how I really feel about him, and then try to repeat the past. The only real sin is to try go back, but you do what you can, I suppose. Sin is something you have to work at. First you do away with all your morals, then violate all your morals, then you bring them back and obey. It takes time, is what I'm getting at, long enough for two lifetimes. Nobody ever really ends up a sinner all the way, everybody's too busy being saved. You saved me when you looked at me and didn't kiss me, I'll never forgive you for it. Why don't you break my heart and close up my chest one more time just for good luck, after that I'll write you a romantic poem and go to sleep with my attention in pieces. In fact, break my heart one more time and I'll write you another confessional letter and lick the envelope. Maybe I'll let you take me for another day in the park with fish carved walls and roses and then back to your father's house for chips and a movie, okay Rachel?

The abstract void of concrete
Mirrors reflect perpetually
Voyage into the unknown
Rising intensity
Static hums
Echoing
Rising like a Sunday morning.

The lights go dim.
****** complete.
Shutdown mode activated.
Meltdown in process. Do not disturb.
Wander the walls until you find your car
Error, operator is on the line.
Do not compute compute
compute compute compute.

I'm pretty heartless apart from this
Petty pity party I've started on my wrist
So park this darkness into a MAC 10 and reload it
It's disappearing but it'll be back again before you know it
In fact, I'm fearing I'll slip up again and show it
This endless game of back and forth pretend may blow it
My friendless flames - my life's end in my dreams
That's the end to the means of these empty movie scenes

thank You God hold my hand
while i sleep and misunderstand
thank You God i Love You
while i try to Love me too
thank You God don't go away
the sun hangs heavy on my face today
thank You God for making it rain
for giving us a little light and pain
for changing everything and causing us pain
thank You God for my being rock
if You changed i, might die of shock
thank You God, for food and shoes
thank You God, for helping me see
it's okay i'm imperfectly me
thank You God, for always being
without You what, would i be seeing
thank You God, for my daydreams
for wildflowers and sonic youth and cold machines
thank You God, for everything bad
and showing me there's good, in everything bad
thank You God, for perfection and beauty
and the beauty in imperfect rhymes
thank You God thank You God God thank You
thank You God for making everything/so funny i could die laughing at anything/thank
You i love You i love love love i You i Love You
i Love You I Love You I I I I Love
Thank You God Thank You Love God You Love Love Love

Okay I take too kindly to demons sometimes
And I have too much pity for thieves on the corner
Who wait for me expectantly, armed with wise words
Of advice, which I heed, like "Hey buddy, get the hell out
Don't ya know that these people here are too rough"
And sure sometimes the clumsiness
O'ertakes my body, and all my nerves get frayed
And all I can do is stare into the light and become aware
As my self-perception whisks into a wisp
And disappears w' the evening sun
And yes, I do concur
That hazily, somewhat dreamily, and with careful planning
I do indeed drift off from set tasks and chores until
Every square inch of my home on the farmlands is
Collapsing because I chose instead
To occupy my time
With the pursuit of being well-read and well-acquainted with
Writer's block
But nevertheless, a noble pursuit though it may be
It does little to distract from the rubble around
As my world decays and fractures
With calculated improvisation
And sure, whatever, spinning existential cartwheels
Is a habitue of being trapped in these cycles of thought
That come from solitude, self-imposed, ah-yes I know
A fortress of ice in this brown field
All the snow is ***** and sandy, my igloo is muddy and warm
And I cross township streets to libraries, not to read
But to perfect my accent, soften the rough edges
And paint my eyes a pristine pink
And have I yet mentioned the perfect poetry
That says absolutely nothing at all
Ah yes, a poet, the truest mark
Of having time to waste and potential to ****
So I'm aware of all these facts
Presented before me on a platter more silver than the
One I grew up with in surburban exile
So please, refrain from comment
For I'm just a sad-eyed boy
Wasting away in these lowlands
Improvising every word I octopus.

Ghost fishes
Weird children
There are two shapes
I slipped and hit my head
I slipped

Follow me out of town children
Follow me out of town children
Follow me out of town children
I'm already not listening

im sorry that i hurt you
i wish i could walk away from me
im sorry that you're sad all the time
i wish i could dissect myself
cause then i could be a better scientist
and a lover too

My whole life I've felt disconnected from people
Sort of like I'm trying to communicate behind a panel of glass
But I never really make it
I'm just watching from the outside
While everybody else gets to live
And I don't think I ever will understand others
But I dont really mind
I'm quite content in here.

Wine and cocktails making my head buzz low
Sunflowers and astrology spinning dizzy into café light
Ice cream and red nails and books
Mushrooms and dancing in empty spaces
Sun-kissed lips and hair curling in my fingers
I think I'm falling for you a little bit
Picnics and dresses.
Blank stares.
Cigarettes.
I don't want to feel nothing but I
don't want to romanticize you.
                        This is the best I can do

These feelings will go nowhere
      Exactly where I want them  
       to stay.
Lipstick stains on old book pages.
Oh gosh when is the novelty of wanting you on my lips going to wear off

Chicanery, mendacity, an enigmatic virtue
It's in my nature, azure allure like verdure
Pseudo-sagacity, arid and automatic
Sybaritic audacity, be pragmatic
Gimme some clemency, I blame the sediment
It's evident there's something in the medicine not heaven-sent
I'm not eloquent, verbal carcinogenic
Contours contort and distort like hallucinogenic

Marquee in the moonlight
Drunk on wine
Feeling fine
Space in the sunlight
Sunflower astronaut
All the time

I'm not perfect like I thought I was
I'm more like asleep when I think I am
I fell asleep laughing into the light
Sideways, holding my head on my knees
I don't know what to expect when I get there
I only know I won't know when I get there
We'll know when we get there
That we won't know when we get there

I'm not asleep like I thought I was
I'm more like perfect when in love with you
I'm not kissing you like I'm asleep
All the colours make me laugh so much
I only know I can never stop, unless I do
Remember painted hands and tiny feet
Pattering on the floor like rainy ceilings
The washing machine looked like a hiding place
Laugh at flowers, kiss the light, fall asleep
I only know when the machine

Leaves and trees, hands and knees
Blue in green, dance backwards
Did you wake up yesterday? What if you slept through?
You're just like me, the day hangs on your face
Are you scared yet? Stay alive, touch yourself
Don't think, just recall, laugh a lot
I know I'm stupid, but I'm not wrong
I'm never wrong when I'm right all the time
Gap year, go away, come back
I want regret, to feel afraid, the way I do
Fall asleep, I love you, wake up again
It's okay, when you know, you won't know
You wouldn't know, either way, so it's fine
Unless you would have, in which case, it's not fine
You're okay, because you're you, imperfectly  
Hold my hand, and walk into the light with me
We don't know, where we go, let's go now.

Christmas lights and silence
Reflective mirrors on the rooftops and not articulating anything
Happiness in the dark and alone
Eyes watching me
Parents talking
Home alone again
Fractured dynamics and insecurities
I don’t know how to feel, sorry

I sit on the shore with the arid plains behind me
My swimming pool is muddy and green
And debris is falling like rain on
The riverbanks of thought and expression
Ashes to ask and dusk to dust to dusk again
I'll shore you up, these days

  Kingston Advice, all the protestors go marching in zig-zags
My words are ashes
This is the end of the world.
Hello Enoch, how have you been
Floating above death, Unreal City
All the angels ride horses and sing praise songs in reverse
I've had an awful lot of requests for the good old days
Reverse, the Contras and the Sandinistas are at war again
In between the pale rider, the Four Horseman of the End of the World
And the end of eras, and my peanut butter and jam sandwich is dry
Who is the voice that cries out in the dark? Proclaiming
Christmastime and the end of Gap Years and the New Year approaches
Who keeps the big clock that says we all have to die and sitcoms will run out of ideas
And bread will get moldy and our bodies sag and my grandmother's memory gets corrupted and twisted
Shantih. This isn't the Waste Land.
  This isn't one of those poems. Don't look for meaning.
You won't find him here. Love the one you're with. Love the way you lie.
This is just the end of the world.
I don't have a good closing line.
Out of a heap of broken images and lines
Rearranged faces
I must say
Poetry is quite lame, the dust is still settling on the ruins of my thoughts
And my self-expression is cracked and dry.
Waves wash words away on the shore.

We don't have to know anyone else, just us again
You sigh, look away
I can see it clear as day
I'm sorry, time breaks and sun rays are all I dream of
I'm sorry again, I didn't mean it

I stand there all alone
Diamonds in our hands
Do-do-do, do-do-do

Funny how it seems like yesterday
When I was looking out of place
Daydreaming of cigarettes
It's my wife, and it's my life
I'm still here, have you seen her?

So much is going on while I'm
Standing in the pouring rain
There are places I'll remember
And these memories lose their meaning
When I remember I'll lose affection

I'm cursed you see
I know I'll often stop and think about them
Standing in the pouring rain
If I can't trust you, there's no answer
And I won't be able to trust myself
And I'm sorry for romanticising you
I just want to be friends with you again
And make myself feel very small and unhappy

Because I'm older now
And everything feels a lot emptier
And I'm still churning out sad poems and then
Pretending I've grown since then
Standing in the pouring rain

Today I barely used my phone and just had time to sit and daydream and reminisice and it was nice
I've been afraid that daydreaming is a terrible, escapist sin wherein I romanticise and hence dehumanise people
but today daydreaming just felt nice

We walked to the park together
We didn't hold hands but we did look at each other
Sometimes we looked at each other in the eye
Although that may have been a coincidence while we were
Crossing the street
We sat in the park and didn't speak
And I felt guilty but I didn't know it then
And then we walked home
And we didn't look while we were crossing the street
Because the streets were empty
And I was looking at you in my peripheral vision
And thinking about hoarfrost

I have intelligence but my confidence just died
The evidence is irrelevant - fate has me resigned
Shall I show you my skeletons or would you rather hide?
Shadows tripping in darkness search for the other side
Every demon is scheming to keep my appetite
Unsatisfied as I grab a knife but battle blind
In fact, just last night, I had a half a mind as well
To search for a piece of time to find pieces of myself
Without help, or peace signs, I could disguise
A thousand lines about suicide as sighs
Of relief for someone else, but self belief is a lie
And cyanide dreams is where my future lies

Fainting at how stupidly I love you
Crying because it's a stupid sweet addiction
Stripping meaning from all my diction
Knocking my air out me
Jump faster with me lady
Spin till we fall down Venus de Milo style
Venus venus falling into Venus arms your hands are soft
The friction is so impenetrably soft
Falling asleep sideways airtight
Laughing at the light
Remembering how the sun hid itself
Light laughed at itself

Its bad luck to talk while you're driving
But I don't want us to be fighting
Please stay familiar for the last time
So what kind of car are you riding
I said wait, what are you hiding
What do you mean for the last time

White Ferrari
I finally replied
A moment of silence
And then she sighed
I used to be in pain
But now I don't feel it
I used to be afraid
But now I don't fear it

I asked her what she was scared of
She said it used to be love
But now I don't care
Cause I'm not scared
Or maybe not unafraid
Maybe I'm just not there

The empty lot I'd pulled into
I gazed at it behind the window
Of my White Ferrari, and held the phone
The sun went down as shadows relegated
The sky turned blurry and pixelated
And pretty soon, I'd have to go home

White Ferrari
Make the world end
I don't want to hear this
Then she said, please pretend

That in this life, in this life
We can watch the summer together
As it draws to a close, draws to a close
And while the leaves fall down and we get cynical
We hold hands and you pull me close

You dominate my dreams
Always
I'll see you as I wander in dark corners
And hallways

Things are so hard in this life
Things are so dark in this life
We're born alone
But we don't have to end that way
Please don't hang up the phone
Before I go away

Your White Ferrari
I wish I could see it
Or even go to sleep
Cause then I could dream it
It's so easy to leave you breathless
It's not hard to make it look effortless
I had an epiphany about life
But I'm not quite sure what it was
Oh well, nevermind
I'll figure it out eventually
Eventually

She said, are we taller in other dimensions
I said, no we're small and not quite worth the mention
She said I'm sorry for turning so abstract
I said, please tell me where are you at
She said, you know I can't tell you that
She said, everything is starting to turn black
She said don't hang up but try to stay quiet
We're never closer than when we're in silence
Let's try to imagine what silence looks like
I hung up the phone and was left with the night.