I’ve been chosen
to write some
******* essay
for a national poetry magazine,
i’ve called everyone i know
to tell them the news
    to talk about what i
should say,
nobody answered__
so here i am
alone, listening to old      dusty      records
typing on a broken machine
and oddly thinking of
    guitars, under the sea
    trying to play music;
it is sad and good and quiet
and i am alone drowning with it,

i need another glass of wine
i walk to the fridge and open it
    for a bottle uncorked earlier
and close it
along with this subject.

everything i do:
    ****.
out of place,
like a culinary genius
trying to take out that
    tumor in your brain
he can’t__i can’t
    -won’t-
even try anymore:
    writing.
there is no point;
there isn’t now
there wasn’t then

you are a poem
you are of few
words, visible emotion
yet you are sweet
poignant
direct with your thoughts
you are a poem
in all of its
obfuscating metaphors
and timid lines
meandering through
whimsical dreams
of imperfection
you are a poem
soft, abrasive
holding my poisoned
veins in an eternal
embrace

insanity, begin;

                      PLAY

foam born (A) of the ocean
the backtrack (B)
            to the origin of human emotion
before hue and saturation
    my life may be black and white
but for the next hour
          -  quite frankly -
I don’t give a ****, because
I am a spaceman looking down on you
            no, literally

I am

[above]

you


the decade of statues into which I was born
begged to be forgotten
             left behind
communication with my own kind
             redundant
       boring
meaningless
humanity, mother earth
            nothing worth living for

no one worth dying for
because of the
informal gluttony
            a sickening acceptance
of the inherent claustrophobia of the human condition

I’m floating
            floating
                        floating
further away from you
from any possible natural surrounding
            or human connection
[claiming to be part of humanity always secretly disgusted me]
everything is beautiful from up high
I am a spaceman, a future butterfly.

wait.

something isn’t right
I’m further away
            more detached
than I intended to be
            further away
the safety of my orbit overlooking you
        deconstructing in front of my own eyes
now floating towards the sun of nothing

perhaps I
miscalculated my own superiority
I am the one floating towards eternity
   after all
to an inescapable fate
while you are back home
            with your (our) own kind
perhaps unhappy
but not alone

I am.

watch me pass by
            one last time
I feel my soul breaking apart
my eyes glaze over and
    sha/t/te/r
atmosphere
            burning
mistaken for a shower of stars
            an acceptable way to leave the third
dimension I suppose
perhaps you will see me as the ants of the sky
scattering
            glowing
                        burning
as I find the sun




hello?






am I still alive?




are you still there?




perhaps all I’ve said
            and lived
was nothing more than a prequel to the sequel
life before death?
    or the other way around?
I am no longer confined by four dimensions
      even time is irrelevant
everything is different
            everything is right
bleeding viridian
    feeling the sensation of nothingness
        seeing the sempiternity of the galaxy
hearing translucent shades of the endless chasm
    that now surrounds me


falling


fallin
         g

falli
        ng

fal
      l
        i
          n
             g

f

a

l

l

i

n

g

into the depths
  until I land upon a new horizon

            I am a spaceman
I am discovering everything

I found death
surrounded by white walls
            the greatest journey
of our [lives?]
happens only six feet down
       surrounded by white walls


    this is what we have when we die.
  this is what is left of us.
white walls.


White Walls.

saw a ******* the street
giving tarot card readings
“five dollars for your future” her sign read
what a deal, what a steal!
I handed her a ten, said “keep the change
    but
if you give me good news I’m going to call your  bluff and take my ******* money back”
she kept right on staring at me
annoyed
      collected
            reserved
and with her empty eyes peering into my soul
she told me
“I see nothing in your future, just an ******* drowning in his own self pitty and sorrow”
“fair enough” I chuckled, as “nothing” was well within my
demanded parameters

I could eat a shotgun shell
have a liver failure
die of cancer
swing by my neck like a piñata from my favorite tree
   tomorrow

or:

live another fifty years
never have kids
never marry the girl I lov
never record another album
or type another word

which “nothing” fate decides for me
I do not care

I am a slave to all that I own
I can’t remember the last time I woke up
   and didn’t want to walk out my front door
      down the street
across state lines
into the overpopulated void
  but my ******* common sense
always stops me
"what a waste”
it’s a shame, pathetic really
that I desire the freedom
   the thrill
of being undiscovered by society
to the point that I dream about it
            constantly
and still, here I sit
in a room full of records
   expensive guitars and
seasons of The Andy Griffith Show
that I can not leave
I am a slave to all that I own

today
while smoking a cigarette
   I saw a butterfly
dead on the sidewalk

it was neither gruesome or disturbing
    in fact
it was almost peaceful in a way
   just nature at its end

I wish I was a butterfly
    transformed
from wretchedness
into something beautiful

    to you:to me

the attraction is anything but
      physical

it eats like hell
for a solid week
   sleeps for the next three
emerges
   arrives
evolved
   into the sky

life is now at its most poignant pinnacle
beautiful
    tende
        vulnerable
    utterly free
no longer even bound by gravity
     I bet that’s a ******* trip
but
      there’s always a but
irreversibly limited to a handful of days

I wish I was a butterfly
alive for a month of this ****
and then beautifully
    quietly
lie down on a sidewalk
and die.