Prompt: "Write about your best and worst meal."
Title: "Cathartic, Culinary"
Alt. Title: "Purgative, Palatable"

Worst
Once I was taken to a room of my own invention,
led by the faceless, fearless constructs of my mind.
Waiters served the table my thoughts and
words and past actions and then I was forced,
or rather, compelled by hunger up on my product--
talking seventeen years of chow!--I talk.

I was sick within minutes, the self, food dribblin'
my mouth, managing to empty my bust cheeks
by a slow slurp every few chews. That was horrible.
But by the end of a month, I was full, fed, and finished.
I attribute much of my success hence from this act.
Stomaching one's self, as it happens,
is the hardest part of the human condition.

Best
Once I ate the supplies of a marooned  island-castaway
just to speed the process, and once I licked the tears off
the face of a bereaved poet only to spit it in her face.
I think I will tell you another culinary anecdote though,
one which will expand upon my worst, the first.

Like picking at scabs, the nose, too, yields results.
I gave myself a nosebleed. And what did I do?
Ha ha, I raised my head to the ceiling, the roof,
the skies, to God and his cruel intentions.
Ha, I laughed, ha, I did. I thanked him for it;
and head up-turned I let course, I drank.

Lux en tenebre.
Waiting for the break of day.
But my lovely on the bus
doesn't arrive timely. I trust
that she's still riding on her way.
But there's evil amidst
this city, I suspect there is—
some alleyway or shadowcreep will take
my lovely away.
Hope she's coming home soon.

We're both sorry, we both say it;
we're both sorry to say it.
Don't accept the sorries
nor know the complaint.
She's never wanted her pain
to be felt fully till me.
Means: I just don't get,
I need a lesson, get taught.
Maybe then she'd expect
me to understand.
Hope she's coming home soon.

[earlier]
Can't stand me to call you "baby,"
because anyone could be my.
Where is the name you taught me to say?
Lux, dear; look lightly, I fear
what you share brings me closer
cuz what I know's there 'neath could hurt me.
I cower at curious looks:
what's earthed by tremor's still invisibly shook.
I'll dig like an artist to find you out,
to breathe above ground, breathe dirt from our mouths.

This Apocalypse Summer
has really got me down,
but then I'm up running
through what is left of town.
I never got to swim the backstroke
before Brunswick Basin bled
Lake Olympia from amidst her oak,
before Deer Creek went dead.

The streets'll burn, the bodies break
and the blood washed away by beer.
The streets burned, bodies broke
and we're still here.

Shadow people wander the sidewalk,
been here since the bombs dropped.
Never got no noisy television,
just watch the streets and shadows in them.
I'm pushing up just like daisies
and pulling them up for fun.
Convinced that I'm going crazy
from the trips that I get on.

Jane says she cannot get it:
"something hidden...back when children."
You're always looking for the road
where we used to drink too drunk,
where you look to have again
what we had so long ago.

Do you feel it coming?
on Earth His will be done.
Collapse a long time coming—
still nothing new under the sun.
Summer is for the living.
That's a bubble-bursted, sun-dried reason.
It's the end or I am fibbing,
still live up the rest of the season.

First came the flood then spilled blood.
Had anyone caught on of that to come
you know we'd never have let it begun.
But it had:
got you, your mother, and dad.
Surely there was nothing we could do
but hunker down, get a job, and rue
the day they brought us into
the Old World and buried the New.

I hear tell that downriver
the water gets warmer;
I hear tell that valley below us's
a hotter n' hell, body-ridden bowl of dust.
—
I hear tell that upriver
the trout they run thicker,
the water cooler, air smoother, and **** sticks thinner.
I wanna flee up that river
but I'm not that good a swimmer.

How do we know?
We think we're smart,
in fact we're geniuses.
But we're still sitting
and can't stop talking about...

This Apocalypse Summer
has really got me down,
but then I'm up running
through what is left of town.

Getting later into life
and still ever find that spark
that led giants into skies
and sailors to the brink
me n' mine to step, forsooth

When rasps are retired
finer things laid cabinet
rousty holes let loose to trash
while the tilds go on to yield,
I'll drown books, I'll hang hats

For now snipping corners
on the page, from the flaggon
Now looms a starry 'stellation
—a good omen perhaps—
alights now on me lap.

Go up'n roast on a glacier,
Make a trip of it, Monsieur—
I'll personally see your bags will be waiting,
the kindling's got, mosquitoes smashed,
and site taken.
Go at the right time
and can keep humans
far away enough
as to look like ants.

Rising sun nips the tops
and chills expressed out of the basin
like a sorta sigh.

What at home's only closing up shop,
wiping counters, resetting for action
sweeping between aisles—

up here's watching coals die and sun-up,
the whole scene subside then set in.
Dynamic night stretching miles.

Then glorious Day
and its weight on painstaken paths,
all worthwhile.

I can't let myself come be with you (all of the time).
I'd get cruel and I'd tire of our sweet loving.

I can't let myself have another drink (I can't swallow).
I'd stop answering, stop thinking, start wallowing n' we both know
where that'd go—real low.

What I can
is take you driving, sunrise-set chasing
falling or dawning, what I can.
Taking my pride in all I can.

I can't let all myself go cuz I wouldn't know (when to stop).
Thenceforth hard-pressed to top what we had, what we got.

I can't let sweet old you into my life (not just yet).
There'd be a price in my eyes, a cost for letting you get.
But yes, maybe, maybe I might, if it's right.

Spending my time trying to memorize
every line you gave me so sweetly.
I ain't no pretender n' I ain't no big spender
but have to put up the cash n' believe to the last in the gift that I send her.

Dreams, they're dangerous things.
And their triggers' hairpins:
too much faith or too much stock
and they go off half-cocked.

They are all hope at first
but in short not what they were.
¡Que va!
Regardless, there's something to learn.

What was glimpsed in dark eyes
leaves me yearning inside, so fiercely.
I can't help but give in and see what she's seeing
and put up the time to move down this line and kiss her again.

In the capitol
how little we care
and little we spy.
There's no reciprocal,
no quid pro quo,
no imminent requital,
nowise needs to go, see.
Born out of balance
and at a distance,
nary know, unaware.

It wasn't true
til you heard news of it,
out in the greater empire.
We're let do all the better,
practice our praxis,
but still not know the half of it.
This time, it outlasts other
cycles and its nice to be still
for just a minute.

The occupation
families asunder
cities cindered
bought for my clarity
and maybe, too,
marks the throes
of collapse.

You have a poem;
Spring brings you poem.
I think Anthony must be your court's poet;
a serf turned grateful for his god-gave muse.
Genuflect he's to this Fürstin,
trip he does, too, over himself
getting you water
both up and down the stairs;
when presenting his poetry,
rebuts extended portension,
yes, pausing liking um-ing, tsk;
and all so when reaching for his dagger
to cut our darkness away,
does seem dance with shadows
like fire was a pomethean bane.
Still he gets it from his sheath,
brings it to her bloodless yet
dulled from the escaped swings
of misaimed blows into shrubs.

Wants me to call him Reichsritter.
I’d indulge him but he’d still
have to synthesize faith from
some avian metabolism,
(it’s known that poets’ health’s all
flat feet, weak livers, shallow lungs,
and consumptive coughs);
or, better yet, find knighthood
in the books read for your sake;
nay, I too must keep honest to you.
So does he, you know? thinks
sincerely that there’s the stuff of art
passed to him when he entertains you;
doesn’t think himself the lordship you insist,
thinks he’s groped and somehow scalded
himself upon the empyrean fire,
and bows recedes away feeling just
a bit impious.

That’s it though! :
You’re a young seraphim took earthly shape,
faring the angelic order’s routine errand
to forget absolute, embrace listless hate,
then forget it again.

Well, isn’t this where Anthony missteps?
cries wolf, burns midnight oil,
clutches his stomach in pain.
The ‘seraphim’ draft is just a wish
for your eternal life, please believe.
Every comet and season makes him
just as mouthful and excited.
A heart of love and head of art, tsk.
We can’t judge the heart
and the head
together can we?
Regardless,
a court poet essentially a jester,
pinned his poem
to my chest.
So, meine Fürstin,
you have a poem,
Spring has brought you a poem.

On the Highway, on the Hill–are We there yet?–
makes the Town look like a playset.
First time out in forever, the Valley looming,
the homefront receding, this van cruising.
Man, driving together in the mornin',
each waking with an industrial potion–
caffeine yaknow gets workers workin'–
celebrity talkin'–what We've all got in common.

*******, buddy, *******...
Thinking long, entrailed thoughts
on outside, outside the party persona;
But give the witch just a moment to disembowelment.
Letting it wash over you. Letting it pass.
And the stereo of the laughing with the still of dark, of night--
whichever has me more at more mercy.

And I join the fire-fed party light,
and give myself to historicization.
Will the definitive verse make it clear,
the enunciation articulating the moment?
the many disembowelments,
too many to care

November 4th

The weather it seems, seems time to put on your coat,
but the way the wind blows,
a way nobody knows
will have you put your coats away,
but as the weathermen say:
”we’ll be delivered from the heat by snow this Thursday.”

Satchmo Bukowski
wants a bottle in front of me
not a frontal lobotomy.
What’s it to stop drinking?
smoking, though—it’s the best season
for it. Rather die than give up.

Yeah, my ****’s distorted, same with my story
that I tell you now, but it lives each day twice—
but like Christ down the mountain
I come forth emblazoned,
no more reckless nor hopeful than him.

Halloween here, we saw the dead dress up.
We pulled together costumes
while estimating the temperature.
As the day shortens
and night falls as you clock out,
so our phase of experience does;
so the creatures of dark troll;
so the climb though the black berry patch
becomes the only visible path.

I could go anywhere cuz
I'm all about what America's all about:
her mountains, us people, and even her laws.
But when summer ends we'll have to go south.

Home, home is the same.
You drink, you smoke, you lust, you graze.
Leave the Northwest to those who smoke less.
What did we really leave there?
Objects in the mirror seem prettier than here.

My long-, long-, longlost lovers,
you all left this town, its haunts n' romps,
its sunspots and treecover to me,
and look at all the rocks I've found!

It's a lot of time
for so young to spend wisely,
but far to old to while.
If I waste it, it'll **** me.
And the dreams where fears live in,
and the women in them tell you,
"Don't stay."

At a good ole Rock & Roll show,
making sweet eyes at
some singer cat‒
her expression and attitude
is something I'd like to talk to.
Taking mean eyes from
some guitarist boyfriend.
Had I the gall to fight a man and his all,
maybe couldn't maybe can,
rake his all and take his woman.
Still too broke too have her like I'd hope.

This is why we're here, right,
to get away from the wives?
Gone fishing, out living!
Come back home to make my killing.

I could go anywhere cuz
I'm all about getting the hell out
of this downtown for motown and my life abroad.
When next summer comes I'll be gone,
Friends, with or without you along.

whatcha been upto?
Pillows too large
propped or pushed
to the floor,
wood debris and
shredded paper,
tools left out,
lights left on,
***** pots and bottles
on sills,
sheets in heaps and clothes
in piles: this list to-do.
A house in shambles,
a home in making.

Comely daughters, go through the square
to play your games, don't go elsewhere.
If you look at him, look at with sin
cross yourself, care for that cross you bear.

Wily Jane, how'd they get you caught?
How'd they swindle you on all you bought?
Didn't come around to be the clown;
but I think your streak is still going hot.

A face like a looking glass,
Which gave back whate'er I asked.
I gave her smiles, she gave me laughter.

A roving life delivered her here,
bussing back home, crying no tears.
This type: something I'm after.

We are soft souls blown
‘round with everything,
we are sifted sands
and treated grasses.
We plug ourselves
into cars and wait for destinations;
And still:
Violins ******* make people cry
(the tremolo stings your spine into shivers)

And that gives me something
you might call hope
for my age-bracket.
This has been somewhat of
a spiritual undertaking for me.
The roads of the interstate carry me
out of my reality
and into another consciousness.
Extended driving (the heavy tremolando).
I'm blue-glassed eyes and
I am ultraviolet light
and I open the car window
to exhale a lung of smoke
into the dustbowl.
Well, hell;
It's California.

I heard the neighbor-lady through the wall, she said,
"... yes, mhm ... you don't have to ask me questions ...."
Getting hot, perspiring from the shirt, I hate
the itchiness and lifted up my shirt, There!
" ... I have to go ... I'll leave the door unlocked ...."
Then heard a shuffle, sheets and door hinges,
then maybe her step down the hallway.
An unlatched! apartment--I've coveted less--
this and all the pomp, pills, and condoms I've stole,
oh I was up already, zipped myself away,
making the way between diaries and ***** plates,
oh already up opening my door--you guessed?

The hallway was empty; I went right
and door 54, was it this? I put my weight
to it, fogged the eyehole with my breath.
Hand to the **** I turned and it opened.
Augh! The managers who've stopped me,
once I was even tackled by a security guard,
was handcuffed, was once called "heartless"--
if only every door opened like this.

I was shirtless still, in fact, my hand strayed
was raised to my breast and I kneaded
the skin and tugged the hair: I entered.
It was dark and I feared the honesty of light.
I had a step to the next and her kitchen
came upon me, I saw the shadows of her home.
I wandered further as if walking an antiverse;
someone else the same template.
I wanted to find where I lived in her home,
where I sat and heard her often call,
where I imagined she curled phone cords
or refused to snore now matter how hard
I pressed my ears to the wall.
This is it? This is her bedroom,
adjunct to mine, a wall to separate--
she sleeps here.
I've got breathlessness and my hand is groping.
Does she have a closet or dresser? I will see.
She calls a boy by name, is he coming?
When is he? Can I hide here, see him?
oh soon. I'll know too soon, too.

I open the door. And she is staring back.
Her hand against the wall, the spot,
where I rock my body awake from
nightmares. To reach through the
plaster and steal the socks. It was a,
a, a great shame to be so looked upon
so, an inanimate gaze like a mirror's
that maybe can't see me, dunno.
I want to move further, can't.
Can't say anything either.

I found your letter today, and I went to the woods to read it.
Autumn robbed me of solitude in the tree-cover,
The wind eventually would chase me from the fire-pit.
That broke, then the snow fell accordingly, seasonally.
The solitude returned in the white and cold,
chased everyone else away, to drink and dance in their homes.
I bought my first overcoat before I caught my flight back,
a woolen grey to hide dirt I’d sit on to hide the tag.
In it the inner, right-breast pocket, I held you’re letter.
I remember its first reading in my room, on the coffee table,
taping the scissored quotes from the envelope to my mirror.
I have yet to do anything out of fear. That, I recall I laughed at.

You’d be the reason I move back west,
you’d be the reason I go backwoods,
go suspend myself between roadways.
Albeit, though, despite & regardless,
was my thrill for fear made me wanna talk,
***** the desk drawer for my metal box,
savage my skin on the lonely walk.
If fear is as atomical as you say,
a lie on the tongue of every cell,
then, I could, if you’ll say, meet
every mote as it falls—
put my hand out to see
my first snowflakes.
they are not like this,
they are not like this at all,
so crystalline, back west.

Was fear that hid me this summer from you—
true, I used to fear the way you’d kiss me.
On the dock of the lake drinking wine, I told
that I was terrified then, then retracted,
said I was discomforted by myself.
Back then, way back when, ha,
feelings came thence beyond me
like the King of Pointland dethroned—
“What It thinks, that It utters;
and what It utters, that It hears…”—
myself was suddenly not mine,
I moved unprovoked and unprovoking,
finding myself in my bed
then on the porch smoking,
later then, sitting in your café,
later still, giving you my poetry,
but then, the levees break
and I wake in bed alone and
you’re on the floor in a heap
or, worse, gone soundlessly.
And here I find myself full-suited
in the mess of snow storm,
your letter in hand.

Trip tip-toe step walk into snow; a depth unknown;
trying to light the dark spirit eagle cigarette.
I find a tent in the wilderness and pitch it.
I spend two hours in there, wet, watching snow
build up until the roof gently pushes me out.
I still don’t know if I can read it.
It is only a rereading, but it’s weighty, regardless.
I emerge from the woods to the hill overlooking my life,
embanked by a line of pine. I stop here, relight myself.
The ash blends with the snowflakes
and the snowflakes melt when they touch the paper.
Have you loved? God, it’s an assurance I want.
Really, though, could I doubt it? if it is
only my love that I deem insufficient
to recquit the typed affection before me.
I kneel and read further.

To my surprise a golden-furred dog ran up to me.
He licked me, he smelled your letter, he smiled
and asked me to pet him and to not despair.
Leave it to an animal, beast in the snow
to so recognize, too, significance.
“How do I feel?” The beast frowned,
nothing hurts more than being asked
what you mean.
I got up and left when the owner’s whistle
called him away from me.

Walking back I found that I was missing a glove.
I looked behind me and I saw –against, -down the hill
the left-hand black-leathered eyelash in my tracks.
It was the same hand that you dropped from the dock
into the water this Christmas which I fished out and
fought off your apologies with. How I loved you then.

Then I must re-emerge onto the surrounding fields
and am hit with the wind that I hid from so well
in tree-cover. Then I must grapple with the life
I only half-cherish. Must think in sentences
and hyphenated-words—and dashes! ****** them.
Then, then, then! What happens next! eh?
In the steam tunnels with Carter, smoking, I said,
“I am ruled by fear. Even now I’m palpitant.”
I wrote, in the movie theater, whiskey in the soda cup,
“I am addicted fear, or so I have surmised.”
Hush, hush, hush!

If I fear I cannot love, I know that much.
If I love, as I believe I do, then I am only in denial.
True, small enough to see pure perfection, molecular.
Like the snowflakes back home which, too, are crystalline.
But it’s not visible to the naked eye, thus inconceivable,
given you’ll probably forget it. So it is dead to me.
No, God's not dead he's just not that kind of guy.
Brr, the decisive breeze. Well, then.

Hello, I seem to be here still,
do you remain to be out there?
I’ll brush my teeth knowing
that we’re gonna make a go of it.
I touch myself dreaming
of all the places I’m gonna make you.

We’re living in a special case,
subset of an upset time and space.
Fire, was it, or pomegranate
that broke the spell you cast?
Gave up the garden if It’d make it last.

Sorry, why’s I speak is why’s I’m I,
so you ought to talk sometimes.
I’ll ***** my ears hoping
that where we’re the same might be enough,
I tell myself living
with all choices I made without you.

We’re living in a special case,
subset of an upset time and space.
Fire, was it, or pomegranate?
Whatever the cause, the way is flawed.
We’re living in a human race,
if you think you can do better,
well, you’re wrong!

And when I decide to show my face again…
I’m a child of…
I’ve seen miles of love,
my body’s made of blood.
I’m a child of God,
my body’s made of mud.

I’d like for you and I to reconcile
if only one more—
Time is not the catch n’
Space ain’t the constraint.
I gotta hunch it’s in the
changes that we all make.

So, let me come here, buddy,
you know you're the best,
live n' die by you!
I need to tell you before
I anything else before
I ******* explode
(a moon-strewn comet-collision).

I love her. I've loved her cruelly or generously,
dispassionate or desperate,
I would ******* offer my soul still
in place of hers in some ******* hell.
I miss the focus she gave me,
the nights of swirling, slippery purpose.
I love how she couldn't stand me anymore,

that she was so consumed by herself
as to break my heart.
I wish I'd cried in her arms and said,
"Don't leave me, darling"
instead of just crying in her arms.
They say if you step on only cracks
you can break a curse.
Do they, Jay? do they, really, eh?

I've made my peace, I think,
with Pride, Pain, and Providence
and what I wouldn't do
for dark-haired smart who
skylight ignites chooses to--
the usual beauty she unearths.

All very scary but
I feel so strong
Maybe couldn't reason
but squirm my way
out of anything.
So strong I could give you a gift,
not old something-hand jackets or coupons
but the gift of my pride for you to prize.

Men do not live on bread and pride alone.
I want she & I to show each
other the world, share life,
and I love her, too.
Come join me on a mountain.

And, now, can you guess who called?

Reading a friend's poetry
and learning about myself--
learning new articulations.
Switching to menthols
for as long as this cold lasts.
Realizing my body wants nicotine
but my mouth wants smoke,
that very often one, not the other,
will be satisfied--that is what's in conflict.

I am trying to be a child,
and I could go philosophically about that
or regressively--
Sort of, it is not the bottle itself I sip
which makes me the rosy ribald randy carouser
but what I put back into the bottle then the trashbin
which displaces the liquid up to my lips.

But regardless of my intents and drinking habits,
I'll still be splashing in the water,
running along the edge of the pool
building a current, a whirlpool
compelling my friends into water,
tackling and dunking and pull them underneath,
and gasping together for breath,
swept along and swelling
hoping to summon a Maelstrom
to engulf me and all.

[night]
The moon has a light,
tonight it's bright.
But don't it feel dark, my friend?
The moon is a mirror,
gets the sunshine here.
Don't it feel like moon'll never end?
The night's never been this young,
don't want it to get away from me.
Been drinking malt too long, now
my belly's gotten away from me.

[passing out in the car]
Making my knees buckle,
like a newly born calf or
kids trippin' in the desert:
stepped on a cactus
and bit the bristles out.
I commune with the moon,
ask whence, wherefore the doubt?
What sorta secret have I got
that shows in my eyes, my hands, my locks?

[asleep]
It's the moonlit kind of blues.
I can't—I won't choose.
The moonlit kind of blues.
Nothing left to loose.

[morning awakening]
I was nothing but lies last night,
and now in the morning light
don't it don't feel right, my sweet?
I swept all my prints,
I haven't gone there since.
I don't even know which way to creep.
This too shall pass
but want to feel bad lil' less.
The lapses come so fleeting.
**** it, save yourself, ride the feeling.

[back in dreams]
Lou Reed died today
while we made okay.
Boy, he sure knew alot of ladies,
and they sure all had alot to say.
I commune with the moon,
ask will I be alright?
What sort of song must I write
to get pieced the pie, to make it out alive?

Moonlit blues...

[awakened, spiritful]
California drought!
Suddenly I'm running out.
Try to cry or laugh
and lose yourself in cold, cold draft.
California dream!
Born with it, it stays it seems.
I try to explain,
not much to say anyway.

California drought!
How did I get out!
California's south!
And with it my running mouth!

[light.]

—And then I realize I’ve been breathing in through a cigarette.
Like again before, the violence of reality, its press of revelation.
Rush to write before it fades.

[drag.]

My Muscles could be putty (non anent my lungs
to soot); another year of breath and fight past,
another year to revisit me, its Tocks, it’s to
“Keep lithe to be left living after its descent.”
*******, I’ve been saying that for years,
—now that I’m older—*******,
I’m talking about every kiss I’ve forgotten,
that is, everything we lose on way to Adulthood.
It’s unique, the imago state; most betokened of
His image, right? We are social creatures, too.
This year descends with the sand-bag weighting of
its guests, demons, its music and oxford commas.
And like every student here, inches of brick between
their sod-sleeping heads—I’m getting puttied muscles.
Grandfather clocks could only measure the pace
of time dripping from filter to lip right now.

[drag.]

So, out with it! Outwith disclaim and excuse!
Did these calendars and turmoils bide
inside, waiting? And I carried on dumb?
No, I couldn’t face it. To have any brag
or claim on consciousness you couldn’t.
And brag is the stuff of home and placement.
Too, I felt placed, and set, and spoilt, like
a full-soled step was took each step.
And then the rain came Sunday,
I knew a full periphery again, all that;
And now the center, too.

[drag.]

Berthed I become as I imagine the sky cloud.
Fixin’ to rain war and revelation.
This earth is a battlement now, I’ll fight.
The rolled cigarette, violent reality,
sweetly slipped into my mouth.
I never want to sound conclusive
(assertions, pretensions): keep repeating:
I’m just a sensitive thinker.
No better than like a decade’s
worth of culture, every conclusion
becomes irrelevant and useless
like an old law. An old decade
is entirely the footrest of the new,
and just as sturdy as He makes it.

[drag.]

I never understood the value of a dollar
‘till inside a tower over the campus
I tasted the thousand-dollar crime
of Security & Maintenance for climbing
a building. Tuition’s, now, an inkwell;
($)30,000 unmarked, illiterate words
and too much say with one bottle.
Same, too, with one purchase.
But still the shame of confusion
is an education in and of itself.
Confusion as useless as the future
and old criminals acquitted.

Take on another [name], any other,
so that God can call out to you
in the night. Well, I’m learning.
between this poems…[sic]
I’ve learned that names are your own,
so name the un-cut, -construed past
and all it is you, for safe-keep, see.
I’ve learned that a capitonym
is God by any other name :
Hope, Love-lorn, Terror.

Monistically, I’ve learned there is only
us, the namers, for so our charge was:
whatever the man called each living
creature, that was its name. And
that’s gotten us a lot of places,
i.e. hubris, tragedy, undoing.
But it’s its very syllables that undo.
So whisper. Snarl if needed. But
tack that trouble to tree and let it bleed.
This is your deer, your grace and past.
Yes, rotting there is your former muscle
and ideals, all prelude to this very moment.
Just as real and violent as when alive,
yourself, and yet confrontable,
yourself.

[drag.]

[extinguish.]

[exeunt.]

Now then when I think I smell really her I’m smelling myself;
back when I smelled her really how’s I’m smelling myself.
Thank god for hash to hew you me
when you’re feeling cold.

It’s out up then blindly.

Wind waiting
in this darkling
where that this pen
is writing—
ODE TO MARINA
—Thru a given glass of water
Remember, remember,
the high shelf, harbored letters?
Wicker seat,
linens, and too by fleece
sheep,
how I listened to you
and you listened to me

On the mend
again:
The case of the missing lodger
and his disassembled pens—
how he’d fleetfooted, everrunning feelings
he never could seem to pin.

One would have never guessed How
one’d grow accustomed to hell, Nay,
would seem to seek it out; Sidelong.
some part of you, sure, but wholly Itself.

We find it’s a little more manageable:
we’re not so lost surfing channels,
so neither red-eyed nor rubbed raw
by our own hands, but for we
dulled every point we had.

It’s the mornings when you realize what you’ve done:
what contrivances you’ll now employ to get on,
how you have your half-truths, white-lies, alibis
to maybe make it back to an end, any end, back to bed alive.


Exertion is low on account of the smoke;
the cat cannot snack, he just sits and counts kibble.
How cheap’s the talk we sincerely deliver;
how meek’s the squawks, silences, whimpers?

Movements are limited, speaking’s discouraged,
all promises made should be weighed
‘gainst the chance you can’t keep them;
if or if ever that’s ever the case.

The only way back, back to your druthers,
back to the timeline you still felt hungry,
where you were wont on cold nights to shiver,
with far less to consider and less high of stakes—

Keep behind or else far out in the world.
Remember to chew something: gum, dowels or cud.
Carry paper and pen else be misunderstood.
And before it's this Winter, gather your wood.

It's the red heat I mean
to capture in rivulets.
My blood blues, too,
fuzzy pink, Juliets.

Burn the whole palette
and rethink your colors,
the impressions you're under.

**** score-keeping, thus
**** the goalkeepers.
Life requires only
earnest volition
to hum to life.

I'm so happy to be
right here now
Light. Mirrors. Town.
Poets 're comin'
and how's giving time
for paper where
Time's scarce?
Screens & buttons multiply.

Escape, expression,
eleven-eleven,
words and their meanings,
intentions and speeches
come running come screaming.
Supposed to mention truth n'
whatever I ever reckon to believe in.
I know you can't recognize anything
close to truth till you're sittin' in
your inner world.
And here one is, baby!

Suddenly my world so closed
becomes open,
to follow every animal-trail that
emerges in the heaving, breathing woods.
Old roads now lead to houses
and from canals up high
one can keep an eye.
I could not find
the stepladder weave up the cut
of the powerlines;
nor could I find
the stack glissade of rock upon rock
springfed from out of a mine.
My home’s at once drafty and
dark becoming, doors uncontaining,
the roads all too entwining.
And so too, my within,
chambers filling and then draining.

She always kept her back very straight,
and the men would drape
themselves across her shape
and around her waist–
take on the form she gave.

Fleet fingers wave the same way,
leading about
all of the strays.
Me, I'm some sort of prey
for this creature, kyrie.

Coin-covered costume with colored cloth
combing coiffures
into a froth.
Gypsy girl getting dressed.
Them eye's beheld n' them eye's lost.

Coocoo Callay, what did I say?
I gave it weight,
now she looks dismayed,
betrayed I'll stay.
Maybe see her some other day.

Always, always's so full of maybes
from where you came
to this ****** maze, reasons the same,
to be somebody's baby.

I-5 North
Three 70 mph people
cool, canine, and beautiful
taking our sugar,
our notions extreme
to regions unknown.

Keeping steady , keeping close,
keeping beat with silent toes.
No need to speak
nor could what with the wind,
burning engine, and pavement roar.

Something about the highways;
they got away, got away
from me, the high speed.
It's a power trip: the whole road trip
I know somehow'll be like this.

Starvation Creek Falls*
You can't hesitate
or talk out the fear.
There's a waterfall
waiting, all you can hear.
You make the jump
engulfed in the moment.
You won't remember it
or what it meant.
It's the shock, your shivers,
the color blue through your body.
Clear creek water
makes you straight ecstatic.

Your screen-glaring eyes,
they call it refreshing
just like the button
when the connection is slow
when pages won't load.
It's the shock, your shivers,
break your mind and for your liver.

[February the twenty-seventh]
My hair is unwashed and here is blood in my spit.
There is *** on my shirt, requires care to notice.
I have a headache and took two chewable aspirin.
My hand on my cock!
Five, say, ten cumshot salute!
Ready, Aim, Shoot!
I played with a toothpick, pushed into my gums
whenever the professor looked quizzical.
I pick my nose whenever I'm sitting,
smeared where -I can, -it sticks.
I can feel bits of mud, gravel on scalp
between hairs. Been digging, you see.
Sand in the bed, too. Gets in on the feet.
Feels like ants. I walk in from the site.
I feel armless, a little regretful I started
writing this.

-Took vitamins
-Did reading
-Call parents
-Get sleep

When Carter woke up I hadn't even closed my eyes yet,
had'm locked dead on the grain woman on my screen,
hand beneath the blanket--But oh, how the sun came in.
Carter couldn't move at all. He was sitting on that one.
There.
I knew I was going to die that day, sometime,
did when I opened the shade and Rachmaninoff's
op. 14, №6 You Are Loved By All played. I didn't, now,
but I might have a kidney stone.

: a drunk collage: another "epic"*

Starting at the beginning,
letting the tilt of the backyard
lull me up then back down
in circles, to tell in turn
these stories. And so,
back as far as I know:

Story of My People
Tribes gathered and grew.
They counted the grains.
Depended on the seasons,
rejoiced, nay, transfigured.
Cults of the sun, of the earth
realized gods onto our plane,
they walked between
the beanrows.

Their features formed
and darkened, envisaged
in Our dark mirror mind.
And then faces had names
and they counted the grains.
Numerals and ocher lips
left pretty petroglyphs
but left the stone sculpted
in marble columns endraped–
Roman red over owl-blue–
but still the Bullhorns poke through!
That's me, the narrator among narrative.
Where my maternal starts
so far as I know, in the cult of Mythras,
a Taurus charging the boot of Europa.

Excuse me; I'm not a historian.

My father's people were barbarians,
I would think so.
They dispelled the civilized clout
and darkened the day and age.
Hail Mother Mary Hellen,
her whole family got burned.
A lesion across that continent,
filled with the church,
which took both my parents.
Then the American Dream.

My History
These gods and Names who guided and transfigured,
that framed my peoples, gave it to them,
I have forgotten.
Soon after seeing it all, I felt it all mundane.
Dismissed him as chaos,
left him so abundant
as to be given
not granted.
Now I sit and forget...
the enveloping leaves in the back,
the passerby from the front deck,
I remember yet!
But lost in adult perplexion
I fear that I've given up some ghost
who haunted my great journey
and leaves me on blank slates,
cyclical, again again, timelessly:
Myhistory:*

–First it was Death who so captivated me.
Like any friend, too, I shivered and cried secretly.
Literally. No thing really, nothing really.
–Then Love came swift, sharp,
unrecquitting, then unremitting, then spent.
–Then Earth spoke wonders and tremors
seemed God incarnate, Life this is,
gotrees growmy skull I don't know,
guess it don't come down to much more.
–Now music and the capture of the present:
Where am I? and what is this place?
let me sing you the questions!

But where is God in my voice?
I want rockn'roll and adventure
that can't be grace;
it's idolatry.
Maybe God really is dead,
you lose him like the holiday superheroes
or ancient mythoids,
age age into forget.

With the little rain
wash your sins away
before this weekend,
before you miss the chance.
But still, next week
it won't even stop:
what the cash bought,
'llget us flocking
past the parking lot
down the trail to our
Octopus' Garden 'neath the waves.

Maybe my nails won't grow back
and I'll be talkative instead.
Stop my choking on pocket lint,
bury the bone, unbusy my head.

Everything I do in this Modern World
supports some institution, thus condition.
Looking for passion or just something,
hafta look for what little I believe in—
not this but next weekend.

"There's a stranger in your life,"
a fortune reading tells, then
feeling my legs are useless,
can't kick my way to the surface,
can' kick one habit for a moment,
a car could carry me around then.

It's a five day weekend, no end, yes.
Best birthday bash, hands down, no contest.
Newly arrived old faces join, going to the show;
some more to come soon, some to soon go.
Tonight we revel in our brother's song,
we'll keep the day young and night long.
Tomorrow, we hope to sleep forever in a day,
catch our breaths and try to eat back our strength.
Then, Thursday.

There isn't a girl in the world
without an incurable,
everything but unlovable,
psychotic or neurotic,
unique, personality trait.
I prithee, Lord, my soul to take.

Maybe I shouldn't mention it here:
But supposedly you have red hair.
I dunno though, a rumor maybe only.
I do know the thought makes me crazy,
and there's other colors there.
I know a strong urge to find you out slowly,
to see you undone in some solid morning.

I bet you see as little me as I hear you talking,
but I guess you can't know an intention,
any well-rounded notion goes flat.
in the absence of presence
Have to brave it with hardon and hardhat
'cause what brings things together's tension.

In the wain of the week,
we both get to drink.
Then dreamless sleep?
Or so I would like,
to pass heedlessly the night.
Or as I now imagine yours,
Scandinavian shores,
I don't know which I like more.

We were told to bring umbrellas,
to grin and bear it till we wept,
to hold out for the sun,
yuck yuck I want none.
For the reason we came:
we'd been told there'd be rain.

Bring the children,
call the neighbors,
cuz I want to see their faces.

Singing over the stove,
crawled into the oven for warmth
and boiled by the gallons,
yum yum I want some.
Oh why did we come?
There's been only sun.

Count your blessings and your pennies
and impress all your employers
and dress like no one's watching,
tsk tsk so self-conscious.
How ya feelin'? The usual?
Just act natural, casual, and cool.

Bring the children,
call the neighbors,
cuz I want to see their faces.

The heights that burn brightly,
burn high holy in mind,
can they lead us to live rightly,
find us lovers realized?

No one touches me deeper than I can myself,
yet I prevail that there’s someone else.
When with open heart, wallet and bed
we take in people and bare deepest parts,
and still remain strange,
separate yet entwined.

Dead alone at some ripe age,
pray make sure to cover my grave
with mozzarella, amaranths, salame, daisies, sauce
and all my imperfect lovers
weeping in rivers, and eating
a pizza with all the wrong toppings.

Might I learn Love in whist,
from back over all my false starts,
could it teach me to be happy,
to stand by for a time?

I miss seeing you smile.
To me it seemed that you laughed and kissed me for everything, but it was probably a mistaken impression, a
result of shock!
wonder!

Could you imagine my surprise,
how it could be unexpected?
How often is the soul’s desire met?
I can recall not ever, ne’er, near naught
save in amniotic baptism, had every
object subject—every ancient tissue
attended by an enzyme—every ray of
sun snuck between the blouse’s buttons,
around my mother’s *******, and
divined upon me was let there been.
I cut myself following consciousness
with my longest fingernail, did laugh
too convulsed, tickled by light did induce my birth;
I cried (they’ll confirm this), I
wept to rob my mother herself, so it seemed,
inhaled the endless time and limitless space.
You can imagine my surprise then
with your covered mouth at my joke.

To me it seemed as if I had body again, hadn’t had a hand to grasp, hadn’t a hand with to grasp; then,
like had putty-gilded muscles earthed
unearthed, did.

Have you ever seen creation?—
well, yes, of course, it did not except you.
As close to ex nihilo as your patience can manage
you would have seen the time and space
repel each other in a nail’s length
of chaos, Fiat Vita, about which there’s little to be said.
My patience breaks in breath, Fiat Lux: when
time and space colors the light and refracts
the matrix and gives fire to my soul for a body.
Rilke writes, “Every Angel is terror,” which we
love, “because it calmly disdains to destroy us.”
I know! I know! I bite my nails penitent still.
And my patience does extend yet further, still within;
before my birth following it:

Look! I can open you this door,
give you that,
carry you thus far,
lead you here,
can reach your smiling mouth
with a terrorized will to kiss withal!
I can endure as the “arrow endures the bow”;
as all matter collapses upon itself in effort to grasp itself,
so it does to grasp all itself in one grand handful;
as atrophy takes me from you as quickly as I give you it,
I am surprised to find that I have retained all of you;
not expecting that you might have hid me, too, where
I would overlook, where only you could go, where
the light silhouettes, for me can just stop breathing.
I can see without patience—as much as light allows
and just as long.

All I've done this past year
is relive, relearn, rethink it here,
everything I've ever known.
So far so free it's shown.
So free as to be any path path bar none.
So freely came to be I'll ask for none.

When I die I'll finally have the time
to go visit with my mother,
do the dishes and all those little somethings.
It'd be more money-coming
to my sister and brother.
When I die I'll maybe turn to the Lord,
the only room and board I could afford.

When I die don't bury me.
Just a ghostly linen sheet will do.
Prop me up in the corner discreet.
A Stetson hat, underwear, and my Italian shoes.
When I die let's have us a time–
big bonfire in the woods with wine.

We can go up to my shack
where no one can find us,
lay around in the sack
n' get simpleminded.

Rain fell today, yeah, the drought's over.
Now you can all go home.
I hope this a bitter winter,
hope it chills you to the bone.
That might settle the score,
but when I settle my affairs
I'll want more: prepare for war.

Some soon to come and some more soon to go–
like I expected any less.
I'd tell you what but I am just too yellow,
I'm too young to know
but you couldn't call me heartless.
I make amends, make amends, my friends.
Wanna be easy, breezy again.

Lovely Western Zephyrus, I do invoke thee now:
please send something our way.
Lovely cumulonimbus flown in on o'er the town,
like a child's tantrum rage.
Have to be brave, be brave to be saved.
But my voice is hoarse, depraved.

This Winter now is just a-getting started.
So far it's like a one from way before.
Reckon it will leave me so brokenhearted.
The storm's knocking, knocking at your door.

Like every youngblood in love
I want to write something
that gets away from me,
the next Great American _,
sprawls like the city I live in.

Still these Northwestern scapes're contained
by rivers, valleys alike, and mountain range.
these lands are fertile, the soil tangible,
dig your fists deep, bring up handfuls,
the people tenable, shrouded in the times,
still waiting awhile whilst consumed with fever.
Feverous of injustice as done by Evil.

Amongst all these radicals and activists,
must wax progressive: hell, I can fix this.

Crack the can, a forty down to sixteen,
still the same American Malt I've been in.
No poems but my belly's getting swollen.
I don't wanna write no odes to bottles.
If I'm drinkin' in heaven I haven't the heart in
which to dwell upon our...

A sprawling poem leaves lines undone
to be penned in, in half-heart, without
a care that I gave them.

I've seen the best m-
Oh what have I seen?
What I knew, nothing new
just the cacophony of windy trees.
But'cha wait for these moments
when it's clear.

...'til they cease to be beautiful."

I think the thing that's Beautiful,
resplendent once and then splayed
anesthetized on the table, under scalpel,
before surgeon, proves atomic—
you can't dissect this thing of Beauty,
exhaust the nature's held, muses lost,
you can't touch it,
you could only cut yourself in haste,
or Otherwise make a model
in sorry mimicry
on some adjacent bench,
gaudy gawky gauche
and then, yes, (I guess)
it ceases to be beautiful.