Too far to see the death of dusk.
Too close
To feel the birth of dawn.
My heavier self knows itself
Far better
Than my lighter self.

Weight, in its multitudes,
Is one way of recognizing one's existence
Yet, in that burden,
So does the sorrow of its influence.
The weight of being,
The weight of loving,
Of regret,

Is both a realization and
A defining characteristic
Of one's self (if one is interested in such things)
Showing how true our wings,
Or lack thereof, are eternally clipped until
God decides whether we deserve them
                                                                     or not.

There is a name written
In the scratched,
Snow-blown glass that
They are having trouble
Melt away.

Warm rag,
Hot breath,
Shoe,
Stone and rock,
Nothing works.

Which is true
Of most things
We do, isn't it?

Things just
Don't work.

The sleet
Won't melt

Or

The sun
Won't shine

Or

The tree
Won't cover

Or, or
Or.

What is happening,
You may ask yourself?
This lack
Of sustenance?
This step back
From nature?

Then, the passage ends.
The window
It clear, revealing the edge
Of their life

They thought they had lost forever.

Be it

That,

Or this -

We're nothing

But our words.

If true (it is),

Let them be

Beyond anyone's imagination,
Beyond a before

Where no spring
Or even love,
Could hack at it.

An expression is an act
Of the stars:

For everyone to see
Without care

Of who is seeing it.

Poem, I think,
I made
It, I,

I made it!

You said
That was it.

You said
That would be it.

Hey!

Hey!

Hey! Where are you going around that corner with your silver studs and brown taps and absentee ballots and twist tie bracelets and police misfortunes and twister twisters and that half-sister your grandpa could only whisper through whiskey-truth-breath-starlight as we laugh through the magnetic starlight deep-cone in multi-colored snow cones obsessed with how our ankles look in filters not our own, and, disconnected, possibilities, possibilities up there -

And then
We have nothing to connect to

And then
We have nothing to believe in

And then
We have nothing but a reaction
Of a reaction
Of a
Reaction

Based on based

Chaos

Of an upside-down centrism

To only

               keep the balance.

All of out questions,
Their trembling hands comes out
Of its fury of

Wanting to know it all

To simply see again:

Grandma, one slipper on,
Hair a mess,
Both dogs by her lop-sided side,
Watering dead plants
In the afternoon sun.

Father, stirring grease-thick bacon
With a fork on a cast iron pan,
About to get his stomach tucked
For reasons of a few more years,
A few more days,
A few more breaths before the last.

Uncle, lost uncle, long-haired
****** willow tree legs to short and
Stumpy to reach the pavement
On the motorcycle you stole,
You couldn't afford, you borrowed,
Uncle, lost and never found Uncle.

Mother, world traveler, both eyes set
On the outstretched hand of the Southern Pacific,
The Solomon and the Coral,
Clouds your new children, roll, and rocks
Between your tanned feet,
Your sunburnt, too-tough-to-die-yet, toes.

Sister sorrow, sojourner of the mind,
Ok, see, hear this:
There will never be enough time.
North, South, West, and now the East
Is calling you again - listen;
Cypresses and Red Maples are as good
As any brother who knows your real name.


I, I,

I

Is for

Another time.

There is
Forgiveness

As easy
As
An a cupcake

Dashed'

Magic

Because you love me.

You said,

You love me.

That's what you always said.

There's another eye
That believes you

And for me,

I'm trying to forget you.

Yet,

There is no tomorrow

When I know

Your sorrow

Is the same as

What I'll be feeling

Tomorrow

Brazen past lives
I'm seeing myself

For the first time.

Last in,
Last

Out.

A scream and
A

Shout.

There we climbed
The mud timber stairs
Underneath
Hairline
Whispers and academia
Manifested stares.

The last great idea
The last great illusion
The last great poet

That never was;

That could never

Do it.

An eye dyed
The color black

Glares at me

From the side window.

I'm holding
A thing
Of orange juice and
I hate orange juice

But the eye dyed
The color black

Is indifferent
To my feelings.

It, they, the eye dyed
The color black

Only cares about

What I do
And, I presume,
Why I do it for reasons

The eye
Will never
Admit.

Answering why,
Would only

Make them

Us.

Blessed' be
The nailguns
That line the walls
Of the hot spot
Home Depots

Ready
Willing
Waiting

To hang up the stocking
Meant solely
For stuffing

Like we all are.

Oh' genesis
Oh' forefathers
Oh' saints
Of yesteryears whose
Sanitorium rituals
We base our lives in
Prove to be baseless

For our emotions
Are not met
By transparent or well-arranged

Grounds.

I, no one, see
The curbside pick up generation
Grasping at straws
For the existential tied to the national.

Get back, they say,
But come on in,
They say to others.

Discovering
Hope in the after-life
Has a 50 % chance of failure.

They opt for the present

Thus taking over
The role

Of Creator.

What could go wrong?

What could happen
When the rug becomes everything
And there is no way

To see the dust?

There's silence tonight,
A duo of voices
Outside
Trailing past my window.


There's a lap dog yapping
And a taxi cab screeching
To a stop
For a passenger
That won't fall out of love.

Where there's a will,
There's another will,
A will of never wanting to let go
Because maybe one day
It will get better

-

I never used to think about
How the words
Sounded
Before putting them down.

I just wrote them.

I avoid the mirror when
Asking myself,

When did presentation
Take the place of
Creation?

Even now,
They move, they sway,
My eyes swimming
In pools
Of their own self-doubt.

A house of cards
Meant to move forward,
Give point,
And explore shelves
Yet undusted,

Though a new world ranking show
Of countries and their literacy,
The United States ranks 7th.

-

Attuned to no deep thought
Does that mean
All deep thought
Is gone for good?

What happens to a man
When they stop caring?

What happens to a man
When they feel the majesty
But do not have the desire
To take it in and let it out?

What happens to a man?

What happens to any of us?

-

Perhaps I've taken something.

Perhaps the weight of the world,
"The insanity" as a friend puts it,
Has eaten up my waning purpose;

My youthful illusion
Of eternity
Through
Fabrication.

Facing mortality,
Acting as if nothingness
Is something to be
Overjoyed by,
Is a temporary jest.

True memories,
Lasting ones,
Instill themselves
On the global
Psyche
Like a cow brand.

No writer should be followed.
They should be listened to,
Not for their lives,

But their many

Deaths.

It is in their resurrection
That we dispel identity
To see that progress is multitudes,

And those too scared to die
For fear of losing themselves

Are only holding us back

For whatever tomorrow brings.

Night.
Day,
We fight
For everyone
Without
An Everyone.

Unity

Is a rare

Commodity.

Be apart of

Ours.

It pushes at last
Like a stone
Down a mountain.

Its eye is
The I,
Forever mentioning Her
Past and

Forever longing.

A cup
A bowl
A center
Piece

To ensure

That all is still in place;
That all is still ok;
That all is as

It were.

The burden
So little
So many
Envy of;
Fear,
Is the

Weight

Of becoming,

Which can
If
Done right

Last far past

One's concept
Of their

Own.

I have to **** and
It's almost midnight
Signaling I'm still
Alive in nature with a pulse
And a make-believe

Majesty

Of majestic fortitude.

You
Keep telling me
Poetry matters

But you'd rather recite
A quote from
Housewives
Then Shakespeare, which, let's be honest,

Is the times and
We shouldn't feel bad

About our toilet bowl
Culture spinning down a drain
Ignorant
Of its circular celluloid

Catastrophe.

If I do, choose to,
I typically laugh into my cold,
Open palms
And remember

Poetry is eternity
And flesh,
And human obsoleteness
Is something

To be championed.

I make it
For us
Before us
And always

One step

After us.

If you tell me
There's a moon tonight,
I'll wait for it.

If you tell me
There's a sunrise at dusk
I'll wait for it.

If you tell me nothing,
If you give me nothing,
If you promise nothing,

I'll wait for it,

Because I was never waiting.

I am always here

With

And

Without you.

It's late and
Too early,
You tell me and
Keep telling me.

At noon
We'll have to make
Dinner because
Breakfast
Next week wasn't canceled.

I'm tired,
We say and we're right,
We're right,

We've always been right,
You and I and everyone and no one and again,
Everyone.

It's just a matter of whose running the show
For no one

And everyone.

A perfect poem
You wrote once
Was the one
Thinking
Of a room full of friends

That would never fully understand you.

That's why there's jazz.

You love them.

You love them
Both.

But then,
I'm in love with you.

And all I want is

Midnight and the moon and a saxophone

That only knows our tune

Along with the piano and,

Death.

Is that so much to ask?

Then there was you
And I
Saw you as true
As the wind

Or as a gas agents smile

Or a cloud
Lined
On the Carolina sky.

You were there
And I was
Here;
No denying it.

Recognition is
Never facing
Reality. Reality is facing
Cause with action, to take you
To the last place
You may be wanting to want.

I
Just wanted

To write something

And feel, per my training,
Like I'm being seen.

*******.

It's all make-believe
Until it's not.

Each position is a step
For another spot,
Another title,
Another

You.

There is no place
But tomorrow.

The present
Has already passed.

I think of novels
That have stood up
Against the onslaught of time
And tried to learn
From their prose, only to
See past their spell
Of literary-ness.

Take me on a hike, I whisper
To myself.

Show me you're as afraid
Of the dust on the
Untouched pages
Of library books
As I am.

Tell me something
You won't tell
Your readers, for once.

Please don't post it
Neither.

It's just you and me here
Me and you
No beacon of great words or beacon

Lead on by dead hands
Of un-Instagrammable

Morality.

What happens when it happens,
I often wonder.

Will there be a sound?
Or solely silence?

Will, we look on our elders,
Our parental paradigms
As bottle caps
Or finely written pages
Within a ledger,
Like novelties, we forget
As soon as I remember

Our parking is about to expire?

Eternities echo
Mark my words
Will be

Short-lived.

But really,
What can you do
When
There is futility in a rainbow?

We made it to the one-bedroom rental that late afternoon without issue. I thought so. Perspective is a lens with many filters.

After a mild train ride from Milan's airport, my pockets filled with nuts and bottled water I felt, once again, on the edge of existence. It had been a long time. One falls into a routine that leads to other routines that, eventually, through the exponentially of love and responsibility, codify you into a malaised pillar of somebody's kid.

The smell of sea salt and exhaust was ripe in the air. I had never seen sunshine like that. My father came to mind. He loved to fish and taught me how to gut them. I tried not to imagine him dying in a beautiful place like that; in a place where nobody in town knew him but he knew himself.

I said hello to the train conductor and they barely gave me a nod. There was no history between us other than their own with who they saw me as. To me, they, the conductor, were the first of their kind; like Darwin on the Galapagos. Their annoyed glint, their tired eye bags, their noncommital guidance. Their belittlement was my nirvana.

Imagine being the first to see nature's creation, while simultaneously not knowing if you were and wanting to reach back to the muted past to validate your discovery.

Mankind is nothing but a series of reaching back, pulling forward, and settling down; happiness is ******.

Before at the bus terminal after arriving from Milan, I kept complaining about wanting to take the ferry for the experience but you told me (you still tell me) it was all part of the experience. The idea of moments became still then and, sorry to delve into metaphor, but like a slug across a windowpane or a car crash at dawn or the birth of your 4th child and how that one never once cried, you remember the intricacies of life's offerings rather than its "normalities".

I will never forget you taking me with the windows open to the view of never-ending mountains, a cool wind on our skin.

We must define the line of the bubble we are all - for better or worse and ultimately distance us - in. I wrote this down as an old fisherman, their pole and tackle tucked between their legs, half-dozed as our bus narrowly slammed against the rock wall separating us both from certain death. The bus driver, from what I could see, was entirely indifferent to his or our mortality. It was just another Tuesday. Perhaps he was thinking about what could have been done differently with his time. Or maybe, he was thinking about what he would be doing differently, tomorrow. There is always tomorrow. Action, in the non-contextual sense, is relative anyway.

You asked me if we were going to be ok and I told you of course. Why? you proceeded. Because people in love rarely die tragically. Why? you asked again. Because they were in love when they did.

You scoffed, slipped on your sunglasses, and asked for some water.

I make believe for you
No sacrifice

There's the hat
In the corridor
Colored black
And Blue

There's the sour hour
Before the steps
Of the ancient church
That has no name

But yours.

Smell the green pepper chilis
Pulled from memory
That flips from burnt to worse
Right
In front of your eyes.

There's the prospect of love
Disguised as a
Promise.

As naked as a riddle.

As clothed as a book.

As obvious as religion.

Remember the wake of the river
We laid upon weekends and skipped afternoons.
You were the one that worried about soft
Surfaces and foggy friendships.

Take the memories
For granted.

They'll always be there,
Willing and waiting

To be extrapolated.

That's just what we do,

What I do.

It's great to see you.

It really is.

Really.

It's a round about concoction of nothing
For nothinag
Just straight sin

You make believe our love
And yet
I just keep telling you
That's what it pays
To be down
When all the rest is above

I looked up Le Guin the other day
She told me I was a fraud
So I bought her a cup of coffee
And a doughnut -
Just like that,
I was a doll.

There's no reason
For treason
Other than fighting against a mirror
That reflects something
That will never be.

Imagine
Nature.
Take her for granted
And see what happens.
The smoke
Is nothing but languishing
Factors that make sure
You're there after hours
And the evenings.

It's that,
It's you actually,

And you're the best hemlock

You could ever

Be forced

To take.

She takes me
As


I am

Fraught
And

as you

you

you my love


tweeen stars,

It's easy
Past 11
To think Eve
Knew
Adam because she
Was simply
In the
Garden at the same time.

Constructs
Are gates
Like
Cow gates,
Lead to
Slaughter after slaughter
Without a shred of blood.

A foot knows
to be stepped
For to step is to see
And to see
Is to expand
Empathy.

I am I
Until
I am you until
You are we
And we
Are
All of us, void

Of our houses needs.

House, think of that.

House,

We were that.

House, we will never share one.

A muse
Knows
When you're dead

They sniff
Around,
Take the check,
Sprinkle this
And
That around the feet
Of your lover

That's always
Coming back.

A muse
Is a nightmare

An old
Love

You could never
Fool

Into love.

A muse
Are you

Out there

Full of dreams
Full of disbelief

With nothing
And with
Everything

Before and always

After.

They move

Through no one,

Shouting at shadows
Indifferent.

Fear;
The complacency of progress and,
The nod of knowing yet cursed

Autonomy that is

Our liberal leanings

Without a safety net,

Force me to remember a choice

Over gross;

Human over the net;

Sun or the high rise

Where we can see the sun

Before sunset

Because we have

A subscription

I used to start stories
For no one.

There was just the voice
And then another voice
And then the scene
Around their

Conversation.

I used to see
The sea
And never question
My sight, definitions or
Senses.

They were mine and **** all
Who said otherwise.

The blasphemy of creativity
Is the manipulation
Of inspiration fueled by the intention

Of another's sight or recognition.

A tree is indifferent to man's awe,
Yet they feel it.

A rock is heavy, it is cold,
In a person's hand
Of no will other than nature's.

A butterflies wings beauty
Stands unquestioned
Solely because they do not ask
To be recognized.

Something happened to me along the way.
I can't say what it was or is but,
It did.

Acceptance, weighed down by
Expectations
Is nothing but loose dirt
Over a still breathing body.

Yes, we are farmers,
Cattleman of controversy
Humor and drama but,
A capitalists time is not
An artist's time.

There are no quarters here.

There is only majesty.

There is only God or lack thereof.

There is only Us.

A sentence

Is the greatest art

Of all.

I can see
Why Ginsberg

Wanted to sing
Like Dylan.

Poetry,
When spoken,
Without a
Hit
Of Music or theatre or
Whatever medium
It takes to swallow

The swallow

Is the is

Of

Jack offery; forgetting mercy.

Pain,
Will always be the path struck
By those
That takes pleasure in it,

Utterly indifferent

About either, or.

It's a spare night
Where Time
Takes the back seat on the ideals

Of

Fat aftermath and big mouths
That I can't seem to get
Enough of are ping-ponging
My ideals which I was only given
In a sentimental, pseudo Christinan
Nature.

Mother, you were I
Before me,
And will always be
Better for it.

I'm lackluster too, branded
And dragging
My bare bone self burning for an idea
That I was the I

I could eventually fall in love with for good,
If never.

Oh' the love
Of loves
Of known tragedies
That follows our every footstep
Knowing full-well life,
Is nothing

But the echo of them;

The aim
Being
To turn them off
So

To turn on, once again,

As we were when children.

-

Night has the day
By a long haul.

These lungs need to breathe
Danger, because a
Stale outlasting diamond mine
Balancing acts of love
Becomes

Sad mournful eyes
Indebted with the holes of the forgotten
Man, cornered
By their own misgivings,
Keeping them from the one they should know best -

Their other.

Imagine a curb,
Rounded and sun beaten.
There's the taste of the tongue
Of Friday.

Everyone's out.

Inhale, exhale (yeah, I'm alive; alive)

And then you cross the street only to be

Mixed in it like a potato in a stew; an

In addition to the addition

To,

Everything.

Ego steps in,
Tries
To try to define,
A knee ****
Reaction for a futile
Preservation.

Fading, cast in smoke, and then,
You are there,
In disbelief of yourself stealing
The ideals of who
You imagined

And the mirror
Of which,

It presents.

There see, I see, you see,
An absolute that, if meditated upon
(forget time)

Will be, will be

You,

A breath,

Of fresh air in a sky,

Aflame.

We give impressions of life; gusts of wind through leaves who listen but cannot hear.

A person lives within moments, brushstrokes, garnered blotches of importance defined by whom.

Deconstruct your greatest meaning and tell me how you got there and why holding onto it defines you.

Of meaning and unmeaning (also important for objectively feeling time and its difference is important) is what people live by.

People only remember what cereal they were eating the day X happened.

More will be more; less will always be more than you'd die for.

A number

Is nothing

But a shoe

Without a foot,

Without a name;

Without.

When do you make believe
To survive and
When
Do you see yourself

As you are?

The I guides the former
I
And yet it drives
Hope
To better the present
To become
The future.

An orange
Never hopes
To be
More ripe.

The fruit,
As with literary fiction
And the metaphors with which
We mediums continue
To obsess over to break
Yet another ceiling deemed as

Progression,

Advancement;

Oh' sweet realization.

Blank stones
Cast out
Sun stroked
Another day at the mall.

My old crush
Always
Knew how to reserve
What was working
For them in secrecy.

Then,
I remember a little breakfast
Where brushstrokes became
Preservations of my present self's
Musings; to live in the past
Is to live in love

As a court jester with

Oneself as King.

Memory,
Recollections,
Do-tells that make
And weigh
The present self

Yet imagine,
How much of a **** you'd be,

If you never held.

Imagine
Existing
In the
Unbeing at the cost of

Never seeing your

First best

Friend

Again.

I couldn't do it,

Dear Hayes.

Breakfast
Without socks
And you're
Late
For coffee again.

It's ok,
Just pour the cream.

As you dribbled
I nibbled

On the objective fact
That our love

Would never falter

Seeing we promised -
Quietly and in secret
As all long lovers
Are known to do -
To grow together as one
Rather than apart
As one.

A petal from a rose knows
It will one day
Fall from its mother stem.
We are but the petals,
And our lives are but the
Center so let us fall, when
We are both ready, as one.

In the meantime,

Let us enjoy the breeze,

The everlasting sun.

What a world
Is this
Haystack ransacked
By flames
Of misguided
Morality - you did it, not I.

It's true; you are true, that we
Know how fair
As well as
Tough the soil is
Hurdling underneath our feet.

I stopped seeing ghosts
When I realized
Their pain was endless and
Mine was finite; jealousy,
Once again,
Distancing me from the ones
I could have learned from most.

It felt good
To
Believe
In the majesty
Of the muse again.

All it took
Were some rules,

Tequila,

And

Ursula K. Le Guin,

It was nothing
before
It was something and
Then
You took it.

It
Being whatever and whoever
And whatever
You needed it to be.

It's April
And I'm smiling at a forgiven
Highway
Of nothing
Where
Noone's guys feel
Their own
Vibration and

**** poetry,

**** poetry,

For the lack of

That and I swore I

Signed up and

Subscribed

To nirvana's pleasure house in

Nightingale.

Could you imagine feeling young,

And

Feeling that way

Tommorow?

I hope

For nothing,

So I can be satisfied

With

Everything.

I read
Mrs. Oates tweet today
While at work
Delivering bread to people
I would never
Like
To meet.

It made me remember
Her Masterclass

(Very good) and
How she said,
Distraction was the destroyer of...then
I got a text and had to take it.

Anyways, her Tweet goaded
This thought:

What is art but a prism of pedantry in lockstep with God's cruelest gift of passion?

An ambulance screamed by
As I tried to park
With a white Mercedes Benz
Honking at me.

It was a Wednesday,
That day

In between

Yesterday, tomorrow,

And forever and ever,

With or without me.

Pain is a past
And
Future portrait
Of what was
And what is
To come.

Beneath the muscles,
The bone; this phosphorous
Soul of mine teetering on the edge
Of extinction and anonymity,
There is a burning.

The sensation
Itself
Is faint. Pick up a jar
Of pickles to a lick
Of fire.

Bring a hand
To the cheek
Of the one I love,
And there is a kiss
Of fleeting ash.

Rollover
Play dead
No man passed
Cares
Whether they lived
At the end for
They are dead.

Legacy resides in pain.
Trauma, injury, is our
Paradigm for progress.

We desire hurtles.

Anything too easy
Will be repositioned,
Remodeled,
Retold to fit the prospectives

Narrative.

Are we not all seeking
To be the hero
In this story

Of ours?

Of humanities?

If so (you cannot deny it)

How will the future children
View your digital cave drawings?

How will they listen to your tales
Through air pods, podcasts, and
VR reinterpretations?

What secrets will they find
That you believed
You hid
So well?

Will you even care?
Will

They?

My father:
Big-bellied
Black hair
Stupid grin but
Can beat your *** in pool
Any ******* day,

Sent me a Youtube video
About preventing myself
From
******* myself.

I said,
I am his son,
In guilt,
In shame,
In what should I believe.

He told me,
It's not what I meant.
It's not
What I meant to send.
But a ****
Not matter that the ******
Is always the ******
No matter the man
Or the ****.

He said
I said
I love you

Because death, however
Irrelevant within the actual
Constructs of
Remembrance,
Still feels sentimental (a tribal
Feeling based on Geneology
that the GODS no longer care about)

Yet we write
Through it all
With one hand naked
And another lax
Limp **** naked
Flailing for soverignty

There are these
Socks of mine
By the side of my bed,
Multi-colored yet
Multi-faceted with many needs
But used
For only one or
Two.

I keep seeing them there,
Laid bare weak, and useless
In the grand scheme of things,
Like other
Things that we'll say, I'll say,
Well, we know
What we're talking about.

That's the best thing about a poem.
You either know or,
You don't.
If you do, you look further.
If you don't, you either look deeper
Than the knower or you don't look at all and

The world keeps turning.

I keep
Recalling my former self,
The rosacea stricken
Shy-boy
California slow-brain
That fell in love daily
Far longer

Than he'd been alive.

I keep
Seeing him,
Walking underneath
Those ancient Redwoods
With a CD-player
Jammed into his cargo shorts,
Listening to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack,
All the way to high school,
Not ever thinking he could simply
Ride their bike.

Time then was to be
Ignorantly
Reveled in.

Majesty was innocent
And tangible like cool soft-serve
Or the nylon of
School-issued gym shorts.

Awe, for some, was commonplace.

I keep
Trying to reach
His freedom;
The way he would feel
Without hesitation;
An open wound for the world to kiss
And to sprinkle its salt.

There is an art
To vulnerability.
It's precious and stupid and carefree and
Dangerous.

Really, to be vulnerable, truly vulnerable,

Is to be

One's own God, free of the need

Of freedom, knowing

It is there, always there,

All along.

I see myself
Etching
Myself

On a shedding

Wall

Of indifferent time.

I've never been
Less

Present

Than I am

Now.

Nights are always longer
When the words
Don't seem to come
As easily as they did
The night before.

It's a nail
Under my naked foot.

It's a splinter
Through my
Fingernail.

It's that flash of death memory
Sliding down the hill behind the house
All alone
And barely catching myself
Before a split tree stump
Impaling my thigh,
Perhaps changing my life forever.

What could have been
And
What is now.

What could have been
And
What is now?

What could have been
And
What is, is.

Nights are always longer
When the words come
And they do not match
The feeling of, well,

I cannot say.

Off I go then,
Off

To another series

Of reiterative days

Aglow with

What could have been
And
What may different

Tomorrow.