Pavlov must be getting old;
His ears keep ringing and he's can't stop,
Can't stop his own spit-up drooling self.

His dog isn't as well trained as he thought,
But Pavlov has run off the pages and fallen out of energy
To do anything but listen to a worse bark than bite

His dog is chasing Schrödinger's cat, he thinks,
But he can't go to the window to check, can't go to see
That perhaps he's only hunting his own tail

And down the hall, Aesop is telling stories to no one,
His words floating across creaky floor board seas
While Occam simply bleeds out in the bathtub.

And Plato, in his man-cave, watches the tv flicker light and shadow
While he wonders about the world he'll never know,
Wonders about the ****** dog that won't stop barking.

And Pandora is coming to collect her matchbox rent,
Tears still in her eyes from a deck stacked against her,
I guess 'cause Chekhov never loved her.

He's holding a gun to his head, eyes clenched tight,
He's wrestling with his own existence,
Challenging the story his god has written.

And Achilles is tripping on his own feet,
And Montezuma has plugged the lavatory again
While Maxwell bashes in another skull.

And Pavlov must be getting old;
His ears keep ringing and he's can't stop,
Can't stop his own spit-up drooling self.

And down the hall,
Schrödinger still can't find that **** cat.

Belts and wind and whistling teakettles,
--thus sings the gas-stove daydream--
They were all in the same league,
Forever-time winners of loudest screams.

But there are louder streams to drown in,
Deeper oceans and darker seas with harsher flow.
Moses opened up a red one once, I hear,
Someone whispers the name into another Merlot.

And life ain't fair to poor old Atlas,
He's sitting prostrate on the floor,
And he wonders if the world was worth it,
And he forgets this room ever had a door.

Listen to the static buzz topped with a 'v,'
The only window left for their escape.
The only window that won't open,
But they always denied that it was ****.

John Wayne is dancing by through the night,
And the world fills with his earthly glow.
With scalp in hand and women in tow, he says,
"Son, great oaks from little acorns grow."

And life ain't fair to poor old Atlas,
He's sitting prostrate on the floor,
And he wonders if the world was worth it,
And he forgets this room ever had a door.

Television flicker is the only company to nightly moans,
Reruns of memories and dreams run like paint
And the fumes hurt their eyes and burn their skin
More than the stench of day old saint.

I guess they forgot that skin was more than feeling,
They forgot that eyes were more than seeing,
They forgot that surviving was more than forgetting
And they forgot that living was more than being.

And life ain't fair to poor old Atlas,
He's sitting prostrate on the floor,
And he wonders if the world was worth it,
And he forgets this room ever had a door.

Drink up, Mister Bailey,
Your scotch has lips paler than yours
And the moon is howling brighter
Than the shine of a dime
Spent on the sweet succor
Of the candied poison
You still suckle,
Splendid as the white hot stars that
Scream maddening blindness
Into the silent pitch
And the depthless pools of black
In your surrendering eyes.

Drink up, Mister Bailey,
The wolves are back,
Backed by bleeding broods
Brooding in the bar;
It isn’t just your wistful warped
Reflection dimmed by dirt
In the half-chipped mirror
Behind the bar.
The warmth in your belly
Is the gift of ghouls and gods
Whose promises of the world
Died like your deadbeat dad.

Drink up, Mister Bailey,
Red Riding Hood’s put on her rouge,
She’s inviting you to tango
On the sordid street corner,
Begging you to hit a green light, gyrate,
And pass ‘go’ while you’re still lucid,
Lucky lord of the lost, you.
But you’re a day drinker, darling and ******,
And the fogs and fears serve to
Mend your mind
When the moon refuses
To rise.

She has hair that glows neon
In the midnight chill of the mind.
It blacks out her face from memory
Like the lace of a
Wedding veil dream catcher
Spun like spider silk
To bind her blind.

And she wears polka-dotted
Cigarette scars on painted,
Sallow, yellowed skin,
And her heart is made of patchwork,
Some pieces lovingly stitched,
Some loose,
Some worn,
Some dotted with blood from
Hazy misaimed needles.

She’s swathed in Virginia silk,
A feast for the eyes,
A feast for the moths,
And as gauzy as
Bandages, as gauzy as
The swirling darkness of her mind
As it whispers
Frightening, beautiful thoughts
From behind her button-black eyes.

She needs mending, she says,
Needle against her skin and
Eyes shining like marbles.
She needs loving, she says,
Stuffing herself with OxyContin
Laced with lies like the lace of a
Wedding veil dreamcatcher
Spun like spider silk
To bind her blind.

I whisper, but first:

Nimble little feet, these,
Racing through the fields in silent murmurs,
Crushing the grass and soft buds underfoot
And in echoes of quiet unknown, overlooked ants mourn a world lost.

Nimble little hands, these,
Pluck
      Pluck
             Pluck
Little wiry strains of music sing, stinging, till a bouquet of blossoms and stalks
Are contained by grubby fingers, roots trailing to the ground.

Nimble little fingers, these,
Back against scratchy oak and like spider legs they move, weaving a web of their own,
Head bent and concentrating, occasionally stopping to smell the flowers,
Stopping to
Pluck
      Pluck
             Pluck
He loves me not.

Nimble little girl, me,
Crown of oak above my head, necklace of flower stalks roped around my neck,
I am queen of the sod, and flowers grow all around me.
I am queen of the air and for a moment am flying.

And as the world sits quiet, my lips move in soft whisper.

Momma can't cry right now.
She's got too many kids that beat her to it.
                                                       beat
                                                            ­beat
                                                            ­     beat
Like the thrumming of her heart.

There's too much poetry for pain
And songs riding the waves of grief.
That's what it is to be human, Momma whispers,
Even if no one hears here, even if her children have g    o    n    e
                                                ­                                             o   o
                                                               ­                             n         n
                                                               ­                                 e            e
Scattered to the winds like her hopes and dreams
And she's afraid she'll never see them again,
That the lump in her throat is cancerous with grief
And it's stuck like she is and she'll choke.
               stuck
               stuck                              fear
she   is  stuck      in       her                       self
               stuck                         grief
               stuck

But Momma can't cry right now.
The tears would splash like broken glass
And splinter like her h
            (beat)                    e                        ­                  (beat)
                                        ­     a             (beat)
                       (beat)                r
                                         ­            t                            (beat)
Murmurs like her soul.

There's too many questions in the dark
And monsters hiding behind words.
That's what it is to be free, Momma whispers,
Even if
      ven if
            en if
                 n if
                       if
                           f
                           You    d  i  s  a  p  p  e  a  r

To be (not) seen, not heard,
To be the silence at a wake.

Momma can't cry.
Momma can't cry.
Momma can't
She
She can't
Can't cry.

We who are the dancing, we who are the free
The laughing singing multitude that bears the song of the earth on our tongues,
That bear the soul of the earth with our hearts
And march to the melody of our own invisible song
We whose anthem christens the sky with the fullness of our boldness, of our voices,
The children born of the song of the spheres
That align with the stars and swim in the moonlight of forgotten gods
And pray to the miracle of the clouds, painted and forever traveling
We who are the awakened many
The harbingers of forgiveness
That do not shudder in the glorious face of eternity
And who wash away our tears along with our fathers’ past sins
We who were muted, who were muzzled and mauve
The silenced, shackled dreamers once hooked to the drug of complacency but
That chose to follow fate’s thread out of Asterion’s dwelling
And wander forever onward into the beautiful unknown

• We declare a peace that consumes us, white hot and burning
Without fear of our waxy wings soaring our spirits into the glowing sky
But with the joys of love and voices lifted in song
• We declare an equalness between ourselves, springy and pure
Without angst over our mortal trappings
But with the knowing in our stardust selves
• We declare a justice pure and blind
Without deafness or a commitment to her own fear,
But with a feather-soft understanding to temper her wrath
• We declare a world clean of human spite and neglectfulness
Without revolting sedation or penurious derision
But with the heart-worn life and long-wrinkled smiles of deep-rooted love
• We declare a dedication to truth and knowledge
Without the cowardice of a narrow, a cramped, a self-hurt mind
But with the mantle of honesty;
A mantle of honesty;

it makes us light as the flutters of butterflies

Shaking shake shake quake quaking
Quake
         quake
                  quake

Falling like
         falling like         I’m burning like
                  Alexandria
Gonna lose it all like
         Gonna raze it all
                  like
         Alexandria
Gonna
                  gonna
Gotta
                           go
It’s         an
         act
                           shivering
Shimmering like
Falling stars
                  beautiful like
Burning like
Falling stars
                  we love pain
Like
         we love Jesus
Like
         we love
                  paintings of mangled flesh
and starving bodies like
         Streaming red on white flesh
It’s gotta be white flesh
                           with
                  red
         like apple candy red like
Seas like
                  Wine
Like
                           ****
It’s         an
         act
She said she said
         momma said
                  shut
Up
         shut
Stop up
                  Jesus didn’t cry
He
         Ate bread
                  didn’t blink
Didn’t think
         Drank wine
Burned like a falling star
         Gave up
Shut up
                           Died

floating on
the pond
dragonflies zip
above me
thinking I
am an
organic substance
an algae-dipped
                nympth
my hair in fronds
the subtle ripple
of sunstreak
on thigh
like reflections of
rainbow lanterns
upon skin
my skin, puckered
from melding
aquatic escapade
is soothed in this home
of kissing koi
who welcome me
in fin brushes
bubbles on the
small
of my back
sweet as the
lush harmony
of waterlily voices
that only I can hear
as the gaze of frogs
and forest dwellers
imprints upon
the inner lids
of my
      starlit
eyes

The earth is tired,
I can feel it-
Slumbering in dried grass,
Scratchy like straw on a cat's head,
Wallowing in auburn fatigue.

The insects sense it, too,
Hovering nearer to ground
With each wafting touch of breeze
Which pushes wrinkled leaves closer
To looming autumnal suicide.

Still, there are patches of deviant green,
Rebels
In a climate that has declared civil war
On itself through crackling heat-
And there's people, so many people,
Not dropping yet like leaves
In colder situations

But riding bikes with pulsing energy,
Yelling vibrant colours
Into dwindling, pastel summer evenings,
Kissing scraped knees and dancing
On concrete in bare feet,
Wiping brows outside cafes and bars,
Or lounging in the lull
Of spluttering sunlight and whistling birds.

Their energy is palpable, close, electric,
The beat of humanity just
Existing
Alone or in groups,
Laughing or sighing,
Filling the universe up to the brim
With our colourful garbage
And cluttered emotion.

Sometimes, I wonder why
We still gravitate to nature  
So easily and whenever we can.

Then I remember how similar
Our souls are to oceans,
And our brains to tree roots,
And our hearts to mountains.

Maybe sometimes, the tired earth
Needs us a little too.