When I was younger,
I hoped to be like Andy Warhol.
Everybody like everybody.
I hoped to be like God.
Anyone like Anyone.
I hoped to be somewhere,
with new faces.
I hoped I wouldn't lose mine.
When I was younger,
I walked like Grace Slick.
Someone like Someone.
I walked like caterpillars,
foot after foot, going slow.
I walked like someone
with a place to go.
I walked with no destination .
Now that I’m older,
I hope Andy Warhol didn’t know
I hope God doesn’t know I couldn’t see him.
I hope somewhere leads to one face,
I hope I can pick mine out among a million.
Now that I’m older,
I walk and thank Grace Slick.
I walk and don’t step on caterpillars, squirming.
I walk and go somewhere,
Walking until I reach Myself.

There were arguments propped sideways against the wall,
tilted away from the light switch.
Explanations of the preceding incitements
flickered inside the wall like delayed fireworks
at the foot of a tight rope walker.
Feelings traveled hidden ,
ones I hate to witness - too naked at the surface
like a safe bobbing the surf.
I ran out of reasons to the argument
and forgot to unscrew the bulbs,
I could smash the idea to pieces
and sort the glass and tungsten apart.
Our sources were wrong.

The last time I sat down with myself
was in the sink
in the dark
penetrating the only creative train I could find.
Coal, cargo...
Robbing words so I didn't have to think
or explain the difference between
'deeming' language and
'demon' language.
From my perspective in the sink,
the retouching of morals
is all circumstantial
because maybe tomorrow I'll save the fire
instead of the human,
you know, save the fire from the human.
That way, I don't have to decide
who's going to burn.

They chop and burn God's growth,
all sworn under his oath.
Guns in hand,
another Promise Land
just to wipe out the good
because they are told they could.
How are we equal
when Big Brother puts down fights?
Don't bother shielding your rights.
Believe terrorists are everyone.
Your neighbor. Your priest. Yourself.
The one percent we are slaves to,
feed us a chemical brew.
Let's sit back like sheep -
Now don't complain or weep.

An elephant's sword,
    a lifetime straw
A root's explosion,
    an artist's draw
An automobile's pore,
    a backwards claw
A swimmer's suit,
     an eel's gnaw
An immigrant's home,
     a broken jaw
A storage for value,
    an eggshell raw
A trunk I say,
    If I ever did saw.

A few swaying tassels
fitted the bearded mask.
Shhh, it said, breath dressed like a shapeless road.
Across the forehead, spiders misspelled
old motifs- creeds etched in sparse silk.
His teeth were dry grass,
threaded through shredded gums.
He painted pipes and drove them to the ground,
to prove history can be easily done.
In a last review, he shaped dried blood
into a hole and wondered
why
his body shrunk,
his life coiled out,
but his eyes looked larger.

The angels are out of the frame
because they argue with the sky;
draping their harp string arms,
plucking their halo hair.
Below, in the secret basement,
they are celebrating the water of life.
Above, in the attic,
Leon King sleeps,
drunk.
His eyes are blurry rivers,
flooding the velvet land,
like the place where the dragon keeper plants
his spurting purple fountains.
Destination?
Darkness.

Am I the only one looking up?
I apologize that I find the world so alive,
even though the living are a dying volume -
closer to mute day by day.
That is what I see when I look around.
Mechanical sounds, fingernails tapping.
One day, our point of existence will be hammered
into a useful metal machine,
our brains useless - bowing down to a radiating screen.
Every light bulb is dim; they can't scream or fight,
their sources spit in protest.
Questions are satisfactory without answers.
No one is curious.
No one Questions.
Weak necks, bobbling down- down - to a control claw,
are disconnected from mind and body.
Since when did reputation build on fantasty
and when did people we don't know or like
become more important ?
More important than reality?
How does it feel to die?
Eyes already cast downward..
'Die' isn't instantaneous,
it can be slow and now.
Am I the only one looking up?
Can you still hear?
or do I need to be lips -
attached to those earphones.
Have you drowned out the world yet?
(I'm swimming in it).
I apologize that I am lost being alive
and I apologize that somewhere
in a place that doesn't exist,
you are lost.

How do you write a poem
about yourself
when you don't even know why
you scratch at your leg until it bleeds
like the leaky thoughts in your head
that run more quickly than an itchy spider bite
that nipped your neck at night
and you threw out the window
two stories down
and it fell like a poisonous asteroid
onto the sleeping cricket
who gave luck to you
when you sat for hours on a branch,
a protrusion of an apple tree
that one dying dusk night
in which a silk string lowered down
to your shoulder and a widow spoke
apologizing for scaring you
but don't you know I can't forgive myself
and I can only apologize to you
and say I am sorry because
I Love You has gotten packed away
and I don't even know why.

Backbone. Reach for the front.
Divide the periphery
            not
    my        middle.
You bend my balance.

Backbone. Reach for the ground.
Hold on tight
           grow
     roots   strong.
You keep my frame.

Backbone. Reach for my soul.
Spread vertebra by vertebra
              white
      wooden   wings.
You break me.

Backbone.
Spliced in two
un   even
wish
bone.
Rigor of flight
snapped.

Flaying columns use to be order
In a Utopian world
Where rules spiraled down the walls
Even when the highways bled
And people held onto cold hands.

Sunday evenings use to be ecstasy
In a simple world
Where lust ran wild through the doors
Even when the tongues flared
And people lived out of their mind.

Bruising necks use to be pain
In a care-free world
Where love caused happiness
Even when the knives plunged
And people winced with blows.

Emphasize the angle
of motion
toward the tilted child
in the slanted house.
The child grew toward the sound of
a stranger breaking glass in the closet.
There is no easy way to explain
the wound inflicted by those shards
that never left the room
or the wonder that spiraled round
in the shadows
as the velocity of motion
spun out of control
toward the tilted child
in the slanted house -
the child grew quiet -
a crescendo of nothing ness
like the Loch-ness
who          you will never believe lies below our world.

The glass fogged slowly
covering the moon.
That pulse way out there, far away-
it looked so distant from the window.
I stared out over the street
black ash of dead fires
rejecting the ghostly light.
Why did I come.
This wasn't what I wanted.
One, two, three -
did I want to see?
the burning paper
glowing an orange hole in my world .
I passed
one, two, three -
did I feel Free?
shorter and shorter
it would be too late.
I breathed.