I.

My blood was glistening meteor glows after
        the modern jazz I spent all night trying
        to carve into genius.

Hanging on the the blue notes of
        saxophones like a madman hooked to
        his syringe, and then you petrified me...

But I began to shake.

The spirit of all my ballads has returned to
        me at last.

Dug yourself out of my past, into the
        bedroom thought fractures — I call
        them modern art — but plugged into
        your Dada spirit, the abstract turns into
        star clusters,

And I'm burning for that cosmic wishing well.

Just hoping for your radiation to spread over
         our lightyear gap, that gap that always
         made coexistence so impossible.

When Calliope calls,
     I'd advise anyone answer...
      But you're twice as golden
       And thrice as red
         As Calliope has ever been.

Torn in your sandstorm.
Blinded by this vision of your second  
        coming.

Back in one piece, one whole, one complete
        consciousness, and all after I tried my
        damnedest to rip you apart, poetically.

Only in reflection and confrontation did I see
        how wrong it all felt.

That is not poetry
There was no peace.
That does not spawn Justice,
And you did not warrant my contempt.

I idolize you for you are what I am not.
I am mesmerized as we are exactly the
        same.

II.

The things you do not know.

I must have started typing you fifty times,
        never hitting send since my dark
        Crispin's Night.
I never hit send.
Not once.
I built imaginary worlds where you were my
        abuser, with my loneliness a
        pawn, but a crucial one.
Those thoughts that latched on to the back
        corners of my insecurity, and reassured
        me I was void of worth most every
        night...
I turned those thoughts into you—
Spilled those ******* thoughts into reality,
        and it took your shot of venom to place
        it all back into perspective.

If you're wondering what I've been up to
        since you left, my calendar hasn't
        hasn't moved a single page.

III.

The mythos never told me that Erato could
        address me back—
Muse that I pray on.
Muse that I mull over with Whitman.

I take this chance to lift you up, as you've
        been floating me over this rural skyline
        for months now.
Let me see the city.
I only wish to live.
I see governments toppled in the tint of your
        face, with the lights low, the air quite
        heavy for me.
You had to feel like a Goddess,
Even your distant screams had your mark of
        perfection.

IV.

You're the one I envy.

Dozing off under the anger of conservative
         politicians talking about life...
Erato, darling, what do these guys know
         about life anyway?
To lie as profession
Lie for the masses
Lie for the wealth of corporations
Lie for self-justification
Lie for the war effort
Lie for the public spectacle that can be
        reduced to little more than fetus magic.

I'd rather be haunted by anything else.

Emigration sounds so lucrative.

V.

It's time to cut open the system.

I wish society, when cut open and guts
        hanging, strung up in a gallery, looked
        like the spirit of a Scrabble screaming
        match, less like estimations of
        "necessary" civilian casualties.

It's time to piece in your abstraction.

Let's flip the script from faith-lit sketchbook
        into reality.
Let's show the world the graces of speaking
        in comedy, the asset we lost when we fell dark under our lack of communication.

Blessed to reestablish what we cannot take for granted.

Iris bonfire to highlight your drive,
But it's only determination,
Your gift of beatitude.

You can move through mazes with such precision and grace.

I should have never let my admiration pull me under a tide of greed.

As much as I value the ability
        to cut away at masses of abstraction,
Still covered in their vague seal of illusion
        you don't condone,
I'd submit to trade for even a bit of your  
        structure,
And let you have the absinthe that coats my
        soul.

VI.

Drink on how we are in harmony.

I'm already drunk on your hesitance.

Everything about your being is skewing my world.

I feel the changes, while the cold sets in,  
        across their javelin flight path.

These aren't the kind of thoughts you can't
        damp down with epilepsy medication.

I'm nearing clarity.
I'm inching in on human purpose.

VII.

I locked you away on my nightstand,

Next to Jailbird, in great irony.

I never let you argue your rights.

I wasn't just being inhumane, it was
        borderline unconstitutional.

Anger from hate, as always.
Coping in flawed fashion, yet smiling at your
        likeness.
Condemning you at public displays of
        Satantic litany,
Fell broken when you were in attendance.

Never again will I carry that false prophecy.

I couldn't escape your sway if I tried.

found the star, guys. found the
neon yarn, the tall me tell tails.

I hope I didn’t embarrass you
at dinner, when I got on the counter
and started wiggling around
like bacteria. I’m sorry but I
was bleeding for your attention.

the coolest place I’ve had a bandage;
kissing the inner eye.

found the stuff, guys. my crush’s name
is bell jar toadstool. I think I love him…
that’s a tangent.
a tangerine ant in the fear mouth.

but this is not a love poem, I swear.

Since Thursday bugs have been crawling out of the cards.

I buried my heart with the oleander,
where mother left the caul.
I forgot where that was. Somewhere near
the trunk line.

Today I walked to work with my wholesome *******
under a sheer shirt. I have been thinking of gentleness
and the vase of my ******, I have been thinking such

impossible things.

Only one drink of wine, only one card left unturned.

In the corner of my ******* I have built
a beach. It was for our first date, but I forgot
where we were supposed to meet
and my boyfriend deleted your number.

So aye
We wir watchin
that David Attenborough
or tryin tae -
fower weans tearin up the joint,
an she's like,
See if youse dinny shut it...!
an aw that, ken -
You no gonny tell thum?
So ah'm like,
"Aye.  
Wheesht, youse."

But it wis amazin, like.
These fish.
Years oot at sea.
Tiny wee at first,
dodgin sharks an jellyfish
an aw sorts,
awa oot, miles fae land.
(God!  Youse!  Take it up the stair!
Tell thum, you!
"Aye, boys.  Listen tae yir ma.")

Then wan day, like
they get the urge, ken?
Got tae go.
An in they come,
surgin fae the sea,
these sleek, silver bullets
fat wi feedin.
(I'll no tell yis again!)

Nothin, an ah mean nothing
is gonny stop them.
Waterfalls?  Nae bother.
Just pure hungry
fir the lassies, ken?
The boy Attenborough sais
they dinny even eat!
(That's it!  Ah tellt ye!
Here you!  Take some responsibility,
wull ye?
"Eh?  Oh, aye.
Away tae yir rooms, boys -
yir ma tellt ye.")

These pure ***** divils
will loup up sheer cliffs,
baws burstin, bi the look ay it.
Poetry in motion, ken?
Like, ah dinny ken, pure water
brought tae life, an that.
Jist pure savage.

An then, haw -
they find the lassies!
An it's jist, like,
'splurge'!
Done the deed.
Gemme ower,
job done,
deid.

An there's this shot.
Ripplin shallows,
just fill ay the twitchin bodies.
Craws an bears an that,
queuin up fir the bonanza.
Jist, like,
totally
spent.

An she's aw,
Here, is that no terrible?
Pair buggers!
Eifter aw that!
An ah'm like,
"Aye."

But see inside,
ah'm thinkin,
"Lucky,
lucky *******."

In line with recent policy
we are outsourcing
our poetry services
in a bid to increase efficiency

This will make savings
and improve the service
just as it always does.

Daffodils

Out a walk
saw some flowers
there were loads of them
they were quite pretty

APPROVED

Dulce et Decorum Est

War's *******
and it's no fun
being gassed

APPROVED

To a Mouse

Sorry for wrecking your house, mouse
but we've all got problems

APPROVED

The Raven

I miss my bird

APPROVED

I heard I could tie all my veins and arteries together and they would circle the earth so I thought if we laced ours together we could reach the moon
and watch stars blaze like one hundred billion cigarettes in the dark
skinny dip through purple orange green supernova explosions
curl up in a crater and watch the world spin like a cumbersome ballerina then we’d dive back down from the moon to the mothership
and unbraid our veins, separating mine from yours.
But without those vascular knots we’d start drifting apart just like Pangaea.
We’d both begin forgetting how we ballroom danced through constellations together how our fingertips wrinkled like walnuts outside the atmosphere
how we sunbathed under the incandescence of blue supergiants

a kind of cosmic static -
the background noise lurking behind everything since that fiery moment in which everything came to be.
human beings are the only beings with big enough ears and smart enough brains to hear it.
and it’s killing us.
it whispers about the space.
the vast, yawning emptiness that is 99.0000000000000000000058 percent of the universe
and how small and unimportant we are in the face of it.
the stars are deaf to the call of the void.
and all of the less arrogant animals simply don’t care.
but humanity is smart, and intelligence has lead to efficiency.
we’ve optimized and agricultured and technologized ourselves into a vast wealth of free time.
and in that free time we’ve taken up the hobby of thought; of navel gazing; of looking within and without.
and when we turned the rods and cones of our eyes inwards the void stared back. unflinching, unblinking. and it roared, and every one of us heard.
we try to block it out with our various vices but in the end they are all in vain.
we inhale glittering ivory dust, conflagrate various flora of every shape and size,
gulp down poisons like desert floors that have never seen a drop of rain, genuflect before effigies of deities of questionable existence, sing and dance, **** and **** and **** and steal and covet, all in search of a kind of purpose.
some soft cottony bliss to plug our ears to the roar of the void.
but we cannot stop it. the slow bleed of grains of sand out of the hourglasses of our lives is one wound we will never be able to heal.
for void thou art, and unto void thou shalt return.