If I were to agree to your long-winded sayings of
oh hey, we can still love upon arrival, yes?
Then I would have to throw you into the water for
Being so foolish and so beautiful at once

But this water, frozen, below—
As if to remind me that gravity should never apply to
worship

But ice— the bane of a time
Bound to end twice
Bound to end twice

Mr. Gentle person’s eye
raining quiet rain down the crests of fingers
and the tendrils called wrists
undulating through fixed corridors in which
every heavenly body collides.

Cry,
it’s a fine thing to cry, to die
and thus did every person’s gentle eye
flood through a Watergate that had carelessly
been left open.

She arrives to gaze upon her own body
she asks
“Is this really how you want it to end?”
so we turned to see her—
as she was, even before.

And we could
only stare.
We could
only stare.
And we could only—

-


We lay quietly one evening beneath the stars, struggling in an effort
To find their own place in that infinite black canvas.
She turned her head and from the security of her blanket asked
Do you hate the world for what it is? Or what it's going to be?

I responded with Neither.

And twisted my face into a smile,
as if to make her think she'd asked the right thing.
She twisted hers into a smile too,
as if to affirm that I'd given her the right answer.

In the later hours, we rowed down some swatch of river runway
Cradled between a few mountains and a few cities.
She asked
Do you row to keep up with me? Or to keep yourself from drowning?

I told her Both
And let go of the oars to see what strange thing might happen.

Only the stars could really see what occurred then, in Earth's emptiness, but ignored it;
Too busy finding a way to keep from touching one another, I guess -
Selfish nebulas.





-

The dream machine be casted grey
And sent me home alone today;
Home alone by dreamer’s power
And struck down solid ‘round the hour.

So as they passed, my mind did wander
Through alleys they had hoped to squander.
From every cell upon my head—
Removed again and sent to bed.

Laid to waste and waned through air
And to the misty frigate there.
Across those plains and through the cold
Where to an end it all unfolds.

So send me out, it matters little
We remain still dream’s transmittal
For where the rain will fall toward clouds
This dream will end, depart the crowds.

-




The concaves in the glass bowl and the style which it imposes to the
Food within it to warp and appear not from this world.
The spoons and how they surrender the same effect, curving my face
Into a funhouse punch line; I can’t help but smirk,
Which somehow distorts my features even more.

You were convinced it was necessary to serve me your best today,
Pulling out the stops and balancing uneasily on the aging stool that waits in the corner
Just to get out the “fine” kitchenware.

Soon it became routine:

I was over every day, not to eat, no; selfishness is a puzzle.
No, I’d sit at the table and bide my slender hourglasses, shifting a mind between
Taking you to the moon,
Or to the ceiling fan because my goodness it’s getting warm in here.

Planet under smoke, we end the day with a drop of manufactured whiskey
Dangling from the inside of your Swedish wine bottle set from India.
(Bends the droplets into squares)
Our sun is setting and the pictures on the walls fall asleep.

-




They called him deadpan man.
He sat in a squeaky cerulean chair by the window
Whispering to the cobwebs, contemplating ideas
Nobody ever took the time to scratch down.

Maybe this is why he killed his own head a week later.

But today I stole a few minutes from my own schedule to visit him
In his sleepless waking. I pulled up an invisible chair
          I'm not sure he noticed,
And allowed my ears to swim in his hollow ideas and
          Surprisingly stable dreamscapes.

With a frail voice, one which could not walk with near the force of a baby,
He breathed such misshapen sentences as
          "The earth is God's basketball"
                    " If tsunamis could embrace"
                              "Why does my failure mirror my face?"

I watched his bony fingers trace across the lonely surface of
A window that had, at one time, learned not to question
The universe on both sides.

I saw the first and last time his fingerprints would exist,
And his breathy voice murmur a single word
          Purge -
Trailing off into the air,
          Evaporating, only more subtle.





-