the sun (plus all the particles
that make up its purple ghost) rests
over the winter-weary streets
and, seeing all the people walking
with their heads down, recoils
and shivers.

the building (with the glass
all over, exposing tired office
jockeys), even as it looms, shows
sympathy to the mourning cosmos.

there is no sun chicago
there is no glimmer in DC
the lights are out. the grey
days are here.

even in the cold, the boiler
rumbles. the grass
crunches slightly
beneath your shoe.

replica of the statue of liberty, made of
concrete, a beacon for weary motorists
stranded on route 66, endlessly
drifting in the dusty abyss, stands in front of entrance
with her readymade torch.

she mumbles into a phone, then hands us a key.
a tiny room for breakfast goes unused
and the swimming pool is cloudy,
the concrete walls reverberating
empty chlorine
pleasantries, a watered down
hotspring dream.

above the headboard
is a long mirror, spanning
the length of the smoky room's
back wall, a silvery strip
reflecting faded yellow wallpaper
with subtle unspecified flowers.

the side exit leads to an empty lot, long
grass growing out of neglected potholes, a cyclone fence
blocking off a direct route to the sonic
drive-thru.

the sky is orange, it's always been
orange, it always will be
orange, looming over distant mountains
with narcissistic strata.

wobbling returns to emergence
the sine wave resonates, it is
oceanic, fluid, bulbous
and bobbing, all at once
a whole and not a whole

bleeding out salt
and tropical fish, its
tissue paper curtains covering
the last ruins of
the forgetful earth

a hole, yet not an absence
but a presence of a triangle
a missing number, unsevered
flowing together, keyboard
abstractions, not there

oh but it's melted snow
the opposite of noise
a vague feeling of nothing
and presence, wrapped up in
a paranoid returning

it's like argon -- like chlorine without
lungs, veins without organs,
pain, inert inertia slippery
spine breaking
on the ice. the moon

children of march warmth -- the
dust hovers over the parking lot

a winter ghost. faded coca cola logo
affixed to the concrete slab of a building.

here:

french fries are expensive
all the patrons are old men
the lanes are smooth
a lonely party balloon hovers by a scoreboard
the shoes are too tight
rubber duck claw machine

re
enter

exit

diet coke can
knocks over
with the wind

that's the tree's whisper.

the mirror you stand in is a reflection of
a river you stand in, a reflection of a
stone that in the heat of the day
is warm by the coming of sunset

earth's last wrinkling seed is decaying, and superseding it
are the ophanim-head many-winged nightcrawlers who weep
gamma rays and pray, behind their stargazing eyes,
to remember the home they remembered several lives ago

oh sonar, oh radar, oh radiophonic monarchy
please boost your signal so our kin can hear
our pleas for a tomorrow that we begged for yesterday
and let us wade in that river. amen.

all the city’s a womb, a constant buzz,
a dim blue night that a river bisects.
you huddle
around the window
and gaze
at the faint traces of the sun
left in the sky’s retina.
midnight is just a suggestion
that lingers in the back
of your filament brain. the
wordless candle, its aura. ask
the dawn for a kiss.
the bed
is your doom. the night’s black
mist bleeds.

when the sun has regained some
confidence, its reach on the land
reestablished, its lucid eye alert,
you hide from its gaze. you cower
from the great daisy in the recesses
of inverted sleep; 6 in the morning
to 3 in the afternoon. rising out
of your slumber is like
challenging a rip tide,
only to find
the shore exposes
your naked body.

the meeting point between antifreeze and rot
undiscovered worlds in a stupid sheet of ice
i rake my leaves and ***** a flurry
from that strange backed-up faucet, my mouth.

oh LCD night! the incandescent yesterday
is burning to the touch--
my cathode-ray tube dreams, once switched off,
leave a film of electricty that leaves a shock on your finger
whenever you touch the doorknob.

the streetlights turn off when i step under them
and only when i look to them they glow.
i must have passed by this light a thousand times
and not once did i stop and think of it as anything
but a dim, yellowed, moth-ridden reminder
of the departed souls of roadkill
underneath.

how many secrets are hidden beneath this concrete?
how much bubbling rage does gravel conceal?

all mirrors serve a purpose
set me reverse a mean law
all mean men serve a ream list
send me reverse no meme law
all mean ones serve a reed nest
send me reverse no meme law
all mean ones serve a reed nest

i measure snow
by the lightyear --
only a few atoms per cubic
meter.
do you hear the crystals form?

the unfeeling, passionless mist looms
over the door, like over the bin of lamb chops at the grocer's.
an exit with no entrance
a retreat with no paid leave.
why won't you let me in?

i can see so many dying stars
in that compound eye of a cockroach
who hides in the walls, behind
a shield of asbestos, turning
over onto its back, vulnerable.

a thin sheet of ice forms over a puddle.
i dip my foot in and my boot so easily permeates,
intrudes.

please!
i want to grasp it
between my fingers without nails
(i bite them off in my neurosis)
and dig my dull digits into it!
please! the truth -- what color is its blood?

i want to hatefuck socrates while
he moans about the mixolydian mode
being drunken and sad.

we tried, that day, to find it
but looking up at the stars
is just a fancy way of looking down,
into our mineral navels
into our vegetable innards!

they did away my electricity well
i don't know the make of the rubber they used
i don't know the color of water i dissipate in
they did away my electricity well

phonograph to dream to vacuum
to morse to bytes to
noise

my electricity well they did away
i can't hear the sounds of radio static
i can hear the sounds of radio silence
my electricity well they did away

steam to diesel to tube
to blood to bone to antimatter

when they jumpstarted me i sparked and shocked
i hope that nobody was hurt (but i was)
my screen was displaying impossible images
you are on the fastest impossible route

circuit to node to qubit to
ash

how did they create scrolling polygons
in a realm where dimension is reserved for the monarchs
of y and x axes, whose scepters bang
on the tiltshifting ground, undulating below?

vector to pixel to
line to happening

saturn's interior is probably composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock.
saturn's interior is probably composed by
one of those big-budget cinematic musicians who abuse the cello -- the soundtrack's coming soon.
saturn's interior is probably composed of a core of iron like the statue of liberty
saturn's interior is probably composed of a core of copper like the statue of liberty (i forgot what the statue
of liberty was made of, i apologize, it's hard for me to keep track of these things
like what statues are made of what and which state capital has the highest population and who my state senator is).
saturn's exterior is probably not composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock.
saturn's interior is the only part that's solid;
my interior is the only part that's solid.
saturn's interior is probably composed
of a core virtue, patience or compassion, the same virtues hammered in in elementary school.
i remember when i was in elementary there were these seven posters showing the core virtues (i forget what most of them were.)
i was confused over compassion and respect, thinking they were the same thing.
the poster for self-control showed a boy looking over a table of cakes --
i suppose the point was that he was not eating them
but i bet he started eating them after the picture was shot.
saturn's interior is probably not made of cake.
saturn's interior is probably not very self-controlling.
saturn's interior is probably composed saturn's interior.

a star is a type of astronomical object consisting of a luminous
spheroid of plasma held together by its own
dull, hateful gravity.
a star isn't a type of astronomical object that does not consist of a luminous
spheroid of plasma held together by its own gravity.
its own gravity is someone else's gravity.
a star is a type of being unbeknownst to us consisting of a
luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its own gravity.
a star is a type of anonymous object consisting of a luminous cube
of liquid held together by its own weak nuclear force (ungravity).
a star is a dramatic entity.
plasma is held together by its own gravity.
luminous cube of liquid
spheroid of plasma held together by its own gravity.
a star is
a star by its own gravity.
astronomical objects of a luminous nuclear star.
a luminous spheroid of plasma gravity hologram hologram hologram hologram.

i have palm trees growing from my scalp,
its roots my neurons,
but they’ve withered over the winter – the coconuts fell and
i use them as bowls for soup now.
i use the disintegrated crunchy remains of a palm leaf,
a tattered fan, to masquerade the satellites where my eyes were.
the sand that cools as day turns to evening
has always been under my sore feet, from birth to childhood to
now, ashes.
if this was handwritten you wouldn’t be able to make it out,
my scribbles dipping up and down like the wake that follows a ship, a requiem for  
aquatic self, aquatic selfhood, aquatic selfhood decomposed into molecules of salt
and molecules of water, NaCl, H2O, forever, etc, being stirred
and spiraled into who i could be, and who i never will be, until at last
the seaweed overbears me and i choke.

the distance from a mouth to a note,
the space the lies between notes in a song
the distance between lips and straws,
the space that can be found in the neuron unfired,
an idle synapse,
an untuned radio.
the sound the bed makes when it's old and you're
too big, overgrown, your lovely new york skyline t-shirt
won't save you from the groans of disowned metal.
the space under a keyboard key before it becomes a letter
and the space between letters and words, indefinite.
an undisclosed location where extraterrestrials are
meant to be is currently beds and lost hopes and bits of paper

i sent a sigil through public broadcast
and cursed peoples' eyes to undulate
until, swollen enough, those oculus rubies
explode in a maelstrom of blood and pus.

through tv static, untuned, unhinged
a series of hexes float across snow
as muzak fades in and flesh fades out
'til senses give in and odd bells grow

off viewers' arms -- the flower's hue
based on the individual's willingness
to let hummingbirds feed on blood clots festered
through sweet-tasting nectar, golden, confined.

the man with his hammer had sat in the theater
and gazed upon gazers whose eyes were transfixed
he hammered the heads of the headless thespians
and went to break streetlights trapped in the moonbeam

i have zeus's skin saved somewhere but i lost it,
whose eyes were gazing on moonbeams unshadowed
by nobody's thunder with water unfiltered
mineral-laden and godless surprise

i think it might be lodged behind my dresser
hooked to the outlet and sapping out lightning
the hammer of nobody's head is a streetlight
the thespians hammered their theaters full.

a streetlight flickers as above
it the stars flicker, too
and below it someone's bic lighter
flickers. he flings a cigarette ****
into the storm drain.
whoever lives in the sewers
must feel awfully lonely right now.
someone's headlight is out:
an illegal asymmetry, a trick
enforced by the galleons of punk photons,
defined by waves (or particles) to ride upon
like the waves of sound that travel back and forth
between two angry motorists just laid off from work.
a new cigarette is pulled. what is this man blowing
away from his self and out towards the maybeinfinite undying
universe of unbearable light
sprinkling on him like rain that suddenly hits
a warm hornet-infested day?

the sensation of a bus on the morning, a morning whose sun,
a flickering light, never goes out, even when unplugged.
you go to get a coffee, i don’t like coffee, so i keep our spot in line.
we boarded, i boarded. you were there and i was there
but really only i was there, in the end. i closed my eyes
and the lingering triggered cells of my retina maintained
your image for a few seconds. i opened my eyes again
and adjusted, never comfortable in the seat, *** and back
inevitably aching around the one-hour mark of a two-hour journey.
where we were going that day is unimportant now.
you brought water bottles, i drank the water bottles
and left none for you. i apologized and gave you the rest
of the breakfast sandwich. the hero’s journey
is a concept in narratology and sociology, among other fields
saying there is one central story, a template that all else fit.
carl jung had a lovely nose, and you have a lovely
pair of cheeks on your face (and elsewhere) and i
can’t help but kiss the ground you’re about to walk on (a blessing,
good luck to the earth for carrying your divinity).
inevitably

i know it’s a dream.
sometimes i wish that it was more than a cloud, a cloud
that hovers over us, frilly and fluffy, seeing me
heading towards the city and wanting to see the ocean
but knowing full well i won’t. neurosis, though
says i will, and as long as i’m neurotic i’m on my way
to the sea. i write about this a lot because i think
about this a lot. the driftwood i fashioned into a knife can’t cut
packages much these days.

do you see the ocean the way i do? no one does, i think.
last time i saw the ocean i cried and my
tears intermingled with the saltwater so now i don’t know
where my sorrow ends and the sea begins. i want to show you
the ocean but i’m afraid that if i do the water will bore you.
i want to feel your hand, laying down at shore, but i’m scared
to know that you’re not feeling the sand, only my love,
and i want to feel both.

i've shot a dog in the back of its head
i don't remember in which life i did this
but it was a life i'd detest to live again

i have no dog inside my chest
i have no cat inside my mind
i have no bird inside my gut

i understand the ocean better than you
ever could, an inlander within a prison built of
browned ivy. i rose and rose again from the sea
after the waves crash and yet i know nothing
of how the tides swirl, besides me being part
of that neverending cycle of salt and bits of
coral. can summers go by without a seagull's
cry carrying me from the inland and plucking my
soul towards the great waters of home?

i had died the other day and from my grave
i saw a hand with rings upon each finger. on each ring
was a gemstone that spelled out the infinity known
in my fearful tongue which bleeds whenever
i bite the knife that cuts the flesh of time;
will i ever understand the meaning of decay?
will i ever comprehend my bones giving way to worms?

a pair of headphones with the mufflers missing
the wire that goes from said headphones to the computer
a ceramic pug in a red scarf containing tubes of paint
an ocarina that i picked up in a ghost town/tourist trap in california
a red cup for water during painting
a book called the artist's mentor
an adjustable lamp
wristbands a lover made for me
a book for savannah college of art and design featuring someone holding a large inflatable red ball on the cover
an incomplete abstract painting on canvas paper, slightly crumbled,
a box for the savannah college of art and design VR kit that they sent me
a book on writing
a book about color line and form in the visual arts
a red squishy ball inside a a fishnet containment, creating organic bulbous abscesses when squeezed
a book of poetry with a red cloth on the cover
a small packet of konpeito, a japanese sugar-based hard candy
a novelty necklace designed to resemble christmas lights, complete with glowing LEDs
a red colored pencil
a red marker
a red mechanical pencil
a gigantic anthology of american poetry i have yet to dive into
a packet of cherry jello

in the cabin green my legs were resting within the
sleepingbag on the floor (parents had the bed) i drifted
then drifted back when the door knocked i saw
the night and the night said "let's go" and we went
to wherever the night went when they woke.
down the steps white-painted wood to
the pit where a fiery group coalesced into flames
the amalgamation was chanting stories of disembodied hands
that grab the ankles of unsuspecting campers (i flinched) then
the night lead me, with their starry hand, to bales of hay
which i stacked into a staircase forgoing the horseticks to climb
upon a truck parked overnight -- i wanted to touch
the night but the night, their ethereal moon pointed my way
had to say goodnight and gave way to dawn.

a kingdom wholesale, loose strings of coupons;
a throne of pepsi cartons amidst the concrete
lights shine over the infinite rows of freezers
so sample the pork and pass by the petunias
dream of the electronics display let the
laptops regard visions of the self inside which
empty bubbles where words should go but don't
flutter across up blue and white.
to buy mulch is to regard the manure as
nothing but what it claims to be.
i ordered a hotdog after checking out and i sat and ate
and there is a vending machine here that only
dispenses water bottles.

along the shore of pink the boardwalk rose
the rose balloons can't keep up, so
ice cream melts and so do clouds, speckled.
strawberry flavors, unkempt cones, chocolate.

the other day i was on the waves
and, overwhelmed by the wake,
it crashed, i crashed. pummeling
that sand, that shore: baptism in reverse.

the candy shop, the bookstore, the
arcade, funland, the t-shirt shop, the
shell shop, the gift store, a tattoo parlor,
a hat store, boardwalk fries, purgatory.

where do i even begin? to point
into five outward points is an idea that
only translucent particles of nothing or everything
can enjoy with real, unwashed hands.
the glassy revery of daffodils

and powers of numbers stretch
to an aether, a void worth unmentioning, unforgetting,
reforgetting and rementioning.
i say goodnight, even if we're already dreaming,
and maybe the night might undo its amnesia.

o how centuries pass with little
regard for the
stones that they
subtracted -- ! the dribbling
of water cannot
salivate over a rock
without a speck
mixing into
that droplet, being taken away,
carrying with it the dreams of the rock's atoms.
further do the rocks align with the sea than they could ever
the earth.
the way waves wobble holds a water
jug and pours out the turquoise stars, the stars
pour out water and into water the jug
(a tremble) sobs.

heaven! heaven! far too long
    have we forgotten to
whisper white clouds
                        into existence, the wavering
uncertainty of birds
    made into rote algorithms;
    the unnerving way that
lungs fill can
                 begin to unravel the yarn
that wraps around the trees
                 and trees
        are nothing too special -- i'd say

stratus (stratus
(cumulonimbus)
) infinity
at stake:
        streaks
(oh there's my
    soul somewhere
amid the pneumatics)

it's blue where the robins lay their eggs
so the eggs themselves are blue; the nest,
not being blue, can only long to become
a comrade of the grass again. the grass is
something only wishing to be cut,
the lawnmower only wishes to be fueled
(by what?) and worms find themselves
through the pores of the skin of the flaky
earth below. rigidity is a form of division
that splits apart no self but others only.

the shape of fire is the shape of orange
the orange of fire is the shape of shape
the form of the form is a constellation
upon which cosmos dangle over
flames upon which flames dance and
upon which smoke creeps and
where candles bloom into bouquets of
melted red and white wax but
it remains marbled, not pink yet
simple addition crumbles apart:
add red and yellow and mix
all you want but they will remain
separate, swirled but separate;
the color orange is the color of candles
the candles of orange is the color color.

UFOs spiral figure-8s around
pillars erected by watchful eyes
above a sheet of unwatchful worms
beneath a blanket of hyperwatchful stars
between a hyperlapse of comets eternal
faith isn't a constant,
god is the internet

if it were up to me (and it isn't, it's up to dice) the universe would be made of a mixture of purples and half-aware blues,
separated only by the sardonic coolness of hologram grids.
doctor doctor! doctor doctor! focus on the wound the sun is inflicting upon the ocean riddled
with streaks of white, i'm losing the saline in its scent
and all that remains (all that shall remain) is reddened sand.
furthermore i would allow bamboo to grow anywhere it pleases
not a **** but a gift from the ground below
not messing up floor plans but rather improving them in a very experimental way you wouldn't understand
the architecture is okay
the sky is okay
the rain is full of acid but it's otherwise okay
oh please get up off the ground i need to clean it

come to our shore and scoop up the water then
splash it onto your face, feel it trickle;
don't you smell the saline? a seagull dives
but we pay miniscule mind to it,
for we are rising, fingers tangled,
and we feel like one again.
the moon can't shift without the sun and
the tides can't ebb without the moon
and even when caught in a tropical storm
our eyes can lock despite the rain,
and no amount of its swirling rage
can fog up our eyes, for we will always see
the sea has become our stage -- let's perform.

how many idle landscapes
and unturned stones of fancy
have dissolved to into light
at the sight of the rising sun?
pull back the curtains of your phantasy
then pull back the curtains of your window
and let the dreams melt until
the night is a somnambulant pile.

the thoughts of your skull being pounded by morn
the unborn remains of the musings of muses
eyelids drooping and, with hesitation, rising,
and then your body does the same.

"you are dust!" said the tortoise,
chewing a leaf, the one it chewed for a couple centuries.
and i twisted my head and scratched my dandruff-littered scalp,
"why?" i said, my pondering genuine, as it tends not to be.
"because!" it said, clearly annoyed, "death is something you can't avoid,
and someday you shall rot, and be a feast for fungus,
and then your bones will wither away, eroded by time's merciless decay."
i was not impressed (though slightly scared), "i realize that," i replied.
"but how are you seeing me at this time as anything other than flesh?
i know that i will pass, and that my body will be deep underground,
worms will mate in my eye sockets, and the less said about maggots
the better. but here, in this moment, time has not run out for me, so why are you using the present tense when cursing entropy upon me?"
it stopped and slowed down chewing, eyes gazing back and forth.
"do you think my sense of time only lies in one direction? mistaken.
it can go backwards, yes, but it may go forwards too, and
some other directions you will not comprehend. divination is no delusion,
it's only logical."
the tortoise turned around and crawled away. this took a few decades.

let's go home then, both of us,
in a stride we found in asylums,
shaking, burning for above.
let the windows crack and doors snap shut,
never to be opened by hand again,
on the earth where passions sleep.
one day we will return there,
a world that we have never been,
our feet ache to ache after walking.

I would stop the
invention of aspartame. I would
stop my own
invention, just to defy
my defiance
of aspartame.

i'm writing to you because of circumstances beyond our control. the universe just decided to make me scribble down this epistle. my head rains, or perhaps it's hailing. regardless of what it is, it never snows.
i have jumbled, broken, fragmented consciousness, full of drawing advice and some stupid youtube video about a cat playing the keyboard, looped on repeat for eternity.
i was at the arcade the other day when it occurred to me that the world was a blank piece of lined paper and i was the pencil. but have you ever actually had to write from your mind alone? words flee you, coming and going and not sticking to paper.
during that trip i talked to strangers as they crowded around the cabinets, despite my mama's advice to be careful in the world. some looked at me with an awkward smile. maybe there i did write something, the prose of yesterday.
only the rain in my head never becomes a storm, i suppose. just bring an umbrella.

Partially cloudy, 85 degrees low, 90 high.
Sunny, 87 degrees low, 94 high.
Apocalyptic, 213 low, 224 high.

this house is crowded with waiting room chairs;
this house is crowded in general.
this house has a shanty roof.
this house is made of parapraxes.
this house is made of the stuff of dreams, the stuff of sugar glass, the stuff that reminds you you are reading a poem and nothing else.
this house is a spacebar -- empty and exists to separate.
this house is made of cigarette butts and coca-cola bottles.
this house is ash -- this ash is dust -- this dust is house.
this house is broken up with empty space, dissociated.
we are those that stared up at the sky in new york city and snapped our guitars over our knees,
we are those that hallucinated t-shirts with keyboard patterns on them.
we are those that have smoked nightmares and drunk melted ice cream.
we are those that destroyed our howling vocal chords by screaming at the sun for too long, waiting for icarus to fall.
we are those that don't exist and exist at the same time, shooting the breeze at motels on the outskirts of town.

what do little stuckists cry
when their painting talents die?
"this isn't art! you are not artists!
i'm close to art, you are the farthest!"

i cm frm a planet far out -- far out -- out of this world (obviously).
my lungs are full of nebulae. the space between worlds is nebulae. i am nebulae.
fear is what reminds us of our shadow -- and space is just one big old shadow after all.
cmon kid go to bed there are no martians in your closet

david bowie sang space oddity in two different channels: one high pitched on the left side and one low pitched on the right side. the result is more harmonious than a poptart flying out of a toaster oven. the advertisements for poptarts always show gooey goodness in the middle when in reality it's crumbly crap. why is the word "crap" more acceptable than "****?" why are profanities on a spectrum, and not just this black/white state of good/bad? is it better that way?
maybe i'm rambling at this point; maybe i'm more incomprehensible than conceptual art. either way, i am an either/or blank anti-yes?
how many question marks finish this sentence???

If parking lots aren't art, they are at least a gallery,
cars as the masterpieces which we gawk at, pretending
to be smart -- "ah, a famous Lamborghini piece."
And if that still isn't art, then call it something else -- a form of beauty beyond our comprehension, made by no one and everyone in this town.
Those construction workers who made this are ghostly sculptors of asphalt.
The yellow lines on the road are delicate brushstrokes, laid down by the most careful of craftsmen.
One day this parking lot will turn to dust,
and that is where the beauty comes from.

Sick child in his bed, an inch away from falling.
He only knows his breath is contaminated.
The poor thing never figured out trigonometry or hope.

It takes a while for us to see light --
our pupils have to expand first.
A figure is beached upon the shore.

I looked up one day and my spirit fell.

24 in hospital
Lives for centuries
bedroom lets you sleep with sharks.

Who are you?
I am the one who makes sure you return.
What is your favorite color?
The way your flesh is soft.
How can we be sure?
Certainty fits into insanity.
What kind of ice cream do you like?
Yes.
Is madness shared by many?
There is no way to paint pink. It is simply an illusion.

Hop aboard.
It's a free trip, anyway.
No more dread, no more yesterday.
Tonight we're going to cloud nine.
Put your suitcase above your seat.
Kick back, relax, go to sleep.
On the dream train,
we see tomorrow with our clenched fists.

Ten word poems are cliche. Who even writes those things?